THE QURAN GUJRAAN WASTAY

Mufti Faizul Waheed, the Muslim scholar who died of Covid19 last week, was perhaps the only Gujar scholar who succeeded in translating the Holy Quran into Gojri. He achieved this rare feat, after a series of failures by many scholars in past, while being in jail, reports Masood Hussain

- Masood Hussain

When Mufti Faiz ul Waheed, a respected Muslim scholar, breathed his last on June 1, 2021, in ASCOMS (Acharya Shri Chander College of Medical Sciences and Hospital) Jammu, it was a huge loss for Jammu and Kashmir and a serious jolt to the Gujars. In his more than 30 years of active life as a preacher, Faiz enormously contributed to the revival of Gujar Muslims in sprawling Jammu plains and reconnecting them with Islam.

One of the earliest settlers in Bathindi, Mufti Faiz played a key role in setting up of a chain of seminaries and mosques, between Reasi (Jammu) and Pathankot (Punjab).

Mufti Faiz’s rise is an interesting story. Born to a well-read family in Dodhasan Bala (Thanamandi, Rajouri) in June 1964, he was orphaned at 14 days of age. His quest for knowledge was linked to the age-old culture of his village, located almost 10 km from the main Rajouri town on the Sharda Sharief road, which gave knowledge a top priority throughout.

AN EXCEPTIONAL VILLAGE

The importance of this village can be gauged from the fact that two leading Ulema of pre-partition Lahore, Moulana Mohammad Akbar and Moulana Ahmad Din, belonged to it.

The village had a Maktab set up by a neo-convert, Mian Dutta, in the early twentieth century. It had a formal primary school in the 1930s, which was being managed by a Mirpuri teacher, Mir Hussain.