How far the influence of his work may ultimately go I will not attempt to prophesy. It has been said of him that “he is a man of his age and a man in advance of his age; he is also a man in disagreement with his age.” We cannot regard his ideas as typical of any section of his co-religionists. They involve a radical change in the Moslem mind, and their real importance is not to be measured by the fact that such a change is unlikely to occur within a calculable time.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The present translation follows the text of the second edition.
[2] His criticism of Hafiz called forth angry protests from Súfí circles in which Hafiz is venerated as a master-hierophant. Iqbal made no recantation, but since the passage had served its purpose and was offensive to many, he cancelled it in the second edition of the poem. It is omitted in my translation.
[3] The principles of Islam, regarded as the ideal society, are set forth in the author’s second poem, the Rumúz-i Békhudí or “Mysteries of Selflessness.” He explains the title by pointing out that the individual who loses himself in the community reflects both the past and the future as in a mirror, so that he transcends mortality and enters into the life of Islam, which is infinite and everlasting. Among the topics discussed are the origin of society, the divine guidance of man through the prophets, the formation of collective life-centres, and the value of History as a factor in maintaining the sense of personal identity in a people.
[4] This view was held by the orthodox Imám Ahmad ibn Hanbal in its extreme (anthropomorphic) form.
[5] Kor. ch. 23, v. 14: “Blessed is God, the best of those who create.”
[6] Cf. his note on “Islam and Mysticism” (The New Era, 1916, p. 250).
[7] Here Iqbal adds: “Mauláná Rúmí has very beautifully expressed this idea. The Prophet, when a little boy, was once lost in the desert. His nurse Halíma was almost beside herself with grief, but while roaming the desert in search of the boy she heard a voice saying:
‘Do not grieve, he will not be lost to thee;