Recollection: Moulvi Mohamed Ishaq

“Itu satu orang Ishaq… Moulvi Ishaq.. Dalam Nee Soon Camp, dia ada canteen - British Army. Lepas itu, dia sudah balik Pakistan.”

There was this person, Ishaq… Moulvi Ishaq… He had a canteen in Nee Soon Camp - the British Army. Eventually, he returned to Pakistan.

Recently, I received a call from the elderly Shahji, in Pakistan. Our conversations on the phone are usually brief, with him asking how my family is and me asking how the weather is like in Pakistan. The conversation would go on for another couple of minutes. Yet, I love every second of it. It reminds me, among other things, how fortunate I am to still be in touch with him. Once, when someone asked him who I was, he said, “Ini kawan saya (this is my friend.)

In this recent conversation, he shared with me his recollection of “Moulvi” Mohamed Ishaq, a rather well-known person who ran a canteen in Nee Soon Camp. He was from Gandhian, in Hazara District of the Northwest Frontier Province. There was a sizeable population of migrants from Gandhian in Singapore from among his friends and kin.

Mohamed Ishaq was known as “Moulvi” because of his religious nature. “Baik punya orang (he was a good person),” Shahji said. He would have a tabung (cylindrical metal collection box) at his stall - which I assume customers would make monetary contributions. On Fridays, he would pray solat jumaat at Masjid Sultan and distribute the money outside the mosque to the poor.

Masjid Sultan in the 1950s as Moulvi Mohamed Ishaq would have seen it. Photo credit: Roots.sg