The Author started life as a university teacher in 1961. In 1964, Ishrat Aziz ambassador, joined the Indian Foreign Service and served as an Indian diplomat in Iraq, Morocco, Lebanon, the United States (Consul General in San Francisco), and as Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Tunisia.
This gave him plenty of opportunity to observe different people in different countries. He realized that despite superficial outer differences, human nature everywhere is the same – same aspirations, same hopes, and same fears.
He found that all societies face a very basic problem: how can many diverse people live together in one society, accommodating each other’s legitimate interests and concerns? His lifelong endeavor to find the answer to this question has developed his thinking. An intellectual journey is like trying to reach the horizon, which keeps shifting as we move towards it.
We never reach it, but we see and learn many things as we pursue the elusive target. Each answer raises a new question, and the answer to the question raises yet another question. This question-answer chain is endless. We never reach the final answer – the answer to all questions. But in the process, our understanding of issues deepens. The author’s odyssey led to a holistic the study Quran book and Sunnah for a deeper understanding of their message, with people’s welfare as the goal, and human nature and prevailing reality as the context. This book is an attempt to share some of what the Author has learned from that never-ending voyage.
