The Dawn newspaper published on Saturday 11 June 2017, a full-page article, ‘ALLAHABAD 1930: AN ADDRESS TO REMEMBER’, with text and photographs, and on the basis of this address hailed Iqbal as the dreamer and originator of the Pakistan idea. Dawn wrote that ‘in his address, Sir Muhammad Iqbal set out his vision of an independent state for the Muslim majority provinces of undivided India’. Dawn later incorporated this article in a booklet that Dawn published under the title, ‘Dawn of Pakistan’.

Although this has been contradicted by Iqbal himself. Iqbal wrote to E. J. Thompson on 4 March 1934, ‘I have just received your review of my book. It is excellent and I am grateful to you for the very kind things you have said of me. But you have made one mistake, which I hasten to point out as I consider it rather serious. You call me the protagonist of the scheme called “Pakistan”. Now Pakistan is not my scheme. The one that I suggested in my address is the creation of a Muslim Province – i.e. a province having an overwhelming population of Muslims in the North-West of India. This new province will be, according to my scheme, a part of the proposed Indian Federation.’. The photographic reproduction of this letter of Iqbal to E. J. Thompson is in a booklet written by S. Hasan Ahmad of the Aligarh University in 1979 on Iqbal: his political ideas at crossroads; a commentary on unpublshed letters to Prof. Thompson with photographic reproductions of the original letters. Further, Khalid Ahmed writes in the Friday Times, September 5-11,2003, that Muhammad Faridul Haq's book Iqbal: Jahan-e-Deegar (1983), contains a facsimile of a letter by Iqbal to Raghib Ahsan in which Iqbal clearly states; 'I propose to create a Muslim province within the Indian federation'.

Dawn also distorts history when it prints a picture of Yusuf Haroon standing next to a swanky car with Allama Iqbal sitting in it on 29 December 1930 in Allahabad. In fact, according to his son, Justice Javed Iqbal, Allama went to Allahabad by train, and came back by train, and walked round Allahabad on foot. This reminds me that Yusuf Haroon told me that, ‘if I had another life I would support Lari every time, because Lari always spoke the truth’. Therefore if you want a true account of Pakistan then you should read my e-book, which was put on the internet by a South African but was hacked by someone who did not like the truth. It has now been placed in USA on the Google as Suhail Lari Pakistan and in South Africa as Suhail Lari Legacy Unlocked. It can also be reached on Google by clicking on suhail zaheer lari.

The truth is that Iqbal was invited to the twenty-first session of the All-India Muslim League to be held in Allahabad from 29 to 31 December, 1930. He delivered his presidential address on 29 December, 1930 to an audience of about 600, which dwindled next morning to 25 persons, thus lacking even the quorum of 75. Iqbal left after an hour and the session ended on the second day instead of lasting for three days.

It was because in his address, Iqbal was for the All Parties Muslim Conference, founded by the Aga Khan, which wanted to bring together all the communities as against the Muslim League, which the Aga Khan considered to be a communal organisation.

Further, Iqbal put forward the idea of ‘the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State’. In his address, Iqbal said, ‘The Punjab with a 56 per cent Muslim population supplies 54 per cent of total combatant troops in the Indian army’, and if Gurkhas are excluded, ‘the Punjab contingent amounts to 62 per cent of the whole Indian army’.

Therefore Iqbal said that, ‘I have no hesitation in declaring that, if the principle that the Indian Muslim is entitled to full and free development on the line of his own culture and traditions in his own homelands, is recognized as the basis of a permanent settlement, he will be ready to stake his all for the freedom of India ... It will intensify their sense of responsibility and their patriotic feeling. Thus, possessing full opportunity of development within the body-politic of India, the North West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or bayonets ... I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim state in the best interests of India and Islam. For India it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its laws, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closure contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times’ (Zaidi, Vol iv, 66-68).’

Iqbal was born on 9 November 1877 in Sialkot. His ancestors were Kashmiri Brahmins of the Sapru clan who had converted to Islam. His grandfather migrated to Punjab, where Iqbal's father, Sheikh Noor Muhammad (died 1930), was a tailor and mother Imam Bibi, was from Sialkot.

Iqbal married thrice. He first married in 1895, when he was 18 years old. His bride Karim Bibi was the daughter of a physician, Khan Bahadur Ata Muhammad Khan. They had two children; a daughter Miraj Begum (1895–1915) and a son, Aftab Iqbal (1899–1979). Another son died at birth. Iqbal's second marriage was with Mukhtar Begum in December 1914. They had a son, but both the mother and son died shortly after birth in 1924.  Iqbal’s third wife was Sardar Begum from whom he had a son, Javed Iqbal (1924–2015), and a daughter Muneera Bano (b. 1930).

Iqbal was four years old when he was admitted to the mosque to learn the Qur'an. He learned the Arabic language from his teacher, Syed Mir Hassan, the head of the madrasa and professor of Arabic at Scottish Mission School in Sialkot, where he matriculated in 1893, and did Intermediate in 1895. He did his BA in philosophy, English literature and Arabic from Government College in 1897, and won the Khan Bahadurddin F.S. Jalaluddin medal in Arabic. In 1899, he topped in Arabic in MA from University of the Punjab and became a reader of Arabic at Oriental College and shortly afterwards was selected as a junior professor of philosophy at Government College Lahore, where he was influenced by Sir Thomas Arnold, the philosophy teacher at Government College Lahore who encouraged him to go abroad.

Iqbal qualified for a scholarship and did his BA from Trinity College, Cambridge and bar from Lincoln's Inn. In 1907, Iqbal moved to Germany to pursue his doctoral studies, and earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1908. Iqbal's doctoral thesis was published as The Development of Metaphysics in Persia. During his study in Europe, Iqbal began to write poetry in Persian. He returned from England and joined the Government College again as a professor of philosophy and English literature. Iqbal also began practicing law at Chief Court Lahore, but he soon quit law practice and devoted himself in literary works, becoming an active member of Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam.

During his stay in Europe he was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson and Goethe. The poetry and philosophy of Maulana Rumi bore the deepest influence on Iqbal's mind that he featured as his guide in many of his poems. Iqbal's works focused on reminding his readers of the past glories of Islamic civilisation, and delivering the message of Islam. Iqbal ceased practicing law in 1934 and was granted a pension by the Nawab of Bhopal. After suffering for months from his illness, Iqbal died in Lahore on 21 April 1938. His tomb is located in Hazuri Bagh between the entrance of the Badshahi Mosque and the Lahore Fort, and official guards are provided by the Government of Pakistan.

Allama Sir Dr. Muhammad Iqbal was one of the greatest poet-philosophers of Islam who gave Muslims new confidence with stories of their conquests, and put forward the concepts like Ishq, Khudi and Shaheen.

Ishq dam-e Jibrail, Ishq dil-e Mustafa

Ishq khuda ka rasul, Ishq khuda ka kalam

Khudi ko kar buland Itna, kay her taqdeer say pehlay

Khuda banday say khud poochay, bata teri raza kiya hai

Tu Shaheen hai parwaz hai kam tera

Tere Samnay Asman aur bhi hain

However, Iqbal also wrote the beautiful poem, which is sometimes used in Bharat, Hindustan, India, in place of its national anthem;

Sāre jahāṉ se acchā, Hindositāṉ hamārā
Ham bulbuleṉ haiṉ is kī, yih gulsitāṉ hamārā

(Better than the entire world, is our Hindustan,
We are its nightingales, and it (is) our garden abode)