A LETTER FROM MECCA: AS GUEST OF THE KING
LabbaiK Allah-umma LabbaiK! Glory be to Allah! This morning, your correspondent is on his way to Muna, on Hajj, courtesy the Guests’ Programme of the King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin AbdulAziz. Yes, your columnist is among the 1,400 guests from 60 countries Allah favoured to be invited to perform this year’s pilgrimage; but no, […]
LabbaiK Allah-umma LabbaiK! Glory be to Allah! This morning, your correspondent is on his way to Muna, on Hajj, courtesy the Guests’ Programme of the King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin AbdulAziz. Yes, your columnist is among the 1,400 guests from 60 countries Allah favoured to be invited to perform this year’s pilgrimage; but no, the King does not know your writer, but someone else does – good friend and brother Mallam Muhammad Musa Bello, Honourable Minister of the FCT. He it was that, when asked by the Saudi Ambassador Dr. Fahd Sufyan to nominate two persons out of the 30 ‘allocated’ to Nigeria, recommended me. The other 29 may one day tell their stories – but this is mine.
This Guests’ Programme of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (according to its website www.guests.gov.sa) was launched 20 years ago in 1417H (this year being 1437H) during the reign of late King Fahd. So far, it is said, about 20,000 pilgrims have taken part. As a journalist with some considerable experience and international exposure (without pride), I find it very surprising that there is such an important programme available in Saudi Arabia but there is such little publicity about it. I did learn several years ago from two academic colleagues at Bayero University, Kano that they were once on the programme, but that was all I heard and not much more.
Many of us may not be enamoured of the politics of Saudi Arabia, but we sure understand each other in the matter of aqidah, and appreciate its role as guardian of our holy places – despite the fact that they still have to come clean on the tragedy of last year’s Hajj. But, by Allah, Saudi Arabia needs friends and this programme is one sure way of getting and maintaining them. I have in the past been on similar Guests’ Programmes of other countries, notably the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1990 and the United States International Visitor Program in 2001. If a country thinks it’s important, it actively seeks to cultivate friends. Many countries understand that clearly – one wonders why it took so long for the Saudis to realise that!
This morning, Zul Qa’adah 8, we left Casablanca Hotel in Makka, our ‘home’ since arrival, for Muna. The 30-strong Nigerian delegation is led by Shaikh Muhammad Kabiru Haruna Gombe, National Secretary General of the Izala Movement, JIBWIS. In my room, and we are FIVE, we have Professor Ibrahim Na’iya Sada, DVC Admin at ABU, Zaria; Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, retired Federal Permanent Secretary and this newspaper’s Friday Columnist; Dr. Mustapha Isa Qasim, Provost AD Rufai Colleage of Islamic Legal Studies, Misau, Bauchi State and one of the best Qur’an reciters in Africa; and Shaikh Adam Usman of the Arabic Department of the Federal College of Education, Yola, Adamawa State.
And there are 59 other countries. The brotherhood and networking opportunities in this programme is inestimable. Let’s now hear a few testimonies from participants from other countries:
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POLAND: Jacob Philip (now Ya’qub) – Since he became Muslim in 2008, he had been praying to God to facilitate his performance of the pilgrimage. The story of Jacob with Islam goes back to 2001 when he emigrated to United Kingdom to look for work, and in one of the streets of London he met a person calling to Islam. He listened, and the rest is history. Back in Warsaw, he went to the nearest mosque and embraced Islam. He did not encounter any difficulties as his father supported him because he noticed the positive behavioural traits inculcated by Islam. When he first entered the Holy Mosque in Mecca this week, Jacob said he was so awe-struck he couldn’t raise his eyes to look at the Ka’aba!
PHILIPPINES: MeetingsDetail
Arcadio Jeffrey Pirida (now Ja’far) – It never occurred to the young Filipino Catholic in his thirties, who planned on becoming a priest, that he would one day become a Muslim. He was born into a Catholic family and later moved to the United States for seven years to study. While there, he met a Saudi student Khalid. One night while sleeping, Arcadio said, he had a dream in which he was watching crowds of people circling a sort of black square monument and, moments later, he saw himself walking inside the circle with them and was he was wearing the same white robe as everyone else. And Khalid was there! He couldn’t wait for the next morning to see his friend for explanation – the rest is that today, Arcadio is in Makka in a white robe circumambulating the Ka’aba!
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BULGARIA: Atanas Mikhailov (now Abdullah) was a Bulgarian Orthodox priest who embraced Islam few months. He pointed out that what led him to Islam was his continuing search for the truth of life. In 2012 he was in a psychological and physical trauma after the death of his mother. He was advised to see a Bulgarian Muslim scholar to search for a spiritual cure. When, after complete healing, he became a Muslim, his relatives said he converted to Islam in order to marry a Turkish woman!
SOUTH SUDAN: Anyaneq Aqaw Adoub Anyaneq, Governor of Renk in the South Sudan, said he heard about the King’s Guests Programme and travelled to Khartoum to inquire and apply. But he was not lucky last year, so spent a whole year praying about it. As Governor of a state in South Sudan, his salary is no more than a hundred dollars a month so there was no way he could dream of paying his way to Hajj. Similarly, the atmosphere of war and fighting between the country’s two biggest tribes had killed business and agriculture. Then suddenly this year he was invited! How happy the poor Governor!
Despite these descriptions, both new converts and ‘born-in-Islam’ delegates (such as Governor Anyaneq and your Columnist) are here, but it’s always interesting to hear what brought people to Islam.
I don’t know how the 28 other Nigerians on our list were nominated (interestingly, I still don’t even know the second nominee of the Minister). But all the Nigerian delegates are very distinguished ladies and gentlemen – professors, Islamic scholars, journalists. But one question keeps nagging my conscience – are all the Nigerian delegates Salafi-oriented? Or are some of them from the Sufi brotherhoods? No one has asked, and no one has said. But a good advice is that to be friends with ALL Nigerian Muslims, one needs to be inclusive.
Now back to that our room at Casablanca Hotel. Because we are FIVE in a room (and I don’t know if other nationals are also five in a room), it was easy for the flu to circulate rapidly and briskly! It was Dr. Hakeem that first got the cold – thanks to the AC which, after intense negotiation, is permanently attuned to 24 degrees Centigrade. Most of my roommates, the slim customers that they are, want no AC; your columnist (he of one-at-a-time) wants and needs and desires it! So as I speak to you, the Hajj flu is taking its course in me! But the AC must stay!
So, reading brothers and sisters, I will pray for all of you, but I also ask you to pray for us – against stampede and against over-indulgence in the sumptuous buffet at Casablanca Hotel and the anticipated ones in Muna, Arafat and Madina! Luckily, at Muna and Arafat, the Nigerian Tents are the farthest from the buffet tents. At least we get some exercise before and after! But what a buffet!