Seerat-i-Tayyiba — Page 56
56 which belonged to her. It appeared that this loving hospitality was like a spiritual food and sustenance for her soul. On the occasion of the two Islamic Eids she would every year invite the whole family to dinner herself, personally supervising all arrangements on such days, taking care to remember what special dishes were favorites with her sons or daughters, and other relations and making arrangements to have those things available as far as she could manage. Towards the end of her life, when she no longer felt strong enough to undertake this labor of love, and wished that someone would undertake to manage these functions on her behalf and with her money. A short time before her death, when she was very very weak, and seriously ailing, one of my maternal aunts, who was staying with her the better to be able to nurse her and look after her, asked me one day during the month of Ramadhan that in the evening I should break my fast at Amman Jaan’s. At the time I thought that my aunt had invited me on her own volition, thinking that my presence would be a source of satisfaction and joy for Amma Jaan. But at the proper time when I went there, I found elaborate arrangements for the occasion, and then my aunt told me that the invitation had been extended at the express wish of Hazrat Amma Jaan. 8 Hazrat Amma Jaan was accustomed to hard work, and enjoyed doing small jobs with her own hands. On innumerable occasions I have seen her cooking, spinning at the wheel, weaving nawar ( cotton band) feeding the milk buffaloes, and personally supervising the work of the sweeper women as they did the daily cleaning in and around the house, pouring water into the drains with her own hands, the better to enable them to do the job thoroughly. She liked to have flower plants, or creepers of Indian beans or medicinal gilo inside the house, in the courtyard, and very often liked to water them herself. 9 She had such a sympathetic and feeling heart that she used to go personally to inquire about the health of ladies or women in her circle of life and particularly her neighbors who happened to ill; and in this she never made any distinction between rich and the poor. During such merciful visits she would comfort and console the patients, as was the way of the Holy Prophet by saying and praying that they would soon be restored to health.