Cours d'Anglais à domicile Rabat

🇲🇦 The Desert Runner: A Story of Unbreakable Will

In the 1980s, during the Morocco-Polisario war, Colonel Hassan El Mardi's plane was shot down by a SAM-6 missile. Captured and taken to a detention camp in Tindouf, he endured torture, starvation, and conditions so brutal that some prisoners prayed for death.
But Colonel El Mardi chose a different prayer: freedom.

The Impossible Math

He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how far the Moroccan Sand Wall was. Using a map of Morocco drawn on a matchbox by a fellow prisoner, he calculated a 76-kilometer run through enemy territory — meaning he had to sustain 6 km/h for 13 straight hours to outrun the 6 AM roll call.
One Year of Preparation
For 365 days, he trained in absolute secrecy — jumping rope barefoot in the dead of night so guards wouldn't hear. He piled sand at his planned landing spot to muffle his escape. He even convinced guards to relocate a noisy dog that might have given him away.
Then, a miracle: a fuel crisis shut off the searchlights at 10 PM instead of midnight.

The Run

Under the North Star, he leaped the camp walls and ran. No food. No rest. No soft sand — he chose jagged rocks to leave no footprints. He slipped past two Polisario posts. As exhaustion and freezing cold shattered his body, two things kept him moving:
🏠 The thought of his family
⚠️ The memory of a fellow officer named Assassi, who tried to escape before him — and was caught and tortured

The Finish Line

At dawn, he reached the 2,700km Sand Wall. A Moroccan soldier spotted him and froze him in his tracks — not as a threat, but to save him from the minefield. Step by careful step, the soldier guided him through.
Colonel Hassan El Mardi made it home.
He has since passed away, but his story remains a testament to what the human spirit can endure when freedom is the only finish line that matters.
💬 "Some men break under pressure. Others train for a year in the dark, barefoot, to run 76 kilometers through a warzone — because giving up was never an option."

Comment

the self – النفس
greatest secret – السر الأعظم
unseen / hidden – الغيب
talismanic – المطلسم

owner – صاحبها
struggle / suffering – المعاناة
deceitful / scheming – مكر / ماكرة
face – وجه
hides – تخفي

God – الله
absolute unseen – غيب مطلق
pinnacle of cunning – ذروة المكر
cunning / scheming (noun) – المكر
to scheme – يمكر
best of schemers – خير الماكرين

difference – الفرق
reveals / brings forth – يظهر / لإظهار
truth – الحقيقة
conceal – إخفاء

good / goodness – خير
evil – سوء
light – نور
darkness – ظلمة
justice – عدل
injustice – ظلم

contradicts – ينافي
eye / essence of justice – عين العدل
schemes against – يمكر بـ / على
the schemer – الماكر

to plot a plot – يكيد كيدًا
sets against – يسلط على
human being – الإنسان
conceals something – يخفي شيئًا

perfect balance – ميزان مضبوط
both pans – كلتا الكفتين
mutual scheming – تماكر
appears / emerges – تظهر

the world / this life – الدنيا
created it – خلقها
to establish truth – لإحقاق الحق

heavens and earth – السماوات والأرض
blood – دم
crime – جريمة
evil (general) – شر
horror / atrocity – بشاعة

the endings / outcomes – الخواتيم
transient – زائلة
enduring – باق

reflects calmly – فكر تفكيرًا هادئًا
contemplates deeply – تأمل في عمق
serious – جاد
frivolity / jest – هزل
absurdity / futility – عبث

accounted for – محسوب
runs by precise measures – يجري بموازين دقيقة

The self is "the greatest secret," the talismanic unseen.
It is hidden even from its owner… it does not reveal itself except through struggle. And it is perpetually deceitful: it shows one of its faces while concealing a thousand others.

And God is the absolute unseen, the utterly hidden. And He, glorified be He, is the pinnacle of cunning, if one could say so.

Why did God describe Himself with cunning? He said:
"They scheme, and God schemes, and God is the best of schemers." (Al-Anfal 8:30)

What is the difference between God's cunning and ours? And how does God scheme?

God schemes to bring forth truth.
We scheme to conceal it.

Thus, God's cunning is wholly good, while ours is wholly evil.
God's cunning is light; ours is darkness.
God's cunning is justice; ours is injustice.

…

As for anyone who imagines that divine cunning contradicts justice — we say: it is justice itself. For God only schemes against the schemer.
"They scheme, and God schemes." (Al-Anfal 8:30)
"They plot a plot, and I plot a plot." (At-Tariq 86:16)

The reality is that God sets against a person who conceals something within themselves another person who also conceals something within themselves — and this is the ultimate justice.

Indeed, we are before a perfectly balanced scale: on both pans is the same cunning self, hiding something.
Then, through the mutual scheming of the two against each other, the truth emerges.

And this is the world.
For this He created it:
to establish truth.
He did not create the heavens and the earth except with truth.

This is precisely the good in the act of creating the world — despite all the blood, crime, evil, and horror that appear.

For the judgment is by the endings. The evils of this world are transient, no matter how entrenched they become.
A transient evil matters not, as long as it ultimately reveals to us an enduring good.

If any of us were to reflect calmly on this matter, and contemplate deeply what happens in the world around us, they would realize that it is truly serious — despite all the seeming frivolity and futility.

Everything is accounted for. Everything runs by precise measures.

— Dr. Mustafa Mahmoud
From his book The Quran is a Living Being

You must first believe ___ yourself
A. At
B. In
C. On

Collective Nouns