I have a dream. Many of us relate this sentence to either ABBA’s song or the famous speech delivered by Martin Luther King. Unfortunately very few of us know that the Pakistan that we are now living in; its roots are linked to this statement.
Pakistan was given to us after the hard work of a lot of Muslim leaders; amongst them was Dr. Muhammad Allama Iqbal.
He defined the Muslims of India as a nation and suggested that there could be no possibility of peace in the country unless and until they were recognized as a nation. He claimed that the only way for the Muslims and Hindus to prosper in accordance with their respective cultural values was under a federal system where Muslim majority units were given the same privileges that were to be given to the Hindu majority units.
As a permanent solution to the Muslim-Hindu problem, Iqbal proposed that Punjab, North West Frontier Province, Baluchistan and Sindh should be converted into one province. He declared that the northwestern part of the country was destined to unite as a self-governed unit, within the British Empire or without it. This, he suggested, was the only way to do away with communal riots and bring peace in the Sub-continent.
The greatest historical significance of Allama Iqbal's Allahabad address was that it cleared all political confusion from the minds of the Muslims, thus enabling them to determine their new destination.
The national spirit that Iqbal fused amongst the Muslims of India later on developed into the ideological basis of Pakistan.
Allama Iqbal, great poet-philosopher and active political leader, was born at Sialkot, Punjab, in 1877. He descended from a family of Kashmiri Brahmins, who had embraced Islam about 300 years earlier.
Iqbal received his early education in the traditional maktab. Later he joined the Sialkot Mission School, from where he passed his matriculation examination. In 1897, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Government College, Lahore. Two years later, he secured his Masters Degree and was appointed in the Oriental College, Lahore, as a lecturer of history, philosophy and English. He later proceeded to Europe for higher studies. Having obtained a degree at Cambridge, he secured his doctorate at Munich and finally qualified as a barrister.
He returned to India in 1908. Besides teaching and practicing law, Iqbal continued to write poetry. He resigned from government service in 1911 and took up the task of propagating individual thinking among the Muslims through his poetry.
In later years, when the Quaid had left India and was residing in England, Allama Iqbal wrote to him conveying to him his personal views on political problems and state of affairs of the Indian Muslims, and also persuading him to come back. These letters are dated from June 1936 to November 1937. This series of correspondence is now a part of important historic documents concerning Pakistan's struggle for freedom.
It was Allama Iqbal who made the Muslims wake up from his deep slumber to fight for what was theirs.
The need of the hour now is that we wake up from our deep sleep and also realise that we need to remain united to save what is ours.
Pakistan Paindabad!
Pakistan was given to us after the hard work of a lot of Muslim leaders; amongst them was Dr. Muhammad Allama Iqbal.
He defined the Muslims of India as a nation and suggested that there could be no possibility of peace in the country unless and until they were recognized as a nation. He claimed that the only way for the Muslims and Hindus to prosper in accordance with their respective cultural values was under a federal system where Muslim majority units were given the same privileges that were to be given to the Hindu majority units.
As a permanent solution to the Muslim-Hindu problem, Iqbal proposed that Punjab, North West Frontier Province, Baluchistan and Sindh should be converted into one province. He declared that the northwestern part of the country was destined to unite as a self-governed unit, within the British Empire or without it. This, he suggested, was the only way to do away with communal riots and bring peace in the Sub-continent.
The greatest historical significance of Allama Iqbal's Allahabad address was that it cleared all political confusion from the minds of the Muslims, thus enabling them to determine their new destination.
The national spirit that Iqbal fused amongst the Muslims of India later on developed into the ideological basis of Pakistan.
Allama Iqbal, great poet-philosopher and active political leader, was born at Sialkot, Punjab, in 1877. He descended from a family of Kashmiri Brahmins, who had embraced Islam about 300 years earlier.
Iqbal received his early education in the traditional maktab. Later he joined the Sialkot Mission School, from where he passed his matriculation examination. In 1897, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Government College, Lahore. Two years later, he secured his Masters Degree and was appointed in the Oriental College, Lahore, as a lecturer of history, philosophy and English. He later proceeded to Europe for higher studies. Having obtained a degree at Cambridge, he secured his doctorate at Munich and finally qualified as a barrister.
He returned to India in 1908. Besides teaching and practicing law, Iqbal continued to write poetry. He resigned from government service in 1911 and took up the task of propagating individual thinking among the Muslims through his poetry.
In later years, when the Quaid had left India and was residing in England, Allama Iqbal wrote to him conveying to him his personal views on political problems and state of affairs of the Indian Muslims, and also persuading him to come back. These letters are dated from June 1936 to November 1937. This series of correspondence is now a part of important historic documents concerning Pakistan's struggle for freedom.
It was Allama Iqbal who made the Muslims wake up from his deep slumber to fight for what was theirs.
The need of the hour now is that we wake up from our deep sleep and also realise that we need to remain united to save what is ours.
Pakistan Paindabad!
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