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. NO THOUGHT CRIME IN ISLAM O N 9 May 2017, the Christian Governor of Jakarta was jailed for two years for blaspheming against Islam. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, reportedly told fishermen in the Thousand Islands province in September 2016 that his opponents were using Chapter Five (Al-Maidah) of the Quran to deceive them into not voting for him. Some interpret verse 51 of Al-Maidah to mean that Muslims should not be led by a non-Muslim ruler. Ahok subsequently apologized but the comments were seized upon by his political foes and conservative Islamic groups that had long argued that Jakarta should not be led by a non-Muslim. The five-judge panel of the North Jakarta District Court ordered the arrest of Ahok, saying he had been found convincingly guilty of blaspheming against religion. Ahok’s supporters had hoped he would be acquitted or given a light sentence after prosecutors concluded he did not intend to insult Islam. (“Jakarta’s Christian Governor Ahok jailed for two years for blasphemy,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 May 2017). Punishment for blasphemy is surely not a teaching of the Quran or the Hadith. It was the Muslim jurists of the later period who made these