Memories (Episode 18-b)

Hadhrat Mufti Rashid Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him) would deliver his lectures on Sahih Bukhari in a fluent manner and I would also record them in Urdu. I still have those notes preserved with me. On the other hand, Hadhrat Mawlana Salimullah Khan (may Allah have mercy on him) would dictate his lessons on Jamiʿ Tirmidhi during class, and since dictation provided some pauses, I would record his lectures in Arabic. The reality is that Hadhrat’s lectures were so well-structured that all aspects of the subject under discussion would come together in a beautifully organized manner. The points that were scattered across various commentaries would be logically and cohesively presented, refined and arranged in a seamless flow. I still have the manuscripts of both sets of lectures preserved with me.

This kind of enjoyment and immersion during student life was such that one would become oblivious even to one’s own physical needs. At that time, we would use Khadau slippers to walk around the Dar al-ʿUlum. Today, perhaps few people remain who know what Khadau means. This was a wooden slipper with a rubber strap, and one would wear it by sliding one’s foot under the strap. If one walked on a hard floor with it, it would produce a loud clacking sound that could be heard from afar. While they were typically used for making ablution in the bathrooms, we had adopted them as regular footwear. When we would return home on Thursdays, we would wear one pair of fresh clothes on the Friday and bring another with us to Dar al-ʿUlum. This set of clothes would then be changed on Monday or Tuesday. Because of takrar, study, and sometimes lessons continuing late into the night, we would have little time for sleep, while lessons would begin early in the morning. However, if ever a teacher was delayed in arriving for class, we would get a short moment to lie down in a corner of the veranda. We would thus rest for a while on the bare floor.

The practical exercises of deriving jurisprudential rulings from books of Fiqh, intended to train us in writing Fatawa, started by Hadhrat Mufti Rashid Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him) the previous year, continued this year as well. In addition, our respected father (may Allah have mercy on him) would occasionally assign us some writing tasks. At that time, our respected father (may Allah have mercy on him) was publishing a new and revised edition of Imdad al-Fatawa. He said that a brief biography of its author, i.e. Hakim al-Ummah Hadhrat Thanwi (may Allah have mercy on him), should be included at the beginning. He thus instructed me to write a concise account of his life. At the time, I had only just begun Dawrat al-ḤHadith studies. Using “Ashraf al-Sawanih” and the late Munshi ʿAbd al-Rahman’s book “Sirat-e-Ashraf” as references, I wrote a short article, which was perhaps my first piece of writing to be published in a book. It is still printed at the beginning of Imdad al-Fatawa, and at the end of the article, the date Muharram 1379 AH (July 1959) is recorded, which means that I had written it before our tri-monthly exams, and at that time, I would have been sixteen years and three months old — rather not yet sixteen according to the solar calendar. I mention this because if any lack of refinement or maturity is found in that article, the reason for it becomes known.

In the tri-monthly exams of that year, I was honoured to achieve first position in my class in Sahih Bukhari and Jāmiʿ Tirmidhi. I received 54 marks in Sahih Bukhari, a score that no student had attained before, and 52 marks in Jamiʿ Tirmidhi, Shamail and Muwatta. In the six-monthly exams as well, I came first in Jamiʿ Tirmidhi, and except for Sunan Abi Dawud, in which I received 47 marks, I did not score below 50 in any other book. In Sahih Bukhari, I received 52 marks, 51 in Ṭaḥāwi, and 50 in the remaining books.

After the six-monthly exams in the year of Dawrat al-ḤHadith, classes generally continue at night as well. Our class consisted of approximately thirty students. Hence, after Isha, in the light of a single lantern, Hadhrat Mawlana Mufti Rashid Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him) would teach Sahih Bukhari below two trees near Purana Bangla. These were Neem and Tamarind trees whose branches intertwined at the top, and both trees are still alive to this day. Whenever I pass beneath them, the memories of those lessons are refreshed in my mind.

Especially in Sahih Bukhari, the lessons at the end of the year often consist of Ahadith that have already been covered previously and the teacher has already explained them. Therefore, merely reading the text of the hadith suffices. As a result, the lessons proceed at a very fast pace, and only those selected students are permitted to read the text who can read both quickly and correctly. In our class, the teacher had appointed four students for this task. Two of them were us two brothers, the third was Mawlana Muhammad Amīn Quettavi, and the fourth was Mawlana Muhammad Irani. When the teacher would sense that a student was tiring after reading for some time, he would say: “Let’s change the driver now”, and then, calling one of us by name, he would say: “Now you read”. The lesson would continue in this manner late into the night.

I have mentioned before that Hadhrat Mawlana Salimullah Khan (may Allah have mercy on him) would dictate his lectures during the lessons of Jamiʿ Tirmidhi. Naturally, dictation would take time, so the lessons progressed at a slower pace. As a result, by the end of the academic year, we had only completed the book up to the four pillars[1]. At the same time, Hadhrat had also started the second volume of Tirmidhi without dictation, and this progressed relatively faster. When very little time remained before the end of the academic year, Hadhrat said: “Now, most of the remaining Ahadith are such that they have already been covered in Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Abu Dawud, etc., so it will suffice to complete the remaining book by recitation.” For this purpose, Hadhrat began conducting additional lessons to complete the book. When approximately one hundred pages remained, Hadhrat conducted a lesson that lasted the entire night. For this, a stove was brought into the classroom, and tea was prepared and served at intervals. In this manner, the book was completed in one or two nights.

It was during those days that, in God knows what state of mental absorption, I composed the following verses addressing my classmates:

بہت ہی سخت آگے گردش ایام ہے، پی لو!
غنیمت ہے کہ گردش میں ابھی تک جام ہے، پی لو
تمہیں تصویر ہستی میں وفا کا رنگ بھرنا ہے
جفا و جور کی ظلمت جہاں میں عام ہے، پی لو!
تمہیں طاغوت کی بے رحم طغیانی سے لڑنا ہے
بہت سا کام ہے، پی لو، بہت سا کام ہے، پی لو!
سخاوت جام و مینا کی بڑی نعمت ہے دیوانو!
یہ ساقی کی توجہ بھی بڑا انعام ہے، پی لو!

Translation:

Difficult trials of time lie ahead, drink!
Consider it fortunate that the goblet still passes around, drink!
You must paint the colours of loyalty into the picture of life,
The gloom of tyranny and oppression prevails in the world, drink!
You must battle the merciless tide of ṭaghut (falsehood),
There is much work to do, drink, there is much work to do, drink!
The generosity of the goblet and cup is a great blessing, O passionate souls!
And the attention of the cup-bearer is a great gift too, drink!

At this juncture, it seems appropriate to clarify a point. Observing the way Dawrat al-HHadith is taught in our madrasas, an objection might arise in the minds of contemporary educationists: What is the benefit of teaching so many books from the beginning to the end in this manner, especially when similar Ahadith are repeated across these books. Several teachers often discuss the same Ahadith, and by the end of the year, it is common for teachers to suffice with a simple recitation of the text. In contrast, if summaries of these books were prepared and taught, as is done in universities, it would not require as much effort, and the need for reciting the entire text would also be eliminated.

The answer to this objection is that there are two objectives in teaching and learning Hadith, and neither of them can be deemed unimportant. The first objective is that the student becomes familiar with the relevant topics and discussions of the Hadith, develops the ability to comprehend them and derive conclusions from them, and also gains an understanding of the principles of Jarh wa Taʿdil (evaluation of narrators). In other words, this can be referred to as Dirayat al-Hadith[2]. The second objective, however, is “Riwayat al-Hadith[3]”, which means that the student gets the opportunity to recite the primary books of Hadith directly in front of the teacher, so that the student himself becomes part of the sanad (chain of transmission) of those Ahadith. Allah Most High has made the chain of transmission of Hadith as a unique system for its preservation, unparalleled in any other science or art in the world. It is through this chain of narrators that we can confidently trace who narrated a particular Hadith and assess the reliability of its narrators. This practice has continued since the time of the pious predecessors, that when a teacher teaches Hadith, he also narrates his sanad, i.e. the chain through which the Hadith reached him. The practice of students reciting the Hadith before their teachers has been ongoing since the time of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them), and our pious elders continued this even after the books of Hadith were compiled and published, for becoming a part of the sanad is itself a blessing. To attain this blessing, even simply reciting the Hadith before a teacher is sufficient, as it connects a person to the golden chain of transmission, which, passing through the pious predecessors, reaches the Noble Messenger H himself. The blessings of this connection cannot be achieved by merely studying summaries or abridged texts. Outside the Indian subcontinent, unadulterated Islamic madrasas have largely disappeared, and hence this practice has become obsolete in those countries at an institutional level. Nonetheless, at an individual level, some scholars continue to teach books of Hadith riwayatan (with narration), and enthusiastic students acquire this blessing through their own efforts. But, by the grace of Allah Most High, this practice is still alive in the madrasas of the subcontinent.

In any case, by the grace and mercy of Allah Most High, the year of Dawrat al-Hadith came to an end, and on Thursday 7 Rajab 1379 AH (approximately 4 January 1960), our respected father (may Allah have mercy on him) delivered the lesson on the final chapter of Sahih Bukhari and completed it.[4] And in Shaʿban 1379 AH (equivalent to February 1960), it was time for the exams. At that time, I was two months short of completing the seventeenth year of my life according to the lunar calendar, and eight months short according to the solar calendar. By that time, Dar al-ʿUlum Karachi was not affiliated with Wifaq al-Madaris al-ʿArabiyyah (the Federation of Islamic Seminaries). At that time, the Wifaq did not hold the status which, by the grace and mercy of Allah Most High, it holds today. And due to multiple considerations in light of the circumstances at that time, our respected father (may Allah have mercy on him) preferred to keep Dar al-ʿUlum separate from it. As a result, all exams at Dar al-ʿUlum were conducted independently at its own level. However, some of our respected teachers wished for Dar al-ʿUlum to join Wifaq, and various suggestions were made to address the reasons why our respected father (may Allah have mercy on him) disliked becoming affiliated with it.

On the other hand, it was the special grace and favour of Allah Most High that both of us brothers were blessed with abundant kindness from our teachers, and they all held a favourable opinion regarding us. We wrote all our exam papers in Arabic, which was generally well-received by the teachers. It was due to this that on one occasion Hadhrat Mawlana Salimullah Khan (may Allah have mercy on him) remarked in a gathering of teachers: “If Dar al-ʿUlum is to affiliate with Wifaq, this year would be the best time, because if this year’s annual exams at Dar al-ʿUlum are held under Wifaq, it is hoped that Taqi will Insha Allah secure the first position across the entire Wifaq, and thus Dar al-ʿUlum could achieve the first position in its very first year of affiliation with the Wifaq.”

Though Dar al-ʿUlum did not affiliate with Wifaq that year, and the exams were conducted independently at Dar al-ʿUlum’s own level, it was by the grace and favour of Allah Most High that our answers received great encouragement from our teachers. At that time, Dar al-ʿUlum Karachi followed the old marking system of Dar al-ʿUlum Deoband, where each paper was marked out of fifty. However, if a student’s answers were exceptionally good, the examiner could award marks exceeding fifty. Typically, such papers were awarded fifty-one marks; for extraordinary answers, fifty-two marks were awarded, and in very rare cases, fifty-three marks. Hadhrat Mawlana Akbar Ali (may Allah have mercy on him) was known for being extremely strict in grading papers. I have already mentioned an instance of this which I myself experienced during last year’s exams, where, in the paper of Nukhbat al-Fikr, he awarded me forty-one marks, which at the time was considered Lower Class pass, at which I was deeply disheartened. This time, the exam of Sunan Nasai was conducted by him, and he awarded me fifty-five marks in that paper (which is a record in the history of Dar al-ʿUlum exams that has never been broken) and even wrote a note of praise on the paper. Sadly, I did not get to see this note myself, as students were not shown their graded exam papers. However, Hadhrat Mawlana mentioned to our respected father and to the Administrator (may Allah have mercy on them both): “I have never seen such an answer paper in my entire teaching career”. Additionally, though we learned our results later, while Hadhrat Mawlana Mufti Rashid Ahmad was marking my paper, he immediately called my respected father to congratulate him, and awarded me fifty-four marks. The following were my results:

My elder brother, Hadhrat Mawlana Mufti Muhammad Rafiʿ Usmani (may Allah grant him a long life), achieved more or less similar results.

[1] This refers to the beginning chapters of Sunan at Tirmidhi that are dedicated to the Ahadith on the four pillars of Islam: Salah, Sawm, Zakah and Hajj – Editor.

[2] Translator: Dirayat al-Hadith: Knowledge and understanding of the Hadith

[3] Translator: Riwayat al-Hadith: Narration of the Hadith

[4] This date is recorded in my notes of Taqrir Bukhari.

…………….(Continued)…………….