FROM MAULANA’S DESK

contained the following verse of the Quran: “Do they never reflect on the camels and how they were created?” (88: 17) Our teacher then asked a question to our class of twenty-five students: “Are the hoofs of a camel like that of a horse or a buffalo?” No student could answer the question. He then told us something really important. He quoted an Arabic saying: To know that you do not know is half of knowledge. That is, when you know that you do not know something, you pay attention to it whenever you come face to face with it. He further explained that since all of us did not know that we did not know about a camel’s hoofs, we never paid attention even when camels went past us. Later on, while studying science, I realized this is what we call the spirit of inquiry. Our teacher told us about the importance of the spirit of inquiry through an Arabic saying. Since then, I was filled with the spirit of inquiry and I continue to do it to this day. The spirit of inquiry therefore is an important part of my life. And this I learnt at my madrasa. After acquiring education at a madrasa I returned home and would often interact with a family friend, Ateeq Ahmad Ansari, who had a Master’s degree in English Literature from Lucknow’s La Martiniere College. His English was obviously very good, and so every time we conversed, I would feel lesser than him in some manner. Compared to his English expression I felt mine to be somewhat lacking. I realized that if I have to live in this world, I would have to study English and acquire modern knowledge. This is how I started studying, and later on modern thought became my subject of study. I studied modern thought extensively and deeply. It was therefore the realization that madrasa education is not enough that took me back to studies. Post madrasa education, I read the Quran and Hadith again with a new perspective and studied English for several years. Then I moved to Delhi in 1967. Here began a new chapter of my life. In fact my life can be divided into two phases: the phase before 1967, which was a period of self-training. And the phase after 1967 became a period of the peace mission. The greatest thing I acquired from studying modern thought was objective thinking. I had not learned this at the madrasa. As a result of my study, I grew acutely objective. I discovered that traditional Make yourself free from arrogance, bias and hatred, only then will you become a person who can be described as a man of understanding.