The caravan of martyrs has been joined by a high-profile scholar, undaunted orator and eminent teacher of Hadith. With the assassination of Maulana Mufti Atiqur-Rehman, a seat of learning has been left deserted; a tongue that always spoke the truth has been silenced, and a heart that beat for others has been stilled. A pen that denounced American imperialism and exposed Western conspiracies has been broken. While his seven children have been orphaned, thousands of students and devotees have been rendered bereft of their source of inspiration.

Protests will now be recorded; people will flock in to offer condolences; investigation committees will be constituted, and government officials will vow to hunt down the killers, to deal with them with an iron hand. After a few days or weeks perhaps, no one will remember that a great tragedy had taken place. Neither will plans be made to prevent the recurrence of such tragedies in future, nor will there be any serious efforts made to develop unity in the scattered ranks. Silence and inaction will prevail until another Mufti Shamzai or Mufti Atiq is targeted.

I wonder, not at the cruel murderers, but at the survivors of the victims who suffer cruelty again and again but do not unite to crush the hands of the oppressors. With flowers that invigorate the soul being crushed in this way and torch-bearers being removed one after another, the day will come when autumn will reign over the garden, and darkness prevail everywhere. No one can save a nation or group from sudden death that becomes used to suffering atrocities in silence. It is a natural law that only those are helped who help themselves.

Mufti Atiqur Rehman had been teaching Islamic sciences in the institutes of interior Sindh before he came to Jamia Binnoria, Karachi ten years ago. At that time, I was also associated with Jamia Binnoria, so I had an opportunity to see him closely and get to know his aims and ideas well. Allah Ta'ala had endowed with unusual abilities. His eloquence envied his speech, his pen held the quality of making the impossible easy, in teaching he was a past master and he was a farsighted well-read mufti as well. Love of jihad and mujahideen was an essential part of his faith. He believed that his hatred for Kufr would become a source of deliverance for him. His speeches contained facts from the Quran and Sunnah, phrases and epigrams based on his religious insight, sayings and events from the lives of pious people, lamentation at the decline of the Muslims, exposure of enemy designs, expression of Right, repudiation of Wrong and much else besides. His thundering tone and each word imbued with sincerity served to enhance the efficacy of his speeches. He was not among those orators who depend upon a few parroted speeches throughout their lives. On the contrary every religious lecture he delivered was enriched with new material and was delivered in succinct words and sentences. There wasn't a single topic related to Islamic teachings on which he could not speak in minute detail. Punjabi was his mother tongue, but he regarded Urdu, being the national language, an effective medium of Da'wah. He had command over Arabic, being the religious language, and when the need arose he could express his thoughts in the internationally-spoken English too.

Oratory was not a source of income for him; instead he often paid the fare from his own pocket to reach the promised venue. Words came from his heart and touched the souls of his audience. His eyes would fill with tears as he spoke and his words made his listeners cry too. He had a deep regard for others and this prevented him from refusing to go with those who invited him. He would gladly inconvenience himself for the sake of others. Despite his teaching engagements and other preoccupations, he would address a number of gatherings in a single day. Having spent ten years in Tando Adam, he had a wide circle of devotees in interior Sindh.

Even after shifting to Karachi, his visits to interior Sindh didn't come to an end. He had established a relationship on the basis of religious brotherhood with the poor but Islam-loving people of the Interior and he did not let this break in spite of his hectic schedule.

Throughout his life, he patronized mujahideen and helped them in every way he could. He used to be the principal speaker at their training sessions. I came to know how intense were his feelings for shuhada the day the corpse of Maulana Saleem Malik, a teacher of Jamia Binoria, was brought from Afghanistan. Addressing the funeral gathering he burst into tears saying, "I had a long-cherished desire to see a martyr. Al-hamdulillah! It has been fulfilled today." He wasn't to know that he himself would be fortunate enough to attain the exalted rank soon and in such a glorious way that the last thing he did before martyrdom was to offer 'Isha salat and deliver a dars of the Holy Quran. The topic of his discussion was Surah Taubah that deals with jihad from beginning to end. Still in a state of wudhu he was coming home from the masjid when he became a victim of the cruel assassin's bullets. He recited the kalimah aloud and gave up his soul in his Maker's keeping. Indeed, the high rank of shahada is bestowed upon fortunate ones only and not upon every Tom, Dick and Harry.

A unique aspect of his martyrdom, worthy of the attention of Medical Science and worth learning a lesson from, is that even after 19 hours, blood was dripping from his body and his face had no signs of atrophy. It seemed to me that he was just sleeping, so very peacefully. Renowned welfare worker, Abdul Sattar Eidhi, who rarely comes to such funerals, was there and he said, "For the first time in my fifty years of welfare work I have come across a corpse with hot blood dripping from it though it has been kept in the freezing mortuary for the last 15 hours! For four hours before that it had been kept outside too!"

Mufti Atiq was not unaware of the danger he was in. He had been receiving threatening calls for a long time. His brothers, relatives and companions repeatedly urged him to exercise caution and desist from criticizing America and its allies but he would always say, "There are only two ways I can be careful. One is to keep bodyguards, but when Mufti Shamzai's team of bodyguards could not save him from bullets, how can one or two bodyguards that I can afford, protect me? The second way is to keep myself locked in my house and stop going out for preaching the truth. I can't even think of that. As for criticism, I have never criticized unjustly, and no one can stop me from criticism that is deserved, and from speaking the truth."

Had he compromised on his stand, he could have gained access to rulers' mansions but he was seeking to go even higher and for that it was necessary to ignore the small, the temporary and fake mansions. And that is what he did. He never went in awe of the short-lived pomp and power of the rulers. In the path he had chosen, castles and mansions were worth even less than fragile huts.

In one such hut, when he was invited by top government officials to express the stand of Sunnis, setting aside all reserves, he spelt out their view point in clear, unequivocal terms.

Someone at the funeral aptly remarked that for the security of a man who had hazarded his life for the cause of Ahle-Sunnat, not a single Sunni was present. He was referring to the absence of security guards in the vehicle when it was attacked. And he was right. True, the government is neglecting its duty of providing security to ulama but the negligence shown by people is not praiseworthy either. These great ulama-i-keram and scholars have been running risks and taking great pains for reforming the people and protecting their rights but the people never come up with plans for safeguarding them.

From Maulana Ludhyanvi and Mufti Jameel to Hazrat Mufti Shamzai and Mufti Atiqur Rahman, none of the scholars were killed because of personal enmity or property disputes but for their 'crime' of supporting the truth, negating falsehood, da'wah towards Deen, desire for reforming the people, loving the mujahideen and hating the imperialist powers. These were their crimes that were punished by death.

There is still time for us to recognize our responsibilities with respect to our elders and ulama, and get down to fulfilling them, otherwise, only those people will be left on the face of this earth who will insist that we call them ulama though they will be devoid of all religious knowledge. These 'enlightened ulama' will issue fatawa without carrying out any research and being misled themselves shall mislead the people too. May the shahadah of Mufti Atiqur Rahman play a vital role in stirring the Millat-i-Islamiyyah awake and in making them conscious of their duty towards safe-guarding their patrons, spiritual teachers and scholars.