Part
Fazl-e-Umar
A phrase in the Arabic language says, “A child is a child even if he will become a prophet.” But if you combine with it the Urdu phrase, “A precocious child shows the man inside him” it makes the whole truth.
No matter what high positions a child is going to reach in view of his innate powers, his childhood innocence and spontaneity remains intact, but at the same time occasionally you do see some glimpses of his glorious future. Seeing such a child, the perceptive mind soon realises that with the Grace of God one day this child will become a great man.
During the childhood of Hadhrat Mirza Bashiruddin sahib (also referred to as Hadhrat Sahibzada Sahib) we see a wonderful intermingling of these two aspects. To illustrate this an incident of his childhood has been narrated by Hadhrat Maulvi Abdul Karim [ra] – a noble companion of the Promised Messiah [as]:
“When Mahmud was about three years of age, the Promised Messiah [as] once happened to be in Ludhiana and I too, was with him. There was a partition wall between the male and female quarters of the house where we were staying. It was summer and the weather was very hot. I happened to wake up once in the middle of the night to hear Mahmud crying and the Promised Messiah [as] talking to him gently to divert his mind. The Promised Messiah [as] seemed to be carrying him in his arms, and pacing about to soothe him, but the child continued to cry. After some time the Promised Messiah [as] said: ‘Look how brightly that star shines Mahmud!’ This arrested the child’s attention evidently, for he quietened down for a moment but started crying again with a new basis for his petulance. ‘I wish to go to that star!’ he now wailed over and over again.
But the loving patience of the Promised Messiah [as] was in no way ruffled by
this impossible demand. Instead, he was rather amused by it, and I heard him
saying softly to himself, ‘I had tried to divert his attention, but he has discovered
in that a new reason to continue crying.’ The child fell asleep only when he was
too tired to cry any more, however, throughout the whole episode there never
was a harsh tone in the voice of the Promised Messiah.”
Reflecting upon this child’s later life we learn that his longing wish to go to the stars was certainly pointing to his high aims that continued to spur him throughout his life on his inexhaustible power of effort and activity. Moreover, the incident sheds light upon the Promised Messiah’s love, kindness and tolerance towards children. He never thought himself too grand for any task even though his every moment was filled with a crushing workload. One must bear in mind that apart from writing over 85 books, he replied to around 90,000 letters. This amounts to 35 letters per day! He did this unaided without any secretaries or assistants. He also received around 60,000 visitors who gathered to hear his claim to be the Promised Messiah. Hence, during those few precious hours of rest, he nurses a crying child by cradling him in his loving arms until he falls asleep of his own will. This was an example of his very high moral standard. This episode is from very early childhood. There is another similar incident in later life that tested his patience and restraint still further. God Almighty had blessed the Promised Messiah [as] with a huge amount of patience and forbearance. Allah Almighty blessed him with an abundantly kind and affectionate heart making it difficult for him to lose patience with children. Whatever the reason may be Huzur’s patience and forbearance with this child was extraordinary as is manifest from the incident below, also related by Hadhrat Maulvi Abdul Kareem [ra]:
“When in his fourth or fifth year, Mahmud one day came into the room where the Promised Messiah [as] sat writing. He had a box of matches in his hands and he was followed by a troop of young friends. They played about in the room for some time, talking and laughing and quarrelling among themselves. Then a bright idea occurred to Mahmud to contrive a new diversion. He secured a quantity of papers (pages of the valuable manuscript of a work the Promised Messiah [as] had in hand), struck a match and set them ablaze. They crackled and curled and in a moment there was nothing left of them but a heap of ashes, or a charred bit or two, which the wind blew away. This pleasant pastime over, the children trooped out of the room and busied themselves in other pursuits. The Promised Messiah [as] remained absorbed in writing, undisturbed, and unconscious of the noise and commotion that had occurred in the room. After some time he felt the necessity to consult some back page to get the sequence of ideas and he rose to get it. But the required page was nowhere to be seen and in the room was a heap of ashes. Inquiries having been made and the truth of the matter ascertained, the children were frightened and members of the household too were apprehensive in view of the valuable nature of the papers. The Promised Messiah [as] however, on being told only remarked smilingly, ‘that’s all right. It does not matter. The Almighty God it seems intends to give me the power to write to much better effect than I had done previously so by this means he has destroyed what I had written”
This tolerance and forbearance by no means meant that, God forbid, the Promised Messiah [as] did not appreciate how to bring up children, or was like such mothers who spoil their children out of unconditional love.
In fact, Huzur’s training of children was very unique and subtle. As will become apparent from the following incident, when it was appropriate Huzur was very strict with his children. The difference was only that when Huzur personally felt the effect of the incident, he never reproached Hadhrat Musleh Mau’ood [ra] no matter how much discomfort his actions may have caused. But as far as religious matters were concerned, or such mistakes were committed that posed a danger of affecting one’s character adversely, he certainly reprimanded him gently or sternly as the occasion demanded. This differentiation is most important and carries a deep lesson for those who have the grave responsibility for moral training, as to where the limits of tolerance end and the requirements of strictness begin. To illustrate this differentiation, two minor incidents are narrated here. Hadhrat Sahibzada Sahib himself has narrated the first one:
national Sense of Honour
“Once a dog came to our door as I stood there. Huzur was in the room alone.
I beckoned the dog calling, ‘Teepu! Teepu!! Huzur came out in a distress and
said, ‘aren’t you ashamed? The English because of animosity have named their
dogs after the name of a sincere Muslim and you are copying them and call the
dog Teepu. Beware! Never repeat it again!’
“I was only eight or nine at the time and it was the first day when the love of
Teepu Sultan was established in my heart.”
While on the one hand we conclude from this incident that to tolerate every action of a child without distinction does not fall under the definition of forbearance, we can also guess to some extent, the limitless religious and sense of national honour of the Promised Messiah [as]. He tolerated the action of this child when he set fire and reduced in a moment to dust his priceless manuscripts prepared with hard labour of, God knows, how many hours and how many nights and ignored the trouble of rewriting, yet he could not tolerate the innocent disrespect of a Muslim King who was martyred defending national honour and with whom the Promised Messiah [as] had no other connection besides Islam.