25th November 1980, five Ulama became Shaheed in a fatal car accident:
Mawlana Ibrahim Desai Saheb RH
Mawlana Yakoob Desai Saheb RH
Mawlana Ali Hassan Saheb RH
Mawlana Umarjee Saheb RH
Abdul Rashid Bhai (Driver) RH
Bayaan (Urdu) in Darul Uloom Chatam, Ontario, Canada.
Wednesday 25th July 2018, by Sheikhul Hadith Hadhrat Mawlana Yusuf Motala Saheb (RH)
Yaqoob Desai, who is a Mishkat student at this Darul Uloom [Chatam, Ontario Canada], and his paternal grandfather and other teachers used to travel from Preston to Darul-Uloom [Bury] daily in a car […] their arrival time used to be 9am, and at times they would either arrive five minutes early or five minutes late.
[One day] they didn’t arrive on time and we [Sheikhul Hadith Hadhrat Mawlana Yusuf Motala Saheb (db)] grew worried as to ‘what has happened?’ We rang their home but they didn’t have any clear explanation. However; after one and a half hours we were made aware of the tragic news that the car had been involved in an accident – all the passengers in the car, including the Ulama, the teachers and also the driver, had ALL been martyred!
His [Yaqoob Desai’s] paternal grandfather Mawlana Mohammed Yaqoob Saheb (ra), who was my true friend, also achieved martyrdom. […]
After the accident and when the Janazah of his paternal grandfather was lifted and taken to the graveyard, firstly, the Janazah of Hadhrat Mawlana Ibrahim Desai Saheb was placed and behind it Moulana Yaqoob Saheb’s Janazah was placed (Janazah Salah led by Hadhrat Mawlana Qari Tayyab Saheb RH).
After the burial, a young man who was from the Kazi Family approached me and spoke, “When the two Janazah was placed on the ground I see [a spiritual vision] that Hadhrat Mawlana Ibrahim Desai Saheb moved the lid of his coffin, opened the lid and placed the lid back on the coffin and he then sat down on top of it.”
He [young man] is seeing all this whilst awake, and all around there are thousands of Muslim people, who participated in the burial, yet none of these people see anything – he; however, is witnessing this!
[He young man continued] “I then see Mawlana Yaqoob Saheb, and he also opens the lid and places the lid back on, he then sits on top of it – both [deceased] have a pamphlet in their hands …!”
We had a pamphlet titled ‘Martyrs of Darul-Uloom,’ consisting of 6 or 7 pages, printed on behalf of the Darul-Uloom which highlighted who these [scholars] people were, where they were from, what responsibilities they had, what knowledge they possessed and their characteristics were all mentioned.
[He young man continued] “Both [deceased] are passing it [pamphlet] to one another whilst smiling and saying, ‘Look, what they’ve written about us?”
