Mauritania: beyond the dirt and the takhaluf Heaven- Haven

When I was young, I dreamed of being a student of mahdara and my dear friend Roisin admitted to me that she had once dreams of becoming a nun.

These fantasies, these dreams are very common in young people around the world and leave as they grow older (even though seldom entirely). I think it’s because the younger we are, the closer we are to the original state of Fitra so we tend to long for something pure and perfect and what can be purer than wayfaring to God?

In my opinion, Mauritania is a good place to embark on such a journey.

“Withdraw the heart into the arena of reflection

Nothing helps the heart more than that!”

From Hikam Ibn Ata Illah

A french brother, some of you might know, called Ian Mansour, told me that when he was seventeen he decided to leave Britany for good for he had come to the conclusion that Europe because of rampant materialism was no longer a  favorable  context  for soul-searching, introspection. His exact words were that it no longer allowed “retour sur soi” which literally means “to return on oneself”.

But why is introspection, soul-searching, “retour sur soi” or whatever one calls it so necessary?

Introspection is the prerequisite for any conscious decision, spiritual improvement and great achievement.

Hamza Yusuf had to live in the Tagant desert to become Shaykh Hamza Yusuf.

                                                                                Hamza, the student of knowledge in Tagant, Mauritania (Peter Sanders)



And most of you know better than me the story of the withdrawal of the great Ghazali from the world.  El Ghazali recommended that seekers of knowledge travel to a place where they know no one.

Is it the proximity of the desert? Is it the feet of so many God-fearing, God-loving Ulama and Awliyas that tread upon its ground that makes Mauritania a blessed place for introspection and reflection?

Or is it the frugality one finds in Mauritanian villages, the heat, the mosquitoes for they are a school in themselves...They teach Sabr (patience) and we well know the special place that's reserved for the patient.

But give good tidings to the patient who, when disaster strikes them, say, “Indeed we belong to Allaah, and indeed to Him we will return.” [Quran 2:155-156]

To give you an idea of the place (at least its capital city), here is a description i found on a blog, it’s pretty eloquent:

“It was almost mid-night but it looked like morning to me. I was feeling like being home again […] I prayed and had a good sleep with wonderful, sweet mosquito bites. In the morning, I looked at the mosquitoes in my net, singing their irritating music in their pregnant state, moving around with my sucked blood.

I took to the city to use the internet and pray in the saudi masjid. How nice it feels like to be back! Looking the streets, you see men and women urinating openly by the sides of cars, walls, etc, dirty streets, and in the mosques, hearing the Mauritanian style of loud Shouting of TAKBIR at the opening of Solah(not Maalilki style to shout too loud). From all of these, I said to myself, welcome back to Mauritania!” 

 So if you can go beyond the dirt, the pissing on the streets, the spitting, the burping arghhh  -I am voluntarily crude- you will find a hidden gem. If you open your heart to people, you will notice the imperceptible things that make them special ; some are always doing dhikr, some do incredible sadakats (charity), some spend their nights in prayer, some just have incredible smiles in weather beaten, sunburnt faces.

Mauritania is a country where foreigners weep twice: First from dismay that they are sent to such a forsaken land and when they leave, because it has become a place they love.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf encourages the love of poetry so here is just for you, my friends, one the English poems I love the most :

Heaven-Haven 

A nun takes the veil

I have desired to go

Where springs not fail,

To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail

And a few lilies blow.

And I asked to be

Where no storms come,

Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,

And out of the swing of the sea.

Gerald Manley Hopkins