Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Mauritania 2 Return from Murabit alHajj

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