This article is an acknowledgement of the great influence my late father, Ibrahim Nadji (RhA), had on me throughout my whole life. It is homage to him and his memory for the wonderful things he had taught me in life. It shall outline a few of the major lessons I learned from him that I hope would inspire generations of Muslim as well as non-Muslim fathers, their children, and educators in general.
Terminology Note: In this article there shall be some
acronyms that may be unfamiliar to non-Muslim readers. Their respective
meanings are listed below for the sake of understanding.
- PBUH stands for “Peace Be Upon Him”, which is a greeting reserved for the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).
- RhA stands for “Rahimahu Allah”, which means “May Allah have Mercy on him.” An expression of showing respect to the deceased.
- SWT stands for “Subhanahou Wa Ta’Ala”, which is an invocation that states “May He, Allah, be exalted and held as Most High!”
Background & History
My
beloved father (RhA) was the youngest of three children whose parents passed
away while they were all still below their teens. My father, especially, had a very
vague and faded memory of his parents for he lost them before he turned five, I
believe. He, his brother (Messaoud, RhA), and his sister (Fatima, RhA) had to
be shuffled around different residences throughout their childhood and be under
the care of varying family members until they became adults. At times they were
together but most of the time they were split amongst various families of
various relatives. The three siblings did not grow up in a steady family
setting nor did they enjoy their siblinghood together. But, Allah (SWT)’s
mercy, protection, and watchful eye were with them all along and they managed
to grow onto individuals with great love and care for one another till they met
their creator. All three were blessed with wholesome families, loving children,
and miraculous successful lives.
The two
brothers must have gotten the gene of commerce, if there is such a thing, from
their father (a butcher) for they managed to have their own grocery store that
was of good repute in their little village of Ain El-Beida (in the state of
nowadays Oum El-Bouaqi) at the time. The French occupation of Algeria was
gruesome, harsh, and mercilessly racist and at once deliberately and
methodically defacing to Algerians and their sense of Muslim, Arab, and Berber
identity. Of the three siblings, the French occupation nightmare left an
indelible mark on my beloved father (RhA) the most; he grew up to fight
everything French, culture, language, colonization, and dehumanizing uncivil
subjugation. He wanted to soak up his Algerian essence through and through to
squeeze out every atom of French influence from within him and his society at
large. His struggle led him to even face the specter of torture and was only a switch
blade’s turn from enduring it. Had it not been for the kind intervention of one
of his own store’s French customers, my beloved father (RhA) would have
suffered further psychological as well as physical damage.
Soon
after Algeria’s independence in 1962, the country was left with pretty much no
professionals to take care of education, health, and many basic necessities of
a typical civil society. The French occupiers made sure that as few Algerians
became professionals as possible for educated individuals were deemed a threat
to the very notion of occupation. The newly formed Algerian government had to
scramble to call for outside professionals (mainly from Arab countries and from
the eastern block countries) as well as get as many Algerians as possible on
fast tracks of professional development to fill the astronomic void that the
French left behind as they fled the country. My father (RhA) took crash courses
on how to be a teacher and in a span of six months or so he was certified to be
a sixth grade teacher. A job opening became available for him in a big town up
north, Annaba (Bona, the birthplace of Saint Augustine whose basilica
continues to be one of the prominent sites in the city till this day.) So, my beloved father (RhA) and his brother decided to move to the new city whereby the elder brother
continued to run a business as usual while the younger one, my dad, assumed the
job of a teacher at a school about fifteen-minute drive by bus. The two
families with nine children in total at the time lived in one apartment for
seven years before my father (RhA), my mom, and their four children decided then
to move out and live in an apartment complex (old French army barracks) that
was adjacent to a new school my dad was hired to work at. I, the oldest, was
ten years old when the move occurred. The barracks were eventually demolished
and were replaced by a new apartment building nearby. I lived with my family in
this new home until I graduated from college and moved to the United States of
America and the rest is history as the saying goes. Most of the lessons that I
learned from my beloved father (RhA) were from this latter period of my life
with him. Except for a few vague memory items here or there, I was too young to
remember much of what happened in the old house where the two brothers’
families resided.
The Shaping of the Father, the Educator,
the Person
If
anything one may draw from the brief life story of my father (RhA) is the fact
that it is a miracle that this man would turn out to be the kind of person that
he became. The childhood was rough at best, the French occupation was inhumane
at its nicest of periods, and his career path was as haphazard and as sinewy as
one can ever imagine an individual would experience. But, apparently, all these
events as rugged as they were, seem to have helped shape my father (RhA) into a
loving husband, an assertive father, a boy scout leader (actually Didi, as I have
always known and called him, was the individual who singlehandedly began the boy
scout movement in the whole eastern part of Algeria), a devout Muslim (with
incredible sense of moderation bordering on bridled liberalism), an admired
teacher, an influential educator, and a genuinely nice person and beloved
figure of any community he joined. For the twenty-two years that I have lived
with him I can attest to the fact that he loved people and people reciprocated
both openly to him, to me personally, to our family members, and through
hearsay. My mom, many relatives, and friends of mine told me that his funeral
was so well attended that a large tent had to be erected outside of our home to
accommodate the number of mourners who came from all over Algerian cities where
his relatives, friends, colleagues, and students live. May he rest in peace and
may Allah (SWT) accept him amongst his beloved folks.
What are some of the Major Lessons?
Being the
oldest child in my family, my father (RhA) and I had more than just a
father-son relationship. As soon as I turned ten, he began to treat me as a
full-fledged adult. We were more like close friends from then on. He and I
would almost on a daily basis take strolls all around Annaba (he loved to take
long walks) chatting about all sorts of subjects, exchanging ideas, and discussing
various topics of the day as they arose. It is through those and other life
experiences that I had with him, or observed him go through, that I was able to
draw some life lessons that I would like to share in the remainder of this
article. Below are just droplets from the sea of ideas I had the honor of
learning from this wonderful gentleman and greatest of fathers (RhA).
Major Lesson 1: [Be Just & Be Fair!]
Fairness seemed
to be the engine of life as far as my father (RhA) was concerned. It is as if
all the injustices he experienced at the hands of a few relatives at an early
age, from the French during his early adulthood, and from the Algerian government
and authorities who did not acknowledge his vital role and genuine
contributions to free Algeria from the grip of the heavy hand of French colonialism,
instilled in him a great sense of being just toward others and very fair in
dealing with them. This manifested itself mostly in how he raised my siblings
and me and in how he treated his students throughout his career as a teacher. My
beloved father (RhA) was a strict disciplinarian but he never allowed himself
to discipline anyone before giving them the benefit of the doubt first and
foremost. And he always made sure that the disciplined individuals fully
understood what the reason was and he checked with them afterwards as to
whether the punishment was fair at two levels; “Was it justified and fair in
being applied or not?” and “Was the level of punishment equivalent to the
offense that was committed or not?” Didi (RhA) adhered to the notion that every
human, by nature, errs but he also took on the notion that repeated erring is a
pattern in negative behavior that had to be rectified somehow to allow the
person to grow ethically and morally. So, he (RhA) applied the rule of “Three
strikes and you are out.” First and second offenses he always considered them
as natural human accidental booboos but the third instance, in his view, tipped
the scale of normality in one’s conduct and moral behavior and consequently he
would hold the offending party responsible for the third instance of their action.
Once the disciplinary action is taken, Didi would take me aside, one-on-one, and
would ask, “So, what have we learned from this?” and “Was I justified in
disciplining you?” he would inquire with all calmness. Most of the time I
acknowledged my non-cool action but there were very few instances where I
expressed to him that I did not agree with him. He and I had longer
conversations afterwards on the validity and value of such rare occurrences and
circumstances where I thought the punishment was not called for. As far as I
knew of him and about him, he (RhA) was fully open to being criticized and I do
not recall ever being chastised for doing so. As I grew older, he began to
share with me some of his instances of dissatisfaction with my siblings’
misbehaviors, and he would consult with me on what actions he should or should
not take as a consequence. It was evident to me that he wanted to make sure
that his treatment of my siblings was just and fair before he would take any actions
that only a genuinely caring parent such as him (RhA) would.
As a
father, a teacher, and an instructor, now, I have tried my best to be just and
fair to my kids and to my students to the best I can. I hope I have kept my own
father (RhA)’s love for justice and fairness alive and as such lived up to his
ideals.
Major Lesson 2: [Amana (Trust) is
Paramount!]
The
best way to convey the great value my father allotted to matters of trust is
through an actual story
that occurred between him and me when I was a sixth grade student in his own class.
My classmates and I were waiting outside of school waiting for the school gates
to open so that we would go in for that day’s classes. One of my classmates had
to go and take care of some quick errand and asked me to watch his school bag
for him. In other words, he trusted me to take good care of his
valued possession and I took on the task as a typical friend naturally would. A
few minutes later, a big hubbub began to surround us; a camel was sighted in
the neighborhood. Being northerners, many of my classmates and I have never
seen live camels before because they were mainly used and located in the mid to
southern regions of Algeria. We were city boys who did not have much knowledge
of Bedouin life then. All the kids, with their school bags in hands, began to
run toward the area where the camel was sighted and so did I. Not long
afterwards, the school gates were opened and we all headed back toward the
school and filed into our respective classrooms. My father (RhA), who was also
my sixth grade teacher at the time, asked us to pull out our Qur’an books to begin
the day’s session with the Islamic studies lesson before moving onto secular
subjects. Everyone had his books except for one kid. My teacher, my own Didi (RhA),
inquired “Where is your book?” The kid responded that he did not have his
school bag because it was lost. “How did it get lost?” the teacher asked. “I
gave it to Taoufik to watch it for me but then he lost track of it,” the kid
replied. Our teacher, with disbelief and in his usual calm countenance, asked,
“Taoufik, my son?” “Yes!” responded the classmate. The teacher asked the class president
[to streamline chores in his classrooms, my father assigned roles for different
kids; his class was like a little government in terms of structure] to go to
the principle’s office to see if someone might have found it and dropped it off
there. Immediately afterwards, he (RhA) signaled to me to come to the front of
the classroom to face my disciplinary action. The “Three strikes and you are
out.” rule had to be suspended because of the extreme weight my father (RhA) put
on matters
of trust and entrusting one another with our
valued items. While disciplining me, my father made it clear that Amana
(trust) was very important and that “This is the disciplinary action of
the teacher and that of the father is going to follow when you get back home.”
I knew I was in deep trouble but thankfully and to my great relief, the class
president came back with the bag; it was found by some wonderful soul who
spared me from having to deal with the guilt of causing my classmate to have to
buy a whole new set of classroom supplies and from disappointing my dear father
(RhA) for not being a trustworthy person.
As a
father and as an educator, I have learned to allot heavy weight to matters of
trust. My own children and my own students have come to realize that I value matters
of trust. I made it clear to all of them that I have no interest in policing
their actions for I trust them. If they live up to the trust that we
established between us, that would speak volumes of their proper ethical and
moral conduct. But if they choose to betray matters of trust between us, then it
would be something they would have to accept, deal, and live with for the rest
of their lives.
Major Lesson 3: [Islam is moderate. Thus,
hip!]
Algerian
society is very traditional and religious at heart. But, the one hundred thirty
years of French occupation had a strange influence on Algerians. There were the
hardcore traditionalists and there were the “rebels” amongst Algerians. The
traditionalists adhered to the tenets of Islam for the most part and more so to
Algerian customs and habits that were not in many instances that Islamic after
all. This segment of society resisted any French influence and many actually
paid a heavy price for espousing such stances in their daily lives. The
“rebels”, mostly the youth and some adults who “according to their beliefs, refused
to return to centuries-old customs and be seen as backwards folks”, soaked up
the French societal values and engaged in what the first segment of the
population would consider not quite Kosher, non-Algerian. Some of these “James
Dean”s would express themselves openly and they get rebuked and even punished
at the hands of their family members while others were more reserved and
discrete and spared themselves from being chastised. My father (RhA), atypically,
took the in-between route, the moderate path as he deemed it. This meant that
while his core beliefs remained fully Islamic, completely Arab, and staunchly
Algerian, he managed to sift out the worn-out traditions that he deemed
culturally-based rather than Islamically driven or justified. So, while none of
his contemporaries of Algerian husbands would allow their wives to go out
unveiled or show signs of affection and love in public, my father (RhA) would
kiss my mom in front of us, in public, with a grimace that is more telling than
anything else in the world. It was as if he was telling us, his children, true
love of one’s spouse needs no discretions. My father was in charge of the
independence parade at our old little town of Ain El-Beida and he recruited my
mom to be the flag bearer, she was not veiled for that specific occasion, and
he did not insist on it either despite the fact that she usually steps out in a
typical Algerian veil known as Hayik (Hijab is a requirement as my mom fully
understood and always has abided by it but in that celebratory day my beloved
parents dealt with this matter as they saw fit.) In class, during the Islamic
studies sessions, of all subjects, my father readily would teach students about
puberty, its signs, and about reproductive organs and their functions. At the
time, it was as close as one can get to nowadays’ sex education classes but in
a very conservative traditionalist society such as Algeria. Students, all sixth
graders then, would chuckle to the mere mention of private parts and such and
my father (RhA) would sternly remind them “My son is here and I am talking
about these important matters of Din, religion.” And then he would follow this
statement up with, “La ḥaya’a
fi Din.” Which means, “There is no shame feeling in matters of religion.” My
Didi (RhA) fully embraced the idea that knowing about sexual matters was part
and parcel of Islamic religion and its education. At weddings, my father (RhA),
the usually well-measured, generally very shy, and consistently well-reserved
individual would party like it’s 1999! He would dance his heart out and express
himself outside and on the dance floor unlike many reserved men of his age
would. It is as if he were drunk yet he had never sipped a single drop of
alcohol out of genuine adherence to Islamic teachings where Khamr (Arabic word
for alcohol) is haram. He was a music lover, a poetry buff, and a genuine
artist/artisan (he and I would pick up scraps of metal at junkyards during our
city walks and he would turn them into beautiful decorative items around the
house.) To him (RhA), Islam was hip! It was too cool to be confined within the
walls of a Masjid (Mosque) or a Zawaya (literally angle in Arabic, but in Algeria it was
a small secluded area of worship and a one-scholar building where Islamic
studies can be pursued); it was to be lived fully within and without the
confines of any building. This, I think, is the most positive influential thing
that my father (RhA) had on me as a growing young Muslim that I hope I would
succeed in passing it onto my own children and to many Muslim youths the world
over. Indeed, Islam is Moderate and as such, it is Hip!
Major Lesson 4: [Be free but own up to
your choices!]
For as
long as I lived with my beloved father (RhA), I do not ever recall him
chastising any of us, his children, if we came up short in matters of religion
or in the choices we make in our respective lives. The naive youthful attitude
I had regarding Islamic matters failed to understand this approach of my Didi (RhA).
I was more pestering to people in terms of making sure that they would continue
to adhere to their Islamic duties such as performing their daily salat (prayer)
and holding tight to the principles of their faith. I did so with such passion
and assertiveness that my dad and mom began to call me Sheikh El-Jilani (a name
of a fictitious religious scholar) and some of my friends would refer to me as
Sidi Naajee Moul El-Qobba wal Bourhan (Sir Nadji, the Owner of the Dome and
Proof.) Both nomenclatures are comical reactions but they made me think as I
grew older, am I right in doing so or is my Didi’s approach the most effective one
in the long run? Well, after I became a father myself and began to deal with
how my own children were approaching religious matters did it become clear to
me that my father’s approach may after all be the better of the two methods.
This is bourn by the fact that the rate of success of his children’s adherence
to the tenets of their faith seems to have outpaced mine by a long shot thus
far. It seems that his motto of “Be free
but own up to your choices!” gave my siblings and me some latitude and
freedom in what we can or cannot do vis-à-vis matters of faith and in how we
deal with our life choices. So, we tumbled with our religious practices and we
wrestled with our own life choices while noticing one constant in our
respective lives. Our father never missed a beat when it came to his religious
life as if he were subliminally telling us, “This is how one must deal with his
faith; live it in its truest of essences!” In other words, he (RhA) let his
steady and consistent noiseless practice of his own faith and his unflinching
ethical and moral conduct quietly and softly “tell” us that one must never forsake
the duties toward fellow humans and more importantly toward one’s Creator,
one’s true Benefactor, and one’s ultimate Judge of all people’s actions.
Instead of having to lecture us on the haram (unlawful, sinful) nature of khamr,
tobacco, and drugs for instance, our wisest of fathers (RhA) chose to just be
sober himself throughout all his life from all the senselessness intoxicants
bring to one’s precious life. He let his actions do the lecturing for him and,
on hindsight, what a coup de grace in parenting! I wish I were wiser and
learned this valuable lesson from him before I began rearing my own children. I
was too blinded by my own youthful dogged approach to perceive the wisdom in
his (RhA) superior method. As to the owning up to one’s choices, an anecdote
would suffice to further elucidate what this insightful human being meant when
he chose to act the way he did. My father (RhA) made it clear to my siblings
and me that guilty or not guilty, he would discipline us if any of our friends,
classmates, or neighbors went complaining to him about us. When we were young
we failed to understand this seemingly unjust way of dealing with such
complaints. But as we grew older it dawned on us that our father was teaching
us something valuable! Learn how to tactfully deal with people in such a manner
that would save any one of us from having to explain or defend oneself in the
first place. So, if we were guilty in the incident at hand, then we deserved to
be disciplined because we were not nice to people and a Muslim is a kind nice person
by default. And, if we were not guilty of what we were accused of, then we
should have been smart enough to figure a way out of the confrontational
situation somehow because a Muslim is supposed to be Kayyis (smart) in the first place! To this day,
I must admit that I am baffled by how on earth could an orphan who never
experienced parenting first hand and who never took parenting courses would be
so adept at coming up with such gems of parenthood? I tip my hat in admiration,
awe, and great respect for this innate educator of how parenting should be
practiced! And, I hope that I keep growing as a parent in how I would emulate
such a pillar of parenthood.
Major Lesson 5: [Education or Bust!]
Speaking
of education, well it is safe to say that my father (RhA) was Sayyid Ath-Thaqafa
(The Master of Education/Culture). He soaked up the concept of education more
than anyone I have known then or ever since. For a student who did not
experience what one may truly call a steady normal education [as far as I know,
my father (RhA) did not go beyond sixth grade], it is a miracle that he (RhA)
even grew up to have an advanced educational background in the modern sense.
But boy, did he ever devour learning so much, so greatly, and so deeply at a
very advanced age for an atypical learner! It is as if my Didi (RhA) was trying
to make up for every second that the French system robbed him of learning his
own language (Arabic), his own Din (Islam), and his own culture (Algerian
heritage and history) for thirty years of his life. Of course, he could have
pursued a French education had he wished to do so, but he doggedly believed and
so very three-dimensionally in an Algerian, Arab, and Islamic education, which
the French denied him, that he was willing to wait them out until he got it.
And when the opportunity arose at such a late stage of his life, he grabbed the
learning opportunity by the horn, by the waist, and by the tip of its toes to
achieve what many adults would rarely accomplish at such an advanced mature
age. He religiously participated in workshops, sessions, and conferences to
advance his knowledge of the various subject matters he had to teach as a sixth
grade teacher (How ironic is this? A sixth grader teaching sixth graders!) and
later as an education inspector and mentor. He (RhA) supplemented the professional
development track with a voracious reading habit that became so infectious that I myself succumbed to its pangs too. Had it been up to my beloved father (RhA) and me,
our respective houses would have become book houses not just houses with books
in them. As soon as he learned something in any of the sessions he attended or
from any of the books that he just read, my Didi (RhA) quickly and readily
would engage me especially in give-and-take sessions about the contents and the
meanings of what he just grasped and learned. My siblings at the time were too
young to grasp the content of what our father (RhA) was learning or discussing
with me and consequently, and by default, I became his study buddy, his
education partner, and his intellectual sounding board. In addition to dealing
with my father’s passion for learning, I was fortunate to be his sixth grade
student twice (I flunked the major standard sixth grade test once.) During
those two years as his pupil, I experienced first hand the educational
methodology of this master teacher and had the privilege of seeing him in
action from up close. It is rare for a kid to witness the growth of a parent
both socially as well as professionally but I was one of those lucky atypical children
who did! My beloved father (RhA) ran his classroom as a mini-government. It was
as if he were the prime minister or president of a small country. He divvyed up
tasks amongst his students as if they were ministers. So, there were the
ministers of columns (the students up front who were responsible for
distributing material up the columns to the back of the classroom.) These
students were amongst the shortest students in the classroom. At the beginning
of the year, our teacher (RhA) would line us up according to height from
shortest kids in front rows to tallest and then he assigned us our seats accordingly.
It is as if he did not wish for any short kid to ever go unnoticed because he
happened to sit behind other taller students in front of him. And, having the
honor to have a chore as heads of columns added a good sense of pride within
these short students’ participation in the learning environment that this
insightful teacher (RhA) had created. In addition, our revered Ustath (teacher)
selected one student as a head of the class (like a prime minister of sorts.) I
wish I could remember what criterion (or criteria) my endeared father (RhA)
employed to bestow a duty to such a fellow. Things were so organized and so
efficient delivery-wise that the flow of lessons and activities was as crisp as
the crackling of the sound of a whip moving at supersonic speed. Cleanliness
and proper attire for the education experience was paramount to him (RhA) as if
he was letting all of his pupils know that education is so important in their
respective lives that they had to dress up and beatify themselves for it. Education,
in his mind was a ball or a formal concert performance to go to day in and day
out, thus proper attire and clean look were paramount! He began most sessions,
if not all, with the religious sciences (as they were referred to in Algeria then) and
then he would proceed to other subject matters such as grammar, dictation,
math, science, history/geography, etc. His teaching of sixth graders was a
tremendous responsibility for he had to not only fill in whatever gaps students
may have brought along with them from prior grade level courses but also bring
them up to speed with new material that they will be tested on at the end of
the year. These national standard sixth grade tests were gruesome for such
young age kids because they dictated to great extent how their life
trajectories would progress depending on whether they pass these tests or not.
Failure meant no further mobility onto middle school or high school education,
the academia path would terminate. These fragile little kids and their parents had
to scramble and figure out how to proceed with life on a totally different
career path that tended to be either vocational education or join the mama/papa
small business workforce. So, a lot was at stake and my father (RhA) felt the
awesome responsibility of preparing his sixth graders as well as he could and
it is fair to state that he was very successful at doing so. The indebtedness
and the respect his former students felt toward him (RhA) was evident many
years later when they kept coming back to visit him and pay their respects to
him in various forms of appreciation and gratitude. Many of his former students
were also friends of mine and I experienced first hand how they generously and
genuinely treated me for the sole reason that I was the son of their former Ustath.
This education bug, if I may call it as such, infected many of my father (RhA)’s
students including me that many of us became professionals and teachers whose
veneration for education and learning stayed with us throughout our respective lives. Within
the Nadji family circle it became a matter of fierce competition to outperform
one another by trying to earn higher and higher degrees and learn more and more
than one another. The pride that my father felt with every achievement of any
of his children, grandchildren, or any one of his former students
education-wise was so evident in his comments and expressions of thankfulness
to Allah (SWT) for such a blessing. My Didi (RhA)’s most famous and oft-quoted
hadith of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) was “Seek knowledge even in China.”1
Well, I must have taken that literally to heart but I went westward rather than
eastward and landed in the country that is blessed with a great system of higher
education, the United States of America. And shortly afterwards, I seem to have
followed on the footsteps of my cherished father (RhA) and became an educator
myself. I have been in this noble profession of nine through sixteen grade
level education for more than thirty years. Thank you, Didi (RhA) for showing
me the way and helping me assist others learn, teach one another, and
make as many of them as I possibly could influence to accept the dictum, “Education or Bust!”
Comments & Closing Thoughts
Five
lessons do not do this wonderful human being justice. This is as far as I can
share for now and I hope many of my father (RhA)’s students, colleagues, and
friends would step up to the plate and share their own experiences with this
kind man whose life trajectory blissfully intersected so many other people’s
life trajectories to create a tapestry of sublime moments of gentle humanity, genuine
learning, and above all great giving and forgiving kind of love.
Thanks & Acknowledgement: Thank you Allah (SWT) for blessing me
with the honor of sharing part of my life with this beloved man and educator
par excellence whom I have come to know as my beloved father, my life mentor,
and my incredible teacher, Ibrahim Nadji (RhA)!
