The insight and understanding that a reader can acquire from a particular book, especially a challenging one—such as the Reconstruction—will depend upon the reader’s “learning capacity,” which, in turn, is determined by three main factors. The first factor that determines your learning capacity is your prior knowledge, i.e., everything (including facts, opinions, memories, attitudes, beliefs,…
Let’s begin with a little historical background. This will set the context in which The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam came to be written. The story of the Reconstruction began when Iqbal presented a paper, titled “Ijtihad in Islam,” at Islamia College, Lahore (now called Government Islamia College, Railway Road). Iqbal presented this paper…
This is the first post in what I hope would become a series of reflections on Muhammad Iqbal’s major philosophical work, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930). I plan to structure these reflections around ideas emerging from discussions in an online class I happened to be currently teaching. Most people who have any…