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Iqbal's Concept of God: An appraisal
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
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I do not agree with Professor M. M. Sharif in his book About Iqbal and His Thought that Allama Iqbal's concept of God passed through three stages, and that at one stage he identified him with ‘Beauty’. This may be said on the basis of his few earlier poems (included in Baang-i-Darā), but they never purported to give any idea about God; they were at best ghazals on nature and offered only stray reflections. Iqbal properly developed his concept of God in his lecture entitled ‘The Conception of God and The Meaning of Prayer’ (included in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam). I may mention at the outset that I am going to base my appraisal on the said lecture of Iqbal.
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References
page 375 note 1 (Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1964), cf. ‘Iqbal's Concept of God’, pp. 9 ff.Google Scholar
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page 378 note 9 Ibid. pp. 71–2.
page 378 note 10 Ibid. p. 56: Iqbal calls it the feeling of ‘I-amness’.
page 378 note 11 Ibid. p. 72.
page 379 note 1 Muhammad ibn Asad (A.D. 1427–1502) who wrote the book Al-zoura.
page 379 note 2 Perhaps a contemporary of Dawani and the author of Lama'at.
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page 381 note 7 Ibid. p. 81.
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