MAGAZINE REVIEW

MAGAZINE REVIEW It’s almost the only magazine that I read these days. The English monthly Spirit of Islam, published from Bengaluru, is a treasuretrove of wisdom, a real blessing for spiritual seekers. Its first editorin-chief was the well-known New Delhi-based Islamic scholar, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Most of its articles are by the Maulana himself, who has been one of the most prolific writers on Islam at the global level. Spirit of Islam is a spiritual magazine with a difference. For one thing, unlike most other ‘Islamic’ magazines, it is not linked to any particular Muslim sect. Discussions about minor details of jurisprudence and rituals and debates about external forms of piety, such as about dress and deportment, may be a major focus of many other ‘Islamic’ magazines—but these do not find any space in Spirit of Islam, whose focus, its masthead announces, is ‘global peace and spiritual living’. Absent, too, from its pages are heated polemics seeking to prove the veracity of one Muslim sect and the falsity of the rest, hagiographical accounts of Muslim religious and political figures, past and present, uncritical laudatory accounts of Muslim history, diatribes against socalled ‘enemies of Islam’, lamentations about the supposed pathetic conditions of Muslims today, accusations against non-Muslims for allegedly conspiring against Muslims, and so on—issues that are the staple fare of much of the Muslim media. If many other Muslim-run magazines are narrowly Muslim-centric and are geared essentially to a Muslim readership, Spirit of Islam is refreshingly universal in its outlook and approach and characterized by very obvious goodwill towards people of all faiths. It is concerned with the most fundamental task of all—of making people, irrespective of religion, aware of God’s Creation Plan. A SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE WITH A DIFFERENCE Suleiman Khan