Dear Maulana Sahib You sported in your mind A trio of fountainheads The first was the master-fount Of religious learning Drawn from the Book and the Shariah The second was the sparkling spring Of Rehman Baba’s poetry Which you could recite from your memory With uncanny ease Finally, there was the gushing source Of humour and wit Like a perennial gift Which you drew from As bucket from a well And showered your acolytes with Until their midriffs split When all these elements converged To form your mortal frame An institution was created The pride of Peshawar

The above is a tribute, nay an unintended poetical obituary of Mohammad Amir, famously known as Maulana Bijlighar, who breathed his last on the second last day of 2012. It was penned by the seasoned retired bureaucrat and an accomplished poet Ejaz Rahim and included in his fourteenth book of poems titled ‘Dear Maulana Sahib and Other Poems.’ It was published less than a year before the Maulana Sahib passed away. Did the poet have a presentiment of the sad event?

Since the deceased had an avuncular charm, one earnestly wished to read the poem to the revered Maulana upon receiving a copy of the book, lovingly marked and dispatched by the poet through post. But since there is no evil like ‘procrastination,’ the wish remained unfulfilled, and the Maulana struggling with old age and poor health departed leaving behind milling crowds of his admirers in a state of utter shock. There is no disputing the fact that Maulana Bijlighar, so called for once having been employed in a powerhouse, was the biggest crowd puller of recent times. He proved it even on the day of his death when his three sons and numerous grandchildren were found at a loss grappling with a deluge of his followers pouring in from all quarters. It hence took the bereaved family little time to conclude that the funeral prayers would be held in the spacious Qayyum Stadium Peshawar, and the stadium too in the end proved to belie its reputation as to its size to accommodate the streaming crowds. Perhaps people turned up in such massive numbers to say a befitting adieu to the man who kept them laughing in weal and woe.

Maulana Bijlighar’s last picture posited along with the news of his passing away in bold headlines carried by the newspapers showed his face partly covered in a colourful scarf. That was how he mostly kept his profile in public. In retrospect one began to compare his aspect with that of Victor Hugo’s Gwynplaine in ‘The Laughing Man’ who too with his face half covered had that unique ability of sending the crowds in peals of laughter through his hilarious theatrics. But the lower part of Gwynplaine’s face had been mutilated by his tormentors whereas Maulana Bijlighar had a most handsome countenance, almost babyish and pink in complexion, which he retained even in a very frail state of physique in the twilight of his life.

You were indeed a lighthouse The electric filament in your name Was no copper-coated device But a platinum fuse designed By nature’s craftsmanship To illuminate hearts and minds

It is often said, not without sufficient truth, that one literally becomes the embodiment of an alias that one carries, and so was it with Maulana Bijlighar. The tag tugged to him so inerasably that with each passing year of his mortal life his sermons began to become more and more electrifying. In the beginning in the small mosque where he would lead the Friday prayers people from far off would start arriving from midday to ensure they find themselves ensconced at a vantage point. They would wait patiently for a good two to three hours whereas latecomers would have to contend with squatting outside by the side of a filthy drain in order to be able to enjoy the sermons. The Maulana had a stentorian voice, but when he turned to reciting verses from the Book or a verse or two from the works of Rehman Baba his voice would become incredibly melodious. He had a commendable command over Persian, Hindko, Arabic and Urdu in addition to his mother tongue Pashto which he would employ with perfection in his tribal accent to heap scorn on his detractors. The preacher whose family had migrated to Peshawar from the bordering tribal area of Darra Adamkhel when he was a lad had through his keen sense of observation enriched himself with a vast repertoire. He would literally keep his audience on the toes as regard his next move and would very often figure out a young boy in the crowd, beckon him to the stage and make him the butt of an unsavoury joke to the uproarious laughs of the audience. He had little patience for the women walking outside the four walls of their houses and for those perceived to be even remotely liberal in their demeanour and bearings. The civil servants particularly those concerned with administrative duties fancied the company of the Maulana and vice versa. In times of sectarian troubles brewing in the city, district administrators would summon the help of the evangelist to quell the restless citizenry through his magical sermons. Though he would oblige the officers, the Maulana would remain unsparing in taking on the officers concerned making them the subjects of his unrestrained jests. One such slapstick was occasioned when an administrator asked for the Maulana’s intercession to help the administration in the peaceful passage of a religious procession. The crowd burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter when the Maulana through his gestures narrated how he had ridiculed the said officer for gross spinelessness. But that was how the Maulana was, and no one would mind that the least. In fact such showmanship endeared the Maulana even more to his fans among whom there were scores of celebrated civil servants. During the late 1980s when some of the world’s most renowned journalists used to frequent Peshawar on a regular basis in view of the emerging Afghanistan situation, Emma Duncan had a close encounter with the Maulana in the office of the then Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar. Later, Ms Duncan, presently the editor of The Economist related the incident in her riveting book ‘Breaking the Curfew.’ ‘The preacher had dark glasses; a turban wound out of a scarf patterned with fruit and wore a v-shaped smile above a stiff, wavy beard that fanned out from his face like a peacock’s tail,’ thus wrote Emma Duncan. The Maulana didn’t approach those in positions of power to get rich. He died in penury, living in the same impoverished neighbourhood with potholed streets for the best part of his life. In return for his services to the administration, he won over some favours for those seeking his help. ‘Maulana Sahib once accompanied me to the office of the senior traffic cop when I pointed out to him how difficult it was for me to get through the petty bureaucratic rigmarole,’ recalls Mohammad Ali whose family was very close to the preacher. ‘I got my driving licence there and then,’ recollects Ali further with a broad victorious smile on his bespectacled face. That was how the Maulana from Darra Adamkhel lived and died. He never shied away from bringing a smile or two to wan and distressed faces. The people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in general and those of Peshawar in particular would dearly miss the man who never stopped laughing even in these trying days. How true is Ejaz’s praise of the Maulana when he says:

Our lives are short Like a lightning charge But what a privilege To have seen your worth At first hand In the midst of So much malice and mistrust.