The Late Abdelmajid Khalifa Khojali... "My Teacher, You Have My Love"

There are people who depart before we can bid them farewell. There are those who are on their way to meet us, but then they disappear, shrouded in God's mercy and forgiveness. There are those who do to us what Scheherazade did to King Shahryar: the story begins, and just as its details captivate us, the morning overtakes us, and the princess leaves us waiting for the night to fall so we may continue hearing the end of the story. The late Abdelmajid came to us with the beginnings of his stories, but he traveled away from us while the endings remained with him. May he find mercy and forgiveness. There are those you encounter, and you feel certain that you know them, and they know you. It was not like those I spoke of; my dear friend and brilliant teacher, the late Abdelmajid, was the one who left me before he could hear my words of farewell. How hasty a departure! I never sat with him in a classroom, as he was a teacher who came from "Bakht er-Ruda," but I learned from him, and kept, a profound and unforgettable lesson. It is the lesson of how a student shows loyalty to his teacher. This is a lesson that students do not receive in classrooms, but rather in the chapters and turns of life. We met one day years ago as we were celebrating the launch of a book by the late educator, Dr. Mohamed Kheir Osman, Minister of Education in the 1970s. Abdelmajid stood to speak about the virtues of his old teacher at "Bakht er-Ruda," and then he concluded his talk with the phrase we heard as the title of a famous cinematic film in the 1960s: "My Teacher, You Have My Love." How beautiful the expression is when heard by a teacher from his student. When he spoke of his mentor that evening with expressions that drew tears from us, the audience, it was as if he had brought his teacher back to be with us in body and soul, even though the teacher was absent from that evening due to an illness that confined him. By God, I have never known such loftiness of feelings and sincerity of emotion as that which flowed that day from Abdelmajid's heart and soul. Here I stand, repeating that same phrase from that evening, as urgent sobs nearly choke me in bidding farewell to my beloved friend and wise teacher: "My Teacher, You Have My Love." May he have mercy, and peace be upon you. Jamal Mohamed Ibrahim, Cairo - September 2026, jamalim@yahoo.com. The post The Late Abdelmajid Khalifa Khojali... "My Teacher, You Have My Love" appeared first on Sudanaile.