THE PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF IQBAL'S THOUGHT: The Mystical Experience and the Negation of The Self-Negating Quietism

The article examines the philosopher Muhammad Iqbal's concept of mysticism, focusing on his idea of mystical experience and his rejection of quietism—the withdrawal from worldly life. Iqbal distinguishes between ordinary experience and mystical experience, the latter being a direct encounter with the Ultimate Ego that reveals reality as a non-serial whole. The author argues that Iqbal's mysticism implies an active engagement with the world rather than passive self-negation, drawing primarily from Iqbal's work "The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam."

Study at a glance

Abstract

The article tries to philosophically explore the Iqbal’s notion of mysticism and the mystic’s attitude in facing the world life. The exploration is focused on his concept of mystical experience and the negation of the self-negating quietism. And from this conception, this writing efforts to withdraw the implication to the passive-active attitude of the worldly life. It is the philosophical understanding of the Islamic mysticism in Iqbal’s philosophy as can be traced and found out in his works, particularly in his magnum opus, “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”. Mysticism, in Iqbal’s understanding, is the human inner world in capturing reality as a whole or non-serial time reality behind his encounter with the Ultimate Ego. For him, there are two experiences, that is, normal one and mystical one. In efforts to understand mysticism, one has to have deep understanding of the basic characters of human mystical experience that is very unique in nature compared to human normal one.