SPIRIT OF ISLAM MAY 2O18

3 Spirit of Islam Issue 65 May 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. U-TURN—A PRINCIPLE OF LIFE O NCE I was travelling in a part of India with which my driver was unfamiliar. He made a wrong turn at one point but drove on for five miles before he realized he was on the wrong road. He had to stop the car then and make a U-turn to get back on the right road and soon, we safely reached our destination. This kind of U-turn is not only a part of road culture, it is a principle of life. Every person, every community, every nation at some point needs to make a U-turn. Failing this, the result could be unbearable. For example, the Tatas established a car factory in West Bengal to produce the Nano car in 2007. Very soon they discovered that West Bengal was not favourable for their industry, so they dismantled their factory and re-established it in Gujarat. Now Nano cars are successfully running in every city of India. This success was the direct result of Tatas adopting the U-turn policy. The same is applicable to nations. One such example is the course adopted by the United Kingdom after the Second World War. The