Khwaja garib nawaz biography of williams
Garib nawaz biography of williams
Achievements His achievements prove Muhammad's Prophethood
Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, was peerless in educating people
A man, whoever he is and whatever he does, may regard his own occupation as more important, more necessary, more beneficial to social life and more difficult than others. However, although every occupation has some difficulty of its own and is of some degree of use for social life, educating people must be much more difficult than others and more necessary for a healthy social life.
To bring up distinguished persons require distinguished educators. Only an educator who has established his aim in educating people and practices what he will teach and advise to his students, only one who knows the character, potentialities, desires, and ambitions of his students with the shortcomings and strong and weak spots and the level of learning and understanding of each, can be successful in educating people. Of course, this is not all that a good, successful educator must have. Furthermore, he must know how to treat his students in all circumstances, how to approach their problems and how to purify them of bad qualities and morals and, in place of them, inculcate laudable and good ones.
A man may have strong belief in what he must believe but he may not be practicing his belief in his daily life. He may have some good moral qualities but they might have not been an ingrained part of his character. Moreover, he may have certain weak spots such as taking bribery and insensitivity to making use of common property or hoarding up wealth. What the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, achieved in educating people within so short a time as 23 years is much more than what that educator does.
Prophet Muhammad was matchless in knowing people each with his character
It is another important dimension of a good education is not to resort to force. Penal sanctions, coercion and military and police forces can
Six years ago, in the autumn of , I was sitting in a roadside tea shop surrounded by the desert landscape of Rajasthan, when I saw a succession of bicycle rickshaws appear over the horizon. There were five in all, and they were winding their way through the dusty scrub of the Jaipur highway. From the canopy of each rickshaw flew a small green flag on which was embroidered a silver crescent. As they came nearer, I saw that inside the rickshaws were 12 Sufi dervishes, with long unkempt beards. The drivers and dervishes were all hot and thirsty, and pulled into the dhaba calling for water and tea.
“Where are you going?” I asked, as the men began to step down and shake the desert from their clothes.
“To the Urs [festival] of Khwaja Garib Nawaz at Ajmer,” said a driver. “We have bicycled these men all the way from Delhi.”
“Delhi? But that is – what? – kilometres?”
“Garib Nawaz [literally, ‘The Friend of the Poor’] will reward us for our pains,” said the second rickshaw driver. “It is he who gives us strength.”
“Anyone who steps through the door of his shrine,” said one of the dervishes, “will get paradise as his everlasting home.”
I was heading in the same direction, so the following day I went along to the Sufi shrine in Ajmer. It was hosting one of the largest Muslim mystical festivals in the entire Islamic world. Virtually overnight, a small provincial town had been transformed into a heaving mystic metropolis. Tens of thousands of pilgrims from all over India were milling around the streets, unrolling their bedding on the pavements, cooking their breakfasts on portable stoves and haggling for provisions.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today for only £1 per week
Subscribe
Inside the shrine enclosure, ecstatics and madmen crammed into a succession of Mughal mosques, tombs and pavilions. The entire complex was alive with the intoxicating smell of the roses that the devotees carried in sweet-smelling punnets to pour on the saint’s grave. The numbers we
The mystics are, in a way, like the sun. They also give light and dispel darkness. They inspire, guide and teach.
Nobody worships the setting sun. But, unlike the sun, even when the mystics die and depart, they are adorned and extolled.
Like the rays of the sun, they make no distinction between man and man. To them, there is no East or West and no border or birth.
Likewise, a mystic believes in service rendered to the people, belonging as they do, to different sects, groups, and communities.
A mystic is, in fact, above the distinctions of caste, creed, colour, religion or region.
A mystic believes and believes firmly, what Hamlet says to Horatio:
&#;There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.&#;
A mystic is an institution in himself. His lifestyle serves as a beacon light. The eminent poet H.W. Longfellow truly says:
&#;Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sand of time&#;&#;
To a mystic, life is a great gift. Life then, being a gift, it is for us to make it or mar it, use it or abuse it, assimilate it or dissipate it.
Right use of life is necessary for creative living. Life is a constant search for new avenues.
The mystics lead a calm, placid and serene life. They prize the gift of life, and as such, they offer thanks to their Creator, Who has bestowed the gift of life upon them.
They have pity for those who do not use the gift of life in a befitting manner.
They are a peace -loving people, who abhor selfish-ness. Sri Ramakrishna very aptly says:
&#;The first sign of knowledge is a peaceful nature, and the second is the absence of egotism.&#;
Everyone of us, whether high or low, rich or poor, literate or illiterate, is given some gift to be utilized and used rightly. If the gift so given is not used rightly, it ceases to be a gift. The gift, so given, is to sustain the man. If not used properly, and at the opport