True Teachings Of Islam

Azam Ali, an Ahmadi Moslem

Chapter 07 – Grateful

Father’s personal acts to see and advices for future were in plenty with long-reaching effects.  He frequently taught: “Look at those with lesser fortunes than you and be grateful that God blessed you with more than them; Look at those with better fortunes than you and be content that God burdened you with lesser than them.”  These simple words generate tremendous gratitude.  When I look at my life I see the enormous wisdom he shared with us.

For example he continually reminded us “La-in-sha-kur-toom-la-azee-dun-na-koom Wa-la-in-ka-fur-toom-in-na-azaa-bee-la-sha-deed” (Soorah Ibraaheem, Chapter14, Verse 8 = If you are grateful, I surely will give you more.  And if you are ungrateful, them My punishment is severe – 014:008)

He paraphrased it for us. The best way to thank God (Shook-raan-e-Nae-mut) is to use properly the powers, potential and prowess He has given to everyone so uniquely. The worst way to anger God (Koof-raan-e-Nae-mut)  is to misuse God Given Gifts and abuse them badly.

After my immigration to USA and experience of my 4 children’s schooling — of one from his pre-school age and all the way to their post-graduate levels — the full impact of Father’s advice repeatedly given since my childhood dawned on me, brilliantly.  American education system aims at developing among its students a thorough awareness about themselves.  It exploits to the maximum the talents each student has including the top quality self-respect, self-esteem and self-reliance which essentially arises from being grateful to and making good use of whatever God has given to each and every one of us.

Grantor of Recognition and Reward

In 1995 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania I heard of an incident of over sixty years earlier. It shows how my father made constructive suggestions, provided generous incentives, and admired achievements.  Maulana Mohammed Ajmal Shahid told me how my father genuinely appreciated and appropriately rewarded admirable achievements of others’ success in assigned tasks.  Maulana was about 7 years old kid when my father and his father frequently met as friends.  My father assigned to him, 7, and his brother older by a couple of years the task of memorizing a poem of the Promised Messiah (peace upon him) within next few days, fixed a reward and promised to test them when the period was over.

My father tested the boys after the given period was over. The older boy successfully recited the poem and got the promised reward.  He the younger boy had not memorized the poem, missed the reward but still remembers the consolation prize my Father gave him on noticing a disappointment in his face.  At that time my father was the District and Session Judge in Dera Ghazi Khan and the father of two boys Chaudhry Sirbuland Khan (Sahabl) was working in the Canal Department and was the President of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat there.

Some modern psychologist may criticize such practice but proof lies in the pudding. The boy had learnt that (i) success comes to those who work towards their goals with good speed and reach them on time, (ii) reward and recognition comes to those who successfully reach all objectives on the way to their goal within the allocated time, and (iii) failure to reach one’s goal brings no success, no reward and no recognition.

The boy at the impressionable age of 7 over one-half of a century was exposed to an important lesson of life that impacted his young mind strongly enough to remain fresh for all those years.  That boy grew up to be a great religious scholar of our times and recognized the world over for his spirituality and knowledge of the Holy Qor-aan, Hadeeth and Ahmadiyya literature.

Azam Ali, Ahmadi Moslem

Chapter 08 – HEALTH

My Father’s definition of health was quite simple, yet it went very far.  It meant that one attained, retained and maintained a robust health at all times.  It included discovering the unique temperament of one’s body and looking after it.  It encompassed eating such useful things as cured or improved the health conditions.  It ousted harmful things including food and practices that aggravated or worsened the body conditions.  He called that fully grown up person a fool who still could not identify the needs, wants, requirements and limitations of his body.  He believed in a wholesome approach to promote, protect and preserve one’s body by packing the power of prayer with the ways and means to search and secure, to learn and endure, every aspect of every disease, disorder or disability one had so that he did not have the need to visit or be visited by a physician.  Having had a couple of surgeries during his life, one of his prayers for himself and advice to others was to ‘never go under the knife of a surgeon.

Father’s emphasis on health had lot to do with his own life experiences – growing up in a family where his mother and five sisters succumbed to the Great Plague of early 20^th century in India and his knowledge that that the disease started from unhealthy indoor conditions infested with rats.  He knew that outdoor life and outdoor exercising is vital for good health.  He had exercised extensively during his youth and enjoyed the benefits of good health all his life.  He had seen his father severely beaten up and left behind for dead by some inimical family members, but his physical exercising helped him to recover and live around 100 {He was definitely above 95. Last time my children, my nephew, my father, my wife and I saw my grandfather was shortly before we came to America in 1975; my father was born in 1900. So even assuming a very early marriage and my father one of the older children, my grandfather at that time was older than 95. And he lived some years after our immigration to USA. I once heard my younger brother Majid Ali MD remark while lecturing senior citizens in USA about longevity: “My grandfather lived so long that I think he forgot to die”}.

Whether or not Father perceived, practiced and preached others to do physical exercises as a step towards longevity of life is a thing I can’t say.  But by the word of his mouth and personal example he made us all his children believe that exercising and enjoying physical fitness went hand in hand.  His determination not to fall under the knife of the surgeon was definitely transmitted to his children by inculcating in them the determination to remain health by doing reasonable exercises regularly.

His methodology to get us habituated to our daily exercise included suggesting interim goals, offering cash prizes, providing dietary incentives, arranging healthy competitions and encouraging us to render our best possible performance when tested.  I can’t say if the output he expected was higher or lower than the average – whatever the average is supposed to mean.  But he surely succeeded in cultivating in us all his children a definite decision, desire and determination to exercise regularly and stay in total physical fitness.  So much so that one of us siblings after medicine and surgery with the ultra-modern equipment and state-of-the-art gadgetry for nearly one-half century in Pakistan, England and USA for over 40 years has finally switched his practice from the allopathic medicine to holistic – total or alternative medicine – arena where he places enormous emphasis on regular exercising as the vital step towards real heeling.

Father could not bear to see any of his children sick or even sickly.  Soon after the passing of my mother in 1948, I at the age of 13 lost weight.  Father was naturally concerned.  The top physician in the area hospital after all kinds of testing concluded that I had no physical problem requiring a treatment.  Father wanted to see me not just clinically and statistically healthy but also looking plump healthy.  He found an ‘alternative medicine’ man (called ‘hakeem’) who prepared a medicinal mixture of herbs for me. It tasted delicious.  It smelt nice.  I liked it.  I looked forward to eating it three times daily.  In no time at all I started gaining weight, and thank God have never lost it since.

Father’s emphasis on health was a matter of absolute necessity.  Sick and unhealthy children required more time, attention and money.  If the infancy mortality had not taken a toll in our household, we would have been 17 brothers and sisters from our two mothers.  Five of our siblings lost their lives in the first five years of their lives due to various childhood diseases common in the India at that time.  Since my mother’s passing away, he got left at his hands 10 of us kids between the ages 1 and 15 that he had to raise practically single-handedly.  I said ‘practically single-handedly’ because my step mother, a strong wonderful woman around that time started concentrating upon memorizing the Holy Qor-aan which she continued till her passing away in 1957.  She having never been to a high school could not contribute much to Father’s idealistic way of raising his children the way he wanted to mould each and every one of them, in the words of a frequent quote, as ‘small Mohammed’ (s.a.w).  One of my younger brothers Sadiq suffered for nearly 6 years of his life before passing away at age 8 after all by then known allopathic and homeopathic sources of medicine had been tried and exhausted on him.  My older sister Rashida gave him time, attention and treatment that many mothers never give to their own children; she herself went to school, looked after a physically very sick brother, controlled (or at least tried to control) 8 younger siblings, managed a servant-full household, studied for enormous amounts of time and thus received marvelous training sharpening her mothering skills.  No wonder she has grown to be a wonderful mother who has raised five of her own highly educated professionals children and is now working her 10 grandchildren.  Recently I saw her bull-strong 6-year-old US-born granddaughter (who minces no words in saying that she wishes she was a Christian to celebrate Christmas and Easter rather than being a Moslem to just keep going to a mosque) study the Holy Qor-aan with her grandmother enthusiastically with an amazing speed with which she had mastered the Arabic alphabets, vowels, structured words and was speedily reading long verses.  Boy, I was impressed.

Sorry for the digression, of sorts.  Actually a tree is best recognized by its fruits and the fruits do not fall off too far away from the trunk of the tree.  Like the trunk of the tree, Father worked over half a century ago and today we with our 20-20 hindsight can see and thankfully enjoy the fruits.  Credit goes to him for getting into certain habits, for life.  The painful sight of my suffering brother, the selfless nursing my sister rendered him, the terrible effect on us the rest of the siblings, all converged into leaving a deep, sad scar on my father.  No wonder his desire to see us all stay healthy was almost Father’s passion.  We too grew not taxing him with the unnecessary anxiety and worry of falling sick and needing medicines.

Naturally even short term illnesses or long term sicknesses leave behind unforgettable memories. Some are sad but carry pleasant tones too.  One I fell sick.  Besides the medicines administered to me, I had to do a lot of exercising and eat the soup and cooked meat of wild pigeons for a month.  I liked the attention, enjoyed the food, gained health and have never lost the love for all gifts of God.

In the spring of 1957 I was in the final year of law school in Lahore and living away from home.  I was exercising when my hands slipped from a horizontal bar and I fell very awkwardly on my back and injured (“wedged” as doctor said) two of my spine vertebras.  Mayo Hospital immediately admitted me and put a plaster on my upper torso from the top of my shoulders to lower than the hips.  The attending physician Dr Sardar Ali consoled me by saying that the plaster was going to be there “just for 3 months”. On my expressing extreme concern about my finals coming in barely 3½ months, the doctor remarked, “We’ll see how you progress and may saw off your plaster in 2 months and 29 days.”  Some 230 miles away in the city of Multan my Father was serving as the District and Sessions Judge.  He dreamt that my cousin Lateef (which in the Arabic language means ‘very subtle, with full of far and wide nuances) had fallen off a horse and broken his back.  So my father wrote to Lateef’s father and his own younger brother Chaudhry Nazir Ahmed and forewarned him of the impending danger, not knowing that his own son, me, was going to and by then had fallen, was injured, plastered over and practically pinned down for 3 months.  Father learnt of my hospitalization from my letter I sent him on seventh day after my accident and came to visit me in the hospital.  Besides consoling me for my pain, plaster and pushed out of my hectic activities, my father’s main concern that he discussed with the doctor was the length of time it would take me to fully recover and return to full robust healthy life-style.

Azam Ali, An Ahmadi Moslem

Chapter 09 – An Illustration

The Holy Qor-aan states many rules of universal application. Illustrations of the applications keep showing all around us. Some of them materialize on personal levels of individuals.  Some of them occur on much wider scale on community and national levels.  One of them Pakistani people saw with their own eyes is the following example.

Zulifqar Ali Bhutto ruled Pakistan as an absolute dictator with an iron-fist dressed up to look like a genuine democracy by greasing, coercing and bribing the cooperation of thoroughly corrupted clergy and perpetually hungry politicians.  Father had a clear, candid and convincing opinion about politicians’ political motives and actions.  He lamented about the alliance between Bhutto and clergy and atrocities they committed in the name of the government.  In the High Court Bar Association he expressed his resentment against Bhutto’s government’s misdeeds.

Law recognizes a process known as the eminent domain.  It allows the government to acquire private property for public good by paying a fair market value to the private owner.  There are three essential elements of the process.

• Firstly, for the legal process to get triggered the property is generally undeveloped land.
• Secondly, the property is needed for the larger good of the public.
• Thirdly, a fair market value is paid to the property-owner which usually is the land-owner.

Corrupt governments in several uncivilized countries abuse this process to usurp developed properties.  They snatch away income-producing, productive or developed property from its owner to benefit one of their cronies as if a hired employee to run, operate and control it.  Bhutto was a law graduate who knew well what the law was and how to abuse that process by dressing it to look like ‘in accordance with the law.’  He labeled his high-handedness ‘Nationalization’ whereby his crooks arbitrarily took over properties and businesses without compensating their owners and operators.

Bhutto’s dictatorial regime nationalized many Rice Husking factories and installed one of his cronies to loot it under the ownership of government without paying a penny to factories’ owners.  My younger brother after years of hard work had bought a small tract of land.  He set up on it one piece of machinery after another until he could operate his small business as a rice husking factory.  His factory was also nationalized with no compensation. One day he was a self-made businessman who owned his own business raising his family and paying his bills but next day he was left with no job, no work and no money.

Father was a Judge who all his life had fairly provided justice to others and judicially struck down injustices of all kinds knew the law of eminent domain very well.  He was highly disturbed by the brazen day-light robbery by Bhutto regime which totally outlawed all judicial remedies that a citizen ordinarily had in such situations.  The abuse of the process of law that damaged his son hurt Father beyond words.  He often said, “What can the people do when the government itself becomes the oppressor.”

On December 26, 1974 Father and I were in Rabwah at the end of the Annual Conference. Father took me with him in a meeting with the Head of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, Hafiz Mirza Nasir Ahmad, Khaleefatool-Massih III r.a.  The above occurrence was on Father’s mind and during the meeting Father mentioned it and said that such grave injustices generated Bud Doaa (invoking curses) from the core of citizens’ hearts against their own government.  The Khaleefa knew the effectiveness of Father’s prayers and quickly remarked, “Chaudhry Sahib, don’t wish bad for Bhutto. He needs our prayers.”  Father bowed to his spiritual leader.

But Bhutto regime on September 7/8, 1974 had already amended the Pakistan Constitution and declared Ahmadis as non-Muslim.  Millions of them were legally reduced to worse than a third-class minority for whom speaking the words of greeting us-sa-laa-mo-aai-koom (peace on you) was made a crime punishable with three years imprisonment under the Pakistan Penal Code. Other examples of such harsh legislations are detailed elsewhere on this site.

The deep-rooted hurts in the hearts of so many God-fearing people are not dissolved by the mere words, even when spoken by their leaders.  Bhutto regime for years had crushed its own citizenry.  Someone somewhere saw it all.

It was no surprise to us when later on Father saw in a dream that a pig climbed a few steps up on a ladder and then fell on the ground and lay on his back with its all four legs raised like a stray dead dog.  Father right away interpreted this dream to mean that Bhutto’s end had come near and in death he would be disowned, discarded and dishonored like a pig or stray dog.

Not too long after that dream, this formidable dictator of Pakistan was imprisoned, tried, convicted and eventually ‘hung by the neck till dead’ for scheming and causing the premeditated first degree murder.

The Judicial records show that Attorney Ahmed Raza’s car was sprayed with a machine-gun burst.  He was the intended victim, but due to a change in the front seat passenger he got saved.  Instead his father Nawab Ahmed Khan who at that time drove the car got murdered.  Military commander Col Rafiuddin who supervised Bhutto’s execution wrote in his book Last 323 Days https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/10/04/bhuttos-fateful-moment and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3BrhlvS2aMthat Bhutto was alert in good health when he feigned faintness as a last maneuver to avoid execution.  He was carried by the guards by head, hands and feet to the execution chamber where he was finally executed by hanging. Reading the story of Bhutto’s execution brings to mind the following description of such fate sketched in the Holy Qor-aan.                                                                 “Yoe-ra-fool -mooj-ray-moo-na-bay-see-maa-hoom Fa -yoe-kha-zo -bin-na-waa-see-wul-uq-daam.”                                   — Soora-toor Rahmaan, Chapter 55, verse 42 

Translation

The criminals would be recognized by their markings. Then they will be caught by the forelocks and feet – 055:042                          

The one who got credit for inflicting on Bhutto such a humiliating death was his own favorite army General Zia-ul-Haq whom Bhutto had brought forward and promoted – allegedly out of line, seniority and merit – with the sole qualification that the General used army’s muscle to implement all nefarious designs that Bhutto’s scheming mind used to conjure up.

Travelogue – 17 – Immigration to USA

Some realities are observations eye-witnessed while others are the happenings experienced. The prayers in the Holy Qor-aan that my father spoke in the method he believed showed results. The silences of my wife practiced in her own manner bore fruits. But I have experienced event in my life that appeared extraordinarily out of the apparently ordinary situations. Whether or not one is to call those results a miracle is one’s choice but I am a proof that they had occurred.

In September 1975 I flew in NY Kennedy Airport. The Immigration staff gave me 90 days to set up my business and told me that I could apply for an Extension. My brother Majid Ali got me at the Airport and wanted me to stay with him a few days at least. I insisted to keep travelling. One reason was that the Greyhound bus ticket I had bought in London was to travel anywhere in USA for a period of thirty days starting the day I entered US. So the same night I got the bus and continued my journey onward.

Next day I reached my first stop in St Louis, Missouri. Mrs. Sylvia Ahmad got me at the bus. The reason was that from Pakistan I had written 35 letters to people in USA about my move. I got only one reply that was from Dr Bashir Ahmad who tried dissuading me from moving to US. He wrote that I won’t have a chauffeur to drive us around, my wife would have to cook and wash herself and we won’t have amenities as we then had. I wrote back that the road to the market place is all I needed to find. He was at his work when I reached St Louis; so his wife had come for me.

Thursday night I passed in our mosque. Friday prayer at the mosque was attended by Dr Bashir who asked me to accompany him home that day and see his farm the next day. Saturday breakfast was joined by Realtor Clarence who went on to show us farms and houses all day long. At dusk we reached a house that I refused to even see for I knew I could not afford to buy. Back at the farm and the dinner Clarence kept talking until we returned to inspect the house around 11 pm. Back at the farm Clarence still kept on selling the house to me until past midnight he got me sign an offer to buy the house. Sunday he brought back a counter-offer which I accepted. Tuesday he telephoned me that the bank had approved financing.

Credit goes to Dr Bashir that within the very first week of coming to USA I got our house when I had no job, no credit history and no established business. Quality home, distressed seller a widow who had to move, persistent agent who sold for nearly sixteen hours straight, bank ready to finance and a captive audience provided by the host was the ideal set up of several conducive factors that merged to make the sale. It looked like a miracle. This was our house in Rosebud, Mo.

During that week I had AAB Oriental Carpets and Garments registered as a d/b/a. For the next ten weeks I carried the samples of hand-embroidered garments to all kinds of stores. Repeat orders came in from some retailers including a Department Store. My Receipt Book was also my Order Book that showed the Advance Orders and the cash I received for the goods delivered.

Around 20th December I visited St Louis Immigration Office on Market Street. I went to know the procedure for Visa Extension I needed to visit Pakistan to fill the orders I had received. The lady officer asked me what I had done in the 11 weeks I had been in the country and I showed her my Receipt/Order Book. She looked at it and asked me to wait as she went back into an office that perhaps was of her boss. She returned with some papers that I filled. She took the papers and again asked me to wait as she went back. Soon she returned with an Order – not with an Extension but of approval as a Permanent Resident of USA. Surprised I blurred out, “When can I bring my wife and children?” She told me again to wait as she get some more papers. I filled the paper-work right there and gave it to her and she said that I would be notified by mail. In a couple of days I got the letter allowing me to bring my wife and children. This surely looked like a miracle.

A couple of days later on the 1975 Christmas Day I flew to London. I spent two days with my in-laws and then flew to Pakistan. Next day I visited US Consulate to issue visas to my family. Tom Dowling who I believe was the Vice-Consul reviewed the matter and told me I had to supply a Police Clearance. I visited the local Police Station same day and I applied for the Clearance.

For the next four weeks while the shipment of carpets and garments was getting ready I visited the Police Station nearly every day to get the Clearance. Every visit began with a cordial welcome to me by the top brass of the Station and ended with his smiling assurance to me that the Clearance would be issued in a day or two. Seeing my nearly daily visits to the Police Station a young officer one day introduced himself. He was an old friend’s younger brother who had seen me with his older brother when we were in College. I told him my dilemma and he took me to his room. He asked me to wait as he left and in a few minutes returned with the Clearance. He told me that the Clearance was on the desk of his boss ready for his signatures. He had shoved the paper in front of him for signatures while he was giving his usual meaningless smiley lip-service to some other VIP. I believe if my friend’s younger brother was not there, I would still be visiting Police Station daily getting smiles but not the Clearance that would have stayed unfinished on that desk.

I supplied the Clearance to the Consulate. I was told that the forwarding of papers-work to Washington DC, allocation of visas and issuing visas normally took six months. “But I have to fill the orders I obtained in St Louis within four weeks after getting the garments ready” I entreated.

We talked of my experiences in the USA as we sipped tea. A few minutes before closing time Tom suddenly asked if I had 48 Rupees on me. I pulled out a 50-Rupee bill as he pressed bell summoning his assistant. He told his assistant to pick up the bill, buy some dollars and return the remaining 2 rupees to me. The assistant went to do the needful and Tom said with a smirk that I must have thought the 48 Rupees he asked was as the bukhsheesh – the Urdu word for a tip. We had a good laugh. When the bought dollars were brought, Tom clipped them to my paper and told  his assistant to immediately forward them to Washington DC in the diplomatic bag.

Next morning we were still asleep when our phone rang. Tom told me that DC had sent overnight the approval to issue visas to my family which I could pick up that day. It was hard to believe that something that ordinarily took six months had happened overnight. The family that needed pulling out of Quotas from 3 countries because of two births in India, one in Pakistan and three in England, the family from a known persecuted group, the family of a Permanent Resident  for whom the request for visas had came in the diplomatic bag definitely had that Urgency under the Immigration Law which merited speediest possible processing. This issuance of visas surely looked like a miracle. And we left Pakistan the same week

Travelogue – 16 – Transition to being a Trader

It was the month of Ramadhan in 1972 or 1973. I lived in 72-C Model Town, Lahore. The street-drums awoke us to eat Sehree before commencing fast that day. I was dreaming that I was in USA. The place was where two Rivers met. The name of the place had three syllables. But on being up all I could remember was the two syllables of the place that began with the letter M.

After keeping fast and the Fajar (morning) prayer in the mosque I went for a walk with Chaudhry Bashir Ahmed who was of my father’s age, profession and spiritual life-style. During the walk I recalled my dream and narrated it to him. The gist of his interpretation was as follows.                                                                                                                                           “Have you been to USA?” he asked. “No” I answered.                                                                       He told me that many States where two rivers met started their names with M.                      Then he asked, “Do you know any such place?” “No” I replied.                                                      “Do you want to move to USA?” he asked again.                                                                              “Why should I?” was my answer since he knew that I was a successful Attorney.                      “Forget the dream” he remarked. And the matter ended.

A few days later I had another dream. I was travelling in a train with my younger brother Majid Ali who by then was a known Physician in USA. We moved from the West to East over a bridge. The view out of the window on my left was a huge expanse of water like a lake with a big island in it. On arrival in an empty house that I was going to live in I was making a list of things.

In summer 1973 my brother Majid visited us. Soon his and my wives and my sister were going to export oriental rugs. I incorporated Dachi Inc for them as three Directors. The husband of one Director lived in USA. The husband of my sister was Riaz Ahmad at a job that prevented his running Dachi Inc. So the husband of the third Director was me and as an independent person had to run the show. We shipped rugs from Pakistan. I flew to NY and sold three rugs. Later Riaz flew to NY to sell rugs. But lack of consistent sales brought the business to a standstill.

My father at one time expressed his feelings that I neglected my law practice in order to do most of the work to the trading work. But he believed in the prayers and especially those quoted in the Holy Qor-aan. Those prayers invariably show the best results even when they appear to be not exactly as requested. After all God Almighty is not man’s servant to fulfill every prayer but being the Wisest He always does the best and a prayer is just another factor to accentuate the best result.

In June 1974 Lahore High Court closed for the summer vacation and I took my wife and our three children for a vacation in England where my in-laws lived. In September 1974 we were still there when Pakistan amended its Constitution and declares Ahmadis a Non-Muslim minority. Saudi Arab and Uganda announced similarly that week. Moslem governments and public went on a rampage to persecute fellow-Moslems by maliciously calling them a non-Moslem minority sect. It was like that the Christians following Pope did to the Greek Orthodox Christians centuries ago.

We anticipated religious riots in Pakistan like the anti-Ahmadiyya riots of 1953 which had caused my in-laws to leave Pakistan and migrate to England. My mother-in-law decided to keep her daughter (my wife) and family in UK till the dust had settled. I returned to Pakistan alone on Sep 8, 1974. On a visit to my sister I was locked in the bathroom by her husband who refused to open the door until I had shaved my beard and stopped my appearance as an Ahmadi because he had four daughters and the fervor to crush Ahmadis was spreading all around like wild fire.

The case of Ahmadi boys’ admission to KE Medical College was the first major litigation. The 3 of the top 10 out of 1000’s of boys who proved merit in the qualifying exam were Ahmadi. The High Court on a writ petition declared that the merit of boys entitled them to their admission. The High Court in the Contempt proceedings against the University which had refused to comply with Court’s prior order reiterated its order that the boys be admitted in the school of their choice. The High Court in the third round ordered that the boys be admitted in the KE Medical College. The time loss was to the students who had lost a full academic year. Litigation expense was high. The discrimination by the University against Ahmadi boys and not girls was like Pharaoh Nimrod ordering to slay Israeli sons and spare their daughters as stated in the Holy Qor-aan (014:007).

The deprivation of Ahmadi students in the Medical field was duplicated in other schools of higher studies like the Biology and Sciences in Punjab University. Most religious zealots used mosques and madras’s to blow higher the hate in order to justify their accumulation of wealth. The politicians used legislatures and speeches in order to solidify their cunning gave-and-takes. The Government and public persecution of Ahmadi Moslems spread by leaps and bounds.

All our sons were born in England. All four of our children deserved acquiring maximum knowledge. The thought that gradually grew and got rooted deep in my mind was that the rampant persecution was sure to cut down the scope of higher education for our children. What would be my reply when One Day God would ask me, “I gave you kids born in land of unlimited education. Then why did you confine them to an environment that denied full development of the potential?”

One of my prayers has been that that the Almighty Allah gave me a life that covered a lot of distance and moved fast like a non-stop train that got green at every signal without ever getting stopped or slowed by a red. And this prayer I saw fulfilled in many ways like a series of miracles.

So in 1975 I applied for Business Visa in USA and it was issued.

Meanwhile 1975 World Peace Through Law Conference in Washington, DC invited me. On the eve of flying out of Pakistan I received a l letter from the Government’s Home Secretary that I could not leave the country. I showed the letter to Sheikh Shaukat Ali who was the President of Bar Association. He knew my father’s career in the Judiciary. I had also appeared before him as a Judge of the High Court. He also knew me since his launching the Lawyers Benevolent Fund to which I was one of the ten (10) Founders and Contributors. He asked if Government financed my attending the Conference. I said, “No.” And with a smirk he said, “You go. We will hold the fort.”