My Mother — Page 109
Fulfilment of Dream (B) 109 continued in the Government, but Divine guidance clearly pointed to the Federal Court. Had I chosen to remain perma- nently in India on partition in 1947, I would certainly have been the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India; but I was determined not to settle in India. In December 1947, I was offered the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, but I preferred the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. In 1952, Mian Abdur Rashid, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, urged me very strongly to agree to succeed him on the Court, but I declined his kind offer. If I had been re-elected a member of the International Court of Justice in 1961, I would certainly have succeeded President Klaestad in the Presidency of the Court. But I was not re-elected, and that seemed the end of my public career. In the eyes of the wordly, no possibility had been left of the fulfilment of my moth- er’s dream. But I was convinced that her dream was true. It con- tained a Divine promise which was bound to be fulfilled, when or in what manner, I knew not. As is said in the Holy Quran, ‘Hearken, Allah’s promise is true, but most of them know not’ (10:56). God had closed one door; He could open another. My being sent to the United Nations as Pakistan’s Ambassador at 68 years of age was the opening of that door. But watch again the wondrous working of the Divine will and purpose. Mr. Mongi Sleem of Tunisia was to be the President of the Sixteenth Session (1961) of the General Assembly. The Presidency of the Seventeenth Session (1962) had been promised to Mr. Ali Sastroamidjoyo of Indonesia. In that event the rotation of the Presidency would have been Latin America (1963), Africa (1964), West (1965) and Asia (1966). By