Mawlana Mufti Mohammad Hanif Jaunpuri (may Allah preserve him) a khalifa of Shaykh Wasiullah (may Allah have mercy on him) is almost hundred years old. He has been teaching for the past 63 years. Presently he is the Shaykh al-Hadith at Baitul Uloom, Sara-i-Mir, UP, India.
He is, mashaAllah, very active, alert and mentally sharp even at this age.
He was in Jeddah yesterday. In an informal talk he informed us about himself. In my own words I will post some excerpts from it. May Allah make it beneficial for us. Amin!
‘I worked as a porter initially. I had attended school till fourth grade only. Then I became a famous ‘amil.People used to call me ‘Hanif Shah’. It was in 1942 or 43 that I recognized the importance of Tasawwuf and wrote a letter to Hakim Al-Umma Shaykh Mawlana Ashraf Ali Thanawi (may Allah Have mercy on him) asking for guidance. It was the period of Hakim al-Umma’s terminal illness. In response Hakim al-Umma excused himself from being able to do so but provided a list of 25 khulafa to select from based on one’s congeniality (munasbet).
I consulted with sincere friends and selected Shaykh Wasiullah (may Allah have mercy on him) as a Shaykh. I moved to his khanqah. In spare time I tended to the goats kept at his home. There I had a desire to formally study Islam. And in four and a half years I completed the basic curriculum. It was in the blessed month of Ramadhan at the tahajjud time that Shaykh Shah Wasiullah initiated the dars of Sahih al-Bukhari for us. We were 20 or 25 students. Thereafter, for the subsequent 11 years I attended this dars for my own benefit.
Once Shaykh Wasiullah for some tarbiyyah reason banished me from the khanqah. Shaykh had a jalali demeanor of tarbiyyah. We were apprehensive approaching him. It took me two years to gather courage and visit him again. During this period I moved to Banares. There I studied homeopathic medicine and established a clinic. It was on the eve of eid al-fitr that I decided to return to Shaykh. Travelling hundreds of miles by train I reached Gopaganj (a small town near the village of Shaykh) early morning on the eid day. There were festivities all around. People were celebrating eid. Each and everyone of them knew me from before. But no one even greeted me. They were all aware that I had been banished by the Shaykh. I greeted them and asked them to mediate for me and inform the Shaykh of my arrival. No one agreed. They said that they did not want to spoil their eid by upsetting the Shaykh. Eventually, I mustered the courage to go by myself.
My feet were trembling and the heart was racing amok as I climbed the stairs leading to the Shaykh’s room. On seeing me Shaykh said, ‘Oh! you have returned eventually.’ I dropped on his feet and started crying. Shaykh consoled me. He instructed others to make me comfortable at khanqah. He had siwayian(sweets made especially on eid) from his home brought for me and moreover presented me 30 rupees as eidee (eid gift). Thereafter he instructed me to stay at the khanqah as long as he was alive. (Mawlana was emotionally overwhelmed at narating this). ‘
Jeddah, Qari Rafique sahib’s residence, after ‘esha, 10th April 2009