Homage paid on the poet’s eightieth death anniversary
Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar stressed the importance of education and acquisition of knowledge, one of the key issues that Iqbal raised prominently in his philosophical writings. The CJ bewailed the lack of attention on the part of the Punjab and KP governments towards education. He also underlined the absence of basic facilities in schools. Unfortunately the situation is no better in the two other provinces of Pakistan or for that matter in Fata, Gilgit Baltistan and AJK. The CJ wondered where the money that should have been diverted to the improvement of education and the establishment and upgrading of health facilities was being spent. A cursory look at the budgetary priorities of the federation and provinces might partly answer ths highly relevant question.
There is a need for those who matter to go beyond Iqbal’s commonly recited poetry and read Iqbal’s lectures collected together in “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”. These lectures help understand how Iqbal visualized the future of the Muslim community in general and of the new country that was to be carved out of united India in 1947. Iqbal maintains that the prevalent religious thought badly requires to be reconstructed through ‘ijethad’, or re-interpretation of Islamic tenets in the modern world.
Iqbal also raises important questions regarding the role of religion in matters of state, rejecting the authority of the clergy in ‘ijtehad’. The task, he maintains, has to be taken by none other than the elected legislature. This is a point over which there is an identity of views between Jinnah and Iqbal. Neither those wearing the wig nor those in the uniform can thus formulate the state’s narratives or its policies. These narratives and policies are formulated after receiving inputs from specialists and stakeholders, debated in parliamentary committees and then taken to the National Assembly or Senate for enactment.
One welcomes the CJ’s assurance that judiciary will neither allow a military led Martial Law nor impose a Judicial Martial Law in the country. It is equally important that there should be no indirect or covert usurpation of the powers of Parliament and its executive organ by any institution of state of government department.
