I first heard of Kazi Nazrul Islam in Calcutta (now Kolkata), where I was doing research on a Fulbright grant on Bengali Shaktism.  I asked many informants who they considered the greatest writer on Shaktism to be, the person who had made the greatest contribution to the understanding of the religion.  Many people answered that the greatest of the Shaktas was Kazi Nazrul Islam.  I found this surprising, as his name was clearly Muslim, and I asked how a person of one religion could be the greatest writer in and exponent of another religion.  
The general response was that Nazrul best understood the bhava of Shakti, that he best embodied the passion and spirit and power and creativity that Shaktism idealized.  It was not that he was simply a worshipper of Shakti, but rather in some sense that he expressed Shakti, and even those of a different religion could recognize something of the divine in his poetry.
It is extremely rare, in the field of religion, to find this sort of respect that crosses traditional religious boundaries.  I became interested in Nazrul, and wrote about him in my last book, which was about Bengali religion.  But I think that Nazrul has much to contribute on the world stage, as well as simply within South Asia.
His voice is much needed today.  The loudest voice in modern world Islam is that of  Wahhabi Islam, and it is giving the modern West a negative and distorted image of Islam as a religion.  The current idea of Islam in much of the Western world is that it is authoritarian, primitive, ignorant, and sadistic. The only high culture recognized in Islam is seen in the large hotels and banking houses of the wealthy oil nations. What average people in the West know of Islam are terrorists, suicide bombers and kidnappers.  We might call this regressive Islam, as its ideal time was far in the past, and it rejects the modern world in favor of a distant world that no longer exists, and that it hopes to recapture through violence.
Of course, Islam is not the only religion where this problem of regression exists.  We have a similar situation in fundamentalist Christianity, where Jesus becomes the Prince of War instead of the Prince of Peace, and the tolerance and forgiveness of the Sermon on the Mount are eclipsed by the violence of those looking backward to the primitive church but also forward to Armageddon.
There is currently no strong voice to assert the compassionate side of either of these religions.  Both have been drowned out by the drums of war.  There have been attempts to describe a new understanding of Islam, one which is more progressive, in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia- it was throughout their newspaper articles and editorials when I was last there.  But there has been no single writer that stood out, who has been capable of articulating the position in a way that could capture both mind and heart.
I believe that we need a new understanding of Islam that is progressive rather than regressive, that values knowledge and love and freedom and tolerance.  We also need a writer who expresses these goals in a way that makes them understandable and valuable to people over the course of time.  I think that Kazi Nazrul Islam is such a writer.
In this paper, I will look at three themes in his poetry which are important for people to remember.  One is equality, which is part of Muslim tradition, but is drowned out by the extremes of wealth and poverty in some Muslim countries, and the oppressive treatment of women.  Another is religious tolerance, which is difficult to perceive in more rigid and authoritarian countries.  A third is universalism, the recognition that all religions ultimately lead to the same divine truth, an important theme in South Asian religious philosophy which is almost unknown in the West.
However, I shall first give some biographical background on the writer known as the Rebel Poet (bidrohi kobi), so that people may come to know him a little better.
Kazi Nazrul Islam was a Muslim, but a firm believer in Hindu/Muslim unity, and a freedom fighter under British colonial rule hoping for a unified Bengal.   Nazrul was profoundly impressed by the revolutionaries he had met during his travels, and in 1917 he enlisted in the 49th Bengalee Regiment for two years.  He went to Calcutta, and became interested in politics.  He composed and sang revolutionary songs during a 1921 strike in Calcutta.  He was arrested, and continued to write songs supporting the cause of Indian independence.  He began a newspaper called "Dhumketu" (the Comet).  It was immediately popular- its first issue was sold out in two hours.  In 1922 he published an issue calling for complete Indian independence.  His early poems emphasized the necessity for freedom through struggle.
His poetry angered the British authorities, who arrested him and the Comet's publisher.  He was jailed for a year, and  after leaving jail, Nazrul married a Hindu girl.  He continued to be politically active, and his books of poetry, The Flute of Venom and Song of Demolition were banned.   As time went on, he continued to be a controversial writer.   He was very prolific, and there were many people who agreed with his views.  He wrote poetry, music, and newspaper articles, translated works from the Persian and 38 suras from the Qu'ran, and wrote Hindu devotional songs.  He became the musical director for several films, and he worked for many recording companies.  In his first movie he was the musical director, as well as the director, lyricist, vocalist, and an actor.  It was very successful, and his records sold well.  He also wrote plays and did research in classical Indian music.  He produced several radio programs on music, and for his "Mabarag Malika" program he created twenty-one new classical modes (which he named after Hindu deities).  He wrote twenty-one books of poems, nine plays, six novels, and worked on ten movies, as well as writing over three thousand songs, short stories, essays and children's literature.  He wrote love songs, ghazals (which came to be known as Nazrul sangit, named after Tagore’s Rabindra sangit), comic songs, religious songs, children’s songs and hymns.  He wrote in Sanskrit, Bengali, Arabic, Persian and Urdu.  His early swadeshi songs, heroic and patriotic, remained popular.
Though he died in this tragic fashion, he left a legacy of writing behind him.  Let us look at some examples that deal with themes important to modern Islam.  On the issue of equality, he emphasized common humanity that the Quran accepts in his poem Man:

  I sing of equality
There is nothing nobler
than man
 Caste or creed, age or country
These matter little
Wherever men are,
far or near
  They are friends and brothers
A major place where Nazrul’s voice is needed is in the relationship of men and women in Islam.  On the issue of equality, Nazrul’s poem Woman expresses the necessity of treating women justly.  Under the guise of protection, we see Muslim women isolated and oppressed, and this has given many Muslim countries a reputation for prejudice and hypocrisy.  Nazrul recognized woman’s value at a time when this was rare.  As he states in his poem,
            I sing of equality
            In my eyes there’s no difference between man and woman.
            Man is responsible for half of the great, noble, everlasting things of the world
            And the other half goes to the credit of woman.
            Again for half of the sin, sorrow, grief and tears of human life man is responsible
            While the other half is wrought by woman.
            Who is he that hates woman as if she were a Hell?
            Tell him the {source of}
original sin is no woman, it is the male        Satan
         Or say, sin and Satan are neither male nor female, but a neuter gender
Every great achievement of the world, every great campaign
             Bears the stamp of magnificent sacrifices by a mother, a sister, a wife
            How many mothers have torn away their hearts
            How many sisters have helped the cause
            Nobody has engraved this in the martyr’s monuments
            Woman has infused love, affection, kindness and tenderness into her child- Man
            And cruel Man has paid the debt in a strange way:
            He has imprisoned her who kissed and nourished him at the breast
            Within the four walls of Purdah           
 Listen, dwellers of the Earth!
    The more you oppress         others, the more impotent         you become.
    O woman!  Tell me the         tyrant who has imprisoned     you
                In the demon’s palace of         jewelry.
    You have lost your genius         for self-expression
                You are now a coward,         languishing in the back        ground
    Speaking from behind         screens.
    You do not look me full in         the face
    O Woman, tear off your         veil, break your chains to         pieces
    Throw off the cowardly veil         to the four winds!..
    The day is not far off
    When the world shall sing         the glory of woman
            Along with that of man
This poetry shows the ethical concerns about equality of women which are often given lip-service, but rarely felt with passion.  In those countries where women are beaten for leaving their houses, and forbidden education, such words are important.  But Nazrul Islam speaks for all humanity, whose pain should be shared and recognized:
Another important area of contribution for Nazrul’s writing is religious tolerance.  We hear little in today’s headlines about compassion, kindness, and toleration as a tradition within Islam.  But it is there, towards all, and especially towards people of the book.  Nazrul speaks of how Muhammad would disapprove of how some followers of Islam act today, in his poem Forgive Us, O Prophet:
In your religion, O Prophet
            You did not direct hatred towards unbelievers,
            You served them as
fellow men
            And your door was open to them
Brave one, you never
commanded any of us
            To demolish the temples of others
            Now we cannot even
tolerate
            The slightest difference
of opinion
            Please forgive us,
O Prophet!
You did not ask us to kill
in the name of religion
            Or demand meaningless and shameful fighting
            You did not put swords
in our hands
            You gave us noble
guidance.
            
            Ignoring your tolerance and generosity
            We have glorified fanatics
            Is this why we do not see the divine mercy
            From your heavenly
fountain?
            Please forgive us, O Prophet!
We have not followed your message
            Please forgive us, O Prophet!
            We have forgotten
your ideals
            And the path you
sent down for us.
            Please forgive us, O Prophet
Another topic of importance in Kazi Nazrul Islam’s writing is that of universalism, the recognition of other paths as also reaching towards God or universal truths.
Thus, I believe that Kazi Nazrul Islam’s voice is important in the historical sense, in the development of Bengali poetry, but it is also important for the modern world.  That is because the problems he discusses are still problems today.   
As Nazrul Islam stated in a letter to his friend Anwar Hossain, I am Muslim, but my poetry is for all lands, all ages and all people. Let us take him at his word

The writer is a Professor of Religious Studies, College of Charleston, South Carolina, USA. The above is an abridged version of her write-up on this subject