Syed Ali Mujtaba | Clarion India
I HAVE received a post from one of my Facebook friends, Parashuram Mishra, who received it from one, A Kumar, on July 5. Written in Hindi, the post goes something like this:
“On July 4, at 11 pm one, Mohammed Shariq, got a bag full of money at Nazareth Hospital in Allahabad. There was no one around to claim the bag. How the bag was lying on the road remains a mystery. Mohammed Shariq picked up the bag and came home. At home, he counted the money and found it to be Rs three lakh and sixty thousand.”
Next day, Mohammed Shariq took the bag in a cover to the Nazareth Hospital in search of its owner. He searched all day for the owner of the bag inquiring with people about him. While some expressed their ignorance about him, others exposed their greed.
Shariq had kept the real bag hidden in another cloth bag. To those who showed any interest in the money, he would ask to give a description of the bag and the exact amount in it. This way, he could ascertain whether a person he approached was motivated by genuine urge to help him or greed.
He continued his search till 4 pm, but when he failed to find the real owner of the money, he thought of handing over the bag to a local police station. It was then he found one, Ravi Shankar, who gave the correct description of the bag and the exact amount in it.
Ravi Shankar told Mohammed Shariq that he got the amount by selling his land for the treatment of his son Ramu Shankar who was suffering from cancer.
Ravi Shankar offered Mohammed Shariq Rs 50,000 for returning honesty, but he refused to take the money saying if his son recovers, Allah will reward him for his act of piety.
Hearing these words, the old father burst into tears. He fell on the feet of Mohammed Shariq and praised him for his honesty.
Well at a time when Muslims in India are rebuked for their religion, lynched and stigmatised as Corona Jihadis, such incidents go a long way in realising interfaith harmony in the society.
While the mainstream media is working on an agenda to polarise the society on sectarian lines, the civil society, with the help of such examples can counter the national media’s propaganda.
