SPIRIT OF ISLAM JULY 2O18

3 Spirit of Islam Issue 67 July 2018 FROM MAULANA’S DESK 1. The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims 2018, Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, Jordan. 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 1 . 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 PROPHET OF WISDOM A CERTAIN journalist of my acquaintance has met all kinds of people during the decade he has worked in his profession. I put a question to him: “You have met many people. Whom did you find possessing 100% clarity of thought?” He pondered over this, then he replied: “I have not found anyone who has cent per cent clarity of thought.” I said, “Clarity of thought is always the result of wisdom. When there is no wisdom there is no clarity of thought. It is, in fact, because of lack of wisdom that people do not think clearly.” Then I asked him, “What is wisdom?” When he could not give a clear answer, I gave him this definition: “Wisdom is the ability to discover the relevant by sorting out the irrelevant.” If you consult the dictionary, you will find that there is no agreed upon definition of wisdom. People define wisdom differently. All available definitions of wisdom are vague and unspecific. For example, the