Tribute to Ammy
Jan 19, 2004
In memory of Ammy: Kulsum Yusuf Karmali Alibhai remarks at the Khoja Shia Ithnaashri Jamaat, Kampala, on January 9, 2004.
By Mahmood Mamdani
In memory of Ammy: Kulsum Yusuf Karmali Alibhai remarks at the Khoja Shia Ithnaashri Jamaat, Kampala, on January 9, 2004.
I am the eldest son of the deceased. On behalf of the family, I want to thank all of you who have joined us to mourn the passing of our mother, Ammy.
Today is the 40th day after her death. On this
day, I would like to focus on her life rather than death, to see it
as a source of inspiration, and to draw some lessons, which may shed
light now that she is gone.
My mother was born in 1927, over 76 years ago, in Kigoma, on the Tanzania-Congo border, even though her passport said she was
born in Dar-es-Salaam. She went to a Catholic convent school in
the morning and a madressah in the afternoon.
She had very little
formal education, may be no more than four years, but she remained
curious throughout life, with an insatiable appetite for knowledge. It may be because she always looked to life - and not just books - as the great source of learning.
She lost her parents when she was young. Her mother passed
away when she was 17 and her father when she was 23.
To her younger brothers, she was like a parent. From early on, she learned to face life, directly.
Some thought of her as unsentimental. But she was not really that. She had a great capacity to take on any challenge, to look the truth in the face, no matter how unpleasant.
My strongest memory, also my earliest, is from the late 1950s when we were living in old Kampala. Ammy was active in organising women in the community. She convinced them to collect their own funds and to organise their own activities. But this led them into a conflict with the men in the community.
Who should control the funds? Who should decide what to do with these funds, including who to invite to give lectures and how much to pay them as honoraria?
The men’s leadership claimed that they should control all funds as representatives of the community.
My mother was a leader in the women’s organisation and my father was the secretary of the men’s organisation.
The first person she converted was my father, helping him see that Islam’s spiritual affirmation of equality and justice for all required a practical affirmation of these values by the community of Muslims.
My mother was a traditional woman. But she had no time for tradition when it was used to mask injustice and privilege. Her greatest legacy to her children was to uphold justice and truth as the highest values.
But she was also unusual in that she combined the quest for justice with an endeavor to build a community of
love. I think this combination is indeed rare in our times.
Her strongest point was that she had no ambition, and hardly a personal agenda, which is why she could see through all ambition and at the same time inspire great trust.
It is also why everyone could turn to her for advice, because they recognised in her a person of great integrity and great judgment, and yet a person of understanding.
Over the past few weeks, there have been many telephone calls, conversations and e-mails. I would like to recount a few.
Some spoke of her during the time of the 1972 expulsion. They made
me think of when I asked my mother to recall the happiest time of her life.
She said it was during the period that followed the 1972 expulsion. I was surprised. Only later did I come to understand that while the expulsion was often a moment of crisis for men, it was for many women a moment of realisation, of assertion, of new horizons, of learning of new countries and of new ways of being, of
being able to do that which had previously been forbidden to them
as women.
I remember once telling my mother in a camp in London that it was time she learnt to use the subway. I brought a subway map and we looked at it together.
But then, she waved the map away and said, “What if I get lost?†I then suggested we go and use the
subway.
We did just that for the next several days, she in front and I behind, as she learnt to negotiate the subway, and I checked her every time she took a wrong turn, happy to do a small thing for a mother who had been a source of learning for so many for so long.
The expulsion turned Ammy into a great organiser. In the
years that followed, with a scattered family and fragmented community, she kept the family together and played her part in bringing the community together.
Last week in London, I met those who recalled her first contribution after the expulsion. The community in London mainly comprised very poor people who lived in cramped flats with meager resources.
The tradition was that when someone died, members of the community visited the home of the deceased and there had to be a ceremonial meal for them.
But many did not have the resources to afford such a meal and the space to host the mourners.
Ammy tried to convince the community to provide the resources for this meal and to host it in the mosque. But it was not easy to convince the rich and the powerful in the community, this time including the leadership of the women’s organisation.
During that time, she
organised a volunteer corps who cooked the funeral meal in their
own homes, and brought it to the mosque to feed the mourners. It took her three years, and the force of example, to convince the community to take on the responsibility on behalf of members too poor to afford this dignity.
Not all her endeavours were as big. Most were small.
Like when she saw an elderly lady with a small child slipping as she tried to negotiate the three steps in front of the entrance to the
ladies section of the mosque here in Kampala. She led a campaign to get the leadership of the community to build a railing to help the aged.
The week before she went to the hospital, the phones rang. And the week after, when she was gone, the phones rang many more times.
Ammy was an ordinary woman. Like most ordinary women, she had little property, no more than personal effects. But for those who knew her, she was an extraordinary woman, whose real assets were in relationships.
Not just the expulsion - but the demands of
life itself - had turned her into one who cherished relationships.
I would like to close this focus on her life with a poem my father
wrote last week.
You Are Not Alone!
Your sweet smile
The modesty
The pleasant nature
The sprinkle of your fragrance
Service to the community
The Koran classes
The charity
Concern for the bedridden
Provision for the needy
Help to the poor
Your patience and forbearance
The close family
We are all with you
Our own dearest Kulsum
We are with you
You are not alone!
In memory of Ammy: Kulsum Yusuf Karmali Alibhai remarks at the Khoja Shia Ithnaashri Jamaat, Kampala, on January 9, 2004.
I am the eldest son of the deceased. On behalf of the family, I want to thank all of you who have joined us to mourn the passing of our mother, Ammy.
Today is the 40th day after her death. On this
day, I would like to focus on her life rather than death, to see it
as a source of inspiration, and to draw some lessons, which may shed
light now that she is gone.
My mother was born in 1927, over 76 years ago, in Kigoma, on the Tanzania-Congo border, even though her passport said she was
born in Dar-es-Salaam. She went to a Catholic convent school in
the morning and a madressah in the afternoon.
She had very little
formal education, may be no more than four years, but she remained
curious throughout life, with an insatiable appetite for knowledge. It may be because she always looked to life - and not just books - as the great source of learning.
She lost her parents when she was young. Her mother passed
away when she was 17 and her father when she was 23.
To her younger brothers, she was like a parent. From early on, she learned to face life, directly.
Some thought of her as unsentimental. But she was not really that. She had a great capacity to take on any challenge, to look the truth in the face, no matter how unpleasant.
My strongest memory, also my earliest, is from the late 1950s when we were living in old Kampala. Ammy was active in organising women in the community. She convinced them to collect their own funds and to organise their own activities. But this led them into a conflict with the men in the community.
Who should control the funds? Who should decide what to do with these funds, including who to invite to give lectures and how much to pay them as honoraria?
The men’s leadership claimed that they should control all funds as representatives of the community.
My mother was a leader in the women’s organisation and my father was the secretary of the men’s organisation.
The first person she converted was my father, helping him see that Islam’s spiritual affirmation of equality and justice for all required a practical affirmation of these values by the community of Muslims.
My mother was a traditional woman. But she had no time for tradition when it was used to mask injustice and privilege. Her greatest legacy to her children was to uphold justice and truth as the highest values.
But she was also unusual in that she combined the quest for justice with an endeavor to build a community of
love. I think this combination is indeed rare in our times.
Her strongest point was that she had no ambition, and hardly a personal agenda, which is why she could see through all ambition and at the same time inspire great trust.
It is also why everyone could turn to her for advice, because they recognised in her a person of great integrity and great judgment, and yet a person of understanding.
Over the past few weeks, there have been many telephone calls, conversations and e-mails. I would like to recount a few.
Some spoke of her during the time of the 1972 expulsion. They made
me think of when I asked my mother to recall the happiest time of her life.
She said it was during the period that followed the 1972 expulsion. I was surprised. Only later did I come to understand that while the expulsion was often a moment of crisis for men, it was for many women a moment of realisation, of assertion, of new horizons, of learning of new countries and of new ways of being, of
being able to do that which had previously been forbidden to them
as women.
I remember once telling my mother in a camp in London that it was time she learnt to use the subway. I brought a subway map and we looked at it together.
But then, she waved the map away and said, “What if I get lost?†I then suggested we go and use the
subway.
We did just that for the next several days, she in front and I behind, as she learnt to negotiate the subway, and I checked her every time she took a wrong turn, happy to do a small thing for a mother who had been a source of learning for so many for so long.
The expulsion turned Ammy into a great organiser. In the
years that followed, with a scattered family and fragmented community, she kept the family together and played her part in bringing the community together.
Last week in London, I met those who recalled her first contribution after the expulsion. The community in London mainly comprised very poor people who lived in cramped flats with meager resources.
The tradition was that when someone died, members of the community visited the home of the deceased and there had to be a ceremonial meal for them.
But many did not have the resources to afford such a meal and the space to host the mourners.
Ammy tried to convince the community to provide the resources for this meal and to host it in the mosque. But it was not easy to convince the rich and the powerful in the community, this time including the leadership of the women’s organisation.
During that time, she
organised a volunteer corps who cooked the funeral meal in their
own homes, and brought it to the mosque to feed the mourners. It took her three years, and the force of example, to convince the community to take on the responsibility on behalf of members too poor to afford this dignity.
Not all her endeavours were as big. Most were small.
Like when she saw an elderly lady with a small child slipping as she tried to negotiate the three steps in front of the entrance to the
ladies section of the mosque here in Kampala. She led a campaign to get the leadership of the community to build a railing to help the aged.
The week before she went to the hospital, the phones rang. And the week after, when she was gone, the phones rang many more times.
Ammy was an ordinary woman. Like most ordinary women, she had little property, no more than personal effects. But for those who knew her, she was an extraordinary woman, whose real assets were in relationships.
Not just the expulsion - but the demands of
life itself - had turned her into one who cherished relationships.
I would like to close this focus on her life with a poem my father
wrote last week.
You Are Not Alone!
Your sweet smile
The modesty
The pleasant nature
The sprinkle of your fragrance
Service to the community
The Koran classes
The charity
Concern for the bedridden
Provision for the needy
Help to the poor
Your patience and forbearance
The close family
We are all with you
Our own dearest Kulsum
We are with you
You are not alone!