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Syed Hasan Askari Pen-Portrait of a Painter (By G. Allana)

The armies of Mahmood Ghaznavi were infiltrating through the mountainous passes in the North around 1001 A.D., carrying everything before them. Ghaznavi’s army consisted of soldiers from many parts of Asia --- from Ghazni, Iran, Turkey and parts of Central Asia. The successes that net their arms was phenomenal. While Mahmud Ghaznavi established his hold over Northern India, many of his soldiers, captivated by the charm and spell of India, came to be permanently settled in India. One such soldier was Mahomed Hali, who had been a native of Iran. He was a soldier by profession, but a religious scholar in inclination. After setting up his house in Rawalpindi, Mahomed Hali’s mind for a while hovered between two alternate choices. He was now a middle-aged man; he had amassed a small fortune due to his successful career in the army, but the love for pursuing knowledge has become a passion for him. . He finally decided to give up soldiering, and to devote himself fully and completely to the study of Quran, Hadith and Islamic mysticism. He sat at the feet of many Ulema’s and Sufi’s, and within a short time he established for himself a big reputation, coming to be looked upon as a profound Sufi in his own right. Many students, eager to learn, flocked to study under Manomed Hali who, because of his high standing among ulemas of the time, came to be called Maulana Mohomed Hali. With advancing years, the maulana’s spritiual personality had undergone a complete metamorphosis. Thousands had become his followers and they called him Shah Chiragh Maulana mohomed Hali. He died at a fairly old age, and his last resting place can be seen even to this day in Rawalpindi, called the grave of Shah Chiragh.

The descendents of Shah Chiragh migrated from the Punjab to the United Provinces, where one branch of the family rose to be ranked among the leading landed aristocratic families of the United Provinces. One of his Lineal descendants was Sayed Raza Hasan. At a very early age he showed great promise as a student, and his farsighted parents decided to give him the best possible education in a well known school where English was being taught. With the advent of the British, Persian and Urdu were no longer the court languages, English having elbowed them out. Raza Hasan passed with distinction his matriculation and his law examination, and began to practice as a civil and criminal lawyer at the High Court in Lucknow. The British Government, anxious to recruit sons of aristocratic families in Government service, offered a lucrative appointment as a Government pleader to Syed Raza Hasan, which he accepted. His house was a rendezvous of artists, musician and men of letters, and in his they found a liberal patrons. Very often there would be held musharias in his house, where well known Urdu poets of Lucknow and the United Provinces participated. Raza Hasan also started collecting paintings, and soon his house came to have reputation of being a minor picture-gallery.

On the death of Syed Raza Hasan, his property was divided among his two sons, Syed Agha Haider and Syed Abul Hasan Askari, not the least part of this patrimony being the family collection of paintings by great masters of the time. Syed Agha Haider rose to be a justice of the Punjab High Court, while his younger brother, Abul Hasan become a subordinate judge at Meerut, Moradabad and Lucknow. But wherever he setup his house, Syed Abul Hasan always took with him the beautiful painting that he had inherited from his father. Abul Hasan came to be married to the daughter of a near relation. During one of his frequent travels in connection with his official duties, Abul Hasan was stationed in Jhansi, where on 29th December 1907 was born their first child, whom they named Hasan Askari. Although two more children, one son and one daughter, were born to them, Hasan Askari continued to be the pet child of his parents.

He grew up in a house, where paintings abounded. All of them painted in traditional school of Indian portraiture. Hasan’s maternal grand-father has a female elephant, a completely domesticated animal. One day Hasan, now about five, and one of his cousins were playing in the garden, where out of sheer fatigue the cousin fell fast asleep on the garden lawn. The elephant, named Noor Jehan, slowly and majestically walked upto where Hasan sat near his cousin. Noor Jehan