Reading Ali Shariati on Iqbal
How great minds think alike and have humility to acknowledge each other. After the century has passed, I think if we have to determine the most important thinker, public intellectual, philosopher and poet the world of Islam has produced, and make reading him essential part of curriculum, we should have no difficulty in naming Iqbal. If we are asked to name two thinkers who may be counted amongst the most influential, most informed, most daring, most passionately concerned about Muslim decline, also most powerful writers writing great poetry and prose respectively and who can help us steer past the challenges of new century and who have creatively appropriated Islamic tradition, there is hardly any difficulty in naming Iqbal and Shariati. If Sunni and Shia approaches to Islam are providential interpretations that are required for a comprehensive expression of Divine Message as argued by another great philosopher Syed Hussain Nasr, we find in Iqbal and Shariati together providential s...