Oswald Spengler and Muhammad Iqbal

Towards a Comparative Discourse on Cultural Theory

Abstract

In the historical heat waves of intellectual revolution as experienced by the western culture, Oswald Spengler in his ‘Decline of West’ outlined a “Copernican View” of western culture and history of the western man. He dislodged the notion of ‘centrality’ of western culture. For him different culture-forms of ‘mankind’ possess equal status and symbolic significance with respect to each other. He proposed ‘morphology’ and ‘physiognomy’ of human cultures passing through endless cycles of formations and transformations, growth and decay, like the seasons of the weather or the growth of the plants and other living animals. He refuted a ‘Darwinian-Durkhiemian-Cometan’ view of cultural phenomena to be studied by employing natural scientific methods. He denied ‘causality’ or ‘objectivity’ to the historical-cultural forms as it was understood in the studies of natural phenomena. Iqbal treated both Western culture and Islamic culture on equal ‘critical’ footing. He compared more realistically the weaknesses and strengths of both cultures. Iqbal didn’t concede to Spengler’s notion of a mutually exclusive historical origin and growth of cultures. He rather proposed in ‘Reconstruction’ a historical interdependence of human culture. Ideas and concepts of cultures can be translated and diffused into another culture life-form. Iqbal has discussed that ‘religious experience’ constitutes on epistemological foundation of Islamic culture. ‘Religious experience’ has as much claim to be an independent source of knowledge-acquisition as ‘science’ or ‘philosophy’ do. The ultimate principle of Reality is spiritual which is ‘living’ and reflected in temporal existence of the natural and historical world. He established this concept of Spiritual Reality by his ‘intellectual test’ and ‘pragmatic test’ in his lectures on ‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’.