“It is my belief that a people who value their own freedom cannot be envious of others’ liberty and I find much evidence of this in what I see of the British society here,” Iqbal wrote to the editor of a nationalist newspaper of Lucknow a few months after his arrival in England.
He was commenting on the Sawdeshi movement (the movement for economic self-reliance started by the extremist Hindus in the sub-continent). “However, we must develop competence [to govern ourselves], and that can come mainly from the focusing of economic norms,
to which our people have fortunately started paying attention now.” Iqbal’s belief in the fairness of the Europeans was about to receive a harsh reality check very soon but his fundamental approach of seeing everything in its larger picture would remain forever.
What did Europe mean to Iqbal at age 28, when he first set foot on its soil? It was a treasure trove of knowledge, the seat of universal law and the house of the empire builders. Iqbal, the genius who thought he was a know all, was adamant at discovering Europe in all these dimensions.
The vast collections of ancient and modern writings, including rare manuscripts of classical Muslim thought, would be unearthed by him from the libraries and museums of England in order to reconstruct a coherent history of metaphysical thought in Persia – a subject nobody had written about.
Secondly, he was going to study the source of the European power, its universally applicable law, and celebrate his mastery of it with a Bar at Law from the prestigious Lincoln’s Inn (hopefully paving the path of material prosperity, as he must have assumed at that time).
However, all law is useless unless there is a competent authority to execute it, and the execution of the British law over an empire where the sun never set – and the political supremacy of the European civilization over all others at that time – pointed at the deeper secrets of successful politics; the secret of empire-building, which was once known to the Muslims but could now only be learnt from the West. Ironically he was soon going to discard all three – knowledge, existing law and prevalent ideas about politics. It was his destiny to become the founder a new worldview.
