There are multiple obituaries about Allama Talib Jauhiri/Johri, Quranic scholar and Zakir e Ahlul Bayt. Few of them manage to capture the grasp and depth of Jauhiri sahib.
For decades, his exegesis of the Holy Quran stood apart from the narrow, parochial and obscurantist interpretations by other scholars and clerics across the sectarian spectrum.
Allama Jauhiri’s exegesis was firmly rooted in the foundation of interpreting the Quran in the illumination of the Ahlul Bayt. His exegesis were a thorn for those with a Nasibi and Takfiri agenda.
Our liberals and chattering classes restrict their understanding of Pakistan and Muslim society as though we are in a country club in a Paris suburb. Or a lefty cafe in Prague.
Like the obscurantists and bigots who were wary of Allama Jauhiri, liberals are similarly impoverished about faith traditions.
That is why many of them limited their critique of Allama Jauhiri to his unique delivery style. Many of them were simply jealous that it was Jauhiri sahib’s Zakiri and Fehm ul Quran lectures that stood in the way of the ISIS/Sipah Sahaba/TLP takeover of Pakistan.
Talib Jauhiri was not just an expert Quranic scholar. He also possessed the humility and humanity to understand that the Quran is simply incomplete and incomprehensible to those whose Naseebiyat compels them to divorce the Ahlul Bayt from the Quran.
This is why Jauhiri sahib transcended the sectarian divide that has been set in motion in Pakistan; especially since the Zia days.
Jauhiri sahib’s traditionalist approach of interpreting the Quran through the lens of the Ahlul Bayt insulated him from the Modern reformers, politicoes, interfaith careerists and Deepak Chopra type scam artists.
These modern trends have given us the Wahhabi “reform movements” and the dumbing down of faith traditions. Where lesser clerics are either obsessed with misusing faith for political power.
Or for shallow Posers, uttering “divine sounding hogwash” and subtly supplanting traditional spiritualism with Nasibi materialism.