Translators From India

"The Tablighi Jama’at is a Muslim religious movement headquartered in Delhi. Since 1947, its extension, too, has been exponential. In the same way, all other Muslim bodies have greatly added to their assets as well as increasing the numbers of their followers. In former times, Islamic conferences were few and far between, but nowadays, major conferences are being organized almost on a daily basis in India by Muslims. These take up different aspects of Muslims and Islam. Islamic books and journals are also being published in far greater numbers than ever before. What has gained momentum in India since 1947 is not, in fact, the persecution of Muslims, but yellow journalism and an exploitative leadership which sustains itself by repeated allegations of persecution. If there is any danger to Muslims in this country it is only from our so-called leadership, buoyed up as it is by paranoid journalism. There is no other real danger to Muslims.’ “Those who hold the reins of leadership and journalism in their hands are people of very shallow character. Their only formula for boosting circulation and retaining their leadership is to create a fear psychosis among Muslims and then to exploit it. To this end, they painstakingly select negative instances from Indian Society and then, by blowing them up out of all proportion, they manage to convey the erroneous impression that Indian Muslims are the victims of prejudice and injustice."

"This is exactly what the Prophet Muhammad did at Hudaybiyyah (6 AH/ 628 AD). By refusing to be provoked in the face of harassment from the Quraysh, and accepting all their demands, he put an end to a conflict which had been raging for twenty years. In doing so he defused the tension which had marked relations between Muslims and their non-Muslim compatriots. The result of his seemingly capitulation action, as the Qur'an tells us and history verifies, was a 'real victory' for the Muslims. If the Muslims are to detonate the sitting bomb of Communal riots, as it is their duty to do, they can only do so by following the example of the Prophet, and refusing to be provoked, even in the face of provocation from the other side. Failure to do this can only result in further escalation in a conflict which serves only to distort Islam in the eyes of others, especially their adversaries. Communal violence is one of the most talked of subjects these days, and discussion thereon are dominated by the fact that the brunt of police violence has to be borne by the Muslims. 'The policemen are killers,' say Muslims. Their theme song is that the brutalities of Adolf Hitler and Chengiz Khan pale into insignificance when compared with what the police inflict on innocent Indian citizens. At face value, this would appear to be correct. But we must pause and give greater thought to the reasons for police ‘misconduct’. Why should it take place at all? If we marshal facts, we see that in every case, the situation has been aggravated more by the Muslims being easily provoked than by a desire on the part of the police to be aggressive. And it is noteworthy that wherever there is a concentration of Muslims, this oversensitiveness is very much in evidence; sooner or later, it is the Muslims themselves who have to pay dearly for it at every level."

"During the Afghanistan war, the national press gave equal credit ot the valour of the Afghan Mujahidin and the assistance given by the Americans. The Muslim press, on the contrary, want to keep the Americans out of the picture - although the help they gave was quite extraordinary - and give full credit to the Afghan Mujahidin. They act in this way because they want to prove that Muslims are entirely virtuous and innocent of all wrongdoing, and that if they appear to have shortcomings, it is because of the harsh treatment meted out to them by others. It is on the basis of kind of one-sided ad partial news reporting that Muslims want to create their own press. What they do not realise is that the world for which they want to create such a press has neither any need of it nor any interest in it. Such papers, issued by Muslims are destined to be read by Muslims. In this world of cause and effect, such efforts cannot have any other result."

"“Where the non-Muslim press presents the Muslim cases in totality, the Muslim press gives only half the picture. For instance, in the Bhagalpur riots in October 1989, bombs were initially set off by Muslims. It was only after this that Hindus set fire to Muslim properties. The non-Muslim press described the acts of both the communities, including the fact that the Hindu destruction of the Muslim property had been ona much larger scale than the damage caused by the Muslim bombs, yet flying in face of facts, the Muslims wanted no mention of bomb-throwing. They wanted only the burning of their property by the Hindus to be highlighted... Similarly, when the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, the Muslims of Bombay wantedno mention of their subsequent rioting & destruction, which sparked off Hindu acts of revenge, again on a much larger scale. They wanted facts damaging to themselves to be suppressed so that they might appear to be the innocent, injured party. This attitude extends to every important sphere of Muslim existence...It is on the basis of this kind of one-sided and partial news reporting that Muslims want to create their own press.”"

"To me, the Muslim press has been suffering from what I can only call quite unjustifiable self-righteousness on the part of Muslim intellectuals. It is this innate weakness which has prevented them from seeing their own shortcomings. All they can see are the plots of others behind every problem their community faces. Consequently, instead of engaging themselves in constructive activities, they spend their time inciting members of their community to protest against others. Journalism of this kind will only lull the community to sleep by providing it with doses of opium: it cannot become the means of its regeneration. This is the modern reality of the Muslim press. It must also be conceded that neither at the present nor in the near future can Muslims bring their journalism up to the standard o the day. One basic reason is that modern journalism is fed by industry, and that is a field in which Muslims have yet to find a noteworthy place. For this reason, it is my firm opinion that, at the moment, Muslims are in no position to achieve an international status for their press. That being so, what ought we to do? I think in this matter out first step should be to heed the wisdom of the old saying: 'Begin at the beginning.'"

"Maulana Ilyas, like his father and brother visited Mewat from time to time. Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin being not far from there. Some Mewati students were already studying there and many other Mewatis had came to hold the family of Maulana Ilyas in great reverence because of their devotion and struggle to guide them along the right path. But there was still much to do, and the Maulana, greatly moved by their plight, felt a strong urge to improve their condition. His first idea was to set up and run schools in this area of Mewat on the pattern set by his family, so that the local children could have easy access to education. When it came to convincing the Mewatis that they should send their children to school, they were tough nuts to crack. How could they spare their children for school? This, for them amounted to a sheer waste of time. The children regularly helped their parents in ploughing, grazing the cattle and other such activities. So the idea of supporting their children without any return from them had no appeal But the Maulana was the last man to accept defeat he did not weaken in his resolve, but rather intensified his campaign, sometimes approaching them personally, and sometimes entering their congregations to plead his case. He would tell them, "If only you would spare your children, I would take the responsibility for all their expenses at the school" They ultimately surrendered before his indomitable will, and he succeeded in establishing a number of schools where, besides the teaching of the Quran, elementary religious education was also imparted. Work on this pattern continued until another incident occurred which changed the course of his activities. On a visit to Mewat, the Maulana was introduced to a young man who had just completed his education in one of his schools. Much to his astonishment, he saw no traces of Islam in his clean-shaven appearance. He was quick to relaize his failure. His aim had not been fulfilled. He had been aware of this problem to some extent before, but now it had become plain for all to see. The schools did serve a purpose, but to the Maulana's eyes, only a secondary one; that is, it had considerably enhanced his own image and, as he himself was now held in reverence, he was in a better position to bring pressure to bear upon them when it came to solving their disputes; there was no doubt that he was extremely successful in this regard. The Mewatis said, "Though a mere skeleton, when he takes up any issue, he can work wonders. He can solve complicated problems in a matter of minutes. Even the most stubborn of us surrender ourselves before him." But this was not the main issue. What the Maulana was primarily concerned with was the awakening in them of the religious spirit. Their religious inertia was so deep-rooted that even school courses could not help them to slough it off. This failure of the schools greatly distressed him, and he gave the question much thought. At last he arrived at the conclusion that the real inadequacy lay in the present method of working: the attempt to educate them in their own atmosphere and in the scene of their own activities. In such surroundings the best efforts on the part of the teachers were in vain. As soon as the young people left the school they mingled with company of their own sort, which nullified the school influence altogether. The only solution to this problem, as the Maulana saw it, lay in separating them from their milieu, and it was decided that they should be withdrawn from it in groups for a period of time, and gathered together in mosques or religious institutions away from bad spheres of influence. Thus detached from their worldly and material atmosphere, they would be imparted education by counsel and guidance in the company of religious people. This formula proved the right one. Engaging them in religious activities round the clock for some length of time made them into new human beings. Once the trial proved effective, this pattern was to be followed in future… The Maulana had found the solution to his problem. The whole of Mewat was transformed. Great spiritual excitement and enthusiasm could be seen among the people at large. Where previously, mosques had been few and far between, now mosques and religious schools came up in every settlement. Not only had they increased in number and size, but the local people had also come to appreciate their activities. They changed their way of dressing and, grew beards, shaking off one by one almost all the pre-Islamic customs that they had retained after their conversion."

"In Saudi Arabia, there is peace but no freedom. In Pakistan, there is freedom but there is no peace. In India, Muslims enjoy both peace and freedom."

"Had they made a timely assessment of what created the hiatus between Muslims and other nations, they would have set the feet of Muslims on the path of education, and would, in the process, have enabled them to acquire the strengths of the modern world. Their energies would then have contributed to a positive struggle, instead of being frittered away in negative reaction. Up till now Muslims have tended to attribute their problems to prejudice and discrimination and to waste the better part of their time and energy in railing against offenders who often exist only in their own imaginations. What I have to say is simply that it is high time they changed their way of thinking and devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the processes of self-reconstruction."

"This great movement generally known as the Tablighi Jama’at has inspired a new fervour, a new zeal to serve the divine cause…Its founder surprisingly was a slight, short-statured individual rather unimpressive in personality…It was this extraordinary figure known as Maulana Ilyas who founded the Tablighi Jama‘at which was to inspire in thousands of people a religious zeal which had been unknown for centuries…"

"A new way of thinking is emerging among Muslims, who are now rapidly entering the field of modern education and producing scientists like Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Dr. S.Z. Qasim, medical experts like Dr. Khalilullah and economists like Professor A.M. Khusro etc. Muslim youths such as Javed Usmani and Amir Subhani have shown their mettle by topping in IAS examinations. I am certain that within one generation, Insha Allah, this gap will be bridged, and then no one will complain that the ratio of Muslims in government services is very low. A particularly dark aspect of the Muslims's existence in India seems."

"Judged by Qur'anic standards, Muslim journalism falls far below par. While the Qur'anic 'periodical' was run on positive lines, the entire Muslim press of the present day is plunged in negativism. Where the Qur'an stressed the importance of action and the avoidance of reaction, present-day Muslim journalism as a whole is oriented towards and motivated by reaction. During the last days of the Muslims in Mecca (shortly before the emigration when they had been cruelly persecuted by the Meccan non-Muslims, this verse of the Qur'an was revealed: 'Truely with hardship comes ease, truely with hardship comes ease' (94:5-6). That is to say that for this world God has decreed that facility, or ease, should exist side by side with difficulty and hardship. You should, therefore, ignore difficulty, seek opportunities and avail of them. But today Muslim journalism has devoted itself entirely to the ferretting out of difficulties, mainly plots and conspiracies of others against them. If were to place the revelations of the Qur'an on a parallel with the investigative, informative, and advisory functions of the modern press, the most appropriate, although anachronistic term for them would be 'constructive journalism'. Where the parallel ends is in the failure of modern Muslim journalism - unlike the Qur'an - to be constructive. I would say that, on the contrary, it is run on the very opposite principle."

"A particularly dark aspect of the Muslims’ existence in India seems to be communal riots. It is a fact that communal riots have taken place on a large scale in modern India over the last forty-five years and, regrettably, in some parts are still continuing. I repeat, nevertheless, that the occurrence of communal riots is not linked to the system of governance developed after Independence. It is related rather to the Muslims’ own rabble-rousing leadership and yellow journalism. What is the logic behind the riots? Let us again take an example from Bombay where, about twenty years before independence, an issue was made of a Hindu procession passing by a mosque: As it approached the mosque, the Mutawalli (the Keeper of the mosque) objected to its passage, and tried to stop it. When his request was not complied with, he registered a case in a Bombay court, demanding that a court order be issued, banning any Hindu procession in future in front of the Mosque. At that time Muhammad Ali Jinnah was living in Bombay, and it was he who acted as advocate for the mosque keeper. The judge, an Englishman, ordered that the relevant prohibitory notice be put up near the mosque in question. This successful advocacy of their case by Jinnah so enthralled the Muslims that they dubbed him Qaid-e-Azam, the great leader. But this was not leadership. It was more like leading the people astray. Jinnah should have told the Muslims that the solution to the problem of processions is not to try to stop them, but simply to ignore them. And that even if you manage to carve out a separate area of your own, as was done in the formation of Pakistan, there is no guarantee that processions will not again be leed through the streets. The truth is that the choice for Muslims did not lie between having, or not having processions. It was between tolerating processions or having riots. But the Muslims self-serving leadership and irresponsible journalism did nothing to steer Muslims away from wrong choices. As a result, in a bid to stop Hindu processions, riots have broken out from time to time in various places, with little hope of their ever ceasing in certain parts. Most of the riots in both India and Pakistan have this as their root cause."

"After completing his school education, he went on to higher studies. Soon he was offered the post of teacher at the Mazahirul Islam religious school at Saharanpur. But before long, new opportunities opened out before him, and his training period commenced. His father had set up a small religious school in Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin to impart free education to poor students. After the death of his father, the elder brother had taken charge of it. When, on this sad occasion, he came home to offer his condolence the people who were running the school insisted on his staying there and taking up his father's cause. He acceded to their request. Now there began a new phase in his life. It was at this place that he first came into contact with the Mewatis. Distressed by their religious and spiritual poverty, he set himself to reform their condition through religious education. The initial stimulus for his work thus came from Mewati Muslims. Gaining momentum gradually, the work of bringing people closer to the path of God, spread far and wide. Mewat is a region situated to the south of Delhi, its inhabitants being known as Meo. These people could be described as semi-tribal, somewhat like the ancient Arab bedouins. These uncouth and illiterate people had converted to Islam on a mass scale as a result of the efforts of the well-known Sufi Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia and his descendants. But in practical life they were very far from Islam. There was nothing Islamic about them apart from the title of Muslims that they bore. They kept their Hindu names, like Nahar Singh and Bhup Singh; they left a lock of hair on the top of the shaven head as Hindus do; they worshipped idols, celebrated all the Hindu festivals and made sacrifices to the pre-Islamic gods and goddesses. Also on the occasion of Shab-e-Barat they hoisted the flag of Sayyed Salar Ghazi, a Muslim saint, who had been adopted by them as an object of idolatory. They could not even recite the creed of the Muslims. So unfamiliar even was the sight of prayer, let alone the saying of it, that if by chance they came across someone praying, they gathered to enjoy the spectacle, assuming that the person must either be mad or suffering from some ailment due to which he was kneeling and prostrating himself again and again. Like tribal peoples they were scantily-clad, and spent most of their time in robbing, looting and other such base occupations. Small trifling matters led to prolonged wars such as the pre-Islamic Arab Bedouins had engaged in. They were a brave and sturdy people, but their lack of education and training had come in the way of their advancing beyond the tribal way of life. Major Piolet, the Bandobast officer of Alwar, at the end of the 19th century, writes: "Meo are half-Hindus in their habits and customs." They had posed a serious threat to the Muslim rule in the initial Sultanate period, looting and plundering the city at night. For fear of their attacks, the gates of the capital were closed at dusk. Noone dared to go out after dark. Sultan Ghyasuddin Balban in the year 1266 dispatched an expedition against them in which a great number of them were put to the sword, but they were never fully subdued. Even as late as the period of the British Raj, the government was only partially successful in crushing them and establishing peace in the area. In 1921 new problems arose when Arya preachers resolved to reconvert the Indian Muslims to their ancestral religion. Thanks to the religious and cultural poverty of the Meos, the large-scale activities of the Aryan missionaries met with great success. The solution to this problem was to impart to them religious education so that they did not yield to any malign influence."

"In 1987 a marriage in our family was celebrated in Bombay, which was attended by more than fifty members of our family who had travelled by air to Bombay from Varanasi for the occasion. We were all put up at a hotel, and it was during this stay that one of my relatives came to my hotel room with a with a copy of Passive Voices, written by Khalid Latif Gauba (1899-1981) a resident of Bombay. This book, first published in 1975, deals in 390 pages with the condition of Indian Muslims of the post-independence era. The very title of the book suggest that Indian Muslims are in a state of suppression. In his foreword, the author writes that 'it would be difficult to sum up the status and condition of Muslims in India better that in the two words: Passive Voices.' Fully in agreement with the book's assertion, my relative began to hold forth on the persecution of Indian Muslims. I heard him out patiently, then told him that my views were the very opposite. To my way of thinking, Indian Muslims have improved their lot considerably since independence. I would go so far as to say that the condition of present-day Muslims is not that of persecution but of progress."

"Today there are lakhs of madrasahs spread all over the country. The old madrasahs, like those of Nadwatul ‘Ulema in Lucknow and Darul Uloom in Deoband, were just like ordinary schools before 1947, whereas today they have expanded so much that they have more the appearance of being universities. In the neighborhood of Malegaon, a new and very big madrasah, the Jamia Muhammadia, has been established, which completely dwarfs the old one. Hundreds of new madrasahs have been established all over the country, including a school for Muslim girls, the Jamiatus Salihat at Rampur, which is said to be the biggest madrasah for Muslim girls in the entire Muslim world. In fact, thousands of Islamic institutions of different kinds have been set up throughout the length and breadth of the country, and have full freedom of functioning."

"He goes on reiterating the denunciation, repeating the points, citing the Quran and other authorities. And then he addresses the rationalization that there are grades of kufr and that it may be permissible to cooperate with some kinds of kafirs. Yes, he declares, if there is a difference among kafirs it is in this that the greater a person’s kufr the more haram it is to deal with him. To revere evil is kufr, the more severe the evil the stricter the commandment. This shall befall the liars and calumners—that in kufr the Magians are worse than Jews and Christians; and the Hindus are worse than the Magians; and the Wahabis and apostates are worse than the Hindus. The commandments about them are progressively harsher in this very order...."

"Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan’s fulminations against doing anything which entails association with kafirs, Hindus in this case, extend over more than a hundred quarto-sized pages of closely packed text. The denunciation and scorn he heaps on those who are advocating such a course are even greater than what he hurls at the course itself. Indeed, time and again he declares that those Muslims—’Muslims’ is the wrong term actually for his school had issued the fatwas of kufr on the leading ulema of Deoband, etc.—who advocate such a course are greater enemies of Islam than the kafirs themselves. His fatwas against associating with the kafirs in any way are, as we have noticed earlier, grouped under the generic heading, ‘Nafrat ke Ahkam’, ‘The Ordinances of Hatred.’..."

"Some of the practices which he allowed, indeed prescribed, were ones which others condemned as vestiges of paganism and polytheism—for instance, celebrating the urs or observing the anniversaries of pirs and ‘saints’. At the same time he was most emphatic in denouncing anyone who joined hands with the kafirs even for attaining strictly Islamic objectives. Thus, for instance, he heaped abuse and scorn at those who had agreed to work under the leadership of Gandhiji even though it had been with the object of restoring the greatest of Islamic institutions, the Caliphate. You have agreed to work under a kafir, he railed. You have made Muslims the slaves of a kafir, he railed."

"He next takes up the question of according respect to a polytheist, be he a man as exceptional as Mahatma Gandhi. Quoting authorities, including the Quran, the Hadis, the Durr-ul-Mukhtar, the Maulana declares, respect is to be paid only to Allah, the Prophet and the Muslims, but the hypocrites—munafiq—know not. Citing the Prophet the Maulana says, he who renders respect to followers of the wrong faith has without a doubt lent a hand for the demolition of the Islamic religion. When this is the commandment in regard to one of wrong faith, what shall be the commandment for honouring a polytheist?, he asks. The Prophet has forbidden us to even shake hands with any polytheist, he says, even to refer to him by his surname (kunniyat), even to use words of welcome (marhaba) upon his arrival. These are not even very consequential things entailing great honour, they pertain to regard of a very low degree, the Maulana notes—that one should not call him by his name, one should not call him as the father of so and so, one should not say ‘Aiye’ when he comes. And yet, he notes, the Hadis has forbidden Muslims from doing even these things. And these persons are asking us to cry ‘jai’ for him! This is a Satanic deed, the Maulana pronounces..."

"Praise be to Allah, ever since I gained consciousness I have found only strong dislike for the enemies o f Allah in my heart. Once I had gone to my village (apne dehat ko). Some rural courtcase arose and our servants (mulazim) from all four directions had to go to Badayun [to appear in court]. I was left all alone. This was a time when I suffered from severe colic pain. That day the pain started from the time o f zuhr (m id-day). . . I couldn’t stand up for the namaz (prayer). [Ahmad Riza then relates that he supplicated Allah and the Prophet for help, this plea was heard, and he was able to offer the namaz. But the pain returned just as severely as before, and he decided to lie down. While he was lying there,] a Brahman from the village passed by in front o f me. (The wretch himself professed something close to tauhid and deceitfiilly inclined toward the Muslims in order to please me.) The gate was open. Seeing me he came in. And putting his hand on my stomach he asked, 'Is this where it hurts?’ Feeling his impure (najis) hand touching my body I felt such revulsion (karahat, najrat) that I forgot my pain. And I began to experience a pain even greater than this, [knowing that] a kafir’s hand was on my stomach. This is the kind of enmity ( ‘ adawat ) that one should [cultivate toward kafirs]."

"To sacrifice the life of Quran and Hadis at the altar of idolatry is gross disrespect of the Quran and Hadis, and it is to accord great respect to idolatry, declares the Maulana. If this is not kufr, he says, then nothing in the world is kufr. Alluding to an instance in which the Prophet had taken the help of a kafir to make his way in an unfamiliar place, the Maulana exclaims, where is taking a polytheist along over an unfamiliar terrain, and where is making him one’s leader and guide in regard to one’s faith! Can there be any comparison, he asks. If a shaikh or imam were to sit in an ekka and the one driving it were a kafir, does that mean that, on the ground that the shaikh or imam was sitting behind the kafir, his followers can accept the imamat of the kafir and read the namaz behind him? And that incident regarding the Prophet, the Maulana says, too is an incident of a period when the order of jihad had not yet come down (from Allah), and of a time when the practice was ‘Unto you your religion and unto me mine’. But after that what was expected of Muslims regarding kafirs became progressively stricter, the Maulana points out, and eventually came the revelation for all time: O Prophet! wage jihad against kafirs and hypocrites.... If you draw your rule from the first incident then it is a great foolishness—if it is drawn by an ignorant man; and if it is drawn by or on the authority of an educated person then it is a crime and gross wickedness. This is false imputation on the Prophet, the Maulana proclaims. Never did the Prophet maintain any social relations with any kafir. For it is said in the Quran, He who among you maintains relations with them is one from among them. The ordinance of Allah to His Prophet was: O Prophet! wage jihad against all kafirs and hypocrites, and observe a harshness and strictness towards them.... And then the Maulana takes up the practice of calling Gandhiji a ‘Mahatma’. ‘Mahatma,’ he says, means ‘Great Soul,’ and this, he recalls, is the appellation special to angel Gabriel. To associate it with a polytheist is pure enmity of Allah and the Prophet."

"Most Indian Muslims are Sunnis, some say almost 85 to 90 per cent are Sunnis. Most Indian Sunnis are Barelvis, some would say two-thirds of them are, in particular those living in the countryside. The Fatawa-i-Rizvia is the most important collection of fatwas of the Barelvis. It consists of the fatwas issued by the most influential figure among them—Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan. He was a prolific issuer of fatwas, a formidable polemicist, often an abusive one, an indefatigable campaigner, in a word a pugilist. Few dared to cross swords with him, indeed few dared to even stand in his way. He lived from 1856 to 1921, and came to exercise a mesmeric hold over vast numbers."

"Shame is not in the beatings, not in the rape. Shame is in being asked to stand judgment."

"The literary world must take a stand [to stop Bloomsbury publishing the book]. This is not about cancel culture. This is about defending literature from fascism. This is about standing up against religious divide, hate speech, islamophobia and false history."

"A memoir for me means a person’s life story; if I was going to write my actual life story, I would condense this entire marriage into a footnote."

"Who does the novel belong to? I am writing about a different reality, so I need to shape it to fit my reality. You don’t want to do the same. You don’t want to do the done thing. To take a risk, you still need to be absolutely on the margins. I am doing what I want to do."

"I have been in an abusive marriage. Violence can come from love, from a very intimate person. Violence can come from all sorts of crazy situations. What are you going to do? You have to deal with it when it strikes."

"Love is not blind, it just looks in the wrong places."

"Sometimes I think that what I do must be either idiotic and naïve or courageous. I don’t know which. If there was no threat of violence, that is what you would do. This threat of violence shouldn’t dictate what you are going to write or hinder you in any manner."

"In 1920–2 Abdul Kalam Azad and the Jamiyat were advocating the mental partition of India."

"His plan for united India immediately after independence was a confederation of communities, with the Muslim community owing allegiance to a religious head, the Amir-i-Hind, himself a vassal of the Caliph in all matters covered by Islamic law. In Peter Hardy's explanation: "Jurisprudential apartheid was to be the rock against which the power of majorities would break.""

"Azad put forward or patronized proposals to preserve India's unity by reassuring the Muslim League with the provision that half of all members of parliament and of the government had to be Muslims (then 24% of the population), with the other half to be divided between Hindus, Ambedkarites, Christians, and the rest. This would have amounted to a state under Muslim hegemony."

"The greatest 'nationalist Muslim' of our times, Maulana Azad too in his last days gave out his mind in the book India Wins Freedom in unmistakable terms. Firstly the whole of the book, from start to finish, is an unabashed egocentric narration which depicts all other leaders including Gandhiji, Nehru, etc., as simpletons and Patel as a communalist. Secondly, he has not a single word of censure for heinous massacres and atrocities committed by Muslims on Hindus in various places like Calcutta, Noakhali, etc. More than all, the entire burden of his opposition to the creation of Pakistan was that it would be against the interests of Muslims! In fact, Azad says, the Muslims were fools in following Jinnah, as thereby they got only a fraction of the land whereas if they had followed his advice they would have had a decisive voice in the affairs of the entire country, in addition to all the benefits of Pakistan! Sri Mehrchand Mahajan, ex-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, had come out with the same comments about the book. For instance, he says, "The Maulana was more shrewed than Mr. Jinnah. Left to him, India would have become virtually a Muslim-dominated country.""

"Does Jinnah want unity?... What he wants is independence for Muslims and if possible rule over India. That is the old spirit.... But why is it expected that Muslims will be so accommodating? Everywhere minorities are claiming their rights. Of course, there may be some Muslims who are different, more nationalistic in outlook: even [Maulana] Azad has his own terms, only he sees Indian unity first and will settle those terms afterwards."

"Understandably but unjustifiably, Azad has often been described as as moderate and nationalist Muslim: he rejected the Partition of India and the foundation of Pakistan, not because he rejected the idea of a Muslim state, but because he wanted all of India to become a Muslim state in time. When in the forties the Partition seemed unavoidable, Azad patronized proposals to preserve India's unity, stipulating that half of all members of parliament and of the government had to be Muslims (then 24% of the population), with the other half to be divided between Hindus, Ambedkarites, Christians, and the rest. Short, a state in which Muslims would rule and non-Muslims would be second-class citizens electorally and politically. The Cabinet Mission Plan, proposed by the British as the ultimate sop for the Muslim League, equally promised an effective parity between Muslims and non-Muslims at the Central Government level and a veto right for the Muslim minority. Without Gandhiji's and other Congress leaders' knowing, Congress president Azad assured the British negotiators that he would get the plan accepted by the Congress. When he was caught in the act of lying to the Mahatma about the plan and his assurance, he lost some credit even among the naive Hindus who considered him a moderate. But he retained his position of trust in Nehru's cabinet, and continued his work for the ultimate transformation of India into a Muslim State."

"[They] would not oppose Gandhiji even when they were not fully convinced, ...were generally content to follow Gandhiji’s lead.... They rarely tried to judge things on their own, and in any case they were accustomed to subordinate their judgment to Gandhiji. As such discussion with them was almost useless. After all our discussions, the only thing they could say was that we must have faith in Gandhiji. They held that if we trusted him he would find some way out."

"A profound scholar and a pillar of India's freedom struggle, his commitment to education was commendable. His efforts in shaping modern India continue to guide many people."

"There are other aspects to the Afghan connection of the Khilafatist fever which deserve consideration. Thus, a demythologizing light is thrown upon the motives of the ‘nationalist Muslim’ leader Maulana Abul Kalam Azad by the conclusion he drew from the doctrine that the British, in destroying the Caliphate, had become the enemies of Islam. To Azad, like to many Ulema, this meant that British India was a Dar-al-Harb, ‘land of strife’, i.e., a land controlled by infidel enemies of Islam, where Muslims had the duty either to wage jihad and overthrow the infidel regime or to emigrate to an Islamic state. Since British power was still too strong, Muslims had to emulate the decision of the Prophet to flee Pagan Mecca to Muslim-dominated Medina in AD 622, and therefore, the influential Maulana called on the Indian Muslims to migrate to Afghanistan. Thousands heeded his call, sold everything or simply left it behind, but found Afghan society to be inhospitable, incomprehending and hostile. Stricken by poverty, famine and religious anguish, they had to return to India in desperation. Some of them died on the way to and from Afghanistan. The man who had brought this misfortune on them with his obscurantist scheme was to become the leading Congress Muslim, Education Minister in Nehru’s Cabinet and one of the most powerful men in India after Independence."

"Islam does not command narrowmindedness and racial and religious prejudice. It does not make the recognition of merit and virtue, of human benevolence, mercy and love dependent upon and subject to distinctions of religion and race. It teaches us to respect every man who is good, whatever his religion."

"I am a Musalman and proud of the fact. Islam’s splendid traditions of thirteen hundred years are my inheritance. I am unwilling to lose even the smallest part of this inheritance. The teaching and history of Islam, its arts and letters and civilization are my wealth and my fortune. It is my duty to protect them. […] 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. Without me this splendid structure of India is incomplete. I am an essential element which has gone to build India. I can never surrender this claim. […] Whether we like it or not, we have now become an Indian nation, united and indivisible. No fantasy or artificial scheming to separate and divide can break this unity. We must accept the logic of fact and history, and engage ourselves in the fashioning of our future destiny."

"... Full eleven centuries have passed by since then. Islam has now as great a claim on the soil of India as Hinduism. If Hinduism has been the religion of the people here for several thousands of years Islam also has been their religion for a thousand years. Just as a Hindu can say with pride that he is an Indian and follows Hinduism, so also we can say with equal pride that we are Indians and follow Islam. I shall enlarge this orbit still further. The Indian Christian is equally entitled to say with pride that he is an Indian and is following a religion of India, namely Christianity.""

"Come the rains and the beerbahutis appeared all over the green. From where do they emerge, so perfect in shape and colour, and where do they go?"

"The Mississippi and its paddle boats, and the rivers of Bengal and their gleaming steamers evoked a similar atmosphere of romance, of long, song-filled voyages, high winds and lonely sunsets."

"Maulana Muhammad Ali wrote:… Some Mussulman friends have been constantly flinging at me the charge of being a… Gandhi-worshipper… Since I hold Islam to be the highest gift of God, therefore, I was impelled by the love I bear towards Mahatmaji to pray to God that he might illumine his soul with the true light of Islam… As a follower of Islam I am bound to regard the creed of Islam as superior to that professed by the followers of any non-Islamic religion. And in this sense, the creed of even a fallen and degraded Mussulman is entitled to a higher place than that of any other non-Muslim irrespective of his high character, even though the person in question be Mahatma Gandhi himself”"

"Temperamentally the Prophet Muhammad was not inclined to war; he had not once handled the sword in actual fighting up to the fifty-fifth year of his age, and this in a country where fighting had become a vocation of the people. The religion which he preached, Islam (meaning peace or submission), was a religion of peace, laying stress on prayer to God and the service of humanity, and he was required to preach this religion; to deliver the message, not to enforce it on others. But war was being forced on him, and it was his duty, he was told in his revelation from God, to defend his oppressed community who had twice fled their homes from the persecutions of a cruel enemy. There was no question of Muslims converting anyone to Islam by force; it was the enemy that wanted to turn back the Muslims by force from Islam (see 2:217)."

"Probably no man living has done longer or more valuable service for the cause of Islamic revival than Maulana Muhammad Ali of Lahore. His literary works, with those of the late Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, have given fame and distinction to the Ahmadiyya Movement."

"The grammar of Panini is one of the most remarkable literary works that the world has ever seen, and no other country can produce any grammatical system at all comparable to it, either for originality of plan or analytical subtlety."

"By Sanskrit is meant the learned language of India - the language of its cultured inhabitants, the language of its religion, its literature and science - not by any means a dead language, but one still spoken and written by educated men by all parts of the country, from Kashmir to Cape Comorin, from Bombay to Calcutta and Madras."

"If only the self-deluded but fervent-spirited Muhammad, whose soul was stirred within him when he saw his fellow town-men wholly given to idolatry, had been brought into association with the purer form of Christianity ... he might have died a martyr for the truth, Asia might have numbered her millions of Christians, and the name of Saint Muhammad might have been in the calendar of our Book of Common Prayer ... Think, then, of the difference in the present condition of the Asiatic world, if the fire of Muhammad's eloquence had been kindled, and the force of his personal influence exerted on the side of veritable Christianity."

"“Such, indeed, is the exuberance and flexibility of this language and its power of compounding words, that when it has been, so to speak, baptised and thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of Christianity, it will probably be found, next to Hebrew and Greek, the most expressive vehicle of Christian truth.”"