In recent articles I have been writing about how our faith and belief promote moral values and if observed in our day-to-day affairs this can become a better place for mankind. In this connection I have given examples of persons who literally followed the articles of faith in all kinds of worldly dealings and were benefited, earned respect and regard, even their children reaped the harvest of benefits. In this article I want to show how piety is contagious and this influences the behaviour of others who come into contact with the pious ones.
The example of Hafiz Mohammad Taha Sahab comes to my mind. He was the eldest among my seven glorious cousins. He was court inspector of police in Gorakhpur. He helped build a mosque in the police lines and during the month of Ramadan he always led the Taraweeh. He continued that practice till his retirement and in the village mosque after his retirement. When he stood in the court, he would keep the right hand in the pocket, telling the beads and reciting something until the court proceedings began. While pleading a case, he would always tell the police officer concerned to tell him the facts of the case otherwise he would not plead the case. Thus he compelled the police officer to proceed against the culprit only. Thus there was no possibility of involving and prosecuting an innocent person in false cases, whereas today we see so many innocent persons held, incarcerated and tortured and involved in false and fictitious cases, spoiling the lives of peaceful people. How such behaviours of government officials can be helpful in making a healthy prosperous society can be understood.
After retirement he lived in his village home. It is not easy to guess how a person who had lived the life of a police officer during the British rule could adjust with the calm and quiet village life. But he kept himself busy in his pious engagements. He was court inspector of police; so people called him Kot Sahab. Most of the time he would sit in the room outside his house; that was the drawing room where he would recite the Qur’ān. One day a retired Patwari, a Kaistha by cast, came to him. The old man was abusing his son who was in service somewhere and not sending money enough for his expenses. In fact, the old man was addicted to consume toddy and was short of money to pay to the toddy-tapper. Kot Sahab quietly got up, went inside and in a while came out with closed fist, put something into the hands of Munshiji, as the Patwaris were called, and advised him never to ask for money from anyone except God.
Munshiji went away quietly and decided to give up taking toddy so that he may not have to beg for money. He often came to Kot Sahab, sat by his side, heard him reciting the Qur’ān and in course of time learnt severed Ayats.
Another example that presently comes to my mind is that of an administrative officer, Shamsul Hoda Farooqi. He was a nephew of Hafiz Taha Sahab. He served as Deputy Collector and ADM in several districts of U.P. and finally retired as ADM in Deoria, U.P. where he had started his career as Tahsildar in early 1940s and the same place became his last abode. He had a beautiful charming personality, tall and upright, fair complexion and light golden beard. He had given strict instructions to servants and the cook never to accept any gift from anyone, nothing should enter his house.
It was on his behest that I went to Deoria to join a job in the District Supply Office. For about a month I stayed with Hoda Bhai (as I called him) until I got a room in the upper floor of my office building. During the course of my stay with him in the Tahsil campus I could observe him more closely. A charming personality with melodious voice, a perfect example of cultured and humane behaviour, a poet and a writer, soft speaking and polite with his subordinates and the people.
Before proceeding further let me narrate the general condition in the post-war India with rising rage of freedom movement. Every commodity, necessity of life was very scarce right from salt, sugar, kerosene to cloth upwards. Wheat was selling four sers (about 4 kgs.) for a rupee and rice was selling about three sers for a rupee. But a rupee was hard to get. I was central cloth clerk in the District Supply Office Deoria with a salary of Rs. 52/- only. There were eight hundred licensed cloth dealers in the district, two hundred in each of the four tehsils. Cloth was so scarce that in case of death people cried more over the order to get the cloth for shrouding the dead body than over the death of a relative. I had heard people covering dead bodies in straw mats and consigning them to the river.
In such circumstances licensed cloth dealers always ran to the supply office to get their quota and get their cloth bales released from the railway at the earliest. It can be imagined how money must have been raining over the supply office then. Me the poor clerk was sitting in his room behind closed doors so that no one could enter the room. I had no woolens on my person except a muffler, but the peon sitting on a stool outside my room was wearing a woolen suit. My office colleagues in other sections believed that I was a fool. They did not know I was inflicted with the contagion of piety. When I left home to join a government job in Deoria, my father walked with me for some distance to see me off and then at that time his only advice to me was never to accept a single paisa apart from my salary. I followed his precept at my best throughout my life.
If the contagion of piety engulfed this worth, it would be a better place for humankind to live.