Allama Iqbal / Iqbal Day

Today being Iqbal Day I thought I should inform my readers of this great thinker, philosopher and poet.

Allama Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal (محمد اقبال,علامه محمد اقبال لاهوري) (November 9, 1877–April 21, 1938), commonly known as Allama Iqbal , was an important colonial era Indian Muslim poet, philosopher, and thinker of Kashmiri origin, though based in Sialkot (now in Pakistan). A major Urdu and Persian writer and poet, he is in the unusual position of having written one of India's major national songs ("Saare Jahan Se Achcha") while at the same time being credited as a major force behind the creation of Pakistan. He is posthumously revered in Pakistan as "Muffakir-e-Pakistan" ("The Thinker of Pakistan") or "Shair-i-Mashriq" ("The Poet of the East"). Along with Muhammad Ali Jinnah he is considered one of the preeminent founding fathers of Pakistan, arguably having convinced Jinnah to return from England and lead the movement demanding a separate homeland for South Asia's Muslims when Britain granted independence to the region. (Jinnah had practically gone into self-exile after having given up trying to get the national secular and Muslim leaderships to work together.)

For further reading visit Allama Iqbal on wikipedia.