Traitors of Islam
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
The Champion of Naltionalism and Secularism in Muslim India
"The fundamental fallacy of Muslims has been to interpret Islam as a closed system. And that system has been closed not only from outside truth but also from outside people. The fundamental hopefulness about Indian Muslims and therefore Indian Islam is that this community may break through this.... It may find the humanity, to strive for brotherhood with those of other forms of faith (p. 290) ...... The question of political power and social organization, so central to Islam, has in the past, always been considered in yes or no terms. Muslims have either had political power or they have not. Never before have they shared it with others .... Close to the heart of Islam .... has been the conviction that its purpose includes the structuring of a social community, the organization of the Muslim group into a closed body obedient to the Law. It is this conception that seems finally to be proving itself inept in India. (pp. 206-7)" *
* Islam in Modern History, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Princeton University Press, 1957.Thus speaks one of the most prominent Orientalists on the question of the relationship between the Hindus and Muslims of India. The man who would have most wholeheartedly endorsed this fallacious analysis is Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the foremost champion of Hindu-Muslim unity on the basis of modern nationalism and secularism.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad had all the advantages of being raised in a pure Islamic atmosphere. His father, Maulana Muhammad Khairuddin, was a learned scholar, the author of many books of Arabic and Persian who was revered by thousands of disciples from all parts of India. After the rebellion against British rule was crushed in 1857, the Maulana's father was one of the thousands who fled his native Delhi for his life. As soon as arrangements could be made by his trusted disciples, he went to Arabia and took refuge in Mecca. There he married the daughter of one of the most pious and esteemed divines of the city-a woman of high intelligence and also an Arabic scholar. From this union Abul Kalam was born in 1888. Since his mother knew no other tongue, Arabic was his native language. For his elementary education he was not sent to any school but learned from his mother and father and the Arabic scholars who were his father's friends.
In 1898, at the urgent request of a disciple, his father finally returned to India and settled in Calcutta. Here under private tutors the boy pursued a full course of Arabic and Persian, philosophy, logic, arithmetic, geography and history which ordinarily required fourteen years to complete. So brilliant was the young Abul Kalam, that he finished the course in less than four years. His father, realising the menace and evil of British imperialism, was a most implacable foe of modern Western civilization and everything it stood for. The English education and modernist interpretation of Islam propagated by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan was an anathema to him.
Abul Kalam Azad was a genuine prodigy. When he was only twelve years old, he expressed his desire to write a biography of Imam al-Ghazzali. By the age of sixteen he was revered as a learned Alim. In his spare time he composed poetry in Urdu of no mean artistic merit and at the tender age of fourteen made his name in journalism by founding the Lisanus Sidq (The Voice of Truth). In 1904 when he was barely sixteen he was invited by the Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam society in Lahore to deliver the annual address. The topic of his lecture was "The Rational Basis of Religion." His audience included such celebrities as the Urdu prose-writer Nazir Ahmad and the poets, Hali and Allama lqbal. So impressive was his speech that this occasion made a name for him all over India. The poet Hali described him as "an old head on young shoulders."
Already during this period of his middle and late adolescence he pondered over what he would do with his life. Uppermost in his mind was the future of Islam and how he could help his brethren-in-faith. Thus in 1912 when he was barely twenty-four he launched his career by founding "Al-Hilal" (The Crescent), a weekly illustrated Urdu periodical which in its call for pan-Islamic unity and its vehement criticism of the sinister designs of British imperialism throughout the Muslim world was strongly reminiscent of Jamal-ud-Din Afghani's "Al Urwah al Wuthqa." Here in the medium of journalism, Abul Kalam Azad proved himself a man of first-rate literary talent. In this magazine with the most persuasive eloquence, he campaigned vehemently against the Aligarh movement of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and all that it stood for. He argued against modern education and Westernization in any form. When somebody asked him whether he followed the extremist or the moderate school of Indian politics, he ridiculed the very idea of a Muslim following others in any matter. They were the chosen people of God and had their path clearly pointed out to them. So far as he was concerned, he insisted that he followed nothing but the Holy Quran and urged all his co-religionists to do the same. This led to an unprecedented upsurge of enthusiasm for an Islamic revival throughout the country and henceforth the apologetic attitude of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and his efforts to make Islam conform to modern philosophy lost their appeal. Before Al Hilal was banned by the British and Abul Kalam Azad sent to prison, its circulation had climbed to twenty-five thousand.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's release from prison in 1920 marked the turning point in his life. It was at this juncture when he completely reversed his religious views and henceforth the future of the Muslim community as such was not his concern. He was no longer interested in building a true Islamic society in India but instead championed Hindu-Muslirn unity for the aims of secular nationalism. "I am one of those who believe that revivalism may be a necessity in a religion," he said "but in social matters it is a denial of progress!"
"Uptill 1920-1921 Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was an enthusiastic exponent of Islamic revival and the Khilafat movement, but afterwards he turned a complete somersault, in thought and action; so much so that many people began to rub their eyes to make sure whether he was the same Azad or by some process of metamorphosis, a new person had been born within him. Abul Kalam Azad was now a hundred per cent Indian nationalist and a vociferous protagonist of a single Indian nationhood of Muslims and non-Muslims. He assimilated the so-called theory of unity of religions expounded by some Hindu philosophers and the Western theory of biological evolution. The imprint of these theories can clearly be seen in his commentary on the Holy Quran." *
* Quoted from Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi's personal letter to me dated Match 30, 1962Convinced that salvation of the Muslims of India depended upon their acceptance of nationalism and secularism, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad joined the Indian National Congress Party and became one of the closest associates of Mahatma Gandhi.
"For the purposes of liberation of India and the present agitation," he declared "I entirely agree with all the arguments of Mahatma Gandhi and I have complete confidence in his honesty. It is my definite conviction that India cannot attain success by force of arms nor is it advisable for it to adopt that course. India can only triumph through non-violent agitation and India's triumph will be a memorable example of the victory of moral force." *
* Mahadev Desai, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1941, p.82.After Mahatma Gandhi called off the Khilafat movement in 1922 and failed to check the communal disturbances which claimed thousands of Muslim lives, the majority of the Muslim members of the Congress such as Maulana Muhammad Ali, his brother, Shaukat Ali and the Qaid-e-Azam became increasingly disillusioned and, one by one, they resigned from the Party. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, however, not only stayed on, but became, as its President for nearly two decades, its most ardent defender at all costs.
"Mr. Jinnah charges that the policy of the Congress is decidedly anti-Muslim, that it wants to destroy Muslim culture, constantly interferes with the Muslim religious and social life and always tramples down the political and economic rights of the Muslims. I have often declared before and I again do the same with all responsibility that all these accusations against the Congress ministries are absolutely baseless. It is a mountain of falsehood to say that the policy of Congress is anti-Muslim and has been trampling down the religious, political and economic rights of the Muslims. If Mr. Jinnah and his colleagues think that they are saying these things to benefit the cause of the Muslims, I would tell them in all earnestness that they are doing quite the opposite thing and they do a true service to the Muslims of India if they change their direction as early as possible, a true service for which the Indian Muslims are in the greatest need today." *
* Desai, op. cit., pp. 152-155.After independence in 1947, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad became the Indian Minister for Education until his death in 1958. Far from making the least attempt to base the education for Indian Muslims on a genuine Islamic foundation, he favoured such Westernising ideas as the adoption of the Latin alphabet for Urdu and the other Indian languages.
No Muslim leader in India opposed the creation of Pakistan more than Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. In so doing he justified his stand by declaring:
"The Muslim League proposal for Pakistan is fantastic. Those who make this proposal are flying in the face of history, ethnology, and the tendency of modern times. When they say that the Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations, they beg the question. The ancestors of most of us were common and I for one do not accept the theory of a superior or inferior race or different races. Mankind is one race and we have to live in harmony, with one another. Providence brought us together over a thousand years ago. We have fought but so do blood-brothers fight. So did Englishmen fight Englishmen in the War of the Roses. But they never insisted on living as separate nations. During this one thousand years we have reacted upon one another to our mutual spiritual, cultural, moral and material benefit. Mr. Jinnah and his sympathizers in the Muslim League want to put the hands of the clock back by centuries. It is no use trying to emphasize differences. Every lover of peace must emphasize similarities. What I detest is the communal approach to the national problem. In a future Constitution determined by India's representatives, the Hindu and the Muslim will have to think of their position and interests not as a Hindu or a Muslim but as a peasant or a zamindar, as a labourer or a capitalist and so on ...." *
* Desai, op. cit., pp. 170-171.In his fervent conviction that serving the ends of secular nationalism should take precedence over the concept of the Islamic community, he used all the ingenuity of his erudite mind to attempt to provide religious justification for his actions.
"Why should the Muslims join hands with the Hindus in the political struggle of the country? The Quran has permitted the Muslims to marry Jewish and Christian women where the husband shall love his wife and no other tie shall be dearer to him than that one. Then if the Quran does not allow the Muslims to have any contact at all with the non-Muslim, how is it possible to permit Muslims to make non-Muslims the very queens of their homes and put within their charge their entire worldly affairs? Herein lies the key to Hindu-Muslim unity." *
* A.B.Rajput, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Lion Press, Lahore, 1957, p.40Such apologetics are really astounding from a learned Alim. The permission granted for a Muslim to marry outside his faith is confined only to the Jews and the Christians-the "People of the Scriptures". The Holy Quran forbids a Muslim to marry from among the Polytheists which the Hindus undoubtedly are. The permission for a Muslim to marry outside his faith is only granted on condition that the husband is the head of the household and the children will be reared as Muslims. Again and again, the Holy Quran insists that Muslims befriend only believers and warns that whoever takes unbelievers for friends in preference to believers, commits a great sin. No two religions conflict with each other more than the polytheism of Hinduism and the monotheism of Islam, and the Maulana ignores the fact that never can there be unity between peoples possessing no common ideals.
As an example of the extravagant lengths to which the Maulana was willing to go in order to serve the ends of secular nationalism, he called upon the Muslims of India to remember that the Hindus were offended by their slaughter of cows for food and particularly the sacrifice of cows on the Eid day. For the sake of Hindu-Muslim unity, he asked the Muslims to remember that cow-slaughter, even for purposes of sacrifice, is not a fundamental part of their religion and he likewise assured his Hindu friends that there were many Muslims who not only never tasted beef themselves but were trying to reduce the use of it among their comrades "if only to show their spirit of brotherliness with the Hindus." In the near future, he hoped that both the Hindus and the Muslims would relax such taboos which kept their two communities apart.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's most celebrated work in which he sought religious justification for his activities, is his incomplete Urdu commentary on the Holy Quran. His main thesis in this work is that all religions are equally valid and it is only their followers who have drifted astray. He insisted that all religions in the world are united in essence.
"They differ not in their roots but in the leaves and branches, not in the spirit but only in the outward form or body. Ceremonials and rituals will vary and continue to vary with the age and country, but God in His wisdom has deliberately created this diversity. Religion is all one; only outward forms of ritual and ceremonial differ and everyone thinks that his way is superior to that of others. He cannot look at his own way from the point of view of his opponents. But even as your way is excellent in your own eye, so in other people's eyes their way is excellent. Toleration is therefore the only solution." *
* Desai, op. cit., pp. 104-105.The concept that all religions are equally true is a Hindu idea which finds no place in the Holy Quran where it is clearly stated in no uncertain terms that whoever follows a way of life other than Islam shall not be accepted by God for salvation.
"The Muslims of India in fact face what is a radically new and profound problem; namely, how to live with others as equals .... Yet it is a question on which the past doctrines of Islam offer no immediate guidance. And it is, of course in this particular case immensely complicated by the discouraging fact that the caste Hindus with whom they must live, have not yet learned to live with others either. (p. 288) . . . . It is our conviction that the welfare of the Muslim community of India, both mundane and spiritual, lies in its creatively participating in the life of the new nation.... It is our observation that it has moved in this direction during the past five years despite all troubles. Of the various factors contributing to this, the chief has been the success of secularism. That success has, of course, been partial but basic. Not much reflection is needed.... to realise that the survival and welfare of the Muslim community depends squarely on the secularity of the state. The full theological implications of this are as yet far from worked out. Relatively few Muslims, (however, in India) seem to have clung to the Islamic state idea .... Whatever traditional theology may say, secularism works. (p. 281) ...." *
* Islam in Modern History, op. cit.In the years since the above quotation was penned, events in India have proved the fallaciousness of such wishful thinking. Secularism has not worked.** On the contrary, the "secular" state has subjected the Muslims of India, particularly in occupied Kashmir, to wholesale persecution and genocide. The course followed by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad has led the Muslim community of India to ruin and disaster. How tragic it is that he could not foresee that as an inevitable result of his futile attempt to cooperate and befriend the Hindu majority in order to free India from British rule, the Muslim community has merely exchanged one bondage for another!
** Maulana Abul Kalam Azad left behind him a dedicated band of Muslim quislings such as Chagla, ex-Foreign Minister who when Minister for Education carried on a fierce campaign to persuade his Government to abolish the Muslim personal law, ban polygamy, Purdah and sanction the civil marriage of a Muslim girl to a non-Muslim husband which is prohibited by the Shariah. To promote the national family planning programme, he publicly spoke out in favour of legalizing abortion and making sterilization compulsory for fathers with more than three children. In the heat of the Indo-Pak War (September 6-24, 1965) in a speech over All-India Radio, he boasted of his Hindu ancestry. He then pointed out that most Pakistani Muslims are Hindus racially and ought to be proud of it ! In an extravagant effort to please his Hindu overlords, when Dr. Zakir Hussain assumed the Presidency, he delivered his inaugural address in Sanskrit, afterwards paying his homage to a well-known Hindu holy man by garlanding him with flowers and kissing his feet. His granddaughter now intends to marry Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's son and he fully approves. He is also reported to be partial to the worship of the Hindu god, Vishnu. The so-called Muslim Chief Minister of Pondicherry, M. 0. H. Faruq, made a statement in the Tamil weekly, Kalkandu, of August 24, 1967 that an "unknown extraordinary power induced him to worship the Hindu god, Lord Muruga that has won his heart and he added that he wishes to raise his son to worship this god. Other Indian periodicals were quick to point out that "a change of heart is taking place in many enlightened and progressive Muslims and that the Chief Minister of Pondicherry is a worthy example!" Sadiq, the Prime Minister of Kashmir, is known to cooperate openly with the Fascist Jana Sangh Party for the genocide of the Kashmiri Muslims. This is Indian secularism in practice!
The above is an excerpt from Islam and Modernism, Maryam Jameelah, Mohammad Yusuf Khan & Sons, Lahore, 1965/1988, p.77-87
References:
* Abul Kalam Azad: A Memorial Volume, Humayun Kabir, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1959.
* Modern Muslim India and the Birth of Pakistan, Dr. S.M. Ikram, Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore, 1965, pp.142-157
* India Wins Freedom, Abul Kalam Azad, Orient Longmans, Calcutta, 1959.
* The Tarjuman ul Quran, Abul Kalam Azad, English translation by Syed Abdul Latif, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1962. (The erudite author unconvincingly tries to prove the compatibility of the Quran to modern Western theories of evolution and also the alleged validity of all religions as merely different paths to the same Truth, as taught by certain Hindu philosophers.) (^^)* These are the most important classics of Muslim modernism. They belong on the "black-list" and should be approached with extreme caution because they have all done (intentionally or unintentionally) irreparable harm to the Islamic cause.
Source: The Cultural Association
Islamic Revival Homepage
Site designed and maintained by Sultanah X