AN INTERVIEW

I had some ideas about how imposing the house and the personality of a writer and religious scholar of his stature could be! Quite the contrary, I found Maulana sitting in a very simple and modest office without the train of people following him everywhere. He welcomed me personally. He had the Nigerian edition in his hand. We had a fruitful conversation. Looking back on your student life, how was your mentality then? I mean what did you think of religion in particular Islam? I divide my life into two parts. The first part is before I started reading Maulana’s books. And the second part is after I started reading him. I grew up in a village and only knew traditional Islam. It was a formbased religion. It taught that if you do this, read that you will get so much reward. If you recite such and such a word for this number of times, your place in Paradise is assured. I was not satisfied with this explanation of religion. When I entered college. I was introduced to another type of Islam. It may be called political interpretation of Islam. It held the view that Islam and Muslims are superior. Muslims are a unique nation, and establishing divine government is the goal of Islam. It was at this time, I got the opportunity to read Al-Risala. After reading it for 10 years, I was fully convinced that the arguments presented by Maulana were based on Quran and Hadith and the interpretation of Islam presented in these pages were sound indeed. I found that this is the answer to my quest. I knew that this is the true face of Islam. Every page of Al-Risala contained explanations of the verses of the Quran and Hadith. The art of life is found on almost every page. I found these were the traits to win a day and not some form of lip service. I had a 180-degree change in my mentality. From those days till now, whatever I have become, it is because of Maulana’s literature. My personality is the result of Maulana’s writing. I have dedicated my life to this mission. You said that you didn’t know Urdu. What motivated you to learn it? The storehouse of wisdom of Maulana’s writing could be found on every single page of Al-Risala. I was so enamoured of the magazine that I would read an issue many times over. I vividly remember which article appeared on what page and which issue of Al-Risala. It is no surprise then just by reading the magazine in such a fashion, my Urdu improved. I would also like to mention that Urdu was my mother tongue, only my medium of education was different.