Losing my father

Also published in Daily Trust

My late father 

Amid shock and confusion that overwhelmed me following the sad news of the death of my father last Friday, I hastily embarked on a journey back home where I arrived in Kano the following day. I had struggled to come to terms with that painful reality in the process of which I reasoned rather philosophically that, just as I never expected to travel home a few hours earlier, so was (and indeed is) one’s, appointment with death which obviously never gives notice when it strikes.

Last Friday, 26th April 2013 will always remain an unforgettable day for the rest of my life, for it was the last day of my father’s long but meritorious life on earth. For me, the day started just like any typical Friday. Being a public holiday, I had spent the whole day indoor except for attending Friday prayer session and other regular congressional prayers. Though being indoor nowadays doesn’t necessarily mean being incommunicado as I had toured the world virtually on the Internet while my little less than four year old daughter, Manal was playing and cluttering the parlor with her toys.

Later in the night, I retired to bed after switching off my phone as usual not suspecting any dramatic event to strike. Incidentally, being three hours ahead of Nigerian time, my schedules are inevitably scheduled accordingly. Anyway, the following morning I switched on my phone, and though as usual I was expecting to receive alerts of missed calls and/or short messages sent while the phone was switched off, I was quite alarmed when I noticed that the several missed call alerts that came in were all from my brothers, which meant that something was definitely wrong back home. I was almost certain that my father was dead when my suspicion was confirmed by a call from one of my brothers, who broke the sad news to me.

I immediately broke the tragic news to mama Manal while little Manal was innocently asleep, though when she woke up she apparently noticed that something was somewhat wrong yet she remained innocently cheerful and understandably oblivious to the fact that the little smile I tried to give her back was, at that particular moment fake, for my state of mind was obviously too depressed to produce a real smile.

    

In Kano, and having missed the funeral rites, which were held on Saturday morning and led by Sheikh Ibrahim Khalil, I accompanied some of my brothers to visit the cemetery where I stood before my late father’s grave and prayed to Allah the almighty to grant him His infinite mercy.

Alhaji, as he was popularly known, and though not a cleric per se, was always identified as passionately religious with an ardent longing for Islamic scholarship, fervent dedication to righteousness and straightforwardness in approach. Though, his “unpolished” approach and tendency to instantly voice his disapproval against whatever he considered to be wrong, were admittedly too unfriendly to the modern concept of politeness, he never compromised to match the trend hence never failed to stick to and indeed express (in his “unpolished way of course) what he believed to be the truth no matter what. After all, such so-called modern politeness in approach and interaction is largely a mixture of false and pretentious gestures and claims largely expressed at the expense of truth. However, though Alhaji could be described as inherently hot-tempered who could easily be provoked, he was quite  forgiving and accommodating anyway.

Having relocated from his home village, i.e. Gaya local government, to the city of Kano more than sixty years ago, he was among the first people to settle in Mubi area in Kofar Nassarawa, Kano. And ever since then he had always supported, and in some cases taken initiatives to provide facilities and other services for the promotion of Islamic scholarship and religious activities in the community. He was for instance among the first few people in Kofar Nassarawa to contribute immensely to the introduction of informal “Islamiyya schools, where children were taught religious knowledge when such knowledge was extremely scarce in the society.

As a matter of fact, the first informal “Islamiyya” class in Mubi area of Kofar Nassarawa was located in Soro right inside our family house several decades ago under the tutelage of one Mallam Muntari, who spearheaded its development into a big “Islamiyya” school elsewhere in the community. Also when the family house underwent some structural modifications about a decade ago, that Soro was integrated into part of the main house and converted into a room where Alhaji had occupied and died in.

Likewise, when some individuals introduced informal “Islmiyya” classes for married women in the community, and though the initiative had stirred controversy in the vicinity and beyond, Alhaji went ahead to approach one of his close friends i.e. late Alhaji Barau Maiwake, who was the first person to provide a convenient location facility for the classes to hold.

Moreover when a group of some reformists, who were being opposed in the community for what was wrongly perceived to be an attempt to introduce a new version of Islam were struggling to secure a permanent location for their religious activities in the neighborhood, it was Alhaji who facilitated the process of securing a piece of land carved out of an unused land in a nearby government facility, where the first permanent Majlisi was established in the neighbourhood, and he kept supporting it until it developed into a mosque called Masjidu-Ihya’ussunah otherwise known as Izala mosque in the community. Also less than two years before his death, the mosque was further upgraded into a Juma’at mosque.

We pray to Allah, and indeed plead with all to also pray to Him the almighty to reward Alhaji abundantly, forgive his shortcomings and host him in Al-Firdaus, amen.