Iqbal and the youth's need for inspiration.

IT is sad to note that as we celebrate today the 145th birth anniversary of Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the Poet of the East, we face despondency, social and political upheaval and despair around us. That is obviously because our young generation has either forgotten the message and the national spirit given to us by Iqbal, or they are simply not even aware of our history and the fact that there once existed such a great philosopher who gave us the idea of Pakistan.

Known as the poet-philosopher of the East, Iqbal was born on Nov 9, 1877, in Sialkot. After getting his basic education in Lahore, he earned a degree in philosophy from University of Cambridge, did his bar-at-law in London and received his doctorate from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany.

While Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's political struggle resulted in Pakistan, it was actually Iqbal who presented the idea of a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent. While talking about pan-Islamism, he called for Muslim unity and reform, presenting the religion as a social and political ideal, as outlined in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.

Above all, his concept of khudi, or selfhood, was an inspiration for the subcontinent's Muslim youth of the time, which also motivated the young generation to work for the cause of a separate state under the leadership of the Quaid.

Today, considering the current chaos in the country, we find ourselves up the creek without a paddle. Our country is entrapped in social, economic and political upheavals. There is political instability, economic...