Killing Time: A Modern Epidemic and Iqbal’s Therapoetic Reflections for the Ummah

Abstract

As industrialization gradually effaced the organic meaning of time from the human consciousness and modern life became smeared with coal tar, Bergson’s, a 19th-century French philosopher, Theory of Duration shone through like daylight. Inspired by which, Allama Muhammad Iqbal presented his reflections on time while adhering to the Qur’anic wisdom. This paper attempted to explore the inseparable bond between Creativity, Imagination and Time in light of Iqbal's poem Al Waqt e Saif (Time is a Sword) to answer the question as follows:  What is the fundamental cause behind existential dread and how to protect ourselves from falling into the illusion of life's futility? These questions were kept at the centre of the research as a guide for the Ummah, which is getting far removed from its essence being stuck in the quagmire of boredom, decadence, futility etc. To make the reader aware and to prove how misunderstanding or mistreating time generates existential diseases, the author chose certain Western literary texts (since literature has a great impact on the development of a cultural mindset) of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, namely Flowers of Evil, the Wasteland, Existentialism and Humanism, The Caretaker, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Hard Times and analysed each concisely and comparatively. The research concluded with creative action being the sole solution for battling existential dread and the overwhelming illusion of nothingness. Relying on temporary loopholes such as meagre forms of entertainment or worshipping materiality and one's self only results in never-ending claustrophobia.