Bismihi Ta’ala
Rabia Part 118
You know how they say ignorance is bliss.
Well, they lied. It’s not. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is tragedy. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance creates lack. Ignorance creates illusion. Ignorance will shorten your life. Ignorance will empty your life and leave you with nothing to account for.
But I didn’t quite understand it at the point when the reality of my life was becoming apparent to me. And this time, sometimes I wished that I actually didn’t know how ignorant I had been because when certain things happen to bring this to light, it’s never how you expect it to be.
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.
Mohsina could not be buying baby clothes, while I was still stuck on a mission to obliterating my singledom.
Unsuccessfully, might I add.
And I know that the best solution to counteracting the negative emotions that seemed to build up within me when I saw this particular post was to just put the phone down and move on, but I couldn’t.
I was too sucked in.
The thing was, social media for me was always my go-to.
I mean, it was a no-brained that day-to-day family life is not particularly exciting when you think about it. Everyone has to wake up to get to school or work. Breakfast must be served, lunches packed, and dishes put away. Then there is the vacuuming, the cooking, and other chores. A family meal and an hour of recreation such as a games night are often the most exciting parts of an average day.
By the time those are done, everyone is exhausted and it is time to go to bed and do everything all over again.
On the other hand, our phones are always exciting. There is always a funny reel to watch. There is always a fascinating debate or argument happening in our group chats. There are funny pictures that need our witty comments. There are people saying things about Islam and Palestine that are wrong on the internet, and so we have to jump and do the important work of correcting them. It was our duty.
It’s not just that phones are entertaining, they’re also an escape.
And that’s exactly what I was doing as I sat in my corner of the lounge, hoping that no one would notice me so that I wouldn’t have to actually be social with anyone who I actually had to have contact with.
”Earth to Rabia.”
It was my annoying older brother who had literally shoved his face in front of mine while I tried to swat him away.
He was like an irritating fly that didn’t die.
”I’ve made salaam three times and you just completely ignored me,” he said with a raised eyebrow as he pulled back and sat next to me instead, rudely peering directly into my phone.
”Until you put your disgusting breath in my face, ogre!” I shrieked, turning my phone so he couldn’t see what was on it. Thank good for privacy glass, but I still didn’t trust him.
He even had the audacity to chuckle as I dodged his ear flick.
“I’m working on my post, do you mind?” I said with gritted teeth, hoping he would disappear. “I didn’t even hear you anyway. Stop acting like the damn haraam police.”
“Spread salaam, Rabia,” he started singing in a weird tone of voice. “When you spread salaam all our problems will be solved, You will see your heart calm … you entire life take shape… everything will change…”
Oh my gosh. Could he stop already?
My twin brother had basically taken off into the unknown and the one left had clearly lost his marbles.
My entire family was dysfunctional.
He had put on a bayaan voice and was in a really jolly mood, but all I could do was raise my eyebrows at him and shoot daggers because I was really not in the mood for his psychotic bullcrap.
All I wanted to know was if he knew the big news before me.
”Did you know that Mohsina is pregnant?”
He didn’t flinch at the directness of the question, but merely looked at me and nodded, and then shrugged when I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Why didn’t you guys tell me?” I asked, frowning as he shrugged.
“Mohsina wasn’t really wanting everyone to know,” he replied non-committedly, not meeting my eye. “It can’t be the most fun thing to have your husband disappear when you’re at the most crucial time of your pregnancy. If Hamzah had told me before he left, I would have never allowed it. I don’t understand how he could do this -“
“She probably didn’t even tell him,” I cut in, knowing how difficult Mohsina could be. “You know what she’s like.”
I mean, why would he hide the pregnancy from everyone? I know that we weren’t on the best on terms before he left but he could have at least told us that.
The only reason we weren’t okay was because of Saaliha who had blamed me for all his dumb antics being exposed on the company server. It wasn’t even me but no one would believe me. It could only be the work of my controlling sister-in-law.
”I think that maybe you don’t know the entire story,” he said, frowning back at me. “She’s probably not as bad as you think.”
”She’s probably worse,” I scoffed without a pause. “You don’t know her like I do.”
He doesn’t even know the half of it. Wait till he finds out about how she betrayed my brother with his boss and then went running back to him when it didn’t go the way she planned. Maybe he knew some of it but the dirty little titbits were all still very illusive.
Imraan was narrowing his eyes on me, but I kept scrolling mindlessly because I didn’t want to meet his eye.
“Thats a bit harsh,” he replied, not looking impressed as he frowned at me again.
“Maybe I just haven’t had a great couple of years and I know better that to trust people blindly,” I retorted, knowing that he may have been right but not wanting to accept it. “I also know things that you don’t. People aren’t always what they seem.”
He was silent for a long time, and I almost thought he was going to walk away until he spoke again.
“You know that there’s a piece of flesh in the body,” he started, and I already didn’t want to hear the end of it because his tone of voice suggested that he was in lecture mode. “If it’s sound, the entire body is. Maybe you just need to work on the heart.”
Verily, in the body there is a piece of flesh. When it is sound, the whole body is sound and when it is corrupted, then the whole body is corrupted. Verily, it is the heart.
If our hearts are sound, at peace, in a serene state, then the rest of the body will follow.
I had heard the Hadith before, but honestly, Imraan didn’t know what he was talking about right now and I was going to call him out for it. How dare he insinuate that there was something wrong with my heart?
“Did Maulana die out there in Jihaad and make you his successor or something?” I retorted mindlessly, not caring if I was being unemotional or a little insensitive either.
I mean, it was that I didn’t care about Maulana Umar. He was actually a nice guy, and he was actually the Maulana that tried to intervene in my marriage when it was heading south. But still, I mean, what was up with my brother and his bayaan mode?
”Rabia,” he warned, and I could hear in his voice that I had crossed the line. “Maybe some days you should try reading some Qur’ān instead of fixating on all that junk. You really do need help.”
That was all Imraan said on the topic before heading out, and I turned my attention back to my phone, ignoring the feeling of despair that was beginning to surface.
What the hell did he mean by help?
It was them that needed the help! How dare they hide the news of pregnancy from me? I would be the baby’s only paternal aunty. It was only fair that I was involved in everything to do with the baby and I was going to make sure of it.
And I knew that it had been a while since I messaged Mohsina and she had even blocked me on social media platforms, but somehow, I just couldn’t stand the fact the I was getting left out of this.
Life was getting overwhelming and I needed an escape. Planning for a baby was the perfect distraction to get my mind out of the mess that I’d recently got myself in.
And maybe I did need something more because my mind was out of sorts and too many things had gone down recently to even list.
The thing is, I had been pretty good at minding my own business lately. There had been so much going on that I didn’t even care about her life anymore. If a good friend of mine who follows Mohsina’s friend Maahira hadn’t sent me the pic of her shopping for her besties baby, I would have been completely in the dark.
The most embarrassing part was that I didn’t even know what to tell her when she asked me if my sister-in-law is pregnant. I felt like I had been purposely targeted by my own family who treated me like some sort of second class citizen.
And maybe… just maybe… I was feeling a little out of sorts for other reasons too. I also knew that I had been focused on something, or rather, someone else, these past few weeks, and all I wanted to do was forget about him. Farhaan had become a good friend and yes, it had been a silly notion to even attempt any relationship with someone who even remotely knew my ex husband, and the fact that he had very obviously admitted that he had feelings for me had thrown me.
It was like a bolt from the blue.
And don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t a bad person. Not intentionally anyway. If had been a few weeks of innocent talking. Then a few days of not so innocent talking. A few meet ups, of ‘accidental’ nature and things developed into more than a friendship.
And I wasn’t against the idea of taking it further but I didn’t expect him to take a step back and say that he didn’t just want some kind of revenge fling that I would have and then go away.
I also didn’t expect to feel like changing myself because he used to like what I was like before. Automatically, after he had commented on how my dressing was and how he liked me better that way… I already found myself starting to be a bit more aware of myself. To want to change. To want to be that person that he had on his minds eye.
Yes, I knew that we were crossing the boundaries and in the heat of the moment, I may have been attracted to him too, but his rejection at a mere fling had been something I didn’t expect. I didn’t expect him to want to be so… honourable.
And though he understood that it would be difficult, I couldn’t quite believe that he suggested Nikah as an option for us. It was the furtherest thing from my mind, and the amount of drama that it would cause was probably not even worth mentioning, and so I aborted the entire mission and made a run for it.
I hated that I secretly wanted it too, but knew that nothing could happen, and I had to cut all contact before the situation worsened. There were no two ways about it. It had to stop.
And I knew that this was all wrong. After all, shaytaan was probably my closest friend at that time because my mind was thinking about the most absurd things, but I couldn’t let this control me. It would destroy me and everything I had tried to escape all these years.
And so, after weeks of being absorbed in my own scandal, I was back to other peoples scandals and I had been really enjoying the cyber stalking until the news of Mohsina’s pregnancy.
And now, I was seething inside because my brothers had his it from me when I should have been one of the first people to know. I won’t even mention Saaliha who had been purposely staying out of my way since her outburst that caused so much of drama that I really didn’t need in my life.
And maybe I was feeling a little dark and discontented recently. Things had gotten better and then gotten worse again and I wasn’t really in the mood to diagnose what was going on. Yes, I had tried, for a brief while to be better, but deep I my heart, I knew that I was doing it because I wanted to prove myself to someone else. I wanted to prove that I was still good and that I was still worthy, and I didn’t want Farhaan to know the kind of person I had truly become during the last two years.
I wasn’t ready to come out of the darkness as yet. I wanted to stay there a little longer because ignorance for me was an excuse to be unhappy. I didn’t have it within me to do something sincerely, because even though I was exposed to the reality of the Middle East that was on social media daily, and I felt a stirring in my heart when I saw the images that were relentlessly streamed, there was nothing else in my actions that could really account for it.
I mean, we all claim to stand in solidarity with those who are oppressed and yes, I’ve boycotted Zara, Poetry and the likes for months but I wasn’t actually sure what it was doing for my soul. I wanted to surround myself with something and be a part of something, but I wasn’t quite sure how it was helping me.
I was slowly beginning to realise that maybe I had lost the plot. I had become obsessed about feeling good or feeling successful by the same metrics as I was continuously seeing on social media, so much so, that I had actually become obsessed with my own self.
The truth was, Imraan had hit a nerve, but I don’t acknowledge it. It was easy to stay in that bubble when you were already there. It was easiest to point fingers at everyone else when you didn’t want to see your own faults.
And so, it was only a few days after when I was skulking around in my discontentment, looking for something to stir up after an intense work out session, when I heard voices in the kitchen that I was obviously eager to investigate what was the happenings.
And of course I knew it could only be those two. Both Imraan and Saaliha had gotten on my nerves recently and I had been plotting for days on how to get them back. I was just generally irritable and in a bad mood because the social media likes on my new page weren’t what I wanted, and neither was the dopamine rush working to make me feel better.
I had crept up to the side of the passage, near the open door of the kitchen, listening to my brother and his wife as they spoke.
”I know I said that I’d think about it,” Saaliha the snitch was saying. “But you need to understand that I also need you here. Shazia suggested the first round of treatment for next week and I think that it’s important that you are present for it.”
Treatment? I wasn’t sure what was going on but I was curious to know what was going on with Saaliha. She seemed to be in good enough health till I started ignoring her. Since then, I wasn’t sure.
”You know I want to be here, Sawls,” Imraan said, and I could hear him sigh audibly as they both went silent for a good few seconds. “The last thing I want to do is to stress you out but I feel so hypocritical being here when Hamzah is there and now that this has happened…
Oh my gosh, I was itching with curiosity.
“What do you mean?”
Saalihas voice was soft and annoyingly melancholy, and I rolled my eyes as I thought about how good my sisters-in-law were at being manipulative.
Like, why do they force their husbands to be stuck to them when they obviously didn’t want to be?
“I got a call from Molvi just now,” Imraan said, and I could detect a hint of something foreign in it as he spoke. Something I wasn’t used to hearing from my brother. “You can’t mention it to my mother or Mohsina. It will just worry and stress them both out.”
”Why?” Said Saaliha’s strangled voice. “What happened?!”
Even my hands were slightly clammy at this point.
I just couldn’t fathom what could have happened that could be so serious.
“Hamzah got arrested,” Imraan said, and I had to literally cover my mouth to stop myself from crying out.
As much as I wanted to act like it didn’t matter and that I hated my brother, I knew that Hamzah was in a dangerous situation just by the way that Imraan had said it.
“Oh Allah,” Saaliha gasped out aloud, and I could already hear her panicking whilst had asked Imraan how, where and why it all happened.
It all seemed surreal as I stood there, not really knowing how to react and not wanting to expose myself either, whilst I tried to listen in on what was being said.
It was an out of body experience as I wondered whether this was actually true, and as Imraan spoke about how my brother was selflessly assisting it the transportation of necessities in food trucks, an official had stopped and decided to detain him for no real reason at all. Apparently it happened so often that no one even questioned it anymore. It seemed that there was no real explanation for the detention, as usual, but the fact that they had done it to my own brother made a shiver run down my spine. It was a memory I had tried hard to forget because of who it was made with but it came back with a vengeance as I heard about the Israeli officials words.
It was all those years ago, just after getting married, around the time when my entire life had changed. There was only one request that I had for my ex-husband, and it was to visit the one place I had wished for all my life. Al Aqsa had been a dream for me, and the one thing he did was grant me that wish just after our first week of marriage.
And it was a beautiful experience. One like no other, that had shot straight to my heart. I had barely noticed how out of tune my husband at the time was because I was so in love with the place. It had mesmerised me and pained me all at the same time. Knowing the history of the place and its amazing significance, and then seeing how the soldiers would harass the Palestinians, especially after they would cross the border into Jordan to get supplies to earn a meagre living, only to have it tossed into their huge drums that they would use whenever they felt fit, had filled me with rage.
The place had a special place in my heart, and the hatred I had felt for the occupation had faded over the years, along with that intense protective feeling that I had felt toward our fellow brothers and sisters. Now that this had come to light… knowing that my brother had faced these terrorists and probably had to endure their hatred and abuse, my heart filled with rage once again.
The voices in the background faded out as I processed all this… what had happened… what the reality was right then.
I could barely understand how people under occupation lived… day in and day out… losing everything and then afterwards, being left with nothing but pain and suffering.
”He’s being detained,” my brother said, explaining to Saaliha why she had to stay calm and hopeful. I wished that I could too. “They’ve questioned him and he made it known that he was only helping but they still seem reluctant to release him.”
”You have to go,” I heard my sister in law say, and for once I my life, I actually agreed wholeheartedly with what she was saying.
He had to go.
”Molvi thought the same,” he replied. “But we also can’t panic and assume the worst. Considering that he’s not a local, the detainment is not always as bad as they say it is. Hamzah is a sharp guy. We need to also trust that Allah will look after him.”
As much as my brother got on my nerves, if anything had to happen to him with me not resolving our conflicts, especially knowing how we parted ways, I knew that I would never live it down. It was selfish and it was deliberately inconsiderate to be thinking of myself right then, but I knew that it was true.
But despite this.. despite the despair and the fact that my feelings were very much to do with my own inner turmoil, there was something within myself that was slowly lifted. With this realisation… with the reality that we may face if my brother had to go through trauma and be tried for something he didn’t do, knowing that he may face prison or something worse. Ut was as if a blanket of ignorance was slowly being lifted from my heart. All those years of blame and hate and shame that I had endured, seemed futile compared to this, and undoubtedly, I could feel a light findung a gap to enter.
Somehow, the darkness that had engulfed my heart was lifting, and I had a good feeling that there was a much more to come in this enlightened chapter…
Mission Sunnah Revival: Boycott Sin
Someone asked Ali (RA): “How much was the Sahaba’s love for the Prophet (Sallalahu Alaihi wa Sallam)”
He replied: “By Allah! To us The Prophet (Sallalahu Alaihi wa Sallam) was dearer to us than our riches our children and our mothers, and was more cherishable than a drink of water at the time of severest thirst.”
SubhaanAllah… what perfect imaan they had… May Allah enable us to practise..💕
#RevivetheSunnah
#RevivetheSunnahofbeingGrateful
#RevivetheSunnahofQur’aanTilaawat
#ReviveSunnahofDuaa
#SunnahofMaintainingTies
#RevivetheSunnahofSadaqah
#RevivetheSunnahofGivingGifts
#RevivetheSunnahofGoodAkhlaaq
#RevivetheSunnahbeforeSleeping
#RevivetheSunnahofGuardingtheGaze
#RevivetheSunnahofLickingtheFingers
#RevivetheSunnahofMiswaak
#RevivetheSunnahofEnteringtheToilet
#RevivetheSunnahofSpeakingGood
#RevivetheSunnahofEntertaining guests
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