Maulana Wahiduddin Khan - Spirituality Can Be Experienced By Anyone Irrespective Of His Belief System
By
Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander, New Age Islam
8 February
2021
Spirituality
as a topic is deeply associated with religion. Islam also aspires for the
spiritual development of its believers. A distinct school of thought known as
Sufism that emphasizes most on the spiritual aspect of Islam, evolved among
Muslims. Given its evolution in the time of political crisis it focused mainly
on the spiritual development, cleansing of hearts and purification of souls
that ultimately led the believer to experience the divinity of God. It focuses
on training the believers to experience the contours of divinity through
various practices and exercises. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, a prolific writer on
Islam in his new work has delved and engaged with this important aspect of
Islam. In his Foreword he writes about the scope and subject matter of this
book in these words, “I hope it will give the reader a vision, facilitate
clearer thinking and establish the principles of personality development. I
hope it will help him defuse his stress, de-condition his conditioning and
enable him to rediscover the course he should take a lead a successful life.”
(P-7) Unlike his other academic works it can be constructed as a self-help
book.
Leading
A Spiritual Life
Author:
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Publisher:
Goodword Books, Noida, India
Year
of Publication: 2018
Pages:
391 Price: Not mentioned
ISBN:
9789351791515
The book is
divided in many parts and contains scores of articles that deal with various
dimensions of spirituality understood in a common parlance. Spirituality as its
practitioners describe can be experienced by anyone irrespective of his belief
system, religion, gender or language. This aspect becomes evident as the reader
progresses through this book. Maulana despite being an Islamic scholar has not
used solely Islamic weltanschauung or idiom to describe spirituality but lived
experiences and everyday observations that have a universal appeal.
Maulana
takes cue from nature, environment, important personalities, biographies and
his vast reading to describe and derive spiritual lessons. So he states that we
should adopt the culture of trees. Trees stay where they are despite the change
of seasons. Maulana advocates mind based spirituality that takes contemplation
instead of just meditation in account. So that paves way for applied
spirituality instead of an escapist one. Hence spiritual behavior is friendly
behavior towards all which emphasizes forgiveness instead of revenge, self
restrain and not losing the temper.
The lesson
of all humanity being one family is a lesson that we have heard since childhood
but how spirituality can construct such an environment is depicted by Maulana.
In such an environment borders become irrelevant, spirituality beginning from
an individual makes one duty bound and responsible towards others. The failure
to produce dutiful, responsible and conscious citizens is what leads to
conflicts and problems in the society. The formal mainstream education has
failed to produce such citizens so informal education will certainly help fill
the void. This change will be ushered non violently and through education.
“Social change cannot be brought about by demonstrating on the streets. It is
brought about by changing people at the intellectual level. Social change,
after all, is an issue not of street activism, but of intellectual activism.”
(P-117)
Maulana
believes that stress and tension cannot be avoided in life and they are good
only if people know how to deal with them. So leaving comfort zones and
accepting intellectual challenges makes one strong and creative. Thus hard work
is the road to success not a life of comfort that has no challenges. There are
no short cuts to hard work and through it only one can achieve great feats.
Critical thinking is the constructive thinking and there is need for dealing
with all situations with controlled emotions. Thus adjustments are needed that
make life easy to spend. The progress of an individual and a nation also requires
the proper utilization of time, a resource that is least valued by people.
Further being realist helps in getting over rifts and tussles with others
particularly in case of marriage. Marriage for Maulana should comprise of
spouses who are intellectual partners too. Also negotiating with problems
requires taking a cue from cow culture that turns non milk products into milk
so non peace, non desirability, tension and stress needs to be converted into
peace, desirability and mental solace.
A concept of
De conditioning has been articulated by Maulana in his writings. It means to
take people out of their comfort zones, environment, family upbringing and
making them understand the real purpose of life. It is a continuous process and
every great person went through this process. De conditioning is needed because
everyone is surviving in a self contradictory mode. “A tension-free mind is one
that can function positively in spite of a contradiction. People work, but find
no job satisfaction. They earn money but experience no inner satisfaction. They
live by the formula: ‘Enjoy life!’ But they don’t know what life is or what
real enjoyment is. It is a paradoxical situation. Everyone is living in this
state of self-contradiction.” (P-179)
The other
issues dealt in this work include learning from the experiences of others,
celebrating the power of resilience among humans and grabbing new opportunities
if the previous ones have been lost. Maulana says that a nation can only
progress if they contribute towards the common good of humanity, instead of
being just consumers and receivers. Most Eastern countries and the muslim
minorities are feeling threatened that they will be assimilated by the
majority, but if they are contributors then it is impossible for them to be
assimilated. Infact they will be cherished and celebrated for their
contribution towards the collective good.
This book
is a unique contribution of Maulana to the genre of self help. The book is an
easy read and every article has some insight to offer that helps the reader to
learn something new while offering a different perspective on issues that are
overlooked. It is a must read for anyone interested in improving their vision
and perspective about life.
------
M.H.A.Sikander
is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir.
URL: https://newageislam.com/books-documents/maulana-wahiduddin-khan-spirituality-be/d/124259
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