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Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim

This is my second journey to Bosnia. I had previously shared memories of the first journey in six articles, recording what I saw of the country's conditions, the people I met, and the impressions the journey left in me — impressions whose traces remain to this day. A person does not return to a place they love except carrying with them two images: an old one stored in memory, and a new one ready to be discovered; they live between remembrance and anticipation, between what they knew before and what they hope to see anew.

We set out from Oxford — my wife, my two daughters Aisha and Hala, and Hala's children Amani, Usama, and Maryam — at an hour of the quiet hours of the night when the dark grows thin and dawn begins to breathe gently. It was a quarter to three in the morning. We had prayed Fajr before leaving, then set out on the road in a quiet that resembled devotion, as if the whole city were sunk in a deep sleep it did not wish to wake from. Oxford was then strangely still; one could hear nothing but the footfall of a passer-by, or a car driving by then melting into the distance, so that one might imagine this ancient city cared for neither those who left it nor those who returned, for it is older than all people and more lasting than their fleeting journeys.

We boarded a large car that took us all together, and it set off cutting the long road to Luton Airport. The road stretched ahead in monotonous quiet, flanked by dark trees that looked in that dim light like silent ghosts, beneath a still grey sky — neither bright enough to lift the heart, nor rainy enough to sadden it, but that typically English sky of mild weather that calls the soul to a quiet reflection and evokes a vague sense of estrangement. When we reached Luton Airport at four o'clock, my daughter Fatima joined us there with her husband Dr Imran Naveed and their young daughter Aisha. Then my daughter Sumayya arrived with her children Asim, Asia, and Ibrahim, along with her husband Abu'l-Farhan and a gathering of students from the Al-Salam Institute. We saw crowds we had not expected. The airport was small and limited in space, but it was then teeming with people, as if the whole world had gathered there. Perhaps the school holiday that had just begun pushed families and students to travel, so faces and languages mingled, children's voices rose, and long lines stretched before the check-in counters and security gates. We waited for hours in a queue that moved slowly, and the fatigue began to show on the children's faces, but the joy of travel was stronger than that fatigue, and they remained cheerful and excited.

We took the plane from Luton to Sarajevo via Istanbul, with a stop of about an hour in the airport there. The Istanbul airport is one of the largest I have seen, and the architecture is striking, but I will not dwell on its description — for the traveller's soul is not on these stones or in this grandeur, but in the city to which he is going. I sat in the waiting area in silence and prayer, and what occupied me most was that God would grant me and my companions a successful journey and bring us to our destination safely.

The plane landed in Sarajevo at about half past three in the afternoon. We were received at the airport by Abu'l-Farhan's relatives and friends, who had prepared accommodation for us in a comfortable hotel near the centre of Sarajevo, with spacious rooms and a panoramic view of the city. We settled in after the long journey, and the tiredness began to dissolve in the warmth of welcome and the beauty of the place. After a short rest, we went down to dinner together — for we were many this time, more than thirty people between women and men — and the conversation at the table was rich and warm: each one asking about the other's news, and memories of the previous journey began to surface among us, memories that gave this new arrival a sense of continuity with what had passed.

After dinner, we held our first meeting in the hotel conference room at half past eight, after Maghrib prayer. The Al-Salam Institute had brought a large number of students from different countries — from Britain, Europe, America, Canada, and Australia — and they all attended, eager for a journey of knowledge and acquaintance as much as a journey of place. The gathering was intimate but radiant: faces warm with welcome, and souls prepared to listen and learn.

I welcomed them, then introduced myself, then I told them a brief introduction about Sarajevo as a starting point for what we would share in the coming days. I told them that Sarajevo is not merely a city on a map but a memory of a civilisation that extended across these mountains and valleys, and that the Bosnian Muslim had lived through centuries of hardship and hope, and through two great world wars and the latest catastrophe that devastated this country and left wounds in its body and soul that have not healed to this day.

I also told them that God had blessed this country with a unique religious and historical diversity: the Bosniaks are Muslims, the Serbs are mostly Orthodox, the Croats are mostly Catholic, and there is in addition a Jewish community of long standing. They have lived with each other through long centuries, sometimes with harmony and sometimes with severe tension, until the war came and tore the country apart, leaving behind thousands of martyrs, displaced people, prisoners, and orphaned families. The war ended with the Dayton Accords in 1995, which divided the country into two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Republika Srpska, each with its own government. Yet the wounds of war are still visible in every corner of this country: in the abandoned houses, in the war cemeteries, in the ruins that overlook the streets, and in the scars that fill the walls and faces.

I concluded my talk by saying: this journey is not tourism only, but a journey of knowledge and acquaintance, a journey of standing with people who deserve support and a voice that carries their cause to the world. The meeting ended at about ten thirty at night, with fatigue evident on the faces after a long day that had begun before dawn and only ended now. We returned to our rooms quietly, each carrying with them a thought and a reflection, and then surrendered to rest, preparing for a new day of this journey.

Translation note: This article was translated by AI. View the original Telegram post.