| [ BACK
] |
Maulavi
Siraj-ud-Din was the editor of the leading Muslim Urdu
daily paper, the Zamindar of Lahore, at the time
of Hazrat Mirza's death. He was the father of the
well-known Maulavi Zafar Ali Khan, who himself later
became editor of Zamindar. In his obituary of
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad published in Zamindar,
Maulavi Siraj-ud-Din wrote:
``Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
sahib was a clerk near the district of Sialkot in
about 1860 or 1861. He would be about 22 or 23 years
of age at the time. We can say from personal
experience that, even in his youth, he was a very
virtuous and righteous person. After work all his
time was spent in religious studies. He did not much
meet people. In 1877 we had the honour of his
hospitality at his home in Qadian for one night. In
those days too, he was so engrossed in worship and
devotion that he conversed little, even with
guests…We have often said, and we again say,
that even if his claims were the result of mental
pre-occupation, he was innocent of pretence or
fabrication…Scholarly figures such as Maulavi
Nur-ud-Din and Maulavi Muhammad Ahsan, and products
of modern education such as Khawaja Jamal-ud-Din,
B.A., Khawaja Kamal-ud-Din, B.A., and Maulavi
Muhammad Ali, M.A., are among his followers. Though
we personally did not have the honour of believing in
his claims or revelations, nonetheless we consider
him to be a perfect Muslim.''
(Zamindar,
8 June 1908)
|