The Call of the Quran
1. Divine Planning
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of the writer who belongs to an Urdu-speaking
area. My parents spoke Urdu, which is the mother
tongue of my children. Now it happened that my
eldest son took up residence in London in an area
with a predominantly English speaking population.
As a result, my grandsons now only know English
and cannot express themselves in Urdu. On my visit
to London, I had to converse with them in English.
My grandsons were in this linguistically deprived
state precisely because they had been brought up in
an environment completely cut off from the
continuous traditions of Urdu. This would not have
been possible had these children been brought up in
Delhi. *
* These grandsons now live in India and are fully
conversant with their mother tongue under the
influence of the present environment.
This is on a parallel with the story of Abraham,
Ishmael and his mother Hajira. The dream shown to
Abraham (37:102) was a symbolic one. Abraham,
however, with his extreme sense of obedience,
stood ready to execute his dream. In ancient
Makkah there was neither water, nor vegetation nor
