Kind of related to that earlier thread regarding mullahs.
A cleric par excellence, Khawaja Amer, Dawn, 24 August 2003
He was the Pesh Imam, but the fact that he was a religious cleric had scarcely anything to do with the immense respect he was held in by the people. He sat on the pulpit, led the prayers five times a day, yet the adulation he enjoyed had been earned by dint of merit. Tolerant to the core, he was a man of strength and compassion. He showed how a strong man could be a gentle man. He counselled sectarian tolerance with wisdom. The idea was to alert the people about the dangers of a society being overtaken by violence.
His Friday sermons, always eagerly awaited by the learned and the educated, were delivered in the soft and measured voice of a serious academician, without unnecessarily criticizing the policies of the government and dramatizing a non-issue. He was fully aware of the sanctity of the pulpit and as such never tried to convert the pulpit into a political stage. Though most classified him as a religious cleric and scholar with an absolutely modern and highly scientific approach to Islam, he himself described his approach as nothing but orthodox. An approach informed by the weight of many generations of learning and civilizations.
I was a regular visitor to his house, always very neat and well-maintained. He listened to news inEnglish and read the English newspapers, as he considered them to be more reliable. His son studied at a school run by the church, for he knew well, that boys who finished schooling at that institution, turned out to be men with better education and conduct. The list of the Pesh Imam’s eccentricities was long, yet on closer scrutiny always turned out to be extremely reasonable. He bought sweetmeats from a Hindu and his wife consulted a Parsi doctor. Strange choices for a Muslim cleric, yet measured on the unbiased crucible of merit, always discovered to be grounded on very sound judgment.
Though otherwise steeped in rationalism, his style of interacting with children was no different from that of Nana Abba or Dadi Amma. I once asked him, “Why Sharab is Haram.” “Do you know what it is?” he inquired. I replied in the negative and he continued, “It is the urine of a dog.” Though it was a rank lie, I developed such a strong aversion to alcohol that even as an adult I have maintained an instinctive repulsion to it. There were a number of such examples. Perhaps this was the most effective way to keep one a strict abstainer from such evils all his life.
After Asr prayers people used to gather at his Hujra, which was adjacent to the mosque. His impressive understanding of Islam and even more than that, the fluidity with which he articulated complex concepts was breathtaking. The gathering used to be diverse, bureaucrats and bankers rubbed shoulders with small businessmen and shopkeepers at these spontaneous lectures. Anybody present there was free to ask any question and if he was not fully conversant with the answer, instead of imparting little knowledge, he would confess that he required more knowledge to answer and kept the discussion pending for the next day when he would come fully prepared. He firmly believed that little knowledge was dangerous. The magic was that even in an assembly of men with very differing intellectual abilities, he was able to make his points clear to all.
I still remember him buying breakfast items from a bakery after Fajr prayers. Clad in white Kurta, white Tehband and white turban, he looked graceful as he entered the bakery with his 6-foot. frame. The long white beard accentuated the serenity of his features. The owner of the shop used to attend to him personally, eager to avail the opportunity of catching some words of wisdom. While leaving the bakery he never forgot to buy a piece of cake for me. Children had a very special place in his heart.
Though not of the Shia sect he contributed generously in organizing Sabeels and the preparation of Haleem. Rabi-ul-Awwal was another occasion when one would see him, not only contributing in terms of money but personally attending to the preparation of food on a mammoth scale. His reasons for so zealously participating in such events were grounded less on ritual and more on the practical advantages of capitalizing on the communities’ enthusiasm on such occasions to feed the poor. He firmly believed that feeding the hungry, irrespective of any motive or reason, was an act liked most by God Almighty. Apart from that I still remember a large number of poor people gathering at his house every Friday, after the Juma prayers, for a sumptuous lunch, specially prepared by his wife, who was known for her culinary skills.
His lifestyle was similar to that of any educated middle class family of today. Though he did not watch films himself, going to cinema houses and dining out were not considered a taboo in his family. Neither his wife nor daughters wore shuttle-cock Burqa, but neatly covered themselves with a Chador. They conducted themselves in a manner that made them graceful and respectable. His home was considered to be an ideal home.
He was doing a small business too. So at around 9.30 in the morning one would see him at the Pan Mandi. He would remain there till 12 noon looking after the auctioning process of Pan. During his stay there he would conduct himself like any honest businessman and that’s all.
In short he was like any ordinary nice man of our society who made his locality peaceful and happy by promoting fraternalism. Today this particular species of man is more than endangered; it has nearly vanished. Is this the reason for the chaos in our society? I really don’t know.
