The success of a mission does not rest only on its being true, but also on the sincerity and zeal of the people involved. Maulana Ilyas burned with such zeal and was willing to face all difficulties and hardships that came his way. It is the initiative of such a person which inevitably carries him through to a successful conclusion.

Once a colleague of the Maulana visited his house to offer his condolence, when the Maulana had passed away. He sent a message to his wife, asking her to tell him some­thing about the Maulana. This is what she replied.

“When I was married to him, I came to stay with him. I found that the Maulana hardly slept at nights. I could hear him moaning and groaning in bed. One day I asked him what it was that was disturbing his sleep. He sighed and replied, ‘Would that you knew of my suffering and shared my agony, I would not be alone then. There would be two of us to keep awake at nights.”

The Maulana’s stammering, and, the complexities of traditional religious style made it difficult for him to ex­press himself. But, thanks to his total involvement, his whole body seemed to convey the message. He groaned, and restless as a fish out of water, he would say repeatedly:

“I am unable to do anything, my God. I am too weak.” The people could not help but feel pity for him. His unbounded will, however, made him overcome all obstacles. He even outdid all his companions who were more physically fitted for the job. He could walk across rough, uneven stretches of Mewat for as far as 25 miles at a time without taking any food and water. His hectic life left him no time to look after himself. Many a time he left Nizamuddin on a Friday after lunch and had his second meal only after returning home on a Sunday. Keeping awake at nights, climbing moun­tains, making his way through the hot, dry plains of Mewat, and alternately facing waves had almost become a routine with him. When he found that his colleages were almost dropping with exhaustion from such a busy schedule, he observed: “God is but beyond the mountain of struggle: whoever wants to see Him can find Him there.”

When someone enquired after his health, he wrote back: “How does health matter? One can be said to be well if one is able to properly perform the task for which one was born.”

Once some relatives from Kandhla, his hometown, visited him to enquire after his health. On hearing about it, he said, “You have traversed such a long distance to learn about one who is born to die, whereas the religion of the Prophet Muhammad, which is eternal, is being neg­lected, and you show no concern for it.”

When he was seriously ill, the doctors advised him to refrain from speaking, but he said, “I prefer to die while exhorting people to the path of the Lord, than to take rest for the recovery of my own health.”.

As his health deteriorated, he received repeated inquiries about it. Replying to one of his friends, he writes:

“I have no pain except that of preaching.”

It greatly distressed him to learn that only the less educated have surrendered themselves to his fold. On his deathbed, he writes with great pain:

“Would that the religious scholars were to take up the cause before I passed away.”

Once while saying his prayers in the train, his collea­gues stopped others from passing in front of him. When he had finished his prayers, he showed his resentment and said, “You had better set up a Sutrah*. This was because of his great consideration for others.

*Something put up before one engaged in prayer to prevent others from intrud­ing upon the worshippers’ devotions. It may be a stick, or anything a cubit in height and an inch in thickness.

On one journey to Kandhla he bought a third class ticket but, having failed to find a seat in a third class compartment, he got into a secondclass compartment along with his colleagues. He could pay the extra amount when the ticket collector arrived, he said. But the ticket collector created difficulties when he saw the tickets. The Maulana was momentarily put out and scolded him. When the Ticket Collector left after renewing the tickets, one of his colleagues, Maulana Inamul Hasan, said to him that the man had had the right to object. The Maulana was quick to admit his mistake and as soon as the train stopped at the next station, he went up to him and apologized.

His attachment to God was such that prayers were not so much a matter of obligation to him as a source of great enjoyment and solace. In the course of rough journeys where hills had to be crossed, his colleagues were usually exhausted by the time they reached the top of the hill and preferred to take rest. But not the Maulana. He would stand up on the top of hills in prayer for hours.

When he died, his body had been given a bath, and was being perfumed, when one of his close colleagues said: “Perfume his forehead well, it used to stay in prostration for hours.”

His heart-felt prayers, sacrifices, his attachment to God gave such force and effect to his mission that today it makes people wonder at the astonishing results achieved, as they find it hard to explain this phenomenal success in material terms.

Here is a short extract from one of his letters which shows the degree of his involvement:

“The results are in proportion to one’s struggle. The more one humbles oneself before the Lord, and bears the hardship in this path; the more one is entitled to divine succour.”

These words give an accurate picture of the Maulana himself. In actual fact, his self-abnegation in God’s path was total, and this gave peculiar vision and penetration to his words. When one has fully devoted oneself to one’s cause, one’s personality takes on such depth that it pene­trates the very hearts of the listener.

Here are some more excerpts from his speeches to this effect.

“This is the most important task; a pearl among peb­bles. Sacrifice your lives for this cause. The more you forsake materially the more you gain spiritually.”

Once as some guests were leaving, the Maulana said to them, “You came and stayed just as guests. Remember, the cause of God involves forsaking even the barest necessities of life like food and water. Sweat in this path and be ready to shed your blood.”

In one of his letters to Issa, a friend of his, he expresses regret at those who refrained from becoming involved in this mission.

“Issa, think, how all members of a family engage them­selves in this ephemeral world, whereas not even one of them is willing to spare a little of his time for God. Does this not imply holding this world superior to the next world?”

Once a Tabligh gathering was held in Lucknow. After the meeting, a group of people began to exhort the audi­ence to offer to go to Kanpur for the sake of the mission. Despite repeated exhortations, not a single person res­ponded to the call. The Maulana was pained to see this indifference. One of the participants, Haji Wali Moham­mad, was suffering from piles and obviously was too weak to travel. The Maulana asked him why he lagged behind. He told him that he was almost dying. The Maulana said, “When you are dying already you had better die in Kanpur.”

These incidents reveal only partially the degree of his involvement, because, when an incident is reported, the personality of the speaker, the emotions and feelings at­tached to words are missing. The sincere feelings, the in­ner conviction, the impassioned and heartfelt longing to make the listeners understand the message - not all of this can be captured in writing.

Once someone came to see the Maulana after attending the congregation. The Maulana asked him, “Didn’t you feel sorry for the pathetic abyss we have fallen into?” He replied “Since I have witnessed for myself the ignorance of our community, I’m ashamed of our very existence.”

It was as a result of such dedication to the cause that in the first major congregation in Mewat in November 1941, about 25,000 people attended it. A large number of them came walking all the way from as far as fifty miles. Their pitiful lack of education can be judged from the response the Maulana received when he urged one of the Mewatis to work for Tabligh. “Tablid? What is Tablid?” rejoined the Mewati, unable even to pronounce the word. Yet these very people, ignorant of even the term, had been converted as if by magic, into great missionaries, the like of whom the country had never known.

Motivated by an overpowering urge to salvation in the next life; a longing that God should forgive them when they came before Him, they set out to conquer the hearts of the people. When Islam penetrates into the depth of one’s consciousness, one becomes concerned with one thing alone: how to earn God’s favour and forgiveness. One im­mediately seeks to mould one’s faith, ideas, character and actions on this and all one does in life is in accordance with one’s overriding concern to avoid displeasing God. It is on the hereafter that one focusses all one’s attention. One calls others to Islam, making sure that one is first a good Muslim oneself. These enthusiastic preachers, roaming ac­ross the country, reminded one of the materially resource­less Arab Bedouins, who, inspired by the spiritual wealth of Islam, were to be seen on the move everywhere in order to propagate the truth.