FROM MAULANA’S DESK

FROM MAULANA’S DESK 1. The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims 2019, 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. THE BABRI MOSQUE VERDICT Hope of a New Dawn T HE Supreme Court of India announced its final verdict on 9th November, 2019 on the issue of Babri Masjid. In a unanimous judgement, the five-judge Bench allocated the entire disputed site to the Hindu plaintiffs and compensated the Muslims with five acres of land in Ayodhya for the construction of a mosque. I have been associated with Babri Mosque issue since a long time. Around 1941, I visited Ayodhya to see the mosque myself and now vividly recollect the scene that I had witnessed then. It was an uninhabited mosque. I could see no sign of any daily congregational prayers taking place there. I offered Tahyatul Masjid namaaz (a twounit non-obligatory prayer performed on the occasion of entering a mosque). I was alone there in the mosque. When the incident of the demolition of the Babri mosque took place, the issue found a lot of prominence in the media and a lot of activities took place in its aftermath. I too was involved in the nationwide efforts to guide the people on the matter.