The process philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal

Due to the richness of his thought, M. Iqbal's philosophy can be interpreted and has already been interpreted in various forms such as a philosophy of self, a philosophy of life or an existential philosophy. While these approaches are not inaccurate, we think that another form of philosophy, namely process philosophy, is more appropriate in seeing and understanding Iqbal's thought in a specific framework. Accordingly, in this study, we intend to show that Iqbal can be seen as a philosopher or thinker of process and by this account can he be understood better. Owing to the fact that process philosophy, which asserts that change and becoming is more fundamental and which seeks to understand being by processes, is first of all in general a metaphysical philosophy and because metaphysics occupies a central ground in Iqbal, this study contains mostly his metaphysical views. Accordingly, we first dealt with Iqbal's concept of universe and his cosmology that contains the issues of space and movement and aimed to show that with his movement and act oriented thought he approaches being which he thinks ultimately spiritual in a processive manner. Then we examined probably the most important element of Iqbal's metaphysics which is the subject of 'time' in accordance with his concepts of intuition and duration and his view of various concepts of time. In this first chapter of the study, we are drawing attention to that Iqbal's views are closely related with especially two philosophers of process; the first one is A. N. Whitehead, who established process philosophy as we know it and whom we devoted 'introduction' to the general outline of this philosophy and second one is H. Bergson, who influenced Iqbal with his concept of reality. In the second chapter, we examined Iqbal's concept of God and we also studied the freedom of man, the problem of evil and the problem of immortality regarding to his concept of God and we concluded that despite some important differences Iqbal's theology is compatible with process theology. Key Words: Process Philosophy, Intuition, Duration, Ego, Immortality