Truth Triumphs

Truth Triumphs

1988 5 May 16 Truth Triumphs (456) At the turn of the century, when the British still ruled in India, an English magistrate once found himself unable to settle a dispute over the ownership of a piece of land adjoining the site for a new mosque. This dispute had been dragging on for years with Muslims insisting that the land belonged to the mosque and Hindus insisting with equal fervour that it was actually the site of an ancient temple. After exhaustive enquiries, the evidence brought before him was still inconclusive, but he finally hit upon the stratagem of asking the Muslims to produce a Hindu who would testify to the land belonging to the mosque, and the Hindus to produce a Muslim who would verify that the land had indeed been the site of a temple. However, in a communal matter such as this, where a loss of prestige was not to be envisaged, and neither side trusted the other to tell the truth, no such witnesses were brought forward. However, in order to reach a final settlement, the Hindus eventually made the proposal that they should consult a holy man of their village, one Maulana Mahmud Bakhsh, the father of Maulana Muzaffar Hussain Kandhelvi, for they did not “expect him to tell a lie.”

The magistrate, who was at that time based in a village called Ailum, near Kandhela, promptly summoned the holy man to give evidence in his court. A large number of Hindus and Muslims gathered outside and awaited the final judgement with bated breath. They had it soon enough when Maulana Mahmud Bakhsh averred unhesitatingly that the land belonged to the Hindus.

The Muslims left the court sullen and crestfallen, many of them accusing the Maulana of having disgraced them. Little did they realize that although they had lost the legal battle, they were soon to triumph on a religious issue. It seems that the Hindus were so impressed by the Maulana’s lack of prejudice and unswerving honesty, that they began to see Islam in a new light. They began to see that what had given him the moral strength to uphold a right which was prejudicial to the interests of his own co-religionists was, in effect, his religion. As a result, several families in Kandhla accepted Islam at the hand of Maulana Mahmud Bakhsh. One of these families was still living in Kandhla at the time of the partition of India in 1947.

Unfortunately, for similar issues in recent times, no such happy solution has been found, for Muslims continue to show national bias when dealing with non-Muslims, thus effectively alienating the other party. If they were only to put truth first and foremost, God would bless their efforts and turn their worldly defeats into eternal triumphs.