ASK MAULANA
Your Questions Answered
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan in a discussion on the necessity of dialogue and working for peace
When did you begin your mission, and what is it about?
It’s been a very long journey. It started many years ago, but it began in an active sense in 1967, when I became the editor of the Urdu weekly Al-Jamiat. Then, in 1970, I set up the Islamic Centre in New Delhi, and launched the Urdu monthly Al-Risala in 1976. In 2001, I set up the Centre for Peace and Spirituality. This, in brief, is a description of my organisational activities.
My mission is basically a dawah mission. Dawah means ‘invitation’, and this mission seeks to invite people to God. Through this mission, we seek to convey the word of God to people everywhere.
At the same time, I am also interested in working for peace. Without peace, you can’t engage in positive or constructive work. If you want to do dawah work, if you want to promote spirituality, you need peace. So, we give great stress on working for peace, because our purpose is dawah, and dawah is not possible without peace. Dawah and peace are interlinked. I am thus interested in promoting both dawah and peace.
There’s much talk today about interfaith dialogue. It seems to be a relatively new thing. Why do you think people are talking about it today?
It isn’t that dialogue between followers of different faiths did not take place earlier. Yet, maybe not much of it took place in the formal sense, because for dialogue you need communications to relate, to dialogue with others, and in the past, means of communication were limited. Today, communications are highly advanced, and so not only is dialogue much more possible but it is also a pressing need.
I think interaction and intellectual exchange between people of different faiths is very important. We are really blessed to find ourselves in a period of history where the possibilities of such exchange and interaction abound. These possibilities were very limited in earlier times, and so we are truly fortunate.
What are your views on coexistence, peace, tolerance and the ethics of dialogue?
These values are universal, and are all very good. Without peace, without peaceful coexistence and tolerance, you can’t do anything positive. Islam stresses upon these values.
What is the Islamic approach to coexistence, to dialogue between people of different faiths?
The Quran says as-sulh khair, which means ‘reconciliation is best’. According to Islam, our choice should be peace, rather than confrontation. This is reflected very clearly in the teachings of the Sufis. The Sufis believed in what is called sulh-e kul or peace with all.
Peace with all is a fundamental Islamic teaching. Why?
This is because dawah is a central concern of Islam. Dawah cannot be effectively engaged in without peace, without peaceful interaction with others. Islam is a religion of mission. It has a mission—which is to convey the word of God everywhere. This was the Prophet’s mission. It is the duty of believers in Islam to explain to people the Creation Plan of God, to convey to them God’s message to humanity. This is our mission. This mission requires peace. It also requires interaction and dialogue with others.
What do you think Muslims might gain from such dialogue?
As I said, dialogue is necessary for dawah, and dawah is a basic duty and mission of followers of Islam. I do not think there is any negative point in dialogue at all, provided it is serious discussion and intellectual exchange, not polemics or debate. When you dialogue and interact with others, you exchange thoughts and views. If the other party accepts your position or views, you gain a companion. And if the other party does not accept your view, if it is not convinced about it, at least you gain valuable experience in terms of intellectual exchange. So, either way you stand to gain from dialogue and interaction.
Peaceful dialogue, then, is very good and useful in all circumstances. I have personally experienced that interaction and dialogue between people of different faiths and backgrounds are always useful for Muslims (and for others, too)—in terms of intellectual development or in terms of conveying the message of Islam to others.
There’s an important point I need to add here. I have participated in several interfaith dialogue initiatives, in India and abroad. But according to my experience, these efforts were not very beneficial. It 46 Spirit of Islam Issue 40 April 2016 was not because dialogue is itself not beneficial. Dialogue is always good. The reason that these dialogue initiatives were not very beneficial is that I think Muslims are not very familiar with the process of dialogue. Muslims only know how to debate, not dialogue. And so, I found that while the other participants were sincerely engaged in trying to promote dialogue, the Muslims who were present were not sincere about it, because they only knew how to debate. Always, I have noticed, Muslims use the language of debate. In this regard, I would say that there is an urgent need to bring about reform in Muslim thinking. We have to convince Muslims to drop the debate method and opt for scientific, peaceful, meaningful and positive dialogue.
But inspite of what is happening I am hopeful, that through such dialogue initiatives, Muslims may gain some useful and valuable experiences. Although they are not very competent to engage in dialogue, each one of them who has the good fortune of being able to participate in a dialogue will be exposed to some new learning experiences, which may help him reform himself, his thinking, his attitude to others and his behaviour.
So, I am greatly in favour of interfaith dialogue, and think that it is a wonderful thing for Muslims, as well as, of course, for everyone else.
What productive insights have you gained in your many years of engagement in dialogue?
I must say that these dialogues resulted in no breakthrough, but personally I learnt many things through dialoguing with others.
Let me cite an instance. In one of the meetings most of the participants were Hindus. Some of them spoke in a negative language. For instance, they spoke against the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. They had many complaints against him.
But I explained to them, “Aurangzeb was not a representative of Islam. I’m here as a representative of Islam, not as a representative of Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb was a member of the Mughal dynasty. And Mughal rule wasn’t Islamic rule. It wasn’t even Muslim rule. It was simply the rule of a certain Muslim dynasty.”
In this way, I detached Aurangzeb from Islam, and I spoke at length on Islam. This was appreciated by many people in the audience. They were very interested in what I was saying.
This is the path of wisdom, the wise approach to dialoguing and relating with others. In dialogue meetings, I often find Muslims trying Spirit of Islam Issue 40 April 2016 47 to advocate or defend Aurangzeb and other Muslim rulers. This fails to create a favourable or positive atmosphere for dialogue and for putting your position across. So, we need to know the wisdom of how to engage in dialogue.
My personal experience is that I always achieve something positive from dialogue through this sort of wisdom. Other Muslims always try to defend the behaviour and policies of Muslim kings. But I never do that. I just say, “That person was a Muslim king. That was a Muslim dynasty. And it wasn’t Islam.” I always stress that one has to differentiate between Islam and Muslims, and that one should gauge Muslims according to Islamic teachings, and not Islamic teachings according to the behaviour of Muslims, including Muslim kings.
In this way, I have been able to promote a positive and open attitude among dialogue partners and engage in positive interactions with them.
