When late President APJ Abdul Kalam prayed at Jamiah Mosque in Madikeri, Kodagu

by Prof. M.I.K. Durrani

Jainulabadeen always felt that his son was destined to be exceptional and in his heart of hearts he hoped that his promising young son would one day make the family proud by becoming a Collector (Deputy Commissioner), not having the slightest inkling of what the future had in store for this darling of the family. His wife Ashiamma joined her husband in wishing Godspeed to their son as he left Rameswaram.

And thus commenced a long scientific odyssey leading to one achievement after another, followed by one glory succeeding another and finally one accolade upon another accolade in the form of Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna and then the acme as the first citizen of this country — President of India.

[Continued from yesterday]

But in spite of all the innate greatness of the genius that the country can boast of, this very personification of humility has got this to say:

“Each individual creature on this beautiful planet is created by God to fulfil a particular role. Whatever I have achieved in life is through His help and an expression of His will. He showered His grace on me through some outstanding teachers and colleagues and when I pay tribute to these people, I am merely praising His glory. All these rockets and missiles are His work through a small person called Kalam, in order to tell the several million mass of India to never feel small or helpless. We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glory of its goodness.”

And I wondered how the young dreamer, who once watched cranes and sea-gulls soar into flight, longed to fly and did realise his dreams. And that unique person was going to visit the Jamiah Mosque at Madikeri and I too would be one of the fortunate few to behold the nonpareil in flesh and blood.

By the time I reached Balayatrie Estate on Thursday, the 6th April, 2006, it was nearly 10 pm. I was welcomed with all the usual warmth and affection that my brothers-in-law could muster up. There was the eldest of them, F.M. Khan, former MP and his third brother, Noor Mohammed and the youngest of the five brothers, Afroz Mohammed Khan. F.M. Khan was virtually a recluse after his cardiac surgery and whenever any relatives came to stay with him, he would be immensely pleased to enjoy their company. Noor Mohammed had arrived from Mysuru along with his family comprising his wife, son, daughter in-law and his two grand-children. Since Dr. Kalam was by nature very fond of children, Afroz suggested that the President should be welcomed to the mosque with a special bouquet of flowers from carnivorous plants as a mark of respect and the honour of presenting it should be given to Noor Mohammed’s exceptionally cute four-year-old grandson, Mohammed Khan. Everybody endorsed Afroz’s suggestion. F.M. Khan was feeling drowsy so he retired to bed and Noor also followed suit.

Afroz and I were by ourselves, not feeling sleepy at all, I, because of my curiosity pertaining to the President’s impending visit to the Mosque and Afroz due to his bubbling excitement. He got up and said he would fetch some tea for me and went straight to the kitchen. Of all the five Khan brothers, Afroz is the youngest but the tallest. He happens to be chip off the old block since his philanthropic nature, charitable generosity and compassion for all his paternal and maternal relations have been inherited by him to a large extent from his father late Yusuf Ali Khan.

F.M. Khan, his eldest brother, as the dejure muthavalli (manager) of the Mosque wasn’t able to discharge his duties owing to his ill health. Afroz, the youngest volunteered to shoulder the responsibility and thus he was the defacto muthavalli at that time and simultaneously he had been elected as the President of the Managing Committee of the Jamiah Mosque. As a dedicated and zealous servant of God Almighty, he had just then completed the renovation of the Mosque and had changed it into a well-known mosque of Madikeri.

As we started sipping our respective beverages, I asked Afroz how he had manoeuvred to get the President participate in the Friday prayers. Synopsised, it amounted to this:

It was during the first week of April 2006 that the news was flashed in the newspapers that the President of India was to visit Madikeri to participate in the centenary celebrations of General K.S. Thimayya and the day selected happened to be a Friday which all devout Muslims consider as a day of festival for the followers of the faith and every Muslim is expected to attend the congregational prayer on that day. So assuming that since Dr. Abdul Kalam had descended from a very pious family, he might in all probability would not miss the obligatory Jummah prayers.

So Afroz wanted to find out whether there was any scheduled programme of the President to attend the prayers. The first thing he did on 5.4.2006 was to ring up the office of the Deputy Commissioner, the Superintendent of Police and the Wakf Board, Mercara, to ascertain whether a visit to the Mosque was envisaged but from all the three places, the curt answer was an emphatic “No.” And thirty minutes later at 11.30 am, he called the Offices of the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police again to find out the latest position but once again he was told that there was no such programme.

Afroz, as the President of the Mosque, was in a dilemma. Then suddenly he had an inspiration. He got an e-mail sent to the Rashtrapathi’s Office stating that the Friday prayers at the Jamiah Masjid in Mercara will commence at 1 pm. The very next day, on Thursday, the 6th April 2006 at 11.30 am, there was a call to the Jamiah Masjid from P.M. Nair, Secretary to the President, desiring Afroz Mohammed Khan to contact P.M. Nair and Afroz did so at noon. Nair said that his e-mail was received and the President thanked him for the information. He added that the President would be joining the Jummah prayers. Nair further said that it would be a purely private visit, therefore there was no need to inform either the Deputy Commissioner or the Police about it.

Afroz informed his brother F.M. Khan about the talk he had with the President’s Secretary and the ex-MP wanted to get it confirmed so he contacted the Deputy Commissioner, the Superintendent of Police and the Office of the Wakf Board but none among them had any information about it. F.M. Khan was rather sceptic about the visit to the Mosque and expressed his fears.

However, Afroz went to the Deputy Commissioner’s office at 5 pm to discuss about the President’s visit. He sent his card in but the officer was otherwise busy, as usually people in such position are, and then there was no urgent need to attend to a visitor who was only a President of a Mosque.

Afroz waited patiently for about half-an-hour but since there seemed to be no end to his travail, he left the place and went back to the Mosque.

[To be continued]

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / Saturday -September 05th, 2015

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Recollections …: Prayer with People’s President – 3

By Prof. M.I.K. Durrani

The Mosque was as usual spic-and-span and there wasn’t any room for further improvement. At about 8.30 pm that evening, Additional Superintendent of Police Bhagwan Das arrived at the Mosque just to inspect the place with regard to cleanliness and security. He was completely satisfied with the upkeep of the place and desired to know how the President would be received and by whom. Afroz informed him that he himself, as the President of the Mosque, would receive President Dr. Abdul Kalam. The officer wanted to know how many garlands would be used since they had to be subjected to a thorough scrutiny. He was told that garlanding a person in the Mosque as a gesture of welcoming him isn’t customary and, therefore, there would be no garlanding. However, as a token of high regard, it was decided to offer the President a special bouquet of flowers from carnivorous plants and the same would be presented by a four-year-old boy at the entrance of the Mosque. The Additional Superintendent of Police was completely satisfied with the arrangements and bid goodbye to the staff of the Mosque.

[Continued from yesterday]

The next day was Friday, the day named after Frigga (or Freya), wife of Odin (the God), who is immortalised in the name Wednesday (Odin’s Day) but in Arabic it is called Jummah, meaning Congregation — an assembly of a large number of people for prayer. Jummah is considered by Muslims all over the world as a Holy Day, a sacred and blessed one.

A great deal of sanctity is associated with it since it is believed that Adam, the first man, was created on that day and that was the day he was admitted into the Garden of Eden from where he was much later expelled and that day also happened to be another Jummah and when he passed away, it was a Jummah too. The Day of Judgement is also expected to be on the same day. Furthermore, it is also believed that Allah forgives all sinners on this day when they are truly contrite, so it may as well be described as a day of deliverance from sin.

And on the D-day, we, all the menfolk, got ready well- in-time. After our bath, every one put on his Friday’s best comprising a white jhubba and white pyjamas, both soaked in light perfume. We reached the Mosque at about 12 noon. Already there were quite a few Policemen in the vicinity and the devotees had started trickling in. Afroz told the Mouzzan (Mosque official) to keep sufficient stock of water in case it was required by the President for performing Wazoo (the mandatory ritualistic washing of the face and limbs) before joining the congregation.

Exactly at 1 pm, the Imam started his bayan (speech) in Urdu which usually precedes the mandatory Arabic Khutbah (sermon or talk) in two parts. The first part of the Khutbah was over but there wasn’t any sign of the VVIP. The second part was also started, still the suspense continued. Exactly at 1.55 pm, there was a phone call from S.M. Khan, the Press Secretary, informing Afroz that the President would be arriving in another five minutes.

The Mosque clock chimed two O’ clock, the Khutbah came to an end and at that very moment, the President’s car arrived at the entrance of the Mosque and out emerged the smiling President wearing a closed collared coat and trousers with a white skull cap in his hand, which he put on to his head as he entered the odoriferous prayer hall. His feet were covered with white socks as he had left his shoes inside the car. He was received by Afroz in his capacity as the President of Mosque and Dr. Kalam shook his hand warmly and regretted his late arrival.

Then Noor Mohammed’s grandson, Mohammed Khan, the cute little laddie presented the bouquet to the President. After receiving the bouquet, the President, good humouredly snatched the cap from the boy’s head as though he was taking it away, but the very next moment he put it back on the child’s head and blessed him by placing the palm on his head and the boy bent his head and simpered. In the meanwhile, Afroz approached S.M. Khan and enquired sotto voce whether the President would perform the Wazoo. Khan replied that the President never went out with Wazoo. Even then he was Bawazoo (with the Wazoo).

Dr. Kalam, followed by his Secretary, joined the congregation. He found a vacant place on the carpeted floor in the third row and there he sat down. Though he had been offered a place in the first row, he had declined it as he must have felt that he was just a devotee like any other person and he didn’t like any kind of discrimination on the basis of a person’s status. Just then all the people stood up and formed lines. The Imam said ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ and the entire flock joined the rituals.

One thing which had at that time moved me almost to tears was when I saw the first citizen of this great land of ours, like any other commoner, joining the congregation wherever he found a vacant place, not expecting any kind of special consideration. What a contrast it is with the attitude of upstarts among the self-styled VIPs, who always consider it their birth right to enjoy preferential treatment wherever they go. Dr. Kalam, a man of remarkable humility, must have remembered one stanza from Dr. Mohammed Iqbal’s Urdu poem, Shikwa (complaint) in which there is this touching narration:

1. Aagaya aine lada ee may jab waqt-e-namaz,

Qibla roo ho ke khadi ho gayi qaum-e-hijaz,

2. Ek hi saf may khade ho gaye Mahmood-o-Ayaz,

Na koyee banda raha na koyee banda nawaz,

3. Banda-o-saheb-o-mohtaj-o-ghani ek huye,

Teri sirkar may pahunche toh so bhi ek huye.

And the above lines have been excellently rendered into English by no less a person than late Khushwant Singh, thus:

1. In the midst of raging battle, if the time came to pray,

Hijazis (Arabs) turned to Mecca, kissed the earth and ceased to fray;

2. Sultan and slave (Mehmood and Ayaz) in single file stood side by side,

Then no servant was nor master, nothing did them divide;

3. Between serf and Lord, needy and rich, difference there was none,

When they appeared in your court, they came as equals and one.

And that one act of self-effacement speaks volumes about the greatness of the humble, God-fearing scientist.

[To be continued]

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / Sunday  -September 06th, 2015

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Recollections …: Prayer with People’s President –  4

By Prof. M.I.K. Durrani

[Continued from yesterday]

After the prayers were over, the courteous President told Afroz to seek, on his behalf, permission from the Imam to address the gathering.

While all the members of the congregation were seated, he stood up and spoke to them in English. He expressed his happiness at witnessing such a large gathering. He said that his father and grandfather were all orthodox Muslims and never missed a single prayer.

His father used to take him to Mosque every evening and whenever he achieved anything, his father used to make him offer thanksgiving prayers in the Mosque. He hoped that the audience would continue to keep up the practice of their ancestors and lead virtuous lives. At the same time, he advised them to live in greater harmony with the people of other religions and to be proud of being Indians.

Sensing that what he was saying might be misunderstood by a majority of the audience due to their ignorance of the English language, he concluded his speech by asking the people to join him by repeating the Arabic Ayats (lines) from Surah Al Fatihah which all Muslims recite during prayers and which implore Allah to guide them to the path of those who were favoured by Him and not the path of those who earned His wrath by going astray.

The audience felt maximum spiritual intensity by repeating each ayat with fervour as the President recited them like a teacher.

Afroz proposed a vote of thanks and the President started moving through the throng of the much impressed audience, shaking hands with several persons who were standing on either side of his path.

Noticing a group of children, he went straight to them and spoke to them in English and was much pleased to find them responding in that language. Then he got into his car, waved towards one and all, who were standing on both sides of the route and departed leaving behind the admiring people of Madikeri, who would always cherish the memory of a People’s President’s visit to their beautiful hill station.

And today, when I look back and recollect what a great day it was in my life when I had the honour of shaking hands with that gem of a man, I just wonder whether it was really so or it was just a dream. Today he is no more with us but he has left such an indelible impression on our mind that the Bard whispers from nowhere:

“His life was gentle and the elements

So mixed in him, that nature might stand up,

And say to all the world, This was a man.”

[Concluded]

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / Monday  -September 07th, 2015