Muhammad Iqbal

Iqbal married three times in his life: his first marriage (1895) was with Karim Bibi and he had two children with her - Miraj Begum and Aftab Iqbal. His second marriage was with Sardar Begum and third with Mukhtar Begum (1914).

He died in 1938 in Lahore after suffering for many years from various illnesses, which started with a mysterious throat illness that he developed on his trip to Spain and Afghanistan. His tomb was erected in Hazuri Bagh, Pakistan.

Muhammad Iqbal was born in Sialkot, in the Punjab Province of British India to Sheikh Noor Muhammad and Imam Bibi. His father was not an educated man and worked as a tailor while his mother was a homemaker.

At the age of 4 Iqbal was introduced to religious studies and was sent to mosque to learn Qur’an. He learnt Arabic language at Scotch Mission College in Sialkot and pursued his intermediate from the Faculty of Arts, Murray College.

In 1895, Iqbal enrolled in Government College Lahore for his bachelors’, to study philosophy, English literature and Arabic. He also received his Masters of Arts degree from the same college and secured number one position in Punjab University, Lahore.

Iqbal finished his Masters of Arts Degree and started his academic career as a reader of Arabic at Oriental College but within a short period of time, he became a junior professor of philosophy at Government College Lahore.

Iqbal opted for higher studies in the West and travelled to England to study on a scholarship from Trinity College, Cambridge, and received his Bachelors of Arts degree from the same in 1906.

In 1907, he went to Germany to pursue doctorate and earned PhD degree from the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich. During the process, he got his doctoral thesis ‘The Development of Metaphysics in Persia’ published.

He returned to India and became an assistant professor at Government College, Lahore but the job did not provide enough financial support which is why he decided to turn to practice of law. He practiced as a lawyer from 1908 to 1934.

In 1919, he became the general secretary of Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam, an Islamic intellectual and political organization based in Lahore, Pakistan, which he was an active member of many years before gaining this position.

Iqbal was known for his legal expertise and political ideologies, but it was as a poet that he is still fondly remembered. With books like, ‘Rumuz-i-Bekhudi’, ‘Zabur-i-Ajam’, etc. his contribution to Urdu literature is immense.