54 SOCIAL SCIENTIST his own path. He expressed this through poetry as well as in his statements, speeches and letters. In a significant quatrain, he says: Take thou thine axe, and excavate thy path, To go another's road is cruel hard; If by thy labour something rare is wrought, Though it be sin, it hath its own reward. In a letter written to Suleiman Nadvi in 1926, he says: "My intention is to decide Islamic affairs in the light of modern jurisprudence, not in slavish manner, but in a critical way. Before this too, Muslims have dealt with their beliefs in this fashion. Greek philosophy was once thought to be the culmination of human knowledge. But when Muslims developed critical faculty, they confronted Greek philosophy with its own weapons. In our age also it is necessary to do so.556 Iqbal set about to do this necessary task and he was eminently suited to do it with his knowledge of western philosophy.7 He made a systematic attempt in this direction when he was requested to deliver lectures by the Madras Muslim Association at Madras, Hyderabad and Aligarh. Deceptive Front On theoretical level Iqbal had a very broad concept of religion. In his first lecture he approvingly quotes Whitehead's definition of religion as "a system of general truths which have the effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended.'58 Iqbal remarks: ^No one would hazard action on the basis of a doubtful principle of conduct. Indeed, in view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science .... But to rationalise faith is not to admit the superiority of philosophy over religion. Philosophy, no doubt, has jurisdiction to judge religion, but what is to be judged is of sucli a nature that it will not submit to the jurisdiction of philosophy except on its own terms."9 This approach is deceptively rational and, it is because of this approach, that despite high sounding phrases like reconstruction, creative rcinterprctation of religion and soon, Iqbal, in the ultimate analysis, tends to be conservative and opposed to any real change as we shall sec later, Again, it is for this reason that Iqbal holds Ghazali in very high esteem and, in fact, calls him Kant of Islam. Gazali (twelfth century AD) was first attracted by Greek philosophy in his search for the truth but later on rejected it in favour of religion.