ASK MAULANA

ASK MAULANA Your Questions Answered Q & A with Maulana Wahiduddin Khan on the election of Sadiq Khan as London’s First Muslim Mayor. Sadiq Khan, the son of a bus-driver, has been elected as the Mayor of London, and with a sizeable margin. He is London’s first Muslim Mayor. How do you respond to this? In his first address as the Mayor of London, Mr. Sadiq Khan said, while expressing his gratitude towards Londoners, that they had made the impossible, possible. In my view, it would be better to say that Londoners had demonstrated to the entire world, and especially to Muslims, what the spirit of this age is—that in today’s day and age, sectarian thinking has ended and competence alone holds meaning. If one is able to prove one’s competence, one can achieve anything. In this age of globalisation, there is no room for any kind of sectarian thinking. There is only one criterion of success—and that is, competence. What do you think Mr. Khan’s election can imply in the context of the much talked-about question of relations between Muslims and others, both in the West and globally, more generally? The issue of relations is a unilateral one—the rest of the world has adopted the spirit of the age already, and now it is time for Muslims to change their attitude and adopt the spirit of the modern age, too. What do you think it means in the context of claims of widespread ‘Islamophobia’ in the West, and among non-Muslims generally? “Islamophobia” is a baseless rumour that Muslims have invented. It exists neither in the West nor anywhere else in the world. This is the age of opportunities, and today every person is busy in availing these opportunities; no one has the time to become enemy to another. Muslims must realize that the victory of Mr. Sadiq Khan completely dispels the notion of “Islamophobia”. Muslims must accept that they were under a wrong impression until now while the reality is quite different. It is now the responsibility of Muslims to unilaterally come out of this negative mindset. Besides living up to his other responsibilities as mayor of London, what do you think Sadiq Khan could do to improve relations between