Freud and Iqbal on Human Personality and Religion: A Comparative View✒ Written by: Dr. Muhammad Asif Awan
❖ Sigmund Freud: A Brief Introduction
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) belonged to a Jewish family from Czechoslovakia, though he spent most of his life in Vienna, Austria. The 19th and 20th century Europe was under the influence of scientific progress, where thinkers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton emphasized material realities over religious doctrines. It was in this environment that Freud's ideas evolved. He categorized the human mind into three fundamental levels:
➤ Conscious (شعور)
➤ Subconscious (تحت الشعور)
➤ Unconscious (لاشعور)
According to Freud, the roots of human behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs lie within these mental layers—even religion is a mere psychological construct without any metaphysical reality.
❖ Summary of Freud's Ideas
① The foundation of human personality is man himself, with no real influence from spiritual or religious factors.
② All human actions and thoughts are results of repressed desires in the unconscious, particularly sexual impulses.
③ Religion is merely an illusion, a psychological tool for expressing these suppressed desires.
❖ Iqbal’s Perspective
In contrast, Allama Iqbal believed that man is not a slave to instinctive desires. Instead, his actions and motivations are rooted in spiritual, religious, and moral elements, which refine and purify his natural instincts.
According to Iqbal:
➤ Human nature is pure and exalted, not sinful or corrupt.
➤ The true center of human will and action is a spiritual ideal, not just physical or instinctive urges.
➤ Religion is not an imaginary or psychological disorder, but a genuine experience that connects man to a transcendent reality.
❖ Fundamental Differences Between Freud and Iqbal
✦ Determinants of Human Action
- Freud: All actions stem from unconscious, inherited tendencies and repressed desires.
- Iqbal: Man is a free and autonomous being, who sets goals and influences his environment through creativity.
✦ The Role of the Unconscious
- Freud: The unconscious is a dark chamber, filled with negative and animalistic desires.
- Iqbal: The self has a habitual response system that can suppress negative urges and become the basis of higher spiritual experiences.
✦ The Reality of Religion
- Freud: Religion is a psychological mechanism for satisfying desires.
- Iqbal: Religion is a true and profound experience, providing solutions to the core issues of human life.
❖ Iqbal’s Critique of Freud
According to Iqbal, it is incorrect to reduce religion to materialism or sexual instincts. In his view:
➤ Religious consciousness is not a product of psychological impulse, but a genuine and transcendent experience.
➤ Religion offers practical solutions to the fundamental problems of human life, which psychological or scientific methods alone cannot resolve.
➤ Modern psychology, as presented by Freud, only addresses the external and material dimension of human personality, while religious experience unveils a reality beyond the physical.
❖ Conclusion
Freud’s theory attempts to explain human personality solely through biological and psychological factors, whereas Iqbal regards man as more than a material being—an elevated spiritual entity.
According to Iqbal, the true purpose of human life is spiritual evolution and the realization of the self (khudi), while Freud’s view reduces man to a prisoner of instinctual desires.
