As far as the great thinkers of Islam are concerned, we do not question the first three names cited in the White Paper. They undoubtedly provided great services to Islamic thinking and philosophy. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama‘at agrees that they were great intellectuals and men of great knowledge and understanding. However, regarding ‘Allama Iqbal, I will present a passage from his own writings to demonstrate his status as a religious thinker and authority. In his letter to Professor Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, the ‘Allama writes:
The scope of my religious knowledge is very limited… I have spent most of my life studying western philosophy. That point of view has largely become second nature to me. Consciously or unconsciously, I study the teachings of Islam from this [western] vantage point. (Iqbal Namah, (A Collection of the Letters of Iqbal) part 1, p. 46–47, publisher: Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf, Kashmiri Bazaar Lahore)
‘Allama Iqbal himself acknowledges that his study of the Qur’an is influenced by Western thinkers and philosophy and that his own religious knowledge is very limited. To think that such a person can be presented as an authority for Muslims suits only the objectives of those who authored the White Paper. No unbiased person can entertain such a thought.