Islamic Travelogue 1428-9

Internet Edition – www.imranhosein.org THE ISLAMIC TRAVELOGUE I428 ––– 9 [2007 ––– 8] FROM SOUTH AMERICA TO SOUTHSOUTH----EASTEAST ASIA : TRAVELTRAVELINGING THROUGH THE SOUTH IN THE MISSION OF ISLAM Imran N. Hosein Jama Masjid City of San Fernando 1 Internet Edition – www.imranhosein.org 2 Internet Edition – www.imranhosein.org LLLet us, with Allah’s blessed name, embark from my Caribbean island- home in Trinidad, for an exclusive ‘southern hemisphere’ Islamic lecture-tour that will commence in February 2007 and end one year later in February 2008. This journey will take us through Venezuela and Argentina in South America, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in South Asia, to Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore in South-East Asia. We will sometimes have to visit the same country twice. At other times, because of unjust war on Isl ām, we will have to cancel visits to countries such as Australia and New Zealand even though there are large numbers of Muslims awaiting us. And at yet other times the host communities in places such as Fiji Islands and India would themselves decide against hosting a lecture-tour out of fear. And finally we will sorrowfully have to postpone visits to countries such as Iran, Yemen and the city of Hong Kong because of time constraint. I had been resident for ten wonderful years in New York up to the end of September 2001, and I was present at New York’s J F Kennedy Airport on that fateful 9/11 morning when the American CIA and the Israeli Mossad jointly planned, attacked and demolished the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan and then falsely put the blame for that supreme act of terrorism on Arabs and Muslims. The mysterious and essentially godless Jewish-Christian alliance that now rules the world on behalf of the Euro-Jewish State of Israel may wish to challenge my claim of CIA/Israeli Mossad responsibility for planning and 3 Internet Edition – www.imranhosein.org executing the 9/11 terrorist attack on America. They may do so while insisting instead, that the American government is truthful in assigning responsibility, and hence blame, on Arabs and Muslims. In that case I invite them as well as others who are stubbornly of the same view, to come forward that we might jointly pray for the eternal curse of the One God and of His Prophets, on whoever assigns responsibility and blame falsely in this matter. I left New York two weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attack on America to conduct a pre-planned Islamic lecture-tour of South Africa, and then traveled constantly for two years before returning to Trinidad in August 2003. I have never returned to USA since then. The story of those travels was told in my first Islamic Travelogue that was published at the end of 2003. It evoked such a positive response from readers that I decided to sacrifice the time and effort to write this second travelogue for the lecture-tour of 2007-8 even though I have important books to write. May Allah Most Kind grant that this humble effort might inspire at least some of our readers to also leave the comforts of their home and to travel in the noble mission of Isl ām. Am īn! I know for certain that if my widely-traveled teacher, Maul ānā Dr Muhammad Fadlur Rahman Ansari, or his even more widely-traveled teacher, Maul ānā ‘Abdul ‘Aleem Siddiqui, had made the effort and taken the time to write their own travelogues of their travels in the mission of Islam, the information that would have been recorded, together with their personal observations and insights, would have been of great benefit today. Maul ānā Ansari did make a start in that direction when he produced ‘The Roving Ambassador of Isl ām’, a travelogue which briefly recorded some of the events of Maul ānā Siddiqui’s 1950 world-tour. I wrote a few new books during the three and a half years that I had spent at home in Trinidad (August 2003 – February 2007) and since I am my own publisher I had to travel to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to personally supervise 4 Internet Edition – www.imranhosein.org the work of printing. But before I describe those new books let me first tell a story. THE STORY OF HOW I BECAME A WRITER It is an interesting story that I now tell of how I was initiated into writing books on Isl ām, and I tell the story perchance that in years to come it might benefit at least some of our dear readers, or their children, who have an aptitude for writing. It was July 1971 and I was 29 years old. I had to appear for my final year examinations in order to graduate with al-Ij āzah al-‘Āliyah from the Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies in Karachi, Pakistan. In the Islamic system of higher education a Shaikh , or Islamic scholar, would grant Ij āzah, or permission, to a student when he was satisfied that such a student was qualified and competent to teach the subjects in which he was granted Ij āzah . The modern university has adopted the same Ij āzah and renamed it a ‘degree’ My own Shaikh and teacher, was the distinguished Islamic scholar and Sufi Shaikh of the Qaderiyyah spiritual order, Maul ānā Dr Muhammad Fadlur Rahman Ansari (rahimahullah). I used to address him with the formal title, ‘Maul ānā Sahib’, during my early years as his student, but I later adopted the more familiar and affectionate ‘Abbuj ān’ (i.e., beloved father). He responded to the event of my final-year examinations in 1971 by doing something he had never done before. He announced that he would himself set the examination papers for the final year class, and that he would also himself correct the answer-scripts. I was never a good student of Arabic, and my results in all the Arabic language examinations were just sufficient to pass. But among the subjects in which we were examined was Comparative Religion, and that year the religion 5 Internet Edition – www.imranhosein.org studied was Buddhism. We had been tutored in that final year on Buddhism by the illustrious scholar/philosopher, Professor Yusuf Saleem Chisty (may Allah have mercy on his soul) , and it was in that examination that I finally struck gold. Dr Ansari set an examination paper with eight questions of which we had to answer any five within a period of three hours. I was left alone in the examination room within two hours of commencement of the examination, the others having already completed their answers and departed. At the end of the allotted three hours I had completed answers to only three questions. I then requested more time and Dr Ansari responded to my request by sending a message: “Give Imran as much time as he wants” . So I took another two hours to answer the other two questions. A few days later I was summoned to Dr Ansari’s office where he informed me, without even a smile on his face, that he had given me 91/100 marks for my Comparative Religion examination, and that this was the highest mark he had ever given to any student. But he then requested me to return to my room and answer the three remaining questions in the examination paper that I had not answered. It was a strange request, but I dared not ask for an explanation. After I had completed answering the three remaining questions and he had corrected my answers, he again summoned me to order that I take the eight answers that I had written and rewrite them, while integrating them to make a book. That required some work of editing, as well as documenting the references. He also ordered that I sit in his office on the other side of his own desk directly opposite to him while I did that work. He had his reason for asking me to sit in his presence while I worked, but I could not fathom that reason. Was it because he knew that this was going to be the last period of time that we would spend together? For some time prior 6 Internet Edition – www.imranhosein.org to my graduation in September 1971 I had started to count the months left for me to travel back home to my widowed mother in Trinidad, and I had done so with a plaque that was prominently displayed on the wall of my hostel room. 20 months became 19, then 18 and so on. He heard about it, and knew about my resolve to leave Aleemiyah and travel back home after graduation, and it must have caused him sadness. Or did he want me to work in his presence in order to communicate an unspoken message to me? What could that message have been? There was the matter of my extraordinary dream in which I had seen a large flooded river with dangerous currents and in which all the students of Aleemiyah were drowning and I saw myself swimming to them and saving them one at a time. I went to him with the dream and he promptly interpreted it for me. He said that I was destined to play precisely that role in life. Dr Ansari never expressed any dissenting view in respect of anything I had written in those answers to the eight questions. This was going to be my book and I would have to write it while expressing my views.

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