Mohamed Gibril Sesay
When I think of Papa, I do not only remember a man but a whole world, of books, justice, prayer, moderation and quiet strength. That world shaped me, even when mischief took the better of me in my childhood, or the not so good draws me now, words and lessons from him inspire my better reflections and efforts to do better. It’s thirty-seven years today since papa, Alhaj Sheikh Gibril Sesay, died. Let me start with an English word I learned from Papa – pre-Adamites. He told me, in the quiet certainty of a man who put soul to his words, that there were other creations with the gift of choice before Adam. That thought struck me as both strange and profound. Who were they? What became of them? As a boy, the idea fascinated me; as a man reading the Qur’an deeply, especially verses of Suratul Baqara relating to the creation of humans. The angels asked to know whether God was creating another being that would shed blood on earth. Another being? That was it, the pre-Adamites.
To me, Papa’s world was filled with books, and in that world I found my hiding place. Physically frail me escaped chores – like pounding cassava leaves – by slipping into the company of his books. If there were no new books to read, I would pull down his massive Oxford Dictionary and lose myself in its pages. His shelves were heavy with Islamic texts, journals, and periodicals. I devoured them all, not because I understood everything then, but because they were there, calling to me.
Years later, I read a line that explained it perfectly: what we read in childhood sinks into the deep recesses of the mind, shaping our insights long after, often without our knowing. That was Papa’s gift to me: the way reading became a happy ride for me. Sometimes when I read something truly great, like Toni Morrison would say, my soul kneels in joy.
I remember after Papa had died, when I had already finished college, I began tafsir studies under a notable imam. During discussions, I spoke with a certain ease. The imam suspected I had come to test him, that I had already been schooled by my father. But no – that wasn’t it. Papa had planted the seeds, but my knowledge was, is, will always be, incomplete.
And then there was Papa’s sense of justice, so unlike the quick-to-judge ways of most adults. Many grownups don’t like hesitation: they want action the moment children are accused. Papa was different. He never acted on one side of a story. He asked questions, listened carefully, and weighed what we said. Often, to the annoyance of neighbours and relatives, we won our little “cases” and escaped punishment. For us children, it was a victory; for me now, it is a lesson – justice begins with hearing both sides. The story of the prophet Daud In Surah Sad Verses 23 -24 comes to mind. Two men came to him seeking justice. One complained that his neighbor, who already owned ninety-nine sheep; now wanted to take his single cow. Without hesitation, Daud began to speak about how some men are not virtuous. But then he realized he was being tested. Immediately, he asked for forgiveness. The lesson is clear: be careful when you judge, and slow down before making sweeping statements.
We called him Papa Alhaji. And as children will, we gave him another name behind his back – Garba – after Garba Singh, the Indian film actor who always played the tough man outwitted in the end. In our little family dramas, we made ourselves the clever heroes, and Papa the one to outwit. It was harmless mischief, but one day, that naughtiness turned wild. Papa was teaching us Qur’an, but we wanted to slip away and play football. My brother, caught between boredom and daring, made what we called “tear gas” – ground pepper mixed with ash – and puffed it into the air. Papa coughed. He sprayed more. The old man coughed harder. We laughed till our chests hurt, foolish in our glee. But Papa knew something was wrong. He asked who had done it. We knew he would never punish us all for the fault of one, so we stayed silent. But a nervous new student, fearing collective punishment, pointed to the culprit. My brother took the lashes.
And yet, the story did not end with pain. Later, Papa called him aside, softened his tone, and said, “Bo, I am your father, an old man. If I had choked and died, would you have another father again?” Then, astonishingly, he gave him some money and told him not to do it again. That was Papa’s way – justice tempered with mercy, discipline wrapped in affection. He never left punishment hanging; he always followed it with words that healed and gestures that restored.
Memories coming on fast. I see myself clutching my GCE O-level results, convinced that I was learning for Papa. I dumped the paper in his hands and dashed off to play bite game football, dust rising around my bare feet. Not long after, some older relatives dragged me back before him. He looked at me with a mix of sternness and disbelief. “Do you not know what you have done? Big men long for these results to send their children to university. But you? You threw them at me and went to play football? Such unseriousness!” He spared me a flogging, only because it was a day of triumph.
At the time, I thought: Hey Garba Singh, You wanted results, I gave them to you. What more do you want? It never occurred to me that the learning was for me. That truth came much later, in college. By then, Papa was gone, but the realization was boosted by a chance event whilst Papa was still alive
I was a child of his old age, the third to last, and that made the gap between us even wider. Sometimes, we ‘balance’ going out with him, for we though he had some old quaint values, like for instance, getting you to get off his vehicle should you meet an older person along the way. But sometimes we got lucky we escaped that. Once, he took me to visit some Sesay relatives in far-off Goderich. On the way back, around Juba, he turned suddenly and asked: “Have you ever seen Siaka Stevens?” “No,” I replied. Without hesitation, he told the driver to turn up Juba Hill.
We arrived at Kabasa Lodge, where Stevens, retired then, received him like an old friend. They slipped into deep Krio, joking and bantering like two seasoned men who had seen the world. At one point, Stevens turned to Papa and asked about me. “Oh, he’s my son, one of the last ones,” Papa replied. Stevens chuckled, making a crude joke about old men who still had young children, a joke that unsettled my father in front of an impressionable boy. Then, with sudden sharpness, Stevens looked at me. “Young man, what are you doing now?” All this time I was amazed at the size of his head; it looked huge, intimidating. I stammered: “I’m at college, sir.” “Which college?” “Fourah Bay College.” He nodded. “Ah good. Na for learn o. Enti you see way me en you papa don ole, na go we day go so – enti you see aw de duniya tan?”
So hmmm, this whole learning thing was about me being on my own for when Papa was not around?
And speaking of great Sierra Leoneans of Papa’s generation, I met some through him. At Jamiul Jalil Mosque once, he and Kandeh Bureh stood together. Old friends, they spoke not in Temne but in English, as though their years as teachers pulled them back into another register. In their easy exchange, Kandeh Bureh used the word verve. The sound of it struck me like music. I carried it for years, unsure of its spelling, until much later, and its meanings: liveliness, flair, wonderful.
But not all my memories of Papa are mine alone. Many are borrowed, carried in the mouths of others who knew him before I did. They spoke of him riding a horse in the Mawlid celebrations, leading processions through the streets of “Christian” Freetown with thousands of disciplined Muslims marching behind. They spoke too of his voice – how he recited the Qur’an on the radio, his cadence so distinct. I only knew that voice in the hush of our home at dawn, rising in Subhi prayers. I never heard it broadcast, but I met those who did, and they told me about it with reverence.
His name carried weight long after his passing. Once, when I was a senior official of state, another high-ranking man came to apologize to me. He said he hadn’t known I was Sheikh Gibril’s son, that Papa had been kind to him years ago, housing him for months in Freetown. He named my older relatives one by one. I was stunned – not just by his apology (I was not even aware he was trying to harm me), but by how my father’s goodness reached into rooms I had never entered. Was the apology really to me, or to his memory of him?
Another time, in my other life as a researcher, we went up-country for fieldwork. A paramount chief from another ethnic group embraced me as kin the moment he heard my name. He told me stories about Papa and, just like that, every door opened. I became a free man of that chiefdom, welcomed, trusted, and granted all the hospitality I could need. This happened not once, but in place after place across Sierra Leone – east, west, north, and south. His shadow stretched wide, and I walked inside it.
And of course, there were the mischiefs we played. Papa loved to linger long in sujud, the Muslim prostration before God. For us children, that was opportunity. While he was bowed low, lost in the nearness of his Lord, the daring amongst us slipped into his room and dug through his kaftans for cash. One man’s sujud became another man’s ‘bite game’ football money. Only later did I learn the Prophet’s saying – that in sujud a worshipper is closest to God. Perhaps that is why Papa loved it so much, why he stayed so long in it. He sought closeness to God, while we, in our foolishness, sought closeness to coins. Even in our mischief, there was a lesson waiting for us.
Papa’s education was not of one soil alone. He gathered it across Senegambia, Freetown, and at Al-Azhar in Egypt, from the feet of many scholars all over West Africa. Each place left its mark, each gave him a voice that was unmistakably his own. Only a few months ago, an elderly man told me that Papa’s unique style of reciting the Qur’an came from hearing a reader in the Senegambia. He took that sound, worked on it, refined it, until it became the cadence that carried him into homes across Sierra Leone.
He was not always Sheikh Gibril. His birth name was Sheka Foray. The name was changed. He became Gibril Abu Bakar Sesay. The Abu Bakar, an Arabized form of his own father’s name, Bockarie Lomeh would be dropped later. That grandfather, Bockarie Lomeh, was a wealthy trader who lived in Sendugu, Port Loko, among other families with Mande surnames – Tarawallie, Sapateh, and more. Bockarie Lomeh also traced roots to Sanda Tendarin, to the Sesay who are a ruling family there, uncles and cousins counted among paramount chiefs. Papa himself was once approached to take the paramoun chieftaincy, but he declined. “Being an Imam is great honour in itself,” he said.
From him I also heard fragments of older times – like the story of Pa Kemeh, an ancestor whose very name meant a hundred. It was said he demanded a hundred to release captives during the wars of the hinterland, perhaps in the 1850s or 1860s. Such stories were drops of history he offered me, but as a child I was too distracted to drink them fully. I wish I had.
Other parts of his life I later uncovered in books. His name surfaced in the Sierra Leone Muslim Congress, the Pilgrims Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and countless Islamic organizations. He was of the Tijaniyya Sufi order, a path both disciplined and tolerant. Tijaniyya did not in Freetown get many into its formal ranks, yet its practices radiated outward – the dhikr, the dua, the traditions of charity, what we call fidaw (the prayers and invocation of blessings and God’s mercy upon the dead and living) for naming ceremonies and funerals, the commemorations, the birthday of the Prophet. Some of these now meet challenge from more austere versions of the faith. But Papa taught us about the heart of Islam: that faith rests on belief in one God, in Muhammad as His Messenger; that actions are judged by intentions; and that belief must show itself in prayer, in giving, in magnanimity, and in humility.
That is what happens during those occasions of charity, of fidaw; they are gatherings for dhikr, for remembrance. If others create events for mundane things, what is wrong with us having more occasions for dikr, for invocation of blessings, for telling stories of the divine? These are arguments for another day. Today, I write about my father’s memory, not only to honor him, but to use it as a platform to share some of what he taught, and as an occasion to tell a little more about walking in moderation in the world, not at the extremes, but in the middle, in humility, which is why Islam, in its finest tradition is called the middle community.
And humility, for Papa, was in those sujud during which long duration we got coins for ‘bite game’ and other rascally childhood pursuits in the melting pot of the good, the very good and the ugly of Crojimmy, Fourah Bay, Kossoh Tong and the general community of Isten Freetown. Islam asks us to pray for our parents, to do good things they used to do s ways of seeking mercy for them and us. I remember him often in my sujud. And I make dua for him and my mother in between the sujud of my five daily prayers: Our Lord, forgive me, my parents, and the believers on the Day when the reckoning is established.
Ahh, the way remembrance sometimes come alive. My elder brother once told me a story: in a dimly lit room, looking into a glass, he shrieked and ran out crying “Papa, Papa!” His wife calmed him, “Bo, it is you – it is your reflection.” How strange, that we often recognize the traits of our father only when we near the age he was when we truly knew him. Papa would often call us to squeeze his feet and toes, and we came to know their shape well. Now I see on two of my toes the same excess of flesh as his. I find, too, that I am beginning to love long sujud, lingering as he did, and sometimes I am lifted in rare moments when prayer truly absorbs me. I wish for more of that, but mundane things so often tug me away. Still, in those rare gifts of immersion, I feel him near again.
The memory of Papa is very strong amongst his children, especially the older ones. There are nine of us remaining, the oldest 81 and the youngest 50. Four sisters, five brothers, and tellingly, all the sisters are older than all the remaining sons. Talk about the weight of women in family decision-making, well, that has always been our lot. The women carry Papa in their very bodies – the set of their shoulders, the gait of their walk, and especially how they turn their hands. The oldest is named Sidratu Munthaha, after the lote tree at the farthest boundary to which humans can approach God. And the youngest amongst us, Muwahid, bears a name that literally means the Monotheist. I always joke that I will outlive them all, me, the frailest since childhood, and still the frail one now. They often scold me for not eating enough, saying a man who wants to outlive his siblings must eat more. I got that memo.
But memories of Papa are fading, despite efforts of the older siblings and others who knew him to remind us of stories of him. God tells us in the Qur’an, in Suratul Insan verse 1, that the human was for years unremembered, unknown. Millions of years before, we were not mentioned anywhere. And yes, for years after, we may again not be remembered. An etymology of the word for the human in the Qur’an traces it to forgetfulness – the human being is forgetful. The Qur’an in Suratal Araf Verse 172 tells that before our descent here, all humans were gathered before God to acknowledge Him as Creator and to accept the trust of being His caliphs on earth, charged to live with reverence, magnanimity, and mercy, remembering always that everything, including ourselves, belongs to Him. But because we forget, God emphasizes dhikr – remembrance – as the way back, so that we might live in goodness and mercy, in line with His designation of creation as a mercy. But again, as Suratul Rahman reminds us, nothing lasts, not even memory. What lasts is God. And should we truly want to participate in joyous eternity, we should never forget that.
That is it, then. Thirty-seven years since his passing, I hold on to hope. That the God of Justice is also the God of Mercy. That the words God has spoken of Himself two places in Suratul An’am (verses 12 and verse 54) is ever true: I have commanded Myself to be merciful. And so I pray, that Papa rests in that mercy, eternally.