Ghulam Azam

Ghulam Azam (গোলাম আযম; غلام اعظم; 7 November 1922 – 23 October 2014) was a Bangladeshi Islamist politician.

He was the former leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh.

Sheikh Ghulam Azam was born on 7 November 1922 in his maternal home, the Shah Saheb Bari of Lakshmibazar, Dacca,Bengal Presidency.

He was the eldest son of Sheikh Ghulam Kabir and Sayeda Ashrafunnisa.

His ancestral home is Maulvi Bari (House of Muslim Scholars) in Birgaon Village, Brahmanbaria, his family is the noble Sheikh family of Birgaon, he descends from Sheikh Zaqi in his 6th generation who had migrated from the Middle East, as a Muslim preacher.

His lineage is Sheikh Ghulam Azam, son of Mawlana Sheikh Ghulam Kabir, son of Mawlana Sheikh Abdus Subhan, son of Sheikh Shahabuddin, son of Sheikh Bakhtiar, son of Sheikh Zaqi.

His maternal family are Syeds and have been known for being a Pir family for generations, they are still highly respected by the locals for religious guidance.

His father was a mawlana who hailed from the village of Birgaon in Nabinagar, Brahmanbaria, Tipperah District.

Azam's education began at the local madrasa in Birgaon and then completed his secondary school education in Dhaka.

After that, he enrolled at Dacca University where he completed BA and MA degrees in political science.

While studying at the University of Dhaka, Azam became active in student's politics and was elected as the General Secretary of the Dhaka University Central Students' Union (DUCSU) for the two consecutive years between 1947 and 1949.

As a General Secretary of the DUCSU, Azam in 1947 submitted a memorandum on the union's behalf to the Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan, demanding that Bengali be made a state language along with Urdu.

At that time, Bangladesh was administered by the Pakistan.

"Bangla was a wrong decision with regard to the establishment of Pakistan since Urdu was widely used and all Muslims of the Indian subcontinent were Urdu speakers."

In 1950, Azam left Dhaka to teach political science at the Government Carmichael College in Rangpur.

During this time, he was influenced by the writings of Abul Ala Maududi and he joined Maududi's party Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan in 1954, and was later elected as the Secretary General of Jamaat-e-Islami's East Pakistan branch.

In 1964, the government of Ayub Khan banned Jamaat-e-Islami and its leaders, including Azam, and imprisoned them for eight months without trials.

He played a prominent role as the general secretary of the Pakistan Democratic Movement formed in 1967 and later, he was elected as the member of Democratic Action Committee in 1969 to transform the anti-Ayub movement into a popular uprising.

In 1969, he became the Ameer of the Jamaat in East Pakistan.

He and other opposition leaders including future President of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman took part in the Round Table Conference held in Rawalpindi in 1969 to solve the prevailing political impasse in Pakistan.

On 13 March 1969, Khan announced his acceptance of their two fundamental demands of parliamentary government and direct elections.

In the runup to the 1970 Pakistani general election, Azam together with leaders of a number of other parties in East Pakistan (including the Pakistan Democratic Party, National Awami Party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and the Pakistan National League) protested at the Awami League approach to electioneering for, accusing them of breaking up public meetings, physical attacks on political opponents and the looting and destruction of party offices.

He lived informally in Bangladesh from 1978 to 1994 without any authorised Bangladeshi visa.

His citizenship was then reinstated by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.

He subsequently led the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh until 2000.

Azam was arrested by the government of Bangladesh on 11 January 2012 after he was found guilty in war crimes charges during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

A member of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, during the war he unsuccessfully opposed the breakup of Pakistan.

Notably, it was at the center of the 2012 ICT Skype controversy.

As a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, he led the formation of the Shanti Committees that were formed at the time of the Liberation War alongside other pro-Pakistan Bengali leaders.

Azam was accused of forming paramilitary groups for the Pakistani Army, including Razakars, and Al-Badr.

These militias opposed the Mukti Bahini members who fought for the independence of Bangladesh, and also stand accused of war crimes.

Azam's citizenship was cancelled by the Bangladeshi Government because of playing an opposition role during the Bangladesh liberation war.

Azam was arrested on 11 January 2012 by the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh on the charges of committing war crimes during the Bangladesh liberation war.

The tribunal rejected the plea of bail after noting that there were formal charges against Azam of which it had taken cognisance.

On 15 July 2013, a Bangladeshi special tribunal, the International Crimes Tribunal found him guilty of war crimes such as conspiring, planning, incitement to and complicity in committing genocide and was sentenced to 90 years in jail.

The tribunal stated that Azam deserved capital punishment for his activity during Liberation war of Bangladesh, but was given a lenient punishment of imprisonment because of his age and poor health condition.

The trial was criticized by several international observers, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Human Rights Watch, which was initially supportive of a trial subsequently criticized "strong judicial bias towards the prosecution and grave violations of due process rights", calling the trial process deeply flawed and unable to meet international fair trial standards.

He was 91 when he died of a stroke on 23 October 2014 at BSMMU.

Thousands of people attended his funeral prayers that were televised and held at the National Mosque of Bangladesh Baitul Mukarram.