BENIN (MARCH 2018)

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

1)Saving the centres

There are 16 of my ruqya centres in Benin, many of whom were dying because of a blockage from the former amir. The centres who were not under his control had also hard time not receiving enough patients. Despite the efforts on radio, TV, preaching in mosques and public conferences, we did not have that much patients, just covering our fees, except for 2 small cities where people came massively and 2 VIPs who helped us well, may Allah bless them. So the solution was to change our communication mode: preaching in radios and mosques doesn’t bring that much people any more, yet when we meet people anywhere, most of them never heard about us. We can use panels showing our centres or writings on our cars – but only one of over one hundred of my raqis had a car – but the new communication policy is in the next 3 points. Anyway, even if we didn’t get as much patients as we wanted, the centres got more activity and are back on track.

2) Ulamas, Ustazs and mosques

The first point is to work on religious responsibles and mosques: each centre should visit all imams and religious responsibles around it and explain our work and preferably give him the ruqya manual for mawlanas, as people go to their imams and ustazs when they have problems so those must know we are here to help with mystic issues. Of course we should explain all our method and particularly the catching as it is the only point that creates misunderstanding and listen to their remarks and clarify whatever is not clear. So we went forward to any Alim known to oppose or question our method and the clarification was very simple. The only one who was really opposed avoided debating with us and said he needed to send us his son for treatment. Another example in Benin there has been problems with raqis – not of my group, but some of my ex-students – that recorded djinns naming who sent them to destroy people’s lives and they published those words, so that issue reached the police and caused social unrest, so we will explain directly that there is no way in Islam to identify who did the sihr or ordered to do it: even if the djinn says it, it is not a certitude, and even if you see the person in your dream that is not a proof, so Islam never allows us to accuse someone on these basis. The raqis must also go around all the mosques in their area to preach about ruqya (and other subjects, that will come later in sha Allah) and not wait for campaign time. We must also target Arabic or French-Arabic madrassas and ask to preach the students on this topic and leave them the book in Arabic or at least if we don’t have the book printed, just print one copy on with a printer. Of course if we have an Islamic University, that is even more important to lecture them on ruqya. This way we will work on next generations and the new imams who will come will already be aware about ruqya and maybe some will practice it. Of course all these students can come to train in our centres whenever they have holidays.

3) Doctors and Pharmacists

We visited many doctors, hospital and health centre directors and pharmacists. Their responses are very different. Some already know our methods and send us patients and are very satisfied with the results; those we need to use them to visit other colleagues to convince them of what they have discovered through ruqya. Some really believe in sorcery problems and in their incapacity to deal with many situations and are ready to send us patients and see the results, like this doctor who told us he opened a boy’s bladder and found a taweez (gri-gri) inside! The boy had seen in his dream an old magician introducing something in his organ. Others have a scientific approach and hope we could solve some situations they can’t handle. The last ones are Christians treating people to promote their religion and they are not interested in our help; yet they receive us respectfully. So this is why it is important to visit each doctor, pharmacist and health centre as we don’t know what the response may be, and in sha Allah, as soon as they send us patients and see the results a new era will start. We also have another purpose: we will catch for each of these places preferably in front of them to show them what we do, and the djinns explain how they are with patients to stop them curing, and sometimes to create problems within doctors or spoil the machines because sorcerers want people to go to them and stop going to hospitals, except for the Christian hospital where Shayateen said they were there to heal people whenever the doctors failed to cure them because they had sorcery, so that people will leave public and Muslim health centres to come to the Christians and believe the Christians are better.

Before all of this we met the traditional healers’ association. It is a new association because as the president changed, the association was also replaced, and these ones are really close to the government and have great plans of collaborating with health authorities. They were very happy to know us, to include us in their members and in their plans with the government, so we are waiting for that plan to go forward.

4) Police and prisons

Many cities and villages suffer badly from insecurity: robbers take motorcycles or sheep, some rob houses and some kidnap people and ask for ransoms, and the police hardly ever catches them and people are astonished how no one sees them. One man told us the thieves kept breaking in his house despite him putting more and more security, and they would rob his house even if he is sleeping in the court yard until they took all his cows and many of his belongings. He just can’t understand how they do that. They use sorcery massively. One time robbers were walking in the city and no one was noticing them. But the brothers did catching until the people saw them. So the people starting beating them but they were not getting hurt. So the people took their clothes off and they had plenty of taweez’s. When they removed the last taweez, their cutters started to cut them and the people killed them.

So we go to visit police offices and explain our work and offer our services. We did that quite a few times and we are expecting the results in the next week or 2 in sha Allah. We hope that will be an opening for the ruqya. In the same time we suggest 2 things to the police. The first is using dogs to catch the thieves: in a village or a small city or if they hide in a forest the dog will find them very easily. I was told only in the airport dogs were used – that must be for drugs – so there is great work to do with police dogs in all African countries. The second suggestion is to arrest the sorcerers. When we visited the prison in Zinder, Niger, the djinns said all the 700 inmates had magic done to them making them criminals; but all those doing that magic are free despite being the cause of all that evil. So we suggest to the police to go to the sorcerers like civilian and ask them to kill someone or to do magic so police doesn’t catch them or to do human ritual to get loads of money, and catch whoever is ready to do that job. Maybe this will never happen but whoever reads me and wants to do some jihad for Islam can go to the sorcerers and film their wicked intentions and throw it on internet so everybody can see what Satanic rituals mawlana X is asking for, who is making people divorce, children disabled, and other horrors they suffer from.

Another part of this work is visiting prisons. We didn’t manage in this campaign to visit prisons, but it is a very important thing to do. Whenever we did it (in Africa) we did not get a single inmate that was not affected by sorcery and djinns. So not only it is a help for them and a daawa, it is also a help for the guardians of the prison whose work will become easier and for the whole country by reducing criminality. So whenever we visit prisons, we should write a report and get it stamped by the prison’s director so one day we will be able to show what we have done for the country. And when catching for the prisoners, we will also catch for all the criminals they have link with and that will also help reduce criminality.

5) Idol worshippers and Parfaite

Indeed, Benin Republic is the mother country of Vaudou, so idol worshipping is quite widespread in the country. For those who didn’t follow our first campaigns, I quickly discovered by working in Africa that sorcery is the religion of idol worshippers: the way we pray Allah and ask Him to help us for our needs using specific verses or prayers or good deeds, that’s how the idol worshippers ask the idols to make their wishes and offer them chicken and various sacrifices; so what they call prayer is what we call sorcery. So we first visited a great tree in Porto Novo that was a meeting place for magicians for their rituals; it took us one hour catching and all different kinds of djinns came, so I invite you to discover that on Youtube. Because all the shirk is linked, all those devils work as a network, it makes it easier for us to get them all to convert them and dismantle all that Satanism.

We also went to see a grave of a great warrior Guera something who fought against the French. His grave was made into a small museum with the bullets of the French, the bows and arrows of the local people, the clothes of Guera and his amulets. His grandson was guiding the tour, then he said: you can now pray by the grave. Ok, we said, we have a special prayer, you mustn’t be afraid. No problem, he said. So we did the catching and the djinns came insulting us and fighting us and telling him he should chase us away. But because the words of the catcher were not clear, he didn’t understand anything and we kept catching until everything was converted. He thanked us very much for taking all this time to pray there and we gave him 3 € as a gift for guiding us.

We went to a stone people worship. Subhan Allah, it didn’t look like anything special, just a stone on the surface of the ground about 1 m² and next to 2 trees. We were looking to start the catching when 3 women walked by. They seemed excited to see a white man coming to worship their stone. I asked: this is the stone people worship? A lady come closer, took off her scarf she was wearing like a turban and said yes. I asked: is it for the stone you removed your scarf? She said: yes and we do like this, and she kneeled. I said: are you Muslim? She said: yes, I do my prayers. I said: how can you pray Allah and pray a stone? She said: it is the same Allah who appointed the stone to be worshipped, and they left. It’s crazy to see and hear that with your own ears. So we did the catching and converted all those djinns. By the time we finished two guys came on a motorbike. One was angry and asked: what are you doing here?

-We came to pray by the stone, I said.

-But I am the guardian of the stone and that’s not how it works.

-Oh, I’m very sorry, I asked who was responsible but the people didn’t know.

-I am always here, I am working in the field.

-Ok, we understand your feelings.

-Who are you?

-My name is Abderraouf, and I wrote it on the ground with a stick. I wanted to give him a note of 500 CFA (about 1 $) but he refused to take it. What’s happening, I said? You are angry?

-Yes, what you have done is wrong.

-Ok, we apologize, we didn’t know.

-As you reckon you have made a mistake, you should pay 10.000 CFA (20$).

-Ah, really? What if I don’t pay, the idol will be angry with me?

-Yes, he comes to see me every Thursday night and he informs me about all the people coming, but he didn’t inform me about you.

-So you should tell him to be a bit brighter so he can do his job correctly.

-Is that what you say? I will tell him about that!

-Yes, my name is here, tell him that is what that guy who wrote his name here said. And we left and had a big laugh in the car.

Then we visited an idol worshipper. A local brother took as to a man he knew that had an idol. he was happy to see a white man come and said: I will earn at least 100.000 CFA (200$)! The guide said: he wants to see the idol. Ok, he said. In the court yard there was a small room without roof with a place built like an oven about 1m3 and with places around to sit for 6 people. There was another man there wearing a military suit and 2 girls: one about 18 years old and the other about nine; both were wearing just a wrapper tied over their chests and just about reaching their knees. Before we entered, the elder one left and the military guy received us very happily. He said he had his idol in Cotonou, but was sent for his work to this city (about 500 kms away), so he was wondering how he could continue his prayers and it is the idol who told him to come to this man that he never knew before, and that’s how they got to share his place to worship both idols together. This is when I understood they call idol the djinn that is speaking in the name of the idol. He said his idol was a Muslim, a Hausa. The girl told him the idol is asking him to show us his photo. Actually the girl was like a catcher but just seeing the djinn and communicating with him. So he showed us the photo through his phone and it was the photo of an old Muslim shaykh looking very respectful and wise. Then he asked me what do I want to say to the idol? Nothing, I said. It is actually the first time I see this and I wanted to see how it goes. We are also healers, we treat people with Quran, and we have a technique to remove devils that harm people. The guide and brother with me insisted to show him the catching and he said ok. As soon as we started the catching the djinn came very aggressively and I had a hard time to calm him down. The military guy started breaking cola nuts and throwing them into the hole and spraying the girl with their water and saying plenty of things very excitedly. That aggressive djinn said he was with big idols and hated the small ones and was fighting them. After he converted that so called Muslim one came. I asked: are you Muslim?

-Yes, he said.

-Say shahada?

-I can’t.

-Why not?

-If I do, I won’t be able to do my job.

-So say you are not Muslim.

He accepted Islam easily. So I made them leave and the military man was so angry. He kept on saying: so this is why you came! To break our idol! Did we harm you? Are we doing anything bad? Who sent you? Are you god? Is it not god who did everything? Get out of here! Wait for me outside!

We went out and after finishing his ritual he came and was still so angry. He said you can leave, but we will meet tonight! We have our big idol Kawn in the city and I will meet you there! So we left and got into the car and had a big laugh about it. We caught that djinn Kawn and it was that first one who came aggressively. I said: ok, so when he will come to you tonight you will take care of him.

The part that is not funny about it is that many Muslims go there seeking cure, and they spend one month doing rituals and providing different species of animals for rituals, and ladies that stay there get sexually abused in the night by plenty of idol worshippers who call each other to come because they have a nice girl there. Muslim Ummah has too many problems so none of us is allowed to just look for his living and not take responsibility in defending and promoting Islam.

Now we reach the Parfaite Baname phenomenon. This lady in Benin claims she is God and has plenty of followers and does miracles. We already have a video on her that we did when there was a court case against her because many people died in one of her rituals. Actually the president ordered to cancel that case. The president’s wife is one of her great followers. We started getting in our catchings many djinns from her. I went to visit one of her temples in Porto Novo and things became much clearer to me. We found some of her adepts and they were very well suited and speaking a very logical and strong talk. Actually she is an Evangelist and they claim to be Christian. I thought that movement was issued from idol worshipping and it was that kind of bush people following her; no, it is very well educated people with a very elaborate speech. He said Parfaite is not God, she is a woman like any woman, but it is the spirit of God that comes through her. Do you see? All of a sudden, it becomes much more easy to believe for those Christians who believe that the spirit of God came into so many people. I was told her procession was like a presidential procession. Subhan Allah, I immediately saw how this phenomenon had potential to spread. Then we discovered that any djinns we caught would say that Parfaite is their highest master. They were working for their sorcerers and idol worshippers when Shayateen came and asked them to submit to Parfaite, and they fought and killed those who refused until they all submitted to Parfaite. So this is like what Rasool Allah (s) said about Dajjal: the Shayateen will come to him from all the earth and say: we are under your orders! He will say: go tell people I am their god! So in time of Dajjal all Shayateen will leave whatever work they are doing and just announce to people that Dajjal is god, which is better than anything they were doing to drive people astray. So in Benin Republic there is a training on a country scale for the coming of Dajjal, and they say Benin was chosen for this experience as it is the mother country of Vaudou and a homeland for idol worshipping. How easy it will be when Dajjal comes for Parfaite to say: Hey, that spirit has left and is with that man now, and all her followers directly follow Dajjal. So we kept on catching for Parfaite on any occasion until we could no more find any djinns related to her, may Allah save all Muslims from this fitna and all fitnas.

6) Partnership with Christians

This point I recommended on the last days of the campaign as to do next, but we weren’t ready during my stay to do it. We and Christians are in competition indeed with our religions, but there are so many things we agree on and we can work together for, such as fighting sorcery, debauchery, corruption, promoting cleanliness, development etc. There is already in Benin a high commission that groups all religions for peace and other common issues, but these structures only concern leaders and usually just do protocols such as greetings on each other’s feast days or national events. What I recommend is that each mosque or Islamic association should look for the Christian churches or organizations in their area and offer them joint activities, the easiest one is joint conferences on common subjects. For example, just before leaving Togo, I had a TV program with a pastor on sorcery. We have different stories on Iblis but we condemn sorcery and Satanism the same way and we give the same advice to people to protect themselves and treat themselves. So each one was giving his best to show the advantages of his religion and all that is to the benefit of the viewers. Is that not what Allah says: “Had GOD willed, He could have made you one congregation. But He thus puts you to the test through the revelations He has given each of you. You shall compete in righteousness »? (5/48) Whoever says his religion is best should show the good in his religion.

Actually we have much to learn from Christians; not from their religious practice, but from their organization and many things they do. So approaching them on common themes helps both of us progress, removes the barriers and false ideas we each imagine on the other, and after that if we feel like debating on pure religious topics we could do it calmly without passion. That is what I advise all my readers to do and I don’t like the approach of demolishing their belief and their book because many things could also be criticized about Muslims.

As examples, an Islamic association was cleaning neighbourhoods, I told them they could get the Churches participate in this; we have Islamic student associations everywhere, they can work with Christians to ban cheating from schools.

7) Economic projects

As an economist, I am astonished to see how low development is in Benin and other African countries. For example, Tunisia has lower natural resources than Benin, but since my young age, I can’t recall driving on the ground without a road, even in the last house of the village the road will reach there. But in the capital city Cotonou, as soon as you leave the main road and enter the area you head to, you drive on dust, holes and mud, not talking about other cities and villages. Can you believe in all these African countries there is no milk industry? They import powdered milk, and even those who started doing yogurt, they do it with imported powdered milk! Since I am young my favourite fruit is pineapple, but that doesn’t grow in Tunisia, so we get it in tins, but in Benin there is no food industry, and all mangos and pineapple that are not sold go rot and are thrown away! What would it cost to make a factory to turn these fruits in dried fruits or juice or jam or fruits in tins? In most small villages you will see a great house like a palace, very well guarded with high walls and barbed wire; whose house is that? A person of the village was minister so he built his house in the village. Subhan Allah! Why such a palace in such a poor village?! Why doesn’t he make a factory to process local products or a playground for children or a touristic place in those mountains, forests and rivers? Benin is a producer of cashew nuts, the Indians come and buy it all. Indians buy 90 % of world production of cashew nuts to process them in India and sell them to the world; can’t any of these governments request that cashew nuts be processed in their country? Or at least 15% of their production? Or can’t they send students to India to learn how to do that and come back open a factory? What about all those businessmen, just going to China and bringing cheap goods to sell, can’t anyone think of producing those goods locally? Alhamdu lillah I met a European NGO that is financing people in villages to build their own roads with local materials and means so that they will learn the technology and be able to take care of the roads themselves. I also heard of a man who brought a couple of European cows that produce over 60 litres of milk a day. But the real project is to breed those cows in a way to produce plenty of embryos and implant them into local cows so you will get hundreds of them, then you need a milk, meat and leather industry. So many projects are to be done. One great project, but not ready now, is villages for retired European people. Average workers in Europe live misery in their retirement, they can’t afford a home worker and have too few children to take care of them, so their last years are so sad and lonely, but if they come to Africa, they will live like kings with that money, get natural food, have good sun, sea, mountain and nature, they can help local people in various fields, and the only but is the health system. But that is actually the best part of it because it is health insurances that should organize these villages and provide the same standard of medication they get in Europe and that will cost them so much less. Another project, I passed by a group of boys playing football with plastic sandals, plastic ball and in a dirty place; one of them was topless and was just like those body builders you see in gyms, he was around 11 years old; I thought: if someone was to train them correctly they will become monsters on the field. It just hurts me so much to see all this potential wasted.

8) Exams and diplomas

Alhamdu lillah at last we have started passing examinations and giving diplomas. So far for the first level. Yes, it took me so much time and thinking things over and over, but now I am happy with this formula. I put in the exams everything I want to be known. The exams are quite hard and very few people – of my students that have been doing ruqya for years – could succeed from the first try. But that is the purpose, that they learn and become close to perfect. So anyone to pass his diploma should go through those who already have succeeded because anyone who succeeded an examination can now be an examiner. After the first level, the examination for the spiritual program is to preach the new simplified presentation in 6 questions. So all my students should start learning that and preaching in mosques and other places, and that is an important complement to preaching ruqya and opens the way to preach the tafseers and that way you become shaykh and alhamdu lillah my work can continue without me.

9) Grandfather

I’ve been waiting for this new experience for quite a long time and here I am grandfather alhamdu lillah. Allah mentioned this bounty saying: “And GOD made for you spouses from among yourselves, and produced for you from your spouses children and grandchildren, and provided you with good provisions” (16/72). I thought it will make me feel old, but it makes me feel young, childish, wanting to play with this kid and leave all worries of dunya behind, wanting to give him some happiness before the sadness and horrors of this life reach him. As a grandparent I don’t think of his education or limiting his desires but just of bringing a window of happiness and joy into his life. Alhamdu lillah, Allah allowed me to realize a wish I always had: to make children early so we will be close to them and many generations will live together, so here he is with his 4 grandparents alive and even three great grandparents.

May Allah accept us and use us for the good of His deen and people.