Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Mauritania 5 Travel Advice

Bismillah R Rahman Rahim as a lot of people have asked, and emailed

us since the documentaries. For additional guidance and

information about how to get to Mauritania, I thought we'll just

mention a few few points that could be of benefit to all. First

and foremost plan your trip during the winter months, January to

March, they say is probably the best time because when it gets

beyond that it's extreme extreme extreme dry heat that you will

find and then there's probably some winter season as well.

January to March is quite pleasant when we went it was extremely

pleasant. So try to go during that time. Number two, there's very few

flights that actually go there. And it's also expensive, because

it's not a very frequently flown to destination. So Turkish

Airlines is quite good, except that you have to go all the way to

Turkey first, if you're going from Europe to America, and then go

back seven hours or eight hours. So the other way to go is through

Morocco. It just depends on what the best timing that you will get

and the best pricing that you will get on the tickets. If you want to

go Senegal as well, then it's probably better to use something

like Turkish Airlines or something to go into no auction, which is

the capital of Mauritania, and then come back out of out of

Senegal. The other thing is when you get there, then you you know

you could check into a hotel down there. No, actually it has some

decent hotels and everything. You know, it's a city that has a lot

of these modern amenities and everything. But then make sure you

get a driver who knows where he's going and get that driver, if

you're going to meet more are better hydrogen I'm assuming most

people are going to do if they're going to a place called to a

Murat, then what you need to do is you need to get a driver that goes

to the closest city. And what our friend and hosts brother matar,

may Allah reward him abundantly. What he did for us was really good

because he got a driver for the seven hour journey six, seven hour

journey to the closest city guru. And then from there, he got

another driver and I was wondering why get another driver. But it was

good because this was a local driver who knew his way through a

desert. There's no markings on the roads and in the mountains. And

after we came back, I read a number of stories of others who

had gone there and they'd spent 24 hours to get the right just 24

hours just on the road we it took us about I would say about 1011

hours, it took them 24 hours actually ended up in the middle of

the night in another village where then they stayed and so on and

it's not easy. So don't take somebody who does who doesn't know

the way take to drive one driver up to Giroux and then from Giroux,

take another driver who knows his way to to a Murat. Otherwise, you

don't want agony. In that regard. When you get into Mauritania.

There's, they do the visa checks and so on. And it takes about 15

minutes per person or something, they take your fingerprints. And

it's quite a lot of things that they do down there. It's just one

of the things that you're going to have to face in these kinds of

countries. So it really helps if you've got somebody that you're

staying with or a contact there. So as soon as he got there, they

asked us you know who's coming to pick you up? So we mentioned

brother matar his name, they asked for his phone number. They called

him up and they said, Okay, your visitors are here. The other thing

is that because the brothers I went with as well, my companions,

we all had big beards. They were a bit suspicious of us, it seems,

because they have some problem with sort of, he's down there. And

generally it's sort of us who have long beards, the people, they have

North Africa of West Africa that they have, you know, more goatee

style of beer, just naturally, their hair, the beard isn't always

as, as dense as as as ours are. So they were a bit suspicious,

because there's problems in Mali, and sometimes people use

Mauritania to go through to that. So they get they probably get paid

to make sure that the security is very strong. So they, they do

that. But one thing what they said about Mauritania, my friend told

me is that if we had just got there and our friend had not

turned up for some reason, and been held up, you know, with some

work or couldn't couldn't get there for some reason, and we

missed him or there was a mistake in you know, the dates or

something like that. When he says within two days, people would have

been able to find him. There's only about 3 million population

there. And pretty much everybody knows the other person or their

tribe or something. So if I just given the full name of Brother

matar within it says that within two days they would have probably

been able to locate exactly where he is through his family, through

his father and so on. Somebody would know somebody else. That's

kind of very interesting in a whole country that you can do

something like that, within that no workshop and general area.

You need at least if you want to go to visit, shake, Morabito Hodge

then you need at least 48 hours minimum if you're willing to spend

two nights in the car. This is what we did. Both the nights going

there and coming back we spent in the car. Of course, if you don't

want to do that, and you want to go and rest somewhere for the

night, then you want to go then you need at least three days. You

know you need at least three days you need at least two nights and

three days. We didn't have much time so we spent both nights back

there and coming out

Going there and back in the car. The other thing is that British

pounds, they don't seem to value that much, it's best to take euros

or US dollars, they charge about 50 euros at the airport. And

because the Euro exchange rate with the with the pound was very

good, we got a good deal. But pounds are more difficult to

change exchange down there. So best to get euros or dollars when

you go there it remember it's a Francophone country. So they, they

it's a more French oriented in terms of the language and so on.

Few people understand English, it's a good idea to take lots of

copies of your passport, because every time you enter a city or

come out of a city, first you get the police check, then you get the

gendarmerie, which is the National Guard. And they want to register

you. So each time you're going past, they want to register you

and they take your passport in takes about five 710 minutes or

whatever. And each of these places, they will be suspicious

about our beards. So then they would ask our host, are they still

iffy? Or what you know, what are they? And they said, no, no, we're

going to meet the shakes, and you know, we're Sufi, and so on and so

forth. So it's, then then they calm down, you know, then it's not

a problem. But what our friend did was that he had a lot of our

passport copies. So he would just give them the passport copy. And

then we'd be able to carry on, when we did go past one place a

few times, and then they recognize us, then they would just let us go

pass. But it was a good idea to do this registration. And the reason

for it is that if then you are accused of going to a wrong place

in another country or something like that, you know, in Mali, or

anywhere else, somebody has some suspicion over you, these

registrations can prove that you know, where you were at any given

date. So, you know, there's a bit of inconvenience there. But it's

probably worth it to a certain degree in the current climate. If

you want to take gifts for the scholars, for the people, you

know, they appreciate gifts, it's good to give gifts to scholars,

when you go to visit them. The one of the best things that you can

give which is universal is obviously give them some money,

right, you can give them some money either exchange it, then

give it to them. And there's probably other things that you can

consider taking as well. In terms of food, food is generally

available out there. But if you're if you sometimes with the local

food down there, you may be a bit worried about that some people

just can't eat other than what they feel very comfortable with,

then you know, you can take your own dry snacks and things of that

nature or buy something in the washer before you You carry on.

Bottled water seems to be available everywhere. The table

brand is very nice. And apparently the

it's a nice, it's nice, there's other bottled water, it's

available. It's not too expensive either, right. So you can carry a

lot of that there's some decent soft drinks and other kinds of

beverages that you will get which is imported out of Morocco, from

Morocco, and so on. Another thing is, it's a good idea to take some

mosquito repellent if you're going further south, and no Oxshott. And

the northern parts of Mauritania doesn't have that problem, but and

you get south will further south, especially if you're going to if

you're going to Senegal, then then you'll need that because there's a

high risk of malaria and there's certain shots and injections that

you need to take. Again, this is not some kind of official guide

that I'm providing this is just, you know, don't go and make your

own research, get do your own research for this. And don't just

take my word for any of these things, I'm not going to take any

liability for anything for that that may happen. So

where you might be sleeping, if you go to these villages where

they are the mothers, it's not going to be plush beds that you'll

get, it'll be maybe some cushions on the ground or just some

blankets or something like that. So you have to be willing to do

that. Another thing is the toilets, the bathroom situation,

you generally have to take a jug with you, it's generally just a

hole kind of in the ground. There's no flush system in most of

these places, especially in the body. So you have to be willing to

deal with all of these deal with all of these issues. We'll do

we'll just do from a jug as well.

Generally, wherever you go, there's maybe some wasps or

Hornets buzzing around lots of flies around in your food and that

you just have to get used to it. That's just the way it is. It is

down there.

As if you're gonna go to Senegal as well, it's about 50 euros at

the border, it takes about two hours or something like that you

crossover. But once you get into Senegal then you suddenly notice

that it becomes less desert it suddenly starts becoming greener

and things are just much more advanced in Senegal. I hope this I

hope this is some kind of help for any journey that you might want to

take. And aside from that, any other kind of travel accessories

that you need, or whatever. And the main thing is take your taqwa

with you because that's the most important thing on a journey the

Rosa Larson used to always remind people about Dukkha on a journey.

Be careful, be considerate, and fear Allah subhanho wa Taala

wherever you are, and you will get a much more blessed journey. If

you want more information about the whole concept of traveling in

Islam and so on. We

I've got another video on that another

talk on that on zamzam Academy which is the etiquette of

traveling. That might be helpful as well just in general about

traveling just come on down here. Baraka Lo Fi calm Assalamu alaykum

Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh