An Inquiry into the Concept and Nature of Religious Experience in Iqbal Lahori's View

Iqbal Lahori looks at religion from the angle of religious experience and regards religions experience as the basis of religious knowledge. Therefore, his theological approach is governed by religious experience and regards religion as a branch of knowledge which results from a kind of experience. He sees that religious knowledge is an interpretation of religious experience and, like the other experiences of man, it is insightful. Iqbal is the first scholar who maintains that religious experience is identical to revelation, and talks about the transformation and reduction of Islamic revelation to religious experience. This view entails the negation of the linguistic nature of revelation, negation of the infallibility of prophet hood, the fallibility of revelation, looking at religion as non-divine and man made, rejecting that idea that there is a seal of prophets, and expanding prophetic experience. Using a descriptive- analytical method, the present paper explains and describes the nature of religious experience and makes explicit Iqbal's methodological, epistemological and theological approach and religious experience. It also reviews and criticizes Iqbal's view to expound its effects and shortcomings.