IT's common knowledge that whenever a sad looking old man approaches one's car, he will be asking for money. However, this rule was broken by Ahmad Bin Yousuf who refused the money someone was handing him, and asked for prayers instead. Ask him the reason behind his unusual request and Ahmad comes up with his heart- rending tale. A Yemeni resident who has lived in Saudi Arabia for the past 48 years, in the same old mud house with his wife and children, he says, “Recently, I had to go Jizan for three months and then to my country. But when I came back, I found my house was reduced to a heap of rubble, and my family nowhere to be seen.” His wife Asma'a' recounts the rest of the story: “We've lived in an old building all our life and as you know the houses in the Balad district have a weak structure. We were asked to move out because the building was falling apart. Since my husband was not here at the time, I had no choice except to take my two boys and daughter to a place under a bridge in Balad district, where more than 50 families in the same situation were living.” I used to send one of my boys everyday to our old house to see if their father had come back. We were afraid that he could arrive any day and not find us; then he might think the worst,” she said. After Bin-Yousuf came back to Jeddah one of his neighbors told him that his house had collapsed and that his family had to move to another place. “I found them in an attic of another mud-building with no glass on the windows; my wife and children were so sick that I wondered if they would live to see the next day. I tried to take them to a polyclinic but my wife was too weak to even move.” “When people see me coming toward their cars they think I'm coming to beg for money; I'm not. I'm only begging for prayers for my wife to get better, I know she will as long as I'm near to Allah with my heart and soul,”he said. Bin Yousuf, who is 60 years old now, got married to Asma'a his cousin in Yemen 40 years ago.” I've been married to her since I was 20 and I can't imagine life without her,” said Bin-Yousuf. “We don't need any medication or money even when I come near cars and they give me money I return it to them; we only need to pray to Allah and she will get better,” he added, continuing on his unusual quest. __
