Allama Iqbal And Modern Science

ALLAMA IQBAL

Iqbal, even in his poetry, is not merely a poet transforming into beautiful verses, wayward whims and fleeting emotions of human heart; he is a vital thinker and philosopher, who has a message to deliver.  His book "The reconstruction of religious thought in Islam" is a lucid presentation of his creative ideology, not only as a great philosopher and humanist but as the most gifted leader of the Islamic renaissance Weather on agrees or disagrees with either his thesis or his conclusions, one has to admit that his book represents the first attempt in our age to re-think the entire metaphysics of our religion in
a spirit of scientific objectivity.
The time when Iqbal appeared the world science was almost worshiped and it was commonly held that science was about to take place of worn out religious system  and would teach man to comprehend reality only with the help of observation and experimentation, and would thus help him to evolve  new standards of morality without any metaphysical sanction. The "native" optimism about science bad almost dazzled the Muslim world and it had begun to think that so long as the Islamic teachings were not conformed to the standards set by science, Islam would not be able to stand the test of time. As a consequence of that far fetched interpretations were put on the teachings of Islam and some of them were in fact twisted in order to fit them in the intellectual framework of science. It was Iqbal who in his illuminating and thought provoking lectures defined clearly the limitations of science and explained that this exaggerated and misplaced confidence on the physical science is quite unjust, science has undoubtedly tried to conquer drudgery and want and dismantled barriers of time and space. This is all true. But there is no gainsaying the fact that the deterministic science is unable to fulfill the spiritual hopes attached to it in the recent past. Nothing but the irrational influence of technophobia can explain can explain this hysterical worship for "blind necessity". If men. like machines, are governed by "blind necessity", there is no virtue or vice in our philosophy, for we do not speak of moral motor-cars. Why should we describe as "one of the greatest advances in the world of thought", a philosophy which robs the life of significance and which deprives man of dignity and condemns him to final extinction.
Iqbal also explain the dangerous consequences of depending merely on science for guiding and regulating life. He believe that man cannot lead his life with peace in the cold region of an arid intellectualism. For this end he needs the warmth of love and intuition also. The modern man, he observes with his philosophies of criticism and scientific specialism finds himself in a strange predicament. His naturalism has given him an unprecedented control over the forces of nature, but has robbed him of faith in his own future.