Amid VHP row over song in school, recalling Muhammad Iqbal, also the poet of Saare Jahan Se Achcha

Subject: History

Context:

Recitation of the prayer ‘Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua’ written by Muhammad Iqbal has once again triggered a controversy — this time in UP’s Bareilly district. After a complaint from a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) official in the district, the principal of a government school and a Shiksha Mitra was booked for “hurting religious sentiments” after a video of students reciting the prayer during the morning assembly went viral.

Earlier incident:

In October 2019, the headmaster of a government primary school in the Bisalpur area of Pilibhit was suspended.
In that case, too, the students had recited Allama Iqbal’s ‘Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua’.

The poet and his poems:

The prayer ‘Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua’ was written by Iqbal in 1902.
Among Iqbal’s many writings, the most celebrated is the immortal ‘Saare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara’, written in 1904, his beautiful ode to India, which became one of the songs that inspired the freedom fighters against British rule.
Iqbal’s first published collection of poems came out in 1923, and was titled ‘Bang-e-Dara’ (Call of the Marching Bell).
He wrote mostly in Urdu and Persian.

About Mohammad Iqbal:

Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938) was born to a family with Kashmiri Pandit ancestry that had embraced Islam in the seventeenth century.
Iqbal was born in Sialkot, Punjab (now in Pakistan) and died in Lahore when he was aged 60 years.
Iqbal’s tomb is located in Hazuri Bagh in Lahore.
Iqbal is commonly referred to as Allama (most learned), which is a title given to Islamic scholars.
Apart from being a writer, Iqbal was also a lawyer and appeared at the Lahore High Court in several cases.
After completing his BA and MA at Government College, Lahore, he went on to study in Europe in 1905.
At Trinity College, Cambridge, he completed a second bachelor’s degree, and completed a PhD at the University of Munich later.
In 1922, he was knighted by King George V, giving him the title of “Sir”.
After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, he was named the national poet there.
Iqbal was the first patron of Tolu-e-Islam, a historical, political, religious and cultural journal of the Muslims of British India.
He is also known as the “Hakeem-ul-Ummat” (“The Sage of the Ummah”) and the “Mufakkir-e-Pakistan” (“The Thinker of Pakistan”).
Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi wrote Glory of Iqbal to introduce him to the Arab world.

The idea of Pakistan:

Iqbal espoused the idea of Muslim-majority provinces in 1930.
Iqbal elucidated to Jinnah his vision of a separate Muslim state in a letter sent on 21 June 1937.
In that country, Iqbal is regarded as the ideological founder of the nation — the man who envisioned the state in that Jinnah gave physical shape.

Madani–Iqbal debate:

A famous debate was held between Iqbal and Hussain Ahmed Madani on the question of nationalism in the late 1930s.
Madani’s position throughout was to insist on the Islamic legitimacy of embracing a culturally plural, secular democracy as the best and the only realistic future for India’s Muslims whereas Iqbal insisted on a religiously defined, homogeneous Muslim society.
Madani and Iqbal both never advocated the creation of an absolute ‘Islamic State’. They differed only in their first step.
- According to Madani, the first step was the freedom of India for which composite nationalism was necessary.
- According to Iqbal, the first step was the creation of a community of Muslims in the Muslim-majority land, i.e. a Muslim India within India.