National Poet of Pakistan

Sir Muhammad Iqbal was born at November 9, 1877 & died April 21, 1938, also known as Allama Iqbal was a philosopher, poet and politician in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. He is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature with literary work in both the Urdu and Persian languages. Iqbal is admired as a prominent classical poet by Pakistani, Indian, Iranian, and other international scholars of literature. Though Iqbal is best known as an eminent poet, he is also a highly acclaimed Muslim philosophical thinker of modern times. While dividing his time between law practice and poetry, Iqbal had remained active in the Muslim League. He did not support Indian involvement in World War I and remained in close touch with Muslim political leaders such as Mohammad Ali Jouhar and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He was a critic of the mainstream Indian National Congress, which he regarded as dominated by Hindus and was disappointed with the League when during the 1920s, it was absorbed in factional divides between the pro-British group led by Sir Muhammad Shafi and the centrist group led by Jinnah. Allama Mohammad Iqbal was studied at Government College, Lahore, Cambridge, and the University of Munich, and then he taught philosophy at Government College and practiced law. He was elected 1927 to the Punjab provincial legislature and served 1930 as president of the Muslim League. A staunch advocate of Indian nationalism, he became a supporter of an independent homeland for India's Muslims and he is regarded as the spiritual founder of Pakistan. Iqbal was the foremost Muslim thinker of his period, and in his many volumes of poetry written in Urdu and Persian and essays, he urged a regeneration of Islam through the love of God and the active development of the self. He was a firm believer in freedom and the creative force that freedom can exert on men. He was knighted in 1922. His works include The Secrets of the Self 1915, to 1940, and Javid-nama 1934, to 1966.