By: Dr Mohamamd Aleem, Editor-ICN Group
NEW DELHI: History is replete with such people who did not come on this earth just to fulfil their own desires and dreams of life, but to live for others. Among such thousands of others who would be remembered for a long time to come in the history of the mankind was one of our very own, Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan, whom we fondly remember as one of the founders of our great university, Jamia Millia Islamia, which is in the news constantly these days for ongoing student protests against the draconian and discriminatory CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), NPR and the NRC.
He was fondly named as Sheikhul Hind during the Khilafat Movement by the leaders of the freedom struggle.
Jamia has passed its 100 years of life with many ups and downs. It is not a mean achievement for any institution and entity to live a century with the same gusto, vibrancy and relevance. Jamia was established to add on to the nationalist life of India. In that way, it not only fulfilled its obligation, but also added many laurels in its long history of glory and success.
It doesn’t mean that Jamia has achieved everything for which its founders had aspired for. It has covered a long expedition with many new challenges and difficulties, which, still, it confronts every other day. We are not on the map of the great universities of the world still now, even though, we are trying to reach that goal.
However, despite of the many shortcomings and deficiencies, it is a matter of great consolation for the lover of this university that it has kept making its presence felt in the Indian polity and history every time in the modern independent India. It has always stood for the great causes and shown the courage to the world to face the challenges with all kinds of bravery and grit.
These days, our students and teachers are fighting a tough fight to save the basic secular and composite values of our cherished constitution.
Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan’s association with Gandhi Ji during the freedom struggle is a thing to treasure and admire. It shows that our founders were not any ordinary souls, but a gifted one. He helped Mahatma in his every time of need and adversities. He was, no doubt, one of his trusted soldiers.
Maulana was a good teacher and an eminent theologian. His education was completed in the company of the many great religious scholars of his own time. He was a product of another historical institution, Darul Ulum Deoband, where he not only learned the philosophy of life, but imparted his knowledge to others as a teacher and principal also.
Once, during one of his speeches, when one participant asked that what are the root causes of the decline of the community, he emphatically replied, “We have lost our glory due to the two important reasons. First, we have forgotten our guidebook, the holy Quran, and another, our community is bitterly divided among many sects and groups.”
This was the clear message to the community that until you keep yourself close to your guide book, the holy Quran and end your internal petty useless fights, nobody can return to your old laurels and glories.
His prophetic words are still true for the Muslim community. We find ourselves almost in the same situation as we were during the British colonial rule. Everyone is aware of the fact that how the British had snatched the throne of India from us due to our own weaknesses and apathy towards a meaningful life. We had indulged ourselves in all worldly activities except the spiritual and intellectual one. We love food and frolic than books and serious discourses. In the whole Jamia Nagar area, you will hardly find a world class book shop, but many restaurants with various kinds of dishes. It shows where we stand on the intellectual front.
But Shaikhul Hind wanted us to establish our relationship more with books and wisdom than any other thing in life. And we should always remember it. And to provide that antidoe, he thought about establishing a world class university as Jamia Millia Islamia with his like-minded friends. And luckily, he succeeded.
It is not an ordinary thing to mention here that such a great man was associated with the concept of establishing a university of national value. A university, which will live to create the great secular and composite values of India among every religious community of this nation, especially, Hindus and Muslims.
It was not only a great honor and a sign of boon that a person like Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan was invited to lay the foundation stone of Jamia Millia Islamia at Aligarh in 1920, which was later on, brought to Delhi, first in Karol Bagh, then, at Okhla, when the British had made the life of the nationalist pathetic and unbearable with its aggressive and harmful policies at AMO.
He was born in 1851 at Bareily, where his father, Maulana Zulfeqar Ali, also a well-known scholar of Arabic, was employed in the Department of Education.
We are well aware of the fact that the second decade of the twentieth century was a period of great restlessness, upheavals and anxieties not only for the Islamic world but for the whole world.
It is also pertinent to mention here that how Maulana as a freedom fighter, had started his famous movement, Reshmi Tehreek. He wanted to recruit the volunteers for the liberation army and to found a national government.
It was during such trying times, that in the first week of November 1920, the self-funded Jamia Millia Islamia became operational. A true offspring of the freedom movement, which seeds were planted by Gandhi, Sheikhul-Hind (the highest priest of Islamic theologians of India) Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan, and several other prominent Muslim leaders as Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Dr Zakir Husain and many others. Hakim Ajmal Khan, a renowned Unani medicine practitioner was appointed as its Chancellor and Maulana Mohammad Ali as its first Vice Chancellor.
Jamia Millia Islamia started its humble beginning of life from 20 tents, which later on, started taking shape of a solid university structure.
I would like to conclude this short lecture with this note of the famous Turkish writer. Halide Edib, who had visited to deliver a series of lectures called the ‘Jamia Millia Extension Lectures’ in 1935. She had later observed: “The institution has two purposes. First, to train the Muslim youth with definite ideas of their rights and duties as the Indian citizens. Second, to coordinate Islamic thought and behavior with the Hindus. The general aim is to create a harmonious nationhood without Muslims lose their Islamic identity. In its aim, if not always in its procedure, it is nearer to Gandhian Movement than any other Islamic institution I have come across.”
In sum, this is the university which we love and admire and endeavoring hard to take it to a new height every day of our lives.
In this changing time of religious extremism, we need more universities like Jamia Millia Islamia, where our youths could come and make themselves enriched with the great secular and composite values of India. They could also not only become a good professional and scholar in their chosen fields, but a torch bearer to millions and millions of other fellow Indian citizens, who are not so fortunate enough to study in such universities like Jamia.
Thank you Jamia for what I am today and for what I aspire to become in this trying time of the country.
