The Secrets of the Self: Introduction

1 Here, perhaps, I should guard against a possible misunderstanding. Iqbal's philosophy is religious, but he does not treat philosophy as the handmaid of religion. Holding that the full development of the individual presupposes a society, he finds the ideal society in what he considers to be the Prophet's conception of Islam. Every Moslem, in striving to make himself a

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The Asrár-i Khudí is composed in the metre and modelled on the style of the famous Masnaví. In the prologue Iqbal relates how Jalálu’ddín Rúmí, who is to him almost what Virgil was to Dante, appeared in a vision and bade him arise and sing. Much as he dislikes the type of Sufism exhibited by Hafiz, he pays homage to the pure and profound genius of Jalálu’ddín, though he rejects the doctrine of self-abandonment taught by the great Persian

"1. The Philosophical Basis of the Asrár-i Khudí

1 The universe, as Dr. McTaggart says, is an association of individuals; but we must add that the orderliness and adjustment which we find in this association is not eternally achieved and complete in itself. It is the result of instinctive or conscious effort. We are gradually travelling from chaos to cosmos and are helpers in this achievement. Nor are the members of the association fixed; new members are ever coming to birth to

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"Obviously, this view of man and the universe is opposed to that of the English Neo-Hegelians as well as to all forms of pantheistic Súfism which regard absorption in a universal life or soul as the final aim and salvation of man. 2 The moral and religious ideal of man is not self-negation but self-affirmation, and he attains to this ideal

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1 The greatest obstacle in the way of life is matter, Nature; yet Nature is not evil, since it enables the inner powers of life to unfold themselves.

1 and reaches fuller freedom by approaching the Individual who is most free—God. In one word, life is an endeavour for freedom.

"2. The Ego and Continuation of Personality

"In man the centre of life becomes an Ego or Person. Personality is a state of tension and can continue only if that state is maintained. If the state of tension is not maintained, relaxation will ensue. Since personality, or the state of tension, is the most valuable achievement of man, he should see that he does not revert to a state of relaxation. That which tends to maintain

1 religion, and ethics 2 must be judged from the standpoint of personality. My criticism of Plato 3 is directed against those philosophical systems which hold up death rather than life as their ideal—systems which ignore the greatest obstruction to life, namely, matter, and

1 Bergson has taught us that time is not an infinite line (in the spatial sense of the word 'line') through which we must pass whether we wish it or not. This idea of time is adulterated. Pure time has no length. Personal immortality is an aspiration: you can have it if you make an effort to achieve it. It depends on our adopting in this life modes of thought and activity which tend to maintain the state of tension. Buddhism, Persian Súfism, and allied forms of ethics will not serve our purpose. But they are not wholly useless, because after periods of great activity we need

1 Only those Egos will survive this state of relaxation who have taken good care during the present life. Although life abhors repetition in its evolution, yet on Bergson's principles the resurrection of the body too, as Wildon Carr says, is quite possible. By breaking up time into moments we spatialise it and then find difficulty in getting over it. The true nature of time is reached when we look into our deeper self. 2 Real time is life itself, which can preserve itself

"3. The Education of the Ego

"The Ego is fortified by love (’ishq). 1 This word is used in a very wide sense and means the desire to assimilate, to absorb. Its highest form is the creation of values and ideals and the endeavour to realise them. Love individualises the lover as well as the beloved. The effort to realise the most unique individuality individualises the seeker

1 All that is achieved without personal effort comes under su’ál. The son of a rich man who inherits his father's wealth is an 'asker' (beggar); so is every one who thinks the thoughts of others. Thus, in order to fortify the Ego we should cultivate love, i.e. the power of assimilative action, and avoid all forms of ' asking,' i.e. inaction. The lesson of assimilative action is given by the life of the Prophet, at least to a Mohammedan.

"In another part of the poem 2 I have hinted at the general principles of Moslem ethics and have tried to reveal their meaning in connexion with the idea of personality. The Ego in its movement towards uniqueness has to pass through three stages:

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(c) Divine vicegerency. 2

"This (divine vicegerency, niyábat-i iláhí) is the third and last stage of human development on earth. The ná’ib (vicegerent) is the vicegerent of God on earth. He is the completest Ego, the goal of humanity, 3 the acme of life both in mind and body; in him the discord of our mental life becomes a harmony. The highest power is united in him with the highest knowledge. In his life, thought and action, instinct and reason, become one. He is the last fruit of the tree of humanity, and all the trials of a painful evolution

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Every one, I suppose, will acknowledge that the substance of the Asrár-i Khudí is striking enough to command attention. In the poem, naturally, this philosophy presents itself under a different aspect. Its audacity of thought and phrase is less apparent, its logical brilliancy dissolves in the glow of feeling and imagination, and it wins the heart before taking possession of the

vii:1 The present translation follows the text of the second edition.

xiii:1 His criticism of Hafiz called forth angry protests from Súfí circles in which Hafiz is venerated as a master-hierophant. Iqbal made no recantation, but since the passage had served its purpose and was offensive to many, he cancelled it in the second edition of the poem. It is omitted in my translation.

xiv:1 The principles of Islam, regarded as the ideal society, are set forth in the author's second poem, the Rumúz-i Békhudí or "Mysteries of Selflessness." He explains the title by pointing out that the individual who loses himself in the community reflects both the past and the future as in a mirror, so that he transcends mortality and enters into the life of Islam, which is infinite and everlasting. Among the topics discussed are the origin of society, the divine guidance of man through the prophets, the formation of collective life-centres, and the value of History as a factor in maintaining the sense of personal identity in a people.

xvii:1 This view was held by the orthodox Imám Ahmad ibn Hanbal in its extreme (anthropomorphic) form.

xviii:1 Kor. ch. 23, v. 14: "Blessed is God, the best of those who create."

xviii:2 Cf. his note on "Islam and Mysticism" (The New Era, 1916, p. 250).

xix:1 Here Iqbal adds: "Mauláná Rúmí has very beautifully expressed this idea. The Prophet, when a little boy, was once lost in the desert. His nurse Halima was almost beside herself with grief, but while roaming the desert in search of the boy she heard a voice saying:

xx:1 Transl. l. 289 foll.

xxi:1 According to the Tradition, "The true Faith is between predestination and freewill."

xxii:1 Transl. l. 673 foll. In a note on "Our Prophet's criticism of contemporary Arabian poetry " (The New Era, 1916, p. 251) Iqbal writes: "The ultimate end of all human activity is Life—glorious, powerful, exuberant. All human art must be subordinated to this final purpose, and the value of everything must be determined in reference to its life-yielding capacity. The highest art is that which awakens our dormant will-force and nerves us to face the trials of life manfully. All that brings drowsiness and makes us shut our eyes to Reality around, on the mastery of which alone Life depends, is a message of decay and death. There should be no opium-eating in Art. The dogma of Art for the sake of Art is a clever invention of decadence to cheat us out of life and power."

xxii:2 Ibid. l. 537 foll.

xxii:3 Ibid. l. 631 foll.

xxiii:1 Ibid. l. 1531 foll.

xxiv:1 Kor. ch. 23, v. 102.

xxiv:2 Transl. 1. 1549 foll.

xxv:1 Ibid. l. 323 foll.

xxvi:1 Ibid. l. 435 foll.

xxvi:2 Ibid. l. 815 foll.

xxvii:1 Ibid. l. 849 foll.

xxvii:2 Ibid. l. 893 foll.

xxvii:3 Man already possesses the germ of vicegerency, as God says in the Koran (ch. 2, v. 28): "Lo, I will appoint a khalifa (vicegerent) on the earth." Cf. Transl. l. 434.

xxix:1 Writing of "Muslim Democracy" in The New Era, 1916, p. 251, Iqbal says: "The Democracy of Europe—overshadowed by socialistic agitation and anarchical fear—originated mainly in the economic regeneration of European societies. Nietzsche, however, abhors this 'rule of the herd' and, hopeless of the plebeian, he bases all higher culture on the cultivation and growth of an Aristocracy of Supermen. But is the plebeian so absolutely hopeless? The Democracy of Islam did not grow out of the extension of economic opportunity; it is a spiritual principle based on the assumption that every human being is a centre of latent power, the possibilities of which can be developed by cultivating a certain type of character. Out of the plebeian material Islam has formed men of the noblest type of life and power. Is not, then, the Democracy of early Islam an experimental refutation of the ideas of Nietzsche?"