If sincerity could be moulded into a shape surely one of its shapes could be Meer Jaffer Ali. He was sincerity incarnate.
Since the time he finished his education until his death, he devoted his entire time for Islam and Muslims. And it can be safely said that in his capacity he left no stone unturned (and there were many stones he did find) about which he felt that turning it would help Islam or Muslims the littlest bit. On the vaguest of hope he undertook hardest of work so no one could say, ‘Had that been tried, it might have worked’, for there was no ‘that’ or ‘this’ that he didn’t try.
If he felt a certain da’wah work was a good vehicle to move Islam forward, he took it up, and dropped it when he discovered that from this stage voices do not reach far. If he felt that a journal was the need, he started it, and closed it when he discovered that the need was there no more. If he could move some people through Friday sermons he undertook them with his characteristic force, vigour and clarity. If he felt that the gulf between Hindus and Muslims was too wide and filled with misunderstandings he undertook to narrowing the gulf. In short, he was committed to no party, philosophy or line of thinking. He was committed to Islam : in the total and absolute sense. Therefore he had no difficulty in being where he felt his being would help what he had committed himself to. And therefore he did all that voluntarily, unasked for. Thankless jobs they proved to be, but he asked not for thanks. He knew and understood the ummah in India. He knew of its feelings, frustrations, pessimism and the resultant inactivity. “I do not know”, he complained in a Friday sermon to a regular crowd shivering with biting cold in a mosque open to winds, “if the weather is colder, or my listeners.” But he also knew that he had to do his job and look to Allah for reward. He was the evangelist of hope through hard work. He was not going to accept despair and indolence from those he preached. So he continued untired and undiscouraged, in the face of the most disappointing attitudes.
Indefatigability was his another quality. He got up early in the morning, took his vehicle out, headed for the place where he had to meet someone, did his fajr in that area, did his dhikr etc., and then knocked on the door. Finished with that person was not finished with all. From there he went to the next place of appointment (or no appointment) and next and next until it was almost midnight when he returned : exhausted in body but not in spirit. Therefore he continued with that schedule for days and weeks at a stretch having ever refused to learn lessons in rest and diversion. He would be at Bombay, receive exhaustion at the end of a week, receive a call from an organisation that a training camp at Srirangapatnam was being held for youth, arrive at Bangalore, his home town, change trains and arrive at the camp-site at midnight. And that at 60.
Patience and perseverance were his other qualities in which he excelled. They were the direct outcome of his sincerity. He knew of the hopelessness of many arduous tasks, but he undertook them in the slightest hope of being able to serve. He knew of people s criticism about him for switching from work to work (an idle nation has many critics). But did he ever ask them for wages? Was he working for anyone but Allah?! So people took him lightly. But he moved on his journey unhindered and unhampered. Unhesitatingly he presented himself uninvited to people who criticized him otherwise. They used him in those moments of work and then forgot about him. But he forgot them not. With exemplary generosity he presented himself again with his honest face when they needed him most. Thus many learned to secretly bank on him and to take liberties with him and must, I am sure, conceal grief and shame for having used him and dismissed him on an unenthusiastic note. He knew all that, and understood all that. But he took it lightly. For we all think something of ourselves. He did not. He considered himself a servant of God and remained that in his attitudes and behaviour. Few, very very few, of his like in this sense does the world house.
Bangalore in particular is going to be emptier without him.