ABSTRACT
Any exponent of authenticity must wrestle with dilemmas generated by potential contradictions among fundamental elements of such thought: its simultaneous emphasis on particularity, unicity, autonomy, and radicalism. Muhammad Iqbal demonstrated that the particularity of the self, properly understood, holds the key to understanding all existence. Iqbal believed the world of the Indian Muslim in the first decades of this century demanded transformation. But his radicalism ran much deeper than opposition to British rule. Iqbal's The Mysteries of Selflessness, coming in the wake of Secrets of the Self, constituted his response to the problem of group action. The problem of group action becomes one of consciousness-raising. Iqbal understood the value of institutions emerges clearly from The Mysteries of Selflessness. The reading of European philosophy seems to have convinced Iqbal that the sense of self lies within human possibilities. Islam represents the best, but perhaps not the only, expression of those possibilities.
