In terms of political orientation, Iqbal`s odyssey spanned over three decades (1899-1930).

It first hurtled him from one end of the continuum to the other, and then swung him gradually to almost the mid-point on the political spectrum, and that after a rash of excruciating reappraisals.

The starting point was Indian Nationalism; his next destination Pan-Islamism; and his final abode Muslim Nationalism. And this odyssey Iqbal had launched upon, if only because of the compelling imperatives of his avocation. Despite these periodical shifts, however, his supreme objective remained constant — viz., the rehabilitation of Muslims in the contemporary world. And that provided coherence to his thought and political philosophy.

It is rather common knowledge that Iqbal had entered the corridor of fame as a nationalist poet around 1900. In this phase, he was profoundly influenced by the spirit of nationalism, and gave eloquent utterance to it. He sang of India, its rivers, its mountains, its countryside as well as of its glorious past, its hoary traditions and its unique cultural heritage. In tandem, he extolled India to the high skies, with his nationalist streak reaching its ultimate crescendo in the Naya Shiwala — Khak-i-watan ka mujhko har zarrah devata hai.

But this euphoric nationalist phase came to an abrupt end after Iqbal`s visit to Europe, 1905-08. For now, his systematic grounding in western philosophy, his forays into the boundless vistas of modern western thought and his close contact with restive but buoyant western life acted as a catalyst, enabling him to perceive things in a wider perspective and in more rational terms. From the vantage point of a European base, Iqbal could easily see that the onward march of nationalism had bred rank racialism in several Muslim countries. It had rivened the classic Islamic concept of ummah, enfeebling the Muslim world as never before, and laying it all the more open to western designs, aggression, and exploitation. What, then, was the remedy? To Iqbal, it lay in Muslims holding together — in pan-Islam.

To his utter dismay, however, Iqbal had found that not only had the Muslim peoples, for now isolated from one another a la the Marxian concept of a lumpin proletariat, had become a convenient target for western designs but that mundane Islam itself had also reached its nadir. Hence his chastisement of Muslims for becoming race-conscious and race-oriented; his exhortation for the building up of a single millat or ummah, and that to a point that the lumpin proletariat could get transformed into a critical mass. Hence his clarion call for forging unity among Muslims for the defence of Baitul Haram — from the banks of the Nile to the frontiers of Kashgar.

It is rather common knowledge that Iqbal had entered the corridor of fame as a nationalist poet around 1900. In this phase, he was profoundly influenced by the spirit of nationalism, and gave eloquent utterance to it.

Despite his passionate advocacy of pan-Islamism, Iqbal was yet a keen and insightful observer of Muslim affairs.  Hence he could not escape perceiving the harsh fact that his enchanting panacea of pan-Islam in its idealistic and classical form was not propitious or relevant to his own age — to the nationalist ridden world of the 1920s, with several Muslim countries having opted for nationalism and for politics based on asabiyat — i.e., racial and/or linguistic unity — and seeking nationalist solutions to their problems. Iqbal could not have possibly ignored all this — and much more. “True statesmanship”, he told the Allahabad (1930) League session, “cannot ignore facts, however unpleasant they may be. The only practical course is not to assume the existence of a state of things which does not exist, but to recognise facts as they are, and to exploit them to our greatest advantage.”

Hence it was but logical that he should seek to resolve the inherent conflict between nationalism, the prime fact of national life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and pan-Islamism, the ideal towards which he would like to see Muslims strive. Thus, like the obsessively pan-Islamist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (18239-96) in the late nineteenth century, of whom Iqbal was a confirmed admirer, he, obviously after a long detour and excruciating reappraisals, finally arrived at the concept of a synthetic “Islamic” — but, more accurately, Muslim — nationalism. A via media between unadulterated pan-Islamism and unalloyed nationalism, Islamic or Muslim nationalism is a blend of these two competing ideologies. While recognising the multiplicity of nations within Islam, Muslim nationalism strives to promote the solidarity, identity of outlook, and close cooperation between the various Muslim nations, and that on the basis of their religious affinity, cultural coherence, and ancestral heritage.

Iqbal, the ideologue that he was, had diagnosed the malaise of the Muslim world in his famous Reconstruction (1930), and came to a conclusion, at once sane and practical. “For the present”, he laid down, “every Muslim nation must sink into her own deeper self, temporarily focus her vision on herself alone, until all are strong and powerful to form a living family of republics.

A true and living unity... is truly manifested in a multiplicity of free independent units whose racial rivalries are adjusted and harmonised by the unifying bond of a common spiritual aspiration. It seems to me that Islam is neither nationalism nor imperialism but a league of nations which recognises artificial boundaries and racial distinctions for facility of reference only, and not for restricting the social horizon of its members.”

Extremely consequential was this paradigmatic shift from a universal, indivisible caliphate to a “multi-national neo-pan-Islamism”. It would enable Iqbal to delineate and address the psychic needs and political aspirations of Indian Muslims in his League Allahabad (1930) address. While reiterating the proposal for “a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State”, it spelt out in some detail the intellectual justification for their aspirations towards a separate nationhood and a separate national existence.

Thus, nationalism, generally considered “un-Islamic” thus far, came to be recognised and justified in terms of Islam by Iqbal`s soaring intellectual exposition, by his creative analytical leap. Iqbal felt that the various Muslim peoples could organise themselves under distinct nationalist altars, and yet be under the broad canopy of Islam, under a “multi-national neo-pan-Islamism” concept. All said and done, this bridging of the yawning chasm between nationalism and Pan-Islamism is Iqbal`s most creative and original contribution to the Islamic political discourse in the ideology-ridden twentieth century.