THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN
COMMUNICATING THE WORD OF GOD
An Interview with Dr Naghma Siddiqi
Dr Naghma Siddiqi is the editorial director of Spirit of Islam. She has been associated with the CPS mission for close to two decades. Her role in bringing out the teachings of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan to the world through the use of technology has been instrumental. She has designed and produced books and teaching material which highlight the message of peace and spirituality based on the Islamic Scriptures. She has dedicated her life to this mission. Her passion has permeated to her family. Dr Naghma Siddiqi along with her family members has been tirelessly working to spread the message of peace. We interviewed her to know the inspiring story of her journey. She lives in New Delhi. She can be contacted at [email protected]
Will you please enlighten our readers with some details about your formative years?
I was born in a modern Muslim household. My father Dr M. N. Siddiqi (d. 2013) and my mother Prof. Najma Siddiqi were both educationists. They provided us with good education and gave us the freedom to pursue our interests. We are three siblings. My elder sister Seema Jalal is an interior designer in Dubai. She is involved in the CPS mission. My younger brother, Faisal Siddiqi lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He is an IT professional and helps with our technology needs. When my husband, Navdeep Kapur, and I joined the mission, both my parents also started attending CPS classes.
I received my education primarily in Delhi, first in a convent school and later in a premier English-medium school. In the early ‘70s, I studied in the USA where my father went for his doctoral studies for five years. I graduated from Delhi University in 1983 in Zoology Honours. I always wanted to study more and even took admission to pursue my master’s in MBA and Psychology but was unable to complete these courses. In 2007, I decided to do my master’s in Islamic Studies. Though I felt I would not be able to complete even this programme, God sent His angels and enabled me to complete my master’s in Islamic Studies from Jamia Millia Islamia in 2008 and my doctorate from Jamia Hamdard in 2017. These courses gave me the background to understand Maulana’s writings better in comparison.
Through campus recruitment, I was selected for a management programme at one of the premier corporate organizations of India immediately upon graduating from Delhi University in 1983. I joined the organization and received excellent training in the fields of advertisement and media there. Upon getting married, I ventured into business in the same field. My business flourished. I gained fame and fortune. During the next two decades, my material life was flourishing. But I was living in a sense of dissatisfaction. I wanted more from life. I always felt I had a higher calling and was wasting my life in material pursuits.
What did you think of religion before you met Maulana Wahiduddin Khan?
My parents brought us up to be good Muslims and good human beings. We prayed five times a day, kept all the fasts, paid the zakat, all of us performed our Hajj early in life and tried to be good Muslims. However, my life and my religion seemed like two separate compartments of my life. Islam was never integrated into my life. Wanting to understand Islam better, I started asking questions from my elders. But neither did I receive any answers nor any encouragement. So I stopped questioning, while continuing ritualistic Islam, though I had always had an inner urge to stand for God and Islam.
In the early 2000s, I was jolted out of my spiritual slumber, through a health setback. It was one shock after another. Both my grandmothers, who had been the source of my religious strength passed away. Later my sister-in-law died within just a few months of an illness at the age of 52. I regularly prayed to God not to let me die till He had shown me my purpose and role in life and helped me to perform it. I even got up for tahajjud prayers and started reading material on Islam that I could get my hands on.
As I only knew English, I first went through all the material on Islam in English. I have fond memories of my father visiting the Urdu Bazar, Jamia Masjid to buy books on Islam. I often visited the Goodword Bookstore at Nizamuddin, though I had not yet been introduced to the writings of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Over time, I collected more than 500 books in my home library, all of which I then read. But tragically, I had not found my answers or the purpose of my life.
The 9/11 incident in 2001 made me start questioning Islam itself. I went to one scholar after another asking them about the Islamic position on the issue: Was Islam a religion of violence or peace? Was this jihad?
Unfortunately, not even a single scholar gave any clarity on the Islamic position on the issue. I stopped questioning and prayed to God for guidance.
In efforts to stand up for God’s mission, whenever I met scholars and people associated with Muslim organizations, I requested them to give me an opportunity, even at an assistant level, to serve Islam. When I found that an organization was publishing an English translation of the Quran, I offered my services as a proofreader. But I did not find any opportunity. In time, I realized that there was no real scope for women in Islamic circles and organizations. I continued to read material on Islam and I would spend hours in prayer. My prayer was only one: God, guide me to the purpose of and role in life!
How were you introduced to Maulana? Kindly describe your first meeting?
I realized there were others like me who wanted to find answers to questions and learn about Islam. Finding no place to go, we decided to set up a library where we could get together and interact to find our answers. With this thought, in May 2004 a friend of mine and I decided to set up a library and interaction platform and named it ClearLight. To ask for support for the same we visited some people, one of whom was Dr Saniyasnain Khan, whose bookstore I often used to visit. Patiently listening to our plans, he recommended Maulana Wahiduddin Khan as the scholar, donated a set of books to set up our library and gave us contacts for our endeavours. He also sent his daughter Sadia Khan to join us. During the summer of 2004, ClearLight received a tremendous response. Thereafter we realized the need for a scholar to guide us further in our search. I decided to visit Maulana to request him to provide guidance.
Through Sadia, we contacted Prof Farida Khanam to arrange a meeting with Maulana. I then found out that he was a world-renowned scholar who had written more than a hundred books. I had read his book The True Jihad till then and thought that this book gave a completely different picture of jihad from other books. I was very intrigued to meet him and understand his thoughts better. This is how I was introduced to Maulana.
As arranged, a colleague of mine and I from ClearLight went to Maulana’s office at C-29. I remember as we sat in the small office on the ground floor when Maulana came down the stairs. My first impression of Maulana was that he was different from all the other scholars I had seen or met so far. He did not have an all-knowing air about him. He seemed approachable, spiritual and most importantly very humble.
When he sat down with us, the first thing he asked me was, “Do you have any questions?” I was spellbound that an Islamic scholar of such renown, for that matter any Islamic scholar was allowing me to ask him questions. Hesitatingly I asked him the same question I had asked so many scholars: “Was the incident of 9/11 jihad?” His prompt reply was: “It is not jihad, it is fasad—terrorism. Islam does not sanction such acts.” He went on to define terrorism from the Islamic perspective: The use of arms by any individual or organization, except for an established state. Then he went on to clarify the position of Islam.
I listened enthralled to finally receive the answers to questions I had been looking for so long. In my mind, I knew Islam was a religion of peace, but the information I had received before this was completely different. I wanted to know more. Maulana asked me to come to his Sunday lectures. I decided to go to Maulana’s lecture to seek further guidance. I realized that ClearLight had only been a stepping stone to get me here. I requested my other colleagues to also start coming to Maulana, which many did.
How did Maulana influence your thinking?
I went to Maulana’s room for his Sunday Class and I sat by the entrance of the door waiting for the lecture to start. Seeing me from afar he called me towards him where the other CPS members were sitting.
That day Maulana gave a lecture on the Creation Plan of God, that God created eternal Paradise and then created man for Paradise. But as Paradise needed to be earned, God divided man’s life into two parts: a small portion to give a test on this earth so he could show that he was deserving of inhabiting Paradise and an eternal part in which he could live eternally in Paradise, if he proved himself deserving of it. This made complete sense to me. It completely addressed my mind.
While listening to this lecture I was reminded of a dream I had had when I was in my early teens. Every night before sleeping I used to read some chapters of the Arabic Quran and prayed to God to guide me towards Him and what He expected from me. One night I had a dream which made me feel close to God. I felt that God was calling me towards some higher mission.
I found the similarity between the dream and Maulana’s lecture. After the lecture, I approached Maulana and mentioned the dream.
He explained that at that young age when I had had the dream, I was immature. Now that I had reached the age of maturity, I was in a position to understand the meaning of a calling towards a higher mission. This gave me the conviction that CPS was that mission. This made complete sense to me.
In the thrill, I continued to thank God for guiding me towards Maulana. Then I remembered that I had had that dream at my cousin’s house in Nizamuddin East in the mid-seventies and this dream was realized in September 2004 in Nizamuddin West. This was another indicator that my dream was to become a reality at CPS.
Maulana also gave an interpretation of one part of my dream which I had not understood. He said that it means you will receive Islam in the modern idiom which addresses today’s man. These words of Maulana made me realize that God had finally guided me to what I had been waiting for all my life. I felt that I had been guided to the place where God would help me to understand Islam. I decided to continue on this journey with renewed confidence.
When my husband Navdeep heard of my experience in Maulana’s class, he asked me to explain it to him. Maulana had advised me to write my experience in a diary, which I had done. I read out my notes of Maulana’s Creation Plan of God lecture to my husband. He was so enamoured just listening to a summary of Maulana’s lecture, and said, “This scholar thinks like me. I want to meet him.” From then on we became regular attendees of these classes.
I started to read Maulana’s books and we regularly attended his lectures. Slowly, I realized how Islam and life could be integrated, by applying Islamic teachings in life. Maulana’s teachings started changing my thinking, speech and actions. Seeing the change coming in my life, my parents also started attending the Sunday Classes. Through them, the mission started spreading in our family. We all realized that Maulana’s lectures and books were different. They gave us a general introduction of Islam in the scientific framework. Maulana's books address modern minds and become the voice of their hearts and minds.
I feel that if I had not met Maulana Wahiduddin Khan my life would be completely wasted. Through Maulana, God answered my prayers. He guided me towards the purpose of life, my dream was realized and I was blessed with a meaningful role in God’s Mission. I cannot ask for more from God, but that He helps me to perform my role in His Mission with steadfastness and accepts it.
What inspired you to devote yourself wholly to the mission?
When we had attended Maulana’s lectures for a few weeks, I approached Maulana and asked him, “Maulana why are you giving lectures to only a few people in this room? The whole world needs to understand Islam in the universal way you explain.” He smiled at me and replied: “Who is stopping you? You take it to the world.”
I was spellbound again. When I had earlier contacted many religious scholars and senior members of various religious institutions I had come in contact with and asked them if I could help them in any way, I was never encouraged. And here, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan was giving me—a woman—an open invitation to take his message to the world. I felt that through Maulana God had given me an open invitation to join His mission and play a role in it.
My husband and I decided to dedicate ourselves to this mission. After a few months, we realized that Maulana had prepared a corpus of material. What we could do was, organize and make soft copies of the material, and develop a website to take it to the world. Under the guidance of Prof Farida Khanam and Dr Saniyasnain Khan, we initiated efforts to computerize Maulana’s English books. Navdeep put his office people on this task. Helped by the CPS team, we started making soft copies of Maulana’s books, articles and Al-Risala English magazine. I volunteered to proofread the material along with Raazia Siddiqui, Maulana’s granddaughter.
When I was going through this material, I immediately realized that this material was different. It was clear; it explained Islam in a simple and rational manner and was easily understandable for modern educated people. While going through the material we realized that not only was the English of the books at par with international publications, so was its publishing. This is Dr Saniyasnain Khan’s contribution, who had set up Goodword Books to print and publish books of international standard.
We also decided to start recording Maulana’s Sunday lectures, so the message can be shared globally. For this, we brought a small Sony Handycam recorder to the next class. Dr Saniyasnain Khan understood the importance of this task and took the video recordings to a whole new level. He started recording with a better camera, and in time developed the CPS Centre as a studio and started regular classes there. All of us in the CPS Team worked under the guidance of Farida Aapa and Dr Saheb to take Maulana’s material to the world.
The next step was to take the message to the world. The CPS Team developed the website, www.cpsglobal.org and started placing all of Maulana’s books and material there for the world. An exercise of preserving the material for online consumption has been ongoing for more than a decade: Quran translations, commentary, magazines— Al-Risala, Spirit of Islam, books, FAQs, audio and video lectures among others. With the help of God today most of the material is available online.
People from all over the world who were already a part of Maulana’s mission, and many new people joined the CPS Team thereafter. Not only did the mission give us all a purpose in life, but it also gave us a divine mission whereby we could share our discovery with others. All of us realized that if we wanted eternal Paradise for ourselves, we had to involve ourselves in the mission of proclaiming the divine truth to all humankind.
Maulana’s central teaching was about being connected to God. Kindly share with us the most inspiring teaching of Maulana which helped you in this connection.
From early in my life, especially after my dream, I always felt close to God. But I did not know how to connect with Him and stand for Him. What Maulana’s writings and lectures helped me to do was that I realized my Creator and understood His Creation Plan.
I think my realization of God grew deeper when Maulana’s book Kitab-e-Marefat was published and Aapa started translating it into English. At that time, I was helping Aapa to organize the English translations. I was involved in proofreading. Going through the English translations of Discovering God and The Purpose of Creation, I realized that perhaps one of the greatest contributions of Maulana is to help people realize God, i.e. marifah and connect with Him. I had heard Maulana say we need to live in Alhamdulillah (being grateful to God) culture. Now I realized how to do it so as to have a deeper realization of God. God Almighty is the source of all the blessings we receive in the world: our existence, our life-support system, food, water and so much more. Maulana helped us to realize everything we receive as a blessing of God and acknowledge Him as the Giver, while we are all simply receivers.
Maulana used to say that the strongest feeling is the emotion of love. The Quran says that “those who believe love God most” (2:165). I realized that if we realize that God is the Giver of each and everything we receive, we will develop a deep love of God. Then we can make God our supreme concern. This, in religious terminology, is known as making God one’s deity, (mabud). By making God our supreme concern, we make God the object of our worship and then we are involved in the continuous remembrance of God. When I drank water, when I ate food, when I breathed in oxygenated air, I thought of how God had not only created me but also gave me all that I needed. And all that He wants in return is acknowledgement and thankfulness (shukr) for these blessings and voluntary submission to Him. This is truly a very small price.
Although I personally feel that I have not achieved even an iota of the level of acknowledgement and devotion that God deserves, I constantly seek forgiveness from God for my shortcomings. And I pray to God that He will help me develop the sort of personality out of His mercy that he can find eligible of inhabiting in eternal Paradise.
What is your message to the women members of CPS in particular?
I had mentioned earlier that during my seeking phase, I asked whoever I met, be they Islamic scholars or people associated with Muslim organizations, to give me an opportunity, be it minuscule to come to the service of Islam. Receiving no encouragement, I felt that there was no real scope for women to stand for Islam. Maybe God only wanted men for the Islamic mission. Though it saddened me, I accepted it.
Receiving an open invitation from Maulana to take his mission to the world, I realized that it was not God who had closed the doors for women to get involved in the Islamic mission, it was Muslims who were standing in the way. Later when I read Maulana’s book Islam Rediscovered, I realized that what Maulana called Islam was what is mentioned in its original sources, Quran and Sunnah. He called for a distinction to be made between Islam as presented by the Prophet Muhammad, information about which is available to us in the Quran and the Sunnah and Islam as practised by later Muslim generations— both in theory and practice. Maulana gave us the formula: differentiate between Islam and Muslims.
I recalled another guidance that Maulana had given me soon after I came to CPS. Once we were sitting with him. After listening to my life story Maulana told me that I have to change. He told me that this change would alter 99% of the learnings I have had. I was shocked when he said that. But he explained that I had received Islam from Muslim culture. I must unlearn this understanding of Islam and learn what is given in the Quran and the Sunnah. From then on I decided I will strive to decondition myself and try to apply the real teachings of Islam in my life. It has been a long and ongoing struggle.
Over time I realized that not only did Maulana encourage me to work for the mission, but he also encouraged all women to get involved in conveying God’s message to others. Giving arguments through the examples of Prophet Abraham’s wife Hajira, Maulana explained that all women can perform a revolutionary role to come to the service of the Islamic mission. He said we have to follow in the footsteps of Hajira. She sacrificed her entire life as well as that of her son Ishmael for the Islamic mission. Today, God has given us an opportunity to stand for His mission. He advised, “You must follow in the footsteps of Hajira. You must also work for the Islamic mission at the point of sacrifice.” This greatly inspired me and other female members of the CPS who dedicated themselves to this mission.
In February 2020 just before the Coronavirus lockdown, Maulana specifically called me up and told me to initiate more efforts to organize women members of the CPS. Subsequently, the CPS Ladies Interaction Forum was initiated. Today women from all over the world are part of the CPS Ladies Group. The platform is helping women to do a regular study of Islamic material in the modern idiom, apply it in their own lives and share their learning with others. All the women are doing this with great passion. As I was motivated to work for the cause of Islam when Maulana gave me an opportunity, others also work with full enthusiasm. I advise more and more ladies to join the CPS Ladies Group if they want to understand Islam that addresses their minds and inspires them to stand for God.
What are the tasks you are shouldering post-Maulana Saheb’s demise?
God took Maulana away from us on April 21, 2021. Each member of the CPS Team worldwide felt completely lost. However, I am sure each was and will continue to be guided by God. As for me, it was a great shock, a personal loss. I was in complete silence. Thinking, crying, I was a bundle of emotions. However, Maulana’s last advice to all of us helped me to realize that while God had taken Maulana away from us, God Himself was alive and would always be with anyone who calls out to Him and stands for His mission. God has made arrangements for our continued guidance through Maulana’s lectures and writings. We just need to rededicate ourselves to the mission. That is what I did.
Then I was reminded of Maulana’s telephone call to me before the Coronavirus lockdown in March 2020. He said:
Do whatever needs to be done to call people towards God and a God-oriented life which is a life of peace and spirituality.
I took this as guidance from God through Maulana. Thinking of these words, I have since felt a sense of urgency and as if we were all always standing in front of God. The first thing the CPS Team did was organize the ongoing tasks of the mission meticulously. The CPS Team had been placing material on www.cpsglobal.org to take God’s message to the world. We first decided to make more efforts to consolidate and revamp the site for easy accessibility.
We remembered the task Maulana gave us during the Quran Conference in April 2019, To Take the Quran, a book for all humanity, to the World, in fulfilment of the following prediction of the Prophet: “There will be no home remaining–big or small–into which God will not have caused His word to enter.” (Musnad Ahmad)
We realized that this was possible partially through e-Dawah. Through Maulana, God had arranged the explanation of God’s message in simple language and in rational terms. If we wanted to take this to the world, the Internet was the only place this vast resource of information could be made accessible for seekers of truth. We began developing a Quran website www.quranforyou.org as a desktop and mobile website as well as an app, where the translations and commentary of the Quran can be placed in all major languages. Presently we have translations in nearly 40 languages; there is a translation even in braille both English and Hindi, and a commentary of the Quran in five languages. The English translation of the Quran is accepted worldwide as simple, clear and in the contemporary idiom.
The websites will showcase the material in an organized form under major headings. These can be searched for specific Quran verses as well as for a topic. They will enable easy searches for visitors to find specific topics and find answers to questions in their search for truth. Those who want to study the Quran deeper can go through the commentary and supporting material: articles, videos, audios, books, magazines, etc. that are being placed verse-wise and topic-wise.
In the traditional age, we had to go to places where people gathered physically to convey God’s message to them. Today, God has created social media as an online platform for people to gather. CPS has been availing of these social media opportunities through Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to preserve and showcase our video library. We are now organizing our social media handles so that seekers after truth can easily access these resources through LIVE lectures, short videos, posters and by showcasing our complete library of magazines, articles and books.
What kind of inspiration do you draw from Prof Farida Khanam?
When I think of Aapa: Prof Farida Khanam, I first thank God for her role in the mission. The role of women as presented by Islam was revived through her role in this mission. She was the one to bring to the world the English version of the mission. If it was not for her dedication, English-reading people like me and my husband, and many CPS members could have never had access to Maulana’s writings. We would have been spiritually deprived and without purpose. Maulana had advised us: “After I am gone if you want to know what I would say in a particular situation, ask Aapa.”
This advice of Maulana is really coming to our rescue. We are striving to preserve the ideology of the mission and take it globally. Many times, when we have questions from the ideological perspective, Aapa’s guidance comes as a blessing.
What I find most inspiring about her is that she always maintains such an unassuming stance. But, when we ask her anything, she is immediately able to grasp the situation and give us direction. This makes me realize that while she has a storehouse of knowledge of the mission, she considers this as help from God. She does not attribute it to herself.
By maintaining complete modesty, Maulana had made himself deserving of God’s continued guidance, by which he was able to perform his role as the guide for a divine mission. If anyone of us wants to perform our role, we also have to discover our modesty, our helplessness in comparison to God’s All-Powerfulness. We must realize that it is God who is getting everything done. We are only the stones that God is making speak.
I pray to God to help us maintain our modesty and to help us to discover and perform our role with His help. And through His Special Mercy, He admits us into Gardens of eternity. May God guide all towards the divine mission!
