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

was just the icing on the cake, or should I say the last nail in the coffin. I needed Maulana’s guiding hand at this time, not to become completely disillusioned. It was a time when what I would call Maulana’s classics were relatively new publications. AlIslam, Zuhoor-e-Islam, Ihya-e-Islam—these took the place of the Dars-e-Nizami of Deoband as my stipulated reading. The thinking was so fresh, so new, so invigorating. Every month, I read Maulana’s monthly magazine Al-Risala from cover to cover, and then again and again. I became buried in Maulana’s thought. I was not the only one to be guided by Maulana at a critical time of their faith. Following Maulana’s passing on April 21st 2021, another acquaintance of Maulana—another English Muslim by the name of Tabib Abdul Kareem—wrote about how he had benefited from Maulana’s guidance. He felt confused by the various Muslim groups who were vying for his favour. He met Maulana two months after accepting Islam in 1992. “I learned much from him…… That meeting completely changed my life and made me firm in my conviction. I completely changed after that…. He certainly was my first guide in Islam.” As for me, Maulana’s influence totally dominated my 1980s. Just about single-handedly, with assistance and co-ordination from Maulana’s daughter Farida Khanam, I brought out the English version of Al-Risala. Every week, a bundle of AlRisala articles would wing their way from wherever I was in the subcontinent, to Maulana’s office in Delhi. Not only was Maulana’s thought the basis of my interpretation and