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 20th 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
