Sir Muhammad Iqbal (Urdu: محمد اقبال; 9 November 1877 – 21 April 1938) was an Indian Muslim philosopher, author, and politician. His poetry in the Urdu language is considered to be among the greatest of the 20th century, and his vision of a cultural and political ideal for the Muslims of British-ruled India is widely regarded as having animated the impulse for the Pakistan Movement. He is commonly referred to by the honourific Allama (Persian: علامہ, transl. "learned").Born and raised in Sialkot, Punjab, in an ethnic Kashmiri family, Iqbal completed his BA and MA at the Government College in Lahore. He taught Arabic at the Oriental College in Lahore from 1899 until 1903. During this time, he wrote prolifically. Among his Urdu poems from this time that remain popular are Parinde ki Faryad (transl. "A Bird's Prayer"), an early meditation on animal rights, and Tarana-e-Hindi (transl. "Anthem of India"), a patriotic poem—both composed for children. In 1905, he left India to pursue higher education in Europe, first in England and then in Germany. In England, he completed a second BA at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was subsequently called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. In Germany, he received a PhD in philosophy at the University of Munich, having developed his thesis The Development of Metaphysics in Persia in 1908. After returning to Lahore in 1908, Iqbal established a law practice, but largely concentrated on writing scholarly works on politics, economics, history, philosophy, and religion. He is best-known for his poetic works, including: Asrar-e-Khudi, after whose publication he was awarded British knighthood; Rumuz-e-Bekhudi; and Bang-e-Dara. His literary works in the Persian language earned him an audience in Iran, where he is commonly referred to as Iqbal-e Lahori (lit. 'Iqbal of Lahore'). Iqbal was a strong proponent of the political and spiritual revival of the Muslim world as a whole, but particularly of the Muslims in the Indian subcontinent; a series of lectures he delivered to this effect were published as The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam in 1930. He was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council in 1927 and held a number of positions in the All-India Muslim League. In his Allahabad Address, delivered at the League's annual assembly in 1930, he formulated a political framework for the Muslim-majority regions spanning northwestern India, spurring the League's pursuit of the Two-Nation Theory. In August 1947, nine years after Iqbal's death, the partition of India gave way to the establishment of Pakistan, a newly independent Islamic state in which Iqbal was honoured as the national poet. He is also known in Pakistani society as Hakeem-ul-Ummat (lit. 'The Wise Man of the Ummah') and as Mufakkir-e-Pakistan (lit. 'The Thinker of Pakistan'). The anniversary of his birth (Yom-e Weladat-e Muḥammad Iqbal), 9 November, is observed as a public holiday in Pakistan. Source: Wikipedia (en)