Azam Ali, An Ahmadi Moslem
Chapter 11 – Knowledge
Hungry for knowledge
God Almighty has taught in the Holy Qor-aan to pray as follows. Rub-bay Zid-nee Il-maa. سُوۡرَةُ طٰه – Ch: 020, Verse 115 God, please add to my knowledge. 020:115
Inspired in a Messenger this prayer has been perpetuated by the Holy Qor-aan. This prayer was the cornerstone of Father’s spiritual and temporal, personal and professional, familial and other knowledge. All achievements in life had followed his beseeching with it.
Abba ji respected real knowledge. He believed that a quest for further knowledge must be everlasting. He advocated pursuing it continually. He recognized that knowledge was the foundation of all creativity, innovation and improvement. He was fortunate to have scaled that height from where he could clearly see where knowledge was separated from ignorance.
He had no stomach for mere arguing, wrangling and vain talks for the sake of talking. As a Judge all his life he heard lawyers argue both sides in every case. That experience enabled him to clearly mark the line where an argument based upon facts departed from evidence and turned into a conjecture pulled from air. He told in court the counsels and their clients, all at home, in any gathering that he attended and wherever he was present that he knew where a talk left the facts based upon knowledge and became pure imagery of fiction.
A cassette of the Holy Qor-aan was playing while I was writing this segment. I heard the reciter the following verse when I reached here.
Aa-tai naa ho rah-ma-tum min in-day naa Wa ul-lum naa ho min la doon-na il-maa. سُوۡرَةُ الکهف – Ch: 018, Verse 066
We conferred on him Our blessing And We taught him knowledge that came from Us. 018:066
It struck me how accurately this verse explained the Truth, the Rule of universal application that God Almighty had made knowledge the Supreme Source of power. In His discretion He bestows it upon one He chooses. Upon selecting someone for special favor He first blesses him with knowledge. Father was a beneficiary of this special favor. He started with a curiosity to seek the truth and an appetite to accumulate knowledge. He ended up with finding real Islam and accepting the divine blessing.
Father judged the cases that came to his Court according to the applicable law and rules. He followed the precedents set by Superior Courts. However, if he found a judgment wrong, he expressed his dissent and gave solid reasons in support of his decision. He was not afraid of calling a spade a spade just to appease someone clothed with an authority over him.
Wrong Judgment by Privy Council corrected.
He told us many times about the case that the Privy Council had wrongly decided by misinterpreting Moslem Law.
- The Privy Council in England had failed to distinguish Auolaaday Dookhtari from Auolaaday Dookhtar in a case that arose from India which was a British foreign colony.
- Both terms Auolaaday Dookhtari and Auolaaday Dookhtar are of Persian in which the Holy Qor-aan was translated first. (Commentary Translations From Other Translations)
- Auolaaday Dookhtari is a provision of Moslem Law. It means that the heirs of a decedent consist of only daughters who inherit the estate as Sharers. A sharer gets a fixed share.
- The daughters as Sharers get predetermined shares. If only one, she inherits ½ of the estate. If more than one, they equally share in the 2/3 of the estate (004:012).
- The residue of the estate left after paying all Sharers goes to the Residuaries. A nearer Residuary excludes those more remotes. A daughter can inherit the residue as well.
- Auolaaday Dookhtar means the children of a daughter. These words are not the same as the Auolaaday Dookhtari provision of Moslem Law although they spell pretty close.
- The Privy Council had applied Moslem Law of Inheritance to the case before it but failed to see that the Auolaaday Dookhtari was not the same as Auolaaday Dookhtar.
- My father was a Civil Judge when a case came before him in which one party relied upon the aforesaid erroneous decision by the Privy Council.
- The Privy Council was the supreme judiciary authority of British India. Its judgments were precedents that lower courts had to follow, but my father could not follow the error.
- As the court of first instance Father noticed the misinterpretation of Moslem Law. He decided the case before him correctly by dissenting from the bad precedent.
- The appellate court of District Judge who was a British remanded the case back to my Father’s court, directing him to decide the case by following the Privy Council precedent.
- In the remanded proceedings Father reiterated his previous stance and showed how the Privy Council had misinterpreted Moslem Law in deciding Auolaaday Dookhtari.
- On the 2nd appeal the District Judge referred the case to the High Court by pointing out that the Civil Judge’s reasoning required examination by a judicial body higher than him.
- The High Court Judge referred the case to its Full Court to decide whether the Civil Judge had correctly interpreted the Moslem Law in deciding the case before him.
- The Full Court of the Lahore High Court upheld my father’s judgment that the Auolaaday Dookhtar was not the same as Auolaaday Dookhtari provision of Moslem Law.
Desire for Knowledge
Father’s pursuit for knowledge stretched over many areas including his desire to learn various languages. He belabored himself at that and told us to follow. He urged me to cultivate the habit of using dictionary if I asked him the spelling of a word. He considered that learning grammar rules, word-construction and writing composition was the best way to learn a language. (See also Tr – Azam Ali, an Ahmadi Moslem – Chapter 15 – Opinions Of Others).
Not all his friends and contemporaries endorsed him totally. One of them was Sheikh Bashir Ahmad Advocate who became a Judge in the High Court Judge and later in the Pakistan Supreme Court. Whenever the two got together, they continued form where they had left when they last met, vying each other in the mastery of newly learnt simple phrases with powerful impact in English. I remember their competitive bouts of words which appeared to go on forever.
Foundations for Knowledge
Abba Ji was meticulously careful about laying proper foundations for everything he intended to build, and knowledge was the foundation to build his family’s character and future. He told us that to build a building straight up, tall and high, the foundation must be solid, laid deep and firm; or else a structure built upon shaky foundations would be wonky, crooked and unsecure. He applied that as the dominant driver that governed all his actions.
We heard him tell us to do that. All our lives we saw him do that until he passed away in 1980. I can write here only some of the incidents that show his characteristics. Many others are reflected in our family photos.
Indelible impressions were made by his remarks. One was that he made in October 1948 in his comments around leading the funeral prayers of my mother and just before burying her. He gathered all seven of us children (13 to 1 year old) around her and said, “See your mother for the last time. You will never see her again.” I feel skin crawling on back even now when I recall him.
My father led the funeral prayer of my mother in Campbellpore Cemetery. She was buried there in trust. Two years later in 1950 when my father was transferred to Lyallpore, he had her moved to Bahisti Maqbarah in Rabwah.
Foundation is everything
Father’s idea of making every foundation safe, secure and solid extended to every aspect of his life. He made sure that the knowledge of his father, brothers, cousins and co-villagers who became Ahmadi was also deeply rooted. Every one of them practically turned into a missionary of the Ahmadiyya school of thought. So much so that his two brothers and the mason who built his house in Rabwah had turned so firm that all three of them had at least one of their sons devote his life and become a Missionary for the cause to evangelize it among those not yet Ahmadi.
Father decided to solidify the foundations of my knowledge in T I College. He and my tutorial group leader Professor Sufi Basharat Rahman concurred in my 2nd college year that I repeat my 1st college year because studying Arabic, Economics and Math instead of physics and chemistry became my Electives mid-term in the prior year. The fact that I matriculated when I was 14 and entered college soon after my 15th birthday had also factored in their decision.
The foundations of my knowledge in those three subjects became solid. Eventually all my personal and professional life revolved around compounding the unique rules of ancient Arabic language, the intricacies of modern economics and elaborate mathematical calculations. Without the solid foundation laid in 1951 I could not have availed myself of the opportunities for my achievements in the fields of law, corporate business, real estate, insurance, securities and finance in three countries on three continents.
Results of Pursuing Knowledge
My maternal grandfather Chaudhry Faqir Mohammed, my father Chaudhry Azam Ali and my paternal grandfather Chaudhry Rehmat Ali were all alpha males. The result of their spiritual knowledge spread all around is shown by the numbers of family members and strangers who turned Ahmadi. All of them had realized that the Teaching of Islam was as averted by the Holy Qor-aan. All of them believed Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a.h., of Qadian was the Promised Messiah.
Using the solid foundations criteria in other branches of knowledge in which my siblings specialized and excelled is no less spectacular (See Azam Ali, an Ahmadi Moslem – As seen by daughter). The result of their worldly knowledge is reflected by the quantity and quality of accountants, bankers, computer-wizard, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists and other professionals in Father’s progeny serving mankind in many countries.
Nobody has a monopoly or yardstick to measure religious knowledge or spirituality of another. Investment of time and money may create illusions or garnish support for promotions of some semblance of success. Yet the proof lies in the pudding. The progenies of these three gentlemen with very modest means have become spectacularly successful as a direct result of the extensive use of the prayers the Holy Qr-aan has provided.
