This article examines Muhammad Iqbal’s critique of contemporary approaches towards Muslim education. In his writings, poetic and prose, Iqbal took on both the traditional religious authorities who administered the Madrasas and the modernists associated with the Aligarh College for failing to provide an education that was true to the ‘national character’ and to develop a synthesis of Islamic and western knowledge. While the former were criticised for ignoring modern intellectual developments, the latter were attacked for being intellectually captive to the West. At a broader level, this article employs Iqbal as a foil to debates over the empowering potential of western education. Iqbal’s views are examined against the background of attempts by Muslim intel-lectuals to negotiate between the adoption of a universal modern education and the development of an educational system that kept Muslims grounded in Islam and their ‘national character’. These negotiations took on a number of shapes, pedagogical and polemical as well as theological.
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