The people who relate this (and I have heard the anecdote from many) add, that the Durweish Shah Sherif ood deen Mah-mood died at the close of the third week, and on the day and hour he had predicted.
A grandson of this Durweish I have been writing about is still living in India, remarkable for a very retentive memory and propriety of life. I have not met with this gentleman during my residence in India, but have often heard his name mentioned with respect by Meer Hadjee Shaah who knew him well. He says that this Syaad, when but a boy, learned the whole Khoraun by heart[6] in the short space of forty days; he adds, that this person is exemplary in his life, and in his habits and manners humble; that he is truly a servant of God; rejects the mystic tenets of Soofieism; possesses an enlightened mind, and is a Moollah or Doctor of the Mussulmaun law. I have heard many singular anecdotes of his life, proving his disregard for riches, honours, and the vain pursuits of the worldly-minded. If I recollect right, he once was engaged in the confidential office of Moonshie to a highly talented gentleman at Fort William, from which employment he retired and took up his abode for some time at Lucknow; from whence, it was said, he went to Hydrabaad, where, it is probable, he may still be found in the exercise of a religious course of life. His name is respected by all the good men of his own persuasion, with whom I have been most intimately acquainted.
Conceiving the subject may be interesting to my friends, I will not offer any apology for introducing to your notice a female character of great merit, whose death occurred during my residence in the vicinity of her abode. I was induced to make memorandums of the circumstances which brought the knowledge of her virtues more immediately before the public.
Maulvee Meer Syaad Mahumud[7] succeeded, on the death of his father, in 1822, to the exalted position amongst Mussulmauns of head leader and expounder of the Mahumudan law in the city of Lucknow; he is a person of unassuming manners and extreme good sense, is an upright, honest-hearted, religious man, meriting and receiving the respect and good opinion of all his countrymen capable of appreciating the worthiness of his general deportment. He is esteemed the most learned person of the present age amongst Asiatic scholars; and occupies his time in study and devotion, and in giving gratuitous instruction to youth, at stated hours, in those laws which he makes his own rule of life. Neither is the good Maulvee's fame confined to the city in which he sojourns, as may be gathered from the following anecdote, which exhibits the upright principles of this worthy man, at the same time that it discloses the character of a very amiable female, whose charity was as unbounded as her memory is revered in Furrukhabaad.
'The late Nuwaub of Furrukhabaad[8] was first married to a lady of birth and good fortune, Villoiettee Begum,[9] by whom he was not blessed with a son; but he had other wives, one of whom bore him an heir, who at the present time enjoys the musnud of his father.
'Villoiettee Begum was beautiful in person, and possessed a heart of the most benevolent and rare kind; her whole delight was centred in the exercises of those duties which her religion inculcated; she spent much of her time in prayer, in acquiring a knowledge of the Khoraun, in acts of kindness to her fellow-creatures, and in strict abstinence.
'It was her unvaried custom at meals before she touched a morsel herself, to have twelve portions of food, selected from the choicest viands provided for her use, set apart for as many poor people; and when they had been served, she humbly and sparingly partook of the meal before her. She was possessed of great wealth, yet never expended any portion of it in the extravagances of dress; indeed, so humble was her appearance, that she might have been mistaken for the meanest of her slaves or domestics. It was her usual custom, whenever she purchased new clothing for her own wear, to lay in a large store for the poor; and it is affirmed, by those who were long intimate with the family, that a supplicant was never known to pass her door without relief. She even sought out, with the aid of a faithful domestic, the modest poor who were restrained by their feelings from intruding their necessities; and her liberal donations were distributed in so kind a manner, that even the pride of birth could never feel distressed when receiving her charitable assistance.
'This lady was much attached to the duties of her religion, and delighted in acquiring instruction from righteous persons of her own faith. She showered favours on all the poor who were reported to live in the fear of God; indeed, such was the liberality, benevolence, and unvaried charity of this good lady, that the news of her death was received by hundreds of people as their greatest earthly calamity. The example of this lady's character is the more enhanced by reflecting on the retired way in which she was reared and lived, restrained by the customs of her people within the high walls of a zeenahnah, without the advantages of a liberal education or the immediate society of intelligent people. She seems, by all accounts, to have been a most perfect pattern of human excellence.
'In forming her will (Villoiettee Begum had been a widow several years before her death), she does not appear to have wished a single thing to be done towards perpetuating her name,—as is usual with the great, in erecting lofty domes over the deposited clay of the Mussulmaun,—but her immense wealth was chiefly bequeathed in charitable gifts. The holy and the humble were equally remembered in its distribution. She had been acquainted with the virtues of the good Maulvee of Lucknow, to whom she left a handsome sum of money for his own use, and many valuable articles to fit up the Emaum-baarah for the service of Mahurrum, with a, desire that the same should be conveyed to him as soon after her death as convenient. Her vakeel (agent) wrote to Meer Syaad Mahumud very soon after the lady's death, to apprise him of the bequest Villoiettee Begum had willed to him, and at the same time forwarded the portable articles to him at Lucknow.
'The Maulvee was much surprised, and fancied there must be some mistake in the person for whom this legacy was intended, as the lady herself was entirely unknown to him, and an inhabitant of a station so remote from his own residence as not likely ever to have heard of him. He, however, replied to the vakeel, and wrote also to a gentleman in the neighbourhood, desiring to have a strict inquiry instituted before he could venture to accept the riches of this lady's bounty, presuming that even if he was the person alluded to in her will, that the Begum must have intended him as her almoner to the poor of Lucknow. The good, upright Maulvee acted on the integrity of his heart and desired a strict scrutiny might be instituted into the will of the deceased, which was accordingly made, and he was assured in reply, that Villoiettee Begum had been long acquainted with his worth, and in her liberal bequest she had decidedly intended the money for his sole use and benefit, in testimony of her respect for his virtuous character. The Maulvee again wrote and requested to be informed by those most intimate with the Begum's way of life, whether she had left unperformed any of the duties incumbent on a member of the faithful, as regards zuckhaut[10], pilgrimage, the fast, &c.? which not having accomplished, and having ample means, he felt himself bound, in the situation he held, to devote her legacy to the purpose of such duties by proxy (which their law commands) in her name. He was in reply assured that the good Begum had not omitted any part of her duty; she had regularly applied zuckhaut, duly performed the fast, had paid the expenses for poor pilgrims to Mecca (her substitutes); and not until all the scruples of the just Maulvec had been removed would he hear of, or accept the Begum's legacy.'