Interfaith Dialogue Promotes Proximity

Daily Life’. This book could be about three hundred pages long. He said that he intends to publish these books in ten languages worldwide. At the beginning of the Shanti Yatra, I spoke in secular terms without mentioning Islam. However, during private sessions, I often discussed the Quran and Hadith with people. After listening to a couple of speeches, Swami Chidanand said, “Maulana Sahib, the teachings of the Quran and Hadith that you tell us, please share them in the session as well. They are very enlightening for us.” Therefore, in subsequent speeches, I started presenting my point with reference to the Quran and Sunnah. Before the Shanti Yatra, neither did I know Swami Chidananda, nor did he know me. Both of us were unfamiliar with each other’s names as well. However, the result of spending two weeks together was that after that, we became friends, and he became a reader of my magazine Al-Risala; he wanted me to write a three-hundred-page book on Islam so that it could be printed and spread worldwide. Again, I would reiterate that distance creates misunderstandings, and proximity eliminates misunderstandings, turning strangers into friends. After returning from the journey, a friend asked if there was any religious basis for works like Shanti Yatra. I said that, in its essence, it is a kind of work that resembles the Hilf al-Fudul. Before his prophethood, some esteemed individuals in ancient Makkah had formed a society called ‘Hilf al-Fudul’. Its purpose was to prevent social unrest and voice the grievances of the oppressed.