IQBAL'S PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND WHOLE-PERSON FORMATION: A FUNCTIONAL COMPARISON WITH ABAI

Botakoz ABDRAKHMANOVA; Sholpan  IBZHAROVA

doi:10.32523/3080-1281-2026-156-3-8-18

Authors

Botakoz ABDRAKHMANOVA Yessenov University Author https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7160-6294
Sholpan IBZHAROVA Almaty Management University (AlmaU) Author https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9167-4283

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32523/3080-1281-2026-156-3-8-18

Keywords:

Muhammad Iqbal; Abai; Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas; philosophical anthropology; khudi; ta'dib; whole-person formation; philosophy of higher education

Abstract

Scholarship on Muhammad Iqbal's philosophical anthropology has examined khudi, freedom, action, and the educational significance of his thought, but their internal connections and the methodological status of moving from anthropological reconstruction to contemporary educational implications require clarification. This article reconstructs Iqbal's anthropology as an interconnected logic of human becoming, tests structural comparability with Abai's anthropological model, assesses how far al-Attas's philosophy can serve as an independent pedagogical mediator, and proposes a relational model of whole-person formation in higher education. This non-empirical philosophical study combines historico-philosophical reconstruction, hermeneutic interpretation, conceptual analysis, and functional, non-genealogical comparison. It shows that tawhid, the symbolism of clay and spirit, the strengthening of khudi, discipline, ishq, freedom, responsibility, and creative action can be reconstructed as functionally connected elements of personal becoming. The hypothesis of a structural family relating Iqbal and Abai receives limited functional support without claiming historical continuity or semantic equivalence between their categories. Al-Attas's philosophy of ta'dib provides an independent pedagogical language extending this anthropological problematic into education. The model distinguishes a horizon of meaning, inner coherence, moral formation, and realisation in action. Contributions include a three-tier attribution protocol, a functional comparison, and a normative-conceptual model claiming neither universality nor empirical validation.

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