FROM MAULANA’S DESK

FROM MAULANA’S DESK 1. The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims 2012, Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, Jordan. 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. POSITIVE ALWAYS T OWARDS the end of December 2016, I happened to meet a Muslim youth of Indian origin in Delhi who had been living in the USA for several years. In the course of our conversation, I asked him to share some experiences of his life in the USA. He immediately replied that the most lamentable experience for him was Donald Trump’s election to the presidential seat of America and then openly declaring his dislike for Muslims living in the USA. I told him his obsession with this point needed to be seen against the backdrop of historical record. The fact is that it is now the 21st century and we are living in the age of democracy. In the democratic culture, no political rule is permanent. Witness how at the time of the creation of man, Satan declared that he was the enemy of humanity. Apparently the expression of Satan’s intention signalled a permanent danger to humanity, but this Satanic declaration notwithstanding, man has never ceased to flourish There can be no greater challenge to mankind than the challenge of Satan.