In the hopes to meet the man who left village some years ago, all eyes were looking to the sky. All the faces were anxious to see that inhabitant of a village who was known for tranquility, brotherhood and fraternity. Soon the plane landed and in a short span of time, the villagers came across the face they longed to see in years. Murtaza belonged to a small village in the suburbs of Sheikhupura. He was very intellectual and sharp-witted so his parents decided to send him abroad for higher studies.
The agonized moments of wait by the villagers ended when there was an official announcement that flight No. Pk-512 would be landing after few minutes. All the villagers were ready to receive Murtaza, holding pendants in their hands in that hustle and bustle moment of pleasures. On the front of airport gate was Murtaza’s father Ghulam Rasul and to left and right side Murtaza’s childhood friends Ali, Ahmad and Sunny stood the remaining villagers were standing behind them. Passengers were coming outside the main gate one by one but they were staring at every one but at once they saw a man who was wearing full English dress, had full fair color, long brownish and curly hair, English hat on his head and black spectacles on nose with stylish shoes. He came towards the villagers and stood near them and looked at them very strangely he said “I am Murtaza from UK, I am assure you could not have recognized me”. Ghulam Rasul said “you are absolutely right, we could not identify you”. Meanwhile the clone started beating drum and dance of villagers started, every one was very happy cordially to see Murtaza and he was also happy to see villagers along with family members. At the same time Ghulam Rasul said, “Let’s move to village because others are waiting for us” then taxi was ready for Murtaza and he sat on the front seat which others boarded Tractor and Trolley.
When they were about to reach village, there were people standing outside the village one kilometer out of village to receive Murtaza. One of them lifted Murtaza on his shoulder and started dancing on the rhythem of beating drum and moved towards village. With their entrance in the village, all the women and children were on the roof just to set a glimpse of Murtaza’s contour. Thus he was very delighted with the villager behavior and curiosity he was also enjoying the new experience of his life. Well, he passed the first night in the village almost after twenty years with festive and pleasurable moments of life. He was not used to wake up early but owing to open atmosphere/environment; he awoke early in the morning and went outside the village to see green trees, vast meadows, and flowery bushes in surrounding village, which he was not seen earlier. The blossoming flowers, fragrant air, the rising and setting sun all leave a healthy influence on the health of a personal mind. In the summer days, he rested under shady trees, and took bath in cool water of inland waterway of the canal. He was fascinated domestic animals such as cows, goats, hens etc. His small village was still void of the facilities like safe drinking water and electricity; even hospitals and schools were at long distances. He was well known that life in the village required more struggle than the relatively modern lifestyles of his past experience. He was very impressed that village life in Pakistan depicts a true picture of the culture the villagers were very traditional and hard working people. They woke up early in the morning with the Fajar prayer and started working in the fields. They worked all day long in the field under the sun without caring about the harsh weather. This was the only way for them to earn their livelihood.
They lived in a serene and clean environment surrounded by green orchard and lush crop fields. There were beautiful flowing streams and ponds. People lived in a very well knit community; they helped and solved each other’s problems. The elders had great respect and in the evening they gathered in village “chopal” (a community meeting held every day) and discussed their problems, which mainly focused on the water distribution from a mohga (water outlet from a main stream), good or bad crop during the season and some petty matters of biradris. The discussions in a chopal were though full of opposite views and dissensions too, yet at the end there was a more amicable end as in every matter the izzat of the village was supposed to remain supreme in every village dweller’s eyes. Everything was going on exquisite but sometimes he felt himself inwardly uncomfortable and missed someone in his leisure spans. One day, he was absorbed in the dream of his class mate memories that suddenly his father Ghulam Rasul called him loudly for Fajjar prayer. But he did not bother and asked his father to leave him alone. He said I don’t believe on these types of religious things. With this attitude of Murtaza, Ghulam Rasul was so upset as he did not expect this from Murtaza against religion and important pillars of Islam. Afterward, Ghulam Rasul went to mosque for performing prayer of Fajjar. Right after that he sat in corner of mosque and was thinking about Murtaza’s attitude and about his future also, how he will survive when people come to know about his real faith and path. Meanwhile, Imam Mosque came to Ghulam Rasul and asked “why you are worried and weeping, you are one of lucky man in the earth of God who blessed you with a special son”. He replied “I am weeping and worried on account of my son’s faith, which is not purely Islamic there was no doubt that he was foreign quMurtazafied and there was no one parallel of his personMurtazaty in the vast & long area of surrounding villages”. In this connection, Ghulam Rasul was demanding from Imam-e-mosque for the better solution of the critical situation. He suggested to do the marriage of Murtaza in some religious family so that’s he would motivate him for Islam as well as for real path of Almighty Allah. He was impressed as this idea appealed to his mind. He started searching for one of the religion family.
On other side, Murtaza was missing his girl friend and classmate Naki, he loved her much and she loved him too. Most of the times, Murtaza was thinking about his University memories and about beautiful romantic scenes, Murtaza had vowed to her life and given her a beautiful bracelet along with flowers on her birth day. They had promised with each other to marry after the consent of their parents, so one objective of his visit to the village was to also motivate his parents for marriage with Naki and permanent settlement in abroad. He was waiting for appropriate time for the discussion. In the process, Ghulam Rasul called Murtaza and told him that they were doing arrangement of his marriage in a big and well known political family of the country in the next coming week. Murtaza was astonished after the news and straightforwardly refused. He condemned with this statement “I am already engaged with the promise of marriage with my classmate, who belonged to well settled and elite class family of U.K., so I cannot do this because we love each other and have committed for marriage”. Ghulam Rasul tried many times to motivate Murtaza for marriage with the help of his childhood friends Ali, Ahmad and Sunny, but failed. Meanwhile he received a letter of Naki in which she said “I am under a lot of pressure from my parents Kathen and Gorven, they want my marriage in high upper class family, I refused and told them about you and your complete history thoroughly, at the end, they agreed with few demands i.e. your conversion into Christianity and permanent settlement in U.K. So I am too much worried about the critical circumstances and do not want to leave and forget you, so please do something for our love.” On the same settlement and grounds, the parents of Murtaza also agreed that they would accept his classmate no his wife if she converted herself into Islam and permanently shifted to Pakistan. Murtaza had also written the complete reply of his parents wishes to Naki with the consent “I am ready into the conversion and trying to learn more and more about your religion, and see you very soon, you don’t worry.”
For the sake of love Murtaza was trying to learn about the basic pillars of Christian religion with the help of his friends Ali, Ahmad and Sunny from the father of local Church. After a few days, he had learned about the five pillars of Christianity religion i.e. Faith. “Salvation from the guilt and power of sin is through faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing that the non-Christian can do can remove or make amends before God for the smallest sin. Therefore salvation is by grace, through faith and not owing to anything anyone can do for themselves or for others.” The second was Atonement. “Since there is nothing we can do to remove our own sin, God has provided another way. The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world and lived the life we ought to have lived, in perfect obedience to God. This sinless and righteous life was offered at Calvary as an atoning sacrifice to pay the penalty for sin. All who, in repentance of their sins, trust in Christ are therefore immediately and completely forgiven all their sins. This atonement is complete and delivers the worst of sinners from the greatest measure of everlasting punishment.” Third was Inspiration. “The word of God, contained in the Old and New Testaments, are the only rule of our faith and conduct. God gave the scriptures by inspiration so that when written they were without error in whatever area they spoke, and He has preserved them through history so that when they are translated for us to read we may confidently say we are reading the very Word of God.” And fourth was Trinity. “There is only one true and living God, and He has revealed that He is a Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All His attributes exist in all their perfections in each Person of the Trinity, and yet there are not three gods, but one. The Father has chosen, the Son has redeemed, and the Spirit is bringing to salvation all of God’s people. Their salvation is secure as it rests in the Person and promise of God.” Thus, the fifth and the last was Holiness. “Christian believers have put away sin. They have been separated to a life of obedience and discipleship. This life is one of progress to maturity, and is not the work of a moment. The Christian receives grace to persevere in this path, and wherever there is a fall, God works to recover His child, so that he or she remains on this path throughout their life, and are then received to Heaven at their death.”
Ahmad and Sunny fully cooperated with Murtaza in the learning process of Christian religion but Ali was mentally against it but did not show Murtaza’s face due to his aggressiveness and internal war against Islam changed dramatically. Ali often tried to preach Islam to Murtaza when that got a chance to sit together. Ali basically, one of his old and good friends, was having religious background and he had also crammed many long and short verses of Holy Quran even with its translations. Ali tried his best to see his every friend follow Islam because no Holy Prophet was expected to come in order to preach Islam. According to him, they were the people who must preach Islam now to make the circle of Islam big around the world. He had also recited many verses before Murtaza and in response, Murtaza sometimes became amused and nodded his head as he had been understood and acted upon that Holy verse of Holy Quran. But Murtaza wanted to observe the Christianity just to fulfill his beloved’s wish and to marry. In the way of preaching Islam, Murtaza took many points to make his lexicon part for serving Islam as well because he was a Muslim by birth but was showing his reluctant to act upon Islam. He had spent many years in UK that’s why his way of passing days of life had been entirely changed and during his stay; he fell in love with a Christian girl. They both decided to live together in future just in order to mature their love in pious relation as husband and wife.
Then he left his village for UK having keen liking too Christianity because he was going to fulfill his beloved’s desire while leaving his neighbors, relatives, close and distant friends made him unhappy. This time, no body went to airport to see him off. His flight took off at its right time and took only the hopes with him in the absence of his fellows. At the airport, when he landed, he was welcomed by his beloved and her parents. Murtaza was taken to house as he entered house, a pet dog barked on him and he got scared but his beloved went ahead and picked her pet dog and started kissing dog’s mouth, that scene irritated Murtaza. Anyways, he was sent to his room with his luggage. He took bath and went to lie himself on bed for sweet sleep and to remove his all mental fatigues. When he got up, although he could not take rest as he was habitual to take rest at his ancestral house soon. He was called and he came there in drawing room and was astonished to see the dress. She was in short skirt and half trousers. Her arms were naked; her cleavage was seen even from far of place. She came very near and kissed Murtaza’s cheeks just to show her endearment. She told him that they had arranged a party in respect of Murtaza’s arrival in their religion. She further explained in this regard that some famous celebrities and other tycoons of the English society would be warmth welcomed in the party which would be held day after tomorrow. So he should be ready and prepared to meet their guests. The same news was shared by Murtaza’s beloved with Murtaza but Murtaza got irritated to see the half naked dress. She came very close to Murtaza and kissed his lips with spreading her naked sleeveless arms around Murtaza’s shoulder. After sharing the tidings with Murtaza, she tightly hugged Murtaza and patted her arms on the back body of Murtaza. Murtaza felt anxiety to see this behavior because it was not seen before that time. At might, he had been thinking of those scenes throughout night and remained perturbed. At the day of arranged party, he could not bear the whole conduct of party because his beloved and her mother both were moving without keeping any thing (Dopatta) over their heads. They both exchanged the greetings with meeting hands with every comer on that event. Some of special guests were embraced and kissed on the cheeks by Murtaza’s beloved and her mother as well. Murtaza was totally fed up to see that open environment where everyone was out of limit especially female and male girls looked like the same gender owing to their naked dress. In the party, everyone was found in drunkard condition. There was no discrimination in order to drink even by females, every kind of liquid, wine, shampain, whisky and other things were taken. Although this was strictly prohibited in Islam but sometimes, vagabonds boys were seen in drinking condition but not openly as English were allowed to enjoy that kind of forbidden things. At the end, the mother and beloved were seen lying on sofa in very bad conditions. They seemed like naked women. In party, one said loudly to Murtaza “you are lucky owing to the conversion in our religion because Islam is the symbol of terrorism, injustice, unfairly and based on discrimination of caste & creed. It also diverted its followers from good to wrong side. Now you are saved from all prejudiced actions”. As the voices against Islam were hurting Murtaza, he became uncontrolled and slapped on the face of that Islam violent person. To defend Islam, he kept saying in favor of Islam from his conscientious feelings. He said “Islam is one of the peaceful religions in the world, it preaches peace and calm for the betterment of its followers, it builds characteristics not only individual one but also the congregation as well, it also gives the lesson of loves humanity, discourages the bigotry among its followers”. “It is rightly saying that one who murders one man will be considered the murderer of whole humanity”.
To see the entire obscenity of the party his mind clicked towards Islam and he remembered those Holy Quranic verses which forbade human being to commit any mistakes or any abhorrent and heinous crime which caused danger to other human being. He started comparing those elements with Islamic norms and rules and found it at better place those things of Islam which was tried to defame by some other bastard people. Murtaza was perspiring which recalling memories of Islam. He decided to study Islam thoroughly to understand more than what was in his mind at that time. He went to sleep to his room after the party. He got up early morning and went outside the house without informing the house members. When the members found Murtaza’s absent they became worried to find him because Murtaza was new at that vicinity. According to the house member’s point of view although he did not tell them before staying there yet he was searched by house members. All members were struggling here and there during the wandering situation. At last, Murtaza knocked at door and Naki went to open the door and she received Murtaza with her open arms. At that moment, Murtaza showed his negligence to respond in this respect. He refused to embrace her beloved Naki only due to having deep knowledge of Islam.
Then Murtaza decided to get back to his countryside just to say that he would not change his lovely religion and would live with his old and caring friends as well as his blood relatives. He told Naki that he would not marry her until she might change her religion. She was already impressed by the attitudes and behaviors of Murtaza being a Muslim. She had also agreed during conversation with Naki that Islam was really peace and modest religion. Before he left that vicinity he started taking classes on Islam and also started deep research on Islam. After passing some time, he became the scholar of Islam. Then he was recognized as scholar and Murtaza convinced Naki to convert to Islam. She had no response to defend her religion and at last, she agreed to convert her Christianity in to Islam. When Murtaza knew that she would have been agreed to change her religion, she agreed to leave her ancestral place. Then Murtaza and Naki prepared their luggage for Pakistan where Islam prevailed and penetrated in the vain of Muslims. Being a Musalman Murtaza always tried to be calm and comfortable before every Non-Muslim.
When Naki’s parents heard about their Naki’s proposal, they annoyed on the behavior of Murtaza and tried to victimize Murtaza in some legal suits so that he may not carry Naki from their home land. Anyways Murtaza was then became true preacher of Islam and true believer that’s why he did not show any fear elements before Naki’s parents. At last, Naki and Murtaza left UK for Pakistan and at 4:00 o’clock in evening there was no one to receive them at airport. Although they were equipped with new Islamic ornaments of knowledge. It was the Nature reciprocal circumstance with him because when he left Pakistan for the sake of study, he was respected by lot, of his friends and relatives but that day there was nothing except Naki accompanying.
When he reached his village town from Airport, Murtaza’s parents were very glad to see Murtaza’s stature because he had beard and turban on his head just to fulfill the great Sunah of Holy Prophet. He justified and clarified every ambiguity before his parents about Naki as well. Then, his parents embraced them with smiling faces and changed the name of Naki with new Muslim name, it was decided to give her new name i.e. Zainab. Then she was known with that name Zainab in the territory. It was really pleasant environment there in village when they knew about Murtaza new get up, his all old friends became happy and one by one they invited Murtaza and Zainab at their home at dinner and sometime at lunch and sometime at evening deserts. Then they spent some cheerful days together at hometown house and decided to spread Islam as possible as they do. They both started to teach in different colleges and universities not only in Pakistan but also abroad. Murtaza some held lecture as visiting professor in universities abroad. He became famous with his scholarly conduct of life, he was either called Scholar person of Sufi in his village. He motivated all those villagers who were out of touch of Islamic course of action. He showed them the benefits of good work of Islam. In this way, he started spending his life with his family.
In this way, we observe and see how a villager spent his life and the title of the short story became Chrystal clear when the conduct of a beautiful mind is appreciated.
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