Journey to Bosnia (17)

The Bosnian Journey
(14)
Saturday, 13 Dhū al-Ḥijjah 1447 AH
Dr Muḥammad Akram al-Nadwī
Oxford

I awoke for Fajr at a quarter past four, seized by a curious blend of vigor and fatigue, alertness and a yearning for rest. Once I had prayed, sleep would not return, nor did I wish to force the soul toward what it resisted. I therefore sat at my desk, attending to a few tasks and leafing through letters and notes that had piled up during the journey. The early hours passed in a hushed stillness; only a faint sound from afar or the occasional movement in the hotel corridor disturbed the silence.

At seven o’clock I went down to bid farewell to my companion Dr ‘Umar Khān, who had come from California. These days had gathered us in pleasant company and unbroken conversation about knowledge, da‘wah, and the condition of Muslims in East and West. Farewell so often stirs reflections in the heart: when one parts from a friend whose companionship was noble, one feels an emptiness within, as though a piece of one’s days were departing with him.

While these thoughts occupied me, my mind turned to a matter that has long preoccupied it—how ideas lodge in people’s minds and, with time, harden into unquestioned certainties. Many a notion is born of conjecture, error, or misunderstanding, yet tongues relay it generation after generation until it stands as an established truth. I recalled an old saying that often echoes in my mind: “Most pronouncements begin in ignorance, pass to the second generation as report, and reach the third as creed.” Once ignorance calcifies into creed, correcting it becomes among the hardest of tasks, for people may bear being told they erred in an opinion, but cannot bear being told that their inherited beliefs require review or amendment.

This is not confined to one nation or sect; it is a human condition wherever one looks. Many illusions that rule societies spring from ancient ignorance, later garbed in sanctity by the passage of time. Hence intellectual reform is among the heaviest and most trying of labors: it confronts not error alone, but also familiarity, habit, and the psychological inheritance that individuals and communities cling to.

I then made my way to the dining room, joining my wife and daughters for breakfast. A quiet happiness preceded our separation: faces smiling, conversation gentle, yet in everyone’s depths an unspoken awareness that the journey’s days were nearly spent and that each of us would soon return to ordinary routines.

Back in the room I gathered my books and papers, packed the suitcases, and cast a final glance at the place where I had stayed these few days. One wonders why the heart grows fond of places even after so short an acquaintance, and why leaving them carries a light sorrow. Perhaps the place keeps something of the memories lived within it, so that when we depart we leave behind a fragment of those memories.

Shortly after half past seven I came down, ready for the airport. Around eight we boarded a coach carrying some fifty-five fellow travelers. It moved quietly toward the nearby terminal—the hotel lay only minutes away. The roads still held the hush of morning, as though the city had not yet fully awakened.

At the airport we waited far longer than expected; the procedures consumed much time, as airports nowadays are ever more encumbered with checks and paperwork. When all formalities were done, I returned to my reading and tasks, making what use I could of the time.

We boarded at eleven, yet the aircraft lingered before take-off. Travel teaches one patience: it is a chain of successive waits—wait for the bus, the plane, the luggage, the arrival. If only one knew how to invest these pauses, one would realize that waiting itself is part of the journey, no less significant than movement.

At last the plane lifted, and Bosnia receded from sight. Through the window I watched mountains, valleys, and little villages slip away until all sank beneath clouds. Then the scenes of recent days returned to me: gatherings with brothers, circles of learning, conversations on da‘wah, visits to towns and mosques, the gracious faces that honored and welcomed us. The trip was brief in days yet rich in meaning and memory.

We landed at Luton at half past one in the afternoon, but the homeward trek was not over; baggage delivery was slow, and we waited till after three before we could take the car to Oxford.

The familiar road from Luton to Oxford unfolded while I felt myself gradually re-entering the rhythm of daily life after days spent outside it. The English sky, true to form, was veiled in light cloud, and across its horizon spread that calm my soul has come to know through long residence.

Entering Oxford before evening, I sensed that another page of the year had turned and that the Bosnian journey had closed with its wealth of learning, fellowship, reflection, and experience. The value of travel lies not only in places and sights, but in the thoughts it stirs, the meetings it grants, and the traces it leaves that outlast the passing days.

Thus our journey to Bosnia ended, yet its memory remains alive in heart and mind alike, reminding us that travel is not mere movement between places but a passage among ideas, emotions, and experiences. From some journeys one returns as one set out; from others one comes back with something newly added to the soul, something that endures long after the road itself has vanished.

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