A few months ago, a few VOC staff members visited marhoom Maulana Yusuf Karaan at his home during his illness. The honourable scholar, who died on Sunday, narrated an incredible story, which we had to tell. Maulana Karaan at the time had completed documenting the story as a legacy for his children and grandchildren before he passed away.

“When I completed my studies in India in 1961, I decided to go for haj in the most unconventional way. Through the Persian Gulf, across the desert from east to west, I went from India, to Lahore, to Karachi. From Karachi, I took a boat to the Persian Gulf, got off at the island of Bahrain, then I went to the Saudi Arabian coast at Al Khobar. From there I went to Dammam right across the Saudi Arabian desert. It was the first time someone did that!

I got on the back of a lorry and travelled over the desert. It took me about a week because we got lost thrice, and we waited at night for the stars to come out.

There were no roads between Riyadh and Makkah in those days. During that time, we had to drive through the desert. That was my first haj. After that, I was so tired I didn’t want to go back the same way.

I call it my miracle haj because I didn’t have a single cent in my pocket for the whole journey. My mother was supposed to send money but my money got stolen [from his parent’s home). She wrote to me and told me to go back to India and to return for haj the next year. But I had travelled 1500 kilometers already by that time, how was I going to back? So I decided to continue.

I had 100 rupees (R7) and I had to go from Al Khobar to Dammam, from Dammam to Riyadh and from Riyadh across the desert…with just R7 in my pocket. How I did it is a miracle!

When I reached Makkah, I was writing the translation of the Virtues of Haj. In that, I saw the story of many of the awliyah who used to come to Makkah completely destitute and say: ‘Ya Allah, I’m Your guest in Makkah. I have nothing and I am going to eat what You give me. You look after me’.

Now it’s alright to say that, maar as jou mag begin skree! You walk in the Haram in the heart of the heat but you have to stop a few times to drink water. And of course you have to eat.

Then money started coming in from nowhere.

I told my children I would never let them take a chance like that. I was one single man alone, I had to carry my bags alone and the difficulty I had with getting visas. If you are in Pakistan for less than 6 months, you must buy your ticket in foreign currency. I had to smuggle foreign currency and buy British postal orders.

What I did after that was that I bought a ticket in Jeddah and took a boat to Bombay and went back to Deoband. I stayed there for six months and came home from there.

I came home when my mother sent me a message: ‘Se vir hom as hy nie vroeg huis toe kom nie en hy kry nie vir my lewendig nie, moet hy nie vir my blame nie’.

When I heard this message, I started crying. My mother telling me that she wont be there, if she dies. So I decided to go home. I found my mother and father still alive at the end of 1962.

And I’ve been imam in Strand since 1962. In 2012, I announced in the masjid that I had been imam and led Eid prayers for 50 years. This year is 52 years. How many more years, I don’t know.” VOC