The Road That Leads to Jannah

Lina and Adam and their cousins came a long, long way to Tunisia.

And waiting for them, with her arms open wide, was Khalto Khouloud.

Khalto Khouloud was their uncle's wife, and she was warm and bright and always laughing. She smelled of jasmine and fresh khobz tabouna — the round village bread she baked every morning.

"Ahla w sahla! Welcome, welcome, ya wlidi!" she cried, hugging every single child. "I have been waiting all week! Chnowa do you think we are going to do?"

"What?" said Lina, who was six and full of questions.

"We are going on a journey, ya hbibti," said Khalto Khouloud, her eyes shining. "We are going to see wonderful things. And the most wonderful thing of all is waiting at the very end."

"What is it?" asked Adam.

Khalto Khouloud only smiled. "You will see, ya azizi," she said. "One road at a time. But first — yalla, come and eat! I have made brik with egg, chorba frik, and a big golden plate of couscous."

First, Khalto Khouloud took them to El Djem.

There, rising out of the ground, was the biggest thing Lina had ever seen — a huge ring of golden stone, with arch upon arch upon arch, reaching up to the sky.

"It is a colosseum," said Khalto Khouloud. "It is almost two thousand years old! People built it with their hands, stone by stone, long, long ago."

Lina tipped her head all the way back. "How did they know how to build something so big?"

"Ah," said Khalto Khouloud, and she tapped her head gently. "Somebody taught them. And they learned. Everything wonderful that people build begins with learning."

The children ran through the great stone arches, their footsteps echoing, feeling very small and very amazed.

Next, Khalto Khouloud took them up a hill to a town called Sidi Bou Said.

Lina gasped. Every house was white as milk, with doors and windows as blue as the sea below. Pink flowers spilled over the walls.

"It looks like a dream," she whispered.

"Some people say it is one of the prettiest towns in the whole world," said Khalto Khouloud, handing each child a warm bambalouni — a fluffy fried doughnut dusted with sugar — and a little cup of sweet mint tea with pine nuts.

Adam sat on a warm blue step and sighed happily. "Can we stay here forever, Khalto? Barcha beautiful! This must be the best place!"

Khalto Khouloud laughed her bright laugh. "It is beautiful, ya hbibi. But it is not where we are going. The best place is not the prettiest one. Ghodwa — tomorrow — you will understand."

The next day, after a breakfast of lablabi — warm chickpea soup with crusty bread, a squeeze of lemon and a spoon of harissa — they drove to a golden old city called Kairouan.

It did not sparkle like Sidi Bou Said. Its walls were the colour of honey and sand. But Khalto Khouloud's face was full of light as they walked in. "Tawa, right now," she whispered, "you are walking into something very old, and very beautiful."

"This city," she said softly, "is one of the oldest places of learning in the whole world. For more than a thousand years, people have come here to read, and to study, and to seek knowledge."

She led them to a great mosque with a tall, strong minaret. Inside were rows and rows of arches, quiet and cool.

"Long ago," said Khalto Khouloud, "scholars sat right here, teaching children just like you — about Allah, about the stars, about numbers, about the whole wide world."

Lina turned in a slow circle, looking up at the arches. "So this is the best place?" she asked. "Because people came here to learn?"

Khalto Khouloud knelt down beside her. "Now," she said, "you are beginning to understand. Let me tell you why."

The children gathered close around Khalto Khouloud in the cool, quiet mosque.

"Our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ made us the most beautiful promise," she said. "Listen carefully. It is about learning."

"Do you know what that means?" asked Khalto Khouloud.

Lina thought hard. "It means… every time we learn something… Allah makes the road to Jannah easier?"

"Every single time," said Khalto Khouloud, her eyes shining. "Every book you open. Every letter you learn. Every question you ask. Every step you take toward knowing more — Allah smooths the road to Paradise beneath your feet."

Adam's eyes went round. "Even when we learn about the stars? And numbers? And building big colosseums?"

"All of it," said Khalto Khouloud. "When you learn, and you do it to become closer to Allah, every road becomes a road to Jannah."

"Let me tell you a true story," said Khalto Khouloud, "about a girl whose family came from this very city."

The children leaned in.

"Long, long ago, a girl named Fatima grew up in a family from Kairouan. She loved to learn more than anything. When she was grown, she used everything she had to build a school — a great school where anyone could come and learn."

"What happened to it?" asked Lina.

Khalto Khouloud smiled the biggest smile of all. "It is still standing today. More than a thousand years later. People say it is the oldest university in the whole world. And it was built by a woman who loved knowledge — a woman whose heart began right here."

Lina looked around the golden city with new eyes. A girl who loved to learn had changed the whole world.

"I want to be like her," Lina whispered.

"Then keep asking your questions, my Lina," said Khalto Khouloud. "Every one of them is a step."

Soon it was time to go home.

The children hugged Khalto Khouloud tight. She smelled of jasmine and khobz tabouna, and she pressed little bags of makroudh — date-filled semolina sweets — into their hands "for the road." She cried a little, and laughed a little, all at once.

"Did you find the best place?" she asked.

"Yes!" said Lina. "It wasn't the biggest one. And it wasn't the prettiest one." She smiled. "It was the one where people came to learn. Because that road leads all the way to Jannah."

Khalto Khouloud pressed her hand to her heart. "You listened," she whispered. "That is the best gift an aunt could ask for."

On the plane home, high above the clouds, Adam fell asleep — but Lina opened a book.

Because now she knew the secret.

Every letter. Every number. Every question. Every page.

Each one was a small, quiet step — on the long and beautiful road that leads all the way home to Jannah.