PROMOTING PEACE IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s Keynote Address at the 2nd Annual Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies Bismillahi-r-rahmani-r-rahim (In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful) Rabbi-shrah li sadri wa yassirli amri wa-hlul uqdatan min lisani yafqahu qawli (My Lord! Open up my heart, and make my task easy for me. Loosen the knot in my tongue, so that they may understand my speech) Distinguished guests, Brother Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and Islamic scholars, We are here to discuss a very serious problem—how to promote peace in Muslim societies. There is no doubt at all that this is a very important issue. At the same time, I would say that mere condemnation of violence is not enough. The problem is an intellectual one. A section of Muslims are misguided into engaging in terrorism and we need to remove their misconceptions. Only then will it be possible for peace to prevail. The Right, Peaceful Interpretation of Islam According to a well-known dictum, ‘Violence begins in the mind’. So, is the case with peace. Peace, too, begins in the mind. Hence, we need a peaceful ideology, the right ideology. Only then can we hope that the PROMOTING PEACE IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES On 30 April, 2015, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan was awarded the Sayyidina Imam Al Hasan Ibn Ali Peace Award at the Second Annual Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, held at Abu Dhabi, UAE. Shaikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, Chairman of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, presented Maulana the award at the closing session of the threeday conference. The peace award was given in acknowledgement of the Maulana’s decades-long efforts for promoting world peace. On the occasion, Shaykh Bin Bayyah said that 90-year old Maulana Wahiduddin Khan had worked tirelessly for over seventy years for the cause of establishing peace and promoting a culture of goodwill and tolerance across the world.