Khilafat Centenary Souvenir 1908-2008 — Page 158
Khilafat Centenary The second day, the Khalifa ra had said "you need to go see Mirza Tahir Ahmad rta. You can go there and talk to him after this visit with me. " So that's what I did. I went to Mirza Tahir Ahmad's rta office. And we talked, it was so easy, and we talked and talked. And so every morning I would go over to Khalifa'sru office and would spend half an hour there but could not think of anything to say, so I would then go over to Mirza Tahir Ahmad's na office and spend most of the mornings with him. So what happened was a week later, after the Majlis-e-Shura, there was a dinner for all of the delegates. So I was sitting at the front table with the Khalifa 'a. I was in the middle between the Khalifa 'a and Mirza Tahir Ahmad rta. When the Khalifa'a spoke to me, I would be nervous and not have much to say. But then I would turn to Mirza Tahir Ahmad 'ta, and my mouth would just be flowing and I would just be talking and so on. And he said to me, "Munir, this is strange. You go to the Khalifa 'a each morning and have nothing to sa y, and you come to my office and I cannot get you to stop talking. Wh y is that?" And, I said, 'I don 't know, I don 't know what the significance of that is'. So during my 32 days in Rabwah, I offered Fajr prayers with the Khalifa 'a, and Zuhr and Asr, I would go to the different mosques in Rabwah. And then for Maghrib and Isha, I would be back to the Masjid Mubarak, and offer salat behind Huzur 'a. And it was so beautiful, because he would give me that look meaning in essence "Munir, when are you going to come and see me again ?" When I was leaving Rabwah, I went to see him again and I did not say anything about the Americanjama'at, but he said to me "Munir, you had mentioned about the American Jama'at and they are asking me to pick a date for their convention. They should pick a date for their convention, and it should not be left up to me. You know what is wrong, is that whenever I tell America to do something, they always say we are going to establish a committee and then we' ll get back to you. When I tell Africa to do something or I tell other communities such as Indonesia, they say 'Yes Huzur, we hear and we obey. ' They do what I tell them to do. " And he said to convey that message back to the people of America, and I did. Belal: Can you please share any of your memories from your meetings with Hadhrat Mirza Tah ir Ahmad rta before he became Khalifa? I looked at this years later, as nothing happens just by chance. I was sitting between the two Khalifahs, the third Khalifa ra and the fourth Khalifah rt a. And the fourth Khalifah rta is not aware that he is going to be Khalifa, he is just serving the third Khalifa 'a, and I watched his service to the third Khalifa 'a, and it was exemplar y. I had never seen anything like that before in my life. When the Khalifa ra said something and he would turn to him, he would jump and do it immediately. He and his staff would do these things. When I met, Sahibzada Mirza Tahir Ahmad 'ta, I did not know he was going to be the next Khalifa, but his personality and his spirituality was just exuding out of the pores of his skin, almost like sweat does, and he had that kind of magnetic effect. And it resembled in some wa ys to the effect that the Khalifa had to some extent. I will give you an example, when I met with the Khalifa 'a at the time, he would open up his arms and we would hug and I would fall into his arms like a bab y. So when I met Sahibzada Mirza Tahir Ahmad 'ta, I asked him if it was permissible to hug him since I did not know whether it was permissible or not , since he was Sadr Ansarullah. So he said to me jokingl y, "If y ou don't hug me , I'll break your arms. " But that's how he was. The conversations that I would have with him were always sprinkled with some kind of humor to make me more relaxed. And I think that when I was around the Khalifa ra I was less relaxed, because when I was around the Khalifa 'a, it looked as if his ey es were so piercing that he could see my very soul. And so I did not want to reveal anything to him that was negative. But w hen I was talking to Mirza Tahir Ahmad 'ta, it was as if I was speaking to another brother in a sense. So in our conversations, he said to me while I was in Rabwah, "Munir, you have been to every mosque in Rabwah. Wh y did you go to every mosque?" I said that I wanted to see what was going on in those mosques. He said, "But you did not go there for Fajr pra yers, Maghrib pra yers, or Isha pra yers, you only went for Zuhr and Asr pra yers. " I said that was because I wanted to offer that salat behind the Khalifa'a so that I could hear his voice reciting the Holy Qur'an. But I went for Zuhr and Asr prayers to these other mosques because I knew that the afternoon services were going to be offered without recitation of prayers. So he asked, "What is your observation from visiting these mosques ?" I said my observation is that the Khalifa is like the Queen Bee, because he is there and all of the workers are around him working to produce this