A Man Called Abubakr: One Meeting, Six Years of Friendship, Life-Long Memories
By Abdul-Majeed Azad
Pasadena, California
I feel fortunate and blessed that I met Booker T. Washington, Jr. No, he was not a celebrated professor or scientist, nor an accomplished engineer, an acclaimed doctor or a smart lawyer or a wealthy Wall Street financier. He wasn’t a singer, or song-writer or a famous musician. Nor was he a well-known author, celebrated poet or a famed storyteller. In fact, he was a non-descript ordinary, diminutive and frail man. I’m sure, barring a few people, for most of the world, he didn’t even exist!
On the day of Christmas of 2015 - a Friday - my wife and I were driving to the Al-Noor Masjid in Brookfield for the Jumu’ah prayer. Those days, she used to be a researcher at the Blood Research Center in the vicinity of the Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, WI. When we were about two miles away from the Masjid, we saw an African-American man walking on the sidewalk in small but intent and purposeful steps. Being the Christmas Day, I thought, here is a gentleman on a chilly Milwaukee afternoon on his walk after a delicious and sumptuous Christmas meal with his family.
It was a 25-mph street and I was driving cautiously. I drove past him and in the fleeting moment I caught a glimpse of him: a thin man of medium height with scruffy facial hair - mostly grey - in a pair of khaki pants, a well-worn jacket, and a skull-hugging white cap.
My wife glanced in her passenger side mirror and said to me: He looks like a Muslim brother, going for Jumu’ah. Let’s pick him up. I wasn’t sure; still I slowed down and reversed until I came parallel to him. Lowering the passenger side window, I called out to him: Sir, can we drop you off some place? Bending down a little, he quickly glanced at us and said softly, “Salam Alykum. I’m going for Friday prayer”. I told him to get in as we too were on our way to the Masjid.
For small talks, I asked his name. He told me he had reverted to Islam several decades ago and his Muslim name was AbuBakr. Ma sha’ Allah! Next, I asked him if he lived nearby. He said, no. He lived about 16-17 miles away from this Masjid. He wanted to meet some friends in this part of the town before Jumu’ah, so he had decided to get an early start. When he came to the bus stop in his neighborhood and had waited for a while, he realized that buses were not plying on Christmas Day. We were intrigued and incredulous. I asked, how did he come, then?
That’s when I knew, I had met one of Allah’s beloved servants.
He said, realizing that he didn’t have a bus to ride, he had decided to walk to the Masjid: all 16-17 miles! He said, he used his phone’s GPS for navigation and had been walking through the safe byways for the past 2-½ hours! My wife and I looked at each other with sheer feeling of dwarfness for ourselves and honest admiration for this brother’s devotion to Allah (swt)! Let me digress a bit here. Only a few months earlier that year, I had spent ten blessed days of Ramadan in Madinah. Even after six months since, my body and soul were still enthralled by the bliss of that experience. But, hearing his account I realized that my false sense of ‘piety’ was nothing but a feigned guise which he had unknowingly peeled off. Internally, I felt ashamed and yet somehow cleansed of my hubris! I suddenly felt very small and insignificant in front of his Ikhlas (sincerity).
After we reached the Masjid, parked the car and walked towards the entrance, I told him to wait after the prayer and we will drop him off at his house. One may call it sheer selfishness, but, I wasn’t going to allow this man to walk again for 16-17 miles. Nor was I willing to pass on the opportunity of doing some little good for ourselves on a Friday.
On our way back, we stopped by my wife’s apartment briefly. While we waited in the car, she packed him a box of freshly baked home-made lasagna. During the drive, he told us he used to work as a landscaper but with aging acute back pain made him quit. He used to live with his daughter but when her job made her move to Madison, WI, he shifted to his niece’s home where he was currently living. He told us that he used to live and work in Southern California, and had lived for some years in Cleveland, OH, as well.
As we were driving home, I realized something. Sometimes we spend years together in a relationship - be it spousal/maternal/paternal/fraternal/filial or of other kind and yet it means nothing. And then there are moments of brief encounter, and they bind you to a total stranger like nothing else you've ever experienced in your entire life! That’s how I felt about AbuBakr and his pretense-less simplicity. In one of his authentic narrations, Rasulullah had defined a true friend as someone who makes you remember your Creator. Just for that reason, I wanted to keep in touch with him. I wanted to help him too. So, before we dropped him off at his niece’s place, I made sure I had his phone number and the address.
That was the first time I had met AbuBakr. Even though our meeting was pure accidental and quite brief, it is etched in my memory and my heart forever. That was the last time too. Because of serious health issues, my wife had to soon quit her job in Milwaukee and join me. But I kept in regular touch with him. Every Friday, we would exchange Salam and ‘Jumu’ah Mubarak’. Every Christmas, we’d reminisce about our chance meeting on that day in 2015. I was looking forward to this little ritual of ours this year too. But, that wasn’t meant to be this year. On the morning of Tuesday, December 14, I received a call from his daughter Tony, that AbuBkar passed away peacefully in his sleep. Barely ten days ago I had touched base with him, and when I inquired about his health, he had told me that he was doing well and feeling better.
I feel so fortunate to have met him even if only once. He reinforced in me that some people come in your life so very briefly yet leave long shadows and deep imprints. AbuBakr was indeed such a person and I miss him as a friend and as a brother in faith.
(Abdul-Majeed Azad, PhD, is a Technologist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California)
