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| File Photo: Sir Zafrullah Khan seen with US President John F. Kennedy |
Source/Credit:The Bob Edwards Show | Sirius XM Satellite Radio
Re-broadcast on: Friday, July 23, 2010
Transcribed by Saima Sheikh
Transcript provided By Waseem A. Sayed, Ph.D.
Transcript of a segment on "This, I Believe: Sir Chaudhry Muhammad Zafrulla Khan"
Introduction: In this week’s installment of our ongoing series, “This, I Believe,” Bob talks with curator Dan Gediman about the essay of Muhammad Zafrulla Khan. He was the foreign minister of Pakistan, president of the All-India Muslim League in 1931, leader of the Indian delegation to the League of Nations Assembly in 1939 and leader of the Pakistan delegation to the United Nations. In later years, Khan was a judge for and president of the International Court of Justice.
Bob Edwards: For many people in the western world, Islam is a religion that still evokes strong reactions of fear and prejudice. Many countries in Europe are considering banning burqas and plans to build an Islamic Community Center near ground zero have angered many Americans. It seems that in the years since the September 11th attacks, non-Muslims have only grown more suspicious of Islam and those who follow its teachings.
This week in our series, “This, I Believe,” we’ll hear from someone who would be very disappointed about that state of affairs. Muhammad Khan was Pakistan’s first foreign minister, an active participant in several international organizations. He was a self-appointed spokesperson to the Christian world on all things Islam. Producer Dan Gediman says he considers Sir Khan as important to Pakistan’s independence as Thomas Jefferson was to the emergence of the United States.
Dan Gediman: He was sort of the brains behind the operation. He was the guy who was testifying before various bodies in colonial India, making the case first for the independence of India, and then for the partition of India into both the Muslim and Hindu dominated countries, Pakistan and India. And also was a great proponent of the idea of Pakistan as a Muslim state.
At this moment in time, that sort of has a bad ring to it. You know we think about Iran, we think about the Taliban and we think about other places where a theocracy has been installed. But in the early days of Pakistan, people like Sir Khan who were coming up with the whole notion of an independent Pakistan were really thinking about establishing a republic that was based on sort of the purest form of Islam. In terms of how to treat your citizens, how to treat minorities within the country, how to treat other countries, how to deal with conflict, etc.
He just had this larger than life role in the birth of Pakistan. And then went from this sort of nation-building role to becoming its main diplomat. He represents Muslim Indians, earlier than that at the League of Nations. He ends up at the birth of the United Nations representing Pakistan at the UN. And then he moves from being a diplomat to a jurist. I should mention he was a lawyer. He was a very skilled lawyer. He becomes a judge at The Hague, a post he held until 1961. We fast forward to 1970, and he becomes the president of The Hague and also in the middle, he was the president of the UN General Assembly.
Bob Edwards: He knew that Islam had acquired a reputation for intolerance around the world and he found that very upsetting being a devout Muslim. He said that Islam has from the beginning proclaimed and inculcated the widest tolerance.
Dan Gediman: He considered himself above all, more than a diplomat, more than a lawyer, more than a jurist, a good Muslim. In particular, he subscribed to a sect of Islam known as the Ahmadiyya sect. There has been a historical persecution of this sect for having a different set of beliefs. It’s sort of like in a way Mormonism in the United States with mainstream Christianity. The notion that, no, Jesus was not the last word on Christianity. And so I think this is a pretty good analogy to this Ahmadiyya sect. They believe that their founder had some additional illumination about how Islam should be practiced. So, at any rate, it was a major part of his career to try to educate the west about Islam and to do it properly because he was concerned that even back then in the 1940s and 50s that the West was getting sort of a bastardized impression of what Islam was.
Bob Edwards: Well, let's hear the essay of Muhammad Khan:
The Sum Of All Wisdom: Muhammad Zafrulla Khan - New York, New York: As rebroadcast on The Bob Edwards Show, July 23, 2010
Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan: Islam means peace through submission to the will of God. I am a Muslim, that is, one who believes in Islam and hence submits himself to the will of God. I believe that all things proceed from God and depend upon him for support and sustenance. I believe He needs no support; He neither begets nor is begotten. He has no partner and no equal. I believe in God’s angels as the agency through which He communicates with His creatures, and I believe that from time to time that revelations from God have been delivered for the guidance of mankind. I believe in all of God’s prophets—Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna—and that the Holy Prophet Muhammad on whom be peace was the last law-bearing prophet.
I believe Jesus did not die upon the cross but was taken down from the cross and revived. Thereafter, he journeyed eastward, reaching to the scattered tribes of Israel and died in Kashmir, where his tomb is still preserved in Srinagar.
I believe that subordinate prophets will continue to arise in Islam when mankind strays from the path of righteousness and needs divine revelation. It is necessary that, as the pattern of human life develops, mankind should have a living example set before them of a life utterly pure and devoted to the service of God and man.
I believe in the resurrection of the soul and the life after death. I believe that the object of man’s existence is to seek union with God through the cultivation of divine attributes in himself. I believe that man has been endowed for this purpose with appropriate capacities and faculties. The right and proper use of these capacities and faculties promotes beneficent development and leads to the state known as salvation. I believe in the brotherhood and equality of man. I recognize no division or privilege based on race, color, family, or wealth. The only badge of honor and nobility that I recognize is the purity and righteousness of a man’s life.
My life is guided by this faith and by the following rules. Whenever I feel lonely, weary, or discouraged, I must turn towards God for companionship, comfort, and help. He is ever-near and will not fail me. I must make my heart His shrine and temple and let Him ever dwell in it in sweet guardianship and companionship. I must stand up for truth, righteousness, fair dealing, and justice. I must stand with God, though I may have to stand against the whole world, and I believe the love and fear of God are the sum of all wisdom.
Bob Edwards: Muhammad Khan for “This, I Believe.” We have heard several essays from devout Christians; this is the first from a devout Muslim. I was astonished at this one little paragraph here that seems almost gratuitous. He says, I believe Jesus did not die upon the cross but was taken down from the cross and revived.
Dan Gediman: This is a central belief to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam. There is a tomb in Kashmir of this prophet who they call “Yuz Asaf,” who his sect believes is Jesus. Although mainstream Muslims believe that he is simply a secondary prophet from the 1st century AD. They believe that this was the historical Jesus who actually did not die but was revived and was whisked out of occupied Roman territory and brought to India where he lived out his life to old age and became a great sage, a great prophet and then died and was buried and is entombed to this day in Kashmir.
Bob Edwards: I wonder how this went over the listeners of CBS radio in the 1950s.
Dan Gediman: Well, you know, the great thing about Sir Khan and his sect is that they singlehandedly are sort of apostates of several major religions. But this is indeed part of their credo. What I think is interesting about this essay is how this began life as part of an effort of the producers of “This, I Believe” spurred on by the US Department of State to create an Arabic version of “This, I Believe.” The Middle East was considered a very strategically important part of the world in terms of the worldwide fight against Communism. The concern was just like in Africa, where you had these former colonies who were starting to become independent nations that they would fall under the sway of communism and go red.
So, the thought was if we feed them good pro-American propaganda, then maybe some good may come of it. So, they published this book in 1953 with 50 essays of people writing in Arabic, although Sir Khan was from Pakistan, and 15 Americans. Sir Khan is among the very few who were able to read his essay in English, so they put him on the air. They, probably, if he had been a Christian or Jewish perhaps, and if he had spent half of his essay sort of repeating the credo, the official credo of his religious sect, they probably would have put a kibosh on that and as a matter of fact, they pointedly went out of their way not to do. The whole point of ‘This, I Believe,” was to do something beyond reciting the credo of your faith.
Bob Edwards: Muhammad Khan, the first foreign minister of Pakistan.
As a devout Muslim, Pakistani Foreign Minister Muhammad Khan believes the object of man’s existence is to seek union with God through the cultivation of divine attributes within himself.
Muhammad Zafrulla Khan was Foreign Minister of Pakistan. He was president of the All-India Muslim League in 1931, leader of the Indian delegation to the League of Nations Assembly in 1939 and leader of the Pakistan Delegation to the United Nations. In later years, Khan was a judge for and president of the International Court of Justice.
Transcribed by Saima Sheikh
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