Muhammad Iqbal and the Meanings of South Asian Islamic Modernism

Abstract

“Muhammad Iqbal and the Meanings of South Asian Islamic Modernism” focuses on a highly influential South Asian Islamic modernist’s moral reasoning on key debates like those on the nature of good governance, economic justice, and the use of foundational texts in reformist thought. British Indian poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (d.1938) argues for dynamic, vital remaking of the self and the community through his poetry and prose in Urdu, Persian, and English. Iqbal’s work intervenes in a crucial moment in the history of South Asia, declaring the need for a new understanding of Muslim life in light of what he felt was a pivotal—opportune as well as desperate—moment for reviving Islam and the Muslim community on the cusp of the Partition of India. I use this work to explore the ways in which conditions of domination, for example that of colonial India, affect the imagination of good governance. I also analyze the relationship between economic and religious framings of moral reasoning in the pursuit of just economic conditions. Finally, I demonstrate that debates over the use and interpretation of foundational texts show a wide range of Muslim scholars participating in tradition so that the shared, co-constituted intellectual history can come to the forefront. Politics, economics, and religious reform are examples of fields in which Iqbal envisions a future for moral reasoning, and these examples stand against existing scholarship on the meaning of religion and place of moral reasoning in modernity. I argue that Iqbal’s work offers an opportunity to challenge the scholarly narrative toward an expanded understanding of moral possibilities in modernity.