Jo Taaq-e Haram MeiN..…..

It is not about a Department of Theology or Arabic and Islamic Studies Departments. It is about the spirit of a particular Sham‘ (شمع) behind everything.

I am not sure how many students are aware of the motto. I am not sure if the current incumbents in the AMU Administration are fully aware about it either. They should be the ones who are more cognizant of the goals before anyone else.

About twelve years ago while in Jamia Hamdard it occurred to me to go to the reading halls of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Library and announce it loudly to the students that the true knowledge is ‘creatively reaching out to the unknown’. This is what the Sham‘ invites to. This is what it invited earlier. This is what produced the results. This is what can produce the results again. This is why the confluence of the two streams is an agenda in itself.

Let us go to the History Department of the AMU and ask the professors there. Let us go to William Montgomery Watt’s The Influence of Islam On Medieval Europe. Call it the influence of Islam. Call it the influence of Sham‘. It is one and the same thing.