103 A llama Iqbal’s presidential speech at the Allahabad Session of the Muslim League in 1930 is generally regarded as the turning point in his commitment to the two-nation theory when he supported a state consisting of the Muslim-majority provinces of northwestern India. There is considerable debate on Iqbal’s intention as to whether it was the creation of a sovereign state for the Muslims of northwestern India or merely a consolidated state within a loose Indian federation or confederation. However, irrespective of the nuances of his proposed scheme, what needs recognition is that it was not in 1930 in his Allahabad speech that Iqbal suddenly came to reject territorial nationalism on which the Indian national movement was based. Rather, it was some 20 years earlier, soon after his return from Europe in 1908, that he made an abrupt and complete ideological shift from Indian nationalism to Pan-Islamism, a shift that was clearly expressed in his poetry written during the period, especially Shikwa, his monumental poem written in 1909. Composed as a historical metanarrative of Islam, Shikwa contains all the elements of his political and cultural beliefs that guided his writings and activities for the rest of his life, but has arguably not been subjected to adequate critical evaluation from a historical perspective. The marked ideological shift in Iqbal in the aftermath of his return from Europe is embodied in poetic imagery and metaphor that were highly incompatible with the modern idea of nationalism, in as much as they underpin a historical and cultural narrative of Islam deriving primarily from adversarial relations with non-Muslims in India and other parts of the world. RAVI K. MISHRA FROM INDIAN NATIONALISM TO PAN-ISLAMISM The Poetic Journey of Allama Iqbal Summer & Autumn 2020, Volume 47, Numbers 1 & 2