Rihla Flashes Light on Consequential Pathways Before Readers to Follow, to Leave A Trail

 

Abu Amnoon Sayyid’s book “Rihla” landed in my hands a couple of months ago. I took a little time to go through the entire book because I had decided not to hurry to pen my evaluation about this particular book. This book contains 108 pages and it was published by Ilannoor Publication in November 2024.

“Rihla” is an Arabic word which means “travel”. The interpretation of the book’s title has been offered by the author inside the book’s text. The perceptions and thoughts that persuaded Abu Amnoon Sayyid to write this book is described in the book’s preamble which contains an allusion to our National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam and some citations from the Holy Quran and Hadith are also added to justify the name of the book and to corroborate the author’s desire and aims that worked at the back of the blossoming of “Rihla”.

Travelling has been a pervasive topic for discussions, fictional works, fairy tales, corporate ventures and poetry since time immemorial. In Rihla, Abu Amnoon Sayyid touched upon both physical trips and spiritual journeys. In this context mystic precursor Mawlana Jalal Uddin Rumi’s vision of voyages can be briefly stated who once said “The most significant voyage we undergo is the journey within our own self”. American academic scholar and translator Coleman Barks has elaborated in his discourses on Jalal Uddin Rumi that no journey can be taken for granted unless it opens up a door for self-exploration. This theme is strongly present in Rihla where the author does an extensive range of soul searching alongside putting forward precepts and messages for readers from theological, philosophic, geopolitical and historical viewpoints.

All human beings on earth are actually pilgrims and travelers for the time being. We have to pack up and quit every now and then from one place to another. In literary terms it’s known as “Diaspora”, which is originally a Biblical term and the first modern elucidation of “Diaspora” in literature was illustrated by American author Peter Danielson in his best known book “The Shepherd Kings”. Anyway, the first chapter in Rihla portrays how travelling has been depicted in the Holy Quran. Verses from certain Quranic chapters have empowered Abu Amnoon Sayyid’s deliberations to sound all the more distinctive. Professor Dr. Muhammad Sirajul Islam, who was a noted faculty member in English Department, Chittagong University, once told us while giving a classroom lecture that a good writer does not reach out for conclusions. Good authors leave a substantial magnitude of space for readers to reflect, to contemplate on the pages which have been perused and to cast a glance beyond the total script of the book. The closing chapter of Rihla jingles with this undertone which allowed me to sit back for a while and to muse on what I have read and what I picked from this book. In poststructural linguistic studies there is a term known as “Aporia”. It’s a French word which stands for “gap”. This gap denotes the thinking meadow that poignant readers seek to tread on after going through stories and poems inquisitively.  It’s also a categorical evidence of the fact that Abu Amnoon Sayyid is very much conscious about the postmodern literary disquisitions and authorial physiognomies.

The chapter titled “Germany to Persia Via Turkey” is an engrossing episode in Rihla. Abu Amnoon Sayyid recalled his eventful trip from Germany to Iran which took place over three decades ago while the author was at the full primrose of youth. Exploring foreign countries during times of youthful vigour is one of the most exciting and educative things in anyone’s life. Convincing a diplomat for an Iranian visa and dissuading a German Navy officer from committing suicide are striking inclusions in this chapter which sound stranger than imaginary tales but Abu Amnoon Sayyid did both these tough jobs with eventual success.

Some geopolitical predicaments have been analyzed in Rihla. The plight of Syrian refugees in Turkey touched my heart as I can see the catastrophes suffered by thousands of genocide victims in Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, Congo, Rwanda and many more places across the world when we turn on a satellite channel or read a newspaper. It was a pleasure to find in Rihla that Abu Amnoon Sayyid saw two particular tourist attractions in Istanbul which I also visited—the Blue Mosque and Basilica Cistern. I was travelling to Malta by Turkish Airlines in summer 2023. The airliner had an 8 hours long transit in Istanbul. The passengers on this flight were taken around different popular sites in Istanbul city by a tourist bus.

The history of Istanbul has been narrated in moving words in Rihla. The Roman Period and the victory of Muslims in Constantinople are valuable things for learners to enhance their knowledge. A particular piece of Hadith from Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) prognosticating on the conquest of Istanbul by Muslim crusaders is a very important addition to this chapter in Rihla. 

The inquest on whether Prophet Muhammad was a navigator is quite typical of Abu Amnoon Sayyid who spent nearly four decades wearing the venerated uniform of Bangladesh Navy. A cadet of Russian Navy once told me in St. Petersburg “Destiny lies in the sea. You can’t become a good navigator if you don’t fall in love with the waves and tides of seas and oceans”. This is an English translation of what the Russian cadet told me in his mother language.

An explanation of Prophet Muhammad’s voyage through space is dexterously illustrated in Abu Amnoon Sayyid’s book. Actually as Muslims we have to acknowledge that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was the first astronaut in the history of human civilization on Earth. English phrases like “The Great Beyond” and “The Rainbow Bridge” came from Prophet Muhammad’s space travel, according to Austrian linguistic theorist Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889—1951). Nobel Prize winner British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872—1970) was Ludwig Wittgenstein’s doctoral supervisor in Cambridge University, United Kingdom.

Abu Amnoon Sayyid used an English proverb in one part of Rihla which says “Lesser known are more fascinating”. I can’t resist the temptation of recollecting some similar words from a poem by John Keats who once wrote “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter”.

Allusions are presented with full relevance in Rihla to classic Bengali poets Kaykobad and Jibanananda Dash.

Going back to the point of leaving a thinking space for readers, Abu Amnoon Sayyid’s creative folio “Rihla” and his transcendental vision remind me of a widely known maxim from American philosopher and the pioneer of American Age of Enlightenment Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882) which is as follows “Don’t go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”


Mahfuz Ul Hasib Chowdhury is a
contributor to different English
newspapers and magazines.