اقبال کا تصورِ عقل، شعور، علم اور وقت: مغربی فلسفے کے ساتھ ایک تقابلی جائزہ

Abstract

Every philosopher's primary endeavor has been to shape their fundamental concept by integrating and synthesizing other related ideas. The foremost requirement of Iqbal's philosophy of Khudi (selfhood) was to explore the significance of human existence within the framework of Reason, Consciousness, Knowledge and Time. This is because these concepts are intrinsically linked to the self, and the meaning of human being as known and existent cannot transcend the bounds of these ideas. To establish the theological concept of Khudi, Iqbal needed to demonstrate that human self does not accept the chains of these constructs as unalterable constraints. This article, through a comparative analytical method of western and Iqbal’s philosophy, establishes the meta-narratives of Reason, Consciousness, Knowledge and time through the lens of Iqbal by primary and secondary sources. Just as the West proudly presents its philosophical cannons like Kant, Hume, Heidegger, Schopenhauer, Bergson and Nietzsche, there is a need to proudly recognize the philosophy of the ‘Poet of the East’ by the ‘People of the East’. While Western philosophy often emphasizes abstract and dualistic themes, which, though philosophically significant, do not directly address the modern human’s need for selfhood. In the history of mankind, few were the thinkers who had an insight of the universal as well as the contemporaneous issues of the future. Even in an era where modernist philosophers argue that the old classics have become obsolete and they do not qualify as a problem solver of the modern time, Iqbal’s unique synthesis of these concepts, rooted in metaphysical and epistemological inquiry, offers profound insights into the self of the modern age, making his philosophy indispensable for understanding human existence today.