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

and jinn, assigned duties to them and kept a veil between the two creations. So, might the jinn have been assigned to carry out such a hidden task?” His words were striking jewels in each narration enriched with guidance from the Quran and Hadith. A few of his quotes are worth remembering, among them “Knowledge (education) makes a human, and knowledge is the only authentic way to develop humanity.” He wrote, “On Dec. 6, 1992, in India, a group of Hindu extremists demolished the Babri Masjid. If the Muslims at the time had thought that Sultan [Mahmud of Ghazni] had demolished Somnath’s Hindu temple in 1001 and that this was an act of revenge, it would have fostered a positive, realistic and result-oriented attitude among them. But instead, under unwise leadership, they indulged in futile negative activities that proved to be counter-productive” [author’s translation]. After the mosque’s destruction, Khan embarked on an interfaith peace march through south India’s Maharashtra state. In 2012, when the YouTube movie “Innocence of Muslims” ignited Muslim passions worldwide, he reminded Muslims that it’s better to ignore evil, citing Caliph Umar that “kill an evil by keeping quiet about it.” Khan also recited 14:26: “An evil word is like an evil tree torn out of the earth; it has no foothold.” And in his own way he succeeded. In an Al Risala article, he wrote that he was once invited to an interfaith gathering in Mumbai chaired by the then deputy prime minister LK Advani. Looking at the large crowd, he looked at his watch