by Editor (Editor's Desk, Crescent International Vol. 45, No. 1, Jumada' al-Ula', 1437)
This month, Crescent International enters its 45th year of publication. From its humble beginnings as a local community paper, it gradually grew into an international magazine, thanks to the efforts of the late Dr. Kalim Siddiqui.
He took keen interest in the magazine; he wrote for it, trained its writers as well as promoted it globally. He also took very clear and bold positions on all issues affecting the Ummah. He introduced such concepts as the global Islamic movement that soon became standard vocabulary for all Islamic activists.
This is not to suggest that all these years have been smooth sailing. In fact, both during his lifetime and after, there were many periods of extreme difficulty. Even now, the magazine survives on a shoestring budget.
While we expected our enemies to do everything to undermine the magazine, the most painful part has been that even some who called themselves friends spared no effort to sabotage it from within. These are extremely painful episodes that we would not recall now but want to place them on record.
A number of glossy magazines emerged at the time that Crescent went global. These were meant to undermine us. Today, all those glossy magazines have bitten the dust; only Crescent survives even in the age of the internet where we also have a very strong presence.
We specialize in content, not gloss. Our readers seem to agree, al-hamdulillah