Who among the following was an exponent of the notion of Wahdat-i-deen that upholds the essential oneness of all religions?

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answered Mar 2, 2022 by PrashantPandey (239k points)
selected Mar 2, 2022 by ShreeHarpale

Best answer

Correct Answer - Option 3 : Maulana Azad

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad :

A freedom fighter, journalist, educationist and Islamic scholar.
He was widely respected and wrote extensively on concepts like universalism, nationalism, secularism, national integration and communal harmony.
A staunch nationalist, he opposed the idea of Pakistan and rallied Muslims in India.
He was the chief exponent of Wahdat-i-deen or the essential oneness of all religions, Azad played around with a variety of ideas on religion, state and civil society.
He organized a national education system during his tenure as education minister. His focus was on free primary education for all.
In 1992, Maulana Azad was awarded, posthumously, ‘Bharat Ratna’, India’s highest civilian honour for his invaluable contribution to the nation.
He established a weekly Urdu journal in 1912 called Al-Hilal, in which he called upon India’s Muslims to unite and join with other Indians in a nonviolent campaign for independence.
The Comrade was a weekly English-language newspaper that was published and edited by Maulana Mohammad Ali.
He was the educationist behind setting up institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (1951) and the University Grants Commission (1953).

Secularism :

Secularism for Maulana Azad rested on the principle of wahdat-e-din i.e. unity of religion on the one hand and disregarding the intermediaries the priestly class and institutionalization of religion.
He captured the true essence of secularism and placed the highest stakes in education and development of the human mind and man’s consciousness about himself.
As the education minister Azad desired that religious education be imparted along with secular education as the serious business of religious education cannot be left to the respective religious leadership of the communities as they tend to take a supremacist and communal stand.
He desired that the common values of all religions should be taught to the students so that they do not develop prejudices against each other.