A Letter: The Tale of My Student Days at the Nadwah
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
My dear one,
You asked a simple question that, like a sudden spring upon an autumn-stripped tree, flung open the closed shutters of my heart: what were my days as a student like? Is it really true that we lived for knowledge day and night, heedless of sleep, food and comfort? You asked in an almost casual tone, as if it were an ordinary matter, yet for me that question is a cry of the soul — a wound that, despite the passing of time, remains fresh.
For several days I felt bowed beneath the weight of that question; nights scented with solitude kept knocking at the threshold of my mind, and silence within me kept sounding like a forsaken instrument. At last, when the light of reflection began to rake through the ashes of memory, a familiar fragrance rose — the same that is born only within the walls of the Nadwah: sincerity, spiritual discipline, love and the awakening that comes from learning.
Those blessed years — ah, those blessed years — when I bowed my forehead upon the dust of Nadwah al-ʿUlamāʾ in Lucknow, I was not merely acquiring knowledge; I was engaged in remoulding my being. It was as though I was carving my soul, word by word, verse by verse. There, every book, every teacher, every conversation was a mirror in which I strove to recognise the face within me. The academic journey was not merely a ladder of degrees or licences; it was an intellectual and spiritual voyage, a mystical striving, an inward transformation, and a mode of practice that burned away the self.
In those days there was neither desire for sleep nor appetite for food, neither relish for worldly work nor taste for recreation, nor any concern for fine garments. Time felt like a burning desert and we ran across it with bare feet, in the hope of finding some pearl, some gem, some secret. How shall I tell you of the nights of the Nadwah — desolate yet luminous pathways, the small windows of silence, the rooms that glowed like lamps — all these have become an inseparable part of my soul.
The low pallet in my room was never a place of rest; it was a pulpit upon which I opened up the mysteries of prose and poetry — the subtleties of Shiblī, Ḥālī, Naẓīr Aḥmad, ʿAbd al-Mājid Daryābādī, Mahdī Afāḍī, Sayyid Sulaymān and Āzād — and lost myself in them. I wrestled with the complex symbols of Mir, Dard and Ghalib; when I came upon Iqbal’s line, “Wujūd-i zan se hai tasvīr-i kawn mein rang” (the existence of woman lends colour to the picture of the universe), I would sit long in reflection: what are these colours? whence do these meanings spring? I did not treat that feminine beauty merely as delicacy of form but as the apex of creative being and an expression of the universe’s subtlety.
Arabic literature was not merely a tongue; it was the legacy of prophecy, the civilization of the Hijāz, rhetorical eloquence and a sea of spiritual beauty. When I read the poets of the al-Muʿallaqāt it seemed as if the parched Arabian desert still echoed with their voices: Ḥassān ibn Thābit, Jarīr, Buḥturī, al-Mutanabbī, and al-Maʿarrī — their couplets became attuned to the beating of my heart; each line seemed a key to unlock some clasp within my being.
And then those sacred moments when, praise be to God, the discourses of Mawlānā Shahbāz Iṣlāḥī would descend upon one as if with the softness of revelation — listening to him, one’s heart would rejoice, eyes would grow moist, and the intellect would fall prostrate in the worship of obedience. Mawlānā Rābiʿ Ḥasnī Nadwī and Mawlānā Sayyid Wāḍiḥ Rashīd Nadwī — such pillars of learning and literature — each word they uttered left an imprint upon the heart, and one could not help but say: this is not merely knowledge; this is light, artistry, a souq of ideas.
The solitude of the night was my confidante. On the roof of the Riwāq al-Aṭhar, staring at the stars, I would speak my inner perplexities to those luminous points. I remember a night when, pondering Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, my eyes overflowed. “Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad” — that phrase went into the fibre of my being; I felt that all knowledge leads back to that purity of tawḥīd.
There were the prostrations in which I sought nothing, entertained no desire — only the thirst for nearness to the Truth. That thirst could not be quenched by any river, any book, or any debate; it was a burning that made one restless and of which none but God took account.
My companions — ah, my comrades of soul and thought — those who shared with me the mysteries of al-Bukhārī, Sībawayh, Ibn Sīnā, al-Ghazālī, and Ibn Taymiyya — our scholarly debates were not contests of victory or triumph; they were quests for truth, an eagerness for sincerity and gnosis. We did not grow weary; we were refined.
But now, my dear, the age has changed, or perhaps we have. Relationships are fastened by chains of interest; the fire of sincerity is gone from hearts, the ardour is absent and promises lack fidelity. When a memory from the past flashes upon the horizon of my mind, a voice arises from the heart: “If you have come to me now, what have you brought?”
That heart, that sincerity, that ardour — what remained of them is now a trust of the past, preserved like an old manuscript in the chest of memories. Innocence today is treated as a burden, a crime the age will not forgive.
O my dear! Hear this: if there is any light in my hand now, it is the sadaqah (charitable offering) of those nights I spent in the libraries, the days beneath the shadow of teachers, the prostrations in which I asked for nothing, the tears shed out of fear of God and love of knowledge, and those solitudes which were in truth union with the Divine.
This is my past, this is my heritage, this is my true wealth, and this is the lamp of my heart.
Disclaimer: This article was translated by AI. Original post: https://t.me/DrAkramNadwi/7038
