Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938) was not only amongst the leading political figures of his time, but regarded by many as the spiritual father of Pakistan and a great champion of the reform movement of modern Islam. He was also a poet, in both Urdu and Persian. The recurrent theme of his poems is the infinite potentiality of man, as partner with God in shaping the destiny of the universe. As an ardent Muslim, Iqbal saw the realization of mankind’s future in a union of Islamic peoples, unfettered by the bonds of separate nationhood, fully liberated from the chains of imperial domination. The Javid-nama, commonly acknowledged as his greatest work, develops this theme within the frame-work of the ‘Ascension’ story. In imitation of the Prophet of Islam, the poet soars through the spheres, encountering on his heavenly journey many great figures of history with whom he converses. The resemblance to Dante’s Divine Comedy is obvious.

This book examines anti-imperialist thought in European philosophy. It features an international group of both emerging and established scholars who directly respond to Timothy Brennan’s far-reaching call to rethink intellectual histories, literary histories, and the reading habits of postcolonialism, in relation to the anti-imperialist tradition of critique. Each contributor rethinks postcolonial and world literature, Continental thought, and intellectual history in relation to anti-imperialist histories and traditions of critique, through geographically diverse analysis. This book provides a forum for the next generation of scholars to draw on and engage with the marginal yet influential work of the first generation of dissidents within postcolonial studies. It will appeal to researchers and students in the field of postcolonial studies, world literature, geography, and Continental thought.

A new understanding of the transformation of Anatolia to a Muslim society in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries based on previously unpublished sources.