Iqbal’s concept of millat/Nationalism:

The cardinal point of Allama Iqbal’s political philosophy is millat – fraternity of believers.
The bonds of this fraternity are above race, colour, region, proximity and matter. Its core is
Islam, Ka‘bah and the person of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The bonds of millat do not
segregate the believers to a corner of mosque, aloof from all the decencies created by
Allah. Rather they value a complete social order encompassing both spiritual and temporal
life. In fact individual’s individuality shines in the multiplicity of millat.
In the larger sense, it gives birth to a collective ego founded on the revealed word of Allah.
The sphere of millat in temporal affairs is well defined. It is not based on a utopia of Plato,
or that of Marx – utopian communism and utopian socialism, but on the person of Prophet
(PBUH) who lived amongst the believers, and the practice that he left will continue until the
doomsday3 . The Islamic social system is valued by equality, independence and exploitation
free economics. The essence of Taw‫ء‬īd is equality, solidarity and freedom. The State thus
founded on this bedrock "is an endeavour to transform these ideal principles into space-
time forces, (and) an aspiration to realize them in a definite human organization". The
institution of prophethood and finality of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH)5 is the leverage of
the entire socio– legal system of Islam, as also ordained in the Qur’ān. "This day have I
perfected for you your religion and completed My favour on you and chosen for you
Islam as a religion".
According to Iqbal, it was a great divine favour retaining the symbolic honour and image of
the Prophet (PBUH) for all times and all epoches. The millat thus raised on these
parameters will attain immortality.
The Islamic millat’s constituents are inseperable, and above sectarian attachments. The
idea of nationalism founded on common ties of religion, race, colour, language, geography,
history, customs, traditions and above all unique economic and political interests and a will
to uphold it, are alien to Islam. Islam has no room for such compartmentalisations which
could explode and wreck the entire humanely created edifice. Islam therefore, is neither
"Nationalism nor Imperialism but a League of Nations which recognizes artificial boundaries
and racial distinctions for facility of reference only, and not for restricting the social
horizons of its members". This viewpoint has been amply explained by the Allama in his
poetry. it must be noted that all Muslims are like birds in a garden. It is with this yardstick
that Allah has drawn a divider amongst the ummat of the lovers of the Prophet of Islam and
those who are in the other camp10. Allah is not only Creator and an object of worship, but
also the law-giver.
In Islam nobody is considered immune from the injunctions laid down in Qur’ān. Qur’ān-
based-polity therefore, has no room for an absolute ruler, over and above the limits
prescribed by Allah. Those bearing the torch of the love of Prophet symbolise a bud on the
beautiful branch, and turning into fruit and foliage for the weal of the humanity. In the
nutshell, Islamic millat is required to possess a real collective ego to live, move and have its
being as a single individual. The development of such a consiousness depends on the
preservation of the history and traditions of the millalt. Iqbal outlined the crux of the
political system of Islam in a letter to his teacher R.A. Nicholson. He says, "The kingdom of
God on earth means the democracy of more or less unique individuals presided over by the
most unique individual possible on this earth"
Iqbal thoroughly analysed the Western democracy. He severely criticised the Godless and
secular nature of the Western democracy. He says in Islam the spiritual and the temporal
are not two distinct domains, and the nature of an action, however, secular in its import, is
determined by the attitude of mind with which the agent does it. He dubbed the Godless
politics of the West as Satan’s maid kaniīz-i-ahraman. He viewed the number-oriented-
democratic-system to be devoid of any wisdom. "Flee from the method of democracy
because human thinking cannot emerge out the brains of two hundred asses". In
Armughān-ī-‫ہ‬ijāz, Iqbal comes up with the logic as to why he considers modern democracy
and medieval monarchies as synonymous.
“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you
peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of
you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing
and Acquainted.”— Al Hujurat 49:13

In a tradition in Abu Dawud, the Apostle of Allah is reported to have said:

“He is not from amongst us who calls for asabiya (tribalism/ nationalism) or
who fights for asabiya or who dies for asabiya.”

Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the Poet of the East and a great Muslim ideologist,
having explored deep into the chaotic dilemma of the Muslims, took to diagnosing the
causes responsible for the Muslim eclipse, and suggesting solutions to cure them. He
was very much distressed to see the Muslims jumping on the bandwagon of the West,
and blindly aping the Western civilization which, by its very nature, was infused with
the brute materialism. Iqbal took up most of the ideologies stemming from the West
that were in trend those days. Nationalism was among such concepts gaining a
widespread currency amongst the Muslims. After careful study, Allama made a
passionate appeal against the Western notion of nationalism insisting the Muslims to
stay away from it.
Iqbal devoted a considerable part of his philosophical thought to the idea of ‘who
constituted a nation, and on what grounds?’ It is interesting to note that before his
flight to Europe, he subscribed to the Western Territorial Nationalism. However, during
his 3-year stay there (1905-1908), Iqbal blossomed from an Indian nationalist to a
Pan-Islamist, cherishing a nation, Ummah or Millat cemented by the bounds of
Tauheed (Oneness of Allah), and this remarkable shift was largely due to his
extensive investigation into the Western philosophy, and partly because of the
prevailing political realities in India.
From the following two couplets, the shift from one line of thought to the other is quite
eye-catching:
 ‫سارے جہاں سے اچھا ہندوستاں ہمارا‬
‫ یہ گلستاں ہمارا‬،‫ہم بلبلیں ہیں اس کی‬
‫مذہب نہیں سکھاتا آپس میں بیر رکھنا‬
‫ وطن ہے ہندوستاں ہمارا‬،‫ہندی ہیں ہم‬
The best land in the world is our India;
We are its nightingales; this is our garden.
Religion does not teach us to be enemies with each other:
We are Indians, our homeland is our India.
Then, in the recast version, Iqbal raises the cry:
‫ ہندوستاں ہمارا‬،‫چین و عرب ہمارا‬
‫ وطن ہے سارا جہاں ہمارا‬،‫مسلم ہیں ہم‬
China and Arabia are ours; India is ours.
We are Muslims, the whole world is ours.
Allama Iqbal believed that Islam constituted a Millat which surpassed all artificial
barriers of caste, creed, race and territory. As regards the Indian Muslims, they, he
held, cannot be assimilated into a Hindu-dominated Indian political nationalism. While
advocating the rejection of the political nationalism, and promoting the ‘Cultural
Nationalism’ based on religion, Iqbal was well-recognizant of the fact that nationalism,
as it was understood in the West, demanded an affiliation to a particular territory
without having anything to do with the cultural values of the people.
Furthermore, West’s aggressive nationalism raised resentment, and bad blood
among the nations. Even during his lifetime, Iqbal was appalled at the unparalleled
mass destruction done during WWI only on the grounds of nationalism.
In contrast, the cultural nationalism describes people as a nationalism describes
people as a nation held together by their inwardly-felt sharing of religious and cultural
values. Iqbal’s cultural nationalism in terms of India was mainly a desire to facilitate
his vision of the reform of the existing Muslim social and economic order. This was
done by mobilizing masses, at least, in the areas wherein the Muslims constituted a
numerical majority.
Iqbal, while clarifying the nature of conflict between nationalism and Islam, wrote to
Jawaharlal Nehru:
“Nationalism in the sense of love of one’s country and even readiness to die for its
honour is a part of the Muslim’s faith; it comes into conflict with Islam only when it
begins to play the role of a political concept and claims to be a principle of human
solidarity demanding that Islam should recede to the background of a mere private
opinion and cease to be a living factor in the national life.”
It may be noted here that Iqbal’s proposition was that the nationalism was a problem
for the Muslims only in those countries where they were in a numerical minority – such
as India. However, Islam accommodates nationalism in the countries where they were
numerically large enough to assert their right to order their individual and collective
lives in accordance with the decrees of Shariah.
Iqbal in his poem titled “Hussain Ahmad” on the concept of Islam and nationalism
launched into a strong condemnation of the thesis of Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani
who insisted on territorial nationalism. Iqbal wrote:
‫سرود بر سرِ منبر کہ ملت از وطن است‬
‫چہ بے خبر زمقام محمدِ عربیﷺ است‬
 “He [Husain Ahmad of Deoband] preached from the pulpit that the Muslim
nation can exist by devotion to one’s country!
How ignorant he is about the teaching of Muhammad Arabi (PBUH)!”
In another poem “Wataniat (Yani Watan Bahesiat Aik Siasi Tasawwur Ke)”
[PATRIOTISM (As a Political Concept)], he wrote:
‫یہ بت کہ تراشیدۂ تہذیبِ نوی ہے‬
‫غارت گرِ کاشانۂ دین نبوی ہے‬
This idol which is the product of the new civilization
Is the plunderer of the structure of the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) Deen
Allama Iqbal also discerned in the very DNA of nationalism a well-calculated
imperialistic design of Europe to enslave the nations, and shatter the religious unity
of the Muslims.
‫اِن تازہ خداﺅں میں بڑا سب سے وطن ہے‬
‫ وہ مذہب کا کفن ہے‬،‫جو پیرہن اِس کا ہے‬
Country is the biggest among these new gods!
What is its shirt is the shroud of Deen (Religion).
Moreover, Iqbal was particularly antipathetic towards West for its cutthroat
materialism, so natural it was for him to seek spiritualism in any concept. He said:
“I am opposed to nationalism as it is understood in Europe. Because, I see in it the
germs of atheistic materialism which I look upon as the greatest danger to the modern
humanity.”
In the opinion of his son, Dr Javaid Iqbal, “Allama envisaged an international Islam
when he stated that Islam was neither nationalism, nor imperialism, but a
‘commonwealth of nations’ which welcomed racial diversity, and ever-changing
geographical demarcation for reference only, and not for constraining the social
horizon of its members.”
‫ تم بھی نہیں‬،‫ مذہب جو نہیں‬،‫قوم مذہب سے ہے‬
‫ محفل انجم بھی نہیں‬،‫جذبِ باہم جو نہیں‬
Unto a nation faith is life, You lost your faith and fell,
When gravitation fails, must cease concourse celestial.
Iqbal’s appreciation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is sometime cited to indicate that he
was inclined to secularism, and territorial nationalism. However, in reality, that’s not
the case, for the context he admired Turks was from the vantage point of Ijtihad. He
was a diehard champion of the principle of movement and dynamism in the structure
of Islam, which was never a static pack of some rites and rituals, but was a living
force, apt to be adapted to ever-changing environment. According to Iqbal, the
movement of reform initiated by Mustafa Kemal, despite many flaws it had, was
wholesome in general, and to be encouraged as an illustration of how Muslim thought
might be reactivated.