FROM MAULANA’S DESK

FROM MAULANA’S DESK 1. The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims 2020, 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. MARVELS OF MAN A S I STOOD in front of India Gate in New Delhi, I thought what a beautiful specimen of architecture and sculpture it was. It is a structure which bears witness to man’s unique creative faculties. For man to conceive of a thing like ‘India Gate’, he must think creatively before it can come into existence. He must make plans and then give them a concrete shape. On observing this, the thought came to my mind that even if all the stars, planets, trees and animals were told to build an India Gate, they would fail to do so, even if all of them put their heads together. This is the case with all other human matters too. All of man’s extraordinary and exemplary feats are unique, and are his exclusive prerogative. No other being in the known universe is able to do the things which man is capable of doing by exercising his physical and mental faculties, be it the construction of India Gate or the operating of a complex industrial machine. God desires that man should realize Him on the level of consciousness, that he should recognize Him through his intellect. That is why God