In the 1920's a young man named Ghazi Elam Din Shaheed, seemingly an ordinary mortal was hanged in India for killing RAJPAL, the publisher of an inflammatory book defaming and vilifying Prophet Muhammad (SAW). It is interesting to note that Quaid e Azam, Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal and Dr Muhammad Din Taseer were closely associated in favoring Elam Din Shaheed. The case went to court and Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was his defence lawyer. Jinnah urged Ilm Din to enter a plea of not guilty plea and to say that he had acted due to extreme provocation. The fact that Ilm Din was only 19 years old would have also worked in his favour. Ilm Din refused to offer
such a plea and insisted that he was proud of his actions. This case was the only one that Jinnah ever lost.

The young man was hanged and the authorities buried him without any Janazah (funeral) prayer being offered for him. Mass demonstrations broke out and there the tension between the Hindu and Muslim communities was palpable. The inhabitants of Lahore wanted Ilm Din's body returned in order to give him an Islamic janaza (funeral). Reportedly, Dr Muhammad Din Taseer, the first Ph D in the Sub continent and father of Salman Taseer arranged the burial.

Two celebrated activists - the poet Dr. Muhammed Allama Iqbal and Mian Abdul Aziz - campaigned to have the body of Ilm Din returned to Lahore for the Janaza prayer. The British were worried that this would incite unrest. Only after Allama Iqbal gave his assurance to the British that no riots would erupt, was permission given.

When the body of Ilm Din was exhumed from its grave, it was found to be the intact without any change whatsoever. The kaffan (shroud) had not changed its colour - a full 15 days after the hanging. Mawlana Zafar Ali Khan said ahead of the burial: "Alas! If only if I had managed to attain such a blessed status!" Allama Iqbal carried the funeral bier along its final journey. As Iqbal placed the body of Ilm Din into the grave, he tearfully declared: "This uneducated young man has surpassed us, the educated ones."

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