Hayat-e-Saeed

اَلَّذِیْنَ اسْتَجَابُوْا لِلّٰهِ وَ الرَّسُوْلِ مِنْۢ بَعْدِ مَاۤ اَصَابَهُمُ الْقَرْحُ ۛؕ لِلَّذِیْنَ اَحْسَنُوْا مِنْهُمْ وَ اتَّقَوْا اَجْرٌ عَظِیْمٌۚ۝۱۷۲ اَلَّذِیْنَ قَالَ لَهُمُ النَّاسُ اِنَّ النَّاسَ قَدْ جَمَعُوْا لَكُمْ فَاخْشَوْهُمْ فَزَادَهُمْ اِیْمَانًا ۖۗ وَّ قَالُوْا حَسْبُنَا اللّٰهُ وَ نِعْمَ الْوَكِیْلُ۝۱۷۳ فَانْقَلَبُوْا بِنِعْمَةٍ مِّنَ اللّٰهِ وَ فَضْلٍ لَّمْ یَمْسَسْهُمْ سُوْٓءٌ ۙ وَّ اتَّبَعُوْا رِضْوَانَ اللّٰهِ ؕ وَ اللّٰهُ ذُوْ فَضْلٍ عَظِیْمٍ۝۱۷۴

Those who responded to the call of Allah and the Messenger after the misfortune had befallen them—for such among them who do good and keep their duty is a great reward. Those to whom men said: Surely people have gathered against you, so fear them; but this increased their faith, and they said: Allah is sufficient for us and He is an excellent Guardian. So they returned with favor from Allah and (His) grace; no evil touched them, and they followed the pleasure of Allah. And Allah is the Lord of mighty grace. (Holy Quran—3:172-174)

Before the publication of the original voluminous Urdu book Hayat-e Saeed, its esteemed compiler, Safia Saeed, invited me to write a few words about this auspicious biography. I complied with her request and composed an article in Urdu which appeared in the book. Now that the book is being translated into English, I have felt it appropriate to pen my thoughts, feelings and experiences directly in English, since a translator’s words would not be my own.

I was invited to write my tribute perhaps because I had the good fortune of having had a close relationship with Dr Saeed Ahmad in connection with the work of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Lahore. This relationship began in 1975 and continued till the very end of his life.

The verses of the Holy Quran I have quoted above struck me as being particularly fitting as an opening for my comments because the most important event and turn in the life of Dr Saeed Ahmad took place when he, and others with him, were besieged in his house by a violent mob of anti-Ahmadiyya zealots in June 1974, and instead of acceding to their demands out of fear for his life, thereby renouncing the path of right and truth, he held Allah as being sufficient for him as Protector. And it was through the grace and favor of Allah that he and those with him escaped with their lives. Of course, there was loss to his property, as well as suffering of body and mind, but for those who recognize and cherish the grace of Allah, such losses of this world have no significance as long as their faith remains intact.

When I studied this book, Hayat-e-Saeed, I was reminded of the following poetic verse which the compilers of the biography of Maulana Muhammad Ali had quoted in their book, Mujahid-e-Kabir:

ہاں دِکھا دے اے تصوّر پھر وہ صبح شام تُو دوڑ پیچھے کی طرف اے گردشِ  ایّام تُو

O imagination, show once again those morning and evenings;

Run backward, O wheel of time, and bring back those days

How carefree, assured and secure we felt under the guidance and leadership of this powerful and God conscious personality, Dr Saeed Ahmad! In his prayers to Allah in the dead of the night, he would cry for us to receive Divine help, caring more for our welfare than we did ourselves. Because of his pleadings before Allah, we remained in a state of complete confidence and satisfaction that Allah the Most High would protect us, and even more importantly, that He would protect our Lahore Ahmadiyya community.

In a Persian poem, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, says:

لوائے ما پنہ ہر سعید خواہد بود ندائے فتح نمایاں بنامِ ما باشد

Under my banner will every fortunate soul (“saeed”) find refuge;

The call of triumphant victory will issue forth under my name

Of course, the word “saeed” here means a fortunate soul, and does not refer to any person of that name, but events did make this word apply to Dr Saeed Ahmad. In June 1974, when he and his companions were surrounded and besieged by a violent mob of the opponents of the Ahmadiyya Movement, it was the banner of the Promised Messiah under which they took refuge. Following these trials and tribulations, he moved to Lahore, where he then held aloft the flag of the Promised Messiah from Dar-us-Salam [the colony in the city of Lahore which houses the worldwide headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Lahore.] Dr Saeed Ahmad placed emphasis on taking anew the religious pledge or bai‘at by all members to the Promised Messiah. Though he faced opposition in this matter, he remained firm on this position. Similarly, he made extensive trips to countries outside Pakistan, and gave the name Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at-e Islam Lahore [i.e. the Ahmadiyya Association for the Propagation of Islam, Lahore] to the various chapters of our missionary organization. For a long time, these foreign missions had borne names such as “Muslim Association,” “Muslim Mission,” or “Muslim League,” etc., but Dr Saeed Ahmad emphasized that we should have our own identity reflected by this name, and that success and victory in our objective of the propagation of Islam shall only be achieved under the banner and name of the Promised Messiah.

“Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” is an English saying, meaning that when the critical hour came, a man arose according to the needs of the time who was required to confront the prevailing challenges. There was a famous British Prime Minister who led his country during the most precarious time in its history, when he himself was of advanced age, and saved his nation from abject military defeat. He later commented that when he became Prime Minister at such a critical juncture he felt as if all his lengthy life up to that time had been a preparation for his leadership in those adverse circumstances. The life of Dr Saeed Ahmad was not, of course, related to national politics; rather, it was dedicated to the service of Islam as well as to the service of humanity. And all that earlier life had been his preparation, during which he attained the highest stages of piety and purity, knowledge and wisdom, spirituality, sacrifice, and steadfastness. So when that moment arrived when, not to speak of enemies, the hearts and minds of even our own members were mired in doubts, and their steps had begun to waver, he stood in front of that storm like a cliff. His stand gave other loyal, dedicated members and well-wishers of the community a powerful source of support, a focal point, around which they could rally and gather, and thereby save the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement from disintegration.

The very first time I met Dr Saeed Ahmad was in London in July or August 1975. Prior to that, I had merely heard his name from my mother while she used to recount the events of the time when my late maternal grandmother, Badr-un-Nisa, wife of Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi, fell ill with tuberculosis and was undergoing medical treatment by Dr Saeed Ahmad at the Dadar Sanatorium in 1944. My mother and her younger sister were accompanying my grandmother in Dadar and staying at Dr Saeed Ahmad’s home. I did not have any mental impression or image of Dr Saeed Ahmad, nor had I been influenced by my environment and upbringing with the preconception that he was a venerable religious person. It was only after I met him and observed how he interacted with others, his sincerity, his high morals, his worship of Allah, his humble manners, and his zeal and zest for the strengthening of the Lahore Ahmadiyya community, and many other such observations, that I immediately felt a strong attraction and spiritual pull towards him which remained the same for all the years that I had the good fortune to know him and work under his guidance. When I first met him, I was a young university student. I was not, in any way whatsoever, anywhere near his league, whether in terms of religious, scholarly or worldly standing. Despite this great chasm in status between us, he always treated me like an equal. His affection was thus only because I had some desire to serve the religion of Islam and the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement. And not only myself, but all other members of our Movement had the same experience with him. It is an essential principle of building a movement that its leaders identify those members who are useful and an asset to the community, and then overlook their shortcomings, encourage them, and set them on the path of progress and contribution to the cause.

There is an imperative, overwhelming need for a book like Hayat-e-Saeed. As for the sources of this book which the author has mentioned in her foreword, the first and most important of them is the account of the 1974 tragedy as written by Dr Saeed Ahmad himself. In 1992 or 1993 when I was in Lahore for the annual gathering, he gave me its manuscript to read and asked for my opinion about it. I read it very carefully and eagerly, after which I emphasized to him the utmost importance of publishing it so that the authoritative account of those events becomes widely available, and serves as a powerful source of inspiration and faith to our members. Following his death, I continued to stress the same point to members of his family and advised them that its publication was essential. Therefore, when the author of this biography, Hayat-e-Saeed, sent me a pre-publication copy, I was absolutely delighted to see that the narrative of the 1974 tragedy had been included in it. And much beyond that, an attempt had been made to present his life in its entirety.

As Raja Muhammad Afzal has said in his letter to Dr Saeed Ahmad, quoted at the beginning of this book, when such events are passed by word of mouth from one person to another, it is inevitable that, because of lapses in memory, errors creep in. And in his response to this letter, Dr Saeed Ahmad too sensed this apprehension, in that the door is opened for the introduction of hyperbole, exaggeration and inadvertent misstatement. In my humble opinion, this likelihood increases when the subject matter deals with events which accentuate human emotions, enhance one’s faith, and pertain to the great achievements of the leaders of one’s community. It is a distinct quality of our Movement, much of the credit for which goes to Maulana Muhammad Ali, that we abide by the principle of  firmly adhering to facts, and then only those that can be substantiated, and do not allow ourselves to be carried away by emotion. Statements and narratives that are full of exaggerated emotion, diverging from reality, constitute nothing more than talk and mere words, and do not put before us any examples that we can emulate in practice. Maulana Muhammad Ali would always bring the attention of our community to the fact that words alone never bear fruit; it is the doing of deeds that bears fruit.

This book is sorely needed and is of great importance and benefit. This is particularly so because the facts collected in it are authoritative, and quotations are reproduced from reliable sources, supported by references, who reported at a time when these events were still fresh in memory. In addition, this book is not only a personal biography of Dr Saeed Ahmad, but also sheds a great deal of light on the events which took place during an important period in the history of the Ahmadiyya Movement of Lahore. 


In the end, I congratulate the author of this book as well as all her helpers. Their hard work has resulted in the publication of this voluminous and valuable biography, now being made available to the public. And Insha’Allah [God-willing,] readers will find it full of facts which, at the same time, invigorate one’s faith. It is our prayer, regarding all the elders and servants of the Lahore Ahmadiyya community mentioned in this book who are no longer with us in this world, that may Allah the Most High grant them forgiveness, elevate their spiritual status, accept their services and sacrifices, enter them into the company of His righteous servants, and enable us to follow in their footsteps. Ameen.

Zahid Aziz (United Kingdom)

January 2024