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.