ME AND MAULANA: A PERSONAL RECOLLECTION OF WAHIDUDDIN KHAN - John M. Butt

After a while, It so happened that due to some personal challenges, I came in contact with Maulana Wahiduddin Khan Sahab about whom I had heard from my mother. It was the starting point of a beautiful journey full of Marefat. Not only Maulana re-introduced me to God and Paradise at a much higher level of realization but he also inspired me and gave me a higher purpose in life. I soon became an active CPS member. His inspiration and guidance to become a ‘program maker’ with an ‘I will do it spirit’ created a mental storm in me and my mind exploded with ideas. Networking involving new team formation, Quran distribution and Hindi translation of Maulana’s works became my target focus. This work was greatly appreciated by Maulana as he would often discuss at length on the progress of work. He would be very happy whenever I would share news about new team formation or new books getting translated in hindi. I had asked him once about a Master formula that would save me even when I am totally destroyed, He gave a long thought and said — “Allah ko hamesha yaad rakhna, usey kabhi bhoolna naheen” “Always remember Allah, never forget him” I discovered a small child hidden somewhere in him. Whenever I visited him he would talk to me about aeroplanes at length with much awe and admiration even until his last days. He often exclaimed that he had been so fascinated by aeroplanes since the time he was a small child. There have been many instances in my life when I had gone to maulana totally broken down but his mere presence made