Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 211
211 would mean that about ninety - seven thousand rupees have been spent on these houses a nd about one hundred and fifty thousand rupees were spent on the m osque. In other words, the women have already given two hundred and forty - seven thousand rupees and they have given ninety - nine thousand rupees for the Holland M osque. In spite of this, T a hrik - e - Jadid office is putting pressure on women to donate an additional seventy - six thousand rupees. Whereas, if the London M osque and the houses bought from women’s chanda are sold, the funds raised will be enough to pay off the entire loan for the Holland M osque. And in fact, we can build a m osque there as well. I called Chaudhry Shabbir Ahmad, who is in charge of the f oreign b ranch of the Finance department, and asked him, ‘D o you have any record which shows that when the estimate of one hundred and thirty - four thousand rupees from Hague was received, I gave permission to collect this amount from women? ’ Because w omen h ave the right to be asked in advance if they were even able to pay that amount or not. He said , ‘It is regretful that w e made a mistake at the time , and we did not ask Ha z rat Khalifat - ul - Masih II ’s ra permission to be allowed to collect the additional funds from women as well. We don't have any record indicating that permission was sought to collect more funds. ’ I said, ‘ Fine, I accept that you did not seek my permission to collect one hundred and thirty - four thousand rupees , b ut when that amount increased to one hundred and seventy - five thousand rupees, then you should have taken my permission. Did you seek my permission? ’ They re plied once again, ‘We did not get permission from H u z oo r and we have no document which states that we received p ermission to collect one hundred and thirty - four thousand rupees or one hundred and seventy - five thousand rupees from the ladies. ’ Therefore, it is my decision that this year Lajna Ima’illah should only donate thirty - six thousand rupees to T a hrik - e - Jadid. The remaining amount shall be paid by T a hrik - e - Jadid itself. Lajna Ima’illah will not pay more than thirty - six thousand rupees a nd the Holland M osque will forever remain attributed to women. If we include the London M osque as well, then the Lajna ha s already paid out three hundred and forty - six thousand rupee s. Now the circumstances are such that if we appeal for one hundred thousand rupees from our women, they are able to collect it …” ( Al - Fazl , 23 February 1958 , p p. 3 - 4)