One evening, after failing yet another recitation test, his father sighed. “Hidayatul, the light of knowledge is al-falaah . Without it, you are a lantern without a flame.”
When Hidayatul finished, his father stood at the back of the room, astonished. The old woman from the baobab tree was gone, but the riga with the Tongue of Honey hung from Hidayatul’s shoulder.
The room fell silent. The ulama had no answer. Then, Hidayatul stepped forward. He did not cite a hadith or a verse. Instead, he began to speak in clear, simple Hausa.
“Why so heavy, son of Mustafa?” she asked, not looking up.
He narrated the journey of the First Father, weaving in lessons of patience from the Qur’an, proverbs from Kano’s markets, and the bravery of Queen Amina. The blind scholar leaned forward, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I see,” the old man whispered. “I see the cities. I see the faith. You have rebuilt my library with your tongue.”
That night, a great caravan arrived from Timbuktu, carrying a blind scholar from the University of Sankore. The scholars of Kano gathered to honour him, but no one could make him smile. He had lost his manuscripts in a flood. “Without my books,” the blind man lamented, “I am blind twice over.”
From that day on, Hidayatul Mustafid was no longer a disappointment. He became the Mai-Labarai —the Keeper of Stories. He wrote no heavy tomes, but travelled from Sokoto to Zaria, teaching the essence of Islam not through dry decrees, but through the tales of prophets, kings, and common folk, all spoken in the melodic, profound rhythms of the Hausa language.