Maulana Fazal Ilahi Anweri

Six moments

1. 1927

   Born 16 April 1927 in Bhera, Punjab.

   He was born at Bhera, in what was then the district of Shahpur, in 1927. His mother’s people were farmers there. His father, Master Imam Ali, taught in a village school and accepted Ahmadiyyat about three years after he was born.In his own account · ¶6
2. 1944

   He passed matriculation from the Government High School in Bhera in 1944 and entered the Talim-ul-Islam College that opened in Qadian the same year. He writes: "I was given Roll Number One. In this respect I can say that I am the first student of the Talim-ul-Islam College."

   Reaching Qadian in June 1944, and introducing himself to Khalifatul Masih II (ra) after Maghrib in the Mubarak MosqueIn his own account · ¶23
3. 1956

   The Tabshir office had told him in advance that he would spend six months in Damascus before going on to Ghana, to gain command of Arabic. In the event he stayed nine: he left Rabwah in February 1956 and reached Accra in November 1956. The planned six months were running out just as the Suez war broke out; a state of emergency was declared, flights to and from Damascus and Beirut were suspended, and his departure was postponed indefinitely.

   The war over the Suez Canal breaks out as his six months in Damascus are endingIn his own account · ¶221
4. 1956

   The Swedru Arabic School had one class of boys and girls aged seven to fourteen, between twenty-five and thirty pupils, no syllabus, no fixed length of study and effectively no books. He added English, the local Fanti language and arithmetic, and had elementary Arabic textbooks sent from Egypt by his friend Qureshi Nur ul-Haq Tanwir.

   Nine months in Damascus instead of six, and landing at Accra in November 1956 for the Arabic school at SwedruIn his own account · ¶223
5. 1964

   His first period in West Germany ran from June 1964 to December 1967. He reached Frankfurt by way of Karachi on 20 June 1964.

   Arriving at Frankfurt on 20 June 1964, then on to the mission office in HamburgIn his own account · ¶251
6. 1974

   While he was Amir and Missionary In-charge in Frankfurt during his second German posting, the Pakistani ambassador to Germany, Syed Sajjad Haider, telephoned from Bonn asking to meet them, and came to the Nur Mosque in Frankfurt in 1974 completely alone, with no one else from the embassy. Maulana Anweri answered him with the newspaper cutting and its caption in his hand. The photograph published in Pakistan as proof that Ahmadis had changed the kalima was not of any mosque in Pakistan at all, but of the Ahmadiyya mosque in the small Nigerian town of Ijebu-Ode.

   Mr Sajjad Haider of the embassy arrives alone at Frankfurt and asks to address the friendsIn his own account · ¶614

Where each of these is written down

Places

1. Bhera1927
2. Qadian1944
3. Damascus1956
4. Ghana1956
5. Rabwah1960
6. Hamburg · Frankfurt1964 to 1967
7. Nigeria1968 to 1972
8. Frankfurt1972 to 1977
9. Gambia1982 to 1983
10. Nigeria1983 to 1986
11. Frankfurt1988
12. Obertshausen2017

Years as recorded in the sources.

In his time

He did not write in a study. He wrote at the news. One axis carries his work, his life, the Community and the world, each on its own lane, so that what he wrote can be read against what was happening around him.