40. THE REAL SPIRIT OF THE SALAH.

My dad  forever and a day would do both his obligatory and the traditional salah at home. He would make us join him in all the obligatory salah, as we were obliged to do the obligatory salah in congregation. Our home was our masjid until he lived with us. He would do azan and then would get ready for the salah after due cleanings. When you stand for salah  all your focus should be to see Allah, my dad would add, in case you do not see him, know that he sees you both your thoughts and deeds.

My dad would often tell that the salah is the solitary object that makes the distinction between the Muslims and the infidels. Salah at house would make a home amalgamated in a blessed communion with Allah where every child learns his timely obligation to submit himself to Allah.  Thus, he learns to purify his body mind and soul at the set timings. Congregationals at the local masjid makes a man integrated to his community.

 His fraternal relationship with other like-minded Muslims strongly grows in a sanctified and blessed communion with Allah.

He feels one with all other members of the community devoid of any difference in caste color language and status for a common cause, lending a hand of support to their life.

 While the weekly obligatory Jumua congregation would usually be performed in a still bigger  Jamia masjid where the small local masjid members would all assemble observing the weekly obligatory salah  as well as getting to know each other well and thus ushering in  an opportunity open to still augment the fraternal relationship on solid sanctified grounds.

  While the Eid festival prayers like Ramadan and Eidul Azha are held still in an enlarged place usually outside the village or town called Eidgah. The spirit and principle behind all these traditions put down an accent on the growth of the inherent fraternal bond and unity. Finally, Hajj is obligatory on a Muslim at least once in his life, when the entire Islamic world assembles in MINA, ARAFA AND MUZDALIFAH in a sanctified, sacred and united communion with Allah.

One should not do away with the real intention, that is” “purification” in Islamic worship. Purification of thought and deed is "eeman".Purification of heart and mind is the forte through salah. While fasting purifies the body and the zakah the wealth. Thus Islam has always set a multidimensional route to purify man his body his mind and heart and finally his accumulated wealth also, so that these should not pave a way to off-track him on this earth.

39, JULY 11, IS A SIGNIFICANT DAY FOR ME INDEED.

Some days are unique to you in life, I am sure, whereas some days you know, are so very much significant to you. Some you adore very dearly.  Some are melancholic. In addition, some you keep very close, behind closed doors so close to your heart and you only know why.

July 11^th each year is one such day in my life. One way, it is observed as world population day. In fact, I do not know what makes you rejoice there in having a population explosion from2.5 billion in 1950 to 7 billion in 2012.  A world of 7 billion is both a challenge and an opportunity with implications on sustainability, urbanization, access to health services and youth empowerment. What is disquieting me, here is about 16 million girls under 16 give birth and become unwanted mothers every year.  More painful is another 3.2 million undergo unsafe and hazardous abortions. Thanks to the multicultural and secular ideologies and modern mindset, that has gripped the ultra modern youth. Our behavior pattern is decomposed.

 Another instance of such a day to be pleased is the birth of Thomas Bowdler on July 11, English physician, His name is the origin of the term “bowdlerize”, and his form of censorship consisted in removing what he considered offensive without other changes. "In 1818, after retiring to the Isle of Wight, he published his Family Shakespeare in 10 volumes. In which he 'endeavored to remove everything that could give just offence to the spiritual and upright mind' and 'in which nothing is added to the original text, but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.'"

 I love July 11 on other count also, as Charles Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 on this day.  Keats also wrote In the Cottage Where Burns is Born and Lines Written in the Highlands on July 11, 1818.  July 11 is a day ever to be held close to my heart as my dad was born on that day.  He shaped and molded my life and reshaped and remolded to what I am today.

 Nevertheless, if at all I hold this day so close to my heart mind and soul, and take pride in it, it is just because Dr. Shema Ferhana was born on this day to me as my daughter 41 years ago. Just like my dad, she is god loving sanctimonious, outspoken and stouthearted. 
Like my dad, she reads the eyes, and unzips the minds  of her patients precisely. She is quite disharmonious with the treacherous and the sinister minded.  she is a dedicated and devoted physician for all these years. She has been a fond and caring daughter, a very faithful and dutiful spouse and an affectionate and hardworking  mom. May Allah bless her with health and happiness and make her endeavors splendid and exalted.

38...MY DAD COMMANDED OUR RESPECTS MORE THAN ANYONE IN MY LIFE.

 My dad used pure and rare vocabulary, had it been Arabic, Persian, Urdu or English. His English was chaste, Arabic and Persian pronunciation was highly beautiful. Had Allah were to create my dad other than human, he would have best been a roaring lion in the tropical forests of Africa he used to thundering such careful commands in case anything had gone in the wrong. I had not seen my dad talk too much, never.

His speech was short precise and to the point. He loved to be silent mostly. He taught us that silence was better than gold and he practiced it. He never laughed loudly in his life. He seldom smiled and that would be ecstatic. He taught us that we should strictly stick to the roles we had been given. He always insisted on the importance of the role-playing in this life. The duties and responsibilities the roles thus would inhere were to be respected and adhered to. Thus, he would add, we would do away with much of unnecessary reproach, shame and remorse in our worldly life.

Not even a day would depart without his prayers. He would do both his obligatory and the traditional salah at home. He would make us join him in all obligatory salah, as we were obliged to do the obligatory salah in congregation. Our home was our masjid until he had lived with us. He would do azan and then would get ready for the salah after due cleanings.

Mom would then alert us and would show how we should clean ourselves for the salah. When we would all arrive, he would start the congregation.

 

 

37. MY DAD WAS MY FRIEND PHILOSOPHER AND GUIDE.

MY DAD, I love him. I had seen my dad getting up in the early hours at the daybreak, perpetually. Moreover, he would then establish doing his prayers. He would do his cleaning rituals and then would recite the Koran. Then he would pray and ask Allah’s clemency and mercy then he would ask for Allah’s help for all of our daily requirements.

We would all join him in daily morning devotionals and supplication. It was from our dad that I had learnt the ways of supplication and the habit of getting up early for the Morning Prayer. From him I learnt that we should not omit prayer at any cost. Every dad and mom must be an example for their children so that they can ensemble them, was his point.

He would educate us as to how to pray and what to ask from Allah. He would teach us what times were constructive for seeking Allah’s support and sustenance, and that we should not ask anyone other than Allah for any backing. He would put in plain words about shirk and caution us that Allah would not exonerate shirk and that those who are the mushriks would sure be sent to the hell, their abode everlastingly.

We never ever visited any shrine of any holy saint, much less any durgah, the least participating in any kandoori festival of any waliullah. My dad had condemned it. He would tell it amounted to shirk asking them for any sort of lending a hand or shafa’a.  Shafa’a or intercession by any saint o r god man, he would accentuate, was nonexistent in Islam. He was of the outlook that it was an innovation in Islam and the practice started by the Sufi philosophy.

What we knew all about dad was what we had seen ourselves and what our mom and relatives had related about him to us. Our mom and maternal granddad or our aunts told most stories about dad to us. He was medium built, fair, had flamboyance for poetry and had all makings of an austere martinet. He anticipated excellence and faultlessness in everything we did.

 

36. BAIGS ARE LUXURY LOVING FOLKS.

The Baigs were the Moghals .  We all know what the moghal Kingdom had contributed to the medieval India.  Nobody will ever deny the beautiful architecture they had contributed.

 The Taj Mahal in Agra, Pearl Mosque, the Jamah Masjid, Lahore Fort, the Agra Fort, the Redford the Fatehpur Sikri, the Buland Darwaza, Humayun’s and Akbar’s Mausoleums  in Sikandarah, the Shalimar Gardens, the Dal lake,  are very few to be told.

  Astronomy Alchemy and printing technology survived greatly under their rule. Aini Akbari, and Akb ar Namah by Abul Fazal,Tahrike Alfi by Mullah Dawood  speak volumes of their beautiful and exalted civilization.

 However the Mughals and their descendants  Baigs were very much extravagance and lavishness loving folks,  just like their forefathers the Moghul kings and Emperors. Almost all the Moghul emperors but for Aurangzeb  were given to love, luxury, pageantry, permissiveness, wine and women. It was in their royal  blood. The last of them were so much in it  that they paid less concentration to statecraft and more to the lavish life.

 I do not think they were dedicated Muslims either. Not one among them took to pilgrimage of Mecca once in their lifetime as far as I know from the records of available in the Moghul history. May be there were many an exemption but most of the Baigs I came across more or less fit in this type.

35.I TRIED TO TAMPER WITH NATURE'S WAY.

Two scores and seven
gay springs, among
the tall trees and green shrubs
I have been.

Proud and peerless,
I have danced and sung
alike in shower and sunshine.
Nude.

With trees and plants
in this garden I've been,
of roses and jasmines, of apples
and peaches;
with creepers and cuttings
and climbers green.
a chamomile blushingly
kissed my branches.

Yet often did I wish
“were I jasmine,
a Rose or at least a Lily
some day”.

The apples and peaches
I dreamt to bear; in vain,
I tried to tamper with nature's way.

What will I yield
often I wonder
the Gardener knows
what I must I render.