Re: Iqbal, Reformer or Radical

In response to all of the posts about what Iqbal’s label should be.

I had the professor who is now teaching that Catholic and Islamic perspectives course, and I definitely noted the difference in the way that historical figures were categorized in relation to Islam.

To be honest, it irritates me that anyone who advocates an Islamic state is instantly labeled ‘Radical.’ Just to be clear, this country was founded on Christian ideals..doest that make the Founding Fathers radical? Uh..no!  Of course, ignoring the fact that many of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders and so on.. I don’t want to open that can of worms right now.

Anyway, OF COURSE there will never be complete agreement on Islamic Shariah. But just to be clear, there is NEVER  complete agreement on any type of ideology. I get annoyed because by labeling any and all who advocate an Islamic state, you get blindsided and automatically assume that so-and-so must be fundamentalist or must be harsh.

As we’ve been learning in this course all along, all the reformers were concerned that there was an over-emphasis on legal jurisprudence, instead of spirituality. All of the reformers advocated a balance of the two. The overall rules of Islam are not completely foreign to our majority-Christian state. I felt like Iqbal was proposing a state that emphasized the major tenets of Islam. I could hardly imagine Iqbal, being the academic and poet he was, using militant means in order to establish an Islamic state.

He was an intellectual theorizing on what he thought the best course of action would be for the Muslims of India who were marginalized and discriminated (and still are to this day).