LAHORE, Feb 20: Speakers paid rich tributes to Quaid-i-Azam's wife Mariam Jinnah at a meeting held to observe her birth anniversary here on Friday.

The meeting was held under the auspices of the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Foundation and the Pakistan Movement Workers Trust with MNA Bushra Rahman in the chair.

In her address, Mrs Rahman said the biographers of Madar-i-Millat in their books had also referred to the events before and after the marriage of the Quaid with Mariam, a Parsi young woman who had embraced Islam before marriage. She said though Mariam, who was known as Ratti before conversion, was 24 years younger to Mohammad Ali Jinnah, she had a great love for him.

She said the Quaid despite her great political and legal preoccupations remembered her whole of his life after her death. She said Mariam Jinnah in her brief spell of married life had helped him continue his mission, and she had never raised any objection to his activities.

Begum Surriya Khurshid who had spent some time in the company of Madra-i-Millat as wife of her secretary, K.H. Khurshid, after the death of the Quaid said the social life of both the Quaid and his wife, Mariam, was transparent and unblemished as they possessed high character.

She said Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah used to tell her that the Quaid had never forgotten the moments he had spent in the brief company of his wife. She said the Quaid had never contracted second marriage after the death of Mariam, which was the proof of his great love for her.

Scholar Abdul Jabbar Shakir said Quaid's father-in-law Din Shaw Petit had not agreed to the marriage proposal of the Quaid to his daughter and had decided to move the court against the proposal, but the young woman had categorically declared in the court that she was under no pressure and gave her consent to the marriage.

Punjab University's former vice-chancellor Dr Rafiq Ahmad reiterated his proposal that the Lady Willington Hospital of Lahore should be renamed as Mariam Jinnah Hospital.