Islam is not like Christianity, Iqbal says. It is not a religion of private conscience and private practice. Islam comes with certain ‘legal concepts’. These concepts have ‘civic significance’ and create a certain kind of social order. The ‘religious ideal’ cannot be separated from the social order. ‘Therefore, the construction of a polity on national lines, if it means a displacement of the Islamic principle of solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim.’ In 1930 a national polity meant an all-Indian one.
