Cherished Memories of Africa — Page 209
191 of Friday prayer in their room. They believed that Friday prayer could not be offered anywhere other than a jami’a mosque. I urged the Kumbal jama’at to offer Friday prayers separately many times but failed. Ultimately I decided to go there personally on a Friday. I reached there with two Gambian Muallims and told Umar Jallow Sahib that we were going to offer Friday prayers in their village. He got frightened thinking that the villagers might attack us. I reassured him saying that most of the people of that village were their relatives and were unlikely to attack them. They might attack me being a foreigner and as I would lead the prayers, I said. I used to keep a long plastic prayer mat in my car; I took that out and spread it out under a tree and asked one of the muallims to call the adhan. After the adhan, the Ahmadis started coming one by one. I led the prayers. The villagers also saw us praying but showed no reaction. After the prayers I took promise of all the Ahmadis on oath that they would definitely offer Jum’a prayers in congregation after that day. They all promised. That is how the jum’a prayer was started in Kumbal. By the Grace of Allah, there is a big mosque there now and Jum’a prayer is offered there. Introduction to the Study of the Holy Quran There is a town Medina Sabakh at the Senegambia border. One of our muallims – ustaz Alieu Faye is a resident of that town. He gave ‘Introduction to the Study of the Holy Quran’ by Hadrat Musleh Ma’ud (ra) to his friend who lived in the same town and was a professor in a college. After some time, while returning the book, the professor said: ‘When I was studying in primary school, amongst my class-fellows there were some Christians