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British Residents with whom I had worked in
connection with the Victoria Memorial Orphanage
had had a good opinion of me. Besides this, my
intimate knowledge of English people and their
ways, he knew, would be useful in making the way
smooth for political work."
Work in the Political Department was not too
heavy for him. " After the hard intellectual work
of the High .Court/' he says, " my new office
seemed almost a sinecure, and I hardly knew at
first what to do with myself." Fortunately some
interesting literary task was given him by His
Exalted Highness, namely—the translation of his
Ghazals, " and I did it as a pastime/'
" I had also leisure for doing another and more
important work. This was to get a working
knowledge of thg. Qur'an. The desire was born of
a feeling of alarm suddenly felt one day when I
thought how humiliating it would be if some
English friend asked me to explain some Islamic
doctrine or belief and I was not able to do so. No
time was lost and I began to read the Qur'&n daily
in Mr. Mohammad Ali's translation, a practice I
have kept up since 1918. I am thus able, I hope,
to discuss anything contained in our Book with any
man of liberal education in an intelligible way.
And I am proud to say that I remember a good
many chapters of the Qur'an by heart." This
shows how easily he could combine literary and
spiritual interests with the dull routine of official
work.