Delhi, October 10, 1962

Dear Brother, Peace be upon you,

I received your letter. If you have ultimately decided to resign from the Jamaat membership because of your intellectual disagreements, there is nothing we can do but reluctantly accept it. However, I believe that your earlier decision was more suitable, when you left the Department of Publications and planned to spend more time studying and researching, engaging in discussions with knowledgeable people both inside and outside the Jamaat. Who knows, through such discussions, a point of agreement might emerge between the Jamaat’s and your perspectives. Even the conversation with Maulana Sadruddin Sahib has not yet ended, and as I mentioned before, he is willing to respond to your comments if they are expressed constructively. Also, from what I understand, your correspondence with Maulana Jalil  Ahsan Sahib is ongoing. So, why not be patient and wait for the results? The door to separation is always open, and we don’t want to prevent anyone from leaving unnecessarily. However, any member’s departure is not something we welcome, and your leaving would cause us sadness and, personally, it would be very upsetting for me. Therefore, I want to do everything I can to address your concerns. If, sadly, we cannot reach an agreement, then we will have no choice.

Regarding your concern that the atmosphere of mutual sincerity needed for genuine cooperation has faded between us, I don’t fully understand why you raised this at this point in our discussion. The issue of cooperation or lack thereof isn’t even relevant yet. After all, you are still a Jamaat member, and the ongoing discussions and correspondence are not about cooperation but about deciding whether you can continue with the Jamaat in the future. I don’t see how this directly relates to membership or the atmosphere of mutual sincerity, so I don’t understand why you chose to reverse your previous decision and abruptly end your membership.

Secondly, I am quite surprised that you interpreted my letter to Maulana Sadruddin Sahib—written alongside your commentary—as proof of the lack of sincere cooperation. I wrote that letter in haste because someone was leaving for Rampur at that very moment. After reading it closely again, I still find nothing that could be interpreted as evidence of a lack of sincerity. Does it imply a lack of cooperation if, despite my near-complete disappointment after reading your commentary, I did not suggest to Maulana Sadruddin Sahib to end the discussions but instead asked him if he thought there was room for further conversation? And based on his response, I expressed willingness to respond to you. Nor did I tell Maulana Jalil  Ahsan Sahib that further discussion with you was pointless; I merely advised him to try to bring the correspondence to a quick close, and even that was only because I thought you might find it challenging to endure his lengthy letters.

In any case, my understanding is that my letter aims to foster cooperation, not end it. However, I have no solution if, based on a certain impression, you misunderstood some of my words in a way that my words or intentions did not support.

It seems you misunderstood the word “educate” as if I, God forbid, see you as a beginner, which is why I contacted Maulana Jalil  Ahsan to “start teaching you the basics.” I used that phrase casually, considering his unique manner of correspondence. As you mentioned, he prefers not to critique your work directly; instead, he engages in dialogue by asking questions about your writing, to which you can reply, hoping this question-and-answer method might lead to a conclusion. If I used the phrase “teach and educate” in my private letter to Maulana Sadruddin Sahib to describe this, was it really such a serious mistake that it deserved such a harsh reaction and led to your immediate membership termination? Especially since you probably won’t deny that Maulana Jalil  Ahsan Sahib is your teacher, there shouldn’t be anything wrong if the term “educate” suggests some level of instruction.

Regarding the “changing stance” comment, I am genuinely sorry for any pain it caused you, but please forgive me; I do not see myself as responsible. It was your interpretation that led to this pain. You have no idea how much respect I hold for you, nor the positive words I have used to describe you to others. It is unthinkable to me that you would ever forsake what you believe to be the truth for convenience or compromise your principles for personal gain. However, my perception of your nature has always been that you are over-sensitive, once you consider something to be true, you are not easily persuaded otherwise, and I have shared this with you before. Yes, it’s also a fact that if later your mistake is proven to you, then you don’t hesitate to accept the same and reconcile with your original view. It’s possible you feel my perception is wrong, but that’s the essence of what I intended when I wrote those words. The choice is yours to accept my words or not.

You also accused me of duplicity. I acknowledge my faults, but when it comes to duplicity or hypocrisy, I’ve always tried to avoid them completely. I carefully read your accusation and even reviewed my letters to you and our past conversations to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently done so. Still, neither my letters nor my memory of our discussions support this accusation. I feel you may have made this charge impulsively, without fully checking its truth. However, if you can point to any letter or conversation that contradicts the tone and intent of my letter to Maulana Sadruddin Sahib, please do so, and I will greatly appreciate it.

You also mentioned that my letter to Maulana Sadruddin confirmed the negative things you’ve heard about me for a long time, even though your heart didn’t want to believe them. I think it would have been helpful if you had shared these remarks with me earlier, which could have given you a better chance to verify their truth. Now that you’re convinced of them, it would be useful if you could at least clarify what these issues are. This would allow me to address any faults and make corrections if necessary.

You also noted that I never tried to satisfy your concerns verbally or in writing despite having promised to do so. You know well that Maulana Sadruddin Sahib was specifically assigned the task of commenting on your writings, as we considered him most suited for the job. Maulana Jalil  Ahsan Sahib was also requested to correspond with you to help clarify the Jamaat’s perspective. And as you know, throughout this period, I have reviewed everything exchanged between you and Maulana Sadruddin Sahib. Despite this, I want to state clearly that I had decided some time ago to personally discuss this matter with you if efforts to satisfy you were unsuccessful. I even mentioned this to some colleagues. However, I’m uncertain if this opportunity remains after reading your letter.

In any case, I desire that considering the points I have shared here, you reconsider your decision and, at the very least, postpone your resignation until you reach full clarity through personal study, research, and dialogue with scholars regarding your beliefs. Perhaps a point of agreement might emerge between us, which we sincerely hope for. However, if you insist on your decision, do inform me, and we will, albeit reluctantly, respect your choice.

Yours sincerely,

Abul Lais

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Azamgarh

Dear Sir,

Assalamu Alaykum,

I received your letter dated [it should be October 10 if we go by the date mentioned in the above letter], 1962. In your seven-page letter, you attempted to demonstrate that whatever I wrote was simply due to my misunderstanding and that there was no mistake on your part. Following this, you wrote:

“It is up to you whether you choose to accept what I am saying or not.”

I certainly cannot accuse you of deliberately misrepresenting the facts. I must accept that what you are saying is correct. However, it is unfortunate that your words in the above letter do not fully support your previous statement.

For example, you wrote in the above-mentioned letter:

“I want to make it clear to you today that I had decided long ago—and I even expressed this to some colleagues—that, God forbid, if efforts to satisfy you prove unsuccessful, I will discuss this matter with you myself. But I am uncertain if your recent writings have left room for this.”

On the other hand, in your letter to Maulana Sadruddin dated August 28, you wrote:

“I am sending Wahiduddin Khan’s latest writing. After reading it, please inform me if there is still any room to persuade him, or if it should be conveyed to him that we have done everything we could. He may now decide as he pleases.”

There is a clear contradiction between these two statements. In your letter to Maulana Sadruddin, you suggest that you view his opinion as final, and if he were to indicate that there is no further room for discussion with me, you would then tell me that all efforts have been exhausted, leaving the decision to me. However, in the excerpt from your current letter above, you say that you decided not to leave the matter entirely in Maulana Sadruddin’s hands, but that you would personally have a final discussion with me.

In any case, despite all of this, I am always willing and, indeed, desirous of discussing matters with you. The way Mr. Jalil Ahsan wishes to “educate” me seems, in my opinion, futile. During this period, I received two questionnaires from him, both of which contained purely abstract questions, much like examination questions posed to students. He did not clarify the connection of these questions to the real issue. Naturally, I am not interested in engaging in such irrelevant discussions. However, if we set this approach aside and someone wishes to engage with me in a genuine dialogue on the core issue, I am certainly prepared, insha’Allah, to converse on that. But if there is no willingness on the other person’s part, one cannot forcibly extract a response.

Yours sincerely,

Wahiduddin