A member of the Qadiriyya tariqa, he was the founder of The Muslims of America (TMOA) and also founded the International Qur'anic Open University (IQOU).
[1] In the 1970s, Gilani was active in Pakistan's national politics, having joined Air Marshal Asghar Khan’s Tehreek-i-Istaqlal, becoming the party's Punjab chapter vice president.
Due to his political involvement, he was arrested thrice by the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Government, pushing him to move to Saudi Arabia before shifting to the United States.
In 1978, Gilani published An Introduction to Quranic Psychology,[5] which detailed, according to him, proofs upon scientific evidence and witnessing about using the Qur'an and religious observance to cure certain mental disorders.
This was followed up by his An Introduction to Psychiatry: Based on Teaching of the Quran and also Contains Results of Scientific Demonstration of Curing Incurable Mental Diseases in the Psychiatric Institute, Taif, Saudi Arabia, 1976–1977[6] published in 1981.