Message

Maulana Azad’s Contribution to Arabic Journalism:

a Brief Introduction

Prof. Mohammad Nauman Khan

University of Delhi (Rtd.)

Maulana Azad was a versatile genius of his age. He had brains of meaning and thoughts as well as
the beauty of words and speech. He was an eminent Scholar, politician and reformer. There would
be hardly any great personality of such qualities and points in that period of our history.
Maulana recognized the importance of journalism at an early age and began writing on different
topics relating to India and Indians in general and Muslims in particular. Muslims were at that time
the most affected people of the country as they lost their system of education and faced many
problems and problems prostration as the result of their fall after they had been rulers of the country
for centuries.
Maulana knows that Arabic is not a common language in India, for this, he used Urdu the lingua
franca of that time to communicate his views and to analyze the national and Islamic issues. He
began writing on different topics at a very early age. He could not convey all his ideas for he
established many magazines in his life.
The British were engaged also in West Asia to overpower this area by vanquishing Ottoman
Khilafah which was only representing the authority of Islam and Muslim issues throughout the
world and worldly recognized as a big power most appropriately. The British were exploiting Arab
politicians by tempting them for the purpose. Arab politicians were moved by covetous and they
also began to entertain hopes of ruling and could not recognize the future damages of small
powerless countries by replacing such a big power.
As Maulana was intelligent and far-sighted, for this he was not in favour of these revolting attempts
of Arab people against great united Muslim power and he was against such activities to disperse it
into small powerless Arab countries.
He decided to convey this message to Arabs, by issuing an Arab Magazine “al-Jema’ah”. He was
also eager to share personal thoughts as well as the opinions of Indian people with the Arabs. These
opinions and thoughts were appreciated by many Arab writers and they were enlightened by these
ideas and quoted them in their journals.
His thoughts were very enlightened and he was intelligent as well, for this he served India a lot as
the youngest President of the Indian National Congress before the independence and in the position
of the first Education Minister of Independent India as well. He created a very good comprehensive
system of education and also founded the Indian Council for Cultural Relations to foster and
strengthen politico-cultural relations with other nations worldwide. Due to the importance of Arab
countries, he also founded an Arabic periodical namely “Thaqafat al-Hind”. The articles published
in this Journal are very important sources of Indology and Arabic works in India.
Maulana Azad will be remembered forever for his outstanding and nonesuch works and deeds.
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