| A long overdue tribute to my Egyptian Arabic teacher, Ustadh Yassir 'Abd Al-Basit:
I guess the first thing you would notice about him would be the deep callouses on his forehead. I can only assume they came from long hours of prostration. He would frequently quote ayaat and ahadith when giving examples of words or grammatical constructions. He had a deep love for Hassan Al-Banna, Raheemuhullah. He was a typical ustadh at Diwan: Ustadh Yassir 'Abd Al-Basit.
Sometimes he would come to class with a tasbeeh in one hand, and he would make dhikr while I did the practice sets in the textbook. Other times he would bring a small mushaf that he would read during breaks. He claimed he was a sufi, salafi, and ikhwani all in one. I asked him if he was a hafidh, and he said he was almost there. In his spare time he wrote Arabic children's books. He told me that he had even written screenplays for children's TV shows, and done live readings of his books over Egyptian radio.
He told me how he got married. Basically, one day he told his mom that he wanted to get married. Soon thereafter she found someone for him. He went and met with her dad, and they agreed that he would get married after he completed his stint in the Egyptian military (required for all males). For some medical reason, he was ineligible, and he was married within the year. He only actually saw his wife once before the wedding, and it was by chance. I don't think they ever spoke.
He told me about Egyptian weddings in general. They were basically arranged marriages. If the couple wanted to talk, one family would visit the other and the couple could sit in a separate room, with the door open, and talk. I asked him if a couple got a nikkah first, would they then go out together? The answer I got back was an emphatic 'LA' (no). I asked them how is that allowed, Islamicaly, since the couple is technically married they should be able to do whatever they want. He told me that the ulema had disallowed it based on 'urf (custom). The custom in Egypt was arranged marriage, and only 'ghair multazim' (shady) people engaged in such activities. The nikkah would allow the couple to talk privately, but only in the context of a family visit. Kind of ironic when you think about it, because here in the West you have people who use the local custom/'urf argument to allow what amounts to dating after the nikkah, whereas in Egypt it only really allowed private conversation. The other facet of sharia implemented largely by culture was that it was customary for the girl's family to demand that the suitor have an apartment ready. And fully furnished at that. Therefore, the high price of furniture was a frequent source of distress for many of the unmarried Egyptians I met.
The other thing that impressed me about Ustadh Yassir was that he was also extraordinarily patient. If I made a mistake while speaking, the worst reprimand I would get was 'you forgot Sahir'. And believe me - I made many, many mistakes. He also worked really hard. He would teach me, king of ABCDs, for 5 hours in the morning, then turn around and teach another bumbling wanna-be Arab for another 5 hours, and then a 1 hour taxi ride back to his apartment. I know it was an hour because in my last week there I visited his place, in 'Ain Shams.
'Ain Shams is where the majority of Caireens live. Most of the streets there are unpaved. Donkey carts make up a good percentage of the traffic. People keep roosters and hens in mini coops on the street or on their roof. At the time Ustadh Yassir happened to be the khateeb at the local musallah down the street from his apartment, and he invited me over for lunch at his place after Juma. So I got to sit in on one of his khutbas. I understood around 80% of it, which was pretty exciting for me, to understand that much spoken Arabic on the fly. I think it was mostly because I was used to his style of speaking, and his khutba was on a topic we had discussed at length in a darse previously.
At his apartment, I met his two kids, who must have been 5 and 8 years old. The 8 year old had recently finished memorizing Surat An-Naba which he proudly recited for me. The lunch was awesome: a whole fish, battered and fried, on a bed of rice. Later, after lunch, his kids busted out their PC. I think it was a 486. Ustadh Yassir showed me some software that he was producing with a media company - Arabic language tutorials. Like a textbook on a CDROM with sound. Afterwards his kids showed me their favorite game, virtua fighter. They played one round, and when they advanced to the next round the computer pit them against one of the well-endowed polygonated female fighters - at which Ustadh Yassir orded them to turn it off.
That was another thing about Ustadh Yassir - he was ruthless about protecting his gaze, mash'Allah. Once we spread out some newspaper to eat lunch on during class - and there was an advertisement featuring a woman with her hair uncovered. Without hesitation, he pinched the paper and ripped the ad right out.
During one of our lessons we came across the word 'bodyguard'. I asked him, jokingly, if he had a bodyguard. He told me that a true mu'min needs no bodyguard. Because for a true mu'min, everybody he comes into contact with will be a bodyguard for him.
During our final conversation, Ustadh Yassir told me that he wanted to stay in Egypt, and didn't want to immigrate to America. Now this is significant because, most Egyptians I met, no matter how much they hated America, would jump at the chance to move there. One guy asked me if I could help him find openings for teachers in schools here. This was after he joked with me that I should strap bombs to myself and walk into a session of congress. The shopkeeper across the street asked my roommate to help him fill out a U.S. visa application. Once, I asked a guy on the street for directions, and we got to talking. When he found out I was from America, he immediately offered me the cup of tea he was about to drink, and asked for my contact information. I think probably their desire to escape poverty was greater than their hatred of the U.S. So anyhow, despite this common yearning to migrate among Egyptians, my Ustadh preferred the life of toil and relative poverty that Cairo offered him, over the fitnah of moving to America.
Yep, that was my Ustadh. He still emails me from time to time, asking me how I'm doing. He has since left Diwan, and now he and his wife tutor people privately, using a curriculum that is less secular than Diwan's and more religiously oriented.
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