Mul­ti­me­dia con­tent Replication

By Ghu­lam Dastageer

Ignored in books of his­tory and other media of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Hafiz Syed Muham­mad Zaman Shah Qadri Gilani — pop­u­larly known as Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh) — played piv­otal role in the inde­pen­dence movement.

Born to the house of Sufi saint Syed Saeed Ahmad Shah Qadri Gilani in 1887, he had a pro­found love for reli­gious and Sufi ten­den­cies since his child­hood. He was given the Khil­fah (allow­ing one to carry on the respon­si­bil­i­ties of a Sufi chain) of Silsila-​ay-​Qadriyah Hasaniyah at the age of 12 by his grand­fa­ther Hazrat Syed Akbar Shah Qadri Gilani(A.S) Agha Peer Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh).

After school­ing , he focussed his full atten­tion on Hifz-​ay-​Quran . Like his fore­fa­thers his spent his whole life in spread­ing the mes­sage of Islam. He has to his credit to start the pro­ces­sion of ‘Jashn-​ay-​Eid Mee­ladun Nabi’ (SalAl­laho Ale­hay Wa Ale­hee Wasal­lam) in Peshawar.

In 1943, his son Hazrat Syed Muham­mad Ameer Shah Qadri Gilani, com­monly known as Moul­vee Jee (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh) estab­lished Majlis-​ay-​Meeladun Nabi in Peshawar and Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh) was made its found­ing pres­i­dent and first pro­ces­sion of Jashn-​ay-​Meeladun Nabi was taken out on 9^th Rabiul Awwal 1326 hijrah/​February 1943 from his hospice.

Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh) along with Haji Muham­mad Ameen launched a move­ment to cleanse the soci­ety of evils. Both the spir­i­tual men­tors decided to rid the city of Peshawar of pros­ti­tu­tion. In this con­nec­tion a force of vol­un­teers was raised which was assigned the duty to politely stop peo­ple from vis­it­ing the broth­els of whores. How­ever, in the sec­ond phase, the vol­un­teers raised arms and forcibly stopped peo­ple from com­ing to these broth­els. Finally, the pros­ti­tuted com­pelled to leave the area and Peshawar was rid of the prostitution.

The credit of re-​organising All India Mus­lim League in the Fron­tier province also goes to this promi­nent spir­i­tual men­tor of the Qadiriyah Hasaniyah order, Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh).

It mer­its men­tion­ing here that he is the father of unanimously-​revered spir­i­tual fig­ure of the NWFP Hazrat Syedna Muham­mad Ameer Shah Qadri Gilani(A.S.) Moul­vee Jee (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh) who passed away on Octo­ber 27, 2004.



Quaid-​i-​Azam Muham­mad Ali Jin­nah, after he was elected the pres­i­dent of AIML in 1934, focussed his atten­tion on re-​organisation of the party and started vis­it­ing dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try for this pur­pose.

In this con­nec­tion the father of the nation came to Peshawar on Octo­ber 18, 1936 on the invi­ta­tion of Pir Bakhsh Khan Advo­cate, who enjoyed the strong back­ing of Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh).
Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh), along with his three sons Syed Noor Ahmad Shah, Hakeem Syed Ahmad Husain and Moul­vee Jee (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh), received Quaid-​i-​Azam at the Peshawar rail­way sta­tion. Quaid stayed at a house in Munda Beri Yaka­toot Sha­reef, rented by Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum Khan, which is presently hous­ing a gov­ern­ment high school for girls.

Dur­ing his stay in Peshawar, Quaid-​i-​Azam expressed the desire that Mus­lims should con­test elec­tions under the plat­form of the AIML. How­ever, Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum opined that there were scant chances of win­ning elec­tions under the hastily-​organised AIML. In that very per­spec­tive a body was formed to organ­ise the AIML in the NWFP and Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh), espoused by Anjuman-​i-​Saadat Peshawar, called a meet­ing of the like-​minded Lea­guers at the house of Nas­rul­lah Khan Aurakzai, who unan­i­mously elected the office-​bearers of the party, which included Nas­rul­lah Aurakzai (patron), Mian Ghu­lam Husain (pres­i­dent), Syed Muham­mad Zaman Shah (vice pres­i­dent), Muham­mad Ismaeel Ghaz­navi (secretary-​general) and Haji Ghu­lam Nabi (finance sec­re­tary).

Soon after the for­ma­tion of party organ­i­sa­tion at city level the Lea­guers organ­ised the party at the Sarhad Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil with the title Mus­lim League Assem­bly Party.
Observ­ing the unprece­dented suc­cess of the Lea­guers in the Fron­tier province, Quaid-​i-​Azam sent a high-​level del­e­ga­tion of the party to NWFP on July 11, 1938, which was led by Moulana Shaukat Ali. The other mem­bers of the team were Moulana Abdul Hamid Badayuni, Moulana Jamal Mian Farangi Mahli and Moulana Zafar Ali Khan.

Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh) had cor­dial rela­tions with Moulana Abdul Hamid Badayuni and Moulana Zafar Ali Khan who addressed the party work­ers at the res­i­dence of Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh).

Dur­ing the Civil Dis­obe­di­ence Move­ment in 1946, a clan­des­tine makeshift radio sta­tion, Azad Pak­istan Radio Sta­tion, was estab­lished. It had a small trans­mit­ter, which was brought to Peshawar by an activist of the Mus­lim National Guard Abdus Sat­tar, res­i­dent of Swat and a Dehli-​based engi­neer with the same name.

The house of Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh) served as the head­quar­ters of the radio sta­tion dur­ing the Civil Dis­obe­di­ence Move­ment. The radio sta­tion was used to dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion regard­ing sched­ule of pub­lic meet­ings and other party programmes.

Like­wise, a clan­des­tine news­pa­per, Sadai Pak­istan, was also pub­lished from the base­ment of the house of Agha Jan (Rah­mat­ul­lah Aleyh), which con­tained the proxy names of Qahar­man and Bot­shikan as its editor-​in-​chief and assis­tant edi­tor respec­tively.

He died on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1950 at the age of 63. He had eight sons — Syed Noor Ahmed Shah Gilani, Syed Sher Ahmed Shah Gilani, Hakeem Syed Ahmed Husain Gilani, Syed Muham­mad Qamaruz Zaman Gilani, Syed Akhtaruz Zaman Shah Gilani, Syed Anwar Shah Gilani and Syed Asghar Shah Gilani — and two daugh­ters.

May Allah give him High­est place in Jan­nah with com­pan­ion­ship of Prophet Muham­mad salleh Allaho alaih waalehe wasalam . Ameen

نہ پوچھ ان خرقہ پوشوں کی ارادت ہو تو دیکھ ان کو

ید بیضا لئے بیٹھے ہیں اپنی آستینوں میں