After 18 days of city’s disrupted life…
I was in Allahabad University from 1946 to 1951. There existed Aligarh Muslim University. They were never really in competition. Allahabad excelled in studies but individually bond of the university was entirely lacking. Aligarh was a university which admirably integrated the entire Muslim community of India and was somewhat aggressive in demonstrating its political and religious leanings. Having never visited it during my stay in India I did not know much about it. What I disliked at times about that university, was the rough treatment that they offered to all those who differed in their views.
In my final viva voce M.A. examination reputed Dr. Professor Habib of Aligarh University was the external examiner and our Dr. Ishwari Prasad, a noted historian and the best lecturer on French Revolution was the internal examiner. That was the only contact that I had with the Aligarh University.
Those of us who were in United provinces at that time know very well that the Ulemas of India, most of them led by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Congress party were opposed to the creation of Pakistan. I know that a much-respected Head of the Department of Geography of a University was opposing Muslim League candidate for election. He happened to pass through Aligarh Railway station in connection with his election campaign. He was very roughly treated at the station by Aligarh University students. It was a disgraceful act in political struggle.I felt sorry for it.
When I came over to Pakistan and met a few Aligarians here, I realized that they all had played a remarkable role in creating Pakistan and strengthening it. As a District Judge, Peshawar I had a Public Prosecutor who was an Aligarian of that age. He became a judge of Supreme Court while I was on the court. He told me that for supporting the creation of Pakistan the Aligarh students formed teams, went to every province, every province without exception, seeking support and explaining everything that others wanted to know. None else could have done so well this difficult job. On the lighter side, one then a student, asked the crowd to recite the Kalima if they were Muslim. The crowd said that they did not know the Kalima. He then asked how do you say that you are a Muslim. They all said we eat beef. I was reminded of Mirza Ghalib’s reply to an Englishman which earned him a monthly stipend. On being asked whether he is a Muslim, Ghalib said he is only half Muslim. Amused, the Englishman asked, “How is it so?”. Mirza Ghalib replied I do not eat pork but drink wine.
One of my colleagues, a trainee in service, an Aligarian, was my roommate for about nine months. He lacked every trace of snobbery and never indulged in self-projection, two traits that detracted from his becoming an outstanding Executive officer. As a trainee, he invited to lunch, his classmate in Aligarh, a local bank manager, and his petite wife. We discussed some matters of common interest and parted. That banker became the topmost Muslim banker of the world, created and left a charitable endowment in Pakistan for establishing and maintaining a prestigious university and continuing other welfare activities. With his ingenuity, he so protected it that when bad times came, it escaped the clutches of the liquidators to earn a well-deserved perpetuity.
Another Aligarian, a close friend of mine, a first-class student throughout, used to tell me all about the University’s efforts to integrate the culture of all Muslim students. First class students were given single rooms in a separate hostel. Egalitarianism was encouraged, and at times enforced, as a matter of discipline. Austerity in food was uniformly observed, at times to give to a few, a sense of deprivation. Simplicity and brotherhood was the order of the day. As Secretary of the Federal Government, he was attending a function in which the greatest ‘Pir’ of the Province was participating. The ‘Pir’, an Aligarh University class fellow of his, sighting him from a distance called him, had him seated next to him throughout the function. His senior disciples, all showed surprise and wonder at such a treatment of a rank outsider.
Our media, theoretically independent and free, but nowhere close to professional integrity uprightness and competence, has come forward to support the Ulema by combining politics with religion and combining both politics and religion with social order forgetting the strict requirements of the Constitution and the Holy Book, the Quran.
Holy Quran Chapter 5:33
The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and run about to spread mischief in the land55 is this; they should be put to death or crucified or their alternate hands and feet should be cut off, or they should be banished from the land.
Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abul Ala Maududi
After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam by Lesley Hazleton
Page 108
The sensitive Islamic term Fitna is still more complex. The root is the word for being led astray. It can mean trial or temptation, intrigue or sedition, discord or dissension. It always implies, upheaval, even chaos. But the most common meaning is civil war—the most uncivil war of all. Fitna is the terrible wrenching apart of the fabric of society. The unraveling of the tightly woven matrix of kinship and it was seen in the seventh century, as still today, as the ultimate threat to Islam, greater by far than that of the most benighted unbelievers
Please make sure that the pristine section of ulemas and the media do not want to achieve their unfinished agenda, of not allowing Pakistan to come into existence and on its coming into existence, to embrace and own it as their accomplishment and now with unseen forces, as previously, to stifle it to death.
Always remember that if you are not part of the solution, you are a part of the problem.
Experiences of a Lifetime 