Ghulam Rasool Mehr was a Pakistani Muslim scholar born in Phoolpur, a village in the district of Jalandhar, British India. He was a Muhammad Iqbal and Mirza GhalibScholar as well as a Political Activist. He wrote his autobiography named Mehr Beeti, recalling his early years in Phoolpur, Maulana says, "I feel we were living in paradise. Suddenly uprooted from there, we had the feeling of wandering into a desert." Mehr Beeti provides graphic descriptions of Phoolpur’s culture and that of adjoining villages.
Early life
Mehr went to primary school in Khambra, then to Mission High School in Jalandhar City. He then enrolled at Islamia College, where he developed a fondness for the city. He found Lahore to be culturally different from Delhi and Lucknow. He felt that while Delhi and Lucknow were steeped deep in Eastern culture, Lahore, was a happy blend of the East and the West owing to its closer affiliation to the British Raj due to its non-revolutionary nature.
Family
He married Ameer Begum daughter of Chaudry ghulam Nabi in 1914. After her death, he married to Amtul Hafeez daughter of Abdul Aziz Ludhianvi in 1929. He has one son and one daughter, Abdul salam aslam and Ummat Ul islam, from his first wife. From his second wife, he has 5 daughters and 5 sons. Sons Farooq Arshad Shaheen, Javed Sultan Alvi, Saeed Akram, Tariq Masood Alvi, and Amjed Saleem Alvi, and daughters Kishwar Bilqees, Razia Sultana, Khalida Naseem, Munira Bano Alvi, and Nasira Parveen,
Career
At the same time, Mehr was deeply involved in the developments on the Indian political front. The Indian Muslims, apart from their participation in the Pakistan Movement, were agitated at what was happening, at that time, in the Muslim world. Young Maulana Mehr, who had just completed his education and who had a passion to serve the cause of freedom and the Muslim 'millat', began writing in the Daily Zamindar and eventually started working there. Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mehr and Abdul Majeed Salik founded Daily Inqilab, Lahore newspaper on 4 April 1927. In Lahore, Mehr meet Shibli Nomani and Nawab Waqar-ul-Mulk Kamboh, who were members of a delegation from Aligarh Muslim University. He also had the opportunity to listen to Allama Muhammad Iqbal recite his verses at the annual conference of Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam. Mehr also spent some time in Hyderabad. Though he did not succeed in getting a suitable job, living there gave him the opportunity to attain a 'political education' for himself. And it was in Hyderabad that he turned his attention from poetry to prose. This practice proved helpful, when he started his journalism career with an editorial published in the Daily Zamindar in 1921. Soon Maulana joined the paper and was in the thick of the battle going on in the name of freedom and Tehrik-i-Khilafat. He had already joined Hizballah, an organisation started by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. In fact, Azad was an important influence on Maulana Mehr and the latter drew inspiration from what was published in Al-Hilal. Mehr had made a brief survey of different movements, political as well as religious, which were going on in those times, and had given his opinions on them. His circumstances did not allow him to complete his memoirs. So we might see his memoirs as a scattered autobiography offering us a lot from the fields of literature to politics.
Death and legacy
Towards the end of his life, Mehr decided to record his life for the benefit of future generations. Mohammad Hamza Farooqi wrote the book Mehr Beeti, published by Al-Faisal Nashran, Lahore. Mehr had dictated it to his son, Farooq Arshad Shaheen and daughter, Muneera Alvi. There is an introductory note written by them which says that they had the opportunity to see their father and listen to him only during lunch time. It was at their ardent appeal that he agreed to recount his life story, from the early years to the end, including his devotion to causes close to his heart. Mehr once wrote in a letter to a friend that his children were eager to know about their family origins. This desire, according to him, was the consequence of his family's migration at the time of Partition of India in 1947, when they had to leave their land of birth, Phoolpur, a village in the district of Jalandhar.
Books
He "wrote, compiled, edited and translated over 100 books", including:
Yawmīyāt riḥlah fī al-Ḥijāz, 1348 H / 1930 M, impressions of pilgrimage to Mecca, in Arabic
Sar ʻUmar Ḥayāt K̲h̲ān̲ Tavānah : savāniḥ ḥayāt aur un kī k̲h̲āndānī tārīk̲h̲ kā pas manẓar, on the life of Umar Hayat Khan Tiwana, 1874-1944, renowned politician from South Asia, includes historical study of his family.
