Allahabad Address
The Allahabad Address (Urdu: خطبہ الہ آباد) was a speech by scholar, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, one of the best-known in Pakistani history.
It was delivered by Iqbal during the 21st annual session of the All-India Muslim League, on the afternoon of Monday, 29 December 1930, at Allahabad in United Provinces (U. P.).
In his speech, he emphasized that unlike Christianity, Islam came with "legal concepts" with "civic significance," with its "religious ideals" considered as inseparable from social order: "therefore, the construction of a policy on national lines, if it means a displacement of the Islamic principle of solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim.
He would travel across Europe and West Asia to garner political and financial support for the League, and he reiterated his ideas in his 1932 address, and during the Third Round-Table Conference, he opposed the Congress and proposals for transfer of power without considerable autonomy or independence for Muslim provinces.
On several occasions and addresses, the issue gets highlighted that the Muslims are a separate nation with different culture and civilization, interests and rights.
Iqbal explained about resolving differences in his book Bang-i-Dara and writes Tarānah-i-Hindī and Naya shawala to reunite Muslims with Hindus.
[4] The second phase pertains the period from 1905 to 1908, Iqbal spent these years in Europe, during his higher education and in Germany at Munich University[5] for PhD.
[3] Iqbal's six English lectures were published first from Lahore in 1930 and then by Oxford University Press in 1934 in a book titled The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.
In his travels to Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, he promoted ideas of greater Islamic political co-operation and unity, calling for the shedding of nationalist differences.
[7] He also speculated on different political arrangements to guarantee Muslim political power; in a dialogue with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Iqbal expressed his desire to see Indian provinces as autonomous units under the direct control of the British government and with no central Indian government.
In his presidential address on 30 December 1930, Iqbal outlined a vision of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India.
Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.Within his address, Iqbal also touched on his fear that Islam may have a similar fate as Christianity.
"To Islam, matter is spirit realising itself in space and time" whereas Europe had "accepted the separation of Church and State and disliked the fact that their leaders were "indirectly forcing the world to accept it as unquestionable dogma [...] I do not know what will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam.
Professor Wensinck of Leiden (Holland) wrote to me the other day: "It seems to me that Islam is entering upon a crisis through which Christianity has been passing for more than a century.
True statesmanship cannot ignore facts, however unpleasant they may be [...] And it is on the discovery of Indian unity in this direction that the fate of India as well as of Asia really depends [...] If an effective principle of cooperation is discovered in India it will bring peace and mutual goodwill to this ancient land which has suffered so long [...] And it will at the same time solve the entire political problem of Asia.
From this, you can easily calculate the possibilities of North-West Indian Muslims in regards to the defence of India against foreign aggression.
[12] Commenting on the Hindu fears of religious rule in the Muslim autonomous states, Iqbal said: Muslim demand is not actuated by the kind of motive he imputes to us; it is actuated by a genuine desire for free development which is practically impossible under the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu politicians with a view to secure permanent command dominance in the whole of India.
For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilize its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.
