Khilafat-e-Rashidah — Page 203
KHILAFAT-E-R A SHIDAH 203 not mean that every scholar among the Muslims is like the Prophet of Ban i Isr a ’ i l, because there are also so- called scholars whose religious and moral condition is very depressing. At the age of ten or eleven, I went to Amritsar to purchase a few things with my maternal grandfather (deceased). I saw a Maulaw i wearing a long cloak with a staff and a rosary in his hand, walking in Rambagh. Behind him was a poor person begging him repeatedly, “Maulaw i Sahib, for God’s sake give me my money. ” After walking a few steps the Maulaw i turned back and said, “Go away, you wretch!” At last the poor man was tired and left him. I asked him what the matter was. He told me that he saved about two hundred rupees with great difficulty for his marriage and, considering the Maulaw i a religious person, he left the money with him as trust. But now on his demand the Maulaw i refused to pay it back, and denied recognizing him as well as his deposit. Can such Ulema be like the Prophets of Ban i Isr a ’ i l? Can it be said that the Hadith of the Prophet sa is concerned with such shameless Islamic “scholars”. The fact is that the Ulema mentioned in this Hadith are actually the Khulaf a ’ who are the spiritual Ulema. The meaning of this saying of the Prophet sa is that the tasks that were performed by Prophets in earlier times would now be entrusted by Allah, the Almighty to some divinely guided Ulema, i. e. the Khulaf a ’-e- R a shid i n. Just as, after Hadrat M u sa as (Moses), his work was entrusted to Joshua as , now this work would