Quaid, Maulvi Yakub Khan & The Light

Capt.Abdus Salam Khan

“Good Lord” exclaimed the Quaid, as he entered the drawing room of Mian Bashir Ahmed´s residence at 32 Lawrence Road, Lahore, where my father, Maulvi Muhammad Yakub Khan, Editor, The Light, was invited by Mian Sahib to meet the Quaid at the Quaid´s request.

“I was expecting a smartly dressed man from Oxford…judging from your writings… and here you are …a Maulana…You have certainly given me a surprise”.

It was the autumn of 1942, as far as my memory serves. Father had gone to see the Quaid in his usual clerical clothes, a long coat buttoned up at the neck, a matching pair of trousers, a Jinnah cap and of course, a full beard.

It was a signal honour… many people wanted to meet the Quaid…but the request to come from the Quaid…that he wanted to meet the Editor of The Light… was an honour conferred in recognition of the yeoman´s service that The Light had rendered to the cause of the Muslim League.

According to Mian Muhammad Shafi, the veteran journalists, “Your father was the first man to support the Quaid in columns of the Light in the Punjab…right from early thirty six… the rest of the Punjab Press was either hostile or indifferent”…

Later, at a tea party hosted by Maulvi Muhammad Ali, the famous translator of the Holy Quran into English, the Quaid made a short speech in which he recounted his association and attachment to “The Light”: he not only read every issue thoroughly but also kept a file of the paper, he said. To illustrate how “The Light” had helped in his work of advancing the Pakistan Movement, he recounted an encounter with the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow in the following words:

“ After I had first propounded my Two-Nation Theory, the Viceroy said to me “Mr. Jinnah I had always thought you to be a sensible and intelligent man….But, now that you have come out with this new-fangled Theory, I have my doubts….

“I told him that I would send him an Editorial of the Light on the Two-Nation Theory: he was to read it and let me know his reaction… A few days later I received a note from Lord Linlithgow saying:

“Now I see your point of view” … (The Editorial titled “India´s Two Nations” published in the Light of 1st Sept. 1939)

Here is another instance of the importance the Quaid attached to “The Light”: Aziz Baig in his “Jinnah and his Times! (Page 35) writes:

“Jinnah dealt so honestly and honorable with his people that, on more occasions than one, he took decisions which a typical politician would regard as insane and unnecessary. In mid-forties the Muslim League Ministry in the North West Frontier was toppled: “Light”, a fortnightly journal from Lahore, not widely circulated, published a news item with the slant that it fell because it was corrupt. I was then the Senior Assistant Editor and Leader Writer of “Dawn” in New Delhi. I was rather astounded when Jinnah´s junior Secretary met me and told me that Jinnah wanted this story to be reproduced in “Dawn”. Jinnah was the president of the Muslim League and “Dawn” under his patronage, was the only first class daily paper of the Indian Muslims, tacitly supporting the policy and programme of the freedom party. Why should `Dawn´ bring into disrepute its own men, and why should we proclaim and publicize the fact that, given a chance to rule a

province, the Muslim League betrayed the trust reposed in them. I did not take the risk and phoned Jinnah late in the evening at his New Delhi residence.

I was about to broach the subject when I heard Jinnah telling me forthwith that the news item should appear in the `Dawn´. This was Jinnah´s standard or probity. The moral is plain: he didn’t want to hide anything from his own people. If the people trusted the Leader, the leader must trust the people and tell them `the truth´.

This also shows the trust that the Quaid put in the Editor of the Light: if he says that the Ministry was corrupt, it must be true.

What sort of a man was this Maulvi Muhammad Yakub Khan?

Nestling at the foot of the Pebbi Hills, a few miles from Noshehra on the Noshehra Peshawar Road, lies the little village of Pirpai (“The village of Pirs”).It is a neat and clean village and probably has the highest literacy rate in the province. To its people it is also known as “Little England”, owing to its love for the education and all other modern….A signboard at the junction of the Trunk Road and the

kacha road leading to the village used to boast: “78 men served in the World War from this village”…

Father´s clan The Babars, left Afghanistan probably in the 17th Century and settled in the Northern portion of the village. And in this in a “Log and Mud” Cabin, was born father to Mir Alam Khan and his wife on the 18th September, 1891. Little is known of his childhood except that apart from being a good scholar he was a good sportsman. He graduated from Islamia College and also had the distinction of captaining its football team. After passing the B.T. course he was offered Government service as an Assistant Inspector of Schools, but the promising worldly career was not to be.

For sixty years, till seventh of December, 1972, the date of his departure from this world, he wielded his pen in the way of Islam and his fellow-men. As Editor of “The Islamic Review”, London. “The Light”, Lahore, “Muslim Revival”, Lahore, and later as Editor of “The Civil and Military Gazette”, his pen waged a relentless Jehad….

His personality is best summed up in a Farewell Note published in the Islamic Review of England in its issue of October, 1923, as under:

“With the departure of Maulvi Muhammad Yakub Khan, who left London on September 20, 1923, en-route for India. The Muslim Mission in England loses, for a time only, we hope, a tireless worker, a skillful leader, and a unique personality”.

“The two years of his Ministry in this country- brief as the period may seem, have been of outstanding value to the work of the Mission, and have left behind them a mark, and it may also be said, which will not easily be effaced for forgotten”.

“Maulvi Yakub Khan left the Government Service at the call of Spiritual Duty in 1919, resigning a lucrative position to devote himself heart and soul to the cause of Islam. In 1921, he came to England, where his ripe scholarship and wide experience in affairs was especially welcome. He took over the conduct and management of the Islamic Review, together with the Publication Department of the Mission; and had charge, for a year, of the London prayer house at 111 Camden Hill Road, Nottinghill Gate. During his stay he translated Seerat-e-Khairul Bashar- The Life of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) by Maulvi Muhammad Ali, and the Secret of Existence by Khwaja Kamaluddin”

“When Khwaja Kamaluddin left England for Mecca and the Eastern tour in June, Maulvi Yakub Khan assumed control of the Mission and his peculiar fitness for that somewhat delicate post became at once apparent.”

“Total single mindedness and devotion, without which no high cause may hope to prosper, must be added the wisdom of the serpent and harmlessness of the Dove: a mastery of the myriad weapons of theological warfare and an infinite tact in using them: a wide knowledge of men and affairs: alertness to discern occasion and to grasp opportunity, and the ability not only to grasp both sides of the question but also to demonstrate clearly and convincingly where the other side is wrong: infinite patience, infinite sympathy and infinite understanding ….

Looking back on his life and work among us during the past two years, to say that Maulvi Yakub Khan possesses all these qualities to a single degree, is not to say a word too much”

(Islamic Review, Woking, England October 1923)

To illustrate …. Once the owner of the C&MG wanted to mount a campaign against Dr. Khan Sahib, the then Chief Minister of One Unit, for some

ulterior motive …. When he could not persuade father to take up the pen against Dr. Khan Sahib, he ordered a Sub-Editor to write the Editorial, which was duly published. But father at once had a clarification printed in “The Pakistan Times”, that the said Editorial was not written by him….

In the late twenties, following the death sentence to Ghazi Ilam Din Shaheed, who had killed Raj Pal, the author of sacrilegious book, “Rangeela Rasool”, father wrote in the “Light” a scathing denunciation of the Hindu mentality and warned them that as long as the Hindu Dragon continued to display its vile teeth, there shall always be Ilam din´s to pull out the dragon´s Teeth. This was construed as an attempt to further incite violence and a suit was brought by the Hindus in Lahore courts and father was asked by the judge to apologize, which he promptly refused. He was sentenced to two years in the prison.