Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam 203. Khudi of Allama Iqbal - 8
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA

 

Iqbal rode on the wings of angels and dared to wish to speak to God. Paying tribute to this audacity, Shakeel Badaiwani pays homage to Iqbal:

Allah to sab ki sunta hai, jur’at hai Shakeel apni apni,

Hali ne zubaN se “uf” na kaha, Iqbal shikayat kar baithe.

(God listens to every voice,

It is the individual courage that makes the difference, O Shakeel!

Hali uttered not a word with his tongue,

Iqbal went ahead and lodged a complaint.)

This audacity was uncommon in Urdu literature and indeed in Islamic literature. Those who pierced the walls of orthodoxy paid a heavy price. It was the genius of Iqbal that he pushed the envelope and negotiated his terms with the orthodoxy of his times. Indeed, he won acclaim for what he achieved.

Iqbal could do this because he speaks to us not as Iqbal the poet, but from his Essence, his Khudi, much as Rumi speaks to us from the spaceless, timeless station of his rapture. In this, Iqbal shares the station of a wali, except that a wali is satisfied with his station of rapture, Iqbal looks further, beyond to the example of the Prophets, and returns to inspire and guide his people. Examine this verse:

Wahi lan tarani suna chahta hooN,

Meri saadgi dekh meiN kya chayta hooN.

(I long to hear that lan taranee – thou canst ever see Me!

See! How simple is my longing!).

This is a deep ocean. I will share with our readers a drop or two of this boundless ocean. In the Qur’an, Surah An Naml, Ayah 7 (27:7), there is a sublime description of the encounter of Moses with Divine energy on the mountain: “When Moses said to his family: Verily! I perceive a Fire! Soon shall I bring for you some information from it, or bring for you (a Fire) from the burning shoals (shoals that are inclined to part of their energy) so that you may warm yourselves”.  The wisdom in this Ayah defies translation. In 2009, when I was in Jerusalem for an interfaith meeting, I related this Ayah to a rabbi and there were tears in his eyes. Following the example of Moses the great Prophet, Iqbal goes “up on the mountain” and like Moses he wants to bring back “some information” for his people. He is not a wali who may be satisfied with a heady drink from Wahdat al Wajud. He has gone further to stations of higher ecstasy and has become a Shaheed (a witness) as in Wahdat ash Shahada of Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi (d 1624 CE) of his native Punjab. This aspect of Iqbal needs further elaboration.

Iqbal does not spare the self-content Wali from his pen. He takes him to task for abandoning the struggle which is the distinguishing attribute of humankind and accepting instead a contemplative relationship with God and satiation with the ecstasy of Divine presence. The static accretions that held down the forward march of Islamic civilization were his target. Iqbal, himself a product of tasawwuf, wants to remove the static weights that held down tasawwuf and impart to it the dynamism that is inherent in it.

The goal of tasawwuf is to overcome the Nafs and be in Divine presence. Tasawwuf has existed since the advent of Islam and derives its inspiration from the Prophet’s uswa e husna (the most beautiful character). There are many tareeqas or methodologies for removing the veils of the Nafs and taking the Self from distractions (kashaf) of duniya (the created world) to the presence of God. All of them trace their knowledge to the inner knowledge imparted by the Prophet himself to the Sahaba. All of them start with an emphasis on strict observance of the Shariah and then move in graduated discipline to a reinforcement of faith through dhikr (remembrance of God), Ehsan (beautiful deeds), Irfan (recognition and insights), Muhibbah (love), taqwa (awe and fear of God), faqr (poverty before God) and finally fana (annihilation). The Sufis derive the basis of each of these stations from the Qur’an. The process is continuous, endless, each station leading to another and to a higher state of ecstasy.

The question is: What happens after fana? The Qur’an provides the guidance: Upon everything there is annihilation save the existence of your Rabb, the owner of majesty and bounty (55: 26-27). Historical tasawwuf got away from the profound implication of fana, namely, it is only the beginning of a renewed struggle to find God. Some walis assumed that once they attained fana they were subsumed in Divine existence. This was the station of Wahdat al Wajud (the unity of existence). It is a deeply spiritual concept and only the initiated discuss it with deep reverence in select circles.

The idea of Wahdat al Wajud, accepted by some sufis, was always suspect in orthodox circles. The premise of Wahdat al Wajud, namely, that all existence exists only in God and nothing exists outside of Him, was sacrilegious in the eyes of many ulema.  Those mystics who spoke of it openly paid the price. Thus it was that when Mansur al-Hallaj cried out: Ana al Haq (I am the Truth), he was summarily executed.

It was not until the advent of Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi (d 1624) that the idea of Wahdat al Wajud went through a major reformation. Sirhindi is considered one of the most influential thinkers of Islamic history. Indeed, some historians take the position that it was the force of his pen that changed the course of Islamic history in the seventeenth century from one that was based on traditional tasawwuf to one based on a more rigorous adherence to the Shariah.

Sirhindi reasserted the proper relationship between man and God, between the created and the Creator. Tawhid (the Unity and Uniqueness of God) dictates that the Creator and the created are not the same. The unity that is apparent at the moment of fana (annihilation), argued Sirhindi, is not the Unity of Existence but the Unity of Witness. After the station of fana (annihilation) comes the station of shaheed (witness). When a man advances to the lofty station of Wahdat us Shahada he becomes a shaheed (a witness) and beholds with his Essence the sublime majesty and bounty of the Creator. This is the inner meaning of Hadith e Qudsi: I was an unknown Treasure; I willed that I be known; so I created (a creation that would know Me).”

Iqbal stood on the shoulders of Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi and took the idea of Wahdat us Shahada one step further. He applied it not just to the station of a witness but to the continuous and unceasing struggle of man to create Divine patterns on earth. In this grand endeavor, he followed not just the example of the Awliya, but also the lessons from the Prophets. Moses (peace be upon him) went up on the mountain and came back with the Ten Commandments. Iqbal the supplicant, a follower of Muhammed (pbuh), humbly presents himself with his Khudi (his Essence) at the feet of the Arsh (throne) and comes back with the dynamism that he wants to impart to his people. It is that dynamism that is the core of tasawwuf. It is that dynamism that is the crux of Islam whose raison d’ etre’ is to guide humankind towards the honor of servanthood as stated in the Qur’an: “I created not the jinns and the humans except to serve (worship) Me”. It is that dynamism of servanthood that animates Iqbal.

That is Iqbal’s “Khudi”, his timeless, spaceless Essence, the lamp in the mirror of his Spirit, the Light which he wants to share with his people. It is this khudi that animates his poetry, his life, his thoughts, his actions. He imparts a new, transcendent dimension to Urdu literature. He dares to push the envelope but always remains within it, a man of deep faith and vision, a mujtahid but always a humble follower of al deen-e-Muhammadi.

Wa Allahu A’lam.

(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)