Editor's Introduction

In the present edition of Allama Iqbal's Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, an attempt has been made at providing references to many authors cited in it and, more particularly, to the passages quoted from their works. The titles of these works have not always been given by the Allama and, in a few cases, even the names of the authors have to be worked out from some such general descriptions about them as `the great mystic poet of Islam', 'a modern historian of civilization', and the like.

The work, however, referred to more often than any other, and quoted most, is the Qur'an. Of a large number of pas­sages quoted from it, about seventy-seven, generally set apart from the main text, carry numbered references to the Qur’anic Surahs and verses. The unnumbered passages from the Qur'an, about fifty or so, given within the text are comparatively briefer-sometimes very brief, merely calling attention to a unique expression of the Qur'an. References to these as well as to many Qur’anic ideas and quite a few Qur’anic subjects, alluded to especially in the first five Lectures, have been supplied in the Notes and later also in the Index of Qur’anic References. A numerical scanning of this Index shows quite significantly that the number of verses bearing on the subjects of `man', `Qur’anic empiricism' and the `phenomenon of change' (mostly in terms of alternation of the night and the day and also in a wider sense) in each case, is comparatively larger than the number of verses on any other single subject. This may as well be noted in the clustering of such verses or of references to them on quite a few pages of the Reconstruction.

Added to the verses quoted from the Qur'an and references to them, in the present work, are a good number of quite significant observations and statements embodying Allama's rare insight into the Qur'an born of his peculiarly perceptive and deep study of it. These are to be found scattered all over the work, except in Lecture VII, where one would notice just one observation and complete absence of passages from the Qur'an, possibly because it was originally addressed to a non-Muslim audience. About sixty-five of these observations and statements have been listed in the general Index under: 'observations and statements based on' as a sub-entry of the 'Qur'an'.

Of the other works quoted from in the Reconstruction, forty-nine that I could work out and later list in the Index,  about fifteen are by Muslim authors, mostly mystics and mystic poets. Passages from these Muslim works, originally in Arabic, Persian or Turkish, have been given, with the single exception of Rumi's Mathnawi, in their first-ever English translation by Allama Iqbal. Notable among these are passages from Fakhr al-Din al-Razi's Al Mabahith al Mashri­qiyah and Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindis Maktubat and, above all, Ziya Gokalp's Turkish poems, which the Allama was able to render into English from their German version by August Fischer in his Aus der religiosen Reformbewegung in der Turkei (Leipzig, 1922).

Equally important and perhaps more are Allama's con­densed English versions of considerably longer passages or sections from Ibn Maskawaih's Al-Fauz al-Asghar (on evolu­tionary hypothesis in both the biological and the spiritual sense), Shah Wali Allah's magnum opus Al Hujjat Allah al­ Balighah (on the prophetic method of building up a universal Shari'ah) and 'Iraqi's Ghayat al-Imkan fi Dirayat al Makan (on the plurality of space-orders and time-orders). This last, the longest of all the summarized translations from works in Arabic or Persian, was originally prepared by Allama Iqbal from the, then a rare, MS for his Sectional Presidential Address: ' A Plea for Deeper Study of the Muslim Scientists' presented at the Fifth Oriental Conference, Lahore: 20-22 November 1928. The translation of the passage from Shah Wali Allah's Al Hujjat Allah al-Balighah, however, seems to belong to a still later date. There is a clear reference to this significant passage in Allama Iqbal's letter addressed to Sayyid Sulaiman Nadvi on 22 September 1929, i.e. a month before he delivered the first six Lectures at the Aligarh Muslim University. All these summarized translations, it may be add­ed, form parts of the main text of Lectures III, V and VI.

As to Rumi's Mathnawi, quoted very extensively (six of its verses are quoted even in the original Persian), one is to note that the translations of all the passages from it are not by Allama lqbal himself but by others: Whinfield, Nichol­son (with certain modifications) and Thadani, Only in one case has the Allama given his own translation of a verse from Rumi (p. 88); but, unbelievable though it is, this verse, according to the Persian translator of the Reconstruction, is to be found neither in the Mathnawi nor in the Kulliyat-i Shams. This certainly needs further research. However, almost every time a passage is quoted from the Mathnawi or even a reference is made to it, the reader is reminded of 'the beautiful words of Rumi' and of his being 'far more true to the spirit of Islam than', say, 'Ghazali'.

Of about thirty-four Western writers from whose works the Allama has quoted, as many as twenty-five were his con­temporaries and among these one is to underline the names of Whitehead, Eddington, Wildon Carr, Louis Rougier, and certainly also of Spengler. One is also to note that the works of these and other contemporaries quoted from happen to be mostly those which were published between 1920 and 1928. This is not at all to minimize the importance of quite significant passages quoted from the works of Bergson, James, Hocking and even Aghnides, all published before 1920, but only to refer to the fact of there being a 'greater number of quotations in the Reconstruction from Western works published within a certain period of time.

The year 1920, in fact, happens to be the year of the publication of Einstein's epoch-making Relativity: The Special and the General Theory: A Popular Exposition. And it is the year also of the publication of Eddington's Space, Time and Gravitation and Wildon Carr's General Principle of Relativity in Its Philosophical and Historical Aspect, per­haps the earliest expository works on relativity by English writers. Passages from both these works are to be found in the Reconstruction. Einstein's own work is catalogued in Allama's personal library along with a dozen others bearing on relativity-physics.

Mention must also be made here of Alexander's peculiarly difficult two-volume Space, Time and Deity, which on its appearance in 1920 was hailed as `a philosophical event of the first rank'. This is perhaps the first contemporary work which received Allama's immediate professional comments, even though brief. embodying his significant admission: 'Alexander's thought is much bolder than mine'. Despite Alexander's pronounced realistic (but even then also naturalistic-empiricistic and so scientific) metaphysics, the Allama seems to have found in his supreme 'principle of emergence' a kind of empirical confirmation of Bergson's creative evolution. It was verily in terms of the principle of emergence that he explained to Nicholson his idea of Perfect Man in contradistinction to that of Nietzsche's Superman in his long, perhaps the longest, letter addressed to him on 24 January 1921.

Allama Iqbal's assessment of the works of Western writers, especially of those which received his closest attention, seems to be characterized by the ambivalence of admiration and dissatisfaction, or acceptance and rejection. This is also re­flected in one of his most valuable dicta addressed to Muslims: 'Approach modern knowledge with a respectful but independent attitude' (p. 78). Nowhere is this ambivalence perhaps better exemplified than in Allama’s treatment of Spengler’s Decline of the West; two volumes published in April 1926 and November 1928. He readily accepts some of Spengler's pronouncements such as these: 'The history of Western knowledge is thus one of progressive emancipation from classical thought'; `The symbol of the West . . . is the (mathematical) idea of function'; `Not until the theory of functions was evolved' could it become possible for us to have `our dynamic Western physics'. But the Allama was completely dissatisfied with the very central thesis of The Decline of the West `that cultures, as organic structures, are completely alien to one another'. In his Address at the Oriental Conference, he pointedly observed that facts `tend to falsify Spengler's thesis'. It was this thesis or doctrine of `mutual alienation of cultures' or cultural isolationism, the Allama strongly felt, that blinded Spengler to the un­deniable Muslim influences or ingredients in the development of European culture. There is no mention in his otherwise `extremely learned work' of such known facts of history as the anti-classicism of the Muslim thinkers, which found its clearest expression in the work of the very brilliant Ibn Khaldun-Spengler's Muslim counterpart in many ways. Nor is there any reference, in The Decline of the West, to al-Biruni’s ‘theory of functions’, clearly enunciated in his Al-Qanun al-Mas’udi, six hundred years before Fermat and Descartes -a fact which Spengler had every right to know for he was so well versed in mathematics, and even as a historian of cultures.

Again, while referring to Spengler's allegation that `the culture of Islam is thoroughly Magian in spirit and character' Allama Iqbal candidly observes: 'That a Magian crust has grown over Islam, I do not deny'. And he adds quite impor­tantly for us: 'Indeed, my main purpose in these lectures has been to secure a vision of the spirit of Islam as emancipated from its Magian overlayings' (p. 114). However, Spengler's vision of Islam as a cultural movement, according to Allama, was completely perverted by his thesis of 'mutual alienation of cultures' and also by his morphological approach to history, which led him to group Islam as a culture with the manifestly Magian cultures of Judaism, Zoroastrianism and others. Allama Iqbal did recognize the historical fact that Islam imported some concepts and a ‘religious experience’ ­as reflected, for instance, in some esoteric traditions in Muslim theology and in certain theosophical and occultistic tendencies in Sufism-from these earlier cultures in the period of its expansion as also in later periods especially  when the conquered became conquerors culturally. But these importations, the Allama insisted, remained all along the husk of Islam, its Magian crust or its Magian overlayings. Spengler's capital error is obvious.

Moreover, Spengler failed to perceive in the idea of finality of prophethood in Islam, `a psychological cure for the Magian attitude of constant expectation'. It should be clear to any­body that with the `revelation' of this idea of finality, one of the greatest that dawned upon the prophetic consciousness, `all personal authority claiming a supernatural origin came to an end in the history of man'. Spengler also failed to appre­ciate the cultural value of this idea in Islam. With all his `over­whelming learning', it perhaps did not become possible for him to comprehend the all-important truth that `the constant appeal to reason and experience in the Qur'an, and the emphasis that it lays on Nature and History as sources of human knowledge are . . . different aspects of the same idea of finality'. It is these aspects of the idea of finality which bring to man, indeed, a keen awareness of the `birth' of a new epoch with Islam, the epoch `of inductive intellect'.

The fact that none of the works of the Western writers quoted from in the Reconstruction crosses 1928 as its date of publication does not make much of a problem so far as the first six Lectures are concerned. One has only to recall that the first three Lectures were written or finally re-written in 1928, and the next three in 1929, mostly perhaps during the summer vacations of the Courts. It is quite likely that at the time of writing the second set of three lecturers in 1929, Allama Iqbal did not come across many works published in the West the same year, or did not find anything in them to quote from in his Lectures. But the last Lecture in the present work: `Is Religion Possible?' was delivered in a session of the Aristotelian Society, London, in December 1932; and yet all the six Western works quoted from, even in this Lecture, happen to have been published within 1928. How is one to understand Allama's not keeping up his usual keenly perceptive and reportedly avid reading of the Western philosophers?

Why this almost an ascetic self-denial of philosophy? There could be many reasons for this. Among these, due allowance has to be made for his preoccupation of two different orders: one which suited his superb poetic genius most; and the other, of more practical nature, which increasingly took possession of his time and attention towards guiding and helping the Muslims of India in their great struggle for an autonomous homeland. Allama Iqbal all along keenly felt that Islam was to have an opportunity `to mobilize its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times' (Speeches, Writings and Statements of Iqbal, p. 11). From the depth of these feelings there emerged a prophetic vision of a geographical form-now called Pakistan.

 As stated above Allama's avowed main purpose in his Lectures is `to secure a vision of the spirit of Islam as emanci­pated from its Magian overlayings' (p. 114). There is, however, not much mention of Magianism, nor of the specific Magian overlayings of Islam, in the Reconstruction. In all there is a brief reference to Magian culture in the opening section of Lecture IV and to Magian idea or thought in the concluding passage of Lecture V. In the latter case Allama's statement that Ibn Khaldun has `finally demolished the alleged revelational basis in Islam of an idea similar . . . to the original Magian idea` (p. 115) is an implied and may be some ­what suppressed reference to his view that `all prophetic traditions relating to mahdi, masihiyat and mujaddidiyat are Magian in both provenance and spirit' (Iqbal namah, II, 231). It may be rightly said that Allama's whole Weltan­schauung is so completely anti-Magian that he does not always have to name Magianism whenever he says something which implies anti-Magianism. A good instance of this, perhaps, would be his observation in Lecture VII on the `technique' of medieval mysticism in the Muslim East. `Far from reintegrating the forces of the average man's inner life, and thus preparing him for 'participation in the march of history', this Muslim mysticism, he tells us, `has taught man a false renunciation and made him perfectly contented with his ignorance and spiritual thraldom' (pp. 148-49).

It remains, however, true that there are not very many statements in the Reconstruction even with Allama's implied anti-Magianism, unless we understand the expressions 'implied' and `implication' in a different and deeper sense, and go to the very starting-point or genesis of his anti-Magianism. As is the case with most of his other great and rare insights -generally couched in a language different from that of Bergsonian-Whiteheadian metaphysics, Allama owes his anti-Magianism to his uniquely perceptive reading of the Qur'an. It essentially emanates from his keen understanding of the profound significance of the supreme idea of finality of prophethood looked at from the point of view of religious and cultural growth of man in history, and even thus, looked at also from the point of view of `man's achieving full self consciousness' as bearer of the `Divine trust' of `personality' (ego) and of the `Divine promise' of 'a complete subjugation of all this immensity of space and time'. With this Prophetic idea of the perfection and thereby the completion of the chain of all Divinely revealed religions in Islam, says Allama: `all personal authority, claiming a supernatural origin, has come to an end in the history of man' (p. 101 ). But then from the same supreme idea also emanates the keen aware­ness of the epochal `birth of inductive intellect', summed up in Allama's well-known aphorism: `Birth of Islam is the birth of inductive intellect' (p. 101). Added to this is his obser­vation, characterized by the same simplicity and directness of 'perception': `In the Prophet of Islam, life discovers other sources of knowledge suitable to its new direction' (p. 101). Thus, `abolition of all Magian claims' and `the birth of inductive intellect', within the logic of Islamic experience, are two co-implicant ideas, for they owe their origin to the same supreme idea of finality and from it they draw their common inspiration.

Because of the veritable inner unity of the Qur'an, man's new awareness of himself with regard to both his place in Nature and his position in History awakened by 'the idea of finality' is already clearly reflected in `the emphasis that the Qur'an lays on Nature and History as sources of human knowledge'. The latter, according to the Allama, is only one of the other aspects of the former; as is also `the constant appeal to reason and experience in the Qur'an'. Thus the birth of inductive intellect' is to be found in the Qur'an in more than one way; and, therefore, in as many ways is to be found also the repudiation of Magianism inherently implied by it. This explains largely, perhaps, Allama's having taken up in the Reconstruction the methodological device of removing the Magian crust from Islam by promoting, from within Islam, its own intrinsic awareness of the birth of in­ductive intellect. This is borne out by many of the brightest parts of the present work.

Some of the perceptive Western readers of the Reconstruc­tion have correctly noticed in Allama's idea of `the birth or awakening of inductive intellect' a middle term between `Islam' and `modern science', even as one is also to notice Allama's bracketing `science' with 'God-consciousness'- more precious than mere belief in God, in some of his extra ordinary pronouncements. These appear sometimes, suddenly as if, in the concluding part of an argument as spontaneous expressions of an essential aspect of that argument's inner impulse, which seems to have become a little more heighten­ed in the end. Such are the pronouncements, for instance, in which the Allama equates the scientist's observation of Nature with someone's `virtually seeking a kind of intimacy with the Absolute Ego' (p. 45) or where he calls 'the scienti­fic observer of Nature,' `a kind of mystic seeker in the act of prayer' (p. 73). Making this matter of `God-consciousness­ through-science' more explicit, he tells us that `scientific observation of Nature keeps us in close contact with the behaviour of Reality, and thus sharpens our inner perception for a deeper vision of it' (p. 72), or that `one indirect way of establishing connexions with the reality that confronts us is reflective observation and control of its symbols as they reveal themselves to sense-perception' (p. 12). So sure is Allama of the near at hand possibilities of the scientific observer's `establishing connexions with Reality' through his following the `modest' ways of inductive intellect that he significantly concludes: `This alone will add to his power over Nature and give him that vision of the total-infinite which philosophy seeks but cannot find' (p. 73).

The Reconstruction, however, cannot be said to be a critique of Magian supernaturalism, nor, perhaps, is it al­together a dissertation on Islamic awareness of inductive in­tellect, or on Islam's saying 'yes' to the world of matter and the unique emphasis that it lays on the empirical aspect of Reality, and thence on science and on power over Nature. All these do get their due place in Allama's work, but they also get their share of criticism in the philosophically con­ceived total religio-moral synthesis of Islam. In fact, the exi­gency of the writing of the major part of the Reconstruction seems to have arisen, among other things, out of a state of despair into which Muslim religio-philosphic tradition had fallen, apparently, out of sheer neglect over the ages. Muslims in the end were, thus, left with what the Allama has de­scribed `a worn-out' or `practically a dead metaphysics' with its peculiar thought-forms and set phraseology pro­ducing manifestly `a deadening effect on the modern mind' (pp. 72, 78). The need for writing a new Muslim metaphysics could not be overemphasized; and the Allama wrote one in the Reconstruction in terms of contemporary developments in science and philosophy. This he hoped would `be helpful towards a proper understanding of the meaning of Islam as a message to humanity' (p. 7). Allama's hope came true. The Reconstruction is one of the very few precious Muslim works available today for a meaningful discourse on Islam at the international forum of learning. Even thus it is unique in promoting effective inter-religious dialogue, provided the `metaphysics' at least of the major world religions are got similarly translated into the common idiom and metaphor of today. The Reconstruction certainly also aims at greatly facilitating the much-needed inner communication between Islam and `some of the most important phases of its culture, on its intellectual side' (p. 6), which now, with the passage of time, have come to be manifested in many human disciplines rapidly progressing all over the world. Promotion of Islam's communication with its own manifestations elsewhere is, perhaps, today, historically speaking, an indispensable part of Muslims' own `proper understanding of the meaning of Islam'.

While preparing the script of the Reconstruction for its present edition I, have used basically its Oxford University Press edition of 1934. The few misprints of the proper names like Maimmonides, Rongier, Tawfik Fitrat-which seem to have been transferred to the Oxford edition of the Recon­struction from its poorly printed original Lahore (Kapur Art Printing Works) edition of 1930-were pointed out by some of the earlier Western reviewers. None of these misprints, however, posed much of a problem except one, which, I confess, put me on real hard work. I mean: `Sarkashi of the tenth century of the Hijrah', a misprint of composite nature relating to both name and date. The French, the Urdu and the Persian translators of the Reconstruction have noted it as a misprint for `Sarakhsi of the fifth century of the Hijrah'-a bit too commonly known a name and date to steal into a composite misprint in the Reconstruction; and then the date certainly a bit anachronistic for the passage where it is meant to go. After arriving at, what I may be allowed to call, my foolproof reasons and authenticated evidence with regard to this misprint in name and date, I decided to change it into `Zarkashi of the eighth century of the Hijrah' with a long note to this name.

As to my primary task of tracing the passages quoted in the Reconstruction to their originals in the Muslim or West­ern writers, I am to say that I did finally succeed in finding them out except four. i.e. those quoted from Horten, Hurgronje, von Kremer and Said Halim Pasha. All these passages belong to Lecture VI. This Lecture, as I have adduced some evidence to show in-my Notes, is justly believed to be the revised and enlarged form of a paper on Ijtihad read by Allama Iqbal in December 1924. After all my search for the so far four untraced passages in the possible works which could become available to me, I am inclined to assume that they are Allama's own translations from German works. Allama's translation of two passages from Friedrich Nau­mann's Briefe Uber Religion and five passages from August Fischer's Aus der religiosen Reformbewegung in der Turkei in Lecture VI, earlier paper on Ijtihad and his past practice of quoting from German works in The Development of Metaphysics in Persia as well as his correspondence with some of the noted German and other orientalists are among the additional reasons for this assumption.

As to the passages which have been quoted in Lecture VI and could be traced to their originals, there are good reasons to believe that all the three passages quoted from Nicolas Aghnides' Mohammedan Theories of Finance (a copy of which was presented to the Allama in March-April 1923), in the latter part of this Lecture, belong to the period of Allama's writing his paper on the `Idea of Ijtihad in the Law of Islam' in 1924. This also seems to be true of Ziya Gokalp's poems translated by the Allama from Aus der religiosen Reformbewegung in der Turkei (1922) a copy of which he did receive in April 1924 from the author, August Fischer, then also the editor of Islamica. In one of his letters to Sayyid Sulaiman Nadvi, the Allama clearly refers to his hav­ing made use of Ziya Gokalp's poems in his paper on Ijtihad. There are, however, at least two passages which, with some good measure of certainty, can be said to belong to later dates. I mean the passage in the beginning of Lecture VI from Denison's Emotion as the Basis of Civilization, published in 1928; and, secondly, the passage from Al-Hujjat Allah al ­Balighah which, as stated earlier, is to be linked with Allama's letter to Sayyid Sulaiman Nadvi on 22 September 1929.

Composition of Lecture VI, thus, appears to be spread over a longer period of time than is the case with other Lectures; even as Allama's interest in the `idea of Ijtihad in the Law of Islam' and thereby in the entire methodology of Muslim jurisprudence -recurrently visible in the last fifteen years of his life-is much more sustained than his interest in many other subjects, including a good many that he came across in his avid and vast reading of the great Western philosophers.

In a press interview, a little before the second Round Table Conference, the Allama expressed his intention of writing a book on `the system of fiqh in the light of modern know­ledge', another `work of reconstruction' on the legal aspect of Islam, much more important than its purely theological aspect. To this second work of reconstruction, his present work of reconstruction on the philosophical aspect of Islam, he added with his usual modesty, was `necessary as a prelude'. The much cherished book: `The Reconstruction of Legal Thought in Islam' was, however, not written: but the bare fact that the Allama wanted to write it and the great impor­tance that he attached to the writing of it, signifies, perhaps, his will to posterity.

In working out references to the views of many authors Islamic or Western, medieval or modern -cited in the present work, or in providing notes to some of the points raised or names and terms mentioned in it, I sincerely believe that, though I have reaped a rich academic harvest of my work, I have done only what any other admirer and lover of Allama Iqbal would have done, and done better.

From an almost encyclopedic range of views and facts covered in the Reconstruction as also from the pre-eminently towering intellectual and spiritual stature of Allama Iqbal, it should not be difficult to imagine that the production of an annotated edition of this work could not have become possible for me without the kindly assistance and advice of many friends and scholars both in Pakistan and abroad. I most sincerely acknowledge my debt to them all.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to Chief Justice Dr Javid Iqbal for his kindly agreeing to the proposal of bringing out an annotated edition of the Reconstruction and also for granting permission for its publication. I am also grateful to the members of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Islamic Culture, Lahore, for their approval of, my under­taking this work as one of my academic assignments in partial fulfillment of my duties as Director of the Institute, and especially to Dr M. Afzal, Minister for Education, for his kind encouragement and sustained keen interest in its publication.

It is my most pleasant duty to thank Professor M. Siddiq of Islamia College, Lahore, for his many courtesies and gene­rous assistance in the use of Allama Iqbal's personal library and particularly for his expert advice in the matter of locat­ing and reading Allama's marginal and other marks and notes in his personal copies of many important works.

My grateful thanks are also due to Dr Ahmad Nabi Khan, Director: Archaeology, and his junior colleague Mr M. H. Khokhar, Curator: Allama Iqbal Museum, Lahore, for their special courtesy which made it possible for me to examine and study some of the important MSS and books preserved in this Museum and especially the letters of the orientalists. This did help me solve some of my riddles.

I am gratefully indebted to Qazi Mahmudul Haq of the British Library, London, for his kindly sending me the photo­stat of Allama Iqbal's article published in the first issue of Sociological Review (1908), and also of sections from Deni­son's, now a rare book, Emotion as the Basis of Civilization. In addition Mr Haq very kindly arranged to send to me microfilms of certain MSS in Cairo including the unique MS of Khwajah Muhammad Parsa's Risalah dar Zaman-o-Makan. Thus alone did it become possible for me to work out some difficult, if not impossible, references in the Reconstruction.

I also wish to express my gratitude to Mlle Mauricette Levasseur of Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, for her kindly supplying me the requested information on Andre Servier, and more importantly for her detailed notes on Louis Rougier (earlier Rongier) which helped me work through a somewhat tangled problem of names and titles.

My very grateful thanks are due to the two Dutch friends: the Reverend Dr Jan Slomp and Mr Harry Mintjes. The former was never tired of translating for me passages from articles and books in German or French, for the information requested by me sometimes was to become available only in these languages. And it was Mr Mintjes who finally made it possible for me to have the photostat of the passages from Naumann's Briefe uber Religion quoted in the Reconstruction.

I must also thank my nephew, Professor Mustansir Mir of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for his ready supply of photostats of this or that article, or of parts of books, or more importantly of a new dissertation on Allama Iqbal in the States.

Of the many more friends and scholars who have kindly helped me in my work or from whose views I have benefited in one way or the other, mention must be made of Maulana M. Hanif Nadvi and Maulana M. Ishiq Bhatti. I met them al­most daily in the office of the Institute of Islamic Culture, and it was always so convenient to take some significant Arabic texts to them and enter into a lively discussion on this or that Islamic issue touched upon in the Reconstruction. I am ever so grateful to them for all these discussions.

I must also acknowledge my great indebtedness to Mr M. Ashraf Darr, Secretary and Publication Adviser of the Insti­tute, for his kindly preparing the entire manuscript for press, for his many valuable suggestions and technical assistance in the difficult task of preparing the two Indexes-particularly the second, which, in fact, has grown unto index-cum concordance-and finally for reading and correcting proofs of the latter part of the work, i.e. the editor's part starting with his Notes and References.

Nobody is more conscious of the many drawbacks in this latter part than I, and, for that very reason, none so eager to welcome the suggestions of the worthy reader to improve upon it, for the next edition.

Even so, I would like to dedicate this part of the work by the editor to the memories of the late Chief Justice S.A. Rahman and the late Maulana Said Ahmad Akbarabadi, the two Iqbalites, who helped me understand `the great synthe­sis, the greatest in the modern Muslim world' that Allama Iqbal is. May their souls rest in eternal peace!

May 1984 M.S.S.

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