Of late some people have come out with a claim rejecting Pakistan to have been created on the ‘Ideology of somebody’. They claim it to have come into being as a result of the sacrifice of their forefather’s blood. Of course the claim is true and history is witness to it when at least two million Muslims were slaughtered for the sake of Islamic Pakistan, a separate Muslim land to make the dream of the ideologue a reality. The people of the KPK know very well that a section of the people of the N.W.F.P of that time had opposed the creation of Pakistan, let alone scarifying their blood for it as the history tells us. Facts are preserved by history and cannot be falsified by mere claims.
It is impossible for an unbiased mind to deny that it was ideology of an ideologue which led to the creation of a country that would not have come into being otherwise. It was on the basis of this ideology on which the Muslims of the Subcontinent struggled under the leadership of the Quide Azam and achieved their goal in accordance with their aspirations after a great deal of sacrifices both in men and matter with prelude to realize the dream of Allama Iqbal. Today we celebrate the 135th birth day of our great benevolent with a good gesture of public holiday. History tells us that it was the Allama who gave the exact geographic outline of the land of the pure in 1930 in his famous Ilahbad address when even the name ‘Pakistan’ had not been suggested or visualized. The Allama was not only the ideologue of Pakistan but he was the eulogist of the Muslim Umma and at the same time an unmatchable interpreter of the Holy Quran. His poetry both Urdu and Persian is nothing but a very comprehensive explanation/interpretation of the Quranic Ayas which makes every Muslim of Pakistan to be highly obliged to this great visionary for the aforesaid three dimensional contributions. Allama is a unique personality who has interpreted the message of the Quran in his revolutionary poetry and has reminded the Muslim youth of his glorious past which has been almost forgotten due to our decade long passiveness. Iqbal has the greatest and most effective contribution in the resuscitating of the revolutionary idea that started surfacing during the first half of the previous century. The Muslims as Umma and those of the Subcontinent had gone oblivious to the real status of Isalm of being a “Deen” rather than a mere religion in the popular meaning of the term. It was the Allama who made the Muslims realize that Islam was a complete code of life which wanted its dominance over the whole system of collectivity including the social, political and economic spheres of life.
Serfdom of the Muslims to the Western alien powers had made them passive and narrow-minded to the extent that they remained contented with their religious and dogmatic ideas limiting the Deen of Islam to a few rituals of worship, like daily prayers and fasting. It was Allama Muhammad Iqbal who , at that trying time, cut at the very roots of such a limited thinking and put forward the all embracing significance of the Deen of Islam through the Quranic Message of his poetry. He said,
“Ya wasate Aflak Mein Takbeer-e-Musalsal
Ya Khak ke Aghosh mein Tasbeeh wa Muanajat
An Maslake Mardane Khud Agah Khudamast,
Ein Mazhabe Mulla wa Jamadat wa Nabatat”
History is witness to the fact that nobody had ever thought of the division of ‘Hindustan’ even after 1930, leave alone any such idea coming earlier to anybody’s mind. Being a non-Political person, the solution he put forward for the amelioration of the problems of the Muslim of India, proves that Iqbal was a political visionary of no match whatsoever. His fingers were at the pulse of time as he could foresee the future and therefore suggested the creation of a separate homeland at least in the North West of India where Muslims were in majority. His historic sentence in this respect reads as follow, “For Islam (it will be) an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its culture and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of the modern time.” (the Ilahbad address 1930)
Not being a practical politician himself, it was the genius of the Allama who not only ‘discovered’ the most appropriate person for the job in the person of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the man to become the future Quaid-e-Azam of the nation. He gave Mr. Jinnah the realization that he had the competence of doing that Himalayan task and would come up to the expectation of the Muslims of the Subcontinent. It is incumbent upon each one of us who enjoys a free life in a free environment of a free country should be deeply obliged to that great man of our history.
Today we as a nation are facing multidimensional crises of internal and external nature. We are facing challenges of foreign interference, terrorism both home and alien, we lack security, rule of bad governance, menace of unemployment, corruption, nepotism, mass exploitation, political instability, chaos, lawlessness and an unruly attitude towards law and rule of law both by the rulers and the ruled. We had lost our one wing after 24 years of national life due to our collective evils and poor deliverance. We did not learn any lesson from that debacle and today after 65 years we are confronted with a more serious situation because of the menaces mentioned above.
The greatest challenges today to our Islamic identity are that both internal and external forces are at work to negate the ideology of Pakistan which is a real basis for it. These forces are encouraged to exert their full strength in proving that Pakistan was created as a secular state, thereby negating the history and the hundred and one statements of the architect of the country, the Quaid-e-Azam. There is a campaign against the Islamic values and norms and a shameful propaganda against the very ideology on which this country was created. All the terrorist activities which were started in this country due to an armed aggression of the U.S. and her allies, are being attributed to Islam. Even our own secular citizens and those enjoying the corridors of power are campaigning against the Islamic identity of the country and are shamefully negating the historical facts.
Today on the 135th birthday of the ideologue of Pakistan we are required earnestly to revive our pledge and rediscover our national type with the following few assertions.
Let’s admit with our deepest conviction that this country was created in the name of Islam only. Let us also admit that after its creation, the mere name of Islam will not work for its solidarity and strength unless we put the real Islam into practice both at individual and collective level.
We have to revisit the teachings of the great ideologue, Allama Muhammad Iqbal, which are nothing but a real and genuine message and interpretation of the Holy Book.
We have to follow the sayings of the Quaid-e-Azam who put into practice the ideas of the thinker of Pakistan and achieved a free country for us on the basis of those ideas.
We as a nation should think in terms of one Pakistani Nation with a Muslim identity and Islamic collectivity giving all our non-Muslim countrymen the rights given to them by Islam. There is no other bondage which can unite us except Islam which should be a vital force for our coherence.
Let us remind to ourselves, in the light of the message of Allama Muhammad Iqbal, that terrorism and extremism have no link and relation with Islam and the Quran. It is an unrealistic and false propaganda of the enemies of Islam both at home and abroad. At the same time, let us understand that Pakistan cannot live with the so-called liberalism, the so-called enlightenment and the naked secularism and the ideas of infidelity. Mere expressing Islam will not work. For our survival and progress as a nation it is inevitable that the Islam as interpreted by Allama Iqbal is put into practice at all levels. Allama has given the real and genuine meaning and significance of the Quranic teaching and we are required to revert to these teaching for bringing them into our practice at both the public and state level. This is the message of Iqbal for the nation and should not be made ambiguous by giving it self-coined meanings.
