Quotes from Muhammad Iqbal

Inductive reason, which alone makes man master of his environment, is an achievement and when once born it must be reinforced by inhibiting the growth of other modes of knowledge.

The ultimate purpose of religious life is to make this evolution move in a direction far more important to the destiny of the ego than the moral health of the social fabric which forms his present environment.

Another way of judging the value of a prophet's religious experience, therefore, would be to examine the type of manhood that he has created, and the cultural world that has sprung out of the spirit of his message.

The immediacy of mystic experience simply means that we know God just as we know other objects. God is not a mathematical entity or a system of concepts mutually related to one another and having no reference to experience.

The possibility of a scientific treatment of history means a wider experience, a greater maturity of practical reason, and finally a fuller realization of certain basic ideas regarding the nature of life and time.

It may, however, be said that the level of experience to which concepts are inapplicable cannot yield any knowledge of a universal character, for concepts alone are capable of being socialized.

The highest stage of Man's ethical progress is reached when he becomes absolutely free from fear and grief.

Alas for a love whose fire is extinct, A love that was born in the Holy Place and died in the house of idols!

To Javed- My way of life is poverty, not the pursuit of wealth; Barter not thy Selfhood; win a name in adversity.

You remember what Goethe said in the moment of his death [...] 'More light.' Death opens up the way to more light, and carries us to those regions where we stand face to face with eternal Beauty and Truth. I remember the time when I read Goethe's poems with you, and I hope you also remember those happy days when we were so near to each other spiritually speaking. Iqbals Briefwechsel mit Emma Wegenast (S. 45, Iqbal and Goethe, Christina Oesterheld)

People who have no hold over their process of thinking are likely to be ruined by liberty of thought. If thought is immature, liberty of thought becomes a method of converting men into animals.

But the perception of life as an organic unity is a slow achievement, and depends for its growth on a people's entry into the main current of world-events.

Arise and pour pure wine into my cup, Pour moon beams into the dark night of my thought, That I may lead home the wanderer And imbue the idle looker-on with restless impatience; And advance hotly on a new quest And become known as the champion of a new spirit

Who am I? Who art Thou? Where is the world?

All will be annihilated in this age except the one who established in his ways and firm in his thought is

Khuda tujhe kisi toofaan se aashna karde, Ke tere behr ki maujon men iztiraab naheen May God grant you a storm! The voyage of your life is on too placid an ocean…

Bien qu'ils possèdent des moyens variés, moi je ne veux prendre des Européens que des mises en garde. Ô toi qui es prisonnier de leur imitation, libère-toi! Prends refuge dans le Qoran, et libère-toi!

He is no mean poet, and his verse can rouse or persuade even if his logic fail to convince. His message is not for the Mohammedans of India alone, but for Moslems everywhere: accordingly he writes in Persian instead of Hindustani—a happy choice, for amongst educated Moslems there are many familiar with Persian literature, while the Persian language is singularly well adapted to express philosophical ideas in a style at once elevated and charming.

I said, "The thing we quested after is never attained." He said, "The unattainable - that thing is my desire!

In an over-organized society the individual is altogether crushed out of existence. He gains the whole wealth of social thought around him and loses his own soul.

An idol-house of six dimensions is this world; for this Somnath, has all by it, been created.* It is not in its way, for it to go on repeating… I'm not you, you are not I; this, I'm repeating!

Life is passing all the ignorant are believing; but it is passing, to again be newly arriving. Time, a chain of days, nights... nothing else: name for breathing in and out, nothing else! And, what is this wave of breath? A sword! What is Self? The sharp edge of the sword! What is the Self? Life's innermost mystery! It is the whole of creation waking up, to see! Self's drunk upon others but enjoys solitude, it is the ocean that a drop all it does include.

Though it is from the East that the Sun rises, Showing itself bold and bright without a veil, it burns and blazes with inward fire Only when it escapes from the shackles of East and West. Drunk with the splendor it springs up out of its East that it may subject all its horizons to its mastery. Its nature is innocent of both East and West, Though in origin, true, it is an Easterner.

Although rare, even to this day such are found in this community. Who do their wudu using the tears they shed during their predawn supplications.