It is difficult to transcend the art of “writing the journey” and the Arab traveler Sheikh Muhammad Nasser Al-Aboudi, whose funeral was held in Riyadh on Saturday, in the presence of a large crowd of his fans and students.
The late lived about 95 years, during which he wrote more than 300 books, traveled to more than 160 countries, and won dozens of awards, the most important of which was the "Person of the Year" from the Saudi Ministry of Culture last year.
In addition to the official positions he held in his country, including managing the Islamic University of Madinah (1960), known for attracting Muslim students from all over the world, the late was known for his extensive knowledge of the cultures of the East and West, and his deep desire to bridge the gap between the four sides of the world.
He is one of the first intellectuals in the Arabian Peninsula to travel to Africa, where he wrote his first book “On Green Africa” (1966).
In this book, the late wrote the condition of the brown continent, and introduced its Muslims and officials, on a tour in which he mixed the personal with the knowledgeable, especially since the Sheikh was one of the conservatives in writing his diaries, in any land he landed in, as the reader sees accurate details in the folds of his books, less than that the travelers pay attention to them. .
His mind was also bright, and he was over 90 years old, which was noticed by some of his visitors a few years before his death, including Sheikh Muhammad Al-Muhanna, who wrote in the virtues of the late, “I visited him at his home in Riyadh and he was over 90, and I heard stories and news from him that are 70 years old, he mentioned it in an amazing detailed way It indicates his fluid mind and strong memory.”
No one has traveled in the corners of the world, nor has he folded the country like Sheikh Muhammad bin Nasser Al-Aboudi, and no one has composed more than his own;
Rather, he was inseparable from a notebook and pen to write and restrict.
The issue is an issue of hum..!
May God have mercy on Sheikh # Muhammad_bin_Nasser_Al-Aboudi pic.twitter.com/t4eHMTgo6F
— Abdullah Al-Moqbel (@A_maqbl) July 1, 2022
The strength of the memory that the Sheikh continued to enjoy until an advanced time in his life, which the Sheikh attributes, as he said in one of his public meetings, to “avoid staying up late and keen to limit everything that passes me during the day during my travels.”
In the same context, the blogger Suleiman Al-Aboudi published on his account on “Twitter” a picture of the sheikh sitting at his table writing, and he has advanced in age, and commented on it, saying, “He was a mountain in patience and strength of skin, and an imam in perseverance and clarity of purpose, the eye hardly falls on his example. In keeping time, he has reached nearly 100 years of age, and if you sit with him, you will be surprised by the youth of his determination and the beauty of his expression, as if a whole generation had been cast in his chest!
In turn, the writer Muhammad Al-Mushawah, one of Al-Aboudi’s students, indicated in the lament of his sheikh that the late “disappeared from the world and its joys and the media and its charms, but he focused on the immortal remaining, which is science (…) He is the one who started his working life “valued a library”, and this was the first spark for its attachment to the library and libraries.
Sheikh Al-Allamah #Mohammed_bin_Nasser_Al-Aboudi, the great Saudi traveler, how much we miss his trips and stories, history and his talk that he narrates on the radio with a distinguished speech and in fluent Arabic.
— Capt Osama (@Capitano_______) March 12, 2022
It was in Albania and the American South
One of the most prominent books of the Sheikh is his book on Albania, which he traveled to after the fall of communism (1990), to be an important document on the conditions of its inhabitants after decades in which its Muslims did not know much about their religion, and it was they who knew the first stage of what he called “tyranny” when Albania separated from the Ottoman Empire In 1913, they then experienced the second stage with the Communists taking over the reins of power in Tirana in 1946.
As for his book on “South America” (1987), and his travels in Argentina and Chile, it was what introduced the Arab reader to the extensive use of the residents of “Buenos Aires” to give preference when talking about their city, as it has the longest and widest streets in the world;
Their city is located on the river "La Plata" the widest rivers around the world.
Wings to China
As for China, to which he was urged to seek knowledge, Sheikh Al-Aboudi put his observations in it, in a book he called “Within the Walls of China” (1992), in which he reviewed the country’s history and geography, the conditions of the religious sects in it, and the history and present of Muslims, in a book whose pages did not exceed 100 pages. But it is abundant with examples, some of which show the difficulty of Muslim families raising their children in communist China at the time, "despite the lack of means and the violence of the atheistic attack" (p. 86).
Language, translations and genealogy
Sheikh Al-Aboudi’s interest was not limited to writing travel books, but also included writing in the Arabic language and its dialects, translations and genealogies.
Among his most prominent books in these fields are “The Dictionary of Bilad Al-Qassim” (1990), “Arabic Words Not Recorded by Dictionaries” (2000), and “Metaphor and Metaphor in the Colloquial Language” (2003). His city, Buraidah, in which he was born in 1926, and received his initial education in its scribes, and heard in it from his father, Nasser Al-Aboudi, stories and poems of the Arabs, eloquent and common, which we see clearly in this book, in which he was keen, as stated in its introduction, to “record poems Translators, although some of them are not of good quality in the place I see (...), recording poems here is like recording news that one may agree with what he recorded of them, or may not agree.
The Saudi capital, which is more than 350 kilometers from his hometown, was his last stop, as he died on Friday and prayed on Saturday in one of its mosques, then was buried in a cemetery north of Riyadh.