Allama Iqbal (Muhammad Iqbal, 9 November 1877 – 21 April 1938) was an Islamic philosopher and poet, born in Sialkot, Punjab, British India. His poetry in Urdu is considered among the greatest of the 20th century. His vision of a cultural and political ideal for the Muslims of British India is widely regarded as having animated the impulse behind the Pakistan Movement, and Pakistan honours him as its national poet.
He studied at Scotch Mission College in Sialkot and Government College in Lahore, taught Arabic at Oriental College, Lahore, from 1899 until 1903, and then went to Europe in 1905: he earned a second BA at Trinity College, Cambridge, qualified as a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, and obtained a PhD in philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1908, with a thesis on “The Development of Metaphysics in Persia”. His best-known poetic works include Asrar-e-Khudi (“The Secrets of the Self”, 1915), Rumuz-e-Bekhudi and Bang-e-Dara (1924).
In 1927 he was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council. In his Allahabad Address of 1930 he outlined a vision of an independent state for the Muslim-majority provinces of north-western India — a political framework for the two-nation theory. He died in Lahore on 21 April 1938, nine years before Pakistan was established in 1947. His tomb, the Mazar-e-Iqbal, stands in Hazuri Bagh, between the Badshahi Mosque and the Lahore Fort, and his birthday, 9 November, is observed as a public holiday in Pakistan.
Sources
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Iqbal (Wikipedia, “Muhammad Iqbal”, accessed 7 November 2026).
See also: the profiles of Lahore-based singer Maanu and YouTuber Ducky Bhai on Wikipedia Pakistan.
