That Morning… Suleiman Al-Issa Walked In!

At the beginning of 2009, I resolved to study television and film production in Britain. But the path to a scholarship was not easy; places were limited, and applicants numbered in the thousands.

I knew no way forward except to keep trying.

For two whole months, I arrived at the Ministry of Higher Education before seven in the morning and left after three in the afternoon. Every day, I stood outside one official’s door, waiting for a chance to explain a dream I believed in.

The days passed, and nothing changed.

At home, my mother watched this unfold in silence. She saw me return each day, worn out by waiting, but she also saw a determination that refused to retreat.

One day, she could no longer bear to see me like that: leaving every morning and returning every evening with the same result, weighed down by disappointment.

Despite her deep shyness, she picked up the telephone and contacted the late broadcaster Suleiman Al-Issa, may God have mercy on him, whose friendship and professional bond with my father had spanned decades. She told him about the determination of a young man who had been standing outside the same door for two months because he believed in his dream.

He did not stop at making a telephone call.

He came to the ministry himself, took me by the hand, and walked with me to the official’s office.

Then he said to him:

“His father devoted his life to serving the nation… Does his son not deserve to be one among the thousands of scholarship students?”

Silence fell for a few moments.

Then the official asked me to sit down.

Minutes later, I walked out of his office carrying the approval I had waited two full months for.

Whenever I remember that morning, the first thing I remember is not the approval, but the noble gesture of a man who was under no obligation to leave his work. Despite his age and the weight of his responsibilities, he came in person for the sake of a young man trying to realise his dream.

May God have mercy on Suleiman Al-Issa and on my father, and may God preserve my mother.

That day taught me that some people may change the course of your life, not through how much they say, but because they showed up at the very moment you needed them most.