(10)—Prophetic prophesies

(10)—Prophetic prophesies
In the years I was flowering into boyhood in the towns of Ghotki, Garhi Yaseen and Shikarpur Sindh, the world was recovering from the ravages and the devastation of the second World War.
At that point of time Egypt was the centre of attention in the Muslim World. Hassan al-Banna had been assassinated in February 1949. In July 1952 Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser’s Officers Movement deposed King Farooq and took control of Egypt. That was the first major political development that I remember distinctly, apart from the tragic assassination of Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan some months earlier.
It was that period of my life when my mindset, my ideals and my dreams were taking shape.
Before I resume my account of those formative years, I want to mention here two important events that in the later years influenced my thinking a lot.
In 1912 a German Scholar Joseph Heel had written a book titled ‘The Arab Civilization’ that had been translated by Khuda Bux Library Calcutta.
In the preface of that book Joseph Heel wrote:
“I don’t want to shock those out of their assumption that the Arab Civilization has passed into history forever. But let me predict that the said Civilization will soon rise from its long slumber, though it will have less of an Arab character and more of a Muslim identity. This civilization is unlikely not to influence the course of history in the next century.”
This treatise had appeared two years before the start of the First World War, and in the decade Lawrence of Arabia was to influence the shaping of the Post-Ottoman map of the Middle East.
Again in 1938, a year before the start of the Second World War, a French analyst-cum-historian Ballac had said in an international forum of thinkers: “Gentlemen I am going to shock you with a prophecy. The times ahead don’t belong to either Nazism or Bolshoism. The next century is going to be the century of the rise of Islam.”
In those years I remember I had started reading the inspiring novels of Nasim Hijazi. My other favourite writers were Sadiq Sardhanvi and Abdul Haleem Sharar whose novels on Islamic history ran into hundreds. I remember the Late Sadiq Sardhanvi had written about six novels on the Battle of Yarmouk alone. Nasim Hijazi however was a class apart and above. His books had not only captivating characters but also enchanting style.
For me it became a matter of pride very early that I was nephew to a man of such fame and calibre.
Here I want to write about a slap on my face that had a huge impact on my social and moral behaviour in the years to follow.