Book Review

36 Book Review Iqbal’s Concept of God Author:M.S. Raschid Publisher: Kegan Paul International, London & Boston The book, perhaps the first of its kind, provides a critical view of Iqbal’s most celebrated work ‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’. The author has challenged the hitherto revered opinion of Muslim scholars about Sir Muhammad Iqbal as a great thinker. The excessively exaggerated opinions such as “Iqbal is the most versatile genius that the Muslim world has produced”, have been proved wrong as the author examines Iqbal’s works as a religious thinker. He submits that in the “Reconstruction of Religious Thought” in Islam, Iqbal’s concept of God is a finite one, and is arrived at largely by a superficial and uncritical reading of western science and philosophy. The chief philosophical influence, the author says, are those of Hegal, Whitehead and Bergson. There is both misunderstanding as well as distortion, no doubt unconscious, on Iqbal’s part. Dr. Raschid writes “Iqbal tries to relate his metaphysical extrapolations from western sources, especially his finite concept of God to the Quran and the tradition of Muslim thought. This enterprise is equally unsuccessful. In particular, his attitude to the Quran is extremely irresponsible and he manages to ignore the whole tradition of Tafsir (exegesis and kalam (theology)”. The writer, Dr. Raschid was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read natural science. He has been Visiting Scholar in the Philosophy Department at Harvard University and is a member of the Husserl Circle. He is at present at the University of Edinburgh where he holds a research appointment in the Department of Arabic and Islamic studies. The author asserts that Iqbal’s criticism of the cosmological and theological arguments about the existence of God are heavily influenced by Hegelian thought. The sweeping claims made by the author need further examination to ascertain the validity of his assertions. M.A. Saqi