Allama Iqbal on Islam-Democracy Discourse:
An Analysis of his Views on Compatibility and Incompatibility
Tauseef Ahmed Parray
Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) was a poet and philosopher, a fine prose-writer, a great linguist and man of letters, a well-known lawyer, a leading politician, a front-rank statesman, an esteemed educationist, a great art critic, Muslim reformer, a dominant and one of the most distinguished thinkers of the 20th century. His writings – consisting of poetry in three languages: Punjabi, Urdu and Persian and prose in English and Urdu - have inspired thousands and his thought has moved millions. Iqbal was at the same time a philosopher in the line of al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and al-Ghazzali and a poet in the rank of Saa`di and Hafiz. For most of his life his profession was law and his passion, writing prose and especially poetry, considering it as a vehicle for the propagation of his thought.
Iqbal studied both Islamic sciences and the Western philosophy. His writings were indebted to two principal sources: his Islamic heritage and the western philosophy he studied at Cambridge, Munich, and Heidelberg.
The poetry of Iqbal is mainly philosophical and the questions relating to religion, race and civilization, government, progress of women, literature and arts, and world politics were of equal interest to him.
In this paper, an exploration of Iqbal`s views about democracy is made, revealing that he accepted only those principles of democracy which he deemed compatible with
Islam and at the same time rejected the secular and material orientation of the western democracy; and is followed by the conclusion.
Iqbal`s Acceptance of some Democratic Principles:
Some of the important principles of democracy that are appreciated by Iqbal include
‘freedom’, ‘equality’ and ‘election’. He finds these principles compatible with Islam to a