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Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
(Original: Morhum Maulana, i.e. Late Maulana)
Source: Choturongo, pp. 20-25
Translation: Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
2/4/2001
[Maulana Azad was a towering figure of modern India. However, despite his most non-communal spirit and thought as reflected in his life, he has not been immune to displeasure or communal forces, whether religious or secular, Hindu or Muslim.
He was written off in 1948 by the vast majority of Pakistan as
someone belonging to the "Indian" side of the border. He was further
written off by the vast majorities of Bangladeshis in 1971 as someone
belonging to the domain of Urdu language, the remembrance of the very language
that evokes mostly antipathy among Bangladeshis, especially the progressive
ones.
Yet, as a personality, Maulana Azad, a true spirit of human freedom, dignity
and harmony, and a voice against oppression, prejudice, and injustice, is most
definitely worth knowing. Initially, I did not know much about Maulana Azad.
But the more I read about him and his works, I was deeply touched by this
great sage and human being. I never had the opportunity to write about him,
but I do feel that people, especially the Muslims and Bangladeshis, ought to
know him better.
But as much as we boisterously speak about our disavowal of prejudice and communalism, old habits die hard. Even though many a great Islamic scholars of both subcontinent and elsewhere have learnt and mastered Sanskrit and have built important bridges, these days it is unthinkable for Muslims to study Sanskrit. Similarly, the so-called "progressive" secularists, which these days comprise of only non-religionists or anti-religionists) can't think of studying Arabic or Persian. Even the world of Bishwa Shahitto Kendra, a leading literary circle of Bangladesh, is prejudicially narrow, where Hafiz, Rumi, Sadi or Iqbal (sadly enough, even Nazrul) have hardly any place. Thus, in contemporary Bangladesh to speak about Maulana Azad, a towering figure of Urdu language, is not so easy or palatable. Who wants to, or should, take an interest in Urdu, as like many others I used to think too, especially in post-1971 period?
Well, my own narrowness of interest, somehow shaped by the narrowness of the Muslims of Bangladesh on one hand and the narrowness of the secularist Bangladeshis on the other, was dented when I recently reread a book of one of my favorite writers, Syed Mujtaba Ali. As I said, I had a desire to write something about Maulana Azad to rekindle interest in his life and thought. I also had a deep desire to translate something from Syed Mujtaba Ali, as I have done some, for examples, from Kazi Nazrul Islam, Rabindranath Tagore and Abul Mansur Ahmad. What about killing two birds in this case with one stone?
While I myself hope to write something about Maulana Azad in future, Syed Mujtaba Ali has paid a great tribute to Maulana Azad in an article "Morhum Maulana". Secularists often refer to Maulana Azad in vain. He was a true bridge-builder, while today's secularists, similar to the vast majority of Muslims or religionists, are not. They can poke fun at, trivialize, or even demand banning of each other, but can't or won't go an inch to seek common ground or foster harmony and mutual understanding.
The tribute Syed Mujtaba Ali has paid to Maulana Azad should put the Bangladeshi secularists and patriots to shame as Mujtaba Ali attempted to tempt at least some Bangalis to rekindle their interest in Maulana Azad AND Urdu language. What a dreadful thought! Of course, to learn more about Maulana Azad, one does not need to learn Urdu, since a good number of his works have been translated into Bangla.
I was disappointed to discover that there is hardly anything meaningful available online on Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Toward that end is my crude attempt here to translate an article on him written by none other than late Syed Mujtaba Ali, one of the most well-known literary figures of Bangladesh. Needless to say, the readers should not expect the zest and liveliness of Mujtaba Ali's writing in my translation.
Of course, my translation of a piece written about Maulana
Azad does not mean that I fully agree with everything he subscribed to.
Indeed, in quite a few areas the policies and approaches he adopted, I
personally am not comfortable with. The
same is true about what Syed Mujtaba Ali has written about Maulana Azad. Yet,
I am only gratified to have this opportunity to pay my tribute to Maulana Azad,
albeit in the language of another of my most favorite writers, Syed Mujtaba
Ali. It is
important to recognize that Maulana Azad was a rather controversial figure
among Muslims, especially after his alleged metamorphosis from a Pan-Islamist
to an Indian nationalist.]
Late Maulana Abul Kalam Mohiuddin Ahmad Al-Azad was a worthy son from a noble family. Information about this family is in circulation since the time of King Akbar.
His father became involved in the independence movement since 1857. When the barbaric crackdown of the British over Delhi began, he migrated to Makkah through the help of one of his devotees, the Nawab of Rampur. There he married an Arab woman. Abul Kalam is a precious fruit of that marriage.
His mother tongue is Arabic, father tongue is Urdu. Later he attained remarkable mastery of Persian as well as Turkish. He also was at home with English and enriched his literary exposure. However, after his return he became so passionately devoted to Urdu literature that subsequently he rarely spoke in Arabic or Persian.
When he was ten, his father returned to India. He had many disciples and devotees throughout India. He also had a sizeable number of devout disciples in Kolkata and he decided to build a house there at their request. His son Abul Kalam completed his education right there. The announcement made on the Radio upon his death that he received higher education at Al-Azhar University in Egypt is inaccurate. Furthermore, Maulana Shaheb always introduced himself as a Bangali and a resident of Kolkata. He did not generally speak Bangla; however, it was not uncommon that while conversing in Bangla he would begin questions-answers in Urdu and after a while people won’t even remember that he was speaking in another language.
At merely fourteen he became involved with the paper Lisan Al-Sidq (True Words) and soon his fame spread all over India. At twenty-four, his paper Al-Hilal (The Crescent) started unnerving the British. During the first World War, he was thrown into jail for his paper’s unreserved praise for the Turkish and the world Islamic movement - the adversary of the British. Immediately upon his release he associated himself with Mahatma Gandhi and the Non-cooperation Movement, and built a bridge between that movement and the independence movement of Sad Juglul Pasha and the revival movement of Gazi Mustafa Kamal Pasha.
Every Indian knows the subsequent history.
Deep antipathy toward the Caucasians and attachment toward world Muslims used to be considered inseparable from Maulana Azad. He was born in Makkah, where during the Hajj the global Muslim community used to gather together every year and explored and planned how the Caucasians and their tyranny can be eliminated from the Orient and tasks were distributed among the Indians, the Malays, the Indonesians, etc. Since this was not limited to any one nation, it was not known as nationalism. Rather it was well-known throughout the East and the West as Pan-Islamism. For ten years that he grew up in Makkah, he incessantly was exposed to this creed.
Maulana started changing soon after his arrival to Kolkata. It is true that his empathy for the world Muslims never dissipated, but gradually the source of his life’s enthusiasm and inspiration became his patriotism and Urdu, the leading language of India. Instead of accepting his mother tongue, Arabic, as the medium of his life’s mission and political struggle, he wholeheartedly embraced Urdu. This was not a trivial or easy sacrifice. Not just during the age of national liberation, even today we see many opportunists abandon their mother tongues and embrace foreign languages. They also become upset at Bangalis like us who do not join their popular bandwagon.
The worst tragedy is that Maulana had to endure lot of cruel abuses hurled at him toward the end of his life by the narrow communalistic circles for embracing Urdu, instead of his mother tongue. Choking all other Indian language, why Hindi language was not turning into the "national language" and not being worshipped at temples of India as stone-carved idols and why the relatively less developed languages of India are not being turned into sacrificial baby lambs before that idol? These circles discovered through their "intelligent" investigation that the culprit is the "Hindi-hater" Maulana Azad! Their reasoning is rather simple: Since Maulana is Urdu-speaking, as the Minister of Education he does not desire further expansion and popularity of Hindi. No one even felt the necessity to recognize the unpleasant truth that Hindi is a rather weak, less powerful language. Nobody dared to point out that Nehru was Urdu-speaking too, because such truth might build greater amity between them.
Only once Maulana spoke his mind before Lokshobha. And those who were present at Lokshobha that day observed how his adversaries were deeply embarrassed and bowed their head hearing the sincere and eloquent speech of Maulana. On that day, neither friends nor foes had the audacity to raise their face and look him into his eyes.
Even though there was a sustained exchange of correspondence between Maulana and Juglul Pasha and Kamal Ataturk*, Maulana gradually fully concentrated himself on India’s independence struggle. I am not capable of writing that part of the history. I just want to remind here that the Pan-Islamic boy of ten at Makkah gradually evolved into complete nationalist during his youth. Those adversaries of Maulana, who once used to dream about the Muslim world, have come to realization through rough experience that that dream is no more. Now they have become thoroughly Pakistanis by embracing the creed of nationalism. The sad part is that had they embraced this creed a few years earlier, it would have been better for them, for us, for everyone.
At this point, let’s draw attention to another matter.
After achieving national independence, Maulana dedicated his nationalism to the welfare of world humanity. Maulana was not very fond of traveling. However, a few years ago, to foster better relationship with the world community, he went Europe with stopovers in Pakistan and Iran. He has turned down many such invitations in the past. Most importantly, those representatives of the United Nations and its various organs who came to India have discovered Maulana Azad as one of their best friends. They have been pleasantly surprised to experience that the Maulana, who has fought the most bitter battle throughout his life against the British, does have no such lingering bitterness. Whether the British, the American, or the Russians, anyone who is on the side of the welfare of the humanity, despite their deficiencies or failures, are friends of Azad. Even more surprising is this: The British found that without speaking English, Maulana is an ally of the British; Russians observed that, without knowing the Russian, Maulana knows about Russia much more than many others. He used to speak to them in Urdu. But that Urdu is no Urdu; rather, that Urdu is the universal language of world-love; or I should say, the language of world-love expressed through Urdu. Once he embraced Urdu in place of Arabic. Then, he embraced other languages in place of Urdu – languages that have not been named yet – because we have not learnt speaking in such language yet.
Yet, till his very last day, three quarterlies used to be published at his behest. The first one is in Arabic to build and strengthen a closer cultural relationship of India with Arabia; the second one in Persian, geared toward Iran and Afghanistan; and the third one in English, targeted toward the Buddhist world (Since Buddhist community is spread in multi-languages, he adopted English as the medium of communication with them). All three of these publications came out from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in Delhi, and Maulana was in charge. To say that he was in charge would be an understatement, as he himself used to instruct as to how many copies will go to which countries. Now I wonder, where can such a diversified scholar or sage can be found who can maintain the quality, balance and policies for such diversified publications. Inside India? Outside?
The fact is that in his heart and head, he was a thoroughbred scholar. I can confidently say that if he did not migrate from the free Makkah to subjugated India, he won’t have indulged in politics at all. Even after achieving independence, he would have gone back to the world of scholarship, but the country at that time (even now) lacked qualified people. Maulana never wanted to neglect his duties. Even when his opposition became boisterous, and many of us wondered why he does not resign, he continued to perform his services due to his sense of duty, without regard to others’ criticism. I have mentioned earlier that only once he laid out his story being saddened by the bitterness of the Hindi-speaking ones (Hindiwalas). That reminds me of another story. That one, however, is somewhat humorous.
After heaping all the possible complaints and criticisms against the Ministry of Education, the opposition rested by saying: "The Ministry of Education won’t do any good. It’s brain-box is empty!"
Maulana was quite a sensitive person, unlike most scholars. He was disturbed, but faced them with smile. Several times he struck the right side of his head with his right hand and then said, "No sir. Here it is alright." Then, he lowered his hand to the right side pocket of his long coat and kept beating that side saying, "It’s not here. It’s quite empty." Another words, the head is quite loaded, but the pocket is not. To put it more simply, the cabinet is not allocating enough resources for the Ministry of Education.
As I said, Maulana was a real scholar. Motivated by his sense of responsibility, quite reluctantly, he entered the battle field of politics. I am somewhat hesitant to be the one to introduce the scholarship of Maulana to the readers, because I am simply incapable of swimming in the ocean of his knowledge.
There is a great deal of similarity between the Arabic and Sanskrit scholarship. The main one is that the scholars of both literatures are very humble. If anyone had to say something new, they would express it resorting to some ancient scripture. By writing the commentary of Gita, Honorable Tilak proved that struggle is the best human endeavor, and getting rid of the British is the best endeavor. Referring to his commentary on Gita, Mahatma Gandhi tried to make the case that non-violence is the best of faith; and referring to the lessons of Gita, Sree Aravind attempted to prove that independence is inevitable if we can attain self-control through the pursuit of knowledge. For Maulana, it was the Qur’an, using the commentary of which he tried to free the world Muslims from the shackle of the superstitions and deviations that have piled up over a long a period of time. At the same time, quite tactfully he showed them the direction in very simple language.
He could easily have written the commentary in Arabic, and through Arabic he would have gained a much bigger readership compared to Urdu. Secondly, the Qur’an is in Arabic and the world Muslims have been writing in connection with the Qur’an in Arabic (quite like the way commentaries of Gita have been written in Sanskrit even more than a century ago). Thirdly, Arabic is the language of the heartland of the Muslim world, Makkah. Fourthly, Makkah is the birthplace of Maulana. Which scholar does not desire to tie his name and fame with his own birthland?
Overcoming all these tempting reasons, he wrote his commentary of the Qur’an in Urdu. He was physically born in Makkah, but his heart and consciousness embraced India, the land of his parents and grandparents, as his own homeland. Hence, he wrote his commentary in Urdu for his countrymen. (Tilak could have written in Sanskrit too, but he wrote in Marathi.) Later when his commentary was translated in Arabic, and the accolade it received in the Arab world, what a pride every Indian must have felt? Even the Pakistanis also feel pride in this book. When leaving for Pakistan, they left Taj Mahal behind, but not his commentary of the Qur’an. Even after 1947, his commentary has been printed and sold in lakhs in Lahore.
Scholarship and literature often don’t mesh. But I have been personally impressed by Maulana’s literary taste and creativity. There is a great similarity between the honorable Tilak, but in his work was sternness, while in Maulana’s work was sweetness. If Tilak can be described as harsh and strict sage, then Maulana should be described as empathic, amicable Vaishnav. Because Maulana was Sufi (mystique), the source of his literary work was beauty and sweetness, and who doesn’t know that the sense of beauty and sweetness is the best of all (modhur rosh-i shorboshreshtho rosh)!
That’s why there was dignity in his appearance, sweetness even in a scholarly work such as the commentary of the Qur’an, and in his deliberations a superb and rare kind of beauty of simplicity.
The ultimate presentation of his literary beauty has occurred in his rommyo literature (belles-lettres). Let alone in Urdu literature, even in world literature I have not found such zesty writing full of empathy and sensitivity. To truly introduce him to Bangali readers is simply beyond this incapable author.
I have one consoling aspect on this day of great sadness. Shahitto Academy has undertaken the translation of this work in Bangla. I should also give a warning. In that translation the reader probably will find simply the opposite side of the Kashmiri shawl. They will get only partial introduction to the original, and maybe, will develop a complete, the opposite of partial, desire. If it ever happens, then maybe some Bangali might be tempted to learn the disfavored Urdu language. Maybe that effort would bring joy to the resting soul of Maulana Abul Kalam Mohiuddin Ahmad Al-Azad in that heavenly world beyond all this earthly grief and tribulations.
Note:
*Many Muslim scholars and personalities of the subcontinent had taken Kamal Pasha as a pioneering hero in the context of Pan-Islamism. The writings of Iqbal, Maulana Azad or Kazi Nazrul Islam are full of such high accolades. It is worth mentioning that their deep attachment to Kamal was in the context of his heroic and successful struggle against the British, the nemesis of the people of Indian subcontinent, including the Muslims. In Islamic context, however, Muslims of the subcontinent were soon disillusioned about Turkey, as the Kamalist establishment undertook and institutionalized its campaign against Islam in particular. One can confidently say that none of these personalities, whether Maulana Azad, Iqbal or Nazrul, who at one time had high praise for Kamal, would have been complacent about the anti-Islamic, Secular Fundamentalism in modern Turkey, a legacy of Kamal Pasha.
Additional readings on Azad:
1. Introduction to INDIA WINS FREEDOM
2. 1946 Statement on Muslim issues and Pakistan Movement
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