A Tribute to Hafiz Nisaruddin Ahmad.

A Tribute to Hafiz Nasiruddin Ahmad

By Dr Suhaib Hasan

The Islamic University in Madinah, which I joined in July 1962 as a young student, was a blessed place where I made many acquaintances. Among them was a young man, of my age, from the then East Pakistan, Hafiz Nasiruddin Ahmad by name. He joined the university a couple of years after me, but I got married then and moved out of the bachelor lodgings at the Campus. I moved to the small town of Madinah which had a population less than one hundred thousand people. Thus all the married couples had an opportunity to meet and visit each other. I was fortunate enough to live with my father, in his newly hired flat, who came to teach Hadith at the University just days after my marriage took place in Karachi. My other married colleagues, including Hafiz, had to rent lodgings in Madinah within the limited stipend of three hundred Riyals which every student used to receive monthly. Imagine how cheap living expenses were at that time. 50 to 75 Riyals was the average rent for a small house. Studying at Madina gave us all the opportunity to meet a number of respected scholars and dignitaries from East Pakistan as well as all over the world, who used to visit the holy land during Hajj every year.

I left Madina after my graduation in 1966, and was sent on my very first mission of teaching Arabic and Islam in Nairobi, Kenya where my stay was extended to a period of nine years, a long gap in that friendship which had its root in Madinah.

But Allah wanted this friendship to revive once again. In 1976, when I moved to London, apart from a family that has immigrated to UK from East Africa, Hafiz Nasiruddin Ahmad was one of two friends who received us at Heathrow. He had already rented for me a terraced house in Shepherds Bush. After a delicious meal at his apartment in Battersea, we moved to this temporary residence for two weeks. Although I later settled down in Wood Green, I continued to visit the Centre which he established in Battersea. I found him to be very industrious, courteous to whom he met, helpful to the seekers of assistance, an able educationist and a person with concern for the welfare of this Ummah.

I wish I knew the circumstances which led him to leave London and settle permanently in Bangladesh. During his visits to London he told me about his new centre in or around Dhaka, known as Shah Waliullah Centre, which catered both for orphans and the seekers of knowledge. A few years before his last illness, he visited me at my office at the Islamic Sharia Council at Leyton. I was shocked to see him as a frail old Sheikh accompanied with a younger relative. He must have been advised by his well-wishers to rest until he was stronger but I found him very concerned about the running and expansion of his Centre in Bangladesh. He carried with him a bundle of plans, all for just one cause! His concern was how to expand the Centre which he had established with dedication and the sweat of his brow. He was one of those fortunate people who live for a noble cause and die for a noble cause.

I remember him as a successful man who, as mentioned by the Prophet (saw), left behind him the three legacies which do not terminate by the death of a person. Instead they continue to increase the reward of the one who initiated them. They are/:

        I.            The pious children who always supplicates for him.

     II.            The knowledge from which the people benefit.

  III.            The act of charity which continues giving its fruits to the people.

I end these short lines by the saying of Allah:

Among the Believers are men who have been true to their covenant with Allah: of them some have completed their vow (to the extreme), and some (still) wait: but they have never changed (their determination) in the least

That Allah may reward the men of Truth for their Truth, and punish the Hypocrites if that be His Will, or turn to them in Mercy: for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

[Surah Ahzab verse 23-24]