Moulana Taher Saifuddin. Nothing ever felt difficult, impossible, or out of reach with his name, his presence. And even today, it is no different with his memory.
Researchers speak about what they call the “slippery slope effect”, how, in the company of certain people, even the steepest paths seem gentle. How nearness to someone can change the way we feel the weight of what lies before us.
For us, this was never a theory. It was simply a name: Moulana Taher Saifuddin.
I was six years old. I would often suffer from fits and high fever. My family lived in constant worry. The doctors had no answers. Everyone around my mother was anxious and afraid. But she, Mulla Khadija Madraswala, brought me to Moula.
She presented her araz. Moula listened with that calm, reassuring smile he always wore. He asked her to bring me to him along with fifty-one coconuts. She placed them around him.
I remember standing there, close to Moula. For a few quiet moments, his nazar mubarak rested on me. Moula pronounced shifa. The coconuts were distributed among those present, and we returned home.
I am seventy-seven today. From that day until now, I have never experienced a fit again.
The nazar mubarak of Moulana Taher Saifuddin still lives within me. Whenever I remember it, every difficulty, no matter how real, loses its weight.
As Sa’di Shirazi writes:
گفته بودم چو بیایی غم دل با تو بگویم
چه بگویم که غم از دل برود چون تو بیایی
I had told myself: when you come, I will share with you the grief of my heart.
But what is there to say, for when you come, the grief leaves the heart.
They may continue to explore the “slippery slope effect.”
We have known something else all along, what I call the “Moula effect”.
Behn Samina (Fida Hussain Madraswala) Shk Shabbir Dak
Mumbai, India
In the means of shukr and zikr, anyone who is willing to share his/her’s acquaintance, incident or any experience with Moulana Muqaddas RA or Moulana Mufaddal Saifuddin TUS can mail it to dm@tazkerat.org & md@tazkerat.org or visit stories.tazkerat.com
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