Spirit of Islam, Nov-Dec 2021

Khaja Kaleemuddin is the founding member and chapter head of the CPS USA team. He has been tirelessly engaged in spreading the Quran in the Americas in particular. Identified as the Quran Man in the local community, he has been instrumental in distributing around 1.3 million copies of the translations of the Quran. He is a teacher by profession. He has rendered his services in many countries such as India, Zambia, Nigeria, and the USA. He has been associated with Maulana for more than 40 years. He was the first CPS member to visit New Zealand after the gruesome Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019. Through his effort, the Quran copies and other books on Islam are available in the same mosque. These books are aimed at dispelling the misconceptions about Islam. He lives in Pennsylvania, USA. He visited CPS International, New Delhi in August 2021 where he was interviewed by Dr Rajat Malhotra. The interview was live-streamed on Facebook. Some of the questions were from the online viewers. This is an edited and abridged version of the interview. How were you introduced to Maulana Wahiduddin Khan? I had started reading Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s Urdu monthly AlRisala Urdu in 1976. If you remember, this was the year the magazine started. Thus, I can say that I have read every single issue of Al-Risala. I continued to read it for the next 10 years before I decided to meet him. My Urdu was not so fluent then. I could read Urdu but only with difficulty. I found that articles appealed to my inner nature. They were a treasure of wisdom. Then I read some of his books. Around the same time, I had to leave India for Zambia for a teaching assignment. The magazine contained so much practical advice about the art of life management. I started applying those principles in my life. I began sharing the magazine with others. I met him in 1986. Do you remember your first meeting? I was staying in a hotel in New Delhi. I was returning from Zambia and had to wait in New Delhi for a day before taking the flight to Hyderabad. I called him on phone and sought an appointment the same evening. Maulana told me to come right away if I had time. He knew me already as I had got Al-Risala printed in Nigeria and sent him the samples. AN INTERVIEW In Conversation with Khaja Kaleemuddin