Sabia Khatoon Alawi
The second notable person in this context is my wife, Sabia Khatoon. We were married in 1942, and the marriage was arranged by my cousin, Iqbal Ahmad Suhail (d. 1955). Coincidentally, the year of my marriage also marked the beginning of a turbulent phase in my life.
This phase was defined by an intense search for truth. I became increasingly restless in this pursuit, moving forward without a clear direction or definite purpose. This period of searching continued for nearly five years until, in 1948, I rediscovered Islam as the complete truth.
However, this discovery did not bring comfort to my wife. Once again, I became deeply absorbed in intense activity—this time, in the effort to communicate the truth I had discovered to everyone and to make every person aware of God’s message.
Earlier, my search for truth had made me restless; now, my desire to spread that truth made me even more so. My concern expanded beyond my family and came to embrace humanity as a whole.
Once again, a turning point occurred. When I became actively involved in this work, I soon realized that traditional madrasa education had prepared me only to engage with the masses. Reaching the elite, however, was an unconventional task for which I was, at that time, unprepared.
Engaging with the elite required considerable intellectual capacity, fluency in English and a deep understanding of modern thought. This realization led me to undertake an even more demanding task: I devoted myself wholeheartedly to learning the English language and studying its intellectual disciplines.
During that period, I would walk through the streets with an English book in my hand, reading without paying attention to my surroundings. My habit of reading while walking became so intense that my mother and elder brother would say, “One day, he will be hit by a vehicle while walking in the street, and that will be his end.”
As a result, soon after our marriage, my condition was such that I could do very little for my wife. Even after our children were born, I had not yet attained financial stability. I remember returning home one day and finding my wife staying in a room at my elder brother’s house in Azamgarh. My wife had a friend named Razia Begum. When I entered the room, my wife told me that Razia had asked how long we would continue living in this condition and what the economic future of our children would be.
Without giving the matter much thought, I replied, “Tell Razia that this boat, along with all its passengers, is in God’s hands.”
The lifestyle I had chosen affected my wife the most. Married life never became the centre of my concerns, as I remained absorbed in other matters. My intellectual focus was entirely elsewhere. Because of this preoccupation, I was able to commit myself to this ijtihad-based mission, although I had no existing model to follow.
The background may be stated as follows: from the period of European colonialism to America’s New World Order, the unfavourable circumstances faced by Muslims led many scholars and reformers to adopt largely negative perspectives. Under these conditions, I felt compelled to rediscover Islam’s positive outlook—an outlook that had remained obscured for nearly three centuries beneath layers of negative rhetoric and polemical writings.
From Shah Waliullah Dehlawi to Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, many scholars interpreted jihad primarily in terms of fighting. In this context, I faced the difficult task of understanding jihad fi-sabilillah as a peaceful effort to communicate the divine message. Three centuries of adverse circumstances had led many scholars and leaders to develop feelings of hostility towards non-Muslims. I had to enter that sea of resentment in order to recover the pearls of human compassion that had been lost.
Modern science had produced a powerful body of theological and rational arguments. However, because of the hostility that many of our scholars felt towards the West, this intellectual resource had remained unknown to them. Having understood this situation, what I had to do was uncover this hitherto unexplored treasure and put it to use. I had to introduce God’s message—Islam—to the people of the world in its pure and unadulterated form, using the intellectual arguments of the modern age.
This work was so sensitive that even the slightest deviation could expose the communicator of God’s message to the risk of double punishment. (Quran, 17:74)
To carry forward this long and difficult project, it was necessary for someone to bear its cost. My wife was the one who paid the price of bearing the unbearable. In such circumstances, I had neither the time to think about my wife and children nor the opportunity to do anything for them. She showed immense patience and remained steadfast in this principle throughout her life, never uttering a single word of complaint. Circumstances were such that, for almost my entire life, I did nothing for her. Readers may find it difficult to believe that from 1942 until now, I have never had even a single dress made for my wife. I never bought her a pair of shoes or slippers. I remained completely indifferent to her material needs. For a person devoted to a mission, such one-sided cooperation is invaluable—and such cooperation can come only from a woman.
Through her extraordinary patience, my wife became what I would call a “no-problem” partner. Had she not been so, my entire mission would almost certainly have remained unfinished. Like so many others, I might then have lived a merely biological life, without fulfilling any higher purpose, and eventually passed into a world from which no one can ever return.
