FROM MAULANA'S DESK

In today’s age one can build, for instance—educational empire, industrial empire, media empire, as well as spiritual and ideological empire. The making of peaceful empires has become so much possible today that if any group uses wisdom and right planning, it can certainly create an empire for itself. In the Makkan period the tribal chiefs of Makkah once asked the Prophet what he required of them. The Prophet replied: “Only a kalima (word), which if you adopt you will become masters over the Arab and nonArab world.” This prophetic saying was about the coming age. It means that the advent of Islam was to initiate a new process in history, which would usher in such developments that it would become possible for a group to attain global supremacy, provided it remained completely peaceful. De-militarization of Muslims can be achieved only through de-conditioning of their political mindset. Present Muslims are unaware of this reality. They want to build a political empire of Islam. In the present age of nationalism this has become totally non-workable. Muslims should make the ideological empire of Islam their target, which is as much possible as the making of a media empire. Make Muslims aware of the present age and their “Terrorism” will automatically disappear. o Maulana Wahiddudin Khan editor@thespiritofislam.org Learn from All The spirit for learning in man should be so great that he should learn from every individual around him. Words and behaviours which affect us in a negative manner must provide us with positive lessons. Thus we can develop the capability to learn from every instance in our life.