IQBAL'S HONOURED IQRAS* : MASTER PRECIS

ALLAMA POET Esteemed Philosopher Dr. Muhammad Iqbal tells us, in his immortal lines : '' Raised thyself to such heights that before each decree of fate, God Himself asks thee - what do you desire? ''

This is not mere poetry, it is an ontological reversal. Here, divine determinism yields to dialogue; the  Absolute no longer dictates but converses. The human being stands before God not as a slave but as co-creator.

In this vision, destiny becomes participatory, a moral negotiation between divine possibility and human aspiration.

Iqbal, in this, echoes and transforms a lineage of thought that stretches from Kant's moral autonomy to Hegel's dialectic of freedom, from Nietzsche's will to power to Bergson's duree creatrice.

He infuses each with the fire of prophesy. Kant gave us the the categorical imperative, the self-legislating will that binds itself to moral law iqbal transfigures that imperative into a sacred command of becoming :

Freedom is not merely to act according to reason, but to create according to love.

Hegel envisioned Spirit realsing itself through history's dialectic but Iqbal's spirit [ ruh ] is not bounds to historical necessity; it is like Rumi's flame, perpetually in motion, burning toward God.

Read again ''Khudi voh behr hai jis ka koi kinara nahi '' [ The self is an ocean without a shore.]

This Honoured Publishing continues. The World Students Society thanks Professor Tahir Kamran,  Faculty of Liberal Arts, BeaconHouse National University, Lahore.