IOn the occasion of the Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony for Dr. Shehzad Saleem.
f the Quran were to be described in a single sentence, it is that this Book is the introduction of God that He Himself has given. This introduction is not God’s need, but humanity’s. When a person succeeds in awakening within himself a living awareness of the majesty of God’s essence and the sublimity of His attributes, he too becomes elevated and exalted. This exaltation reaches its ultimate culmination in the eternal nearness of the Peerless God in the Gardens of Paradise.
Tragically, in every age, the teachings of prophets have been altered and interpolated, thereby changing the very essence of their message, its precision, and its original emphasis. To address this, finality of prophethood was decreed, and with it, the text of the Quran was divinely safeguarded from alteration. This extraordinary arrangement ensured that the Quran has reached us today in precisely the same form in which the Seal of the Prophets (PBUH) entrusted it to his community.
Yet the path of additions outside the text was not closed, for such was necessary as a trial for human thought. The result, however, was that the Quran, though theoretically recognized as the primary source of religion, was practically marginalized. Unreliable and extraneous material was given precedence over this divinely preserved Book. The consequences of this distortion form a long and detailed history, but here brevity requires us to pass them by.
What needs to be stated is that at the dawn of the twentieth century, Divine providence raised a personality whose task it was to establish—on the firm foundation of reason and argument, not merely on reverence—the rightful position of the Quran; to clarify the divine arrangement of its preservation; and to remove the external obstacles that obscured its understanding. That towering figure was Imam Hamiduddin Farahi—undoubtedly an ayah among the signs of God. Yet, the extraordinary labors he rendered in the service of the Quran might have remained confined to scattered notes, fragmented pages, and Arabic treatises, had not destiny granted him in his later years a brilliant young disciple in the person of Imam Amin Ahsan Islahi.
It was Islahi who transformed Farahi’s Quranic thought into the monumental commentary Tadabbur-e-Quran, clarified the principles of reflection upon the Quran, and applied them to multiple branches of Islamic learning, yielding groundbreaking insights which he recorded in his other works. His contribution was, in itself, immense, opening the door of reflective engagement with the Quran. But the destination intended by Divine will still lay ahead—that the entire inherited corpus and system of religious thought be critically examined, cleansed of accretions, and that the original religion, unalloyed and unadulterated, be presented afresh to the world. Only such a pure religion possesses the full capacity to respond to the challenges of both polytheism and atheism. To accomplish this mission, Divine providence blessed Maulana Islahi, in his final years, with a disciple in the person of our esteemed teacher, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi. He absorbed the entirety of this Quranic vision and authored Meezan, a work of singular significance. Meezan is the presentation of that pristine religion—free of interpolations—which the Messenger of God (PBUH) bequeathed to the world. Even if Javed Ahmed Ghamidi had produced nothing else, Meezan alone would suffice to secure for him a place of extraordinary distinction in the fifteen centuries of Muslim scholarly tradition.
What I have written thus far serves merely as a prelude—an introduction to that personality whom the Ghamidi Center of Islamic Learning has chosen to honor with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Our reference is to Dr. Shehzad Saleem, who, without exaggeration, is a most deserving recipient of this recognition.
In my view, there are certain qualities in Dr. Shehzad Saleem that distinguish him from among all the disciples of Javed Ahmed Ghamidi. The first and most important is precisely the point with which we began this essay: the Quran is the self-disclosure of the Almighty, and an authentic awareness of it ennobles a person’s own being. On the basis of a personal association spanning over three decades, I can affirm without hesitation that Dr. Shehzad is himself a noble and exalted personality. Much could be said in support of this, but whatever is said, his character and conduct outshine it. The bond between a servant and his Lord is deeply personal, and acts of devotion at the level of supererogatory worship often remain hidden from the public eye. Yet the manifestations of kindness, cooperation, generosity, and moral excellence in his dealings with people are such that ordinary men like ourselves can only aspire to them; attaining to such a station is exceedingly difficult.
The second defining aspect of his personality lies in his extraordinary services to the Quran. The Quran introduces itself as the Meezan (Balance) and Furqan (Criterion). It declares that it is the guardian and arbiter over all other religious sources, and that its preservation has been ensured by the Lord of the worlds Himself. Yet, alongside the canonical text of the Quran, certain variant readings (qirat) have also come to be regarded as equally Quranic. In fact, in recent decades, the publication of Qurans containing such variants in Arab countries, coupled with their widespread circulation through television and social media, has armed every critic with a sharp weapon and raised unsettling questions in the minds of thoughtful Muslims.
Farahi, Islahi, and Ghamidi each addressed this matter in their own way. However, Dr. Shehzad Saleem devoted many years to a rigorous study of the subject, employing the well-established principles of textual criticism to demonstrate that the Quran is one and only one, and that its text is definitive and final. At the same time, he carefully examined the history of other variant readings and clarified their actual status and the reasons for their circulation. This research, conducted in the English language, is of immense value, for it communicates to a wider, non-Urdu-speaking audience the Quranic perspective of the Farahi school in a thoroughly academic style.
A third major dimension of his service is the elucidation and explication of the works of our esteemed teacher, as well as of Farahi and Islahi, and their translation into English. This task he has undertaken in every possible form—through prose and poetry, writing and speech, teaching and instruction. He addresses not only the English-speaking world but also the Urdu-speaking audience. To accomplish this, he has availed himself of every means modern circumstances have placed at our disposal: online and classroom sessions, social media conversations, books and journals, public dialogues and Q&A forums.
Another striking facet of Dr. Shehzad’s personality is his unwavering dedication to his mission: his steadfastness in his work, his rare ability to maintain active communication with people despite immense scholarly engagements, his habit of setting clear goals and pursuing them to completion, and his skill in managing responsibilities of seemingly conflicting natures—all of these combined have transformed one individual into an institution unto himself.
This essay has already grown lengthy, though much remains unsaid about Dr. Shehzad’s many qualities. To summarize: in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, as the Farahi school of thought transitioned from its age of research into its age of communication, among the learned men entrusted with the role of leading this caravan, Dr. Shehzad Saleem stands out as the most comprehensive in qualities and the most remarkable in personality. Our prayer to God Almighty is that He grant him health, long life, and that through his knowledge and character the Muslim community continue to be blessed. Amen.