The Director of SIIASI
My first acquaintance with the ‘Shehu’, as he was and is still affectionately referred to throughout Africa, was when I was eleven years old, in 1972. My elder brother, Willard (Walid) was assigned to do a book report on the excellent work of the life of the ‘Shehu’ called The Sword of Truth by Mervyn Hiskett. Before my brother could return the book to the Hartford Public Library, I had the opportunity to read it. To this day I, as a young African American boy, cannot accurately describe the profound effect which the person of Uthman Dan Fuduye’ had upon me.
The riots which ravaged the streets of Hartford, Connecticut a year earlier by the African and Hispanic communities was still etched upon my young memory. The Nation of Islam had just begun to be recognized as the vanguard of the African American liberation struggle. My hero, Muhammad Ali, had returned to the fighting ring as a Muslim champion and had waylaid every challenger with the style and beauty of a mythic hero. It was a good time for me as a young African American boy who considered himself to be Muslim.
That winter reading of the Sword of Truth opened up my perspective and self image of the spiritual and political potential of the African Muslim which I have never lost. For this I am eternally grateful to Allah ta`ala for His primordial wisdom and mercy. I did not realize it then but this would be the first of a series of ordained encounters with the Shehu I would experience throughout my life. The most significant encounter between the Shehu and I was on his birthday, December 15, 1985.
I traveled to the town of Maiurno, located on the western bank of the Blue Nile. There I met my shaykh, the Imam Muhammad al-Amin ibn Adam Karagh. He initiated me in the turuq of Shehu Uthman Dan Fuduye’ which he took from his father, Shaykh Adam Karagh. He in turn took it from his teacher, Shaykh Musa, who took it from the Imam of the Sokoto mosque, Shaykh Ali ibn Abu Bakr. He took it from Shehu Uthman Dan Fuduye’. He instructed me in the methodology and system of the Shehu.
I read with him many of the works of the Shehu. He also gave me license (ijaaza) to transmit all Ahmad ibn Hanbal in his Musnad on the authority of al-Ash`ath ibn Qays, and at-Tabarani in his al-Kabir on the authority of Usama ibn Zayd on the authority of Abdallah ibn Mas`ud that I had learned from him. One of the first books he gave me to translate for our brothers in America was the Ihya ‘s-Sunna wa Ikhmad ‘l-Bid`a.
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