During lock down I was organizing the old stuff left by my father. In that I found some papers in old dilapidated state, crumpled. On closer inspection I found them belonging to my grandfather’s father. Till this time I had only seen a Pic of my grand father’s father in a Pic of my father’s graduation in 1930s. The person in white beard. On greater inspection I found that he belonged to naqshbandi silsila. in those papers there were his منظوم صوفیانہ کلام dating back to 1880s. The Kalam is in Arabic, Persian and urdu. It has been a great excavation and curating experience. No one in the family today seemed to be aware of this treasure or the spiritual life of my grandfather’s father. My father did not share this and we did not ask him. He had been too reticent about his life before partition. It was too painful. But now I could see the connection of ethical and spiritual values of my grandfather’s father with the strong character, truthfulness, morals, principles of my father, uncle, and three of my father’s cousins standing in this Pic. I could see the strong influence of these values in their life with this lineage. I can now connect many of my personality traits with those spiritual teachings which I stumbled on in these papers. I could see those values alive and kicking within my siblings and cousins….
Life is insignificant (in khasara) except for those who believed, did good deeds, promoted Haq and enjoined sabr. The good deeds and tarbiyat of our parents spreads through our actions and good deeds and the tarbiyat that we do of our children. We may not know the name of our great grandfathers, but their legacy of good deeds got transmitted to our grandparents and from them to our parents and from them to our children and inshallah to our children’s children and then on and on, inshallah. Names and places are forgotten by mortals but the good deeds live on and their contribution would be counted and tallied on the day of judgements by the omniscient Allah.
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