Respecting our Teachers

The hadeeth kitabs which were taught in the madressa by other teachers were always accompanied by long lectures. Whenever I saw these lectures being held, my mouth used to water to attend. I sought my father's permission to be allowed to listen to these lessons held by someone else, but he always refused permission most emphatically and every time he used to say:

"You are unmannered. You only repsect me because of the shoes with which I beat you and you honour Hazrat [ie. Hazrat Khalid Mahmood Saharanpuri رحمة الله عليه] by heart."

This is reference to a specific incident to which he referred to on many occasions saying: "You do not even go on to the roof of Hazrat's house (out of respect for him) but you are prepared to climb on my head."

The story is this: My father's room was the western-most room of the library, which is now included into the library. The outside area of it was empty (as already mentioned in connection with the reading of Sharah Tahzeeb). When one wished to come along the stairs to my father's room, one had to walk over the roof of Hazrat's room. To come to his room instead of crossing over Hazrat's roof I climbed over the wall alongside his roof. Actually this was done for show because I am not even in possession of good manners upto this day. This is the reason why my fahter said: "You are unmannered. If you should act unmannerly to a falsafa or mantiq teacher, that knowledge will leave you and it will be a calamity for me. But if you should act unmannerly to any hadeeth teacher, this will be completely unbearable and unacceptable to me because you will then be deprived of the blessings of hadeeth."

In this he was right. I have not been able to show due respect to my Ustads and in spite of my ill-manners, my Ustads have treated me with great love, sympathy and goodwill. May Allah grant them all high ranks. Except for Hazrat Saheb, all the rest of my teachers treated me as an equal as if I was their contemporary or class-mate.

A most pertinent talk on this topic can also be found on the Sacredlearning website [see links] titled 'Debt to our Teachers'.

O Lovers of Rasulallah صلى الله عليه وسلم !

This post is a little bit of a side track from usual. I wish to share with the readers a verse from a beautiful poem that Hazrat Yusuf Motala (db) mentions being read out in a Jalsa in Delhi. The following are the words of Hazrat Saheb.

Amongst the Saints on stage Molana Muhammad Ilyas (founder of Jamaat-e-Tabligh) was also present and when the following verse was read from a poem by Allaama Iqbal:

You are the wealthy of both worlds and I am the poor one,

Accept my excuses on the Day of Judgement,

And if you are to take account of me,

Then take it out of the sigh of Mustafa...

Molana Ilyas became much moved and in this state he continued weeping, later stating that this seems to be the words of a sincere person.

I wish they do not place me before him on Doomsday...