IN HIS OWN WORDS
In issue 91 of Al-Kawthar magazine (May 2007), Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Sumait recounted what happened to a caravan of students from his organisation’s College of Sharia when it reached the village of Matamka in Kenya, two days by truck from the capital. There was not a single Muslim in the village, but what happened two days after their arrival took the students themselves by surprise.
Among the amusing moments of our journeys to African villages was what we witnessed in the village of Matamka, home to the Boran tribe, two days’ journey by truck from the Kenyan capital along a rough road. A group of students from our College of Sharia had set out on a dawah caravan to the village, where there was not a single Muslim, and began explaining the principles of Islam to the people.
Two days later the village chief stood and said to the villagers: “This is the will of your elder; do not neglect it.” We did not understand what he meant by this will, but we saw every member of the village respond to his words and rise as one man to declare their Islam!
“This is the will of your elder; do not neglect it”
A sage who lived among them three hundred years ago
When we asked the chief what he meant by “the will of your elder,” he said that there had been a sage among them named Arirobusaru, who lived among them three hundred years ago. He told the people of his tribe that white people would come to them from the West, calling them to worship three gods, to eat pork and drink wine, and to believe in the cross and carry it. He told them: do not go along with them. And they came to us, and we rejected their religion.
He said that after them would come brown-skinned people from the East, calling them to worship one God, to fast one month a year, to pray five times a day, and to use a vessel for purification. “Ever since then we have been waiting to enter God’s religion, Islam… By your sitting with us and explaining the merits and principles of Islam, which we admired, we have believed. We were watching you closely, and we saw you using the vessel for purification.”
Then he told us that every man in the area owns a vessel of his own, which he keeps at home, saying: when Islam comes, I will use it for purification. And when one of us dies, his eldest son inherits it.
“We are content with God as our Lord, Islam as our religion and Muhammad as our Messenger. We implore you to visit us often, so that we may learn our religion and call others to it.”
SOURCE
Al-Kawthar magazine, issue 91, May 2007 — as cited in the reference book (pp. 217–218).
Reference book: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sumayṭ: Usṭūrat al-ʿAmal al-Ighāthī (Abdul Rahman Al-Sumait: The Legend of Relief Work), by Abdulaziz Al-Owaid.
Translated from the Arabic for this site; ellipses mark abridgements in the source.
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