FROM MAULANA’S DESK

FROM MAULANA’S DESK Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, born in 1925, in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, is an Islamic spiritual scholar who is well-versed in both classical Islamic learning and modern disciplines. The mission of his life has been the establishment of worldwide peace. He has received the Padma Bhushan, the Demiurgus Peace International Award and Sayyidina Imam Al Hassan Peace award for promoting peace in Muslim societies. He has been called ’Islam’s spiritual ambassador to the world’ and is recognized as one of its most influential Muslims1. His books have been translated into sixteen languages and are part of university curricula in six countries. He is the founder of the Centre for Peace and Spirituality based in New Delhi. UN-ISLAMIC CULTURE IN THE NAME OF ISLAM JULY 1, 2016, six militants burst into the Holy Artisan Bakery, in an affluent area of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The assailants took several people hostage and attacked them with bombs, blades and pistols. Twenty hostages were killed in the ensuing terror attack. Survivors of the onslaught said the killers made the hostages recite verses from the Quran to identify who among them were Muslims. Those who could recite verses from the Islamic scriptures were spared, the rest were killed. Reports state that the six militants chanted Allahu Akbar (God is great) as they stormed into the cafe and began wildly spraying bullets. This kind of killing, a heinous crime, for which there is no justification, is most barbarous in nature. Even predatory animals do not make such a cruel attack on any creature, man or animal. Labelling this act ‘Satanic’, would be an underestimation and its brutality cannot thus be properly expressed, because Satan never killed 1. The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims 2012, Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, Jordan.