Magical mystery tour
Several years
ago a Chishti shaykh and his son arrived
from the East for a visit in England. The
English disciples invested lots of energy
in trying to get visa for the two of them
for France and Spain and all in vain. The
shaykh could get a visa, but the authorities
refused to give a visa for the son as they
were afraid that he would stay in Europe
and try to find a job. They did not know
that there was no economic motive for the
journey. Anyhow neither of them obtained
the necessary visa.
The idea was
to travel to the Spanish town of Granada
in order to visit a Sufi community in that
town. But how to go there without the visa
as in the South of Europe you get arrested
when you try to enter a country illegally.
A minibus with
the shaykh, his son and some English and
Italian mureeds, and one American - in total
seven people - left England. As visa for
Belgium were obtained the first goal was
to go to the mosque of Brussels, and they
were in time to attend the Friday prayers.
Before the prayers start the adhan, the
call to prayers, was recited. In a letter
describing the journey the youngest Italian
remarked that it was as if this call to
prayers was coming from Medina and the atmosphere
was so marvellous that the American mureed
thought that if it would always be thus
then he could understand why people like
to attend to these prayers. Later when writing
about the event the Italian assumed, that
in the mosque there must have been the presence
of several Sufi shaykhs to create such a
blessed atmosphere. One of these shaykhs
was the imam leading the prayers, who was
sent by the Wahabi’s to this mosque
as their man in Brussels. What they did
not know was that he belonged to a secret
Sufi order in Saudi Arabia. A few months
later he was shot as he defended in some
way Salman Rushdi. He became a martyr because
of his convictions.
The Chishti
Sufis crossed the border of France on the
main high-way at a time when every car got
checked, but not theirs.
At the border of Spain they again became
nervous as the shaykh and his son had no
visa for Spain. Every car in front of them,
one by one, was checked by the Spanish officials.
You may remember that the minibus came from
England so the driver was sitting on the
right and the shaykh was sitting next to
him on the left. As in Europe the driver
is always sitting on the left side, the
officials that were checking the passports
were doing that on the left side of the
car. The shaykh clearly differs from any
European. He really sticks out, but when
it was their turn the official did not ‘see’
him and the unchecked mini-bus could continue
its magical mystery tour in the direction
of the Sufi community in Granada…
