ENCIRCLED BY OCEAN OF FIRE FOR RIDICULING ULAMAS

ENCIRCLED BY OCEAN OF FIRE FOR RIDICULING ULAMAS

AFTER completing tawaf around midnight, our group returned to the hotel. It was only when everyone had gone into their respective rooms that we realised one of them had yet to return.

     "Eh, hasn't Datuk Sulaimi back yet? He was so keen just now to do tawaf on his own," I said to one of the pilgrims.

     "No! His room is still dark," he replied.

     This was quite a normal behavior for Datuk Sulaimi, a well known businessman, when he was in my group. Despite performing Umra countless time, his arrogant and hard-headed behavior had never changed.

     Earlier at dusk, he bragged about doing tawaf by himself, seemingly because he was already so familiar with Mecca's intricacies.

     "Where has the Datuk gone?" I asked myself.

     I was getting worried as dawn was breaking and he had not returned. That morning, our group perform Fajr prayer at the Al-Masjid al-Haram without him. I couldn't say he was lost because he frequented Mecca almost every year. Of late, he even had becoming here twice a year. There was only one possibility - he could be hurt.

     So, I went looking for him at all the clinics and hospitals near Mecca. I searched for him the whole day. However, to no avail.

     Have completed Maghrib prayer, my friends and I looked for him around Al-Masjid al-Haram. After searching for so long, I accidentally caught sight of Datuk Sulaimi learning against the wall of a mosque, almost 10 metres from the place of Sayee.

     He looked lethargic. As soon as I approached him, I saw that the soles of his feet were cracked and bleeding. When I asked him, Datuk Sulaimi did not give a single reply. In a weakened state, his friends supported him back to the hotel. Throughout the night, Datuk Sulaimi could not sleep. He was always restless and was mumbling incoherently.

     "It's hot! Hot! Hot!" he yelled while furiously fanning himself with his hands. Sometimes, he would get up and take off his clothes. A blanket at the end of the bed was throw against the wall.

     "Hajah, I'm sick! My body is hot! Go and get me a doctor!" he said.

     I contacted the nearby clinic but unfortunately there was no doctor on duty then.

     After examined him, the doctor confirmed that Datuk Sulaimi was not sick. He body temperature was normal. Only his feet were cracked and continued to bleed since yesterday. Before he left, the doctor gave him some painkillers.

     Datuk Sulaimi became enraged when he heard the doctor said that he was not having a fever despite him feeling so hot. He complained incessantly and threw the medicines away. The pills strewn the floor.

     "My body is hot! Find another doctor, quick!" he screamed.

     Looking at his condition, the managing director of TM Tours, Haji Ridwan Abdullah and I, took Datuk Sulaimi to the hospital. Again they examined him. However, the diagnosis remained the same. There were no signs to show that Datuk Sulaimi was ill. Before we returned to the hotel, again the doctor gave him some painkillers.

     He immediately took the pills as soon as he reached the hotel. But, it didn't seem to have any effect.

     "It's hot! Hot! Hot!" Datuk Sulaimi continued to mumble. We were dumbfounded. The doctor had confirmed that he did not have a fever while the room was fully air conditioned 24 hours.

     Sometimes, he would take off his shirt and fanned his body. He also constantly went into the bathroom to cool himself. Nothing worked. Each time the water droplets on his body dried up, Datuk Sulaimi felt like he was in flames.

     He continued to complain that his body temperature had gotten higher even since he returned from the hospital. I was worried what was happening with Datuk Sulaimi. His condition was very unusual. Based on my many years of experience taking pilgrims to the Holy Land, I suspected that 'something' had occurred to Datuk Sulaimi. If not, how could he get this way.

     That night, together with Hajj Ridwan, I tried to pry the story from him. Slowly, we approached him. We discovered that Datuk Sulaimi could not perform his Tawaf and Sayee on the night that he disappeared.

     "I really don't know Naaimah. Many times I went up and down, and around the Kaaba looking for the exit to the Sayee but I couldn't find the door," Datuk Sulaimi sighed.

     "How could you not have seen it? The doors are right next to each other!" I said.

     "It's true Naaimah. I couldn't even see the Kaaba. The area was just empty. When I turned left, I saw fire. I turned right and I saw water."

     "At that time, I felt like I was on a small island. When I tried to run to the left, flames would engulf me. When I ran to the right, water, as vast as the sea, almost drowned me," said Datuk Sulaimi.

     To save himself, he ran around the Al-Masjid al-Haram, There, he still could not find the exit. Datuk Sulaimi did not know how many times he kept on circling the same place. According to him, whenever he turned back, he could see a vision of a door on the left hand corner of the mosque.

     He then, made a dash for it. But whenever he got anywhere, he would see yellowish light shooting throught. Eventually the lights got brighter. The lights, which he had thought some beautiful, turned out to be roaring flames. The nearer he approached it, the higher it rose until Datuk Sulaimi was engulfed in the angry flames.

     "I couldn't move. If I moved a step forward, I would be engulfed by the flames. I could only watch, transfixed, at the endless sea of fire that stretched as far as the eyes could see," he said.

     Datuk Sulaimi continued with his story. Because he couldn't stand the heat, he retreated step by step to distance himself from the rising flames. His profusely sweat, wetting his ihram clothing. He turned to the right and saw a wide open door. Without wasting any time, he quickly headed for it.

     "But, as soon as I got to the entrance, I saw so much water... like open sea. It was so strange. Where had the water come from? If I just went straight on, I would have drowned. When I retreated and looked for the exit, fire was stretching as wide as a football field and rose higher than a date tree," he said.

     When he got tired, Datuk Sulaimi leaned against the wall of a mosque. It was then that he felt the cracks on the bottom of his feet and was finally found by his friends.

     After telling us his story, Datuk Sulaimi looked pensive again. When the advice of some friends, I turned to Haji Shawal, an acquaintance of mine from Malaysia who had been living in Mecca for 30 years, to shed light on the problem. That afternoon, we took Haji Shawal to Datuk Sulaimi's room.

     "Who are you trying to cure me? What's so great about you? Even the doctors said that I am fine, not sick. What make you think you can do anything?" Datuk Sulaimi yelled. I told him of our intentions for bringing Haji Shawal.

     "Be patient Datuk, don't talk like that. It's not good to insult people," I tried to calm him down.

     "I have not come to cure you of your condition. I have no any powers. I only can try. God willing, then you will be cured," Haji Shawal interjected.

     "Enough, enough! Go, go! Don't talk so much. You think you're so smart?" yelled Datuk Sulaimi again.

     This time his voice sounded very fierce. Datuk Sulaimi's eyes never wavered from studying every move made by the man, who was in his late 50s.

     His anger heightened when Haji Shawal took a kettle of Zamzam water, read some holy verses from the Quran and blew into the water. When the water was offered to him, Datuk Sulaimi immediately swiped it away. The glass dropped and the water spilled onto the floor.

     "Are you trying to poison me? Enough, go and take the water with you! Do you think the water can cure me? If the doctor's medicine can't do anything, what makes you think this cold water is going to cure me?" Datuk Sulaimi said sarcastically.

     "No one is trying to poison you, Datuk. You know fully well that this is Zamzam water," I tried to convince him.

     "You think I don't know anything? All these are nonsense!" he said again.

     It took Haji Shawal and I more than two hours to persuade Datuk Sulaimi to drink the water. After sipping it, he immediately felt asleep. With Allah's will, his health got better. He was able to do Fajr prayer. That morning, he was livelier from the previous day and even greeted the other pilgrims. When he met me, he immediately told me about himself.

     "Hajah, I am ok now. I'm not sick anymore. I can walk," he told me happily.

     "Alhamdulillah that you are well," I said.

     Alhamdulillah, he did not raise his voice like before anymore. He concentrated more in carrying out his religious duties and paying his Dam (expiation) for missing some obligatory Umra rituals. He managed to carry out his ibadah perfectly. Before leaving for home, Datuk Sulaimi came to see me. Trying to contain his heaviness in his chest, he could not stop his tears from streaming down. From time to time you could hear his sobs. His sleeves were met with tears. His behavior was very strange.

     "What's wrong, Datuk? Has something happened?" I asked.

     After a long silence, he finally spoke. "Hajah... I truly regret everything. I've gone through a lot while carrying out the Umra this year. I can still feel the heart from the flames engulfing my body. This is my retribution for always looking down on people, especially ulamas and belittling them. I used to say everything they did was nonsense."

     "Everything the ulamas did was wrong, in my opinion. For my, their Fatwa (legal pronouncement in Islam) was all incorrect. I had the cheek to bring out my own Fatwa despite my own religious knowledge is little."

     "Not only that, I, too, made fun of religion. If the rules forbid it, I would find ways and reasons to make it possible because, of course, I am a businessman. I only ever thought of making profit," he said, sadly.

     I allowed him to pour his feelings. Datuk Sulaimi added: "Now I'm truly sorry. This is the punishment for everything I've done."

     "It is okay Datuk, Allah still loves you and that's why he's given you the chance to redeem yourself. Just remember, we cannot ridicule each other. Even though there may be those who lack in a lost of things, and we don't, we should just be thankful, not make fun of them. We're all the same in Allah's eyes," I said.

     Datuk Sulaimi nodded his head. He was truly sorry and prayed that his sins would be forgiven.

N / F : FROM "THE BEST COLLECTION OF STORIES FROM MECCA", BY MASTIKA.