AN INTERVIEW

The fact that today Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and people of other faiths consider themselves as CPS members shows that the effort of CPS has yielded positive results and transformation has started. One example is a team of Islamic scholars who first met Maulana. One scholar from the group said he had no hate for anyone. After scrutinizing, Maulana found out that he harboured hate for Jews. Maulana then told him that there is a Hadith that a person who has an iota of hate would not enter Paradise. Maulana then spoke to the person about the teachings of Islam and this changed the person and today he is one of the advocates of interfaith. CPS gets invitation from all faith groups and CPS literature is distributed and read by all faiths as Maulana’s focus was on universal teachings and universal learnings. This is what Quran teaches and Islam stands for. Kindly speak about the intersections in the interfaith dialogue that CPS has been working on, for example gender, culture, spirituality, conflict, etc. Are there any challenges? How can they be overcome? CPS International participates regularly in the interfaith programmes. A unique aspect of CPS International is that it is spearheaded largely by women members. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan used to say that Islam gives equal status to men and women contrary to what many people think. There is a Hadith which says men and women are two equal halves of a single unit. ‘Equal in Respect and different in role’ is what Islam says. Having said that, I would like to tell you that we have many women members who participate in interfaith programmes, and are devoted to the mission. The chairperson of CPS International is Prof Farida Khanam. Some other pivotal members who can be called pillars of the mission are Dr Naghma Siddiqui, Dr Maria Khan, Ms Stuti Malhotra. These are just a few of the women who are actively involved in this peace mission. I too participate in many programmes. I am a part of the Kolkata team. We have produced ample material on conflict-resolution This is a theme for which Maulana worked his entire life. There is just no space for politics in religion. Maulana has created vast treasures of writings which demolish political interpretation of Islam. His writings offer principles of conflict-resolution with emphasis upon unilateral adjustment. Maulana talks about peace for its own sake without equating it with justice. Unilateral peace is what Maulana has presented. Whatever be the situation, peace should be maintained. Otherwise, nothing can be achieved. While maintaining peace, one should pursue other matters.