Throughout the period of the Indian
National movement, precisely at the second half of the 19th and beginning of the
20th century when the concept of nationalism was being intensively set in
motion, a group of political leaders sought the theological base of the movement
and virtually paid much attention to ethics and religion. These leaders took up
religious traditions side by side with nationalist ideology as their vow in
order to achieve the national goal (i.e. freedom of India). Under the
circumstances, Indian people were put in a new orientation to what may be called
the traditional values and ideals. All the more, these leaders focused some – if
not all – items of religion in the network of national movement and popularised
the same for future India. It is no wonder that in such a historical development
we come across Mawlānā Abu’l Kalām Azād who was originally named as Muhī al-Dīn
Ahmad. This Mawlānā emerged as a giant personality of the day and is remembered
to date for his contribution to the cause of rational interpretation of Islam as
a religion so as to ‘justify its inherent values to any circumstances’.
It is, however, difficult to write or
talk about the Mawlānā who had a commanding role in the time he lived and also
in the ages to come. Furthermore, his personality has been studied by a large
number of scholars coming from various disciplines and professions such as
historians, journalists, contemporary leaders and politicians, researchers of
Indian religions; and the beginning of these studies may be traced as far back
as the first half of the 20th century. In fact, the multitudinous literature
produced on the life and activities of the Mawlānā and any attempt for a
comprehensive survey is a Herculean task. Apart from the micro and macro studies
such as those of Muhammad Mujīb, A.R. Malīhabādī, A.B. Rājpūt, Mahādaiv Disāī,
Hamāyūn Kabīr, Mushīru’l Hasan, Jamāl Khwājah, Mu‘īn Shākir, K.A. Nizāmī and V.N.
Datta, we have at our disposal a few recently published articles to deal with
some striking points of Mawalānā Azād’s life and theology. The publications of
I.H. Douglas’ books and that of S.C. Kashyap’s are also significant additions
to our knowledge. The present article is an attempt to present Mawlānā Abul
Kalām as Azād (lit. free) and practically to examine how he, to speak in Mu‘īn
Shākir’s words ‘tried to reconcile religion with reason without injuring
either’, and became an āzād (free man) in the true sense of the term.
There is no doubt that Azād was a
religious man but his approach to religion was not dogmatic. To speak in the
words of Douglas, his religion was a ‘a belief to guide life.’ Dr. Iqbāl once
said:
Religion is not a departmental
affair, it is neither mere thought nor were feeling, it is an expression of the
whole man’.
Mawlānā Abu’l Kalām’s religious ideals
appear to be an outburst of his manhood lying in him. Jamāl Khwājah, a reputed
scholar of Muslim theology, says, ‘most Muslims the world over lack the Islamic
perspective in which secular democracy and humanist internationalism have been
integrated into their religious thought-cum-value system. Whatever is done in
most cases is, according to him, ‘mere piecemeal pragmatic adjustments to the
new situation without any reinterpretation of the basic concepts and values of
the Islamic tradition…’. It is noteworthy that the Mawlānā’s attempt to the
cause of religion was neither a mere piecemeal readjustment nor an
interpretation of the basic concepts of Islam without reality. All the more,
Mawlānā Abu’l Kalām made a decisive move to interpret the Qur’ān and Islam in a
new light. He may be taken as the first and by far the best representative of
the Indian Muslims who opened a new dimension to the cause of rational inquiry
of Islam in the light of the Qur’ān. The standard of this new outlook in the
interpretation of the Qur’ān and by his bold step to judge Islam as it actually
deserves, he thereby stood against the medieval tyranny of religious dogma and
unleashed forces which created a new spirit in the age he lived and made him
worthy to be ranked by the side of Rajarammohun Roy of Bengal.
In tracing the inner development of
Mawlānā Abu’l Kalām, it is necessary to consider the early influences of his
surrounding environment and the subsequent development of his character and
ideology. It is true that he dreamt for a new India; and in his vision he wanted
to see the Muslims as an inseparable part of its soul. He differed from Nihrū
but he could not think of India without this man. According to Ashin Dasgupta, a
renowned historian and a scholar and once in charge to release the complete
edition of the India Wins Freedom, Azād was a bridge between the old model
Gandhījī and the modern man Jawāharlāl Nihrū. How far this is true is yet to be
decided but the fact remains that Mawlānā Abu’l Kalām dreamt of an India where
he could identify himself and at the same time set the motion for the
identification of the Muslims at large.
After such a conclusion, it is relevant
to look into the process of evolution of Azād’s life whereby he could be studied
as āzād in spite of being a so-called Mawlānā of the Muslim community. Here we
have to depend on his works, mostly his Tazkiras (Tadhkirahs) and the articles
published in his two journals Al-Hilāl and Al-Balāgh. Incidentally, it may be
noted that his India Wins Freedom is not so important for the portrayal of his
religious beliefs. We know that his Tazkiras were written in 1916 and in 1921-22
respectively when he was in jail. Ashin Dasgupta admits that there is a thematic
difference between his English works, i.e. India Wins Freedom and that of the
Tazkiras. Any way, we should start from the point of his childhood when his
religious ideas were going through some twists and turns until they got a final
shape in later life.
We, perhaps, all know that Mawlānā Abu’l
Kalām was born in Makkah in 1888. His Indian father came from a very reputed
family of theologians and his mother too belonged to an aristocratic family of
Arabia. He got traditional education in Arabic language, poetry and learning
from his family circles which ensured upbringing amidst an academic atmosphere.
His father was a disciple of the Sūfī Saint Shāh Walī Allāh and the Mawlānā was
always respectful to the memory of such persons as guides of the Indian Muslims.
When he was barely fourteen years of age, he began to be assailed by doubts
about his traditional beliefs. This stage came to a head due to his father’s
harsh views regarding the Wahhābīs.
It is interesting to note that in this
new development of his outlook to religion, he never leaned on dogma and always
intended to seek reason behind faith. It appears from the analysis of Ashin
Dasgupta that this attitude of the Mawlānā was speeded by two factors: (i) His
study of the then banned book, First Book of Reading popularly known as First
Book by one Parīcharan Sarkār, a teacher of Kalutola Branch School, Calcutta
(presently known as Hare School), and (ii) His thorough study of Sir Sayyid
Ahmad’s writings. Azād had a great respect for his learned father but the
latter’s furious hostilities towards the Wahhābīs Book proved to be an opening
chapter to satisfy his curiosity about science and reason. It was also his
preparatory stage to understand the rational viewpoints of Sir Sayyid
subsequently. These studies broke the stranglehold of orthodoxy and opened new
vistas for him. It was the first time, as Tārāchand says, that he repudiated
conformity (Taqlīd) and accepted renovation (Tajdīd). This, was perhaps due to
Azād’s rational approach to religion which developed from his global perspective
of knowledge. To Nizāmī, this intellectual journey of Azād was bound to come
because his rationalism was, in fact, a stage in the evolution of his religious
thought. He believed in Tafakkur (contemplation) and not in Istidlāl
(ratiocination). At this stage, the Mawlānā questioned the very validity of
religion and he gradually reached the stage of denial of the existence of God.
He become Azād i.e. free from the clutches of so called faith and religion.
According to Tārāchand:
For some years he wandered in this
dark valley of scepticism and infidelity bearing the burden of unrelieved mental
anguish and spiritual pain, a rebel against his father and his family
traditions.
However, Azād eventually triumphed over
the haziness of this sceptic phase and all sorts of inner contradictions. His
faith was renewed and confirmed never to be shaken under any trials. He came to
believe in nature and rationalism but not devoid of God. To quote Dasgupta:
This Azad was a creation of Azād
himself.
In the view of Nizāmī:
Having covered all the stages of
scepticism, doubt, agnosticism, atheism etc., he came back to his original faith
and it was a stage of his own discovery and not an inherited legacy.
This Mawlānā Abu’l Kalām thus emerged
truly as an āzād, and editor of the Al-Hilāl and Al-Balāgh which had become his
powerful organs to preach the truth of religion.
It was for obvious reason that Azād
became a different type of man from this time on. Shāh Walī Allāh had criticised
Taqlīd, and this criticism took a new turn in the hand of Mawlānā Azād. He not
only appealed to the Muslims to realise the values of the Qur’ān but also
ignited the sentiments of the Indian Muslims for the cause of the nation and
also for the liberation of their mother land. He began to convince the whole
Muslim community that there was hardly any difference between God-worship and
service to the motherland. He popularised the concept that Islam has never
accepted a sovereignty which is personal or is constituted of a bureaucracy of a
handful of paid executives. He also stressed the Hindu-Muslim Unity for this
noble cause of the nation.
Islam in India has been interpreted in
various ways. People have treated this religion from more than one angle. Azād
had chosen the path of the Qur’ān, i.e. appreciation of modernisation on values
and a unique concern for national integration. This development is fascinating.
According to Dasgupta, it was, however, still an incomplete development of a man
like Azād. He says:
Azād had yet to speed up another step
of ideological perception which came from the ethos of Islam practised and
preached mostly in its birthplace.
Historically speaking, this
transformation of the Mawlānā can be traced right back to 1908 when his father
died and he subsequently undertook a long trip to some west Asian countries. In
the course of his visit, he came in touch with a striking wave of change in the
traditional Muslim society. The teachings of Jamāl al-Dīn Afghānī had created
aspirations for freedom, progress and religious revivalism among the Muslims of
that part of the world. This had made an impression upon his mind. In Iraq he
met some of the revolutionaries of Iran who stood for modernisation and
threatened the despotic type of government. Likewise, in Egypt he met Shaykh
‘Abduhū and a few supporters of Kamāl Pāshā. Azād also got an opportunity to
revise and enlighten his own ideas with an interaction of the newspapers of
Western Asia. ‘Abduhū’s Islamic thought on the basis of rationalism, and Rashīd
Radā’s translation and popularisation of the Qur’ān were sufficient to mould the
temperament of Azād. He now could develop and realise his mode of action and he
began to move towards the desired goal.
On the above development, it is said:
This step of Azād was not an
imitation of Cairo. He was respectful to Rashīd Radā or ‘Abduhū but they were
not to be blindly followed by Azād.
In the same way, Azād also declined to
treat the Qur’ānic values as ‘Abduhū did. Nizāmī says that Azād at this stage
believed:
Science can apprise us of the
principles of physical determinism but cannot give us the consolation of faith
which we need in life.
Practically speaking, during the days of
Al-Hilāl, Azād had turned into a person very close to God. In doing so, he
however, discarded the formula of Sir Sayyid who favoured a system of education
leading to creation of some English educated Muslim clerks as a means for
modernisation. Sir Syyid stressed upon an overall reformation amongst the Muslim
‘Ulamā who were supposed to be the ultimate guide of the Muslim society. Azād
gave up this method of modernising the Muslims of India and deliberately made
religion as a basis for the progress of the society.
Needles to say, Azād had started his
life as a critic of the so-called traditional values of Islam. According to him,
this was a kind of blind imitation. His ideas have been reflected clearly in at
least two works namely (1) Wilādat-i-Nabī and (2) the famous Tajumān
al-Qur’ān. In the first one he nicely explains the importance of Prophethood
and that, as he believes, a prophet comes to save the mankind in utter moral
crisis. He also lays emphasis that it is the concern of God who sends a prophet
to relieve the rūh (soul) with heavenly bliss. Apparently, this idea of Azād
sounds like an absolute theology, but he categorically emphasised this and stood
for the same till his death.
Frankly speaking, Islam and the Qur’ān
got a new interpretation in his hands. It is true that Azād was not a religious
preacher as such, nor did he establish a school of religion in India. But what
he did was to try to get the ball of Islam rolling. His superb idea in this
respect has been fairly reflected in the interpretation of Sūrah al-Fātihah
which he called Ummu’l Qur’ān or the Core of the Qur’ān. His division of the
whole Sūrah into seven parts with a proper title, according to the significance
of the verse, calls for his profound scholarship. As to the second part called
Rubūbiyāt or ‘Divine providence’, Nizāmī believes that ‘his discussion of the
Rubūbiyāt is extremely fascinating and forms the basis of his approach to
religion.’ Nizāmī further observes:
It was Sir Sayyid who inculcated in
him the spirit of rational interpretation of religion, but later on, when
writing his Tarjuman al-Qur’ān, he gave up that approach and said that any
attempt to prove that religion is in harmony with the theories of Science is
basically wrong.
It is said about him that religion to
him was to ensure human service and not rigidity which might be a barrier to the
progress of human society. In this regard, Sūrah al-Fātihah to Azād: ‘depicts a
new type of mind which reflects the beauty and mercy of God or universal
humanity which the Qur’ān aims to build’. Nothing can be as rational and
positive as the interpretation of religion which Azād attempted. In this way, it
seems, that Azād might have attempted to evolve a truth about religion which
might be regarded as an eternal truth.
It is to be noted that Azād elaborates
the main theme of the Qur’ān which lays emphasis on Dīn (religion), and it is
the Sharī‘ah (law of living) which differs. Azād did not mean religion as sum
total of rituals and their various modes performances, but belief in God, His
messengers, Day of Resurrection, Angels and above all good deeds. He even fought
to establish that the principal underlying faith in God is brotherhood and unity
of the human race, not differences and hatred. This was echoed in his writing in
Al-Hilāl:
Islam does not command
narrow-mindedness and racial and religious prejudices… It teaches us to believe
that every man is good whatever his religion.
Azād was, however, equally concerned
about the reason of differences enshrined in the Sharī‘ah of Islam which,
according to him, creates doctrinal differences. In this question he is said to
have propagated the truth that all prophets had preached the same religion or
dīn but legal codes have differed from prophet to prophet and any difference
arising out of it was due to misunderstanding of the actual goal of religion.
That Azād was quite aware of it, is known from his statement where he says:
Every religion in its outward form
reflects the spirit of the age and country in which it was taught, and it suited
the age and country.
But this proposition of religion,
according to Azād, matters little, as he believed in the ‘basic oneness of dīn
despite differences in religious law. According to Mahādiv Disāī, biographer
of the Mawlānā, Azād had started his mission with a fundamental approach, viz.,
‘that the roots or rather the root of religions is one, that every race and
country and age had its own teacher and prophet and the cardinal principles that
they taught were the same.’ Disāī further refers to Azād who alludes to the
Qur’ān in order to define true religion. Thus ‘the Qur’ān says’, to quote the
Mawlānā: ‘no matter what the country and what the age, all the prophets sent by
God taught the same universal truth for the welfare of mankind, viz. Faith and
Good works i.e., worship of one God and right conduct. Anything that is said in
contravention of this is not true religion.’
The aforesaid view of Azād shows a clear
idea of ‘Divine Guidance’ and to quote Jamāl Khwājah:
It stands to demarcate the proper
spheres of operation of instinct, perception, reason and revelation and to put
forward the ideal of balanced and integrated conception of Islamic piety and of
obedience to the Qur’ān and the Sunnah. Neither the Qur’ān nor the Sunnah is
treated by Azād as a text book of law, politics, economics, physics or
astronomy, but as the fount of spiritual and moral truths.
Azād also believed in the ‘Value of
Beauty’ in all creations on the earth and he is said to have emphasised:
The value of beauty in all creation
also controls the evolutionary process by putting brakes on natural selection
and by imposing gradualism. This in turn is a source of checks and balances in
man’s individual, moral and social life. This gradualism is also the law that
governs the process of evolution by a chain of elimination and conservation.
All the more, Azād had always laid
emphasis on the search for perfection which can only be achieved through the
principle of setting all the things on earth in the right direction.
As to the understanding of the Qur’ān,
Azād also warned mankind regarding the conflicting forces of truth (Haqq) and
falsehood (Bātil). He says:
To a certain extent these two
conflicting elements are complementary in life, for this reason in certain cases
Rahmat overlooks or forgives the less serious acts of falsehood. It also allows
man time for reflection and atonement.
A striking feature of Azād’s religious
views was his strong stand as a fighter in the cause of man’s intellectual
emancipation and for this he had touched the deepest level of human intelligence
by preaching the significance of truth. The style in which he endeavoured to
free the mind in this respect was in the words of the Qur’ān:
And Say: Truth has (now) arrived and
Falsehood perished: For Falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish. (17:81)
It is quite interesting that Azād stood
for truth, fought for truth and preached nothing but truth. Throughout the whole
essay called Wilādat-i-Nabī he appears to have been afraid of the whole mankind
which was increasingly supposed to negate the truth (Haqq) and this according to
him leads to ruin. And for this reason he has always directed mankind towards
the ‘Straight Path’ (Sirāt al-Mustaqīm). He also laid emphasis on the true
belief (Īmān) and advocated that only the believer can overcome all troubles on
the earth. May we recall a famous saying of the Qur’ān which he used to refer
to justify this perception. This goes as:
So lose no heart, nor fall into
despair: For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in Faith. (3:139)
Lastly, Azād sought the victory of
mankind, and for this he invited them to the path of God. He refers to another
saying of the Qur’ān which says:
O ye who believe! If ye will aid (the
cause of) God, He will aid you and plant your feet firmly. (47:7)
In fact, Azād occupies a place of his
own regarding religion and his way of understanding and interpretation of Islam.
In this respect, as some people think, perhaps Iqbāl could have made an
impression on the thinking of Azād. Azīz Ahmad says and perhaps rightly
emphasises that in understanding Islam and the Qur’ān, Azād admired Iqbāl in
many respects but did not bother to reject his views on many occasions.
Incidentally, Jamāl Khwājah has
presented a comparative study of these two Muslim thinkers in respect of their
religious views. Khawājah says:
Azād rejects Iqbal’s conception of
Islam as a total guide to the good life without any distinction between the
spiritual and the secular, and also ideal conception of the Islamic community (Ummah)
as the primary and supreme determinant of group identity and loyalty. In these
two aspects, Azād accepts the essentially secular and nationalist or rather
humanist outlook of Sayyid Ahmad.
More striking is that Azād differed from
Iqbāl in respect of the approach to the Qur’ān. It is said:
Iqbāl approaches the Qur’ān equipped
with dialectical methodology and the attitude of metaphysical speculation. Azād
proceeds from the revealed word of God to the explanation of the phenomena of
the universe and the physical and moral laws that bind humanity. In religious
law, Azād is almost exclusively preoccupied with its primary source, the Qur’ān,
quoted the Hadīth only when it suits him to fortify his own exegetical argument;
while Iqbāl is concerned with all the four sources, and specially the last two,
Ijtihād and Ijmā‘, which he regarded as the principal human (sic), as
distinguished from revelation or Hadīth …. Ijtihād as well as Ijmā‘ in the
interpretations of Iqbāl bears the stamp of the twentieth century. Azād on the
other hand, replaces the legal concept of Ijtihād by that of Ta’sīs
(reconsolidation), … what he interprets as Islam’s fundamental verities which
would externalise the perfection inherent in it.
Azād was, above all, concerned with a
single goal of life i.e. ‘Love of God can best be expressed through love of His
creatures. This dual function of man’s love of God paves the way on the one hand
of Azād’s monistic eclecticism, on the other for his humanism’. According to
Khwājah, like Sir Sayyid, Azād also stood for ‘Islamic universalism as distinct
from the Islamic communitarianism of Iqbal.’ He also says that, ‘Azād’s
Islamic universalism made him full of sympathy and concern for the welfare of
the human family rather than the Muslims alone’. In the words of Rajmuhan
Gāndhī:
‘Azād saw himself as the Imam but
there was more than self-regard or vanity in his call for an Imām’.
It is true that Azād had a religious
approach to politics but unlike others he had the capacity to control its
impact, if any, on it. Thus on one occasion he has been put on record saying:
Religion is like the mighty steam
engine which needs to be in charge of a skilful and wide-awake driver. In the
hands of an unworthy driver it can cause untold misery. To our great
misfortunate religion has fallen into unworthy hands. They have turned it into
irreligion and I do not know where we are going.
What Azād propagated was a channel to
ensure unity of religion and to interpret the same in terms of human service. He
believed that people may seek the truth in various ways, but the real purpose
would be submission to God and virtuous deeds to all. He was ever consistent in
his goal and this has been recently recognised by the modern researchers too.
Thus Azād, although thoroughly a
religious man, was never a blind supporter of traditionalism and the so-called
religion bereft of reason. He believed in the theory of supporting religious
faith in order to survive on this earth. He had no faith in the so-called
organised religious schools which breed communalism. His religion was to promote
inner development vis-a-vis to search out the universal truth which might pay
attention to the details of the social environment so as to promote a good life
in this world. With his inquisitive mind he was a non-conformist and would
accept customs or beliefs only if he found that they stood to reason. The
purpose of his religion was to make one a good human being whom he called
Mard-i-Mu’min, a man of faith in terms of his moral, ethical and spiritual
qualities. We cannot do much better than quoting W.C. Smith who once wrote
about Azād:
Azād is a thoroughly profound scholar
of Islam; his scholarship being liberal in the very best of sense. He has a
place in the front rank of the classical theologians; he is also among the
foremost of the moderns…. His Islam is humanitarian..
(Courtesy: “Hamdard Islamicus”)
30. Disā‘ī, op. cit., p. 69.
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