Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's real name was Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin. He was popularly known as Maulana Azad.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was one of the foremost leaders of Indian freedom struggle. He was also a renowned scholar, and poet. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was well versed in many languages - Arabic, English, Urdu, Hindi, Persian and Bengali. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was a brilliant debater, as indicated by his name, Abul Kalam, which literally means "Lord of dialogue". He adopted the pen name Azad as a mark of his mental emancipation from a narrow view of religion and life.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was born on November 11,
1888 in Mecca. His forefathers came from Herat (a city Afghanistan) in Babar's
days. Azad was a descendent of a lineage of learned Muslim scholars, or
maulanas. His mother was an Arab and the daughter of Sheikh Mohammad Zaher
Watri and his father, Maulana Khairuddin, was a Bengali Muslim of Afghan
origins. Khairuddin left India during tile Sepoy Mutiny and proceeded to Mecca
and settled there. He came back to Calcutta with his family in 1890.
Because of his orthodox family background Azad had
to pursue traditional Islamic education. He was taught at home, first by his
father and later by appointed teachers who were eminent in their respective
fields. Azad learned Arabic and Persian first and then philosophy, geometry,
mathematics and algebra. He also learnt English, world history, and politics
through self-study.
Azad was trained and educated to become a clergyman.
He wrote many works, reinterpreting the holy Quran. His erudition let him to
repudiate Taqliq or the tradition of conformity and accept the principle of
Tajdid or innovation. He developed interest in the pan Islamic doctrines of
Jamaluddin Afghani and the Aligarh thought of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. Imbued with
the pan-Islamic spirit, he visited Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Turkey.
In Iraq he met the exiled revolutionaries who were fighting to establish a
constitutional government in Iran. In Egypt he met Shaikh Muhammad Abduh and
Saeed Pasha and other revolutionary activists of the Arab world. He had a first-hand
knowledge of the ideals and spirit of the young Turks in Constantinople. All
these contacts metamorphosed him into a nationalist revolutionary.
On his return from abroad; Azad met two leading
revolutionaries of Bengal- Aurobindo Ghosh and Sri Shyam Sundar Chakravarty, and
joined the revolutionary movement against British rule. Azad found that the
revolutionary activities were restricted to Bengal and Bihar.
Within two years, Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad helped set up secret revolutionary centers all over north India
and Bombay. During that time most of his revolutionaries were anti-Muslim
because they felt that the British government was using the Muslim community
against India's freedom struggle. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad tried to convince his
colleagues to shed their hostility towards Muslims.
In 1912, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad started a weekly
journal in Urdu called Al-Hilal to increase the revolutionary recruits amongst
the Muslims. Al-Hilal played an important role in forging Hindu-Muslim unity
after the bad blood created between the two communities in the aftermath of
Morley-Minto reforms. Al-Hilal became a revolutionary mouthpiece ventilating
extremist view. The government regarded Al- Hilal as propagator of secessionist
views and banned it in 1914. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad then started another
weekly called Al-Balagh with the same mission of propagating Indian nationalism
and revolutionary ideas based on Hindu-Muslim unity. In 1916, the government
banned this paper too and expelled Maulana Abul Kalam Azad from Calcutta and
internet him at Ranchi from where he was released after the First World War
1920.
After his release, Azad roused the Muslim
community through the Khilafat Movement. The aim of the movement was to
re-instate the Khalifa as the head of British captured Turkey.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad served as the Minister of Education (the first education minister in independent India) in Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet from 1947 to 1958. He died of a stroke on February 22, 1958. For his invaluable contribution to the nation, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was posthumously awarded India's highest civilian honor, Bharat Ratna in 1992.
