[[18]] Iqbal wrote on a variety of subjects and his views changed with the times. It is not therefore wise to try to attach labels to him. To the Indian nationalist he appears a fervent nationalist who wrote, 'Of all the countries in the world, the best is our Hindustan (Sarey jahan se accha Hindustan hamara), exhorted Hindus and Muslims to come together [and] build new shrines where they could worship together; and who regarded every speck of dust of his country as divine. At the same time he considered Indian Muslims to be a people apart from other Indians. And while proclaiming that Islam did not recognise national boundaries, he supported the demand for a separate state for Indian Muslims. At one time Iqbal exhorted the peasantry to rise against its oppressors, uproot the mansions of the rich, and set fire to crops which did not provide sustenance for them. At another time he wrote qaseedas (eulogies) in praise of kings and princes from whom he received patronage. It could be said that Iqbal sang in many voices: he was a nationalist as well as an internationalist, a Marxist revolutionary as well as a supporter of traditional Muslim values, and a pan-Islamist. Iqbal was oblivious of these contradictions. If he was consistent in anything, it was in the quality of his compositions. Whatever he wrote was born of passion and executed with the skill of a master craftsman. Few poets of the world have been able to cram so much erudition and philosophy in[to] verse; and fewer still use words as colours on an artist's palette to paint pictures, as well as deploy[ing] them as notes of a lute to create music. He was fired by a creative zeal which could only be explained as divinely inspired. It is no wonder that although a devout Muslim, Iqbal could not resist the temptation to bandy words with God. The poems here translated [Shikvan and Javab-e shikvah] are only two examples of man the creator questioning the ordinances of the Creator of mankind and the universe.

It would not be correct to explain the various facets of Iqbal's writing [[19]] and his inconsistencies as the process of development of his personality. It is best to take what comes as it comes, and if it appears to be at variance with something he had said before, to shrug one's shoulders, relax, and enjoy the poetry. Scholars talk of Iqbal's philosophy as if it were [a] logically developed scheme of values. It is not. His earlier poems breathe a sense of disbelief in the world; like the Hindus he regarded it as an illusion (maya), and like them he spoke of the futility of striving. Three years in Europe (1905-1908) brought about a complete reversal in his beliefs. The world became real; life had a purpose to serve; latent in every man was a superman who could be roused to his full height by ceaseless striving to create a better world. This post-European phase has been designed as Iqbal's philosophy of khudi. It is yet another word that eludes exact translation. Khud is self; khudi could be selfhood. Khud could be the ego; khudi, the super-ego. As used by Iqbal what comes closest to khudi is assertive will-power imbued with moral values. This is apparent from these oft-quoted lines:

What exactly did Iqbal want human beings to strive for? Obviously towards some kind of perfection. But he does not care to spell it out in any detail. It would appear that for man ceaseless striving was not to be for material gains in this world, or with an eye on rewards in life hereafter. It was to be utterly selfless and motivated by love for mankind. The world Iqbal uses for this kind of striving is faqr, from which the word faqir is derived. For Iqbal it does not mean beggary but quite the opposite: it means pride in the little that comes from righteous endeavour (kasb-i-hilal). Thus to Iqbal a man who inherits wealth without [[20]] having striven for it is worse than a beggar, while a poor man who works for the good of humanity is truly rich. Iqbal's combination of khudi and faqr comes close to the Hindu concept of nishkama karma (action without expectation of reward) lauded in the Gita. Iqbal writes:

However, Iqbal did not accept the Hindu belief in predestination, and assured man that he could be the master of his fate and make the world what he wanted it to be:

Iqbal exhorted people to exploit their latent powers by carefully nurturing them:

Iqbal would have had little patience with the current obsession with meditation (transcendental or otherwise) to induce peace of mind, because he believed that anything worthwhile only came out of a ceaselessly agitated mind:

In the introduction to his Persian work, Asrar-i-khudi ('Secrets of the Self'), Iqbal writes: 'Personality is a state of tension and can continue only if the state is maintained. If the state of tension is not maintained, relaxation will ensue. Since personality or the state of tension is the most valuable achievement of man, he should see that he does not revert to a state of relaxation. That which tends to maintain the state of tension, tends to make us immortal.'

What was true of the individual Iqbal believed to be equally true of races and communities. According to him the real sign of vitality in races is that their fortunes change every day:

It is strange that while Iqbal wrote so passionately of the need to struggle, he gave the heart more importance than the head, and love a greater role in creativity than reason. In a poem the heart thus addresses the head:

It was in the temple of love (dayar-i-ishq) that Iqbal wanted man to make his place, to create a new world with new dawns and sunsets because there were worlds beyond the stars that we see. Iqbal's concept of the perfect man was thus one who was truthful, compassionate and fearless and one who could face death with equanimity:

Iqbal's poetry is largely didactic and exhortative. He hardly if ever bothered to write on the love of a man for a woman, and totally avoided romantic amorousness. He is said to have indulged in pornographic poetry; if he did, it was restricted to private readings to a close circle of friends and has never been published.

The facts of Iqbal's life can be briefly stated. He was born in Sialkot on 9 November 1877, the youngest child of a tailor, Shaikh Noor Muhammad, and his wife Imam Bibi. The family had been Kashmiri Brahmins and had converted to Islam some generations earlier. Young Muhammad Iqbal was brought up as an orthodox Muslim, and early in life [was] taught the Koran and commentaries on the sacred text. He also learnt Persian, and later English. As a boy he was keener on sport than on studies, and had a passionate love for birds. Nevertheless he finished his school in 1892, winning a scholarship to the Scottish Mission College. He was only fifteen years old when he was married to Karim Bibi. Though the marriage was a mesalliance, Karim Bibi bore Iqbal three children. In 1895 (at the age of eighteen), having taken his intermediate [[23]] examination, Iqbal joined Government College, Lahore, to study Arabic, English, and philosophy. He took his degree two years later in 1899, winning the coveted Gold Medal for outstanding scholastic achievement.

Iqbal had begun to compose verses while still at school. But it was in college at Lahore that he first recited his compositions at various symposia (mushairas) in the old city. He was an instant success. After much persuasion by his friend Shaikh (later Sir) Abdul Qadir, he agreed to let his poems be published in the literary magazine Makhzan. His fame spread to the Urdu-speaking world. He had already attracted the attention of Professor (later Sir) Thomas Arnold, under whose guidance he took his Master's degree. For three years (1901-1904), he was Reader in Arabic at the Islamia and Government College, and also studied law. He took the Provincial Civil Service examination, but was fortunately disqualified on medical grounds.

In 1905 Iqbal proceeded to Europe. He took a degree in philosophy from Cambridge University as well as a doctorate from Munich. Within a few months he had picked up enough German to be able to read, write, and converse in the language. for a time he switched to writing in Persian, and was avidly read by classical scholars.

Three years' sojourn in Europe brought about many changes in Iqbal's way of life and thinking. He had an affair with Atiya Faizee, a young, uninhibited girl from a well-to-do Muslim family of Bombay. Whatever else this involvement did to Iqbal (a married man and father of three children), he recoiled from what might be described as the beginnings of the women's liberation movement: his views of woman's place in society remained those of an orthodox Muslim. A similar contradiction appeared in his view of life. While he retained his admiration for the other-worldliness of Sufi mystics, he rejected their belief in the transitoriness of the world and the unreality of life. While he was nauseated by Western commercialism and acquisitiveness, he lamented the loss of the Muslims' empire and was saddened by the decadence of Islam. It was in these years in Europe that he evolved his belief in the necessity of reinforcing one's will-power (khudi). It was to be at once passionate and compassionate, assertive but non-acquisitive. Power and wealth, he believed, were good only if acquired by effort, but not if it came through inheritance or [an] effortless windfall of chance. Although he [[24]] was undoubtedly influenced by European philosophers like Nietszche and Bergson, and there were aspects of the Nietszchean vision of a world dominated by supermen, Iqbal's khudi remained closer to the Hindu concept of nishkama karma--doing one's duty without expectation of reward--than to the European concept which later found expression in the Nazi theory of the supremacy of the Aryan race. In Europe Iqbal became so convinced that a life of action was far superior to intellectual or poetic pursuit that he toyed with the idea of giving up writing. He was dissuaded from doing so, and returned to Lahore to write some of his most powerful poetry, including Shikwa ('Complaint') followed a few years later by Jawab-i-Shikwa ('Answer to the Plaint').

Domestic happiness continued to elude Iqbal. In 1909 he contracted a second marriage to Sardar Begum, and without consummating the relationship took a third wife, Mukhtar Begum. On Mukhtar Begum's death in 1924, he remarried Sardar Begum, who bore him a son Javed (b. 1924) and a daughter Munirah (b. 1930). Five years after the daughter's birth Sardar Begum died, leaving Iqbal with the burden of two families, including two grieving children.

 Iqbal did not make much of a mark as a lawyer, but his fame as a poet reached its pinnacle during World War I and was given official accolade in 1924 by the conferment of a knighthood on him. Two years later Sir Muhammad Iqbal was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council, and in 1931 he was a member of the Muslim delegation to the first Round Table Conference in London. Thereafter politics began to take more and more of his time, and he became involved in a movement for a separate Muslim state. His health also began to deteriorate. Malfunctioning of the kidneys was followed by cataract in the eyes and then a septic throat that made him speechless. He knew his time was limited. A few days before the end he composed a verse in Persian lamenting his own departure. He died during the night of 20 April 1938. The next day he was buried beside the northern wall of the Badshahi Mosque. Since then his grave has become a place of pilgrimage for all lovers of the Urdu language