ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS

Another gentleman I met at the conference was from the West Indies. His mother tongue was English and he had been educated up to the doctorate level in America. Since he was not familiar with AI-Risala, I gave him a copy of the November 1985 issue. He promptly read the whole magazine in one night before going to sleep, and later repeatedly expressed a desire to read Al-Risala on a regular basis. He made me promise him time and time again that our magazine would be sent to him. When I asked him to give me his impressions of it, he said,” It is a very impressive and relevant piece of literature on Islamic realities.” A Visit to the Islamic Centre, Bamako On December 9, 1985, I visited the Bamako Islamic Centre on the Said ibn Sultan Road. It is laid out over an area of 35,000 square metres. The five million dollar bill for its construction was footed by Arab countries. I was happy to have had the opportunity of offering two rakats of prayers in this mosque. All the participants at the conference went together to visit the Centre which has just been completed but is not yet functional. They went the rounds, gazing at different parts of this splendid construction, expressing their enthusiasm and admiration amongst themselves. I walked with them in silence, lost in my own thoughts. Just then, an African scholar, Ostaz Ahmad Darami, came up to me and said, smiling: “People are taken by outward forms, whilst you, Sheikh, are taken by true inner meanings.” In the present day, large Islamic centres of this type have been set up in every corner of the globe, but they have one disadvantage in that, directly or indirectly, they are built with the help of government grants. Now the present state of affairs is such that a large percentage of Islamists are influenced by a political interpretation of Islam. From place to place, they have raised the banner of revolution against Muslim governments, and have become, as a result, culpable, or at least suspect in the eyes of the authorities. Were these people to refrain from their erroneous politicking, all these centres could very well be in their own hands, which would enable them to be really effective in spreading the message of Islam. It is because they are so inclined towards politics that they are denied a foothold in these centres. Even in the few instances where such centres have Keeping the mind open and receiving, having a knack of getting to the core of things and gleaning lessons from the events past and present form the key requirements of healthy travelling.