His Death and Martyrdom
Mirzā Mazhar was shot and seriously injured on the 7th of Muharram, of the year 1195 AH/1780 CE. The author of Āb-i Ḥayāt writes:
"The cause of this murder was widely rumored in Delhi among high and low: that according to custom, on the seventh day, the standards were carried aloft . Mirzā Mazhar sat by the side of the road in the upper veranda of his house, with some of his special disciples. Just as ordinary barbarous people do, his group and the procession group may perhaps have hurled some insults and abuse, and some barbarous person was offended. Among them was one stony-hearted person named Faulād Ḳhān, who was extremely barbarous. He did this evil deed. But Ḥakīm Qudratullāh Ḳhān 'Qāsim', in his anthology, says that in his poetry Mirzā Sahib used to compose a number of verses in praise of Hazrat ʿAlī, and some Sunni took this amiss and did this evil deed.
It should be noted that the author of Āb-i Ḥayāt, a determined Shi'a, has been suspected of indulging in partisan religious bias. Professor Frances Pritchett has noted that the latter account of the death of Mirzā Mazhar in Āb-i Ḥayāt is a deliberate distortion. Professor Friedmann, as well as Annemarie Schimmel and Itzchad Weismann, have all noted that Mirzā Mazhar was killed by a Shi'ite zealot.
Most of his Urdu biographers have also written that he was killed by a gunshot by a Shi'ite on 7th Muharram, and he died on 10th Muharram 1195 AH.
Read more about this topic: Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janaan
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or martyrdom:
“In the deeper layers of the modern consciousness ... every attempt to succeed is an act of aggression, leaving one alone and guilty and defenseless among enemies: one is punished for success. This is our intolerable dilemma: that failure is a kind of death and success is evil and dangerous, is—ultimately—impossible.”
—Robert Warshow (1917–1955)
“Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)