Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Mauritania 2 Return from Murabit alHajj
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Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa
Salatu was Salam ala so you didn't want saline water already he was
talking to he H Martin a member. So we've been in Mauritania for
just over two days. After arriving Wednesday morning, today, it's
before Joomla. On the Friday, were about to leave for Joomla insha
Allah in the city with a big shake here, inshallah we'll be visiting
the shape.
From the last time that we spoke, we had just reached Giroux, which
is about 568 kilometres away from New York shot on a two lane on a
two lane highway, which is basically one lane going one way
and the other lane going the other way. There wasn't much traffic on
the road. And pretty much what you see is just some villages with
some huts, mostly huts and tents. So it seems like the tent culture
here is still very much, very much still still intact. On the way you
don't see too many big cities because most of the population of
Mauritania, which is about 3 million in all, most a lot of that
population, less than just less than a million is based in
Yorkshire because that's where the work is. When we visited one of
the other shoe shaped Bas, what his son told us there that there
is no work there to be found. So either person will stay there to
study. If they want work, they'll have to come to a workshop or go
go somewhere else outside the country. So that's how it's made
up. You don't see I mean, so far we haven't seen some really abject
poverty. And you know, we haven't seen that yet. I'm sure it exists,
because we're staying at a friend's house in the workshop
right now. Who
brother matar, this is where we were doing it from May Allah
subhanho wa Taala reward him. So we took a walk around, there's a
lot of good houses and things around this area and the city is
just sprawling, it seems. So when we when we got to Giroux, which is
a place where another famous scholar lives whose name is Sheikh
Hattori. That's from there, we took about a three to three and a
half hour drive literally over sand first for about 60 to 70% of
it, which is literally you're just driving through the sand on tracks
that some other car before you has made. And sometimes you get stuck,
but it was it was a nice 444 by four pickup. So it was it was it
was good. We managed to get there then there's a road that they've
just made recently through the mountain over the mountain to be
able to go and after that it's about one and a half hours of just
stone and that you're going over and that is where you're probably
going about what five to 10 five to 10 miles an hour if that much.
And it's just a bumpy ride all the way through
that whole journey from Giroux to this place called to a mirage
where Sheikh Morabito Hodge and his family and his tribe live have
about 20 houses there's about 20 houses there and again, a lot of
tents. In fact, the chef Morabito, when you met him he was in a tent,
that's where he's lying down.
So it's a 66 kilometre track that is which took us about nearly four
hours three over three hours for sure what three and a half to four
hours. That's what it took. And half when we did the sandy part
before we got on to the story part into the mountains they the driver
had to get off and inflate his tire so that it could go over the
stone more easily. And likewise on the way back he had to deflate his
tires when he got onto the sand otherwise you'd keep getting stuck
in the sand. So she said what are we to hedge and assembly they
literally live away from civilization and I think that from
what they've telling me is that that was intended that he just
wants to be out of civilization just fooled just wants to be away
from everybody and just wants to do his a bother there. And there's
there wasn't even any cell phone coverage mobile coverage in the
area, the closest place from to a mirage which is the village that
they're in is this mountain that you have to get to which probably
takes about half an hour or something you know to get your
cell phone coverage It seems your mobile coverage, electricity there
is through solar panels so there's no direct electricity grid, he
literally seems to have picked the spot just to be away. So for them
to get supplies and everything they have to take a pickup truck
with takes about three and a half hours to get to the closest city
and that is the closest city get who is the closest city. So after
spending a good half a day there, we managed to see Sheikh Morabito
he met his sons, his grandsons, and some other members of the
family then we met one of the other great scholars there as
well. Sheikh had Amin who's about 80 years old, very pleasant
individual. So they were sitting there very pleasant individual
smiley face, had a good chat inshallah with him with him as
well. Sheikh Morabito Hajj he is generally not speaking these days.
It's been a long time. Maybe once a day or something he says he kind
of gets up and speaks speaks
to the family, etc. But otherwise, he's generally laying down and
sleeping. And while we're there sitting by Him, He's sleeping.
He's, you know, he's in, he's not conscious as such, suddenly you
just start listening to him. And he's saying that you're in La, la,
la, la, la, la La, and then you stopped. And that was, you know,
that that is basically tells you that whatever you're used to
saying, when you're conscious abundantly, then you would
probably do that when you're
when you're when you're not in your conscience. So they teach
there, they weren't, they weren't any foreign students. When we went
there from England or from the EU, from the US. There were some other
students who have been who'd gone out from other countries, they'd
gone out. But seriously, it's a struggle. I mean, I've studied in
India, where it was a major struggle to study studies,
studying in the west of South Africa is easy, it's easy,
everything is organized, you've got everything at your office, you
know, even in India, it's difficult in the sense that living
conditions sometimes are not that great. But India is a very
industrial country, and it produces huge amounts of goods,
you know, you can find everything in India and India is cheap as
well. Mauritania pretty much imports all of their goods, every
product that you see whether it's juice, or yogurt, or anything like
that, it's all from Morocco, even the fruit is from Morocco, there's
hardly anything that happens here, it seems. So it's kind of very
interesting the way the way the country is. And without
electricity, even the other places where we are where they had solar
energy. The other thing we notice is that whenever you go to any of
these places, except especially especially in the body, with these
Bedouin tribes, they insist on you eating there, and it may take a
few hours for them to get the meal ready, which is very different
from in other places, but they will insist so in many of these
cases, they will insist that you eat first before you meet the chef
And subhanAllah that's their hospitality, which you can still
see this hospitality that you find find around the Muslim world. So
what they fed us some Was it some lamb and you know, lamb with, with
kidney, and there was some fried potatoes, etc, in there and fried
onions. And then there was a rice dish with a bit of meat inside.
And subhanAllah you know, they
it's kind of amazing
how you see other people live, as I was mentioning, in India, and
Pakistan, probably as well, you. And you know, other other
countries like that in Syria, to that you have a lot of products
that are available here. There's not much that's available either
in terms of what you can get, especially for people who are used
to living you know, Western life as such, with everything available
to your, you know, to at your disposal, it's very difficult
here. And then to have to live in a place like that to study where
you don't have any mobile phone coverage. And you have to
literally travel three to four hours to the closest place to go
and buy stuff that's very, very difficult. Anyway, we finally left
left there in the evening around seven o'clock or something. And we
did that three and a half, four hour drive again.
Back to Giroux. And then from from Giroux, we were on our way back to
New York short but on the way, we took a turning into this place
called Angel Crusher, which is another small kind of locality and
small village where there's another another great Sheikh was
named Sheikh Mohammed fall, who is the son in law of the son in law,
check Morabito Hodge, and he's a great teacher there. So when we
went in his room to visit him, it was it was night it was nighttime.
after Isha, so we performed Aisha pray there. And we met him and he
is literally sitting in this room, there's no light there, you know,
they're just using a torch or something. There's lots of guitars
a lot, a lot of books on the side. And there's a number of students
who are sitting there and it's just all sand outside. Yeah,
they've got structures, they've got a few buildings here and
there. But otherwise just this nice sand and that's where you
sit. You do your will do there. You know there's some basic toilet
facilities there and you sit you sit down there in the sand, you
just do your will do with a with a with a jug of water that they give
you. So it's a whole different lifestyle but quite amazing. We
met him for a short while and then after that, I just felt a lot of
peace standing and for sure we didn't have time because we had to
get back to Knoxville to make it for Friday morning. But there was
a lot of peace and serenity. I wish I could have stayed there for
a bit longer just sat down and just enjoyed enjoying enjoyed the
Hello, the solitude there because there was actually no sound so
there's no sound pollution. There is no light pollution there. It's
quite amazing. You can hear everything that's going on. It's
quite amazing.
Unfortunately, we couldn't stay. We got back in the car and then
basically we drove for another six hours. Those hundreds of
kilometers and we reached no actual back early, just before
Fajr time about an hour before feature time which is about I
think about 530 or something like that.
Oh
so they probably just moved whatever rocks they couldn't write
them and I thought y'all did it today
was
only four months ago
four months oh to do this
No it's definitely
no shock
what comes out of the dodo
without
saving
very well written article
it is
stuff
he asked me