Mohammad Iqbal’s writings on Islam and on the partition of India

That is the topic of a paper of mine that has just been published in the Journal of Punjab Studies. Here is the abstract:

Iqbal was a poet, religious philosopher, political activists, and supporter of autonomy to Muslim majority provinces in British India, but cannot be regarded as the ‘main’ architect of Pakistan. His basic concern was over the falling status of Muslims of India during British rule and ways to arrest the situation. His speech in 1930 at Allahabad session of the All India Muslim League is being always cited as his support to Pakistan, but later on he never made his position very clear over the issue of partition of British India. Yet his contribution to the formation of Pakistan cannot be entirely ruled out because he was speaking out the minds of the Muslim minorities who, by 1920s, not not only raised the demand, but started whispering about having a separate socio-political space. He was a towering figure of Islamic modernism, a great poet and also a religious philosopher, whose thinking still has considerable significance. His writings are still being read and researched in India and Pakistan.

The link to the whole paper can be found here [pdf].