Al-Hilal was an Urdu weekly founded and edited by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1912. Much more than a journal, it was a message, a movement, a voice of protest and revolt, which for the first time since 1857 shook the placid Urdu-speaking world of India to political agitation and action. No wonder that in about a couple of years it was suppressed by the colonial administration. But in the short period of its life, the Al-Hilal had firmly placed Maulana Abul Kalam Azad at the pinnacle of his literary and political fame where he remained throughout the liberation struggle of the country and after. Abul Kalam Azad was a man of religion, like Gandhiji. He wedded the spirit of Islam with the country’s freedom struggle. The Al-Hilal is the reflection of the initial stages of this process. The present selection from Al-Hilal (and its rendering into English) under the title ‘The Dawn of Hope’, is an effort to make it representative of Abul Kalam Azad’s first step on this road, opening them to a wider audience than is provided by Urdu.
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