Maulana Abul Kalam Azad played, with great dedication and distinction, the roles of a leader of the Indian Muslim community and the Indian national movement. If, on the one hand, Azad firmly maintained that the Quran was the true guide for religion and politics, on the other he described himself as "…a reformer, guide, of the Caravan of the Quam, the Muslims".This great reformist Muslim leader and scholar of Islamic holy texts and traditions comfortably merged his Islamic loyalties with secular Indian nationalism and, as a committed Muslim believer and a nationalist, he unhesitatingly - and unambiguously - fought for Hindu-Muslim unity. Syeda Saiyidain Hameed deserves to be congratulated for writing an extremely competent biography of the scholarly nationalist leader who remains an unquestioned symbol of India's "composite culture".The first six chapters are devoted to the development of Azad's personality and ideology, and the remaining four narrate his role in the freedom struggle.

Maulana Azad's tragic contradictions

Business Standard

Mushirul Hasan is a prolific writer who has authored and edited many reputed scholarly works on modern Indian history. This edited volume, titled Islam, Pluralism, Nationhood: Legacy of Maulana Azad, consists of brief introductions on very special documents dealing with key developments in the life of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. By collecting and publishing these rare documents - confidential facsimiles of memos, notes and letters, which have been lying in government files - the author has enriched the discourse on Azad's contribution to Indian national public life. This is all the more important since, as Professor Hasan points out, "information on Azad's role after Independence is thin".Azad's life story can be understood if it is kept in mind that he was an Islamist scholar by training, with an early education that spanned Mecca, Calcutta and the Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental college, Aligarh (later Aligarh Muslim University). But his grounding went much beyond his roots as a scholar of th

Maulana Azad's contested legacy

As BBC's Middle East bureau chief between 2010 and 2013, Paul Danahar had an invaluable ringside view of the extraordinary events shaping the region when the tyrannical regimes of the Old Middle East were coming to an end as a consequence of people's protests. In a sense, this was the endgame of the Cold War and of the collapse of the Soviet Union. "In the Old Middle East the unholy alliance between 'the land of the Free' and the world of dictatorships limped on because no one knew what else to do," Mr Danahar writes. It was people like ordinary school teachers, farmers and accountants who created a New Middle East, which "is a process, not a result and the present reality is religion, not nationalism or Arabism, is now the dominant force". This is the context of eight very well-written chapters dealing with Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Libya and Syria.The Arab Spring began with the collapse of dictatorship in tiny Tunisia (2011) and spread to Egypt, where the famous Tahrir Square dem

West Asia's failed revolution

It is based on Talmiz Ahmad study of historical evolution of doctrinal Islam combined with his experience of living in these countries as a diplomat

Islam's war within

From the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York on September 11 in 2001 to the Arab Spring of 2011, no one can doubt that the first decade of the 21st century has presented a raft of new challenges for governments and governance around the world. Ross&rsquo; thesis is that in managing crisis situations, the capacities of government or states are limited so the people have to take the initiative to manage the problems they face.

For a new world disorder

The real significance of this study lies in the fact that current American foreign and strategic policy concerns are fully articulated by William H Avery, who is not only a former diplomat but also belongs to an elite think thank that plays a crucial role in shaping America&rsquo;s global strategies.

C P Bhambhri