1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Muhammad Iqbál

Muhammad Iqbál Quotes

Allama Iqbal , widely known as Muhammad Iqbal, was a poet, philosopher, and politician, as well as an academic, barrister and scholar in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. He is called the "Spiritual Father of Pakistan " He is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature, with literary work in both Urdu and Persian.

Iqbal is admired as a prominent poet by Pakistanis, Iranians and other international scholars of literature. Though Iqbal is best known as an eminent poet, he is also a highly acclaimed "Muslim philosophical thinker of modern times". His first poetry book, The Secrets of the Self, appeared in the Persian language in 1915, and other books of poetry include The Secrets of Selflessness, Message from the East and Persian Psalms. Amongst these, his best known Urdu works are The Call of the Marching Bell, Gabriel's Wing, The Rod of Moses and a part of Gift from Hijaz. Along with his Urdu and Persian poetry, his Urdu and English lectures and letters have been very influential in cultural, social, religious and political disputes.

In 1922, he was knighted by King George V, granting him the title "Sir". While studying law and philosophy in England, Iqbal became a member of the London branch of the All-India Muslim League. Later, during the League's December 1930 session, he delivered his most famous presidential speech known as the Allahabad Address in which he pushed for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India.

In much of South Asia and the Urdu speaking world, Iqbal is regarded as the Shair-e-Mashriq . He is also called Mufakkir-e-Pakistan , Musawar-e-Pakistan and Hakeem-ul-Ummat . The Pakistan government officially named him "National Poet of Pakistan". His birthday Yōm-e Welādat-e Muḥammad Iqbāl , or Iqbal Day, is a public holiday in Pakistan.

Sir Muhammad Iqbal's house is still located in Sialkot and is recognized as Iqbal's Manzil and is open for visitors.

✵ 9. November 1877 – 21. April 1938
Muhammad Iqbál photo
Muhammad Iqbál: 28   quotes 8   likes

Famous Muhammad Iqbál Quotes

“Democracy is a system in which heads are counted but not weighed.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Quoted from Elst, Koenraad. Hindu dharma and the culture wars. (2019). New Delhi : Rupa.

“My ancestors were Brahmins. They spent their lives in search of god. I am spending my life in search of man.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Educational Thinkers http://books.google.com/books?id=O6Fp2zaQVVMC&pg=PA151&dq=Muhammad+Iqbal+Brahmin&hl=en&ei=hJQaTKPPKMewcfnqzIEK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Muhammad%20Iqbal%20Brahmin&f=false

“The alchemist of the West has turned stone into glass
But my alchemy has transmuted glass into flint

Pharaohs of today have stalked me in vain”

Muhammad Iqbál

Muhammad Iqbál Quotes about God

“Would we have played with our lives for nothing but worldly gain?
If our people had run after earth's goods and gold,
Need they have smashed idols, and not idols sold?…
Fake gods that men had made, who did break and shatter?
Who routed infidel armies and destroyed them with bloody slaughter?
Who put out and made cold the sacred flame in Iran?”

Muhammad Iqbál

Shikwa. https://archive.org/details/ShikwaJawabIShikwaIqbalsDialogueWithAllahTrKhushwantSinghIqbal
Shikwa & Jawab Shikwa : The complaint and the answer : the human grievance and the divine response

“"Muhammad of Arabia ascended the highest Heaven and returned. I swear by God that if I had reached that point, I should never have returned." These are the words of a great Muslim saint, 'AbdulQuddës of Gangoh. In the whole range of Sufi literature it will be probably difficult to find words which, in a single sentence, disclose such an acute perception of the psychological difference between the prophetic and the mystic types of consciousness. The mystic does not wish to return from the repose of "unitary experience"; and even when he does return, as he must, his return does not mean much for mankind at large.”

Muhammad Iqbál

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/reconstruction/index.htm

“"Heart – “It is absolutely certain that God does exist.””

Muhammad Iqbál

stray reflections http://www.allamaiqbal.com/

“Shah Alamgir, that high and mighty king,
Pride and renown of Gurgan Timur’s line,
In whom Islam attained a loftier fame
And wider honour graced the Prophet’s Law,
He the last arrow to our quiver left
In the affray of Faith with Unbelief;
When that the impious seed of heresy,
By Akbar nourished, sprang and sprouted fresh
In Dara’s soul, the candle of the heart
Was dimmed in every breast, no more secure
Against corruption our Community
Continued; then God chose from India
That humble-minded warrior, Alamgir,
Religion to revive, faith to renew.
The lightning of his sword set all ablaze
The harvest of impiety; faith’s torch
Once more its radiance o’er our counsels shed.”

Muhammad Iqbál

The Secrets of Selflessness, Emperor Alamgir and the Tiger

“Muhammad of Arabia ascended the highest Heaven and returned. I swear by God that if I had reached that point, I should never have returned.”

Muhammad Iqbál

These are the words of a great Muslim saint, 'AbdulQuddës of Gangoh. In the whole range of Sufi literature it will be probably difficult to find words which, in a single sentence, disclose such an acute perception of the psychological difference between the prophetic and the mystic types of consciousness. The mystic does not wish to return from the repose of "unitary experience"; and even when he does return, as he must, his return does not mean much for mankind at large.
Source: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/reconstruction/index.htm

“The immediacy of mystic experience simply means that we know God just as we know other objects. God is not a mathematical entity or a system of concepts mutually related to one another and having no reference to experience.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Source: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Reconstruction_of_Religious_Thought/uCh14nl09jkC?hl=en (1930), p. 14

Muhammad Iqbál Quotes

“Nations are born in the hearts of poets; they prosper and then die in the hands of politicians.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Stray reflections http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/strayreflections/index.htm

Heart

“Human intellect is natures attempt at self criticism”

Muhammad Iqbál

stray reflections[http:www.allamaiqbal.com.htm]

Nature

“A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty, according to the teaching of the Quran, even to defend their places of worship, if need be. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and behaviour; and which has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its thought, its culture, and thereby recreating its whole past as a living operative factor, in my present consciousness.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930 (from University of Columbia website http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_1930.html)

Love , Life , Religion , Law

“What if the song be Indian, it is Hejazi in its verve.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Shikwa. According to some sources, a more literal translation is: "No matter if my idiom is Indian, my spirit is that of Hejaz." C.f. Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 343.
Shikwa & Jawab Shikwa : The complaint and the answer : the human grievance and the divine response

“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 North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930 (from University of Columbia website http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_1930.html)

Appearance

“I have already indicated to you the meaning of the word religion, as applied to Islam. The truth is that Islam is not a Church. It is a State conceived as a contractual organism long before Rousseau ever thought of such a thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earth-rooted creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930 (from University of Columbia website http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_1930.html)

Truth , Religion , Animals

“It cannot be denied that Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity – by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal – has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished those basic emotions and loyalties which gradually unify scattered individuals and groups, and finally transform them into a well-defined people, possessing a moral consciousness of their own.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930 (from University of Columbia website http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_1930.html)

Life , People , History , Animals

“What if the pitcher be Persian, from Hejaz is the wine I serve.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Shikwa & Jawab Shikwa : The complaint and the answer : the human grievance and the divine response

Wine

“All land belongs to the Muslims, because it belongs to their God.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Source: Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (1992). Negationism in India: Concealing the record of Islam.

God

“Would we have played with our lives for nothing but worldly gain?
If our people had run after earth's goods and gold,
Need they have smashed idols, and not idols sold?”

Muhammad Iqbál

Source: Shikwa. https://archive.org/details/ShikwaJawabIShikwaIqbalsDialogueWithAllahTrKhushwantSinghIqbal

People

“O water of the river Ganges, thou rememberst the day
When our torrent flooded thy valleys...”

Muhammad Iqbál

Source: quoted in Annemarie Schimmel - Gabriel's Wing_ Study into the Religious Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1989, Iqbal Academy) also in Jain, M. (2010). Parallel pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim relations, 1707-1857.

Water

“Every land which belongs to God is our land.”

Muhammad Iqbál

As quoted in Islam and Nationalism, Dr. Ali Mohammed Naqvi . Also translated as: "All land belongs to Muslims, because it belongs to their God. in : JPRS Report: Near East & South Asia, 93067 Foreign Broadcast Information Service, 1993 https://books.google.com/books?id=rki6AAAAIAAJ

God

“Ends and purposes, whether they exist as conscious or subconscious tendencies, form the wrap and woof of our conscious experience.”

Muhammad Iqbál

Source: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Reconstruction_of_Religious_Thought/uCh14nl09jkC?hl=en (1930), p. 42

Similar authors

Rajneesh photo
Rajneesh 76
Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Mahatma Gandhi photo
Mahatma Gandhi 238
pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-rul…
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. 658
American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci…
Jacques Prevért photo
Jacques Prevért 12
French poet, screenwriter
Abdus Salam photo
Abdus Salam 3
theoretical physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics recipient
Guillaume Apollinaire photo
Guillaume Apollinaire 28
French poet
Maurice Maeterlinck photo
Maurice Maeterlinck 21
Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist
Indíra Gándhí photo
Indíra Gándhí 35
Indian politician and Prime Minister
Pablo Neruda photo
Pablo Neruda 136
Chilean poet
Maya Angelou photo
Maya Angelou 247
American author and poet