THE job of research is just like fishing. The researcher, very much like an angler, has to be patient and wait for long. At the end of the day, he may have the good luck to land a big fish or may have the bad luck to return empty handed.
This is how Dr Moeenur Rehman has explained the nature of work of a researcher. He cites his own case. Baba-i-Urdu, Maulvi Abdul Haq is, according to him, his first love. His first work on him titled Baba-i-Urdu, Ahwal-o-Afkar, was published 25 years ago.
As a researcher, what attracted him the most in his personal life was his celibacy. He had to be patient and wait for long. Now, he has come out with what he has been able to dig out during these 25 years. Thank God, he has not come out with an empty net. He has gathered from different sources some valuable information in this respect. But he does not seem satisfied with it. He wants more time to dig out the whole truth.
What has been dug out till now has been presented along with other articles of different nature in the volume he has brought out on the 40th death anniversary of Baba-i-Urdu.
Dr Moeenur Rehman has been a controversial scholar. The moment he comes out with his study on some subject, he finds himself under attack from different quarters, more particularly from those belonging to the teaching line to which he himself belongs. The most controversial was his presentation known as Diwan-i-Ghalib; Nuskha-i-Khwaja. But his colleagues in the Punjab University doubted if the manuscript was unearthed scientifically. They treated it as a case of theft and questioned the integrity of Dr Moeen as a research scholar. It triggered a controversy that took years to subside.
Dr Moeen had to fight a long battle in self-defence, and in the process, self-defence turned into self-projection. But to be fair to him, he does it in a humble way. At least, he is not self-centred. First, he bows down before his superiors, giving them full honours due to them and then projects himself a little. In the present, instance he has first paid tributes to his two distinguished predecessors, Maulvi Abdul Haq and Prof Rashid Ahmad Siddiqi, keeping in view the 40th death anniversary of the former and the 25th of the latter, he brought out two volumes compiled by him through his Al-Wiqar Publications.
The first, as referred to above, is a collection of his articles about Baba-i-Urdu, along with a selection from his writings published under the title Yadgar-i-Abdul Haq. The other is Rashid Ahmad Siddiqi’s famous collection of essays, Khandan, now compiled by him. It is only as a tail-ender that a volume compiled by Nayla Anjum under the title Doctor Syed Moeenur Rahman has been brought out.
Yadgar-i-Abdul Haq is a valuable document. An attempt has been made here to present the scholar as a man that he was. A number of personalities, who knew him personally, have been interviewed by the compiler. These interviews have been supplemented by a few letters of his written to friends and contemporaries. These taken together bring before us an authentic picture of the man. Hakim Asrar Ahmad Karaivi is perhaps more objective in describing him, as he also tells candidly about the weaknesses he found in him.
Dr Moeen himself has chosen to tell about his research in respect of his celibacy. In his research journey, he searched out a few souls who belonged to Hapur and lived in Mohalla Qanungoyan as neighbours of the Haq family. And how strange that what was deemed an open secret in Mohalla Qanungoyan has been a mystery with the literary and the academic world. As told by the Haq family’s neighbours, Baba-i-Urdu did marry, though under pressure from his family. But the pressure lost its force within one night. In the early hours of the next morning, he said goodbye to Hapur and to his marriage, and went back to Hyderabad, leaving his family in the lurch.
But the mystery has only partially been resolved, Baba-i-Urdu’s behaviour is puzzling for him. Why, after all, did he behave in this way, he asks. He is determined to unravel this mystery to his complete satisfaction. Once again, he will have to show patience and wait for long.
As for Khandan, I need not say much about it. This collection of essays and character sketches is well-known to us as an example par excellence of cultured humour. For this, we should be thankful to Rashid Siddiqi’s compulsory retirement from tennis. And for this information, I am indebted to Iqbal Rashid, whose short note on the book has been included in the volume as a foreword. He tells us that tennis, for its initiation and popularity in Aligarh, owes much to Rashid Ahmad Siddiqi. But his kidney operation compelled him to retire from this sport. As a diversion, he wrote these essays. Thus, his inability to play tennis came as a blessing in disguise for us.
THE job of research is just like fishing. The researcher, very much like an angler, has to be patient and wait for long. At the end of the day, he may have the good luck to land a big fish or may have the bad luck to return empty handed.
