Faisal Devji is one of the foremost historians on the politics of Indian subcontinent. In this interview with Raza Rumi for Naya Daur Media, he analyses the ideology of Allama Iqbal, and his supposed opposition to the idea of secularism. Devji compares Iqbal’s understanding of religion’s role in politics with that of Mahatma Gandhi and argues that they may have had serious political differences, but both approach the concept of secular politics from the same viewpoint. He quotes from Iqbal’s Persian and Urdu poetry, and his lectures published as ‘The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ to drive home the argument that Iqbal wasn’t against secularism because it was irreligious but because it was ‘too religious’.
