Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
142. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad - 1
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
He was a giant in the shadows of other giants. Living as he did in an age dominated by Gandhi, Jinnah and Nehru, Maulana Azad nonetheless left his own imprint on the history of South Asia. The twentieth century would not be the same without him. Paying tribute to his versatile genius, Nayaz Fatehpuri wrote:
“If he had focused on Arabic poetry, he would be a Mutanabbi and Badi uz Zaman. If he had taken on the reformation of law and religion, he would be the Ibn Taimiya of his age. If he had dedicated himself to philosophy, he would be no less of a peripatetic philosopher than Ibn Rushd and Ibn Tufail. If he had turned his attention to Farsi poetry and literature, he would find a place along with Urfi and Nazeeri. If he was inclined towards Tasawwuf and renovation, he would be no less than al Gazzali and Rumi. And if he had taken on applied Shariah, he would be a Wasi Bin Atta….”
Born in 1888 in Mecca in a family of scholars, he was given the name Abul Kalam Ghulam Mohiyuddin Ahmed. In 1890 the family returned to Kolkata where his father, Maulana Khairuddin, had established a reputation as a scholar and a teacher. The young Abul Kalam received his education at home, first from his father, then from private scholar tutors. By the time he was thirteen he had mastered Farsi, Arabic, and Urdu and had a commanding knowledge of Shariah, fiqh, philosophy, history, mathematics and tasawwuf. Even as a young lad of 12, he showed his aptitude for writing, starting a newsletter “Nairang-e-Alam” in 1899 and a weekly collection of poems “Al Misbah” in 1900.
At the turn of the twentieth century, European colonialism held Asia and Africa firmly in its juggernaut. Kolkata was the capital of British India. As a counterpoint to colonial rule, there were nationalist stirrings in the subcontinent and Kolkata was the hotbed of nationalist fervor. The young Abul Kalam, after a brief experimentation with a youthful frolic in Bombay, returned to Kolkata and came under the influence of Bengali nationalists Arabindo Ghosh and Shyam Sunder Chakravarty. Induction into politics brought him face to face with one of the principal drivers in South Asian politics, namely, the Hindu-Muslim dialectic. The British policy of divide and rule had fostered a feeling of distrust of the Muslims among the Bengali nationalists. Abul Kalam soon came to the realization that any hope of deliverance from the British juggernaut required as its pre-requisite Hindu-Muslim cooperation. He found the traditional imitative thinking (taqleed) to be inadequate to tackle the new problems. Therefore, he discarded it and took on the taqqallus, or title of Azad or free thinker. Writing many years later about this transformation, Maulana Azad wrote:
“I have never tried to find the footpath of another but have sought out a path for myself and left my footprint for those who come”
These three elements, namely, his early religious training, his revolutionary fervor and a deep conviction in communal harmony run as a consistent thread in the writings and speeches of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The three fused together in his eclectic personality and produced a unique brand of activist, championing universal human rights of justice, freedom and fairness, transcending the narrow allegiance to creed, caste, color and origin.
Maulana Azad undertook a tour of Middle Eastern countries in 1910 and met with reformists like Mohammed Abduh in Egypt and nationalist young Turks in Iraq. The Pan-Islamic ideas of Jamaluddin al Afghani (1838-97) and the reformist ideas of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) made a lasting impact on the impressionist mind of the young Azad. Returning to India, he started the journal “Al Hilal” which had the broad objective of awakening the Muslims of India to their political, social and educational potential. He sought to fulfill this objective with a fusion of nationalism, Pan-Islamism, social revolution and Hindu-Muslim unity. In the first issue of Al-Hilal published on 13th July 1912, he wrote:
“What was the goal that was proclaimed with prominence in the very first issue of Al Hilal? I say with pride that it was the amity between Hindus and Muslims. I had invited the Muslims that in accordance with the injunctions of the Shariah, if there was an adversary that was challenging the truth not just in Asia or the East but all over the globe, and eradicating it, from which there is a threat to the universal truth of God, it is none other than the British Government. Therefore, it is obligatory on the part of the Indian Muslims, that keeping in mind the injunctions of the Shariah, keeping before them the beautiful conduct of the Prophet …it is the obligation of Muslims of India that they tie the knot of truth and love with the Hindus of India and become one nation….”
And in the December1912 issue of Al Hilal, the Maulana wrote:
“For the Hindus, struggle for the independence of the country is a sign of love for the land. But for the Musalmans it is a religious obligation and equivalent to jihad in the way of God. And the meaning of jihad includes every effort made to establish justice and truth and human rights and the removal of servitude”.
The Maulana was convinced, and remained convinced until partition that the way to throw off the British yoke was through the cooperation of these two principal communities in the subcontinent. This was anathema to the ruling British who saw in such revolutionary talk the genesis of a nationalist struggle. Within a year, the doors were shut on Al Hilal. Not to be silenced by the British, the Maulana started another journal, Al Balag in 1915 and within four months it too was shut down. The Maulana was arrested and spent much of the next four years in jail.
World War I intervened. The Ottoman Empire entered the War ill prepared, goaded into it by a billion gold kroner from Germany’s Kaiser and by the desire of the Young Turks to recover the European territories lost in the Balkan wars of 1911-12. The Great War was a disaster for the Ottomans; the empire was occupied and the last vestiges of independent Muslim power anywhere on earth disappeared. There followed intrigue and scheming, with Britain and France as the principal players, to carve up the Ottoman empire. The large Muslim population of India could only watch helplessly as this unfolded. But what rallied Muslim opinion was the move to abolish the Khilafat, an institution that had endured 1300 years of Islamic history.
Maulana Azad threw the full weight of his oratory and his journalistic skills into the battle to save the Khilafat, sometimes using language that was uncharacteristically strident. He presented the Movement as one related to Islam:
“O my dear believers! The issue is not one of the lives of nations and countries; it is an issue of the very survival of Islam”. Addressing a convention in support of the Khilafat Movement in 1920, he said:
“Gentlemen: The hand that holds the white flag of peace is a noble hand. But only he can survive who holds a sharp sword: it alone is the arbitrator of the lives of nations, the means for establishing justice and upholding balance…….and the shield in the hands of the oppressed….” Behold! We sent Messengers with clear Signs and sent down with them the Books and the balance to establish justice among humankind, and We sent down iron in which there is great power and benefit for humankind” (The Qur’an: 57:25). The Muslims should remember that there is only one sword that can now be raised in defense of the Law of God and that is the sanctified sword of the Osmania Khilafat. It is the last footstep of historical Islam and the last ray of hope for our glorious destiny…”
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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