Cherished Memories of Africa — Page 247
229 When the Pir transforms into a Lion In the Gambia, Senegal and other neighbouring countries the fake pirs and saints have established such a network of trickery, deception and fraud that one is baffled. I used to teach Islamic studies in the high school at Basse. The students used to ask questions on different topics and answered to the best of my ability. As most of them came from superstitious society, their questions usually related to the jinn, talismans and miracles of their pirs. One day a student called Kemo Jobateh from a nearby town – Georgtown asked me if a man could transform into another form of creation. I answered in the negative whereupon he said that that was not right. As evidence he mentioned that a man in his town transformed into a lion at times. Georgetown is a small island about 60 kilometers from Basse. The people there knew each other well. The jama’at there was under my supervision and visited them frequently. I asked the student the name of that person. He was a bit scared at first but, on my insistence, he told me that his name was Sulaiman Haidara. (In the indo-Pakistan subcontinent, they are titled Sayyed but in the Gambia and Senegal they are called Sharif or Haidara. They are held in respect by the people. Most of them ensnare the folks in their network and mercilessly suck their blood, figuratively speaking). I was well acquainted with Sulaiman Haidara. He was not an Ahmadi but greatly respected the jama’at members. His elder brother Sidi Mukhtar Haidara was the local jama’at president. I promised my dear student that on my next visit to Georgetown