Draft:IMAM SAHEB ABUDL QADIR BAWAZIR

‘IMAM SAHEB’ TO INDIA ALONG WITH GANHDIJI

After his transformation from Barrister Gandhi into the leader of Satyagraha Movement in South Africa and achieving certain tangible results in favor of Indians there, Gandhiji left for India in 1915 leaving the Ashram and other activities to his associates there in 1914. Along with Gandhiji came Imam Abdul Khadir Bavajir (-1931), an associate in Phoenix Ashram. He assumed charge of the printing press in Sabarmati Ashram started in India by Gandhiji. Abdul Khadir’s wife Imam Saheba, his daughters Fathima Begum and Amana Kureshi (1905-1967) also worked in the printing press. Imam Abdul Khadir, whom Gandhiji fondly called ‘Imam Saab’ and treated affectionately as his brother, and his family lived in Sabarmati Ashram with Gandhiji’s family.

Gandhiji specially mentioned about this marriage at length in his paper ‘Navajeevan’. Gandhiji wrote about Imam Abdul Khadir and his family in detail. All this is available in the ‘Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India Publications’. Gandhiji wrote about Imam Saheb’s life in South Africa and in India at Sabarmati Ashram in the following way: 'His real name was Abdul Kadir Bawazeer, but, as he served as Imam in South Africa, most people knew him as Imam Saheb. I always addressed him by that name. The Imam Saheb's father was the Muezzin of the famous Jumma Masjid in Bombay and served in that capacity right till his death. He died only a few years ago, after the Imam Saheb's return to India. He fell dead just as he was washing and getting ready for the azan. Such a death comes only to the blessed. The Imam Saheb's forefathers were Arabs and had come to India and settled in the Konkan years ago. Hence, he knew the Konkani language too. His mother tongue was Gujarati, but he had little schooling. He knew Arabic well enough to be able to read from the Koran Sharif with a pleasing intonation, though not so well as to be able to understand everything in the Koran. He had picked up, through contacts in practical life, Englis, Dutch and Creole French. Urdu, of course, he knew. He had also a working knowledge of Zulu. His intellect was so sharp that, if he had regularly studied in a school, he would have earned reputation as a great scholar. Though he was not a lawyer, he had come to understand subtleties of law through practical experience'