Halalified YouTube Audio
There are two dimensions to the personality of Maulana Shams Naved Usmani (RA):
1. His steadfastness on deen and his noble character are worthy of emulation.
2. Then there is his independent research on Vedic religion. He thought of Vedic religion as a corrupted form of guidance that was revealed to true prophets. He tried to make this a basis for calling Hindus to Islam.
Let me make this point very clear. There are two terminologies. One is wahdat deen (Only one religion leads to salvation). The other is wahdat adyan (all religions are equal). The idea of Wahdat deen is correct. The prophets all preached the same deen (fundamentals), but the shariah (peripherals) of the prophets have differed. The Quran tells us that all the prophets were true and all the heavenly books were true. Maulana Shams Naved Usmani (RA) proposed that we ought to treat the Vedic religion similar to Judaism and Christianity. We know that the Jews and Christians follow a religion that was preached by true prophets.
Maulana's thesis was that the Vedic religion was originally sent from the heavens. It was also corrupted like Judaism (Torah) and Christianity (Injeel). The Vedic religion underwent much greater corruption because it is older than the Torah and the Injeel. He correctly wanted to use those parts of the Vedic scripture that called towards tawheed (monotheism), risalat (prophethood), and akhirah (hereafter), and make it a base for calling Hindus towards Islam. While his goal was noble, his original research had some shortcomings. He was still in the process of refining it, and he did not wish to publish his research until it had been reviewed by ulama (scholars). I say this with full conviction -- Maulana did not want his ideas to be published without due diligence (by the ulama).
A person (Allama Syed Abdullah Tariq Rampuri) who was an engineer (who studied at Aligarh Muslim University) came in contact with Maulana Shams Naved Usmani (RA) and benefitted from his company and knowledge. This person (Allama Rampuri) collected Maulana Shams Naved Usmani's ideas and published them without prior approval from Maulana Shams Naved (RA). There are many ideas in the Book Ab Bhi Na Jago (If you still do not awaken) that Maulana Shams Naved (RA) was not in agreement with. He was very insistent that scholars (ulama) should first examine his ideas and pick and choose the most appropriate ones. Muslims had been reading past writings of Maulana Shams Naved (RA) with much respect. But, due to the publication of this last book (by Allama Rampuri), Maulana lost some prestige. I have letters of Maulana Shams Naved (RA) with me. He has written to me on many occasions telling me that he tried to convince (Allama Rampuri) to remove some objectionable parts from the text of Ab Bhi Na Jago, but (Allama Rampuri) was a man of a different temperament and he did not agree to make the required corrections in the book.
I can say with full conviction that Maulana Shams Naved (RA) was not in favor of exposing his raw ideas to the public independent of the supervision of the ulama (scholars). He made effort and dua (supplication) to this end, but unfortunately he passed away before his book could be revised. This is why we do not base our work (of dawah among Hindus) on the contents of that book. We do not advise common people to read that book. We have designed our own curriculum for people who work among Hindus to call them to Islam.
I hope this clarification (regarding our opposition to the book Ab Bhi Na Jago) is sufficient (for everyone).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBh70l_S1Ew
