His hair is partly gray, and he has a typically Indian face, with dark brown skin and sharp nose. Meet Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, 63, a Muslim intellectual from Bombay, India. Clad in a white shalwaar-kurta, he looks modest. Like Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian guru of "non-violence," Asghar too is an exponent of political reform, who derives his spirit of struggle from Islam.

On Wednesday last week, Asghar delivered a lecture at the office of the