THE LIFE AND WORK OF MAULANA WAHIDUDDIN KHAN

God Arises, The Vision of Islam, Islam and Socialism, Commentary of the Quran, Muhammad: The Prophet for All Humanity. Chapter 4: “Contemporaries of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan” In this chapter the author has given a brief account of some prominent contemporaries of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, like Badiuzzaman Nursi, Maulana Maududi, Ali Miyan Nadwi, Fazlur Rahman and others, to understand the Maulana’s thought in light of convergence and divergence with his contemporaries. According to the author, “Maulana Wahiduddin Khan like his contemporaries is in favour of reform in Madrasa education including need for changes in curricula, bringing Hadith to forefront and relegating outdated Ilm-e-Kalam”. Chapter 5: “Contribution of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan to Modern Islamic Thought” This chapter deals with the major themes in the Maulana’s writings and gives a detailed introduction to some of his selected works related to Islamic Thought. The major themes of the Maulana’s works, according to the author, are “Scientific Theology, Peace and Dawah, Islam in the Contemporary world, Revival and Reform in Islam, Islamic Studies: Need for Ijtihad, Indian Muslims, Woman in Islam and Spirituality & Philosophy of life”. For his Peace Theory, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan was awarded with a number of prestigious awards, both in India and abroad, including the “Demiurgus Peace International Award”, “National Amity Award” and “Padma Bhushan”. His writings aim “to present Islam as a comprehensive world view and the only ideology that can fill the vacuum of future world and his concern about the importance of Ijtihad (independent reasoning) is much considerable as he stresses for the reinterpretation of primary texts and reapplication of Quranic principles to find answers to modern challenges”. Chapter 6: “Critique of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan” There remain always possibilities of contradiction in a scholar’s views on some aspects. In this chapter, the author has dealt with criticism of the Maulana’s views by different scholars around the globe. The author presents the views of the Maulana’s opponents and then provides the counter arguments of the Maulana. At the end, a fair assessment of both the viewpoints has been attempted.