Mr. Irfan Iqbal Throughout history, prophets, poets and philosophers have appeared to remind human beings of their true nature, a nature composed of a temporal and celestial element. They attempted to revive in human beings the Divine Spark which is an integral part of their constitution. Speaking of this Divine Spark, the Quran notes that when Allah (SWT) created the first human being, He breathed His own spirit into this new creation (Al-Hijr 15:29 and Al-Sajdah 32:9). Therefore, human nature is not “human”, it is a “humanity” which contains within itself an element of the Divine. But after being created "in the best conformation" (Al-Teen 95:4), the human being was reduced "to the lowest of the low" (Al-Teen 95:5). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayThe question now arises whether the human individual can once again rise to the original noble heights to which he was raised created. In the 20th century, no Muslim thinker explored this question with as much insight as the great poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938). Iqbal formulated his philosophy of khudi in order to express his ideas on this subject. The following quatrain illustrates the motive behind his spiritual and intellectual efforts and the essential core of his philosophy: Why should I ask the wise about my beginnings? It’s my ultimate destiny that really concerns me. T Philosophy of Iqbal's Khudi 49 Raise your khudi to such heights that before every decree, God Himself asks you: “Tell me, what is your wish? » Iqbal's philosophy essentially revolves around the question of the progression of the human being, or the ascension of the "self" or "ego" --- the Iqbalian khudi --- in the sense of reach exalted heights --- the heights to which Allah Almighty (SWT) Himself begins to take the wishes, hopes, and aspirations of human beings before formulating His decree. Iqbal argues that khudi is the root of all existence, an entity that may seem perishable but can achieve immortality. The human ego or “I” has the potential to achieve permanence as part of the constitution of the universe provided it adopts a certain way of life. The ego can evolve, progress and succeed as well as degenerate, atrophy and fail. The Quran sets out these two possibilities as follows: “He who causes this (self) to grow in purity has indeed attained success; and he who neglects this (self) has indeed utterly failed.'' (Al-Shams 91:9,10). The human ego has the capacity to grow by absorbing the elements of the universe, of which it seems to be an insignificant part, as well as the capacity to incorporate the attributes of Allah (SWT). Muslim Sufis advised: Create in yourself the attributes of Allah. If the human ego is able to do this, it will become worthy to be God's vicegerent on earth. Iqbal argues that the human ego occupies a central place in the universe, while at the same time it is intimately linked to the ultimate ego, or God himself. Iqbal notes that, in the whole range of being, the grade of the ego gradually rises until it reaches perfection in man. This is why the Quran states that the Ultimate Ego is closer to man than his own neck vein. In order to reach these noble heights of perfection, the ego must pass through three stages. which Iqbal describes in Asrar-e-Khudi. These three stages can be seen as the different spiritual phases through which the ego must pass in its journey of spiritual ascension: Ita'at, or obedience to Divine Law; Dabt-e-Nafs, or self-control, which is the highest form of self-awareness or ego; Niyabat-e-Ilahi, orvicegerence of God. Although these three stages of the spiritual progression of the human ego superficially resemble Nietzsche's three stages of metamorphosis of the spirit, they are not the same. In fact, Iqbal himself found it "necessary to warn the reader of Asrar-i-Khudi that Nietzsche does not believe at all in the spiritual fact which I have described as khudi...". Accepting the reality of the human ego is itself the most pressing proof that the three stages of the development of the Iqbalian khudi are not identical to the three stages of the development of the Nietzschean mind. Nietzsche argues that the human "I" is a fiction and Iqbal accepts the argument that this is indeed the case if the matter is considered from a purely intellectual point of view. This position of Nietzsche echoes the Kantian argument in The Critique of Pure Reason according to which the notions of God, immortality and freedom cannot be proven on intellectual grounds, however useful these notions may be to practical purposes. But Iqbal goes on to note that the existence of the “I” cannot be dismissed simply because it cannot be proven on intellectual grounds, because the human ego is not a purely intellectual entity – its existence is also rooted in inner experiences. Bradley (1846-1924) also noted that when one goes beyond the constraints of purely intellectual thought and considers the question from the angle of "inner experience", the "I" is no longer a fiction but a indubitable fact. Iqbal notes that Leibnitz, in asserting in his Philosophy of Khudi 51 that the "I" is an ultimate fact, was closer to the truth than Kant or Nietzsche. But Leibnitz saw the human self as something closed or windowless. Iqbal, however, notes that this assertion is contradicted by our experience in which the "I" can grow and evolve through the process of education. In light of this, the most pressing question for Iqbal is not whether the human ego is a reality or not – it most certainly is a reality – but whether this weak, created, dependent ego or "I » can survive the shock of death and thus become a permanent element in the constitution of the universe. As Iqbal argues in Asrar-e-Khudi, the human ego can achieve immortality if it adopts a certain way of life through which it can come into contact with the Ultimate Source of existence, the Ultimate Ego. Since the attainment of permanence depends on self-perfection and coming into agreement with the Divine Will, Iqbal rightly exhorts one to “know” one’s inner self. “Know thyself” is an exhortation that has been made many times before by many others; the problem lies not in the exhortation itself but in its approach. According to Iqbal, all distinctly philosophical problems have an ultimate solution in the self, but, unfortunately, it is this very self that is still ignored. The reason behind ignorance of the self is the fact that the self is considered a material entity. But the human being is not only a material being, he also has an immaterial component. Iqbal says that “the unity called man is a body when we consider it as acting in relation to what we call the external world; it is the spirit or the soul when you view it as acting in relation to the ultimate goal and ideal in such a context. "In other words, there is an element in the composition of the human being that manifests and experiences reality quite differently from the corporeal element of the human composition---this non-corporeal element is the human soul. Together, body and soul form a unity. Thus, the Iqbalian “self” is an entity in which the body and soul must work together. The two must grow together andwork harmoniously if we want to strengthen the personality of an individual. The body and soul are indispensable to mutual needs, as Iqbal notes: ...the body is not a thing situated in an absolute void; it is a system of events or acts. The system of experiences that we call soul or ego is also a system of actions. This does not mean erasing the distinction between soul and body; it only brings them closer to each other. The characteristic of the ego is spontaneity; the acts composing the body are repeated. The body is an accumulated action or habit of the soul; and as such, inseparable from it. 4 Iqbal expresses the same point in a couplet: To name the body and the soul separately is the requirement of speech. But seeing (or knowing) the body and the soul as separate entities is heresy. According to Iqbal, the soul is that element of the constitution of the human being which can only be explained in the sense that it is a divine spark in the human being. : The ambience of the Divine Light is enveloped in this same (body of) clay, O carefree person! You are much more than a sentient being! Modern secular thought has lost all knowledge of this Divine Spark. Ignorance of this spiritual reality has led to the degeneration of human beings to subhuman levels of existence, despite numerous scientific, technological and economic achievements. Le Compte Du Noüy ends his book Human Destiny with these words: And that he [man] above all never forgets that the divine spark is in him, and in him alone, and that he is free from ignore, or draw closer to God by showing willingness to work with Him and for Him. When a human being forgets this Spark of Divinity within, he falls prey to the false sense of personal freedom - a freedom which, in reality, is the worst form of slavery. Having lost sight of the Divine Spark within, the human being inevitably loses sight of all higher moral and ethical principles and, as a result, his life becomes totally subject to the animal instincts of the bodily flesh. By neglecting awareness and realization of the Divinity within, the Divine Spark fades and eventually goes out completely. This leads to an unbalanced life in which the individual exists only as an animal, Homo sapiens, and loses all sense of their humanity. The following observation from the Compte Du Noüy takes on, in the light of these facts, an increased significance: Man must free himself from a slavery which is normal for animals and therefore bad for him. The soul of man requires complete mastery of the flesh. The Enlightenment, the industrial revolution that followed, and the successive era of Marx, Darwin, and Freud, and others like them, seem to be milestones in the evolution of society. human thought. But these and similar stages mean progress and development only in a limited sense: progress and development of technological and mechanical culture. Despite claims that humanity has "progressed" enormously during the modern era, the reality is that moral and spiritual development has remained virtually static while technological and mechanical development has progressed vigorously. technological and material progress has come at the expense of moral and spiritual values. Modern secular society has become fascinated with all this material development, without recognizing the inherent destructive tendency toward moral and spiritual values ​​that this development entails. All “progress” has come to be measured in purely materialist and Darwinian terms but, as the following observation highlights, this definition of “progress” has nothing to do with ethics and spirituality. Professor RM MecIver notes this in his book Society. : We should notdefine social evolution as if it meant or implied progress. How far we find a correspondence between the direction of social evolution and the direction prescribed by our particular conception of social progress is another matter. We can rightly investigate the relationship between the two. But this is only possible if we define social evolution in ethically neutral terms. Having rendered human beings incapable of moral self-evaluation, modern secular thinking has become the greatest contemporary obstacle to the spiritual progress of humanity, because it makes human beings unconscious of the true nature of human reality. as well as the true nature of the reality of the universe. The fatal flaw, the greatest misfortune of modern secular science, philosophy and art is that they have become totally unbalanced – totally focused on the material dimension of reality and oblivious to its spiritual dimension. Therefore, it is not surprising that not only have human beings failed to progress spiritually during the modern period, but more tragically, their moral and spiritual faculties have become dulled and virtually dysfunctional. However, even if the spiritual faculties are asleep, they are not dead. These faculties await the moment when the human being recognizes the importance of these inner capacities and decides to reappropriate them so that they can play their rightful role. in the reconstruction of humanity. For now, however, modern thought has come to rely exclusively on science (or on a philosophy that is science's handmaiden) in its search for "objective" knowledge. But, in fact, neither science nor philosophy is capable by itself of achieving truly “objective” knowledge concerning the real nature of reality and the real reality of human beings. of science in the human quest for knowledge, Iqbal notes: The natural sciences deal with matter, life and spirit; but as soon as you ask the question of how matter, life, and mind are mutually related, you begin to see the sectional character of the various sciences that deal with them and the inability of these sciences, taken in isolation, to provide a complete answer to your question. question. In fact, the different natural sciences are like so many vultures descending on the corpse of Nature, and each escaping with a piece of its flesh... The natural sciences are by nature sectional; it cannot, if it is faithful to its nature and its function, establish its theory as a complete vision of Reality.8 While the limitation of science is that it is by nature "sectional", the limitation of philosophy is of a similar nature: philosophy is an intellectual vision of things; and, as such, does not care to go beyond a concept which can reduce all the rich variety of experience to a system. He sees reality from a distance, so to speak. 9 Due to the obvious limitations of science and philosophy, it is equally obvious that human beings cannot truly realize their humanity if left to depend on their physical and mental abilities alone. In other words, the human ago, the Iqbalian khudi, cannot realize its true potential if the individual only benefits from the resources of science and philosophy. For Iqbal, only religion can provide us with the intimate and holistic knowledge of Reality --- the kind of knowledge that is an essential prerequisite for the realization of our humanity. Iqbal maintains: 56 Quranic Horizons 3:2 [Philosophy] is a theory... [Religion] is a living experience, an association, an intimacy.To achieve this intimacy, thought must rise higher than itself and find its fulfillment in an attitude of mind which religion describes as prayer - one of the last words on the lips of the prophet of Islam. This attitude of mind, although only in its most developed and highest form, is the theistic counterpart of Nietzsche's atheistic will to power. Of course, willpower is essential if one is to overcome the temptations of an immoral life, as religion demands. However, the will without the support of belief in something higher and more sublime cannot resist the attraction to the flesh and corruption. Khudi requires the coupling of the will to power and belief, ultimately realizing itself in the form of yaqeen or a deep inner conviction. In fact, it is an unshakable conviction that serves as the focal point for the “self” to act and react to the sensual temptations of life. However, this conviction will only be realized if the individual understands that his life has a purpose, and that this purpose has an individual and collective dimension. The evolution and ascension of the ego is not simply a detached, personal, and individual event---this spiritual development also has a collective dimension that cannot be ignored. Iqbal notes that a lot of sacrifice and benevolence is required on the part of a person in order to bring the individual, self-preserving ego into harmony with the collective ego. Therefore, the governing principle of life cannot be that of conflict between the 'self' and other 'selves' if the dynamic process of khudi development is to take place. This process can only unfold if there is a conscious awareness of the tension between the individual and collective dimensions, an awareness which in turn allows the individual personality to balance this tension. Iqbal defines 'personality' as that very state of tension which, if not maintained, will cause indolence to set in, short-circuiting the process of khudi development. The process of self-realization requires that tension be present, because tension is the source of dynamism. The complete freedom of the human being from the limitations of the material world – and of materialism itself – depends on maintaining this tension. In essence, the human being's aspiration to achieve perfection necessarily requires the achievement of a balance between the individual ego and the collective ego. In Iqbal's words: The life of the ego is a kind of tension caused by the ego invading the environment and the environment invading the ego. The ego does not stay outside this arena of mutual invasion. It is present there as a guiding energy and is formed and disciplined by its own experiences. This constant interaction between the individual self and the environment provides the ideal opportunity for self-assessment. As the individual interacts with his or her environment, he or she must constantly evaluate his or her own “self,” not only on an individual basis, but also in relation to other “selves” in the environment. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the initial emphasis is on the individual self. Only the individual ego that has achieved a certain degree of self-realization and understanding will be able to truly understand and engage constructively with other individual egos. This is another way of saying that only the ego that has learned self-respect, self-love, and self-love. assertiveness will be able to extend respect and love to others, and also affirm their dignity and autonomy. Iqbal's khudi philosophy posits that a mature and developed understanding of respect, love and affirmation on the part of the individual ego requires respect, love and : 59