Muhammad Iqbal's innovative project “The reconstruction of religious thought in Islam” in the light of typology of Eurasia civilization-specific rationalities

The article discusses some important and profound conceptual prerequisites of thinking applied by Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) in his draft project of Islam renewal. The analysis is carried out based on a typology of civilization-specific rationalities of Eurasia. The main primary source was the work of M. Iqbal “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam” (1938) translated into Russian by Marietta Stepanyants. The difference between ontological schemes of communication in the Western and Afrasian civilizations is explained. The classical rational and hermeneutical approaches are distinguished. The latter is considered to have originated in the Afrasian civilization and borrowed from it into the Western civilization. In cultural history this was first carried out by the Apostle Paul, who proposed a distinction between the “spirit” and the “letter” of Scripture. This corresponds exactly to the Afrasian pair of the categories of “hidden” and “manifest”. Iqbal’s use of the concept of “self” instead of the “personality” as expected by any European intellectual is explained by the paramount importance of actions, but not of the inner world of an individual in Islamic culture.