My mother's Eid gift

On every Eid-al-Fitr, I fondly remember the gift that I got from my late soul-mother, Dr Zaifa Ashraf.

I was a 20-year-old at that time, pursuing my PhD in Arabic Linguistics from the famed Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Dr Zaifa was the Emeritus professor and my doctoral guide. I came from Oxford to complete my PhD under her stewardship.

Dr Zaifa was a very liberal professor, having no faith in any man-made organised religion as she left her parental religion, Islam, at the age of 17 and became an apatheist. So was I. I too never believed in any religion or god.

My mother never wore her atheism on her sleeves. But my atheism reeked of a tad arrogance and palpable condescension as I was pretty young and impressionable at that time. A day before Eid, she gifted me a beautiful set of sherwani. I was exceedingly happy but I asked her, "Shukriya, par aap toh kisi mazhab ko nahin maanti hain" (Thanks, but you don't believe in any religion, do you?) Her reply enlightened me.

She said in Arabic, "Reza-un-jashn na firzed, em-an ya jashn-e-mahshoof ud-deen" (Who doesn't believe in any religion per se, celebrates all the festivals). She never observed roza during Ramzan, but on the occasion of Eid, she would buy new clothes for all her students and colleagues, regardless of their religions.

When my soul-mother accompanied me to Pune, I saw her celebrate all Hindu festivals with the same gusto. On Diwali, she'd go to orphanages and old age homes and spend time with the inmates, distributing sweets and bursting firecrackers.

She broadened my vision and brought me out of the narrow precincts of militant atheism. She'd often tell me that non-belief doesn't mean shunning the festive gaiety of any religion. Whether one's a theist or atheist, one shouldn't be too hardcore in one's belief system.

"Celebrating Christmas or Eid doesn't mean that you believe in Christianity or Islam," she would often tell me. Eid doesn't belong to only Muslims or Christmas is not integral only to Christianity. It's the breadth of vision that goes beyond all religions and encompasses all festivals as one's very own.

Mom would tell me that there must never be any rigidity in any belief system because even atheism is a kind of "ism" or a doctrine. We must rise above all sorts of pettiness.

I fondly remember how, with the childlike enthusiasm, she would buy pichkaris for the inmates of a nearby orphanage and play Holi with them. Her enlightened views ennobled me and made me eschew any kind of bitterness that I harboured against believers. Mom made me unprejudiced. "All are humans and are gods," she would tell me.

Though she passed away a decade ago, her exalted ideas still guide me through thick and thin. On every Eid, I take out her sherwani and other gifts and sitting before them, I thank her profusely for giving me the best lessons in humanity. You too celebrate Eid the way my mother used to celebrate it and be a human.