Proceedings of the Prayer Meeting — Page 16
16 as the second offence, so he hesitated to make the call. However, when he was assured to the contrary, he made the call to prayer as loud as before. The honourable officer, upon this, said it did him no harm and inquired from the head clerk if any harm had been done to him. He too said that, in fact, no harm had been caused. At last, the muazzin was released and permitted to make the call to prayer as he liked. Allah-o-Akbar [Allah is the Greatest]! How much freedom indeed and how great a favour of Almighty Allah! Upon such manifest grace and favour, if one’s heart cannot feel the kindness of the English Government, that heart is ungrateful and disloyal and is worthy of being ripped out of the chest. In this village of ours, too, at a place where our mosque is located, there used to be a piece of land allotted to state officials. Those were my childhood days but I have heard from credible men that when the British arrived here the same old laws remained in effect for a few days. During those days an official came here. He was accompanied by a Muslim soldier who came into the mosque and told the muazzin to sound the call to prayer. The muazzin fearfully called the azan in a low tone as he used to. The soldier asked him if that was the way he normally sounded the call to prayer. The muazzin replied, ‘Yes, this is the way we do it. ’ The sol- dier insisted, ‘No, climb the roof and sound the azan out loud, and make the call to prayer as loud as you possibly can. ’ The muazzin was initially fearful, but finally, at the insistence of the soldier, he sounded the call to prayer out loud. At this, all the Hindus rallied together and apprehended the mullah. The poor fellow became fearful and worried that the official might hang him. The soldier assured him that he was with him. At last, the brutal and heartless Brahmans took the mullah to the official and complained: ‘Sir,