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

of decades ago, the Quran used to be published in thick, unwieldy volumes, making reading a challenge. Then Maulana Wahiduddin Khan changed it all. Religion was not about intellectuals or clerics. It was about improving the common man’s life, he believed. With this belief, quite opposed to the thinking of many Muslim ulama, he brought about a revolution in the Muslim world. The Maulana passed away from COVIDrelated complications earlier this week. He was 96. Unlike others, for him faith was not about didactics. He never gave those high-pitched sermons, never pontificated. Instead, he gave persuasive arguments. He believed in the power of reason even when his views were contrary to what the majority in the community believed. He denounced terrorism, he opposed separatism in Kashmir, and firmly stated that Islam had no room for terrorist activity. He believed in Kashmir’s integration with India and advised the Kashmiris to stay with India as it was in their interest. It did not endear him to many Kashmiris who believed he had become the mouthpiece of the Indian establishment. For the Maulana it was not a new experience. Often he had to face such accusations. When at the heights of the Babri MasjidRamjanmabhoomi controversy, he advised Muslims to give up their claim on the masjid in respect to Hindu sentiments. The community branded him a ‘BJP maulana’, forgotten was his advice to the Hindu community too that they should not insist on any other mosque in Kashi and Mathura. Neither community listened to the soft-spoken Maulana. He met with the same fate in regard to Salman Rushdie at the time of the Satanic Verses controversy, or later, when