TOGO (FEBRUARY 2018)

All praises to Allah and peace and blessings on His Prophet.

It has been ten years I haven’t returned to Togo, after the 2 campaigns in 2007 and 2008. The reason is that we had a strong opposition from Sunni Ulamas who are very influent in the country, and after that most of the raqis left ruqya and turned to various activities. Yet, the centre we established remained doing a little ruqya and some Islamic and humanitarian activities. So our aim was to reactivate the centre and alhamdu lillah that has been done. We visited the ulamas, and not only there was no opposition, but they don’t know about anyone opposing us and they believed the problem was over, and those who practice ruqya were eager to learn about djinn catching.

Then the campaign went on, preaching in mosques, radios and television and in the last days we really had a good number of patients in the centre so we hope the movement will continue in the future and our group are ready to continue preaching and going through radios.

Another point is the big number of conferences held: on hijab on the world day for hijab with the young girls struggling for hijab; on excellency in studies at university; on the role of Muslim intellectuals in the democratic process with the Muslim Association for Intellectuals; on Islamic finance with the Islamic Finance Institute; on Islamic position toward social changes in Architecture University; on family life in Pacific Radio; on Surat Baqara in a mosque for scholars; on children’s education in the local mosque; plus an excellent TV program on sorcery and djinns with a Christian Pastor.

We also held some new activities: a morning for psychotherapy with the hijab association girls: teaching, demonstrating, training and treating until they all removed their pains and learnt the technique. This was a great discovery and we hope to use it for the National Program of Reconciliation to help the victims evacuate their pains; Islamic knowledge competitions: after 3 courses in the mosque, the fourth day, the listeners will split into 4 teams, and each team will prepare 9 questions to ask the others, and will be given points on the questions and on the answers. That way instead of just listening and forgetting, they will work on the subjects to learn more. We also did a one-day challenge to learn to read Arabic for those who don’t know one letter of Arabic and can read French. Unfortunately, we only had one student and he was doing well, but we couldn’t stay for him till the end of the day. We also did the 2 games: look around you and say something mentioned in Quran, and mention a bounty Allah has given you today, starting with a big circle and eliminating whoever cannot mention anything or who mentions something already said until we get a winner. So it’s great fun and mentioning Allah and meditating His verses and bounties.

We got some other activities started: working with medical doctors and Health Ministry, visiting prisoners for catching and giving them the posters to treat themselves, visiting prostitutes for catching and offering them free treatment, visiting other regions and joint programs with Christians.

I met an incredible economic group: Social Enterprise for Common Market. It works like an economic club where all members have access to the services of the others with reduced cost by opening an account in the enterprise and using that credit to buy within the group. The founder is a computer engineer and developed a program to handle this activity. But the group does not accept any importing activities but only those who develop the production and the capacities of the country. And the group supports the activities of its members by providing production means and techniques, like importing industrial machines to transform local agricultural or mineral production, or supplying materials for construction companies. The group also will produce itself whatever is needed in the country and not provided by anyone, like solar electricity in regions without electrical supply. As an economist, I was astonished by the idea, creating an economic movement, like a state in the state, orientated to developing the country, encouraging all activities that push the country forward, avoiding all the corrupted and lazy people who poison the country’s economy! They also have a social program to feed the needy, but that is not the most important part of it. The concept has so much success that the shops of the platform are often run out of supplies, and that’s what people complain about; what can a businessman wish better than as soon as he brings his goods it finishes right away? Anyway, I thank Allah that it is Muslim people who established this idea and I hope that scheme will work and spread.

I also met a beginning Islamic Financial Institute, and they are trying their best to keep on Islamic regulation – that’s why I had a conference with them- and to initiate activities that are beneficial for the small economic actors. They need investment and I encourage whoever wants to invest or support Islamic economic development to support them because it is a great and serious help to the Muslim community.

May Allah accept us and use us for the good of Islam and Muslims.