The Humanistic Note in Iqbal

Abstract

What Is Humanism?
Like any other “ism,” humanism is a term of vague and varied usage, perhaps
finally identifiable, but one from which certain aspects may be picked
out.
Humanism, as a term for a certain attitude of mind, has a somewhat
curious historical genesis. I say curious, because the attitude itself is much
older than the period by which it was given this label – is, perhaps, as old
as human nature itself. However, as a term of historical genesis, humanism
came to be applied to the view of life that began to oppose and be contradistinguished
from the older medieval view of life (since called “divinism”)
from the time of the European Renaissance. Here, I can do no better than
quote almost in extenso Professor Ramsay Muir’s description of the essential
difference between the divinism of the Middle Ages and the humanism
of the periods both before and after the “divinistic” interregnum:
The best men of the Middle Ages thought of the world as a place of struggle
and discipline in preparation for another world; the Greeks thought of
it as a place of wonder and beauty which ought to be explored and
enjoyed, and they thought little and vaguely about the idea of another
world. … for the best minds of the Middle Ages the highest duty of Man
was to conquer his passions and to subordinate his arrogant will to the
will of God by obeying the rules of life set forth by God’s Church. For the
Greeks, Man’s highest duty was to make the most of himself and to develop
all his powers of mind and body in the most harmonious way, so that
he might enjoy the beauty of the world and be able to seek the truth ...