Allama Iqbal's Assessment of
the Modern West
During the last five hundred years
religious thought in Islam has been practically stationary. There was a time
when European thought received inspiration from the world of Islam. The most
remarkable phenomenon of modern history, however, is the enormous rapidity with
which the world of Islam is spiritually moving towards the West. There is
nothing wrong in this movement, for European culture, on its intellectual side,
is only a further development of some of the most important phases of the
culture of Islam. Our only fear is that the dazzling
exterior of European culture may arrest our movement and we may fail to
reach the true inwardness of that culture. During
all the centuries of our intellectual stupor Europe has been seriously thinking
on the great problems in which the philosophers and scientists of Islam were so
keenly interested Since the Middle Ages, when the schools of Muslim theology
were completed, infinite advance has taken place in the domain of human thought
and experience. The extension of man’s power over Nature has given him a new
faith and a fresh sense of superiority over the forces that constitute his
environment. New points of view have been suggested, old problems have been
re-stated in the light of fresh experience, and new problems have arisen. It seems as if the intellect of man is outgrowing its own
most fundamental categories—time, space, and causality. With the advance
of scientific thought even our concept of intelligibility is undergoing a
change. The theory of Einstein has brought a new vision of the universe and
suggests new ways of looking at the problems common to both religion and
philosophy. No wonder then that the younger generation of Islam in Asia and
Africa demand a fresh orientation of their faith. With the reawakening of
Islam, therefore, it is necessary to examine, in an independent spirit, what
Europe has thought and how far the conclusions reached by her can help us in
the revision and if necessary, reconstruction, of theological thought in Islam.
(The
Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 1930)
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