Allama Iqbal

<p>Allama Muhammad Iqbal was born on November 9, 1877, in Sialkot, Punjab. He earned his Master of Arts from Government College Lahore under Sir Thomas Arnold before pursuing higher education in Europe at Trinity College Cambridge, Lincoln's Inn, and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy with his thesis on Persian metaphysics.</p><p>Returning to British India, Iqbal practiced law while composing some of the finest philosophical poetry in Urdu and Persian. In poetic masterworks such as <em>Asrar-e-Khudi</em> (Secrets of the Self, 1915), <em>Rumuz-e-Bekhudi</em> (1918), <em>Bang-e-Dra</em> (1924), and <em>Bal-e-Jibril</em> (1935), he challenged both Western materialism and Eastern fatalism, calling for a dynamic reawakening of human dignity through the cultivation of <strong>Khudi</strong> (the creative, self-realized ego).</p><p>In 1930, presiding over the All-India Muslim League session at Allahabad, Iqbal delivered his historic presidential address envisioning an autonomous sovereign Muslim homeland in northwestern British India. Knighted in 1923, Iqbal passed away in Lahore on April 21, 1938. His birthday on November 9 is commemorated annually as a national holiday across Pakistan.</p>