AN INTERVIEW WITH MS KAUSER IZHAR

I was then able to understand the concept of Islam, God, rituals, practices, Dos and Don’ts of Islam. I also shed away the previous notion about the concept of being Khalifah as the purpose of my life. However, I could never establish my connection with God and I did know how to do it. What was your earlier notion about religion? I was brought up as a traditional Muslim. The empty rituals and cultural practices had no meaning for me. It did not address my mind and certainly did not resolve my problems. I tried old fashion ways to force myself and my children to pray, fast and study the Quran, but it backfired and they thought of religion as a burden in their lives. Also, I thought that the reason women had lower status in society was because of the verses of Quran, and men used these verses to oppress women. I had no answer towards the life’s sufferings and certainly did not know “why bad things happen to good people”. How were you introduced to Maulana Wahiduddin Khan? I was part of Dr Farhat Hashmi’s study group during 2012-13. Through this group, I came across the articles of Al-Risala (Urdu version of Spirit of Islam magazine) and the book The Secret of Success. Someone also sent me selected articles from Maulana’s Urdu book Izhar-e-Deen. I did not know who was sending me these articles but I was enchanted by the wisdom of the articles and yearned to receive more. I searched and found Islam: An Introduction and The Secret of Success from Urdu Bazar in Lahore when I visited Pakistan. I saved them to read on my return flight to New York. I remember reading the books while forgetting my fever on a long flight back to America. I was then introduced to the website www.cpsglobal.org which hosts all books and magazines of Maulana. I downloaded the books from the site and started reading. As I read the books, I was impressed by the style of the writer, contents of each topic and how deep it would go to concoct the root of the spirituality and the essence of the contents. I also learned that the writer was extremely wise and very precise. He used single page to start the topic, explain it with Quran or Hadith, then add natural phenomenon and rational reasoning to support the argument, and conclude with a profound lesson. He also used nature & scientific arguments, deeper psychology and biology of the human nature in eloquent manner to explain an idea, an experience, and used