SPIRIT OF ISLAM FEBRUARY 2018

3 Spirit of Islam Issue 62 February 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. IN SINGAPORE, THE ENRAGED GO TO THE FRAGMENT ROOM A RECENT news report talked of how some people in Singapore’s offices are trying to relieve their stress. One such report is summarized here: Bad day at the office? A ‘rage room’ in offices lets stressed-out people take a baseball bat to items ranging from glass bottles to televisions. The ‘Fragment Room’ consists of a bare, cell-like space with concrete walls, where customers pay to indulge in an unusual form of destructive stress relief.  After being given overalls, helmets, gloves and shoes, people proceed to smash up items ranging from plates to printers. “Everyone in Singapore, no matter where you come from, what your background is, whatever you do, whatever age you are, everyone is stressed out,” says Royce Tan, the founder of ‘Fragment Room’.  The set-up, one of several such rage rooms in cities around the world, has two main offerings: half-hour slots with a limited amount of items to smash or the higher priced ‘annihilation pack’ that lets customers smash as much as they can in half an hour.