Two Immortals Passed, Yet Their Footprints Remain

  Sheikh Khalid Rashid Al-Mubarak

Those days remain clear in my memory. I was a young man, eager to seek religious knowledge, yet lost in its vast desert, roaming its open expanses without a compass. Then, at the threshold entering the year 1994, our meeting took place. How beautiful is a meeting without prior appointment! I met chaste honor, manhood, the vigor of Islamic da’wah, a man of deep care, a cause, dedication, knowledge, and action—all forged into the person of a serious man with an ardent mind and active limbs, a drawn sword standing without an army.

He pulled me out of my confusion into the ranks of authentic learning and full awareness of the importance of integrative knowledge in Islamic jurisprudence to properly understand the Holy Quran and the Sunnah. Alongside this were spiritual and moral education, asceticism in worldly matters, fasting on Mondays, performing night prayers, humility, generosity, and sincerity. For there is no good in knowledge that is not followed by action, just as there is no good in a fresh body without a flourishing spirit leading its limbs.

He was a father, a companion, a mentor, an educator, and a sheikh. His project came to an end in practice, but I am one of his noble deeds, and I take pride in that. It was out of loyalty to bring joy to his eyes that his zeal inspired me to continue the project of building a generation of knowledgeable, active youth who unite rather than divide, and who carry the worry of humanity rather than self-concern. Thus, May Allah have mercy on him, he was the seed planted in the soil of my project in 2011.

The Second Immortal: Dr. Khalid Abdul-Muhsin Al-Habashi

Our meeting—or rather, our delight—took place in 2011. Khalid, in short, was my right hand; indeed, he was virtually all my senses. He understood the mission and lived for it, selfless and self-sacrificing. He was the place of my soul, the joy of my spirit, and the pulse of my heart. He managed the project administratively, financially, and operationally, serving as the air I breathed, the lungs by which I lived, and the mind with which I thought. Can anyone ever replace such a person?

Yet he caught me by surprise with his departure—the first and last time he ever left without asking my permission. Our gatherings were never for worldly gain; rather, we sat upon this world looking toward the Hereafter. We gathered for the love of Allah and His Messenger (pbuh). We gathered upon acts of obedience, and we parted upon them, by the grace of Allah Almighty.

People assume that their memory has faded and turned into ash on my ground, unaware of the burning embers of longing glowing beneath it—ablaze and ready to erupt at any moment upon merely hearing the name, seeing the gleam of a child bearing the name, matching it, resembling it, or even sharing a single letter close to it.

The mentor and his nurtured land have passed; the helper and his source of support have passed. The two immortals have passed, and with them passed the spring of life. The leaves are falling, and the creep of autumn toward the age of sixty moves swiftly. There is no time left to look back; nothing remains except to gather one's breath before the final extinction.

Ah... how meager the provisions are, how long the journey, and how desolate the path!

We seek help from Allah alone. I ask Him for patience, solace, steadfastness, acceptance, blessing, and happiness for both of them in the Abode of Permanence, and that our reunion be upon pulpits of light... Amen.