Turning Point
Al-Risala (English), August 1991, p. 4
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
Turning Point
1991 8 August 4 Turning Point (391) Maulana Syed Amir Ali (1858-1921) was born at Malihabad and died at Lucknow. Forced by adverse circumstances to discontinue his education after middle school, he sought a job, and was employed as a Post Master at a sub-post office in Baharaich. He then acquired a working knowledge of the English language which was necessary for the position he held.
Brought up in a religious family, he offered his prayers punctually. One Friday, when he had gone to the mosque to perform his prayers, a government official came to inspect the post office. He was enraged to find the Post Master missing. When someone went to inform Syed Amir Ali, he was performing his ablutions. He kept his calm, returned unperturbed to the post office, but only after having said his prayers. When the officer asked him for his explanation, he remained silent and did not offer any excuse. Then, picking up a sheet of paper, he wrote his resignation, handed it over to the officer and went home.
Till that day Syed Amir Ali was conversant only with Urdu and English. He knew neither Arabic nor Persian. However, the resignation had given him a jolt. It set him thinking: “I have almost no direct knowledge of the religion for which I have tendered my resignation. And that I will not be able to answer any questions put to me about it.” He was not very familiar either with the Qur’an or the Hadith.
Suddenly, he was fired by a new zeal. He was determined to learn Arabic and Persian. He went on to achieve such mastery of the Arabic language that he came to be considered an expert. He was appointed as a teacher of Hadith at Darul Ulum Nadwah (Lucknow). Later he became the Head of the Madarsa Alia, Calcutta. His translated works from Arabic language were published by the well-known publisher, Munshi Nawal Kishore (d. 1895). Some of these are: Sahih Bukhari, Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, etc. (Qaumi Awaz, 4 Feb., 1990). If a man has ‘life’ in him, even a small incident will give him the impetus to perform magnificently. But a man without ‘life’ will respond in a lackadaisical manner, even in the face of events of great consequence. His reaction will be that of a man who neither sees nor learns, even from the major ‘events’ in his life.
