Protection of Faith Must Take Precedence

 Shaykh Abul-Hasan Ali Nadwi Rah.

This speech was delivered at the Muslim Community Centre of Chicago on June 20, 1977. As there was a very representative gathering and it was going to be the last speech of the tour, the Maulana thought it fit to restate briefly what he had seen and felt during his stay in that part of the world, and, also, offer some suggestions.

Brothers, Sisters and Friends!

I have been journeying through the United States and Canada for the last there weeks. During it, I have made dozens of speeches in Urdu and Arabic. But a speech is, after all, a formal public discourse in which there is the force of eloquence as well as repetition of ideas. Today, I Will talk to you informally, like a family-member. I will give some personal impressions, and offer a few suggestions, and shall feel obliged if you will think over them seriously.

After meeting different people and representatives of different organisations, I have arrived at certain conclusions. There are, as it were, the gains of the present visit for which I am deeply grateful to M.S.A. and other well-wishers. I pray to Allah and beg you, also, to join me in the prayer that at todays meeting, I may say only what is going to be useful and beneficial to you in the long run, and this journey of mine does not turn out to be an exercise in futility, for I am often assailed by the doubt whether I have proved really worthy of all the trouble. It has been a long and expensive affair and friends have spared no pains to make it possible Now, will I not be called to account by Allah for it May be, I have committed mistakes during the trip and failed to live upto expectations. What I am going to say, today, may serve as an atonement for my failings. There is no dearth of speeches, and it has, also, become customary to put questions to the speaker at the end of a speech. In the midst of it all, however, the real……………..

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