Obituary: Begum Hamida Rahman
Daughter of Dr. Basharat Ahmad
The Light (UK), May 2006 Issue (pp. 6–7)
It is with the deepest regret that we report the death of the venerable Begum Hamida Rahman in Lahore at the age of 96 years. Inna li-llahi wa inna ilai-hi rajioon. She was a daughter of the late Dr Basharat Ahmad (d. 1943), one of the most illustrious scholars of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement and author of the encyclopaedic tome Mujaddid-i Azam, Urdu biography of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
Dr Hamid Rahman of San Diego, U.S.A., one of her two sons, has composed the following note about her life at our request.
“Hamida Rahman, popularly known as Hamida Khala (auntie), passed away in Lahore on April 4, 2006. She was the youngest daughter of Dr. Basharat Ahmad, a companion of Hazrat Mirza sahib and a pillar of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement in its early formative years. Perhaps, it is not entirely correct to say that Hamida Khala was the youngest of Dr. Basharat Ahmad’s eight children because she did have a twin sister, Mahmuda, who arrived in this world a few minutes after her. The two sisters were identical twins and it was difficult to tell them apart. Oftentimes visitors addressed each of them as Hamida-Mahmuda not knowing which one they were talking to. The sisters lost their mother in their early teens and they had to take over the care and running of their father’s household at this early age. The spirit of service was ingrained in their nature and the two sisters developed a reputation for nursing any member of the family that fell ill. With six older siblings who were all married with children and an even larger extended family, the sisters were busy all the time giving care and comfort to whoever was in need.
“The two sisters got married in April 1941 within days of each other. Hamida Khala was married to Professor Abdur Rahman, a teacher in Aitchison Chief’s College, Lahore. Professor Rahman went on to become the founding principal of Abbottabad Public School. Both at Lahore and later in Abbottabad, Hamida Khala’s house was a bustling center of family activities. Guests, family and non-family, were always welcome and received the special care and hospitality of the Rahman couple. Professor Rahman died in a tragic road accident in 1978. Hamida Khala then moved to Lahore and set up house in Ahmad Block near Dar-us Salam. In 1984, her eldest son, Kalim, lost his wife and Hamida Khala moved to Dubai to care for her son’s house and his two children. Later on, she divided her time between Kalim’s household in Rawalpindi and her daughter Sabiha’s in Lahore. Since 2002, she had been living exclusively with her daughter and son-in-law Brigadier Muhammad Saeed who both lovingly cared for her till the end.
“Hamida Khala was active in Jamaat activities right from her childhood. When she came to stay with her daughter in Darus Salam, Lahore, all the ladies of the Jamaat looked up to her as a spiritual, motherly figure. She attended the Annual Gathering in December 2005 in her wheel chair. Soon after that, she was taken ill and has now passed away. Inna li-llahi wa inna ilai-hi rajioon. When Hamida Khala’s illustrious father, Dr. Basharat Ahmad, died in 1943, Syed Asad-ullah Shah, a well known saint of our community, remarked:
‘One pillar has fallen today but he has established eight pillars in his place,’
“a reference to the eight children of Dr. Basharat Ahmad.
“Hamida Khala is survived by her sons, Kalim and Hamid, her daughter, Sabiha, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.”
We would like to add that a most valuable literary service performed by Mrs Hamida Rahman, especially from the U.K. Jamaat point of view, was the compilation of the Urdu articles of her sister, the late Begum Razia Faruqui, in book form under the title Kuchh Yadain, Kuchh Batain (meaning ‘Some Memories, Some Talk’), published in 2003. The articles were written between 1979 and 1984, and as Razia Faruqui lived in the U.K. at the time, in many of the articles she reports on meetings, functions and activities of the U.K. Jamaat. Other articles are about Islam, the Ahmadiyya Movement, and some prominent figures in the history of our Jamaat.
We pray that Allah grants His mercy and protection to Hamida Khala and joins her with His righteous servants and our elders who passed away before. We offer our most heartfelt condolences to her sons Mr Kalim-ur-Rahman and Dr Hamid Rahman, her daughter Mrs Sabiha Saeed (wife of Brigadier Muhammad Saeed), and other relations.