Category Archives: Road to Hope October 2010
Lastest from Libya
Asalamu Alaykum wr wb
My eyes feel like there about to close so I’ll make this a brief post. We’re currently in a place called Masatra not too far from Tripoli and we’ll be staying the night in a youth hostel. Tomorrow we’ve got an early start, 7 in the morning and we’ve got 4-500 kM’s to go. InshaAllah I’ll be able to get online, and I’ll keep everyone posted, JazakumAllah khair.
Libya
After having a good night sleep, apart from the occasion I was woken up by the heavy snoring of one of the brothers in the dorms that we stayed in, we reorganised the vans and set off towards the Libyan border.
In comparison to the first convoy, the number of people who came out on the streets to express their support for this initiative was almost non-existent. I managed to speak to one local who said to me they have forbidden the people to come out of their homes, and this was also what happened on the first convoy. Additionally, the route we went may have by-passed the main area of the town.
Took a wrong turning and got stuck in the sand
It was in this city, Ben Gardan that we received the best reception on the first convoy. People poured out onto the streets in their thousands to meet us, the atmosphere was amazing, the people would come up to our vehicles and give us food, water, drinks, bags of rice, chocolate etc.
On a Tunisian road side
The authorities tried to push the people back but mashaAllah they insisted on meeting us. Unfortunately this time it was nothing like the first convoy and was surprisingly quiet.
We passed through the border with much ease, just the usual wait for the passports to be returned back to us after giving them in, but that can be expected.
Going through Libyan Border
After crossing into Libya, we drove about 50kM where we had a reception, which didn’t last too long. I managed to grab a take away from a local restaurant and eat it in the van as we weren’t scheduled to stop for long.
We continued for another 30 minutes where I stopped off on the way to get a local sim card as the roaming rates are astronomical, 2.50 a minute, and since we’ll be in Libya for a good few days, it’s worth it.
The next place we stopped off at was a roman ruin of an amp theatre, our hosts are taking us to various sites while we’re here.
Libyan Ruins
The Road to hope is largely supported by a Libyan organisation, hence why they are hosting us and treating us well and a large portion of the aid is supplied by this organisation.
More Libyan Ruins
Visiting the ruins was a humbling experience, and to think that the tab’ieen (generation that followed the companions) such Uqba ibn Nafi’ where from amongst those who had bought Islam to this land and inherited it, not long after the death of the messenger s.a.w. We take it for granted and forget what these amazing characters gave for Islam. When passing through these sites I always try to bring to my mind the feelings that our predecessors had when leaving their families behind in order to bring justice to a land that had been ruled by tyranny and oppression.
We often hear of the early conquests of Muslims, but we remain ignorant of the feeling of strangeness they must have felt leaving the land they grew up in, married in, studied in, worked in etc, and were now in a land strange to them.
Likewise the feeling of loneliness, leaving the wife, children, parents, childhood friends, neighbours etc.
We also fail to imagine how it must feel facing an army many fold lager than your own that upon clashing would swallow your ranks and facing the enemy face to face, hearing his heavy breathing when engaging with him, hearing his cries as he attempts to overpower whilst duelling, looking into his eyes as advances to you, having his blood splatter across your face.
Scenenary
A reality unknown to us, the feelings that we’ve never felt, the feeling seeing the dust from the movement of the steeds of war filling the horizon, the thudding sound of the hooves of the cavalry as they draw closer, all for the sake of earning the pleasure of their lord.
Additionally we’re heedless to the feeling of what goes through the heart and mind during the aftermath of the battles, seeing a close companion who you may have known for many years, even family members laying on the floor either dying from injuries or dead from the severity of battle.
These are just some of the things that I try picture when passing through these lands and the saddest thing is that these righteous have been betrayed by our lack of commitment and hypocrisy.
More scenenary
The only two words I can think to describe the state of this nation is pitiful and disastrous. I pray my dua’s are accepted as a traveller, and I ask Allah that he gives us the insight and sound judgment to correct our pitiful state.
Where are the men of defiance and principle?
After seeing the remains we were taken to our accommodation, a scouts hut where we had dinner and rested for the evening. One of the groups were staying the night in a tent which ended up becoming an arena for wrestling. We ended up having wrestling matches as group ‘E’ challenged my group, group ‘B’ so we decided to teach them a lesson. It ended up becoming a very eventful night, before you knew it the tent was packed with loads of brothers, nearly all of them to cheer on the brothers. It was a great opportunity to give da’wah to each other and after the matches we had a reminder about brotherhood in Islam and it really bought the brothers together and the morale of the brothers felt really high.
Wrestling in tent
After feeling drained from fighting I went out to look for an internet cafe, but didn’t managed to find one open so I returned back to the scouts camp to retire for the night.
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Tunisia, get me out of here!!!
The hostility of the authorities was apparent when we attempted to stick to the route planned and enter Gabes for a break. They blocked off the turning that leads to Gabes with their vehicles so we stopped in the middle of the road and argued with them to allow us to roam freely into the city.
Tunisian/Lbyan Border
After exchanging words with the police the it had become more apparent what game they were playing. The police were adamant not to let us into the city so we decided not to stay in the country any longer than needed and we told them we just wanted to leave your country allow us to go.
As we made our way to Ben Gardan which is the last town before the Libyan border, I looked at the map and noticed that the route they were taking us was not the direct, and main route. It seemed that they were taking us through the back routes that we really remote and it felt like that we were being taken around in circles. We kept stopping the police and asking where are they taking us, what they were telling us didn’t add up, yet we had no choice but to follow them.
As we got to a fork in the road we noticed that the turning to the border was blocked off and they weren’t permitting us to make our way there.
It’s very hard to see any good in these people after they’ve treated us like this. They wanted us to stay the night in a scout’s camp. Personally I believe they wanted us to stay the night so they could exploit us and use us to publicise to the people of Tunisia that they supporting the Palestinian cause.
Lake by the beach
After negotiation and deciding that we would go to the border the and leave Tunisia as soon as possible, the decision was changed and we then made our way to the accommodation. They hosted us and the mayor came down where he bought his banners and put on a little show for the cameras they were treating us well. In my opinion we should have just left Tunisia, but the decision was made and although I voiced my opinion and dissatisfaction with the decision we stayed in Tunisia for another night.
Sunset by the beach
Calling to Allah in Constantine
Currently we’re in Constantine, Algeria, and arrived here last night at about, 10.30. Alhumdulillah we managed to break away from the police convoy which is more of a hinderence than a benefit and for this reason we managed to gain a lot of ground last night. The white slug is moving a lot better now the fuel filter has been changed. We’re reaching speeds of 80mp/h and it’s tackling the inclines a lot better. Please make du’a as it seems that we’re developing another mechanical problem.
The police are insisting that we stay as one whole group and are not allowing us to proceed towards Tunisia, until all vehicles are ready to go. One of the vehicle is being repaired at the moment and as soon as that vehicle is ready then we’ll be allowed to set off. I’m not sure what the distance to Tunisia is, someone has suggested it’s another 700kM, but I’ll google it shortly. (It’s 200kM)
I do apologise if I’m unable to keep you updated, at the moment it’s very hard to get online as we’re often far away from town centers or we reach destinations very late. Also the police confine us to the compounds we stay in. Alhumdulillah yesterday I snuck out of the compound and I apologise for the blog being abrupt but the locals who snuck me out were rushing me as they were very nervous.
Image via Wikipedia
InshAllah we should be leaving for Tunisia shortly and I ask Allah to make our journey easy. Earlier the leader of the convoy was delivering a speech and I insisted after that I take the mic and deliver a reminder to the convoy members and those from the locals who were present. Although we’re making our way to Gaza, calling people back to Allah is still a obligation upon us. The people here are in need of being reminded about the day when we’ll stand infront of Allah and ultimately Al Aqsa will not be free until we return to our religion. Success is truly from Allah and it’s from the obedience to Allah that will give victory.
This is something we need to constantly bear in mind and my intention is to keep calling the people back to Allah.
Layth
Abandon Ship!
Today’s been a very long day and we’ve arrived at our destination and most of the conveyers seem to be very disappointed. We set off first thing in the morning with our police ‘escort’ and made our way towards Algerian capital, Algiers.
On the way here we stopped off for lunch in a small town, where the people were happy to see us and in general the Algerian people are very supportive and admire our efforts to help the people of Gaza. InshaAllah I’ll keep you updated getting online is very hard and I literally had to sneak out of the barracks car park with the help of two local brothers who have bought me here, as we’re not allowed to leave the location, so I’ll have to keep this brief, as time is limited.
It’s been a 20 hour day since we first woke up this morning and although we’ve been making our way since early this morning the progress we made has been slow and plagued with mechanical faults.
Our vehicle split up from the main group to fill up with diesel, when our alternator belt snapped and one of the brothers thought that he saw fire and at the time I was half asleep in the back row. The driver swerved the van and I woke up to one of the brother screaming “abandon the van, jump out”. We all jumped out in including myself. The way we threw ourselves out of the vehicle must’ve scared the armed police car who were accompanying us at the time. At the time I wasn’t too sure why we were jumping out the van, but I just heard the call and responded and thought I’d ask questions later. It happened to be that there was no fire and it was a false alarm. It was a very slow road to the destination, and our van was still not running correctly. After hours of driving approximately three in the morning we arrived at our destination and many people were disappointed why we were made to come soo far to a location with no facilities except one toilet. The place we’re staying is an army barrack, and didn’t justify the long drive which could have been very dangerous if not fatal.
As you may be aware, there is an internal conflict taking place here, with a resistance group fighting the government in the mountains. It’s clear that they are very wary about the members of the convoy and they have a very close watchful eye on us. After the alternator belt snapped we still managed to drive to a petrol station where we managed get the belt replaced. Once the belt was replaced, we rejoined the rest of the convoy and continued with the journey.
After we were laughing and imagining how it seemed to the security forces at the time, we were sure they must’ve thought we were ambushing them lol.
Crossing borders
After getting the chance to have a good scrub and a nice sleep, it was time to head out and make our way towards Algeria. We left the hotel after having breakfast, which was approximately 300 kM from the border.
This seems to be the story of the ummah at the moment, and for this reason Allah has allowed our enemies to overpower us whilst we bicker with one another and fight for the sake of a flag. For this reason I strongly encourage those on the convoy not to fly any flags as this fuels nationalism as in Islam we only have one flag, the flag the messenger of Allah carried.
When going through these countries and borders, all which have their own flags, uniforms, anthems and constitutions, it hard not to think that Palestine will not be liberated until this is all eliminated and the ummah of the messenger s.a.w. becomes one nation. Once upon a time the only document one needed to pass through foreign territory within the Islamic borders was his testimony of Allah’s oneness. In fact even non-Muslims were free to travel within the land.
This stretch of the journey is a very long one approximately 1000 miles so we’ll be here for a good few days.
Tonight will be spent at the border, and I’ve heard that they did arrange a hotel for us, but as we didn’t leave the border due to the late arrival of one of the groups, the 200 kM journey would be too much of a struggle to complete as its now drawing close to 11 o’clock.
I won’t be able to put this post up as I’m unable to get to an internet cafe, but as soon as I get the chance I will do so.
Night, Night
Wassalamu Alaykum
