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Work #611 · Late

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Muhammad Iqbal
1930-34 · English
Islamic philosophical theology · Modern Islamic-Sufi philosophy

Iqbal's 1930-34 foundational text — reconstruction of Islamic religious thought in light of modern science and philosophy

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Late)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Plural
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Both
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Personal
Observer · Moral Authority Tradition
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

1928-29 lectures; 1930 first edition; 1934 expanded second edition with seventh lecture. Iqbal was 51-57 across this period.

Space

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Lahore (Iqbal's residence) and the lecture venues (Madras, Hyderabad, Aligarh). The intellectual space is late-colonial Indian Muslim intellectual life, with both Indian-nationalist and Muslim-separatist currents.

Matter

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Six (then seven) lecture-derived book. Form is sustained philosophical-religious essay, each lecture treating one major topic.

Observer

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Mature Iqbal. The observer-philosopher is the established Urdu and Persian poet, the doctoral graduate of Cambridge and Munich, the President of the All-India Muslim League (which he would assume in 1930), the principal philosophical-political voice of inter-war Indian Muslim modernism.

Energy

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Major-philosophical-systematic energies. The book is the most ambitious twentieth-century philosophical reconstruction of Islamic religious thought in dialogue with modern Western philosophy.

Information

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Single substantial book of seven lectures. The treatment of khudi (selfhood) in Lecture IV is the philosophical-conceptual heart; Lecture VI on ijtihad has been continuously cited in subsequent Islamic-reformist thought.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Iqbal's major philosophical work and the principal twentieth-century philosophical articulation of modernist Islamic thought. The conceptual basis for the political-philosophical project that would lead to the 1930 Allahabad address and eventually to the 1947 creation of Pakistan; continuously read in subsequent Islamic-philosophical-modernist literature (Fazlur Rahman, Mohammed Arkoun, Tariq Ramadan).