Part 13: 1968-1969
We had to move to a third residence: a two room flat in the upper floor, owned by an old man of Pakistani origin. He was known with a very curious nickname in the community: Gurway in Ki-Swahili meaning a swine. I don’t know why he was given such a name but to us he was kind and helpful. My second child, Wohaib, was born in this flat and we received help and assistance from his wife. There I acquired my first car: a second-hand Peugeot 105. If I had retained that car, it would have been a part of a vintage collection. To start it in the morning, you had to apply a crank handle from outside the engine, then revolve it until the engine bursted on roaring.
My good friend, a barrister by profession, comes to my mind whenever I happen to visualise the impression of this car. He was a good jolly character; he used to talk a lot and boast to have known the whole Quran by heart. Once he happened to join a Tablighi Jamaat group who kept on moving from one mosque to the other. Overwhelmed and bewildered by his constant talk of his knowledge of the Quran, they let him lead them in Maghrib prayer. The man recited in the first Rak’a Surah Al-Fatiha followed by Surah Wannas, the last short Surah of the Quran, then he moved to the position of Ruku (bowing) and Sujud (prostration). He must have thought while he was in his Sajda, what to read in the second Rak’a as he had already read the last Surah of the Quran in the first Rak’a. It had been an embarrassing situation for him; a man who had been portraying himself as a Hafiz of the Quran. The only exit left for him to slip away stealthily from the mosque while the group behind him was still in the state of prostration. Allah knows better how long they waited for him to raise his head by saying ‘Allah-o-Akbar’. They must have realised that to have the knowledge of the Quran is totally different from committing it to memory.
One morning he came to me in a hurry. “Can I borrow your car as I have an urgent appointment to reach somewhere?”. I was hesitant but I had no excuse to deny him. I handed over the car key to him; assisted him to start the engine and with a roar of engine, he left the compound of the big house. A few seconds later, we discovered the car stranded in the street outside the house. The poor fellow had applied the gear with such a force that it had come out of the hook and halted the car right in the middle of the road. Thank God, he had left the key in the ignition point and we were able to push it back home.
I had narrated about my journey with the two Sheikhs from al Riyadh in the previous post. Now I remember another journey which I took with Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al-Qa’ood to a small town, Kitui by name through a very difficult mountainous terrain. It was a visit to the place of our Somali delegate Muhammad Hadi who was very keen to see us. We stayed in his mosque for a short while and after addressing the local Muslim community we took the way back to Nairobi. The road was no more than an unpaved passage through the hills and cliffs. A sharp slip at any point could have plunged the car deep into the valley. At one point, Sheikh, sitting next to me on the passenger seat, jumped from his seat to hold the steering wheel in his hands while I was struggling with the driving at my best. Thank God that we arrived safely to our destination.
Mungano Madrasa Ryada Islamia
I turned one of the rooms into a residence for about eight young students who occupied four bunk beds. The deserted small kitchen came to life with an African dish known as Ugali. There were many students, mainly Somali, the denizen of NFD (North frontier district) bordering Somalia, who were keen to join the Madrasa, I discovered that a residential plot was available as an endowment for the Madrasa at Eastleigh, a locality at a walking distance from Pumwani or Majengo.
It took me a year or more to collect enough funds to build a two-storey building with eight rooms. Eventually, the building accommodated around fifty students, with a similar arrangement as that of the Madrasa room. To collect funds was a hard job but to deal with the African contractors was harder. I remember how the poor fellow was once chased by his workers to whom he failed to pay in time. He appeared in front of an angry mob who were shouting at him. Of course, I had to calm them down by coming to the aid of the helpless contractor.
Now the teaching was organised in the morning hours. I was there with Sir Kamaluddin of Sudan and Muhammad Musallam of the East coast. The students were classified as that of a primary level of an Arabic Dar-ul-uloom. The syllabus contained small books in Aqeedah, Hadith, Fiqh, Seerah and Arabic language. I used to print the lessons and test papers on a stencil machine. It was a unique experience of writing with a sharp ended pen on some special blue sheets which were later dressed up on a roller dipped in a special ink. I had to always struggle with the machine which by an excessive amount of ink would destroy a lot of papers before producing a legible reading material. For that small Madrassa I was a teacher, a Head-master, a registrar, a printer and over and above all, a care taker for the benefit of all the boarding students.
For me, the Madrasa was everything. I was there in morning hours till Zuhur. Then I had to come back for the evening Madrasa for local children at Asr time till Maghrib. In between I had my lunch at home and a short siesta before heading once again to the Madrasa.
It was a great joy for me to discover a vast number of books stalked in shelves of the library in the first floor of an annexe to the Gami Mosque in the heart of the city. I took the task of cataloguing the books in my odd visits to the mosque. I discovered many volumes of the weekly magazine of ‘Ahl-e-Hadith’ edited and published by the great Indian scholar Maulana Sanaullah of Amristar. The magazine started its publication in 1903 and remained in circulation till Pakistan came into being in 1947. Its pages stood as a witness to Maulana’s written encounters with the self-appointed prophet of India, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. There were many dialogues, arguments and cross-arguments between the two which ended with the famous public announcement of Mirza of Qadian in which he pleaded to Allah Al-Mighty to let him die during the lifetime of Maulana Amrastari if he was to be a liar and fabricator in his claim of prophethood. That was miraculously proved when he died of cholera on 26thMay 1908 while Maulana survived him by 40 years. He died in 1948 in Sargodha after migrating to Pakistan.
I was curious to know how the copies of this humble paper reached to Nairobi in those remote years. I was told that it was due to an Ahl-e-Hadith Imam, Maulana Abdul Momin who must have subscribed to this magazine while he served the mosque as an Imam or teacher. One day I happily welcomed Shaik Abdullah Al-Farisi, the Grand Qazi of Mombasa who was famous because of his vast knowledge, his contribution to the institution of Islamic judiciary and mostly for his great work of translating the meanings of the Quran to Ki-Swahili, the lingua franca of east Africa. He was delighted to visit the library and go through some of the books of this great valuable collection.
Mr. Habib Adam, a famous businessman from the Memon community and the chair of the mosque trustees was there to facilitate my work at the library. I found him courteous, helpful and an amazing person. He had been a sincere supporter to the work of my two colleagues at Machakus, Syyed Fatahuddin Tangal and Muhammad Ibrahim Malabari. I was a bit disappointed, when I presented to him a set of books printed by my stencil machine, to be a part of a unified syllabus for madrassa education. He received them in a cool manner. I realised my mistake. It should have come through Machakus and not from me directly. May Allah accept his services towards the Islamic cause in general, and in particular his services to the mosque.
Let me mention here that we, the delegates from Dar-ul Ifta in Kenya and Uganda, had agreed to compose a unified curriculum for the Arabic Madrasa. What I had prepared was a manifestation of our agreed deliberations. The course covered six years of primary and two years of middle levels. Ironically, my stay in Nairobi did not last more than nine years; a period that cover these two levels only.
Pangani and Landhi Mosques
Just across the road from my fourth residence, a flat in the first floor of a complex of flats owned by Mehdi Khan of Chakwal, was the famous Pangani Mosque. A small and Indian style built building which served the local community for their daily prayers. For Juma prayers, the people would go either to Eastleigh or the central mosque in the city. I was blessed to start a weekly Arabic class after Isha prayer which was set to be held at 8 p.m. throughout the year. Nairobi, being situated very near to the equator, enjoyed the equatorial weather on one hand and a 12 hours day light and 12 hours night fall. If there was a fluctuation of time, it did not go more than half an hour. So, if the sun set at 6:30, still we were at ease to pray Isha at 8 p.m. It was Pir Habib of Chakwal, a tall heavy-built personality who in one of his visits raised the issue of the timing of Isha. According to him, the white twilight was still on the horizon at 8 p.m. Thus, Isha should be held at a bit later time. Our African Muslims, mostly known as Swahili were known to be raised in following Shaf’i Mad- hab which allowed the performance of isha as soon as red twilight disappeared. Accordingly, we were within the allowed time to offer our prayers.
My weekly Arabic circle was attended by a number of the local residents including a non-Muslim English gentleman who used to take a long journey to reach this area. I had many memories of the event in this mosque and I would keep on narrating what I remembered in these memoirs. After my bitter experience in the Eastleigh Mosque in the beginning, I was allowed to deliver a pre-khutba speech in the central mosque for a few weeks. Later I was approached by Sheikh Mohammad Ismail and Shaikh Muhammad Yaqub, the two brothers from Landhi Mosque to start delivering khutba in their mosque on the other end of the city. The mosque was known as railways Landhi mosque which was started by the dwellers of the railway workers in a tin shed many many years ago. Then it moved to its present site. Like Pangani mosque, it was marked with an Indian style. Its entrance was decorated by Sikh builders. The main building had a dome and a big courtyard as well. Unlike Pangani, it enjoyed a big surrounding area which served as a car park. Both brothers, Sheikh Yaqub, the younger one, in particular used to come all the way from South C, to carry out the activities in the mosque. Maulana Abdul Momin had served there for a long time. This is how they were familiar with Ahle-e-Hadith traditions and were happy to welcome me as a Khateeb of Friday prayer. I developed a close friendship with them. I found them honest and sincere and for first time in my life, I was made aware by Sheikh Yaqub how old postal stamps were preserved in an album. His collection of stamps was colourful and astonishing. I made up my mind to learn Ki-Sawahili to enable me to address the gathering on Fridays in their language.
For this purpose, I had to travel to Mombasa and stay there for a week. My teacher was a young man from Germany, Khalid by name, who after embracing Islam happened to visit East Africa and marry a Swahili woman. He stayed in Mombasa for quite a good time and was able to learn and master the language through many knowledgeable sources including his wife, a native of this country. I was able to cover the whole book, a book of Ki-Swahili grammar with him. I needed more practice and to widen the scope of my vocabulary for which I had plenty of time in the coming months. Soon I was able to address in Ki-Swahili even for a short time during my Friday Khutba.
It is interesting to note that Ki-Swahili is itself an Arabic word (from Sahil: the coast) and it has a vast number of Arabic words rendered into its own structure. For example, note the following Arabic words and how they have been turned into Ki-Swahili by adding a ‘u’ in the end.
Kitab - Kitabu
Qalam - Kalamu
Muallim – Muallimu
Hurriyya (freedom) – Huru
Among the numbers three are Arabic in their origin. This is how they are pronounced:
1 1. Moja 2. Pili 3. Tatu 4. Inne 5. Tano
6. Sitta 7. Sabaa 8. Nane 9. Tisaa 10. Kumi
How Swahili culture is inspired by Arabic is well portrayed by their sense of time. If you ask a Swahili ‘what is the time now?’ he would see his watch and then say to you for example ‘Saa Sitta’ while his watch is displaying 12 noon. It is because they still follow the old Arabic practice of the timing. Their new day starts by the fall of night: the precise time of the setting of the sun which happened to be normally 12 p.m. (Kuminapili in Ki-Swahili) which is 6 p.m. according to GMT. So, the 12 noon will turn into 6 o’clock (Saa- Sitta) with Swahilis. The old books in Ki-Swahili are still found in Arabic script. East Africa, being an occupied territory could not resist adopting the Roman script for its mothers’ tongue.
Before I end this episode, let me have a few more lines about Pangani Mosque. I was honoured to be a member of the Mosque committee. We were looking for a permanent Imam. The man selected for this job was a young imam, Izhar Ahmad Qasimi by name, who was finally chosen for this job and who came all the way from Deoband (India) to join this post in Pangani. Could I have imagined at that time that around forty years later I myself and my wife Umm-e-Wohaib would be invited by his son Rashid Ahmad Qasimi to present some religious programmes on his newly established T.V. channel known as ‘Iqra’ in London?
This is what unseen (Ghaib) which is always known to Allah. It is hidden in a folded scroll which keeps on unfolding its secrets by the passage of time, some in this life, others in the life Hereafter.
