The nation is busily celebrating the 138th birth anniversary of arguably one of the sub continent’s greatest poets and philosophers Allama Dr. Muhammad Iqbal today (Monday).
A change of guard ceremony was held the mausoleum of Allam Iqbal.
Dr Muhammad Iqbal was born on November, 9 in 1877 in Sialkot and went to Government College Lahore before heading to UK and Germany for higher education.
He is called The Poet of the East, Thinker of Pakistan and Hakimul Ummat who awakened the nation through his poetry.
Iqbal had a dream of a separate country for the Muslims of the subcontinent.
Various literary, social event to commemorate the memory of Iqbal have been organized across the country.
Allama Iqbal was born in Sialkot, the eldest of five siblings. Iqbal’s father Shaikh Nur Muhammad was a prosperous tailor, well known for his devotion to Islam, and the family raised their children with deep religious grounding.
Iqbal was educated initially by tutors in languages and writing, history, poetry and religion. His potential as a poet and writer was recognized by one of his tutors, Sayyid Mir Hassan.
He became proficient in several languages and the skill of writing prose and poetry, and graduated in 1892.
Following a custom, at the age of 15 Iqbal’s family arranged for him to be married to Karim Bibi, the daughter of an affluent Gujrati physician.
Iqbal entered the Government College in Lahore where he studied philosophy, English literature and Arabic and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating cum laude. He won a gold medal for topping his examination in philosophy.
While studying for his masters degree, Iqbal came under the wing of Sir Thomas Arnold, a scholar of Islam and modern philosophy at the college.
Arnold exposed the young man to Western culture and ideas, and served as a bridge for Iqbal between the ideas of East and West.
Iqbal was appointed to a readership in Arabic at the Oriental College in Lahore, and he published his first book in Urdu, The Science of Economics in 1903. In 1905 Iqbal published the patriotic song, Tarana e Hind (Song of India).
At Sir Thomas’s encouragement, Iqbal travelled to and spent many years studying in Europe. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity College at Cambridge in 1907, while simultaneously studying law at Lincoln’s Inn, from where he qualified as a barrister in 1908.
In Europe, he started writing his poetry in Persian as well. Throughout his life, Iqbal would prefer writing in Persian as he believed it allowed him to fully express philosophical concepts, and it gave him a wider audience. It was while in England that he first participated in politics.
Following the formation of the All India Muslim League in 1906, Iqbal was elected to the executive committee of its British chapter in 1908. Together with two other politicians, Syed Hassan Bilgrami and Syed Ameer Ali, Iqbal sat on the subcommittee which drafted the constitution of the League.
Working under the supervision of Friedrich Hommel, Iqbal published a thesis titled: The Development of Metaphysics in Persia.
