MAULANA ABUL KALAM AZAD [D.

1958)] Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was born in the year 1888 in Mecca. His forefather's cam e from Herat (a city in Afghanistan) in Babar's days. Azad was a descendent of a lineage of learned Muslim scholars, or maulanas. His father's name was Maulana Khairuddin and his mother was the daughter of Sheikh Mohammad Zaher Watri. In 1890, Azad's father moved to Calcutta. Educated according to the traditional curriculum, Azad learned Arabic and Persian first and then philosophy, geometry, mathematics and algebra. He was taught at home, first by his father, later by a ppointed teachers who were eminent in their respective fields. Seeing that Engli sh was fast becoming the international language, Azad taught himself to read, wr ite and speak the language. He adopted the pen name "Azad" to signify his freedo m from traditional Muslim ways. Revolutionary Shri Shyam Sunder Chakravarthy introduced Azad to the freedom stru ggle. Most revolutionaries in Bengal were Hindus. Azad greatly surprised his fel low Hindu revolutionaries with his willingness to join the freedom struggle. At first his peers were skeptical of his intentions. Azad found the revolutionary activities restricted to Bengal and Bihar. Within t wo years, Azad helped setup secret revolutionary centers all over north India an d Bombay. Most revolutionaries were anti-Muslim because they felt that the British Governm ent was using the Muslim community against India's freedom struggle. Azad tried to convince his colleagues that indifference and hostility toward the Muslims wo uld only make the path to freedom more difficult. Azad began publication of a journal called Al Hilal (the Crescent) in June 1912 to increase revolutionary recruits amongst the Muslims. The Al Hilal reached a c irculation of 26,000 in two years. The British Government used the Press Act and then the Defense of India Regulations Act in 1916 to shut the journal down. Azad roused the Muslim community through the Khilafat Movement. The aim of the m ovement was to re-instate the Khalifa as the head of British captured Turkey. Azad supported Gandhiji's non-cooperation movement and joined the Indian Nationa l Congress (I.N.C) in January 1920. He presided over the special session of Cong ress in September 1923 and is said to be at the age of 35, the youngest man elec ted as the President of the Congress. Azad was arrested in 1930 for violation of the salt laws as part of Gandhhiji's Salt Satyagraha. He was put in Meerut jail for a year and a half. Azad was the staunchest opponent of partition of India into India and Pakistan. He supported a confederation of autonomous provinces with their own constitution s but common defense and economy, an arrangement suggested in the British Cabine t Mission Plan of May 1946. According to Azad partition was against the grain of the Indian culture which did not believe in "divorce before marriage." Partitio n shattered his dream of an unified nation where the Hindu and Muslim faiths wou ld learn to co-exist in harmony. Maulana Azad served as the Minister of Education in Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's ca binet from 1947 to 1958. He died in August 1958. Azad was honored with the Bhara t Ratna posthumously in 1992. Compiler: Gambhirwala, Siddharth

He was a Muslim theologian, scholar and author of this 20th century in India, wh o also held high political and ministerial posts in the republic of India. In hi s well-known Urdu commentary of the Quran, put forth his views. IN THEIR OWN WORDS I am a Muslim and profoundly conscious of the fact that I have inherited Islam's glorious tradition of the last fourteen hundred years. I am not prepared to los e even a small part of that legacy. The history and teachings of Islam, its arts and letters, its culture and civilization are part of my wealth and it is my du ty to cherish and guard them.... But, with all these feelings, I have another eq ually deep realization, born out of my life's experience which is strengthened a nd not hindered by the Islamic spirit. I am equally proud of the fact that I am an Indian, an essential part of the indivisible unity of the Indian nationhood, a vital factor in its total makeup, without which this noble edifice will remain incomplete." "If the whole world is our country and is to be honored, the dust of India has t he first place......If all mankind are our brothers, then the Indians have the f irst place." "Not only is our national freedom impossible without Hindu-Muslim unity, we also cannot create, without it, the primary principles of humanity. If an angel were to tell me: 'Discard Hindu-Muslim unity and within 24 hours I will give freedom to India'; I would prefer Hindu-Muslim unity. For the delay in the attainment o f freedom will be a loss to India alone, but if the Hindu-Muslim unity disappear s, that will be a loss to the whole humanity." "Tagore's conception of God rises above all narrow limitations of race, religion or creed. The term Adavita translated into Arabic would read 'Wahdahu-la-Sharee k,' the one who has no second...." "It was India's historic destiny that many human races, cultures and religions s hould flow to her, and that many a caravan should find rest here.... One of the last of these caravans was that of the followers of Islam. This came here and se ttled for good.... In India everything bears the stamp of the joint endeavor of the Hindus and Muslims. Our languages were different, but we grew to use a commo n language. Our manners and customs were dissimilar, but they produced a new syn thesis. No fantasy or artificial scheming to separate and divide us can break th is unity." "As an Indian I hate the notion of slicing India into two. As a Muslim, I am not prepared for a moment to give up my right to treat the whole of India as my dom ain or to content myself with a mere fragment of it."

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