This article needs attention from an expert on the subject. Please add a reason or a talk parameter to this template to explain the issue with the article. WikiProject Philosophy/Social and political may be able to help recruit an expert. (February 2009)

Postcolonialism (postcolonial theory, postcolonian studies, or post-colonial theory) is a specifically postmodern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism. Postcolonialism is defined in anthropology as the relations between nations and areas they colonized and once ruled. ^[1] Postcolonialism comprises a set of theories found amongst history, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics,^[2] film, political science, architecture, human geography, sociology, Marxist theory, feminism, religious and theological studies, and literature.

Definition[link]

A single, definitive definition of postcolonial theory is controversial; writers^[who?] have strongly criticized it as a concept embedded in identity politics. Postcolonial theory – as epistemology, ethics, and politics – addresses matters of identity, gender, race, racism and ethnicity with the challenges of developing a post-colonial national identity, of how a colonized people's knowledge was used against them in service of the colonizer's interests, and of how knowledge about the world is generated under specific relations between the powerful and the powerless, circulated repetitively and finally legitimated in service to certain imperial interests.^{[citation needed]} At the same time, postcolonial theory encourages thought about the colonist's creative resistance to the colonizer and how that resistance complicates and gives texture to European imperial colonial projects, which utilized a range of strategies, including anti-conquest narratives, to legitimize their dominance.

Characteristics[link]

The critical nature of postcolonial theory entails destabilizing Western ways of thinking, therefore creating space for the subaltern, or marginalized groups, to speak and produce alternatives to dominant discourse. Often, the term postcolonialism is taken literally, to mean the period of time after colonialism. This, however, is problematic because the ‘once-colonized world’ is full of “contradictions, of half-finished processes, of confusions, of hybridity, and liminalities”.^[3] In other words, it is important to accept the plural nature of the word postcolonialism, as it does not simply refer to the period after the colonial era. By some definitions, postcolonialism can also be seen as a continuation of colonialism, albeit through different or new relationships concerning power and the control/production of knowledge.^[3][4] Due to these similarities, it is debated whether to hyphenate postcolonialism as to symbolize that we^[who?] have fully moved beyond colonialism.^[5]

In Post-Colonial Drama: theory, practice, politics, Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins write: "the term postcolonialism – according to a too-rigid etymology – is frequently misunderstood as a temporal concept, meaning the time after colonialism has ceased, or the time following the politically determined Independence Day on which a country breaks away from its governance by another state. Not a naïve teleological sequence which supersedes colonialism, postcolonialism is, rather, an engagement with and contestation of colonialism's discourses, power structures, and social hierarchies ... A theory of postcolonialism must, then, respond to more than the merely chronological construction of post-independence, and to more than just the discursive experience of imperialism."^[6]

Often, previously colonized places are homogenized in western discourse under an umbrella label such as the ‘Third World’. Postcolonialism demonstrates the heterogeneity of colonized places by analyzing the uneven impact of Western colonialism on different places, peoples, and cultures.^[7] This is done by engaging with the variety of ways in which “relations, practices and representations” of the past is “reproduced or transformed”, and studying the connections between the “heart and margins” of the empire.^[7] Moreover, postcolonialism recognizes that there was, and still is, resistance to the West. This resistance is practiced by many, including the subaltern, a group of marginalized, and least powerful.

Post-colonialist thinkers recognize that many of the assumptions which underlie the "logic" of colonialism are still active forces today.^[8]. Some postcolonial theorists make the argument that studying both dominant knowledge sets and marginalized ones as binary opposites perpetuates their existence as homogenous entities. Homi K. Bhabha feels the postcolonial world should valorize spaces of mixing; spaces where truth and authenticity move aside for ambiguity. This space of hybridity, he argues, offers the most profound challenge to colonialism. (Bhabha, 1994: 113) Critiques that Bhabha ignores Spivak's stated usefulness of essentialism have been put forward. Reference is made to essentialisms' potential usefulness. An organized voice provides a more powerful challenge to dominant knowledge - whether in academia or active protests.

Goals[link]

In terms of postcolonial theory, the ultimate goal is accounting for and combating the residual effects of colonialism on cultures.^[8] It is not simply concerned with salvaging past worlds, but learning how the world can move beyond this period together, towards a place of mutual respect.

A key goal of post-colonial theorists is clearing space for multiple voices. This is especially true of those voices that have been previously silenced by dominant ideologies – subalterns. It is widely recognized within the discourse that this space must first be cleared within academia. Edward Said, in his book Orientalism, provides a clear picture of how the scholars who studied what used to be called the Orient (mostly Asia) disregarded the views of those they actually studied – preferring instead to rely on the intellectual superiority of themselves and their peers. This attitude was forged by European imperialism.

Postcolonial theory provides a framework that destabilizes dominant discourses in the West, challenges “inherent assumptions”, and critiques the “material and discursive legacies of colonialism”.^[3] In order to challenge these assumptions and legacies of colonialism, postcolonial studies needs to be grounded, which entails working with tangible identities, connections, and processes.

Furthermore, Postcolonialism deals with cultural identity in colonized societies: the dilemmas of developing a national identity after colonial rule; the ways in which writers articulate and celebrate that identity (often reclaiming it from and maintaining strong connections with the colonizer); the ways in which the knowledge of the colonized (subordinated) people has been generated and used to serve the colonizer's interests; and the ways in which the colonizer's literature has justified colonialism via images of the colonized as a perpetually inferior people, society and culture. These inward struggles of identity, history, and future possibilities often occur in the metropolis and, ironically, with the aid of postcolonial structures of power, such as universities.

Colonized peoples reply to the colonial legacy by writing back to the center, when the indigenous peoples write their own histories and legacies using the colonizer's language (e.g. English, French, Dutch) for their own purposes.^[9] "Indigenous decolonization" is the intellectual impact of postcolonialist theory upon communities of indigenous peoples, thereby, their generating postcolonial literature.

Notable theorists[link]

Edward Said[link]

Said took the term Orientalism, which was used in the West neutrally to describe the study and artistic depiction of the Orient, and subverted it to mean a constructed binary division of the world into the Orient and the Occident.^[10] This binary, also referred to as the East/West binary, is key in postcolonial theory.^{[citation needed]} Said argued that the Occident could not exist without the Orient, and vice versa; In other words, they are mutually constitutive. Notably, the concept of the ‘East’ (i.e. the Orient), was created by the ‘West’, suppressing the ability of the ‘Orient’ to express themselves. Western depictions of the ‘Orient’ construct an inferior world, a place of backwardness, irrationality, and wildness. This allowed the ‘West’ to identify themselves as the opposite of these characteristics; as a superior world that was progressive, rational, and civil.

Furthermore, Said, following Foucault, states that power and knowledge are inseparable. The ‘West’s’ claim to knowledge of the East gave the ‘West’ the power to name, and the power to control.^[4] This concept is essential to understanding of colonialism, and therefore recognizing postcolonialism.

To the extent that Western scholars were aware of contemporary Orientals or Oriental movements of thought and culture, these were perceived either as silent shadows to be animated by the Orientalist, brought into reality by them, or as a kind of cultural and international proletariat useful for the Orientalist's grander interpretive activity. (Said, 1978: 208)

Some postcolonial writers have critiqued Said's homogeneous binary of Occident and Orient, insisting that multiple variations of Orientalism have been created within the western world and are at work. Said believes that Europe used Orientalism as a homogeneous "other" to form a more cohesive European identity.^[11]

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak[link]

Spivak's main contribution to Postcolonial theory came with her specific definition of the term subaltern. Spivak also introduced terms such as 'essentialism', 'strategic essentialism'.^[7] The former term refers to the dangers of reviving subaltern voices in ways that might simplify heterogeneous groups, creating stereotyped impressions of their diverse group. Spivak however believes that essentialism can sometimes be used strategically by these groups to make it easier for the subaltern to be heard and understood when a clear identity can be created and accepted by the majority. It is important to distinguish that 'strategic essentialism' does not sacrifice its diversity and voices but that they are being downplayed temporarily to support the essential element of the group.

Spivak also uses the term 'epistemic violence' (from Foucault) which refers to the destruction of non-western ways of knowing and resulting dominance of western ways of understanding. This concept relates to Spivak's "Subaltern must always be caught in translation, never truly expressing herself" because of the destruction and marginalization of her way of understanding.^[7]

Furthermore, Spivak criticizes those who ignore the "cultural others" (the subaltern) and has offered constructive theories for allowing the West to go beyond its current position through self-criticism of western methods and ideals of understanding and exploring the alternatives offered by post-colonialism.^[7][12]

Spivak recognizes the project is problematic, as recovery and presentation of a subaltern voice would likely essentialize its message, negating the subaltern masses' heterogeneity. Spivak suggests "strategic essentialism" - speaking on behalf of a group while using a clear image of identity to fight opposition - as the only solution to this problem. Applying this approach, bell hooks addresses the white academic reader on behalf of subalterns in the conclusion to her paper "Marginality as a site of resistance".

Much debate has since taken place regarding how to effectively and fairly incorporate the subaltern voice into social studies. With such a huge mass of criticism against the idea of studying "others", many social scientists felt paralyzed, fatalistically accepting it as an impossibility. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, an Indian postcolonialist thinker, rejects this outright. "To refuse to represent a cultural Other is salving your conscience, and allowing you not to do any homework."^[12]

Postcolonial writers object to the colonized depiction as hollow "mimics" of Europeans or as passive recipients of power. Consequent to Foucauldian argument, postcolonial scholars, i.e. the Subaltern Studies collective, argue that anti-colonial resistance accompanies every deployment of power.

Dipesh Chakrabarty[link]

Dipesh Chakrabarty, writing in the nineties, made a major attempt to chart the subaltern's history of the Indian struggle for independence.^[13] In his book Provincializing Europe (2000) he seeks to counter scholarly eurocentric views by arguing that Europe should only be seen as "one region among many".^[14]

Frantz Fanon[link]

Fanon is one of the earliest writers associated with postcolonialism.^[15] In his book The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon analyzed the nature of colonialism and those subjugated by it. He describes colonialism as a source of violence rather than reacting violently against resistors which had been the common view.^[16] His portrayal of the systematic relationship between colonialism and its attempts to deny "all attributes of humanity" to those it suppressed laid the groundwork for related critiques of colonial and postcolonial systems.^[17]

Frantz Fanon offered a violent prescription for moving beyond the colonial mindset. But violence in Fanon, who was trained as a psychoanalyst, is a cathartic practice aimed at "cleansing" the male colonized psyche from the effects of the epistemic violence of colonialism. That is why Fanon supported the most violent factions of FLN in Algeria. It is important to read Fanon's emphasis on revolutionary violence within the discourse of psychoanalysis.^[18]

Although Fanon is generally considered to be one of the earliest writers in this field, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule) had already proposed strongly postcolonial theories in 1909.^[19] Besides Gandhi, Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887–1949) had authored major works in this field.^[20] Vladimir Lenin's work "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", (1916), has also been regarded as one of the most important influences in the development of postcolonial theory.^[21]

Post-colonalism nations[link]

Postcolonialism as a literary theory (with a critical approach), deals with literature produced in countries that once were colonies of other countries, especially of the European colonial powers Britain, France, and Spain; in some contexts, it includes countries still in colonial arrangements.^[22] It also deals with literature written by citizens of colonial countries that portrays colonized people as its subject matter. In Dutch literature, a specific colonial and postcolonial segment is named Indies (after Dutch East Indies) literature. A sub-segment specifically focuses on postcolonial identity formation and culture of the diasporic Indo-Europeans, a (Eurasian) community originally from Indonesia. Its main author was Tjalie Robinson.^[23] Colonized people, especially of the British Empire, attended British universities and with their access to education, created this new criticism. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union during the late 20th century, its former republics became the subject of this study as well.^[24]

It is suggested^{[by whom?]} that there is a broad analytical division between the postcolonial nations and those nations that have been able to continue to forge nationalist unity and those marked by internal ethnic nationalists challenges. There is a strong commitment to the common political rules and institutions when it comes to the political elites from divergent political and ethnic backgrounds. There are various cases where such elites have created inclusive polyarchical regimes that are based on the accommodations, negotiation and fundamental acceptability of social interests present in Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius, and possibly South Africa.

The second pattern that is seen in postcolonial nations has been associated with the degeneration of civic nationalist unity when it comes to the wake of parochial which is ethnic nation-protecting. This is done by narrowing the patrimonial regimes that are based to cling to power by relying on an exclusive pattern of rule. This is seen in the worst cases in areas such as Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The nation state simply breaks apart into either separate communal movements being the no nationalist aggrandizing goals or the mixed interethnic movements with separatist goals. In both of these cases there is a big support by the military resources and a big social support to make sure that the perpetuation of relativity circumscribed territorial goals.

The Middle East and national identity[link]

In the last decade, Middle Eastern studies and research produced works focusing upon the colonial past's effects on the internal and external political, social, cultural, and economic circumstances of contemporary Middle Eastern countries; cf. Raphael Israeli's "Is Jordan Palestine?"^[25] A particular focus of study is the matter of Western discourses about the Middle East, and the existence or the lack of national identity formation:^[26]

“... [M]ost countries of the Middle East, suffered from the fundamental problems over their national identity. More than three-quarters of a century after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, from which most of them emerged, these states have been unable to define, project, and maintain a national identity that is both inclusive and representative”.^[27]

Independence and the end of colonialism have not ended social fragmentation and war in the Middle East.^{[26][citation needed]} Larbi Sadiki wrote in The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses (2004), because European colonial powers drew borders discounting peoples, ancient tribal boundaries, and local history, the Middle East’s contemporary national identity problem can be traced back to imperialism and colonialism.

Kumaraswamy writes that "in places like Iraq and Jordan, leaders of the new state were brought in from the outside, [and] tailored to suit colonial interests and commitments. Likewise, most states in the Persian Gulf were handed over to those who could protect and safeguard imperial interests in the post-withdrawal phase".^[27]

According to Sadiki, "with notable exceptions like Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, most [countries] ... had to [re-]invent, their historical roots" after colonialism. Therefore, "like its colonial predecessor, postcolonial identity owes its existence to force".^[28]

South Asia[link]

Subaltern Studies Collective

Africa[link]

The interior of Africa was not colonized until almost the end of the 19th century, yet the impact of colonialism was even more significant to the indigenous cultures, especially because of the Scramble for Africa. The increasingly efficient railway helped European powers to gain control over all regions of Africa, with the British particularly emphasizing goals of conquest. The British Empire sought to build a single railway through the continent and succeeded in building tracks from Egypt to Cape Town.

Many African empires existed in the pre-colonial era, such as the Empires of Ashanti and Benin, and the Kingdoms of Dahomey, the Buganda Kingdom, [now Uganda] and Kongo. Nigeria was home to the Haussa, Yoruba and Igbo cultures and Chinua Achebe was among the first to take up this history in the construction of a postcolonial identity, as in Things Fall Apart.

Kenyan Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o was educated at the British University of Leeds and wrote the first postcolonial East African novel, Weep Not, Child, in 1964. The later The River Between addresses postcolonial religious issues. His essay Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature is considered^{[by whom?]} one of the most important pieces of African literary criticism.

Africans and non-Africans both live in a postcolonial world of "genders, ethnicities, classes and languages, of ages, families, professions, religions and nations. There is a suggestion that individualism and postcolonialism are essentially discontinuous and divergent cultural phenomena. " Work cited: ^[29]

Criticism of focusing on national identity[link]

Scholars criticize and question the recent post-colonial focus on national identity. The Moroccan scholar Bin 'Abd al-'Ali argues that what is seen in contemporary Middle Eastern studies is 'a pathological obsession with ... identity'.^[30] Nevertheless, Kumaraswamy and Sadiki argue that the problem of the lack of Middle Eastern identity formation is widespread, and that identity is an important aspect of understanding the politics of the contemporary Middle East. ^[27]
Ayubi (2001) questions if what Bin 'Abd al-'Ali described as an obsession with national identity may be explained by 'the absence of a championing social class?'^[31]

Postcolonial literature[link]

Postcolonial literature is a body of literary writings that reacts to the discourse of colonization.

Founding works on postcolonialism[link]

• Edward Said: Orientalism (1978)^[32]
• Aimé Césaire: Discourse on Colonialism (1950)
• Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks (1952)
• Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
• Albert Memmi: The Colonizer and the Colonized (1965)
• Kwame Nkrumah: Consciencism (1970)

Other important works[link]

• Syed Alatas, "The Myth of the Lazy Native" (1977)
• Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, [1983] (1991) rev. ed., London: Verso. ISBN 0-86091-329-5.
• Guy Ankerl. Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations, Geneva INU PRESS; 2000 ISBN 2-88155-004-5
• Bill Ashcroft, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature (1990)
• Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. "The Empire Writes Back", (1989)
• Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin, eds. (1995) The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge ISBN 0-415-09621-9
• Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffths and Helen Tiffin. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, Routledge: 1998.
• Samir Amin. L’eurocentrisme (1988)
• Balagangadhara. "The Heathen in his Blindness..." Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion. (1994, 2nd ed. 2005) ISBN 90-04-09943-3.
• Homi K. Bhabha: The Location of Culture (1994)
• Iain Chambers and Lidia Curti (ed.): The Post-Colonial Question, Routledge: 1996
• Partha Chatterjee (1993)Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Post-colonial Histories, Princeton University Press.
• Hamid Dabashi, "Iran: A People Interrupted" (2007)
• Bartholomew Dean and Jerome Levi eds., At the Risk of Being Heard: Indigenous Rights, Identity, and Postcolonial States (2003) University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-06736-2
• Leela Gandhi Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction. Columbia University Press:1998 ISBN 0-231-11273-4.
• Nikita Dhawan: "Postkolonial Theorie. Eine kritische Einführung" (2005)
• Ernesto "Che" Guevara: Colonialism is Doomed
• Alamgir Hashmi (1988) The Commonwealth, Comparative Literature and the World: two lectures. Islamabad: Gulmohar
• Philip Carl Salzman and Donna Robinson Divine (eds.). Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Routledge 2008.
• Paulin J. Hountondji, African Philosophy: Myth & Reality (1983)
• Abdul JanMohamed, Manichean Aesthetics: The Politics of Literature in Colonial Africa (1988)
• Declan Kiberd, "Inventing Ireland" (1995)
• Vladimir Lenin. "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", (1916)
• O. Mannoni and Pamela Powesland . "Prospero and Caliban, The Psychology of Colonization"
• Ashis Nandy. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. (1983)
• Ashis Nandy. Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness (1987).
• Achille Mbembe, "On the Postcolony", edited by The Regents of the University of California (2000)
• Anne McClintock, "The angel of progress: pitfalls of the term 'postcolonialism'" Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory, edited by M. Baker, P. Hulme and M. Iverson (1994)
• John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism, second edition (Manchester University Press, 2010).
• Walter Mignolo: "The Idea of Latin América" (2005)
• Walter Mignolo: "Local histories/global designs: Coloniality" (1999)
• Trinh T. Minh-ha, "Infinite Layers/Third World?" (1989)
• Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes" (1986)
• Valentin Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988)
• Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures (1997), and Contesting Cultures"(1997)
• La Paperson, "The Postcolonial Ghetto" (2010)
• Benita Parry: Delusions and Discoveries (1983)
• Prem Poddar and David Johnson, ed. (2008). A historical companion to postcolonial literatures in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-3602-0. http://books.google.se/books?id=wIFMuFC0E-wC&dq=prem+poddar&hl=sv&ei=-xaaTdTdFYWcOqfUpbwP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAg. 
• Masood Ashraf Raja: Postcolonial Student: Learning the Ethics of Global Solidarity in an English Classroom
• Anibal Quijano, Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality (1991), reissued in Globalizations And Modernities (1999)
• Roberto Fernández Retamar: "Calibán: Apuntes sobre la cultura de Nuestra América" (1971), reissued in "Calibán and Other Essays" (1989)
• Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (1993)^[33]
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988)
• Gayatri Spivak: "The Postcolonial Critic" (1990)
• Gayatri Spivak: "Selected Subaltern Studies" (1988)
• Gayatri Spivak: "A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present" (1999)
• Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, (1986) "Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature"
• Robert J.C. Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (1990)^[32]
• Robert J.C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (1995)
• Robert J.C. Young Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (2001)

See also[link]

• Chinua Achebe's An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"
• Cultural Alienation
• Cultural cringe
• Critical theory
• Cross-culturalism
• Ethnology
• Inversion in postcolonial theory
• Linguistic imperialism
• Nation-building
• Post-colonial anarchism
• Postcolonial feminism
• Post-Communism
• Ranajit Guha Subaltern Studies
• Ranjit Hoskote
• Robert J.C. Young

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Contemporary Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature
• Paper about Post-Colonialism: Definition, Development and Examples from India
• The Postcolonial Space
• Postcolonialities
• Postcolonial Studies Association

v t e Literary criticism Literary theory Archetypal criticism • Chicago school • Darwinian criticism • Ecocriticism • Formalism • Literary particularism • New Criticism • Psychoanalytic criticism • Reader-response criticism • Russian formalism • Semiotic criticism • Source criticism Marxist school Cultural materialism • Deconstruction • Feminist criticism • Marxist criticism • New Historicism • Postcolonial criticism • Sociological criticism • Thing theory

Homi K. Bhabha

Born	1949 Mumbai, India
Era	20th-century philosophy
School	Post-colonial theory Post-structuralism
Main interests	History of ideas · Literature
Notable ideas	"Third-space", "Enunciatory Present"
Influenced by Edward Said, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Frantz Fanon, Toni Morrison, VS Naipaul, Walter Benjamin

Homi K. Bhabha (born 1949) is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language, and the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figures in contemporary post-colonial studies, and has coined a number of the field's neologisms and key concepts, such as hybridity, mimicry, difference, ambivalence.^[1] Such terms describe ways in which colonised peoples have resisted the power of the coloniser, according to Bhabha's theory. In 2012, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan award in the field of literature and education by the Indian government.

He is married to attorney and lecturer Jacqueline Bhabha.

Early life[link]

Bhabha was born into a Parsi family from Mumbai, India. He is an alumnus of St. Mary's School (ISC, 1967–68), Mazagoan, Mumbai. He graduated with a B.A. from Elphinstone College at the University of Mumbai (formerly University of Bombay) and a M.A. and D.Phil. in English Literature from Christ Church, Oxford University.

Career[link]

After lecturing in the Department of English at the University of Sussex for more than ten years, Bhabha received a senior fellowship at Princeton University where he was also made Old Dominion Visiting Professor. He was Steinberg Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania where he delivered the Richard Wright Lecture Series. At Dartmouth College, Bhabha was a faculty fellow at the School of Criticism and Theory. From 1997 to 2001 he served as Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. In 2001-02, he served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at University College, London. He has been the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University since 2001. Bhabha also serves on the Editorial Collective of Public Culture, an academic journal published by Duke University Press. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan award by the Government of India in 2012.

Ideas[link]

One of his central ideas is that of "hybridisation," which, taking up from Edward Said's work, describes the emergence of new cultural forms from multiculturalism. Instead of seeing colonialism as something locked in the past, Bhabha shows how its histories and cultures constantly intrude on the present, demanding that we transform our understanding of cross-cultural relations. His work transformed the study of colonialism by applying post-structuralist methodologies to colonial texts.

Influences[link]

Bhabha's work in postcolonial theory owes much to post-structuralism. Notable among Bhabha's influences include Jacques Derrida and deconstruction; Jacques Lacan and Lacanian psychoanalysis; and Michel Foucault's notion of discursivity.^[2][3] Additionally, in a 1995 interview with W.J.T. Mitchell, Bhabha stated that Edward Said is the writer who has most influenced his thought.^[2]

Reception[link]

Bhabha has been criticized for using indecipherable jargon and dense prose. In 1998 the journal Philosophy and Literature awarded Bhabha second prize in its "Bad Writing Competition,"^[4] which "celebrates bad writing from the most stylistically lamentable passages found in scholarly books and articles." Bhabha was awarded the prize for a sentence in his The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994), which reads:

If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition, spurious authorities, and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to “normalize” formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.^[4]

Emeritus professor of English at Stanford University, Marjorie Perloff, said that her reaction to Bhabha's appointment at Harvard was one of "dismay," telling the New York Times "He doesn't have anything to say." While Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University, commented on the meaning of Bhabha's writing: "One could finally argue that there is no meaning there, beyond the neologisms and Latinate buzzwords. Most of the time I don't know what he's talking about."^[5]

In a 2005 interview, Bhabha answered criticisms and expressed annoyance at the expectation that philosophers use the "common language of the common person," while scientists are permitted to use language that is not immediately comprehensible.^[6] In a review entitled ‘Goodbye to the Enlightenment’ Terry Eagleton writes in The Guardian (Feb. 8, 1994) that “Bhabha’s aim is to put the skids under every cherished doctrine of Western Enlightenment, from the idea of progress to the unity of the self, from the classical work of art to the notions of law and civility”. Bhabha points to India, for instance, in his sense of alternative possibilities when he argues that the very idea and practice of secularism is changing.^[7]

Works (incomplete)[link]

Includes book editing duties, journal articles, and book chapters

• (Ed.) Nation and Narration, Routledge (1990; ISBN 0-415-01483-2)
• The Location of Culture, Routledge (1994; ISBN 0-415-05406-0)
• Edward Said Continuing the Conversation, co-ed. with W.J.T. Mitchell (originally an issue of Critical Inquiry), 2005. ISBN 0-226-53203-8
• "Cosmopolitanisms" in Public Culture 12.3, eds Sheldon I. Pollock, Homi K. Bhabha, Carol Breckenridge, Arjun Appadurai, and Dipesh Chakrabarty, 2000.
• "In a Spirit of Calm Violence", 1993.
• "Modernity, Culture, and The Jew", eds Laura Marcus & Bryan Cheyette, 1998.
• "On Cultural Choice", 2000.
• "V.S. Naipaul", 2001
• "Democracy De-Realized", 2002.
• "On Writing Rights", 2003.
• "Making Difference: The Legacy of the Culture Wars", 2003.
• "Adagio", 2004.
• "Still Life", 2004.
• Foreword to The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, transl. Richard Philcox, 2004.
• "Framing Fanon", 2005.
• "Without Boundary", with Fereshteh Daftari and Orhan Pamuk, 2006.
• "The Black Savant and the Dark Princess", 2006.

See also[link]

• List of deconstructionists
• Post-colonialism
• Post-structuralism
• Postmodernism

References[link]

External links[link]

Academic homepages and profiles

• Faculty webpage at Harvard University
• Harvard Alumni Association Global Series (India) Speaker Biography
• Gewertz, Ken. "Telling tales out of, and in, class" at Harvard University Gazette, 31 January 2002
• Philweb's webpage devoted to Bhabha
• Culture Machine article on Bhabha

Articles

• A Response to Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women?, Boston Review, 1999
• Humanities at Harvard
• World Economic Forum panel: Defining "Home": Divided Loyalty or Dual Loyalty (2003)
• World Economic Forum panel: Defining Migration Priorities (2003)

Interviews

• Interview with Kerry Chance (pdf)
• Interview with Christian Hoeller
• Interview in Pulse Berlin, from the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy
• Interview with Jeff Makos
• Interview with W.J.T. Mitchell
• Interview with Sachidananda Mohanty
• Interview with Jonathan Rutherford (pdf)

Videos

• A Global Measure - Writing, Rights, and Responsibilities, University of California, Santa Barbara, 4 October 2004; Google Video
• Scope II: Sites & Subjects Preconference Interview, Narrating Heritage conference, Austria, 12 July 2006; YouTube
• On Global Memory: Thoughts on the Barbaric Transmission of Culture, University of California, Berkeley, 18 April 2008

Please expand this article. Some suggested sources are given hereafter. More information might be found in a section of the talk page. (January 2012)

Muhammad Iqbal
محمد اقبال

Sir Allama Mohammad Iqbal
Born	(1877-11-09)November 9, 1877 Sialkot, Punjab, British India
Died	21 April 1938(1938-04-21) (aged 60) Lahore, Punjab, British India
Era	20 century
Region	British India (now Pakistan)
Main interests	Urdu poetry, Persian poetry
Notable ideas	Two-Nation Theory, Conception of Pakistan
Influenced by Rumi, Aristotle, Ahmad Sirhindi, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Maulana Mohammad Ali, Thomas Walker Arnold, Hegel[citation needed]
Influenced Pakistan Movement, Indian independence movement, Khilafat Movement, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Israr Ahmed, Abul Ala Maududi, Khalilullah Khalili, Jawdat Said, Bahadur Yar Jung
Website	allamaiqbal.com

Sir Muhammad Iqbal (Urdu: محمد اقبال) (November 9, 1877 – April 21, 1938), also known as Allama Iqbal (Urdu: علامہ اقبال), was a philosopher, poet and politician^[1] in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. He is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature,^[2] with literary work in both the Urdu and Persian languages.^[1][2]

Iqbal is admired as a prominent classical poet by Pakistani, Indian and other international scholars of literature.^[3][4] Though Iqbal is best known as an eminent poet, he is also a highly acclaimed "Muslim philosophical thinker of modern times".^[1][4] His first poetry book, Asrar-e-Khudi, appeared in the Persian language in 1915, and other books of poetry include Rumuz-i-Bekhudi, Payam-i-Mashriq and Zabur-i-Ajam. Amongst these his best known Urdu works are Bang-i-Dara, Bal-i-Jibril, Zarb-i Kalim and a part of Armughan-e-Hijaz.^[5] Along with his Urdu and Persian poetry, his various Urdu and English lectures and letters have been very influential in cultural, social, religious and political disputes over the years.^[5] In 1922, he was knighted by King George V,^[6][7] giving him the title "Sir".^[8]

While studying law and philosophy in England, Iqbal became a member of the London branch of the All India Muslim League.^[4][5] Later, in one of his most famous speeches, Iqbal pushed for the creation of a Muslim state in Northwest India. This took place in his presidential speech in the League's December 1930 session.^[4][5] He was very close to Quid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.^[5]

Iqbal is known as Shair-e-Mushriq (Urdu: شاعر مشرق) meaning Poet of the East.^[9] He is also called Muffakir-e-Pakistan ("The Inceptor of Pakistan") and Hakeem-ul-Ummat ("The Sage of the Ummah"). In Iran and Afghanistan he is famous as Iqbāl-e Lāhorī (اقبال لاهوری‎ Iqbal of Lahore), and he is most appreciated for his Persian work.^[6] Pakistan Government had recognised him as its "national poet".^[4] His birthday (یوم ولادت محمد اقبال‎ – Yōm-e Welādat-e Muḥammad Iqbāl) is a Public holiday in Pakistan.^[10][11]

Biography[link]

Iqbal was born in Sialkot, within the Punjab Province of British India (now in Pakistan).^[9] His ancestors were Kashmiri Pandits, the Brahmins of the Sapru clan from Kashmir who converted to Islam.^[12] In the 19th century, when Sikh were taking over rule of Kashmir, his grandfather's family migrated to Punjab. Iqbal often mentioned and reminisced about his Kashmiri Pandit Brahmin lineage in his writings.^[9]

Iqbal's father, Shaikh Noor Mohammad, was a tailor,^[13][14] not formally educated but a religious man.^[6][14] Iqbal's mother Imam Bibi was a polite and humble woman who helped the poor and solved the problems of neighbours. She died on November 9, 1914 in Sialkot.^[7] Iqbal loved his mother, and on her death he expressed his feelings of pathos in a poetic form elegy.^[6]

Who would wait for me anxiously in my native place?

Who would display restlessness if my letter fails to arrive?
I will visit thy grave with this complaint:
Who will now think of me in midnight prayers?
All thy life thy love served me with devotion—

When I became fit to serve thee, thou hast departed.^[6]

Iqbal was four years old when he was admitted to the mosque for learning the Qur'an, he learned the Arabic language from his teacher Syed Mir Hassan, the head of the Madrassa and professor of Arabic language at Scotch Mission College in Sialkot, where Iqbal completed matriculation in 1893. He received Intermediate with the Faculty of Arts diploma from college of Sialkot in 1895.^{[9][7] [15]} The same year he qualified for Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, English literature and Arabic as his subjects from Government College Lahore in 1897,^[9][7] and won the Khan Bahadurddin F.S. Jalaluddin medal as he took higher numbers in Arabic class.^[7] In 1899, he received Masters of Arts degree from the same college and had the first place in Punjab University, Lahore.^[15]

In 1895, while studying Bachelor of Arts Iqbal had his first marriage with Karim Bibi, the daughter of a Gujrati physician Khan Bahadur Ata Muhammad Khan,^[7][14] through a arranged marriage.^[14] They had daughter Miraj Begum and son Aftab Iqbal.^[7] Later Iqbal's second marriage was with Sardar Begum mother of Javid Iqbal and third marriage with Mukhtar Begum in December 1914.^[7]

Higher education in Europe[link]

Iqbal was influenced by the teachings of Sir Thomas Arnold, his philosophy teacher at Government college Lahore, Arnold's teachings determined Iqbal to pursue higher education in West. In 1905, he traveled to England for his higher education. Iqbal qualified for a scholarship from Trinity College in Cambridge and obtained Bachelor of Arts in 1906, and in the same year he was called to the bar as a barrister from Lincoln's Inn. In 1907, Iqbal moved to Germany to study doctorate and earned PhD degree from the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich in 1908. Working under the guidance of Friedrich Hommel, Iqbal published his doctoral thesis in 1908 entitled: The Development of Metaphysics in Persia.^{[9][16][17][18]}

During Iqbal's stay in Heidelberg, Germany in 1907. His German teacher Emma Wegenast, taught him about Goethe's "Faust", Heine and Nietzsche. Iqbal had feelings for her, but no relationship developed.^[19] During his study in Europe, Iqbal began to write poetry in Persian. He prioritized it because he believed he had found an easy way to express his thoughts. He would write continuously in Persian throughout his life.^[9]

Academic[link]

Iqbal, after completing his Master of Arts degree in 1899, initiated his career as a reader of Arabic at Oriental College and shortly was selected as a junior professor of philosophy at Government College Lahore, where he had also been a stundent; Iqbal worked there until he left for England in 1905.^[20] In 1908, Iqbal returned from England and joined again the same college as a professor of philosophy and English literature.^[21] At the same period Iqbal began practicing law at Chief Court Lahore, but soon Iqbal quit law practice,^[22] and devoted himself in literary works and became an active member of Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam.^[7] In 1919, he became the general secretary of the same organisation. Iqbal's thoughts in his work primarily focus on the spiritual direction and development of human society, centered around experiences from his travels and stays in Western Europe and the Middle East. He was profoundly influenced by Western philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson and Goethe.^[6][19]

The poetry and philosophy of Mawlana Rumi bore the deepest influence on Iqbal's mind. Deeply grounded in religion since childhood, Iqbal began intensely concentrating on the study of Islam, the culture and history of Islamic civilization and its political future, while embracing Rumi as "his guide."^[6] Iqbal would feature Rumi in the role of guide in many of his poems. Iqbal's works focus on reminding his readers of the past glories of Islamic civilization, and delivering the message of a pure, spiritual focus on Islam as a source for socio-political liberation and greatness. Iqbal denounced political divisions within and amongst Muslim nations, and frequently alluded to and spoke in terms of the global Muslim community, or the Ummah.^[6][23]

Iqbal poetry has been translated into many European languages, at the time when his work was famous during the early part of the 20th century.^[4][24] Iqbal’s Asrar-i-Khudi and Javed Nama were translated into English by R A Nicholson and A J Arberry respectively.^[4][25]

Final years and death[link]

The tomb of Muhammad Iqbal at the entrance of the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore.

A night view of the tomb.

In 1933, after returning from a trip to Spain and Afghanistan, Iqbal had suffered from a mysterious throat illness.^[26] He spent his final years helping Chaudhry Niaz Ali Khan to establish the Dar ul Islam Trust Institute at Jamalpur estate near Pathankot,^[27][28] where studies in classical Islam and contemporary social science were plan to be subsidised, and Iqbal also advocated the demand for an independent Muslim state. Iqbal ceased practising law in 1934 and was granted pension by the Nawab of Bhopal. In his final years he frequently visited the Dargah of famous Sufi Hazrat Ali Hujwiri in Lahore for spiritual guidance. After suffering for months from his illness, Iqbal died in Lahore on 21 April 1938.^[5][9] His tomb is located in Hazuri Bagh, the enclosed garden between the entrance of the Badshahi Mosque and the Lahore Fort, and official guards are provided by the Government of Pakistan.

Iqbal is commemorated widely in Pakistan, where he is regarded as the ideological founder of the state. His Tarana-e-Hind is a song that is widely used in India as a patriotic song speaking of communal harmony. His birthday is annually commemorated in Pakistan as Iqbal Day, a national holiday. Iqbal is the namesake of many public institutions, including the Allama Iqbal Campus Punjab University in Lahore, the Allama Iqbal Medical College in Lahore, Iqbal Stadium in Faisalabad, Allama Iqbal Open University, the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore,the Allama Iqbal hall in Aligarh Muslim University in India and Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town in Karachi. Government and public organizations have sponsored the establishment of colleges and schools dedicated to Iqbal, and have established the Iqbal Academy to research, teach and preserve the works, literature and philosophy of Iqbal. Allama Iqbal Stamps Society established for the promotion of Iqbaliyat in philately and in other hobbies. His son Javid Iqbal has served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Javaid Manzil was the last residence of Allama Iqbal.^[29]

Influence[link]

Political[link]

While dividing his time between law and poetry, Iqbal had remained active in the Muslim League. He did not support Indian involvement in World War I, as well as the Khilafat movement and remained in close touch with Muslim political leaders such as Maulana Mohammad Ali and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He was a critic of the mainstream Indian National Congress, which he regarded as dominated by Hindus and was disappointed with the League when during the 1920s, it was absorbed in factional divides between the pro-British group led by Sir Muhammad Shafi and the centrist group led by Jinnah.^{[30][unreliable source?][citation needed]}

In November 1926, with the encouragement of friends and supporters, Iqbal contested for a seat in the Punjab Legislative Assembly from the Muslim district of Lahore, and defeated his opponent by a margin of 3,177 votes.^[31] He supported the constitutional proposals presented by Jinnah with the aim of guaranteeing Muslim political rights and influence in a coalition with the Congress, and worked with the Aga Khan and other Muslim leaders to mend the factional divisions and achieve unity in the Muslim League.^{[30][unreliable source?][citation needed]}

Iqbal, Jinnah and concept of Pakistan[link]

Ideologically separated from Congress Muslim leaders, Iqbal had also been disillusioned with the politicians of the Muslim League owing to the factional conflict that plagued the League in the 1920s. Discontent with factional leaders like Sir Muhammad Shafi and Sir Fazl-ur-Rahman, Iqbal came to believe that only Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a political leader capable of preserving this unity and fulfilling the League's objectives on Muslim political empowerment. Building a strong, personal correspondence with Jinnah,^[24] Iqbal was an influential force in convincing Jinnah to end his self-imposed exile in London, return to India and take charge of the League.^[24] Iqbal firmly believed that Jinnah was the only leader capable of drawing Indian Muslims to the League and maintaining party unity before the British and the Congress:

"I know you are a busy man but I do hope you won't mind my writing to you often, as you are the only Muslim in India today to whom the community has right to look up for safe guidance through the storm which is coming to North-West India and, perhaps, to the whole of India."^[32]

The two men were quite similar though they had viewed things differently at some time — Iqbal believed that Islam was the source of government and society and Jinnah worked hard to get Muslims a part in government and state and had laid out an Islamic vision for Pakistan upholding the Islamic value of freedom of religion saying religion would have "nothing to do with the business of the state." Iqbal had backed the Khilafat struggle; Jinnah had dismissed it as "religious frenzy." And while Iqbal espoused the idea of Muslim-majority provinces in 1930, Jinnah would continue to hold talks with the Congress through the decade and only officially embraced the goal of Pakistan in 1940. Some historians postulate that Jinnah always remained hopeful for an agreement with the Congress and never fully desired the partition of India.^[33] Iqbal's close correspondence with Jinnah is speculated by some historians as having been responsible for Jinnah's embrace of the idea of Pakistan. Iqbal elucidated to Jinnah his vision of a separate Muslim state in a letter sent on June 21, 1937:

"A separate federation of Muslim Provinces, reformed on the lines I have suggested above, is the only course by which we can secure a peaceful India and save Muslims from the domination of Non-Muslims. Why should not the Muslims of North-West India and Bengal be considered as nations entitled to self-determination just as other nations in India and outside India are."^[31]

Iqbal, serving as president of the Punjab Muslim League, criticised Jinnah's political actions, including a political agreement with Punjabi leader Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan, whom Iqbal saw as a representative of feudal classes and not committed to Islam as the core political philosophy. Nevertheless, Iqbal worked constantly to encourage Muslim leaders and masses to support Jinnah and the League. Speaking about the political future of Muslims in India, Iqbal said:

"There is only one way out. Muslims should strengthen Jinnah's hands. They should join the Muslim League. Indian question, as is now being solved, can be countered by our united front against both the Hindus and the English. Without it, our demands are not going to be accepted. People say our demands smack of communalism. This is sheer propaganda. These demands relate to the defense of our national existence.... The united front can be formed under the leadership of the Muslim League. And the Muslim League can succeed only on account of Jinnah. Now none but Jinnah is capable of leading the Muslims."^[32]

Revival of Islamic polity[link]

Iqbal's six English lectures were published first from Lahore in 1930 and then by Oxford University press in 1934 in a book titled The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Which were read at Madras, Hyderabad and Aligarh.^[23] These lectures dwell on the role of Islam as a religion as well as a political and legal philosophy in the modern age.^[23] In these lectures Iqbal firmly rejects the political attitudes and conduct of Muslim politicians, whom he saw as morally misguided, attached to power and without any standing with Muslim masses. Iqbal expressed fears that not only would secularism weaken the spiritual foundations of Islam and Muslim society, but that India's Hindu-majority population would crowd out Muslim heritage, culture and political influence. In his travels to Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, he promoted ideas of greater Islamic political co-operation and unity, calling for the shedding of nationalist differences.^[6] He also speculated on different political arrangements to guarantee Muslim political power; in a dialogue with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Iqbal expressed his desire to see Indian provinces as autonomous units under the direct control of the British government and with no central Indian government. He envisaged autonomous Muslim provinces in India. Under one Indian union he feared for Muslims, who would suffer in many respects especially with regard to their existentially separate entity as Muslims.^[31] Sir Muhammad Iqbal was elected president of the Muslim League in 1930 at its session in Allahabad, in the United Provinces as well as for the session in Lahore in 1932. In his presidential address on December 29, 1930, Iqbal outlined a vision of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India:^[5]

"I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated Northwest Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of Northwest India.^[5]

In his speech, Iqbal emphasised that unlike Christianity, Islam came with "legal concepts" with "civic significance," with its "religious ideals" considered as inseparable from social order: "therefore, the construction of a policy on national lines, if it means a displacement of the Islamic principle of solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim."^[34] Iqbal thus stressed not only the need for the political unity of Muslim communities, but the undesirability of blending the Muslim population into a wider society not based on Islamic principles. He thus became the first politician to articulate what would become known as the Two-Nation Theory — that Muslims are a distinct nation and thus deserve political independence from other regions and communities of India. However, he would not elucidate or specify if his ideal Islamic state would construe a theocracy, even as he rejected secularism and nationalism. The latter part of Iqbal's life was concentrated on political activity. He would travel across Europe and West Asia to garner political and financial support for the League, and he reiterated his ideas in his 1932 address, and during the Third Round-Table Conference, he opposed the Congress and proposals for transfer of power without considerable autonomy or independence for Muslim provinces. He would serve as president of the Punjab Muslim League, and would deliver speeches and publish articles in an attempt to rally Muslims across India as a single political entity. Iqbal consistently criticised feudal classes in Punjab as well as Muslim politicians averse to the League. He fell prey to Punjabi dominated Muslims of region. Muslims across Indian subcontinent opposed the idea of two nation theory. Many unnoticed account of Iqbal's frustration toward Congress leadership were also pivotal of visioning the two nation theory. He also wanted to prove that defeat of Muslim ummat can be at least saved in this region by dividing the societies within British India in the name of Islam.^{[citation needed]}

Patron of The Journal Tolu-e-Islam[link]

Iqbal was the first patron of the historical, political, religious, cultural journal of Muslims of British India. This journal played an important part in the Pakistan movement. The name of this journal is The Journal Tolu-e-Islam. In 1935, according to his instructions, Syed Nazeer Niazi initiated and edited, a journal Tolu-e-Islam^[35] named after the famous poem of Iqbal, Tulu'i Islam. He also dedicated the first edition of this journal to Iqbal. For a long time Iqbal wanted a journal to propagate his ideas and the aims and objective of Muslim league. It was Syed Nazeer Niazi, a close friend of his and a regular visitor to him during his last two years, who started this journal.^[30] He also made Urdu translation of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, by Sir Muhammad Iqbal.^{[30][unreliable source?][citation needed]}

In the first monthly journal of Oct. 1935, an article Millat Islamia Hind The Muslim nation of India was published. In this article Syed Nazeer Niazi described the political conditions of British India and the aims and objectives of the Muslim community. He also discussed the basic principles of Islam which were aims and objective of Iqbal's concept of an Islamic State.^{[30][unreliable source?][citation needed]}

The early contributors to this journal were eminent Muslim scholars like Maulana Aslam Jairajpuri, Ghulam Ahmed Pervez, Dr. Zakir Hussain Khan, Syed Naseer Ahmed, Raja Hassan Akhtar, Maulvi Ghulam Yezdani, Ragheb Ahsan, Sheikh Suraj ul Haq, Rafee ud din Peer, Prof. fazal ud din Qureshi, Agha Muhammad Safdar, Asad Multani, Dr. Tasadaq Hussain, Prof. Yusuf Saleem Chisti.^{[30][unreliable source?][citation needed]}

Later on , this journal was continued^[36] by Ghulam Ahmed Pervez, who had already contributed many articles in the early editions of this journal. After the emergence of Pakistan, the mission of the journal Tolu-e-Islam was to propagate the implementation of the principle which had inspired the demand for separate Muslim State according to the Quran. This journal is still published by Idara Tolu-e-Islam, Lahore.^{[30][unreliable source?][citation needed]}

Literary work[link]

Persian[link]

Iqbal's poetic works are written primarily in Persian rather than Urdu. Among his 12,000 verses of poetry, about 7,000 verses are in Persian. In 1915, he published his first collection of poetry, the Asrar-e-Khudi (Secrets of the Self) in Persian. The poems emphasise the spirit and self from a religious, spiritual perspective. Many critics have called this Iqbal's finest poetic work^[37] In Asrar-e-Khudi, Iqbal explains his philosophy of "Khudi," or "Self."^[5][6] Iqbal's use of the term "Khudi" is synonymous with the word "Rooh" mentioned in the Quran. "Rooh" is that divine spark which is present in every human being, and was present in Adam, for which God ordered all of the angels to prostrate in front of Adam. One has to make a great journey of transformation to realize that divine spark which Iqbal calls "Khudi".^[5]

The same concept was used by Farid ud Din Attar in his "Mantaq-ul-Tair". He proves by various means that the whole universe obeys the will of the "Self." Iqbal condemns self-destruction. For him, the aim of life is self-realization and self-knowledge. He charts the stages through which the "Self" has to pass before finally arriving at its point of perfection, enabling the knower of the "Self" to become a viceregent of God.^[23]

In his Rumuz-e-Bekhudi (Hints of Selflessness), Iqbal seeks to prove the Islamic way of life is the best code of conduct for a nation's viability. A person must keep his individual characteristics intact, but once this is achieved he should sacrifice his personal ambitions for the needs of the nation. Man cannot realise the "Self" outside of society. Also in Persian and published in 1917, this group of poems has as its main themes the ideal community,^[23] Islamic ethical and social principles, and the relationship between the individual and society. Although he is true throughout to Islam, Iqbal also recognises the positive analogous aspects of other religions. The Rumuz-e-Bekhudi complements the emphasis on the self in the Asrar-e-Khudi and the two collections are often put in the same volume under the title Asrar-e-Rumuz (Hinting Secrets). It is addressed to the world's Muslims.^[23]

Iqbal's 1924 publication, the Payam-e-Mashriq (The Message of the East) is closely connected to the West-östlicher Diwan by the famous German poet Goethe. Goethe bemoans the West having become too materialistic in outlook, and expects the East will provide a message of hope to resuscitate spiritual values. Iqbal styles his work as a reminder to the West of the importance of morality, religion and civilization by underlining the need for cultivating feeling, ardour and dynamism. He explains that an individual can never aspire to higher dimensions unless he learns of the nature of spirituality.^[23] In his first visit to Afghanistan, he presented his book "Payam-e Mashreq" to King Amanullah Khan in which he admired the liberal movements of Afghanistan against the British Empire. In 1933, he was officially invited to Afghanistan to join the meetings regarding the establishment of Kabul University.^[19]

The Zabur-e-Ajam (Persian Psalms), published in 1927, includes the poems Gulshan-e-Raz-e-Jadeed (Garden of New Secrets) and Bandagi Nama (Book of Slavery). In Gulshan-e-Raz-e-Jadeed, Iqbal first poses questions, then answers them with the help of ancient and modern insight, showing how it affects and concerns the world of action. Bandagi Nama denounces slavery by attempting to explain the spirit behind the fine arts of enslaved societies. Here as in other books, Iqbal insists on remembering the past, doing well in the present and preparing for the future, while emphasising love, enthusiasm and energy to fulfill the ideal life.^[23]

Iqbal's 1932 work, the Javed Nama (Book of Javed) is named after and in a manner addressed to his son, who is featured in the poems. It follows the examples of the works of Ibn Arabi and Dante's The Divine Comedy, through mystical and exaggerated depictions across time. Iqbal depicts himself as Zinda Rud ("A stream full of life") guided by Rumi, "the master," through various heavens and spheres, and has the honour of approaching divinity and coming in contact with divine illuminations. In a passage re-living a historical period, Iqbal condemns the Muslim who were instrumental in the defeat and death of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula of Bengal and Tipu Sultan of Mysore respectively by betraying them for the benefit of the British colonists, and thus delivering their country to the shackles of slavery. At the end, by addressing his son Javid, he speaks to the young people at large, and provides guidance to the "new generation."^[23]

His love of the Persian language is evident in his works and poetry. He says in one of his poems:^[38]

گرچہ اردو در عذوبت شکر است

garche Urdū dar uzūbat shekkar ast

طرز گفتار دري شيرين تر است

tarz-e goftar-e Dari shirin tar ast

Translation: Even though in sweetness Urdu* is sugar – (but) speech method in Dari (Persian) is sweeter *

Urdu[link]

Iqbal's first Urdu work, the Bang-e-Dara (The Call of the Marching Bell) published in 1924, is a collection of Urdu poetry written in three distinct phases of his life.^[23] The poems he wrote up to 1905—(the year Iqbal left for England) reflects patriotism and imagery of nature, that includes the Tarana-e-Hind (The song of India),^[19] and another poem Tarana-e-Milli (The song of the Community), The second set of poems from 1905—1908; when Iqbal studied in Europe and dwell upon the nature of European society about whom he emphasized had lost spiritual and religious values, these inspired Iqbal to write poems on the historical and cultural heritage of Islam and Muslim community, with the global perspective. Iqbal urges the entire Muslim community, addressed as the Ummah to define personal, social and political existence by the values and teachings of Islam.^[23]

Iqbal work mainly in Persian for a predominant period of his career and after 1930, his works were mainly in Urdu. The works of this period were often specifically directed at the Muslim masses of India, with an even stronger emphasis on Islam and Muslim spiritual and political reawakening. Published in 1935, the Bal-e-Jibril (Wings of Gabriel) is considered by many critics as the finest of Iqbal's Urdu poetry, and was inspired by his visit to Spain, where he visited the monuments and legacy of the kingdom of the Moors. It consists of ghazals, poems, quatrains, epigrams and carries a strong sense of religious passion.^[23]

The Pas Cheh Bayed Kard ai Aqwam-e-Sharq (What are we to do, O Nations of the East?) includes the poem Musafir (Traveler). Again, Iqbal depicts Rumi as a character and an exposition of the mysteries of Islamic laws and Sufi perceptions is given. Iqbal laments the dissension and disunity among the Indian Muslims as well as Muslim nations. Musafir is an account of one of Iqbal's journeys to Afghanistan, in which the Pashtun people are counseled to learn the "secret of Islam" and to "build up the self" within themselves.^[23] Iqbal's final work was the Armughan-e-Hijaz (The Gift of Hijaz), published posthumously in 1938. The first part contains quatrains in Persian, and the second part contains some poems and epigrams in Urdu. The Persian quatrains convey the impression as though the poet is travelling through the Hijaz in his imagination. Profundity of ideas and intensity of passion are the salient features of these short poems.^[23]

Iqbal's vision of mystical experience is clear in one of his Urdu ghazals which was written in London during his days of studying there. Some verses of that ghazal are:^[23]

At last the silent tongue of Hijaz has

announced to the ardent ear the tiding
That the covenant which had been given to the
desert-dwelles is going to be renewed
vigorously:
The lion who had emerged from the desert and
had toppled the Roman Empire is
As I am told by the angels, about to get up
again (from his slumbers.)
You the dwelles of the West, should know that
the world of God is not a shop (of yours).
Your imagined pure gold is about to lose it
standard value (as fixed by you).
Your civilization will commit suicide with its

own daggers.^[23]

English[link]

Iqbal also wrote two books on the topic of The Development of Metaphysics in Persia and The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam^[23] and many letters in English language, besides his Urdu and Persian literary works. In which, he revealed his thoughts regarding Persian ideology and Islamic Sufism - in particular, his beliefs that Islamic Sufism activates the searching soul to a superior perception of life.^[23] He also discussed philosophy, God and the meaning of prayer, human spirit and Muslim culture, as well as other political, social and religious problems.^[23]

Iqbal was invited to Cambridge to participate in the conference in 1931, where he expressed his views to students and other audience.^[23]

"I would like to offer a few pieces of advice to the youngmen who are at present studying at Cambridge ...... I advise you to guard against atheism and materialism. The biggest blunder made by Europe was the separation of Church and State. This deprived their culture of moral soul and diverted it to the atheistic materialism. I had twenty-five years ago seen through the drawbacks of this civilization and therefore had made some prophecies. They had been delivered by my tongue although I did not quite understand them. This happened in 1907..... After six or seven years, my prophecies came true, word by word. The European war of 1914 was an outcome of the aforesaid mistakes made by the European nations in the separation of the Church and the State".^[23]

Iqbal and the West[link]

Name plate of a street Iqbal-Ufer, Heidelberg, Germany, honored in the name of Iqbal.^[39]

Iqbal's views on the Western world were applauded by men including United States Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas, who said that Iqbal's beliefs had "universal appeal."^[40] In his Soviet biography N. P. Anikoy wrote:

"(Iqbal is) great for his passionate condemnation of weak will and passiveness, his angry protest against inequality, discrimination and oppression in all forms i.e., economic, social, political, national, racial, religious, etc., his preaching of optimism, an active attitude towards life and man's high purpose in the world, in a word, he is great for his assertion of the noble ideals and principles of humanism, democracy, peace and friendship among peoples.".^[40]

Others, including Wilfred Cantwell Smith, stated that with Iqbal's anti-capitalist holdings he was 'anti-intellect', because "capitalism fosters intellect".^[40] Professor Freeland Abbot objected to Iqbal's views saying that Iqbal's view of the West was based on the role of imperialism and Iqbal was not immersed enough in Western culture to learn about the various benefits of the modern democracies, economic practices and science.^[40] Critics of Abbot's viewpoint note that Iqbal was raised and educated in European way of life, and spent enough time there to grasp the general concepts of Western civilization.^[40]

Bibliography[link]

Prose book

• Ilm ul Iqtisad-1903^[5]

Poetic books in Persian

• Asrar-i-Khudi-1915^[5][30]
• Rumuz-i-Bekhudi-1917^[5][30]
• Payam-i-Mashriq-1923^[5][30]
• Zabur-i-Ajam-1927^[5][30]
• Javid Nama-1932^[5][30]
• Pas Cheh Bayed Kard ai Aqwam-e-Sharq-1936^[5]
• Armughan-e-Hijaz (Persian-Urdu)-1938^[4][5][30]

Poetic books in Urdu

• Bang-i-Dara-1924^[5][30]
• Bal-i-Jibril-1935^[5][30]
• Zarb-i Kalim-1936^[5][30]

Books in English

• The Development of Metaphysics in Persia-1908^[4][5][30]
• The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam-1930^[4][5][30]

See also[link]

• Muhammad Ali Jinnah
• Iblees Ki Majlis-e-Shura, a poem by Iqbal
• Iqbal bibliography
• Jagan Nath Azad
• List of Pakistani poets
• List of Urdu language poets

References[link]