When the Promised Messiah(as) arrived Sialkot in the early days, he was traveling with some friends to deliver his lecture. While he was passing through a street someone threw a basketful of ashes from a roof top. With the grace of Allah the Almighty, Huzur(as) was saved as he had passed through. The ashes fell on the head of my father. As a consequence, the old, grey haired man became a spectacle for people. As he passionately loved Hazrat Sahib, he stood right there in ecstasy and most cheerfully started saying, ‘Come on woman, throw some more!’ He used to say that it was a favour of Allah the Almighty that because of Hazrat Sahib(as) he had received the blessing.
After Hazrat Sahib’s(as) departure from Sialkot, the khuddam were returning to their homes after seeing him off at the train station. Somehow he (Maulavi Burhan-ud-Din(ra)) was left behind and the opponents caught him and deeply humiliated him, so much so that they stuffed cow-dung in his mouth. However, he felt honour in this humiliation, and pleasure in this pain and would repeatedly say, ‘O Burhan, how did you deserve these blessings!’ That is to say, these blessings do not easily come by; rarely is one victimised for the sake of faith, that it is good fortune to suffer in that manner! (Monthly Ansarullah, Rabwah, September 1977, pp. 14–15)
Hazrat Maulavi ‘Abdul Mughni writes further about his father Hazrat Maulavi Burhan-ud-Din(ra):
After accepting Ahmadiyyat the financial situation was such that for months during this lean period the family did not even set eyes on ghee [clarified butter]. Instead of buying fuel, dry tree leaves were used to lit a fire. However, dry leaves do not cook a meal, so the dal [pulses] was first dry roasted in the house and then ground. Water was put in a pot with salt and chilies and the leaves burnt underneath. When the water boiled the dry-roasted and ground dal was added. This would be our meal eaten with bread. Usually it would be millet or corn bread and occasionally wheat bread. Instead of ghee, sesame oil was used. In place of spinach, young shoots of tree were cooked. His clothes would be of the old time farmers, and not of the maulavis.
He adds:
On meeting with the Promised Messiah(ra) he developed a passionate love, affection, enthusiasm and fervour for him and it was due to this passionate love and obsession that he absolutely did not care for his own food and comfort. He was obsessed to pass on the spark of the passionate love that he felt in his heart for God, the Holy Prophet(sa) and the Promised Messiah(as), to others. At all times he would be thinking with enthusiasm, passion, concern and anxiety on how to spread the message of Ahmadiyyat. He did not care for food, water or clothes! Allah the Almighty alone knows how my mother and I survived those days. Despite the severe hardship, adversity and deprivation, he was a rock of self-respect, patience and resolve. His sense of honour in matters of religion was such that no enticement, friendship or relation could come in his way. All praise belongs to Allah the Almighty! We were thus brought up in an environment that this world means nothing to us. Seeing this content and self-sufficiency, people eventually started saying that Mirza Sahib gives Maulavi Sahib a stipend. (Monthly Ansarullah, Rabwah, September 1977, pp. 11–12)