True Teachings Of Islam

Azam Ali, an Ahmadi Moslem

Chapter 07 – Grateful

One of Father’s passions was to get people to find the truth, help them to voice the find, and practice the discovery openly. He became Ahmadi and practiced Islam. He encouraged others to do that. He tried the candle he lit to light up other candles to spread light all around.

Those around him recognized, rewarded and renowned him for that. His co-villagers who became Ahmadi at his hands and friends who knew him as a Practicing Moslem always put him up as their Imam to lead in the prayers wherever they were two or more of them.

Ahmadiyya Community flies a flag with the Minara-tool-Massih. It displays the fact of the advent of Promised Messiah, a.s. also known as the Imam Mehdi for whom a great majority of  Moslem world has been waiting. Father talked about that manifestation of God’s Will.

The leader of the Ahmadiyya Community, Khaleefa-tool-Massih II, announced in 1933 (See Azam Ali, an Ahmadi Moslem – as seen by the Daughter) that Father’s actions as an Ahmadi foretold that many great things could be expected from our Father.

The founder of the Ahmadiyya Community in Islam, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a.s. taught his adherents to be Practicing Moslems. He told them to record so in the Census of 1900 A.D. as a distinct sect of Islam. Father had found, believed and acted upon being a true Ahmadi.

The Holy Prophet, s.a.w. was made Best Exemplar (033:022) by God Almighty. Many loud mouths in the world self-proclaimed to be Moslem. Father intended to be a humble but real duplicator of his mentor, s.a.w. He practiced what he believed. He was an Ahmadi Moslem.

It was a deep desire to copy the Holy Prophet, s.a.w., that Father talked of Ahmadiyya wherever he was, did what an Ahmadi was to do, let everyone see what a practicing Moslem was, raised his children exactly following his mentor, s.a.w., and urged others to follow him.

And Abba Ji was extremely grateful to God Almighty for the genealogy with which he was born, the education he received, understanding he developed, opportunities he availed, Ahmadiyyut he embraced, Ahmadi family he raised, and friends he guided to become Ahmadi.

Gratitude

An enormous wisdom had been laid down hundreds of years ago in the Holy Qor-aan.

             La  in  sha-kaur  toom  la  aa-zee-dun-na  koom                                                                             Wa  la  in  ka-faur  toom  in-na  aa zaa-b  ee  la  sha-deed                                                                                                                               سُوۡرَةُ إبراهیم      –    Ch:014, Verse 008

             If you are grateful, I surely will give you more.                                                                And if you are ungrateful, them My punishment is severe.    014:008

Father ingrained in us children a very simple rule. He paraphrased this rule of universal application in terms we could understand, practice and internalize it. The best way to thank God is (Shook-raan-e-Nae-mut) to use properly the powers, potential and prowess He gave to every human being so uniquely. The worst way to anger Him is (Koof-raan-e-Nae-mut) to misuse God Given Gifts and abuse them badly by abusing misusing them.

See those with lesser fortunes than you and be grateful that God blessed you better than them. See those with better fortunes than you and be content that God burdened you lesser than them. With these words Abba Ji had simplified the concept for his children to understand it.

Lemon into a lemonade

Father had lot to thank God Almighty. He often told us his children of many examples of why that phenomenon should spill over to them for similar reasons. One is to control anger.

He was home during a college break. Elites at that time held hunting guns. There was a double barrel 12-bore gun in the family. He took that family gun out for hunting.

The summer rains poured down huge quantities of water. It was collected on several hundred acres of land owned by many people and formed a shallow lake.

The vast expanse of water was held that way for many months, grew underwater all kinds of fish and attracted overhead all kinds of birds including ducks.

Father went out to shoot. His stepping into the water sent thousands of birds up in the air. He shot once. A flying duck was hit. It fluttered down as it fell. He ran to catch his hunt.

On reaching where the bird fell, Father saw a young man held the duck. Father told him to give him his bird he had shot. The man refused saying the bird was his as it fell on his land.

Father told us his rage reached sky high in an instant. He raised the gun and said. “This gun has two barrels. One shot a bird. The other will shoot you unless you give me my duck.”

Father added, “At that time I really and truly felt so angry that I would have pulled the trigger and fired at the guy if he did not give me my bird.”

The man trembled at the sight of a double barrel staring in his face in the hands of a hunter who had just struck his target. He dropped the bird. Father picked it up and came home.

Then father felt remorse developed inside him. He thought to himself: “What was I doing? Firing at a man just because he had taken my bird? What kind of anger was that?”

Abba Ji then instructed us. “Guess, what would have happened if I had shot that man. I could be in jail. You would not be here, and I would not be advising you to control your anger.”

Abba Ji thanked God that the situation was defused. He was grateful he had learnt the lesson for his life without making the irreversible mistake. He wanted to save us from that fate.

He openly spoke of his gratitude for guiding the lives of so many others who in time came into being his family and friends. Thank God this lemon he made into a lemonade.

Effects of Thankfulness

Father was grateful to God Almighty for what he achieved though born a farmer’s son. He was admired by teachers in his village school. He had academic performance with honors in city college. He got a law degree which as far as I know was the first among Buttar clan. He breezed through passing the Civil Service exam during those days of British Empire. He served as a judge par excellence for nearly all his working life. He was highly honored in every religious and other location he visited. He raised a family with superb spiritual and temporal values. He had every reason to be grateful to God and was a fine example of thankfulness.

Abba Ji intended to show the effects of thankfulness by himself and by his progeny. He personally set up a high bar which is not easy to scale over and I do not know if anyone has successfully done that. But he also prepared his children to do that, and I reaped the benefits.

Tremendously long-reaching benefits have continuously enriched all walks of my life. Trust only in God, risk-taking, self-reliance and dependence on none else is me.              Heavy exercise resulted in my good health.                                                                            Paying attention to the immediate environment brought me higher school grades.          Speed reading escalated my extensive retention of reading material.                              Writing powerfully impacted many lives and went far and wide.                                                  Loudly voicing what my mind had retained proved highly productive for me.                      God-given gift to me just kept multiplying effectiveness as the years went by.                    Power arising from observing, speaking and writing is indeed the best of GOD’s gifts.

Such graces of Almighty God in all arenas enabled me to express my thoughts openly, explicitly. My words written and spoken produced enviable results in every field and profession I moved through, from courts of law to fields of religion, around more countries and continents than one. If I must name one book and one person that led me to my achievements, it would be the Holy Qor-aan and my father – two pricelessly valuable gifts of God I have, and for which can’t thank Allah enough.

I have enumerated the above effects, not to boast but for one and only one solitary reason: To thank my father that he trained us his children that way, so that we as conduits may pass those results on to our children, then they continue the process, and it may go on and on.

The spill over

Brilliantly dawned upon me was the full impact of Father’s advice that he had been giving us since my childhood. After my immigration to the USA and experience of my four (4) children’s schooling — of one from his pre-school age — all the way to their post-graduate levels I saw the harvest of what Father had been sowing, nurturing and urging us to do.

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 means making good use of whatever God has given to us. Father had spurred us to do precisely that.

It is thankfulness that wins the hearts of a spouse, parent, child, friend, associate, servant, master, etc. Take away the thankfulness and all that is left is dissatisfaction, disquiet, disorder, disruption and degeneration in every relationship. Marriages, friendships and even nations go by the board.

It is this gratitude that leads to progress and prosperity. Man’s link with the Almighty God based upon appreciation, gratitude and thankfulness to Him means a person does not need to ask, beg or want anything else from anyone else. Everybody can look back at his own genealogy and find plenty to thank His Maker, the One and the only One, the Creator.

Grantor of Recognition and Reward

In 1995 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania I heard of an incident that happened 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 had appreciated and rewarded others success in assigned tasks. Maulana said he was about 7 years old kid when my father and his father frequently met as friends.

At that time my father was the District and Session Judge in Dera Ghazi Khan. The father of the two boys was Chaudhry Sirbuland Khan (Sahabi) who was working in the Canal Department and was the President of the local Ahmadiyya Jamaat.

My father assigned to him (the7-yr-old) and his older brother by a couple of years the task of memorizing a poem of the Promised Messiah (peace upon him) within the next few days, fixed a reward and promised to test them when the period was over.

After the allocated period had expired, my father tested the boys. The older boy recited the poem fully and got the promised reward. He the younger boy had not memorized the poem and missed the reward. But he still remembered the consolation prize my Father gave him on noticing a disappointment in his face.

Some modern psychologists may criticize such practice, but the proof lies in the pudding. The boy was grateful for the prize, albeit a consolation and learnt that he never forgot.

• Success comes to those who work towards a goal and at good speed to reach it on time
• Rewards and recognition come to those who successfully reach the objectives.
• Failure to reach one’s goal brings no success, no reward and no recognition.
• Gratitude remains, unforgotten, for both (a) the success that entails reward and (b) the failure that is glorious even when success was attempted.

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

It is gratitude that makes all relationships including friendships, marriages and even nations lead to progress and prosperity. Take away the thankfulness and all that is left is dissatisfaction, disquiet, disorder, disruption and degeneration.

It is the thankfulness that wins the hearts of a spouse, parent, child, friend, servant, master, etc.  If man’s link with God Almighty is based upon appreciation, gratitude and thankfulness to Him, one does not need to ask, beg or want anything else from anyone else.

Anyone can look back at his own genealogy and find plenty to thank His Maker, One and the only One, the Creator – and that is what Abba Ji taught us.

Azam Ali, Ahmadi Moslem

Chapter 08 – HEALTH

Fruit falls under its Tree

            My Father’s definition of health was quite simple, yet it went very far. It meant that one who attained and retained always maintained a robust health. It included discovering the unique temperament of one’s body and looking after it. It encompassed eating such useful things which cured or improved health conditions. It excluded harmful things including food and practices that aggravated or worsened the body’s condition.

A mind that harbors sick thoughts cannot be a part of a healthy body. Likewise, a healthy body cannot entertain and grow a brain which breeds or feeds upon unhealthy thoughts. Put in different ways, Abba Ji urged us to constantly keep our mind in a praying mode so that ill, sick or bad thoughts don’t even come close entering in our brains, or acts into or out of our bodies.

That was the basic and first rule to perpetually remain in good health. No wonder even the youngest of his seven children who have lived to be grandparents is 77 today while the oldest is over 92. The fruit does not fall too far away from the tree. Father worked over ¾th century ago and today we enjoy the fruits of his labor. Credit goes to him to get us into certain habits, for life.

He called that fully grown-up person a fool who still could not identify the needs, wants, requirements and limitations of his brain and 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. That was the best way to avoid visiting or being visited by a physician.

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

Anesthesia and prayer

             Having had a couple of surgeries during his life, one of Father’s prayers for himself and advice to others was to Never Go Under A Surgeon’s Knife albeit his one son became a surgeon.

Father told us an interesting story about one of his surgeries. When he was about to join Civil Service he needed to have his hemorrhoids removed which in those days required surgery.

The surgeon was a British who informed Father that in a minute he would go into deep sleep and be ready for operation. In preparing Father for surgery, he administered anesthesia.

Father as of habit prayed ”aa-oo-zo-bil-laa-hay may-nush-shai-taa-nirra-jeem,” (I seek Allah’s protection from Satan, the stone worthy). The anesthesia failed. Father remained awake.

The surgeon gave a 2nd dose of anesthesia. Father remained awake. The surgeon asked if Father took drugs and told him that in his experience the 2nd dose of anesthesia had never failed.

When Father told the fact to the surgeon, the Dr told Father to stop praying for a minute so that the anesthesia could work, and he could finish the surgery and go to the next patient.

Life Experience

            Father’s emphasis on health had a lot to do with his own life experiences. He grew up in a family where his mother and five sisters succumbed to the Great Plague of early 20^th century in India. He knew that the disease started from unhealthy indoor conditions infested with rats.

He knew that outdoor life and outdoor exercise are vital for good health. He 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 as his tombstone reads 92.

Last time my father, my wife my children, my nephew and I saw my grandfather, he 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 being 92 is right.

And my grandfather lived some years after our immigration to the USA. I once heard my younger brother Majid Ali MD remark while lecturing about the longevity to senior citizens, “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 prayers on the tip of one’s tongue and exercising led to enjoying physical fitness. Indeed, both prayer and exercise do go hand in hand.

Father’s determination never to fall under the knife of the surgeon was transmitted to his children by inculcating in them the same determination to remain healthy by praying regularly whether at home or outside and doing reasonable exercise both in and out of the home.

The above routine continued when my younger brother Majid and I went to schools and colleges in different countries on different continents, sometimes thousands of miles away. What Father did in his youth and passed as an adult has been continued by us to our next generations.

Technique

            Father’s methodology to get us habituated to our daily exercise included his 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 for over 40 years practiced medicine and surgery with the ultra-modern equipment and state-of-the-art gadgetry for nearly one-half century in Pakistan, England and USA. Yet he finally switched from allopathic to holistic or alternative medicine. An enormous emphasis on regular exercise is the vital step towards total heeling he administers.

Father could not bear to see any of his children sick or even sickly. Soon after my mother passed away in 1948, I lost weight. Father was concerned. The top physician in the area hospital after all kinds of testing concluded that I had no physical problem that required 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 thrice daily. Soon I started gaining weight and thank God have never lost it since.

Health makes people long-lasting, highly valuable

            Father’s emphasis on health was a matter of absolute necessity. Sick and unhealthy children require more time, attention and money. If the infancy mortality had not taken a toll in our household, we would have been 17 siblings from our two mothers.

Our several siblings lost 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 had 10 kids (aged between 1 and 15) left at his hands to raise practically single-handedly. 

I said single-handedly because my stepmother, a strong, Pathan, wonderful woman at that time started to memorize the Holy Qor-aan that she continued till her passing away in 1957. She never went to high school. She could not contribute much to Father’s idealistic way of raising his children the way he wanted to mold every one of them in the image of his mentor, s.a.w. But by memorizing the Holy Qor-aan she could at least try following what her husband also tried.

One of my younger brother Sadiq suffered an ailment for nearly 6 years before life ended. Father tried prescriptions filled hundreds of miles away. He utilized every  known allopathic and homeopathic medicine. He always went to court saying special prayers on Sadiq.

My older sister Rashida, then 15, gave him time and treatment that many mothers never give to their own children. Herself she 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 sharpened mothering skills marvelously.

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 Father’s desire to see us all stay healthy was his passion. We too grew not taxing him with the unnecessary anxiety and worry of falling sick and needing medicines.

And as if all that was not enough for a 15-year-old schoolgirl, she also had to fend for our 1-year-old youngest sister. No wonder she grew up to be a mother par excellence who raised five of her own highly educated professionals’ children and is now working on her 10 grandchildren.

Recently I saw her bull-strong 6-year-old US-born granddaughter who minces no words in saying what she sees fit. She said she wished she was a Christian to celebrate Christmas and Easter, rather than being a Moslem to just keep going enthusiastically to a mosque to study the Holy Qor-aan with her grandmother. And this was after her amazing speed with which she had mastered the Arabic alphabet and vowels, structured words and was enviably reading long verses of the Holy Qor-aan. Boy, I was impressed, and that was jut the third generation of Father.

Healthy Body and Brain Healthy

             In the spring of 1957, I was in 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 the doctor had 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. I could not bend or bow for prayers. Later two men from our village were appointed to take care of my body – lay me down on a bed on floor, lift me upright in the morning, wash my head, arms and legs while I lay on my belly, and so on.

The attending physician Dr Sardar Ali consoled me by saying the plaster was there “just for 3 months.” On my expressing concern about my finals coming in 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 and full of nuances that went far and wide) had fallen off a horse and broken his back.

My father wrote to Lateef’s father who was his younger brother Chaudhry Nazir Ahmed and forewarned him of the impending danger. He did not know 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 the seventh  day after my accident. He came to visit me in the hospital, talked to me, discussed with his friend Dr Yaqoob who was a physician in the same hospital, and talked to the attending surgeon Dr Sardar Ali.

Father consoled me for my pain, plaster and being pushed out of my hectic activities. But one of his main concerns he discussed with the doctors was the length of time it would take me to fully recover, get back in full health and return to my former fully robust healthy lifestyle