Lives Lived: Masood Chowdhry - An inspiring Canadian Muslim lawyer

By Affan Chowdhry 

It has been a month since my father, Masood Qadir Chowdhry, passed away.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words and prayers. I am forever grateful.

My father was born on this day in 1932 in British India in a small village in Punjab between the rivers Jhelum and Chenab. His country did not yet exist.

My father’s parents were humble farmers; they could not read or write.

Every day, he would would walk to the nearest school six kilometers away. When he was still a boy, he lost his mother. But he never lost faith in the healing power of his creator. That belief was a constant in his life.

I’ve never known anyone more positive; that is his gift to the entire family.My father sparked a revolution. He was the first to get educated and the first to go to university, attending Punjab University in Lahore.

One day, the farmer’s son became a lawyer and later moved to Canada, where he requalified at Queen's University in Kingston. It was not enough that education was good for him.

It was going to be good for the entire family; and so he lifted his brothers and sisters, pushed them to embrace the value of education. That idea has rippled through the generations in Canada, U.S., Pakistan and the UK. That is his gift to the entire family.

Finally, my father showed us that words matter: Words are for kindness and remembering our Creator.

In the his last days, as he approached turning 92 years old, I saw my father lose interest in the biographies and histories I had bought for him over the years.

He returned to a handful of books which he studied with concentration. That is my abiding memory: Dad, in his chair, hunched over the Koran and the life of Prophet Muhammad.

Content, quiet, and without complaint.Look at where you started, Dad; look at what you achieved and what you leave behind.

May this last journey be easy. May Allah bless you always.