On Sufi Thought

By K. S. Ramkumar, *Indian scholar named to IIROSA assembly* - Arab News - Saudi Arabia
Thursday, September 17, 2009

Jeddah: It has been a rare achievement for Indian scholar and educationist Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini who was in the Kingdom for a brief visit recently.

Hussaini is among 20 people nominated to the General Assembly of the International Islamic Relief Organization, Saudi Arabia (IIROSA), an affiliate of the Makkah-based Muslim World League (MWL).

This is the first time Muslim dignitaries outside Saudi Arabia are being nominated to the prestigious body.

“I have visited the Kingdom on some occasions in the past, but this is a special visit, as my membership of the MWL and IIROSA has brought me here to meet with officials of the two organizations,” Hussaini told Arab News.

Hussaini, who specializes in Sufi literature, has received honorary doctorate degrees from the UK-based Belford University and Gulbarga University in the southern Indian province of Karnataka, his native state. He heads the Khaja Education Society (KES), which runs a chain of educational institutions in Gulbarga.

The institutions have about 12,000 students on their rolls. Hussaini’s father, Syed Shah Mohammed Hussaini, the recipient of the country’s civilian Padmashri award in 2004, started the society.

“I am trying to consolidate the existing institutions and planning to start a full-fledged research-oriented organization on Sufi thought,” said Hussaini, whose plans also include the starting of postgraduate studies for girls and an institution for mass communications.

Hussaini said he was aware of the difficulties of non-resident Indian (NRI) students in pursuing higher studies in their countries of residence, especially in the Kingdom and elsewhere in the Gulf.

“It is in this context that our society has reserved a 15 percent quota for NRIs and foreign students in all our institutions,” he said.

Other dignitaries to be nominated to the IIROSA General Assembly include Mohammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh; former President of Sudan Abdel Rahman Suwar Al-Dahab; and Robert Crone, president of the Islamic Center in Washington.

Picture: Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini