KARACHI: Hundreds of people called to-day [Dec 18] at the Afghan Consulate to pay homage to the remains of the great Muslim saint, philosopher and politician, Syed Jamaluddin Afghani. The remains, which have been flown from Istanbul, are en route to Kabul. The Afghan Minister, His Excellency Abdur Rehman Khan, who [accompanied] the remains from Baghdad, received the callers. The remains will now be carried by train to Peshawar on Tuesday. From Peshawar [they] will be taken by car to Torkham on the border line, where they will be received by the Heads of Afghan publicity and literary departments. From Jalalabad the coffin will be accompanied by the Afghan Prime Minister.

In 1903, three years after the burial of Allama Syed Jamaluddin Afghani in Istanbul, an American was engaged to exhume the Allama’s body in order to reconstruct a permanent shrine over it. He found the skeleton intact and put it in a hermetically sealed iron case. After 41 years the body was again exhumed at the express desire of the Afghan Government who wanted it to be buried in Kabul. Negotiations carried on for a long time and at last the Turkish Government consented to hand over the remains. (Dawn, Delhi)

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2014