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Nasruddin heard that a position for Judge was open in his town. He took to walking about with a fishing net over his shoulder.

People asked him, what’s up with the fishing net?

“I started out as a fisherman. I keep this net to remind me of my simple origins. replied Nasruddin

Everyone was impressed by his humility. So impressed they chose him to be their new judge. After that he quit carrying the fishing net around.

People asked him, what happened with the net?

“Surely, once the fish are caught there is no longer any need for the net!” he replied.

By Hamza Yusuf

The land of Chinguett, more commonly known to the English-speaking world as Mauritania, is renowned for producing great scholars, saints, and erudite women of note. Scholars traveling to Mauritania have observed that “even their women memorize vast amounts of literature.” Mauritanian women have traditionally excelled in poetry, seerah, and genealogy, but some who mastered the traditional sciences were considered scholars in their own right.

Maryam Bint Bwayba, who memorized the entire Qur’an and the basic Maliki texts, was one such Mauritanian woman worthy of note. I had the honor of knowing Maryam, a selfless and caring woman, and the noble wife of Shaykh Murabit al-Hajj, having first met both of them twenty-five years ago in a small tent in the remote spiritual community of Tuwamirat in Mauritania.

Madrasah of Al-Murabit Al-Hajj(The Desert University) at Tuwamirat

My journey to that destination began four and a half years earlier, in 1980, at a bookstore in Abu Dhabi, where I met Shaykh Abdallah Ould Siddiq of the renowned Tajakanat clan. I knew immediately he was from West Africa, given the dir’ah, the distinct West African wide robe he was wearing, as well as the turban, a rare sight in the Gulf at that time. I had met scholars from West Africa when I was in Mali two years before and was interested in studying with them, so I asked the shaykh if he knew anyone who taught the classical Maliki texts in the traditional manner. He affirmed that he himself was a teacher of that very tradition, gave me his number, and said I was welcome anytime to come to his house for lessons. That began my Islamic education in earnest.

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An interesting character. Very articulate.