The Light 2018 08 August

August 2018 The
Light 12
troops just in time to stop the German army
breaking through to ports on the English channel
in the First Battle of Ypres in 1914.
They were volunteers, trained and experienced
soldiers, but like Western troops they
were unprepared for the inferno of shells, machine
guns, poison gas and rat-infested trenches
they were thrown into.
“Just like a turnip is cut to pieces, so a man
is blown to bits by the explosion of a shell,”
wrote a Pathan soldier from northern India. “All
those who came with me have ceased to exist …
In taking a hundred yards of trench it is like the
destruction of the world.”
But they didn’t buckle in the face of gas,
freezing weather and the best-equipped army
in the world, and quickly gained the admiration
of European officers and men.
“It was known that the Muslim troops attacked
fiercely,” said Mr Ferrier. “Western
troops had an ambiguous feeling when they
showed up; they were happy to have them on
their side but it was also a sign that an attack
was on the way.”
In this merciless war, they saw their comrades
gassed and bayoneted to death. Yet the
British and French were struck by how humanely
Muslim troops treated prisoners of war.
Asked why, they referred to Islamic teaching
that prisoners must be fed in a dignified manner.
They won medals for their courage, and the
British, masters of propaganda, ensured that
photos of King George V, Emperor of India, pinning
medals on their chests were circulated
around India to encourage more men to volunteer.
Recipients included Sepoy Khudadad Khan
of the 129th Baluchis, who won Britain’s highest
military award, the Victoria Cross, at the Belgian
village of Hollebeke near Ypres on October
31, 1914 for preventing a German breakthrough
by continuing to fire his machine gun
after all his comrades had been killed and he
had been wounded.
He was the first South Asian to win the VC,
and Indian forces won around a dozen more
during the war. Some 1.5 million men from what
is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar
fought on the Western front, in Africa, the
Middle East and Gallipoli.
Officers made efforts to provide troops with
halal food and there was a high death rate
among Indian cooks who advanced dangerously
close to German shells to serve the men chapatis
and hot curry.
The cold was as bitter an enemy as the Germans
and the incessant, freezing rain in the autumn
of 1914 brought wistful memories of the
monsoon that gave relief from the summer heat
back home, so far away. There was no home
leave. Going back all the way to India was too
expensive, the troops were told.
“They suffered from frostbite and exposure,
causing them to lose fingers," said Mr Ferrier.
"The trenches did little to provide shelter or
warmth from the extreme low temperatures,
especially at night, when even clothes and blankets
froze solid.”
His foundation approached Britain’s Anglia
Tours, which has experience in running guided
visits to First World War sites, to help organise
bespoke visits to the battlefields and memorial
sites where Muslims fought.
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore (UK)
Founders of the first Islamic Mission in the UK - established 1913 as the Woking Muslim Mission.
Dar-us-Salaam, 15 Stanley Avenue, Wembley, UK, HA0 4JQ
Centre: 020 8903 2689 ∙ President: 01793 740670 ∙ Secretary: 07737 240777 ∙ Treasurer: 01932 348283
E-mail: info@aaiil.uk
Websites: www.aaiil.org/uk | www.ahmadiyya.org | www.virtualmosque.co.uk
Donations: https://www.cafonline.org/charityprofile/aaiiluk
I Shall Love All Mankind.