No Islamic scholar has clean record like Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi- Sheikh Sidi Aliyu Sise
By Ahmed Mohammed, Bauchi
Shehu Dahiru Usman Bauchi is one of the leading Islamic scholars in Nigeria, he is the vice-chairman of the Fatwa committee of Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs. He has been working for the Propagation of Islamic religion for nearly a century and he is a leader of Tijjaniyya in Africa, an icon of Peace the Scholar who turned 99 years old in this month of the Islamic year Almuharram, 1445, because he was born on 2nd Almuharram 1346.
This year, the sheikh made a pronouncement that he has forgiven everyone who has done something wrong to him in the world, asking everyone that feels he has offended him to forgive him. The Islamic scholar said that God has fulfilled his wish for everything he wanted, only one thing left for hm.
He asked his children and followers to Hold the Holy Qur’an in high esteem, they should intensify effort to memorise it and recite it everyday, he said if they held the Qur’an and Protect it they held the truth and who ever held the truth Allah is with him.
On this matter, our correspondent spoke to one of his children, Sheikh Sidi Aliyu Sise Sheikh Dahiru, and an expert in Memorisation and recitation of the Qur’an and its recitations, because he was the one Sheikh sent with his Words that He has forgiven everybody.
Sheikh Sidi Aliyu Sise is the Director of Education Under the famous Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi Foundation.
Excerpts;
Que: You honor the students of the Qur’an who read and recites it in different ways, and their scholars, why are you doing this celebration at this time?
Ans: Alhamdulillah, what made us hold this celebration to honor the students of Maulana Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi who have memorized the Qur’an and are trying to learn the knowledge of the different recitations of the Qur’an, the Sheikh gave us the order to do so, because of the way he cares for the Qur’an and its memorisation and recitation and care for how to learn the knowledge of the Qur’an. Sheikh was not Happy with the then Governor of Kaduna state, Nasir Elrufa’i who made frantic effort to frustrate and placed a ban on learning of the Qur’an when he sent Security to the House of Sheikh in Kaduna and evacuated his pupils (Almajirai) late at night. We thank the almighty Allah that these set of Qur’anic Pupils memorized the Holy Qur’an. We took them to Maulana Sheikh because he travelled to Abuja at that time, the Qur’anic Pu[ils recited the Quran in different Qira’at , they showed their skill in reciting the Qur’an and reciting it and memorizing it with different recitations and every one among them before he recite, he will start telling you what kind of recitation he is going to recite, warshu or hafsu or whatever, he will say before he recites. Maulana Sheikh heard a lot of their recitations, they beg Sheikh for Forgiveness Sheikh was so happy with their recitation he became so excited, and he prayed a lot, he said since what was done to him in Kaduna, he was not happy because he saw that some people rose up to put a stop to reading the Quran. But from what he saw, he knew that the Qur’an is still there and God continues to protect it, because anyone who hears the way these young people, the students are doing will know that they are trying very hard to preserve the Qur’an. Because of this, the Sheikh gave the order that if we return home, we should call a meeting to honor these students as a step to encourage them, after them, among our scholars there are two Arabs Scholars from Egypt, two of them teaches the Quran, one of them has completed his three-year stay and the other one will go on vacation. Our teacher Alaramma, Salihu Gano and other Sheikh advised that they should be honored and not the pupils only and the Scholars. Sheikh ordered that whoever attended the celebration should be honored with a copy of the Holy Qur’an, even though what we gave the celebrants and their Scholars was morethan what we gave spectators that attended the celebration.
Que: What is different about the kind of education that Shehi gives to his students?
Ans: This question is difficult to answer, but if you are to explain the kind of education and discipline that Sheikh gave his children and disciples, it is the Teachings of Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon him, teachings such as frequent memorization and recitation of the Qur’an, taking care of glorifying the name of Allah, Seeking for Allah’s forgiveness, and Prayer and salutations to the Holy Prophet, avoiding the world and seeking the hereafter. As an icon of peace he also preaches peace, he always enjoin us to live in peace with everyone and every day. Whenever the sheikh would do something, he would pray and ask God to give us good health and be safe and secured in Nigeria. He always pray for peace and stability in Nigeria, he also teaches us to fear Allah and uphold the truth always, to be patient and to help the needy, and many more. You can’t see the wisdom behind his teachings and prayers until when you try to compare between disciples of Sheikh and disciples of Ibn Taimiyyah , Muhamadu Ibni Abdulwahab and their followers who are the most possessors of worldly goods you will see that the disciples trained and moulded by Sheikh Dahiryu they are the ones who are more diligent in learning the Sunnah of the Messenger of God than any other part that criticized him, but we agreed that in terms of getting worldly things, they are better than us in getting worldly things; but when it comes to moulding a scholar and great memorisers of the Holy Qur’an you will see Sheikh Disciples supercedes everyone, take for example, myself not to talk of anyone among his children or desciples, I have a bank account but there is nothing in my account, I have many families, four wives, one maid and 37 brothers, but it is Sheikh despite his old age, he is the one who stands by me and the rest of my brothers and sisters to work for the religion of God, and we are still doing it. I have memorized the Qur’an through his guidance and I have learnt and mastered the different ways of Qira’at. For God’s sake, those disciples who used to insult Sheikh and some great and respected Scholars like Sheikh Tijjani , Sheikh Ibrahim Nyass of blessed memory, ask them can they be compared to me? Can they produce a scholar who mastered the recitation of the Qur’an like me? I am a small among the disciples of Maulana Sheikh, I challenge them, let them try and produce a student like me, I gave them six month , if they fail to produce a student like me then they should keep their mouth shut. When it comes to religious matters, and in short, when you compare Sheikh’s Teachings and discipline, you will know that the disciples of Sheikh are the one trained to be on the path of nothing but Allah the Almighty and follow the teachings of Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon him. But those who failed to imitate the disciples of Sheikh they should keep quite, they cant say anything about Islamic affairs, because they haven’t studied to become teachers yet, for that, don’t insult Shehu Tijjani, or Shehu Ibrahim, or Maulana Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi. If you compare their students and ours, Allah will show you where study is and where seeking the word is more effective. You can go to anywhere you will see the difference because Sheikh disciples don’t engage in moral decadence even smoking cigarette, they don’t smoke.
Que: On this issue of reading the Quran, you are the director in charge of education. How is it going?
Ans: Alhamdulillahi, the number of schools of Maulana Sheikh is difficult to quantify because you know for about a century, Maulana Sheikh is in the business of teaching and learning the Holy Quran in Nigeria and the neighbouring countries, but some years back after we established Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi Foundation, we started documenting , we have opened 557 Schools, we have built 1,625 classrooms, we have 1,973 teachers , and we have 948,552, out of them we have 20,271 students who have memorized the Quran, in different states in Nigeria and in the countries neighboring Nigeria. For example, in Niger, Sheikh has opened six schools with 16 teachers and 1,261 students, among them, 92 students have memorized the Quran. We have also built 15 classrooms, in the Republic of Benin, we have opened nine schools with 26 classrooms, there are 1,110 students trying to memorize the Qur’an. In Cameroon, we have opened five schools, we have 16 classes, and five teachers, we have 638 students, four of them have memorized the Qur’an, but only God knows the work of Sheikh. What is amazing is how he encouraged his students to memorize the Qur’an. Today, he has a clean record that no Scholar has in this world, he has 76 biological sons and daughters that are memorizers of the Qur’an, and 99 among his grand children, all of them have memorized the Qur’an, 17 of his great grand children today memorized the Holy Qur’an, even with this, everyone will know where the truth is, where the Holy Quran dwells is where the truth is, but only people with sound and clean mind will understand even though it’s shown physically. Now we want all of us to follow this will that Shehi enjoined us to take care of the Quran and follow it. If we follow it, we will follow the truth and we will not be disappointed, we are going to intensify and broaden more ways in learning the Quran and other discipline according to Islam. We have partnered Algerian, we have taken over 60 students there who memorised the Holy Quran, they are still learning different Islamic teaching skills and discipline, just recently I returned from Algiers where I went and see them they are doing well. We are also going to Improve on our quest to follow what he told us, that’s to hold the Qur’an, we don’t take his orders lightly, we are brainstorming, we will do more in teaching, learning and preserving the Quran, by the grace of Allah, if you asked me next year or two you will hear and see more success, we don’t have salary, we are not Government workers, but we contribute a lot in service to humanity as we were trained by Maulana Sheikh and I believe even those at the government they don’t fight moral decadence the way disciples of Sheikh are doing. We thank the almighty Allah for showing us the truth.
Que: You are the one that Sheikh sent a message with his voice saying that God has fulfilled his wish completely, there is only one thing left, what is this thing?
Ans: We thank the Almighty Allah for that day, because, these students who are reciting the Qur’an excited him, therefore, the first order to honour them, to encourage them to train all his students to hold the Qur’an and do more to recite it. For that, if someone does something to him and he forgives him, he also asked for forgiveness, if he did something to anybody in this world that he feels offended, he said that God will fulfill his wish, the only thing he is asking God to do for him is to fulfill it with faith in the end of his life.
Que: Do you have any advice to the Muslim community.
Ans: The advice is Muslims should live in peace and harmony, they should avoid insulting the Saints and great servants of God because doing so will attract the anger of God Almighty, and Anger on the sight of Allah have consequences that may make life difficult to people, on daily basis, Sheikh use to draw our attention to the fact that God said whoever comes forward and insult my saint servants, I will come out and fight him, the calamities we are in this country are expensive and other things that are bothering us. Let’s look at all these happenings, it is because of the abuse of the saints, servants of Allah, All Muslins must respect them as ordained by the prophet if they are true followers of the Prophet, they are great scholars who memorized the Holy Qur’an , Muslims should try to unite and help each other, protect the dignity of each other by seeking forgiveness for God to save us from these calamities caused by our foolishness, let’s pray to God to give us health and be safe and secure in Nigeria. I also want to advised our new President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to honor two people because they love the Quranic learners and memorisers/ reciters (Almajirai) one of them is former governor of Bauchi State, Mallam Isa Yuguda, Tinubu should appoint him as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, because when he was governor, he helped the Almajirai with 55 million naira every month, supporting eleven thousand people and he gave more than 20 cars to Almajirai.
Secondly, the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, Tinubu should also honour him, we hold him in high esteem, among the Northern governors, Mai Mala Buni was the only governor who came and asked Maulana Sheikh to be patient when Elrufai chased his disciples away from his house in Kaduna, Mai Mala was the only one who came out and told the Almjirai to return to his state.
