Abul Kalam Azad (1888- 1958)
Mohiuddin Ahmad, better known as Abul Kalam Azad, played a leading role in the Indian struggle for independence and then later in the government of the India, remaining a symbol of the Muslim will to coexist in a religiously diverse India. Among his many writings were his acclaimed Urdu translation and interpretation of the Qur’an.
He was born in Makkah in 1888 in an Indian family which had emigrated from the subcontinent, but they returned to settle in Calcutta in the mid 1890’s. Azad studied at home, receiving his lessons from his father, Khairuddin Dihlawi, who was a sufi pir of the Qadiri and Naqshbandi orders, and from several other teachers. He received a thorough knowledge of the classical foundations of Islam, but the family atmosphere was extremely conservative and there was no room for the question “why”, and Azad came to decide that the beliefs he had been brought up with were “nothing but taqlidof ancestors, devotion to ancient customs and inherited dogma.”