Maulana Abul Kalam Muhiyuddin Ahmed ( Moulana Azad )
Birth :11th Nov.1888,Mecca ( Makkah)
Father : Kherajudin , Bengal
Mother : Arab resident
Mecca : Mother & Father migrated from India to Arab after First Indian War of Independence
Education : Two years after the birth their family came to Calcutta.Azad learned several languages & subjects. Interested in Philosophy,Literature, journalism etc.As a young man, Azad composed poetry in Urdu as well as treatises on religion and philosophy.
Marrige : At the age of 13, he was married to Zuleikha Begum
Pen name : Maulana Azad
Activities : during which the Quit India rebellion was launched and Azad was imprisoned with the entire Congress leadership for three years. Azad became the mostprominent Muslim opponent of the demand for a separate Muslim state of Pakistan.Azad was one of the main organisers of the Dharasana Satyagraha in 1931, and emerged as one of the most important national leaders of the time, prominently leading the causes of Hindu-Muslim unity as well as espousing secularism and socialism.He became the youngest person to serve as the President of the Indian National Congress in1923. Azad opposed the partition of Bengal in 1905.Azad joined the Congress and wasalso elected president of the All India Khilafat Committee.
Publications : He established an Urdu weekly newspaper in 1912 called Al-Hilal and openly attacked British policiesHe started criticizing the British and the sale of his weekly shots up to 25,000 copies per issue.second publication under the Defence of India Regulations Act and arrested him. The governments of the Bombay Presidency, United Provinces, Punjab and Delhi prohibited his entry into the provinces and Azad was moved to a jail in Ranchi, where he was incarcerated until 1 January 1920. Azad spent the final years of his life focusing on writing his book India Wins Freedom, an exhaustive account of India's freedom struggle and its leaders, which was published in 1957.Ghubar-e-Khatir' is famous in Urdu literature.
Hindu-Muslim unity : "I am proud of being an Indian. I am part of the indivisible unity that is Indian nationality. I am indispensable to this noble edifice and without me this splendid structure is incomplete. I am an essential element, which has gone to build India. I can never surrender this claim."
Khadi : He began to spin his own clothes using khadi on the charkha, and began frequently living and participating in the ashrams organised by Gandhi.
After Freedom : As India's First Education Minister, Azad oversaw the establishment of a national education system with free primary education and modern institutions of higher education.He is also credited with the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology and the foundation of the University Grants Commission, Maulana Azad had been served in the Constituent Assembly to draft India's constitution.He was minister of education for eleven years.
Mahatma Gandhi say that : "Maulana Azad is the most forceful, truthful, and fearless satyagrahi and fighter against oppression and injustice that I have come across".
Award : India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna in 1992.
National Education Day : from 11 Nov, 2011
Death : 22 Feb, 1958; Delhi
