FROM MAULANA’S DESK
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, born in 1925, in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, is an Islamic spiritual scholar who is well-versed in both classical Islamic learning and modern disciplines. The mission of his life has been the establishment of worldwide peace. He has received the Padma Bhushan, the Demiurgus Peace International Award and Sayyidina Imam Al Hassan Peace award for promoting peace in Muslim societies. He has been called ’Islam’s spiritual ambassador to the world’ and is recognized as one of its most influential Muslims . His books have been translated into sixteen languages and are part of university curricula in six countries. He is the founder of the Centre for Peace and Spirituality based in New Delhi.
THE AIM OF ISLAM
THERE are some who claim that religion is an individual matter, and others who take the opposite view, zealously putting forward their claim that religion is a complete social order. Outwardly both views appear to be opposed to one another, but they do have one thing in common: both present religion as a system related to individual life, and the second as a system related to society as a whole.
The aim of the religion of Islam is to discover our Creator.
In its true essence, however, religion is neither an individual nor a social system; it is a divine path. The aim of the religion of Islam is to discover our Creator. Religion is to believe in what is unseen as if it were before one’s eyes; it is for thoughts of God and the life after death to dominate one’s mind—so much that one is always thinking about them and setting the course of one’s life in accordance with their demands.
The true purpose of Islam is to bring what the Quran calls ‘devoted servants of God’ (Rabbaniyun) into existence. Islam seeks to imbue every single individual with love and fear of the Lord. The type of person that Islam seeks to form is one who fears God above all else, whose focus of attention is the next eternal world; one who subordinates all his actions and dealings to the will of God; who does not follow the dictates of the devil and his own desires but submits to one God alone.
The true purpose of Islam is to bring what the Quran calls ‘devoted servants of God’ (Rabbaniyun) into existence. Islam seeks to imbue every single individual with love and fear of the Lord.
Islamic faith is essentially a discovery—the discovery of God. Islam is for one to see beyond the superficial forms of things to the reality that lies beneath; it is for one to set one’s gaze beyond creation and fix it on the Creator. This is to see something that others have not seen, to discover something that others have yet to discover. When true Islam enters a person’s soul it is the most shattering of experiences. It brings one face to face with a reality which changes the very nature of one’s life. It is rebirth, the making of a new man.
Islam addresses itself to the individual, not to society as a whole, for only an individual can experience the psychological upheavals that Islam brings about. To seek to Islamize society, without individuals having undergone the inward transformation essential to Islam, does not serve to strengthen and consolidate God’s religion; it can only undermine it.
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
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Peace is a prerequisite for all kinds
of human progress. With peace, we
progress without peace, we face ruin.