A Comparison of the Political Thoughts of Khushal Khan Khattak and Allama Iqbal

Abstract

Khushal Khan Khattak and Allama Iqbal are two well-known writers and thinkers. The former was a Pashtun poet and fighter, while the latter was a well-known philosopher and poet of the East. Both lived in different periods and were of different ethnicities, but there are a lot of similarities in their thoughts. Some of their thoughts are discussed below in order to find out the nuanced similarities and differences in their thoughts—similarities and differences between the ideal man of Khushal and Allama Iqbal, via which they try to explain the ideal man of society. Another concept is that of democracy, where these two also agree on some concepts but disagree on others. Here we will also study in detail the sources via which Allama Muhammad Iqbal studied Khushal Khan Khattak: personalities and written sources, i.e., Major Roverty, Khadija Begum, and Mir Ahmad Shah Rizwani. These were the sources for knowing Khushal Khan Khattak, which made Iqbal able to study Khushal in detail and borrow many of his concepts. He also appreciated the thoughts of Khushal Khan, and due to this, we can say that Allama Iqbal was one of the most inspired fans of Khushal Khan.