The airplane brought me to Accra, a coastal city with lots of beaches and markets. After a brief stay in Accra, I took a minivan going to Saltpond. Though Accra was the Capital, the Ahmadiyya headquarters were in Saltpond those days and were moved to Accra later. Both the towns are on the ocean. Soil is sandy. Trees abound. Beaches are aplenty. Weather is pleasant. Day and night temperatures do not differ much; neither does the length of the day vary much from the length of the night all through the year. There is no need to advance the clocks at the outset of the Spring or to set them back when Fall arrives.
On the way from Accra to Saltpond, I saw people with almost two-feet long sharp daggers and I imagined them going to a tribal war. Later I saw them carrying the same daggers everywhere, even to school on certain days. I found that due to frequent rains in this tropical environment in southern Ghana, grass and other vegetation grew very fast to cover unpaved pathways, therefore, people had to carry these machetes along, continually clearing their pathways of excessive growth. In schools the children had to clear the grounds at least once a week with these handy machetes as mechanized lawn mowers were hard to afford and maintain. The south was green and lush, full of trees. There was so much vegetation that it was hard to enter the jungle. Grass and plants sprouted out of every crevice in the paved roads or elsewhere. One plant was so tough that it damaged even the foundations when it grew next to them. Odum was a very strong and tough wood. Carpenters had to spend hours trying to cut and shape it for doors and windows.
We stayed at Saltpond with Maulana Kaleem and were treated well. This initial introduction gave way to a working relationship in Ghana and then later in the States. May Allah have mercy on his soul. He was a scholarly person but jovial, friendly and caring.
The annual convention was held in Saltpond those days. Attendees came in groups on foot and on mechanized vehicles, singing the songs of the praises of Allah. They scattered around under the shadows of tall palm trees. Locals addressed in local languages while the speeches of the missionaries from Pakistan were translated into the local languages. It is amazing to observe the blessings of Allah on the people who stand up to serve His cause. Two main translators of that time later became ambassadors to prominent countries. One of them we see regularly in the Urdu class on MTA as the Big Kid (Barha Bachcha).
One part of the convention was soliciting and collecting cash donations. People took turns and passed by the collection site throwing cash while singing and reciting, faktubna ma‘ashshahidin, meaning, so write us among the witnesses, and took turns trying to excel each other.
They offered their Prayers with full attention and without hurry. I noticed that followers made sure that the imam had completely changed his posture before they started changing their postures in Salat, indicating their level of obedience to the authority and underlying humbleness.
I did not see anybody smoking, not even a non-Ahmadi. On asking, someone told me that it was due to the earlier influence of the Ahmadiyya missionaries. They had stressed the harmful effects of smoking and drugs so well that all people, even non-Muslims, developed an aversion to smoking and drugs.
Ahmadis donned hats and sported beards and were distinguishable in any crowd. We, the foreigners, were called brownies, whether white or brown or yellow, and were known immediately as Ahmadis if sported beard and covered our heads, and were dubbed Indian if we bared our heads and shaved our beards. While keeping a beard and covering the head showed love of the faith and the level of dedication to abide by the Islamic convention, it also showed the strength of the community among the masses, and provided immediate brotherly contacts among strangers.
Early in the morning, the fishermen pulled their nets. They were very friendly. One day they offered me some healthy and fat fish but I did not take it as I was just a guest there and did not want to waste their fish if no one knew how to prepare it. They also showed me some exotic species they had netted that day.
Strolling along the palm-lined beach, one could see ships at a distance in the sea. I was told that some of them were foreign fishing vessels. They caught fish from the ocean, processed it and then canned it and sold it back to the country.
Wherever we went, we always saw sugar in the form of sugar cubes in cardboard boxes. We also bought sugar boxes in cartons for our own use and for use in the school boarding houses. I was just out of school. The mathematical portion of my brain was quite active. One day in Kumasi while pondering over a carton of sugar-cube boxes, I was able to calculate the number of cubes available for use per day if the use of the carton was to spread over a year while the problem was being formed for solution. Now sometimes I have to grope for a calculator or look for paper and pencil to solve trivial problems.
Somehow the locals had developed the habit of using only white sugar and that also only in the form of cubes. They used only canned milk and preferred canned fish over fresh fish. I once saw that some other item was attached to bags of brown sugar to entice customers to use the brown sugar. I was told that a brown sugar factory was established in Ghana to curb imports but the brown sugar had to be sold to other countries and cube sugar had to be imported for local needs. Such habits of course were a burden on Ghanaian foreign exchange and economy.
Ghana used to be called Gold Coast because of its gold and diamonds but the reflection if this wealth among the masses was invisible. Ancient name of the country, Ghana, probably is based on the Arabic word ghina meaning wealth, prosperity, abundance. Either foreign entities controlled these resources or they were ineffective in contributing to the local prosperity due to wide spread corruption. Before we left we went to buy some diamonds within the reach of our meager resources through lot of security and checking which on return were distributed among my relatives starting with my wife.
Once I visited a cow farm in the north. There were a few cows in may be 20x20 yard enclosure filled with foot deep dung turned into mire by rain. Their business mostly was cheese rather than fresh milk which was not very popular among people. People liked and consumed canned milk mostly imported, another burden on foreign exchange and local economy.
We did not see many dogs. We were told that there were not many animals due to tsetse fly. Fly’s bite caused a sleeping disease which eventually killed the animal. The effect of its bite is similar on humans. Also, dogs would be consumed during frequent famines, I was told.
The weekly flea market was called buruni uhu, that is, the white man is dead (so here are his things for your perusal). The specialty at these flea markets was the stinking fish, appropriately named. I think high temperature cooking killed the stink.
Muslims had hold over meat supplies so it was not a problem for someone to get meat slaughtered and prepared by a Muslim. But the masses were poor. I saw people buying meat by the number of small bite-size cubed pieces.
There were too many languages. Language changed every hundred miles or so. English kept the country unified, and could be understood everywhere by some people, especially the school children. The elementary schooling lasted for eight years. There were many Ahmadiyya primary or elementary schools, some middle and a few secondary schools. Students at the secondary schools mostly were resident. Most prominent of the Ahmadiyya schools was the one at Kumasi with a large student enrollment. This school had been nationalized but still kept its name. It also had good sized Ahmadiyya mosque attached to it. The Ahmadiyya schools had played an important role in the education of Ghana over the years. Due to their unbiased and liberal education policies, students from all religions and backgrounds enrolled in them. They were very reputable. Students came from near and far. One morning, someone knocked at my door before sunrise. On opening the door, I found a young boy with his bags. He handed me a note. I opened it to read and found that it was a request from a governor of a far off state to do a favor to him by admitting this near relative of his to our elite school.
Our schools mostly were supported by the income from our hospitals. Many of our physicians and hospitals were known not only inside but outside the country due to their dedication, their compassion for the human patient, and the high level of their service. Patients came from other countries along with their relatives to support them after cumbersome travel spanned over days. They also helped the local economy.
Our schools and hospitals may not have been the best in their buildings and amenities but they were the best in their benefit, cost effectiveness, service and expertise.
Christians in the West are very apt at pointing out faults with Islam while to win coverts in Africa they would go an extra mile to adapt to the local customs. I saw dancing in the churches and priests practicing polygamy openly without any apprehension.
There were a dozen or so Ahmadi missionaries, doctors, and teachers from Pakistan spread over about 500 mile by about 300 mile country, some at long distances from each other, others relatively nearby. There were only a few good drivable paved roads. We often traveled to see each other. Either the Ahmadi teachers and doctors living nearby would visit us or we would go visit them. As our travels provided socializing, they also took us to gourmet food, which many of us lacked while we were single.
While frequent rains supported abundant greenery, they also provided fertile environment for mosquitoes. I fell ill often mostly due to malaria which rendered me very weak. It took our doctors a while to determine the right amount and kind of quinine to keep me healthy. On one such occasion I was taken to Dr Munawwar’s home. He had children and lived in a tiny bungalow. When it came to be the time to sleep, I was surprised to see how little a space they had. Dr Sahib snapped, ‘We have contained a whole river into a cup.’ Despite difficulties there was a sense of brave attitude which made it easy to bear them and face them.
Dr Sardar Hameed also lived nearby. He went to work much before dawn in the hospital next door to his residence and did not return until very late in the night. He used to tell us that he once asked one of his young and growing sons what he planned to be when he grew up. His son said aptly, ‘Dad, I will become a doctor and will operate on you.’
Maulana Wahhab also was jovial, happy, and was in a pleasant disposition all the time. He would crack jokes and tell stories all the time. He used to tell of an acquaintance he invited to the mission for dinner. The person invited Maulana to his home in return. Maulana accepted the invitation and went to his home in the afternoon. They chatted, discussed matters, exchanged views, gossiped, and finally when it came to be too late, and finding no food in sight, no sweet smell, no mention of a feast, Maulana asked for permission to leave. While bidding good-night, the host lamented, ‘You do not eat nothing.’
Maulana Qamar used to travel to far off towns to meet the local chiefs and to give the message of peace and love. He was quite successful in his mission.
I saw preaching sessions in the market place. People would gather around to listen.
Most towns had running water but in small towns water had to be hauled from some nearby stream or had to be delivered by truck. Stream water was dangerous as it contained organisms which were known to cause blood damage. The water supply needed to be consistent as the students would not attend classes without taking a bath in the morning. The students would not eat rice without fish in it, and they could tell, though a very small quantity of fish was added.
The townspeople without water supply would take their buckets all the way to the nearest stream or water source, fill them up, put them on their heads and bring them all the way back to their homes and then take a bath in the back of their homes. Despite poverty and lack of resources, they were clean. While traveling in the country, one could see them washing their clothes along the streams. Mostly they would have a large piece of cloth which they would wrap around them during the day and cover themselves with it during the night. Rich had their bungalows. The ordinary folks lived in rooms laid out in a square all facing a common yard in the center and a common kitchen in one corner. Many times a whole family would share a single room.
Despite laws against cruelty and murder, many old traditions still flourished. There were traditional healers. We were advised not to venture outside our homes alone or at night when a chief was sick or had recently died. Many people were known to disappear at the death of a chief, especially from other tribes. It was said that they were buried along with the chief to serve him in his afterlife.
I was sent to Fomena to help Kamaluddin, and was there for more than a year. Fomena was a small town, hardly a mile across along the highway. We lived outside the town in a spacious house. There was a large orange tree to the left of the house which provided free oranges. People peeled off the skin half-way and then made a hole to one side and squeezed the juice into their mouths. There also was a guava tree somewhere nearby. People who knew our fondness for the fruit, brought us some time to time. As the weather was almost always mild, there were lot of windows and all of them had glass louvers for free circulation of air.
The mail was not delivered. We went to the post office to pick up our mail.
A young, healthy and good mannered boy, Philip, was our cook. He would eat all the left over food with both his hands to stuff himself fast to counter the perception of overeating and then he would run down the stairs out onto the road until the food had settled a bit and then came back at a leisurely pace.
The town had provided a large piece of land for the school. Kamaluddin told me that a brick of gold was laid in the foundation and the great chief, nanahene, did not leave until it was secured adequately.
I had the chance to visit the local Muslim center in Fomena. I conveyed our message to them and answered their questions.
I painted sign board for the school which was erected outside the school. I taught mathematics, science and how to read the Holy Qur’an. The words like bandar (monkey) in the Yassarnal-Quran were very amusing to the young students. The country was weak in mathematics and sciences and it was hard to find teachers for these subjects. We had a Bible teacher. Though our school was supported only by the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, and we were not obligated to teach the Bible, yet we provided our students the choice, while the other non-Muslim missionary schools did not provide a choice for the Muslim students to be able to learn their religion or their holy book. In fact, we received Muslim students with Christian names often. When we asked them why they had Christian names while they were Muslim by faith, they told us that the Christian schools would not admit them unless they changed their names, and once their names had been registered as such it was difficult to change them back.
Fomena was a small town with no market place to speak off, except for a weekly gathering of sellers and buyers. We had to go to Kumasi for our provisions. There was a check post at the end of the town. Whenever we passed the check post on our way to Kumasi, the policemen always asked us to bring a piece of bread for them. That showed the level of poverty in those parts of the world.
Kamaluddin drove a VW Karman sports car. Once one of its doors came loose. We had to hold the door to keep it in place while driving—very dangerous but there was not much of a choice because of unavailability of parts and repair facilities nearby. It was very convenient for us that Jama‘at provided interest free loans for us to buy transportation for ourselves.
It was known that there were large pythons in the jungle surrounding the town. Their targets usually were goats and deer. One day Kamaluddin ran over one with his silver wheels. He brought the huge snake home. People from the town excitedly took the trophy and enjoyed its meat, and returned the skin to Kamaluddin. Kamaluddin planned to have shoes or something of use made out of it.
One day a stray baby deer ended up around our home. Its mother obviously had separated and did no show up. We tried to keep it alive with milk but it gave up its ghost after a few days due to some unknown reason.
We celebrated one Eid at Lake Bosumtui. I made a post card invitation with a picture of a goat on it and took its photograph which was sent to all. It was great fun. Dr Sardar Hameed could not figure out how to wear a new shirt he had bought for Eid. Finally Sradar Sahib figured out the reason. Relieved, he pointed to the inscription on it which read, Made in Amritsar. Nothing more than a joke as Sikh community is as worthy of reverence as any other religious community.
Ghana abandoned the British way of driving on the left side of the road and changed to driving on the right side of the road while I was at Fomena. I wrote a note for the newspaper describing how Islam prefers right. The newspaper published my note. Numerous checkpoints were set up on the roads to make sure the transition was accident free and smooth. It is amazing how the funding from the UN which gets most of its financial support from the West has helped change the third world countries to metric system and driving on the right side of the road while the British themselves still drive on the left and the world’s most affluent nation, United States, who drove out the British and received the Statue of Liberty from France, continues to drive in miles and weigh in pounds.
Kamaluddin had a great desire to build a mosque at the school site using his own funds, which was completed in due time. I availed the opportunity to design a mold for small minarets on the corners of the mosque. Its picture appears on page 2. This was a small mosque. There were many Ahmadiyya mosques in Ghana, some very large, actually huge to be precise, like the one in Techiman.
It was the month of Ramadan while I was in Salaga. We needed sand for construction at school. Someone told us of a nearby town where sand was available but we needed to get the approval of the chief. I went there and met the chief. The chief was supportive of our school and agreed to provide sand. It had rained recently; the road was wet, unpaved and ridden with large boulders the driver had to go around. On the way an elderly lady also hitched a ride. I was driving slowly curving around the large black stones. The car suddenly slipped over the slippery clay surface and went out of control and flipped over upside down. With much difficulty we crawled out of the car. There was not any traffic to speak off. The sun was setting and it was almost time to break fast. I was hungry and weak. A bicyclist passed by. He gave me the long ride back home. My wife was much worried by the time I arrived. Our wives were an integral part of our strife and efforts, were great help in our chores and responsibilities, and a blessing from God in our ordeals.
We took the car, a decade old model of Renault 1100, to Kumasi for repairs. It was giving excessive smoke on our way back but in an effort to reach home before nightfall I made the mistake of not checking the oil level and by the time we reached the lake the last ferry had just left and the engine had also lost most of the oil. We had to stay at the local rest house. While taking bath in the evening to seek relief from the heat a large scorpion stung me on one of my toes. The pain was unbearable. We drove to the emergency services at the local hospital. They made sure that it was not a snake bite and administered some injections. I could not drive next day because of the excruciating pain. I took a ride and went straight to the hospital in Salaga. I had to stay there a few days. My wife visited me and gave me support through this ordeal. A teacher from our school was also very helpful during my stay in the hospital.
Living in a small bungalow, we had a kerosene refrigerator. Homes were built away from each other without any fences around them in the large and flat open expanse. The north was plain and flat, sparsely populated and mostly barren and dusty.
One year bats started finding it comfy and cozy to take refuge in the thin attic over our home. They rushed in and out all night overhead. Their activity was very disturbing. Also there was the danger of contamination and disease. It was not possible to enter the thin attic so we decided to seal the crevices when we thought the bats were gone during the night. But evidently many were left as not finding a way out from where they had entered they started coming in to the house through the crevices where the ceiling met the walls. We had our watchman catch them while we had to sleep outside or in the veranda. The first night the watchman caught more than forty, the second night about half that many and a few the third night. Our neighbor roasted them, shared them with watchman, and they had a feast.
Sometimes there was a shortage of food or other supplies. We had to go as high as the governor to get the supplies. The governor was courteous and welcomed us with open arms and helped us meet our needs.
While I was at Salaga, Maulana Razzaq Butt was appointed missionary in Tamale. Tamale was the nearest large city to the north of the lake and Salaga. We needed to go to Tamale for supplies, etc. When Maulana Butt came to Tamale, he was not very conversant in English. He used to have his servant sit next to him during his dars in the morning. His servant corrected his English while he delivered the dars and explained verses. He was not apprehensive that a servant was correcting his English. Through his concerted effort, soon he became quite proficient in English. Many of us lose opportunity to enhance our learning because of shyness or because of apprehension of embarrassment. Maulana Butt started gaining significant number of converts. He used to sit in front of the mosque with literature displayed along the sidewalk. People would stop by and start conversation. He used to say that he preached someone but it was another one who came and joined the community, meaning that Allah sent them to accept the truth.
There was a general shortage of food in the north due to water shortage and dependence on rain. I saw a line forming outside a church and I asked for the reason. I was told that everyday necessities would be distributed but only after they had attended the church services. I also heard that sometimes a truck would leave the coast in the South with supplies and would be empty upon arriving at its destination in the North. When asked, the driver would retort, ‘I was driving in front. How would I know what was happening in the container behind me?’
Because of my interest in calligraphy I was invited to Wa to add some decorations to its large mosque. Wa sported one of the largest and oldest Ahmadiyya communities in Ghana. On our way we decided to stop at the nature reserve. A large section of the road was unpaved on the way and coarse stone was laid out for miles in preparation for roadwork. Traffic had made some clearing but not enough to avoid tire damage. By the time we arrived at the reserve, and parked in front of the registration office, we noticed that both tires on one side which saw more stones had burst. It was already close to sunset. There was no repair shop in the nearby village. The reserve garage was still open. We went there for assistance. While trying to repair the punctures, they broke the valve on one tube so we had to drive the rest of the way to Wa and back without a spare tire as in Wa too the tire dealers did not have a compatible tube. On our journey, we saw real wild life on the way including some baboons roaming around.
We were dining and talking to each other in the yard of Dr Hashmi Sahib’s home in Techiman one evening. No one noticed snake eggs. They hatched into some small cobra snakes. Though dangerous, it was a pretty site seeing the black tiny cobras dancing on the khaki floor.
Many a times God shows his mercy to his servants in strange and unexpected ways. It was a great favor of God on us that the person who took the charge of the school from us was Sahibzadah Mirza Masroor Ahmad, now Hadrat Khalifatul-Masih V, ayyadahullahu ta‘ala. Allah provided us with the blessing of hosting him at our place where he was to live after our departure—the house, the kerosene fridge, the rooms, and the front yard open to our neighbors and the vast desert beyond. We found him very cordial, amicable, friendly, easy going, loving and caring. We could feel him to be an amazingly different and a special kind of person but to predict the future a quarter of a century before his becoming our beloved khalifa was to be kept hidden from us until he was appointed the Amir Muqami at Rabwah by Hadrat Khalifatul-Masih IV, rahimahullah—that is when I felt that he was destined for something unique and special. This office had been held by his revered father, Hadrat Mirza Mansoor Ahmad, since the departure of Hadrat Khalifatul-Masih, IV, rahimahullah, for London, who shouldered this responsibility until his last days. May Allah be his support, ayyadahullahu ta‘ala binasrihil-‘aziz, Āmīn.
(Edited from Al-Nahl, Q2, 2006)
