Journey to Bosnia (16)

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

I rose for Fajr at a quarter past four, overcome by a strange blend of energy and fatigue, wakefulness and a yearning for rest. Once I had prayed, sleep refused to return, and I did not wish to compel myself to what it resisted. I therefore sat at my desk, reviewing some duties and leafing through the letters and notes that had piled up during the journey. The hours slipped by in a serene stillness, broken only by a faint distant sound or a passing movement in the hotel corridors.

At seven o’clock I went down to bid farewell to my companion, Dr. ʿUmar Khan from California. Over these days we had shared a pleasant fellowship and an unbroken conversation about learning, daʿwah, and the condition of Muslims both East and West. How many reflections a farewell stirs! A man can hardly part from a companion whose company he has enjoyed without feeling some emptiness within, as though a portion of his days were leaving with the traveler.

While musing on this, my thoughts turned to a matter that has long occupied me: notions that lodge in people’s minds and, with time, solidify into unquestioned certainties. Many assertions begin as conjecture, error, or misunderstanding, then pass from tongue to tongue over generations until they appear as immutable truths. I recalled an old maxim that often echoes in my mind: “Most propositions start in ignorance, move to the second generation as a report, and reach the third as a creed.” Once ignorance crystallises into creed, reform becomes among the hardest tasks. People may endure being told they erred in an opinion, but they cannot bear being told that what they inherited as belief requires re-examination.

This is not peculiar to one nation or sect; it is a human condition everywhere. Many illusions that govern societies were born of ancient ignorance and later clothed in sanctity. For this reason, intellectual reform is among the heaviest of burdens: it must confront not only error, but also habit, familiarity, and the psychological inheritance to which individuals and communities cling.

I then went to the restaurant, where I joined my wife and daughters for breakfast. In that morning gathering there was a quiet joy that precedes departure: faces were smiling and the conversation gentle, yet in every heart lay a subtle sense that the journey’s days were almost spent and that each would soon return to ordinary life and daily tasks.

Back in my room, I collected my books and papers, packed my bags, and cast a final look at the place that had sheltered me for a handful of days. I do not know why one grows fond of places even after a brief stay and feels a faint sadness on leaving them. Perhaps it is because a place retains something of the memories lived within it, and when we depart we leave behind a fragment of ourselves.

I came down after half past seven, ready to head for the airport. Around eight we boarded the coach with some fifty-five fellow travelers. It moved off quietly toward the nearby airport; the hotel was only minutes away. The streets still held the hush of morning, as though the city had yet to wake fully.

At the airport we waited far longer than expected. The procedures consumed much time, as is the way of airports in this era of tightened regulations and endless checks. Once I had dealt with all matters related to the flight, I returned to reading and other tasks, making what use of the time I could.

We boarded the plane at eleven, though take-off was slightly delayed. How much patience travel teaches! The journey is a chain of waits—waiting for the coach, the plane, the luggage, and the arrival. If one knew how to invest those moments, one would realise that waiting itself is no less a part of the journey than motion.

At last the plane ascended, and Bosnia receded gradually from sight. Through the window I watched the mountains, valleys, and tiny villages shrink until all vanished beneath the clouds. Then I began to recall the scenes of recent days: gatherings with brothers, circles of learning, conversations on daʿwah, visits to cities and mosques, and the kind faces that honoured us with their hospitality. The trip was short in days yet rich in meaning and memory.

We landed at Luton at half past one in the afternoon, but the return was not yet over; the luggage took an age to appear, and we waited until past three before we could board the car bound for Oxford.

The car set out along the familiar road between Luton and Oxford, while I felt myself gradually slipping back into the rhythm of daily life after days lived outside it. The English sky was as usual, veiled in a light cloud, its horizon filled with the calm I have grown accustomed to after many years of residence.

When we entered Oxford just before evening, I sensed that another page of the year had been turned and that the Bosnian journey had concluded, bearing with it learning, companionship, reflection, and experience. The value of the trip lay not only in the sights we saw but in the thoughts it stirred, the meetings it afforded, and the imprint it left that lingers after the days have passed.

Thus our journey to Bosnia came to an end, while its memory remains alive in both heart and mind, reminding us that travel is not merely movement between places but between ideas, emotions, and experiences—and that from some journeys a person returns unchanged, whereas from others he returns having acquired something new that endures long after the road itself has faded.