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Thursday, January 10, 2013

Iqbal's very inspiring words!

As in the beginning of April 660 A.D. 23 years after the Battle of Siffin, in the town of Mecca, a Muslim had stood up to tell the pilgrims of that sacred soil how the unity of Islam had been split up into various factions, so in the beginning of April in the town of Lahore, the soil of which claims the bones of some of the greatest personalities of Islam, I, an insignificant member of the community, venture to stand up and place my finger on this dreadful wound in the body-social. In this great assembly of educated Mussalmans, I condemn this accursed religious and social sectarianism; I condemn it in the name of God, in the name of humanity, in the name of Moses, in the name of Jesus Christ, and in the name of him—a thrill of emotion passes through the very fibre of my soul when I think of that exalted name—yes, in the name of him who brought the final message of freedom and equality to mankind. Islam is one and indivisible; it brooks no distinctions in it. There are no Wahabies, Sh’ias, Mirzais or Sunnies in Islam. Fight not for the interpretations of the truth, when the truth itself is in danger. It is foolish to complain of stumbling when you walk in the darkness of night. Let all come forward and contribute their respective shares in the great toll of the nation. Let the idols of class distinctions and sectarianism be smashed for ever; let the Mussalmans of the country be once more united into a great vital whole. How can we, in the presence of violent internal dispute, expect to succeed in persuading others to our way of thinking? The work of freeing humanity from superstition—the ultimate ideal of Islam as a community, for the realization of which we have done so little in this great land of myth and superstition—will ever remain undone if the emancipators themselves are becoming gradually enchained in the very fetters from which it is their mission to set others free.
(Islam as moral and political ideal, Dr. Allama Iqbal)

2 comments:

Noor said...

In present times, these words could be used as the foundation of new society, a new era of Pakistan. Wish we were awake enough to act upon them.

Unknown said...

True.
May Allah guide us. Can you please refer to any link archiving all the lectures or prose of iqbal?