When we Hold On

Bismihi Ta’ala

Hamzah

Part 92

Through our giants in history, the stories of the courageous men of the past which shaped me into the person I’d become since I’d started treading on a better path, if there’s one thing I learnt, it’s that we should never let ourselves sink into the pits of hopelessness.

A Muslim should not sit and accept defeat, as long as we have a Rabb who is the source of hope. Like the lion of Allah, Hadhrat Hamzah RA, we put on our best shield of imaan, and build our faith to fight the odds.

The thing is, we must always have faith. When we ask Allah Ta’ala for aid, know that He will send it, one way or the other.

And yes, I know it was ironic, because right then,  things weren’t looking good.

I had been fooled. Duped, in every possible way. Broken-hearted, in a way that felt like the organ in my chest was shattered.

Now, there was one more emotion I was dealing. I was so, so angry.

Rabia had overstepped. She had gone all out, broken rules, crossed boundaries too. She had befriended a man, and not just any man. Someone who I was sure had done this, had gotten close to her, just to make my life miserable.

And I knew how Faadil worked. Behind the scenes, in a way that could never be tracked, but he always worked with intent. And now, finally, it all made sense.

I knew what he was upset about. It had evaded me all this time… as I lived in the blissful ignorance that I was the only guy Mohsina had ever been committed enough to decide to marry. I knew that his coming to see her on our Nikah day was his sick way of trying to win the ‘prized goods’ back. I mean, there was no other reason.

After all, that’s all she was to him. Someone who would have pushed him to be better, earn better, and motivated for his position, who he could have kept as some kind of trophy.

Mohsina was determined and brilliant in her job, and he knew that her being able to back him was a sure way of moving even further up the corporate ladder, despite his lack of morals. I knew that the rejection that he’d probably suffered, whether her motivation was Zaid or not, probably hurt him deeper than he’d let on. Faadil didn’t take losing well, and experiencing that loss was something that he just could not digest.

I didn’t need Rabia to reply to me when I asked her if she’d seen Mohsina while I was away. I wanted her to be the one to show some remorse at least.

She looked me in the face and said that some things need to take its course. I didn’t know what she had told Faadil, but I knew that the fact that Faadil and her were speaking was right. I had given her a while to think about it, while I left for the ijtima, spent some time with Maulana Umar and came back with a clear head, knowing that I couldnt just let things hang in the air.

I knew what I needed to do. Maulana had encouraged me to try and patch things up, but the betrayal I still felt was unparalleled, and that’s why it took me so long.

Yes, it would take time to make things right, but the least I could do was speak to her in the meantime.

I needed to talk to my wife. She knew more than I did about what Rabia and Faadil actually were speaking about.

And so, knowing I had left it way too long, I decided to do it.

Despite all that was going on, standing under the threshold of the door of the flat I had shared with my wife, I was expecting to see Mos looking normal and unfazed when I knocked on the door.

Perhaps she would be standing there with a scowl on her face, spitting fire as she usually would, or just shooting daggers at me while offering the silent treatment… but nothing could prepared me for the guilt that hit like a punch in my stomach when I looked at my wife properly after all this time.

Yes, I had seen her on Eid day in passing when she came to leave Zaid, but now that I really looked at her, her face devoid of make up and her hair in a simple plait, I was literally taken aback.

Though still beautiful to me, Mos looked exhausted, and very un-Mohsina like. It wasn’t my guilt for not letting her explain, as I covertly scanned my wife’s form, her weight loss was evidently visible, that got me.

How was it even normal for people to visibly show weight loss in a month? And yea, I knew it was Ramadhaan, but how bad a toll did the last month take on her for that to happen? I won’t lie, I still blamed Mos for part of this mess.. but now that the blinding anger had worn off, and I realised that I may have also been wrong in what I had said, I could see the situation more rationally.

The thing is, as humans, we are very quick to hold others accountable, forgetting that we too are humans. People hurt us, even more so people we love, and even those of us with a forgiving nature have our limits. I never thought I’d ever be one of those people who could harbour a grudge, but here I was, standing at the door of my wife’s house, realising, that in nursing my grudge, I’d done an equal injustice to my wife leaving her to bear a burden alone that evidently wore even my unbeatable wife down.

I watched as my wife’s eyes widened, and then she closed the door. And then, with bated breath, I waited while I heard her unlatching the door, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. I could barely believe that I was actually holding my breath, after the way I had stormed out of our home those weeks ago.

She pulled the door open again and instantly moved further away, like she didn’t want to even stand in close proximity to me. Can’t say I blamed her. The words I said to her made me feel sick to my stomach.

“Let’s talk in the lounge.”

Her voice was cold and flat, and I went ahead of her to enter our open plan living area, looking around for any signs of what she had been up to these past weeks.

And what I saw, was a sure sign that Mohsina was very possibly mourning in her own way. She probably wasn’t even aware of it, but her new disregard for things to be on tip top condition was clearly evident.

Curtains were drawn, blankets were strewn over the couch, and in the middle of the coffee table was the only evidence of  life, with multiple coffee mugs and popcorn bowls.

I knew I was being nosy and presumptuous, but my heart was already feeling like there was a huge void in it, since I knew nothing about her life anymore.

It was so unlike Mohsina, who always made sure she was tidy to a fault, and accessorised with the latest trends because that’s what she did,

I suppose it came with her passion for Instagram. The nature of social media was to get people on trends, and she had always lived for that. These platforms shape us in more ways than we know, and sometimes we’re not even aware of the worldly obsessed messages they were sending us.

To be so simplistic and unbothered was extremely welcomed to me, but under the circumstances, it also made me a bit worried.

Even her dressing had become simpler. No fusses and frills. Plain and simple, with no brands.

It was as if something within her had been altered.

I didn’t have want to make any assumptions but it definitely made me think… How true was it that when the valuable things in life are threatened, then everything else in life loses value? How much is everything else worth when we don’t have peace?

All the fancy cushions, trendy curtains, ornamental pieces and matching throws, meant nothing now that Mohsina had been thrown into a corner where no one was really there for her.

And the Hadith this world is like a woman who is extremely attractive but has no morals or ethics whatsoever, came to mind. It bluffs people with its lister and leads people toward destruction.

It was narrated that Isa AS saw a very old and ugly woman who was full of makeup and jewelry.  He asked her: ‘How many times were you married?’

She replied ‘So many times that I can’t even remember.’

Isa AS said ‘What happened to your husbands, did they die or were you divorced?’

She replied ‘No, I killed them all.’

Isa AS stated ‘How unfortunate your current husband is, for he lives with you and is not cautious that you will do the same to him. (Fadhaail Sadaqaat)

This world. An empty promise, a great lie.

We think that the world can make us happy but when our world is rocked, we see the truth in what really matters.

I turned around as I reached the couch, watching her as she kept a careful distance behind me until I sat down, and then walked to the opposite side of the room, and perched herself on the barstool near the kitchen nook.

“How are you?”

It was all I could say to her, while she watched me back, a stoic expression on her face as she shrugged.

I waited a few minutes, for a response that never came.

“Can you talk to me, please?” I demanded, feeling edgy at how this whole day was turning out. “At least look at me.”

First Rabia and her tantrum about how I needed to be more of a man and stand up to my wife, just because she was feeling insecure about her lies, then the realisation that maybe Mohsina was right about Rabia and I needed to fix things.. and now the hard reality that it may all be harder than I thought.

“How do you think I am, Hamza?” The expression on her face was hard to decipher. A mixture of yearning, sadness, and anger. “Where’s my baby?”

If the guilt was packing a punch before this, now it was like a twisting a knife into my gut.

“I left him with my parents, so we could sort out this mess.”

The amount of responsiveness I was receiving was like I was talking to a wall.

I still couldn’t believe that we were at this place where we didn’t know how to be near each other without feeling angry.

Well, that’s what it looked like.

“I’ll bring him over as soon as we done talking if you want,” I added to soften her up, calming down and taking in a deep breath. “I’ll even grant you those overnight stays you wanted. I just want to talk.”

Her posture was firm and erect, as she sat in the stool, her hands placed on her lap.

“Wow, thanks, Hamzah, that’s so generous,” she said sarcastically, her gaze not wavering from me. “But I don’t see what there is to talk about a marriage that you only contracted out of a sense of duty anyway. Let’s face it, honey… We tried it out, realised we were a mistake, now you can rid yourself of me and my baggage.”

Her voice was dripping with venom, and I sucked my breath in because I knew that she was using my own words against me, and it sucked.

One time. The one time I’d let myself slip, I said something that broke us.

She had warned me. Told me I can’t take back the words, but I didn’t care.

I had messed up. Badly.

I remember hearing a lecture once where the shaykh said Shaytaan will use our good deeds to draw us to bad. Its such a strange statement, but then he went on to explain, the spouse who is tolerant to their respective other, or the daughter-in-law who tactfully deals with a critical mother-in-law, or a mother-in-law who patiently deals with a lazy daughter-in-law… all these people are following a path of goodness and gaining reward.

However, often, a day comes when something pushes you over your precipice, and in a moment of anger, you throw back your patience into that person’s face, or you express favour over them for you tolerance, or some words of gossip about how they’ve wronged you and how much you endure slips out and you badmouth the person… all those days and days of goodness and rewards can be wiped out by few moments of carelessness. This is Shaytaans ploy.

And damn, it was working well.

In anger, I had said things I never meant, but that’s the thing, we never do mean it. But words, once heard, cannot be erased, backspaced or deleted.

There’s a Ḥadīth Rabia had painted in really beautiful calligraphy before her first marriage, that truly deserved to be be written in gold, deserves to be written in gold.

Rasulullah ﷺ said, “Whoever stayed quiet, is saved.”

I wished that I had saved it myself as a daily reminder.

I got up, she following me with her eyes as I moved forward to a seat closer to her, because besides wanting to, it was ridiculous having a serious conversation from the opposite side of the room.

Immediately, her blank, flippant facade faded.

Instead, her entire expression morphed into some kind of aversive reaction.

“Just stay there, please,” she muttered, her voice sounding strained. “Don’t come closer to me.”

Really? Now she was going to punish me. Great.

“We’re still married Mos. Stop acting like we’re boardroom associates,” I rubbed my jaw in frustration, knowing that I’d hit a nerve with her by mentioning her second favourite place to be. At work. “If we’re going to solve anything, we need to have complete honesty, and we need to talk.”

“Fine,” she shot back, obviously not impressed by my references. “You want honesty? The truth is, I can’t stand you sitting nearer to me, because these past few weeks have seriously accelerated my anxiety level, and every time you come close to me, I can feel it shoot up even higher. Like literally. Right in my throat.”

“So now you’re using your anxiety levels as a hiding place?” I was holding back the urge to raise my voice, but I had forgotten how utterly frustrated an argument with my wife could make me. Mohsina had a way of pressing my most unfounded buttons.

“I’m serious, Hamzah,” she retorted, covering her mouth with her hand, almost as if that would shield her from me. “When you’re too close to me, I start feeling physically sick.. almost nauseous. Please. Just. Stop fighting with me on this.”

“Wha- Mos, what on earth are you even saying?”

No response. I moved to the chair closest to her and sat down. And much to my dismay, Mos jumped up and started walking away.

Feeling ridiculous, like some kind of puppy, I followed.

“Mos, can you be reasonable please?”

“STOP FOLLOWING ME.”

She wasn’t yelling, but she wasn’t far from it.

But my patience was dwindling. I had come here with a serious goal in mind. I didn’t expect to find the same grovelling Mohsina who I shut the door on, but this level of snubbing was just unreasonable.

We needed to talk.

I increased the lengths of my strides to catch up with her and grabbed her arm, just before she entered the bedroom.

“Let me go, Hamzah. Please, ” she begged, but I couldn’t.

“Mos, just listen, please.”

I was becoming desperate. The same way thaf she had become the day I had left her.

And while I was thinking of how ironic it was, nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for the succeeding response, as I spun her around to face me, and she immediately pushed me backwards with such a force that I was a little disoriented.

One minute I was speaking, hoping she could see sense and treat me like a human at least, and the very next, I was looking at my wife burst into tears, hold her mouth as she had done those weeks before, storm to her bedroom and lock the door, while I stood in shock in the passageway, wondering what on earth that was all about.

And that’s when I saw the trail of something that resembled… vomit on the floor.

“Mohsina,” I called, my voice a little less aggressive now because seeing her like this, unwell and in tears, was something I couldn’t take.

I could hear her coughing, gagging, and after some silence, soft sobs could heard from behind the door. I wanted to break that door down, take her in my arms, and tell her that I never wanted her to hurt again.

But I couldn’t. Not when I was the source of all her pain.

So instead, I grabbed some paper towels, cleaned up what I could and asked her if she wanted me to help her out.

There was still no reply.

“Mohsina,” I almost whispered, my head against the door when everything had become a little quieter. “Please. Open the door.”

”No.”

Her response was unwavering, despite her probable state.

“I’ll do anything,” I begged, my voice even more gentle. “I just need to talk.”

”Take off your kurta if you want me to come out of here.”

Her voice was stiff and completely formal, despite the connotation of the statement. I felt my ears redden slightly because I really didn’t expect that.

“Mohsina, I-” I started, but she didn’t let me finish.

“And your t-shirt,” her voice cut out again. “Actually, just have a shower. I’ll pass you some clothes. I can’t take that… whatever you’re wearing. That Oud scent you like so much.”

Now, it made sense.

Well, kind of. But it never bothered her before.

“I’m taking you to the doctor early tomorrow,” I said, not believing that she was unwell for so long and she actually never did a thing about it.

”You’re not,” she said, still from behind the door. “I’m perfectly fine. It’s only when I’m around you that I feel like this. Now are you going to scrub off that stench or not?”

She said it like I was stinking.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. At least Mohsina and her attitude was still intact.

”I will, but I want some time with you,” I said strategically. “And I am taking you to the doctor in the morning. Or I’ll call Nani and tell her exactly what’s going on with you. Including the Netflix.”

It was no secret. My wife had her weaknesses. Now and then, when I’d check her phone, I would see the app there. We all have our things that we do. We have to make tawbah, and ask for a way to pull ourselves out of our sins before then take over our hearts.

I could feel her shifting around behind the door, before she settled down again.

I figured that she was probably sitting against it.

And there was nothing else I could do besides slide down with my own back to the door as well, wishing I could see her face as I spoke.

“Rabia and I had a fight,” I said quietly, knowing that she could hear me, and needing to let her know why I was here. “A big one. She is speaking to Faadil. I don’t believe that they are just friends who met randomly and neither do I believe that she never shared things about you with him. I think she’s been very open with him for reasons unknown to me and you know how that makes me angry. I don’t trust him one bit. I don’t trust anything he says. I’m hoping you don’t either.”

There was silence from the other side of the door, but I knew she was listening because of the slight shuffling I could hear.

I wanted an answer but I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it. Maybe I didn’t deserve it.

”I feel like I don’t know who to trust,” I said, hanging my head and closing my eyes. “Every way I turn, there’s been some kind of obstacle. I do know that I owe you an apology for not believing you. I have to be honest. I was shocked and upset, but I know that I crossed a line.”

”Hamzah,” her voice sounded strained. “You don’t owe me anything. I understand that you were just doing what you needed to do, because Liyaket and you were best friends, I understand that you felt indebted to him because Zaid is his child and I was part of the package-“

”Mohsina.”

My voice dipped low as I warned her, hoping she would stop saying all those things that I had said to make me feel like we were nothing.

The thing is, she didn’t understand. We were anything but nothing. We were everything. But so much had happened and now the lines were just so blurry.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

It was all she said, and I didn’t know what else to tell her. My heart was aching for her, with her, but I couldn’t tell her everything on my mind because her and Faadil still happened and I still felt that betrayal. It was just that, right then, knowing that she was here with me now, and not with him… I didn’t feel it so much.

“Go and shower,” her voice said through the door. “I’m going to the lounge. I’ll leave your clothes on the bed. We can talk after.”

Her voice had lost its fire, and I got up slowly, peeling off my kurta and hanging it up in the front while I made my way to the bathroom.

I wasn’t sure what was up with Mohsina, but I made up my mind that I was going to get to the bottom of this. She wasn’t the type who was supposed to be so cut up and broken over a situation. Mohsina was an army. She was strong and feisty. Fierce and determined.

I missed that part of her.

I changed quickly, eager to get back to her and continue our conversation. Coming back to the lounge, I was surprised to see two toasted sandwiches on a plate, waiting for me.

A peace offering? I hoped so.

Maybe not the best outcome here. But it was progress. It was most certainly progress.

I had returned from the ijtima trip that same day, but was forced to storm off the table and come here when Rabia’s comments had become too much for me. In short, I was starving.

I took a seat and watched my wife come closer, half expecting her to retreat, but was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t.

“Cheese and tomato,” she said as she poured us both a glass of water, and I recited Bismillah before taking a sip. “Simple, but my new fave.”

I smiled as I tucked in, enjoying the chillies she had put into it as I ate, stealing glances at her as she nibbled on half a slice.

Something was definitely amiss, and I needed to get to the bottom of it, but I had full faith that it was still going to be okay.

“Sometimes the simple things are the best,” I commented, thinking of how we sometimes aim for big gestures and expensive gifts when peace was priceless. I watched her as she frowned slightly, almost as if she wanted to ask something, but decided to be quiet again.

For a moment, as we sat there, it felt as if no one could touch us. I didn’t want to think of what happened or what was to come. I just wanted to be there, with her, and enjoy the moment.

I didn’t know what was going to happen after.

“We have a lot to talk about,” I said, watching as a strand of hair fell over her face, and I was tempted to reach out and tuck it away. But I didn’t. “Can I bring Zaid tomorrow? He can be here for the night. I’m just hesitant to leave here until we talk this through.”

It was true. I felt that if I had to leave for Zaid, this entire thing would just get postponed. Something would happen that would prevent us from figuring things out. We needed to talk about what happened between us. About how she felt. About whether there was ever a possibility of us reconciling. About what we needed to do from here.

Even if it took the whole night.

Mohsina looked at me, and nodded slowly. She looked slightly deflated, but at least she wasn’t putting a fight up about this.

I already had the plan in my mind. I was going to somehow get us to have a normal grown up conversation. Figure out some things at least.

I was already planning to talk, stay there till the morning, even if it was on the couch, and then take her to the doctor to figure out exactly what was going on with her.

Tomorrow seemed worlds away. As much I wanted to speak about anything and everything, I knew that if we had to start arguing, I would have to leave, and that was the last thing I wanted.

I couldn’t even think about aborting this mission without feeling like scum.

From the blurry lines… now, everything was suddenly looking so much clearer. And maybe I was being overly optimistic, but I was quite certain that tomorrow everything would make sense. That the hope I had invested in us was not completely unfounded.

I reached out as Mohsina watched me, touching the top of her hand with mine, watching her look at me, as if she was startled.

Hold on, my eyes were telling hers.

I don’t know how to, hers were saying back.

Hope.

I didn’t have to say it. My eyes were full of it.

A beautiful analogy.

H.O.P.E.

Hold on.

Pain ends.

And it did end. Well, at least for now, it did. I held on to a sliver of hope, and my heart was already so much fuller.

Nothing was certain in this life, but all I knew was that for tonight, the pain had dulled, and it was going to be okay.

Tomorrow would be another day, and I was just ‘hoping’ that we would have enough hope to pull us through.

---

Sunnah of Entertaining guests

Hosting and entertaining guests is indeed a significant deed in Islam. The first man to entertain a guest was Nabi Ibrahim (‘alayhis salam).

This quality is directly linked to the level of one’s Iman.

As seen in the above narration, Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam) coupled honouring the guest with Belief in Allah and the Day of Qiyamah, which are two fundamental aspects of our Din.

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

#RevivetheSunnahofUsingtheRighthand

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Falling into Place

Bismihi Taala

Mohsina 

Part 81

Most definitely, the fact that everything eventually falls into place is only a sign of Allah Ta’ala’s favour upon us.

And I know people often say that nothing is perfect and can ever be perfect, but in all honesty, how everything seemed to work out for Jameela that week, I was already a firm believer in miracles.

It was beautiful, not to mention, so emotional watching it all unfold. I couldn’t help but tear up at the sentimentality of it, although I knew that the one certainty was that it had nothing to do with me.

Despite the niggling feeling something was amiss. Despite clearly knowing that Rabia was being a Karen for reasons I had no idea about. Despite knowing that this may be the last day I spent with my family as a whole. Despite the looming clouds above, because I was waiting for something to go wrong.

Some words were extremely difficult to say. Their emotions were overwhelming.

Yet when it all went down, despite what we know about Zubair and his past, what we saw when everything came together was merely a bond of human amongst human. This was such a huge step for both of them. It was such a courageous decision that would bring so much of sweetness and fulfilment and hopefully an influx of joy.

Jameela could really not wipe that gorgeous smile off her face. She was happy and bubbly and just the sight of Zubair after the Nikah had got her all psyched up.

I, on the other hand, was exhausted. I had been buzzing around, sourcing items for the supper from various places, really having no time for anything else.

Family was plentiful. My cousins were set on blocking all the hallways and huddling in the corners, giggling away, and for once, I wasn’t annoyed. All I wanted to do was embrace this moment and live for this day, because I didn’t know what tomorrow was going to hold for me, and I really didn’t even want to…

My heart was immersed in love. Full to the brim,  and for a second there I had this ridiculous idea that everything was going to be okay. I didn’t want to think about anything else. For now, I just wanted to be here. Present.

“They make such a cute couple,” my cousin Nasreen was cooing, and for a moment there, I was shocked that she could be pleasant.

I could see her eyes lingering a little too long on Zubair but hey, I didn’t judge. All I wanted to do was tell her that he was already married so she could stop checking him out.

She had already caught me looking at her watching him and quickly turned away, at least having the decency to look embarrassed about it.

I never understood the whole lowering your gaze thing until I actually got duped into Zinaa. The gaze was so powerful, and the effect that a stray glance could cause was destructive to even who we would regard as the most pious of people.

But I didn’t judge.

We all had our things. We just have to make sure that our hearts are filled with regret, and that Taubah becomes a way of life for us.

I sighed as I switched my gaze over to Nani holding up two trays of Jalebi, and I couldn’t help but smile as she shooed everyone out the way while she made my cousins pass it around. For someone who wasn’t thrilled about this wedding, she was sure acting like an obsessed grandparent, and I couldn’t have been happier to see her there.

Zubair had awkwardly greeted her when he came in with his doctor brother-in-law, and I could see her shellshocked expression as she witnessed his very modest and normal behaviour. I had a feeling that she thought that he would come striding in here with a mafia gang and AK47 and her carefully constructed image had been tarnished. Shem.

I stifled a giggle as I watched her awkwardly greet, and then came Hamzah who as usual, started with his usual busy buttering Nani up as she put her coy face on.

“Naans, the way you make these sweetmeats, next time we‘re going to get proposals for you,” Hamzah said easily, stuffing his mouth with both Jalebi and burfee, as if he was the groom in the scenario.

Ooh, but judging from Nani’s flushed face, I couldn’t deny that he was good with the swindling. Really good.

”I didn’t get time to make all this when you got married,” Nani said to him apologetically, patting his back after she recovered. “I can’t remember why…”

Nani looked genuinely confused as she tried to recall our wedding week, and though it was a blur for me, I still remember how consumed by grief everyone was at the time.

There was no talk of fancy eats or tableware. All we could think of was how much we wanted Liyaket and Layyanah to be there, and yet the fact that we had lost them was the only reason the nikah actually happened. I remember feeling awakened by the tragedy and broken by the memories of their own wedding day too, wishing for Layyanah’s comforting words or for Liyaket’s contagious laugh to fill the house.

“Things were a little different back then,” Hamzah said quietly, but loud enough for me to hear, as he swallowed back what looked like a helluva lot of emotion. I wanted to reach out and hold him, but my body seemed so rigid and frozen in place.

I stole a look at my husband’s form, in his darker coloured kurta today, and for some reason, I felt like I was already missing him.

”But if you get married, Naans, we’ll make sure it’s all sorted out,” Hamzah stated, recovering quickly as he flashed his one-dimpled smile at Nani and winked.

Nani’s face immediately flushed again as she whacked him with the wooden spoon, and the two carried on with their banter. I turned away promptly, feeling the need to escape.

Maybe I should call Saaliha. She had  said she wanted to chat to me later but didn’t want to divulge what it was about until the nikah was over. She had said if was something private and I assumed that it may have had something to do with her pregnancy. Whatever it was, I was determined to do whatever I needed to help her.

I breathed in as I backed myself against the wall in the kitchen scullery, hiding from everyone and taking a minute to breathe and settle my steady heart.

I knew that Zaid was with my Choti Kala, who was down for the week, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled to see how she and Zaid knocked it off. I literally wanted to whoop with joy when I saw her, knowing that she was the only person besides Maahira that I could actually tell about the court case. She had listened to me for a full half hour last night, and didn’t stop or interrupt me to tell me what a useless failure I was. She sympathised with Hamzah, but more importantly, she sympathised with me… and I needed that.

I needed someone to see that yes, although I had made mistakes and done stupid things, I wasn’t all bad.

I was about to reach for it when my phone pinged on the counter next to me and I reached over to see a message from Maahi.

How’s the new bride?

Maahira herself had been on a Samoosa run slash friend introduction in London and she was unsuccessfully trying to dodge a guy that seemed to be pretty invested in it, while she, however, wasn’t.

From what my cute and curvy friend told me, he was trying so hard to impress her, but all she said was that he wasn’t her type. I actullay felt quite sorry for him when she gave me her tight reply.

Stop grilling me. I only messaged to check on my baby sis. Give her all my love. Duaas always x

I shook my head while I reminded myself that I needed to go and check on my sister, and as I stashed my phone and made my way to the room door, I wasn’t sure whether to knock or just wait for the two of them to come out.

It had been almost 45 minutes, and I had planned for half an hour, so that we could get Jameela changed and ready for supper on time.  A single, small function was our main priority, and even though it was at home, with Maghreb salaah in a few minutes, I knew that as much as he probably didn’t want to, Zubair had to leave the room soon.

I could feel myself feeling slightly nervy for my sister as I walked down the passage, still looking at my phone as Maahira gave me a brief account of her encounter with Mr Chunky, as she called him.

I tried to ignore the queasy feeling in my tummy, almost certain that it was brought on by the events of the day and the array of emotions of the past few weeks. I smiled as Maahi sent funny gif with some girl falling over laughing, barely feeling the eyes on me as I approached the doorway of Jameela’s room.

“What’s so funny?”

I almost jumped as I heard his voice, looking up immediately to see Hamzah’s brown eyes gazing at me intently.

He looked almost contemplative as he watched me, and for a moment, I felt so self-conscious that I didn’t know what to say. We had been avoiding each other (more me than him) for the past two days, mainly because I didn’t want to face up to what was going to happen soon. I figured cutting myself loose would make this easier for me. I didn’t think about what it would do to him.

“Just chatting to Maahi,” I said, stashing my phone in my abaya pocket and meeting his eye. I didn’t know what else to say. Saying more about her would mean more conversation, which would mean dragging him further into my life and I didn’t want to do that.

“I know what you’re doing,” he said quietly, and I realised that this passage was seeming increasingly narrow as we stood there and stared at each other like dimwits. “Running away. And I don’t like it.”

I breathed out as I tried to figure out what to do with my hands. I felt exposed, without my phone as my fidget toy. I felt like Hamzah was reading right into my soul, as he stared at me in the poorly lit passage. The noise down the hallway continued, but the two of us were almost stuck in time.

“Can I ask you something?”

His voice was still soft, and the door next to us was still closed. I was sure that their time was running out.

I nodded slowly, scanning his facial expression, and letting my eyes drop down to his chest, which was heaving a little more intensely than usual. My own heartbeat picked up as I wondered what he would say.

“Do you ever have regrets about our wedding day?” He asked softly, an expression flashing across his face, almost as if it pained him to say it. “Do you… ever… wish it wasn’t with me?”

His chest heaved slightly as he said it, and my own eyes filled with tears as I heard the fear in his voice.

All the Nikah vibes in the air had probably got his mind working and thinking all these obscene thoughts. The past week had been crazy with preparation and putting last minute things together, and for once, I was glad to have the distraction.

But what killed me was the fact that he he even thought this. I could not believe he actually asked that. How could he ever say that?

Yes, I knew that it wasn’t how we imagined it. It was rushed and for convenience and it was barely romantic. We had Zaid as our glue that was desperately trying to glue us together, and we had him as our first priority in everything that we did.

But, it still didn’t change the fact that I would have always chosen to do it with Hamzah. There was no question about that.

I frowned as I watched my husband now, his eyes telling a story that I’d never heard before. To think of Hamzah as threatened and insecure was a completely foreign concept for me.

Also, I hated that this happened and I knew that right then would not be a good time to say that I received a text from an unsaved number that I recognised as Faadil’s. I had deleted it and blocked him, but the fact that he had messaged me still threw me completely.

I was already shaking my head before I answered. There was no way that I had ever wanted it to be anyone but him. If he was talking about Faadil, he had no idea what that man had done to me. I didn’t want to think of what the content of that message may have been.

“Never,” I said with affirmation, looking him in the eye. “I’d never been so sure of anything else in my life, when I chose to marry you.”

Hamzah’s relief was palpable, but there were still questions in his eyes.

He wanted to know why. Why then, was I still willing to throw It all away. Materialistic possessions and status meant nothing to him. The pain and hurt this was causing was more than I void stomach, but for me, it was worth all that. It was my way of protecting him… his respect, his izzat.

I had been involved in so much of sin, and I couldn’t bear him to come down because of it.  Seeing the look in his eyes reminded me of how off track I had been, and more than anything, I wanted to right everything that was wrong.

And I knew I shouldn’t be thinking that way, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it was too late… was it too far gone?

Maybe it was just too much of sin. I always knew and believed that thing with zinaa was that you were punishing yourself twice. First, is the punishment that Allah promises when you do the actual act, and the sin that comes with it. Second, are the memories that haunt and punish not only you, but that person who comes to mean so much to you, for your entire life. The effect is an immense impact on marital life. Where zinaa was rife, spouses become quickly disobedient and dissatisfied with each other, which lead to more problems in day to day family life.

I just wished that it was clearer in my head at that time.

But, I knew and had to keep reminding myself that the door of repentance is wide open. I had to keep focusing on that while I grappled with desperately trying to get myself back on track.

I was about to tell Hamzah that I was sorry that he felt the way he did. I was about to tell him that it was all my fault that he felt the way he did, and that his insecurities had stemmed from on my own shortfalls. I wanted to apologise for ever getting involved with someone like Faadil, and putting him in the crap I did.

But just as I was about to open my mouth and tell him all this, the door at the end of the passage opened, and with Hamzah’s eyes still on me questioningly, my mouth had already opened and closed while I turned to watch my new brother-in-law peel his head out the door and grin at Hamzah.

”Sorry for making you late,” he said to Hamzah, and as I glimpsed my blushing sister behind him, I kind of figured that Hamzah and my conversation for the night was over. I sinking feeling formed in my gut, because I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to tell him all the things that I really needed to.

I ignored the gutted feeling, waiting for Zubair to join Hamzah down the passage, not even checking to see if he looked back at me. I was scared. Scared of what his gaze would hold if I looked too deeply. Scared that if I met his eyes,  I would catch even more feelings than I already had, if that was even possible.

I sighed as I but my lip, holding back tears, not knowing why this made me so emotional. Emotions. Feelings. It was like they were wrecking havoc with my heart as I watched my sister retreat into the room, a picture of absolute bliss as she sighed and flung herself into the pillow. If I wasn’t so overwhelmed, I probably would have done the exact same thing, except for different reasons. Me burying my head in the pillow would probably entail a series of sobbing and I wasn’t yet ready to explain all my weird thought processes to my sister. I wasn’t too good with feelings.

Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Jameela’s face peeked at me, and I could already tell that my romantic sister was already well on her way into dreamland. She had that distant look in her eyes and everything about her was screaming lovesick puppy.

“So?” I said, forcing a smile on my face and wanting to get as much as I could out of her before the function would be on its way to starting.

I needed to have a final look at the set-up. I had spent the week sourcing some beautiful rugs to borrow and set up some fancy paper plates on the floor, and on of the most gorgeously designed table cloths. The whole theme was very minimal, but it was simple but elegant, and though Jameela wasn’t really interested in the details, I felt the overwhelming need to make this special for her. It had to feel like something that was worth celebrating.

I didn’t know that all she needed was Zubair.

She was grinning as she watched me now, a deep colour filling her cheeks as she spoke.

”My heart is so full right now,” she said softly, holding her chest. “Alhumdulillah.”

“What did he say?” I asked, expecting Zubair to be the type to pull out all the perfect swoon-worthy lines.

“Erm,” Jameela said, looking away as she twiddled with her thumbs.”He greeted, made a Duaa, asked if he could take my hand… and then… the usual…”

Oh my goodness. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there hadn’t been much talking today. She trailed off and ducked her head again, and I kind of read between the lines because, I mean, these two had being eyeing each other for months.

”Oh my gosh, Jamz,” I moaned, freaking out and covering my eye’s dramatically while she had the audacity to giggle.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, although I knew that it was all completely normal and exactly what was expected. It was just that, these small things were kind of freaking me out, and it wasn’t only about Jameela.

The fact was, everything was changing. Saaliha was having another baby. Jameela was now a real married woman. Nani was actually becoming nicer than she was usually (how long that would last, I wasn’t sure). As for Hamzah and I, it was only a matter of time before we would change as well.

And I knew that it wasn’t meant to be a punishment but as I watched my sister gushing over her new husband, her face particularly flushed as she described her first halaal encounter with him, which she had quickly decided was very unexpected but in a completely charming way that wilfully clouded their thought process, I couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of sadness.

And though I couldn’t go back and erase it… I wished, with all my heart, that my first touch, moment of intimacy and romance, had also been so beautifully pure and untainted. I couldn’t turn back the clock, but the immense regret that I felt right then, was something that I’d never experienced before. Maybe I needed to repent more. Maybe I needed to return to Allah, after straying away, time and time again.

Maybe after this was all over, Hamzah and I needed a brand new start, where everything can just be erased, and then build up again.

I breathed in as cousins realised that Zubair had left and it was time to start hounding Jameela while she slipped on her dress for the function, and I slipped out the door, trying to clear my head and check if my mother was ready for the function on time. She had been checking on the food that she had been preparing in the coffee shop kitchen, and though she had called her regular staff to assist, they still needed guidance.

She was now completely exhausted as she rushed off to change, and I made my way to check if all the pretty lighting I had installed was on. It was a gorgeous setting with fairy lights that winked at me, and I couldn’t help but feel my heart still in my chest as I thought of all the amazement this would bring for her.

I sat in the empty garage, staring at those twinkly lights, under the starry night, praying for an eternity of happiness for them.

Jameela was married. At nineteen. I wasn’t sure whether to freak out or be ecstatic. I was beyond emotions, and no words could describe the feelings that wrecked havoc in my mind.

My heart ached for her every desire to be fulfilled. I yearned for her heart to be overflowing with happiness, knowing that she chosen one of the best. I prayed for her spouse to be the most soothing coolness of her eyes. How I desperately wished for her marriage to be a one of innumerable blessings, more than she had ever envisioned before…

My achy chest felt like it was going to burst with emotion, but I steadied myself hastily and sucked in my breath as I heard footsteps behind me, not even realising that my eyes were wet with tears as the person approached.

It only took me a few more seconds to realise that it was Hamzah, who was probably looking for me with Zaid in his arms, and I hastily wiped my eyes as I turned to watch my two favourite boys come toward me,  feeling completely disarmed as they did. Emotions were coursing through my veins as everything seemed to come into focus again, remembering everything that this day had held and everything that was to come after.

I gave them a shaky smile as they came toward me, thinking that I had hid my emotions very well until Hamzah’s thumb swiped against my cheek tenderly, a gesture that struck me so deeply that I didn’t know what else to say.

His questioning gaze was more than I could handle at that point, and hastily putting out my hands to take Zaid and distract myself, I knew that I had to avoid his questions at all costs.

And I was fully prepared with an answer, if he had to ask what was going on. I could tell him that some dust got in my eyes or that the lights were a bit too bright for my eyes. I could tell him that i was a little more tired than I realised, and this week has been more than I bargained for (at least that wasn’t a lie).

But he didn’t ask. As Zaid grabbed a fistful of my hijab and tugged on it, Hamzah’s gaze remained steadily on me, saying the words that none of us could.

His hands were stuffed in his pockets, as he took our surroundings in briefly, giving me a nod of approval to signal that it looked good.

“The hard work paid off,” he said simply, and I nodded back at him as I glanced at the settings appreciatively.

“Thanks for being so helpful,” I said softly, knowing that I had pushed him to the limit the day before while he fetched stuff for me from about 6 different places after work. “I owe you one.”

The last part was by the way. I wasn’t sure if I really meant it. I mean, I knew that it only made sense to pay a person back for what they did for you, some way or the other. And I would have bought him some pyjama pants or something else masculine as a usual payback, but things were a little too awkward to get personal.

“You do,” he said briefly, and I looked at Zaid as he wriggled around, begging to be let loose so he could crawl all over and destroy all my gorgeous settings.

I didn’t meet Hamzah’s eye. I had a feeling that doing so would be asking for a lot more than I anticipated. But he wasn’t deterred, as he continued to speak.

“I need a favour.”

I sucked in a breath and looked at him, but what I saw in his eyes wasn’t what I expected. What was in his eyes was pure desperation. What he needed from me was something very different to what I expected.

“Can we have the day to ourselves tomorrow?” He asked, glancing at Zaid briefly as he said it. “Maybe we can leave Zaid with Imraan and Saaliha? If you are okay with it, that is. I just want to spend some time with you. There’s something I want to show you.”

The last part was said in a rush and it took me a few seconds to realise that the swanky cool dude Hamzah that I had always known to be so smooth and easy-going, was actually very, very nervous.

His breathing had heightened as he watched me, and I really did not have the heart to say no to his request. More than anything else, I knew that I couldn’t just let our entire foundation… the crux of what we were, just collapse to the ground, without any regard for sentimentality. As much as the said feeling scared me, sentimentality is the thing that in retrospect, made the strife a little more worthwhile…

“I don’t know,” I said softly, looking at him as I could visibly see him stiffening at a possible rejection.

Zaid, almost on cue, instantly stuck his hand out to pinch the area between my eye and cheek, and I couldn’t help but swat his hand away, while looking at Hamzah accusingly.

“What was that for?” I mumbled, rubbing my eye. Zaid looked as contrite as ever. Little traitor.

Hamzah was grinning knowingly as I sighed and finally relented. Zaid wasn’t too happy with my answer.

“Okay,” I said finally, swallowing as I tried to imagine what my husband had planned, but knowing that I was probably going to regret giving into him.

He let out a giant breath, and it was almost as if he had mustered all the courage he could to bear his soul, and it had actually paid off.

I just hoped that this was just a little something harmless and bland that he wanted to do on the spur of the moment. All I was hoping for was for things to fall into place, the way we had discussed it. All I wanted was for his to be an easy transition, more for Hamzah’s than for anyone else.

He deserved so much more than I could give him. As much as I hated how this was all going, and as much I was falling apart over this, I knew very well that letting him go was the only way it could all fall into place…

 

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Dear readers, I’m so sorry if the post is not up to scratch. I will probably do some edits in the morning when my brain is working. Just didn’t want to delay further

I’ll try and post again by the weekend InshaAllah.

Duaas

Much love

A x

Sunnah of the month of Rajab 

Sayyiduna Anas Ibn Malik (radiyallahu’anhu) reports that Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would recite the following supplication when the Month of Rajab would commence:

اَللّٰهُمَّ  بَارِكْ لَناَ فِيْ رَجَبٍ وَشَعْبانَ وَبَلّغْنَا رَمَضَانْ

Allahumma baarik lana fi Rajaba wa Sha’bana wa balligh-na Ramadan

Translation: Oh Allah! Grant us Barakah (Blessing) during (the months of) Rajab and Sha’ban, and allow us to reach Ramadan.

(Shu’abul-Iman, Hadith: 3534, Ibnu Sunni, Hadith: 660, Mukhtasar Zawaid Bazzar, Hadith: 662, also see Al-Adhkar, Hadith: 549)

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

#RevivetheSunnahofUsingtheRighthand

 

When we Buy some Time

Bismihi Ta’ala

Hamzah

Part 76

Time.

“Your life comprises a few breaths that can be counted; when one of them is sent out, a part of your life has diminished.”

Once lost, it’s never found.

You never quite realise the value with it until you’re at war with it. Until it feels like you’ve lost your mind, and you’re running out of it.

Deadlines, cut-off times and final dates. It was all a matter of time, before the chances would be up. And it’s no wonder that Allah Ta’ala takes an oath by it, to declare its importance.

In Surah Asr, it’s started that the only way to escape loss is to take every moment of his life as valuable, and use it for the four acts mentioned in the Surah.

Imam Shafi’I (RA) says that if people thought about Surah Al-’Asr carefully, it would be enough for their guidance. It’s a concise but comprehensive Surah, which outlines a complete way of human life based on the Islamic perspective.

Not only that, it drives the fact that each moment goes by, every second, minute, hour or day of the passage of time is nothing but a sword that is slashing away at your life of this world, reminding me that my time was running out.

Reminding you that every thing you do in that time is going to determine what’s going to occur after time is up.

Fresh starts, thanks to the calendar- they happen every year. A reminder that theres a new beginning. A new chance to start.

Sometimes it’s just a simple nudge to put your past behind you and start over.

At that time of my life, when the year had begun, my heart was at war with itself. It felt too deeply. Hurt too much. And I couldn’t understand why I was going through this.

While my brother secretly celebrated the news of Saaliha’s pregnancy, which made me so happy for him, with the beginning of the new year for Mos and I, was a new feeling that felt like a cloud waiting to open its doors and let loose on us.

I sat gravely on the kitchen nook, glancing at the block whilst waiting for my wife to enter the kitchen again, my Qur’ān recital the only thing that could calm the storm that was brewing within me.

It was just what I needed to heal my own heart, and to right everything that had gone wrong.

It was just what I needed to remind of the war I was fighting for the greater good… to keep everything afloat.

“How was it?”

I closed my Qur’ān softly just after concluding the recital, glancing up at my wife as she walked from the room, wearing a light coloured modest dress as she repositioned Zaid’s feeding chair.

She had rushed to the room when she had gotten home from her day, and it was only after a few minutes when hearing  the droning of the breast pump, did I realise that it was the first time she had been away from Zaid for so long.

I couldn’t help but marvel at what an amazing mother she had become. It was the first time that she had left him since her resignation and though I really felt that I should have gone with her, Mohsina’s reason for keeping me out of it of made some sense.

Though I tried to fight her on it, I knew if I persisted it would just make her fight me more, and I didn’t need more of that. Already, her fingers were bare as she busied herself with Zaid, and I couldn’t help but feel gutted about it.

”You’re still here,” she said to me unhappily with Zaid perched contentedly  on her hip.

It wasn’t a question. It was a warning and a reprimand for me, but I ignored it.

And I wanted to kick myself because I hated that I agreed to her request of me leaving today. I hated the entire idea but with every passing day, Mohsina was pushing me further away, trying to keep me as far away from her as possible.

”I was waiting for you.”

I wasn’t afraid to say it. Maybe I was making this harder than it should have been. But maybe I was a little upset because of everything that had happened.

It wasn’t that I blamed Mohsina for the situation. I was just upset at how she was dealing with it.

Taking off work with the excuse of seeing to my wife’s law suit would raise bigger questions and we had bigger fish to fry right then. Instead we got Zaid a nanny and left them with Liyaket’s mother for a few hours, and since her day had taken longer than anticipated, I had fetched him on my way back from work.

Now it was time for me to leave, but I was only hoping that Mohsina would somehow have some good news or a change of heart, and things would go back to normal.

Somehow we could just pretend that the past two weeks never happened and things could go back to how we always knew it.

Every minute, every moment spent without my family as a single unit felt like some sort of torture.

I watched Mohsina shoot me a frown before tugging at her scarf before she walked across the room, barely looking at me.

I watched her as I wondered what had happened. Did she manage to get them to settle? Did she manage to get her name off the nasty payments? Did any other evidence come up about the documents she signed?

I wanted to know everything but she was determined to tell me nothing. The unsaid war was mounting between us, and while I was hoping to hold onto our marriage as long as I could, Mohsina was already giving up, saying she didn’t want to make it harder for us by being around each other much longer.

I got her point, but damn… why was it still so hard?

“I missed you so much, baby boy,” Mohsina cooed softly, ignoring me while she settled Zaid into his chair with affection as he grabbed fistfuls of her tied up hair, and blabbered away.

He was so cute when he was like this, and I wanted to so badly pretend that everything was normal.

He lived for her. Sometimes I felt like Zaid was betraying me by being so attached to her, but I knew that this was how babies were. I sought refuge in the fact that once he got older, we would be best buds like his father and I.

My stagnant expression gave nothing away as I watched them both. There was a silent battle going on between the two of us, and one of us was going to back down.

I was refusing to let it be me.

Time was slipping away and I was aware that I had none left, but I was still holding on. Buying as much as I could while I scrounged around for some hope.

“Did you manage to make a settlement?”

It was my second question directed at her as I stood up, and I could see her flinching as I asked it. After all, it would solve everything. If the case would go away, none of this would have to change. We wouldn’t have to change.

“Can we not talk about this?” She mumbled, not looking at me. “I want to finish feeding Zaid. I haven’t see him the whole day. Can you just…”

She stopped awkwardly in mid sentence but I knew what she wanted to say, and my heart contracted painfully.

Leave.

She wanted me to leave.

What about me? I wanted to ask. You haven’t seen me the whole day either.

And I knew that she was doing this to make it easier, but it felt a thousand times harder. She wanted me to cut off all ties with her, so it wouldn’t affect me. What she didn’t know was that what she was doing was hurting me more than anything else.

And it was just as well that I didn’t go with Mohsina that day because besides wanting to punch Faadil in the face, I had a feeling that the entire thing wouldn’t have gone very well if I did.

And I wasn’t the type to hold a grudge but the guy had been a bad boss. A bad employee. A bad whatever-he-was-to-Mohsina.

I wasn’t an insecure guy, but the odds were against him. There was no chance I could ever warm up to him now.

Still, all that didn’t matter that much. What mattered was that he proved to be a Muslim who led his life as if he wasn’t even Muslim. He did horrible things. He stole money and got up to shady side deals in clubs, took random women as toys, and all this was playing on my mind the entire day while I thought of Mohsina going back and facing this guy once again.

I had plunged myself into audits that day, while Mohsina left to meet lawyers, keeping my mind off what the worst case scenario here could be, making much Duaa and trying to surrender to the concept of Taqdeer.

Trying to have full faith that Allah will still see this all through, and come out with the best solution for us all.

And in doing so, I had hope. Hope that she would tell me it’s all sorted, and I didn’t have to worry. Hope that this would all blow over, without any consequences. Hope that it would all just disappear.

And here she was, despite my own hopes, offering me no assurance that this was going to be okay.

That’s all I wanted for now, and she was giving me nothing to work with with.

“Mos,” I  said, grabbing my keys and moving now to stand right in front her, making her look at me while she tried to feed Zaid some mashed up looking carrots.

I wanted to reach out to her. To yank her pony. To pull her close. To make her laugh. To take her hand and assure her that it would be okay.

But I didn’t dare. This was far too gone.

“Did you sign the papers yet?”

Her tone was rigid as she said it and I sighed, turning away, already feeling deflated.

She didn’t say the word but I knew that it meant that we will still there.

The annulment of marriage contract.

It sounded so formal and morbid. She was now at this ugly point when she had decided to do the most disliked thing in the sight of Allah.

“I won’t.”

It was my standard reply and I treated it like a challenge. A challenge that entailed me doing everything I could to never sign those papers.

“It’s the only way,” she said softly, trying to appeal to me with the softness that sometimes cut through her steely personality.

“It’s not,” I insisted, my stance unyielding as I held her gaze.

“It is because their lawyers won’t budge,” she said, breaking eye contact and looking at Zaid as she spoke. “Faadil has no way of taking my name off the records completely. My name is already there and I’m guilty until proven innocent and I won’t let you take the fall for it too, Hamzah.”

She turned to me then and her eyes flared as she said it. I scowled at her.

“So you can take the fall for him but I can’t take the fall for you?”

She sighed.

”Hamzah.”

She said it as if she was talking to a kid.

I narrowed my eyes at her. That’s exactly how it was.

“Mohsina,” I said to her, in the exact same tone she had used with me.

Now was her turn to narrow her eyes.

We never fought.

We bickered and bantered with ease, on most occasions, but a full blown out fight wasn’t our thing. It felt precariously close to that situation.

“You know it’s not like that,” she said, her voice pleading and her eyes glistening. “I signed documents to say I took the money from him. He can’t just undo it.”

“You mean he doesn’t want to,” I said stiffly, knowing exactly how Bossman worked, and not prepared to fight her on this anymore.

She was so gullible, and the way she bought his stupid excuses, was exactly like Mohsina. While she appeared tough and impenetrable on the surface, I knew that my wife would never let anyone take a fall if she could help it. Even if they deserved it.

Mohsina was selfless to the point of exhaustion and whilst I loved what she had done for her family, I hated that it was what was making her want to resort to something that would break us both. It just didn’t make sense to me to let this ruin us.

All the fight had been fought already. I had no more left in me at this point.

Mohsina was silent as I watched her back, not even know whether I should wait for her response. I just knew that I couldn’t leave at that point. She said nothing and the more the silence persisted, the more restless I felt, and the more I couldn’t step out the door.

Zaid was painfully oblivious to the tension between us, all I could think about was how much this would affect him. How much I would miss him tonight, while I wasn’t with him. How our little family would be torn apart.

He had settled so well during the past month, and to have to upset his routine again was going to be the worst mistake. I wasn’t even sure how Mohsina was going to do it, but she was insistent that we could work out a proper agreement between us, so we could both alternate in keeping him, and he would barely feel it.

I begged to differ.

My entire family was going to be broken and Mohsina was taking it standing up.

“Why are you fighting this?” She finally asked, pulling Zaid out of the feeding chair and meeting me eye.  “I gave you the time you asked for and you said you would leave after. I’m not worth the hassle this would bring.”

Her last words struck my heart. She was worth it. She was worth every moment. But she hadn’t even given me enough time to show her that.

Three days. She had given me three days to pull something out to save us before she gave up completely. Was it worth that little to her? Was all this just an experiment?

Anger rose within me but I bit it back, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. If she wasn’t going to fight for us, someone had to, but we couldn’t be going crazy whilst doing it.

“I want more time,” I said flatly, knowing that I was going against what I had said but planning on pushing Zubair even more to come up with something that can turn the situation around. I was going to call him as soon as I left for Masjid. I was going to have to get something to salvage this. “Please.”

She looked slightly taken aback by my request. By the fact that I was literally begging her.

And why wouldn’t she? None of us ever thought that we would come to this point.

“Give me a reason,” she answered softly, looking up at me from the corner of her eye and taking me by surprise. “One good reason.”

I had gotten her to this point, and it was just enough for me to give this my all. My wife’s eyes were hopeful as she waited, and I couldn’t help but notice how painfully gorgeous she looked as her eyes lit up with something that resembled hope.

Hope. It was the only thing keeping me going. If it even existed here.

“Because you are worth it,” I said stubbornly, the words slipping out it my mouth before I could even think. “Because I don’t care about the money. About status. About my accreditation. Because despite everything I may lose, I’m still hoping for a happy ending here. Because I don’t care about everything that I may lose and even if I do, if I lose you, I will have nothing. Because you are everything, Mohsina. You and Zaid are everything to me. That’s why.”

She was stunned into silence as I spoke, her eyes wide as my voice rose a tad bit louder than intended.

Maybe I was getting a little carried away, but emotions were powerful stuff. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to feel that way, but I knew that Allah had brought us together for a reason and that before this curve ball, everything that this had brought, from leaving our old lifestyles to Zaid and our amazing family, was an immense blessing.

And I didn’t need another reason. That’s was the only reason why I was stalling and buying more time, hanging into threads of hope that could unite us once again, hoping that some miracle would happen that would that would bring her back to me, even if it was just for a teeny weeny snippet in time.

It was an intense moment as we stared at each other, almost in some sort of weird challenge, whilst Zaid mumbled something incoherent, oblivious to our emotions as our eyes spoke words none of us dared to say.

I love you, mine’s said with no reservation.

What if that’s not enough? Her’s question back.

The ringing of my phone in my pocket startled us but I ignored it, because I didn’t want Mohsina to push me out while I wasn’t ready to leave. At this point, it felt like everything was on the line and there was no way I was leaving today. I needed that time to prove that this wasn’t just a silly mistake that we had made. I needed to show that real love may just be what we actually had here.

And yes, I had let my guard down. There was a reason why I told Liyaket that I didn’t believe in love. Why I always wanted to be happy alone.

I thought that if I gave something my all, and it fell apart, I would never make it off the ground after. I didn’t want to shape my life around something, and then lose it. How do you survive the pain that feels like losing an organ? What if I actually learnt that I needed love, and I couldn’t have it?

But that’s why Allah gives us a solution, in everything we do. That’s why when we hand our hearts over, we still keep our focus solely on Him. Despite loving someone so deeply, you still love Allah above them, because He is your only anchor. Allah teaches us, over and over again, that beyond everything else, the only thing that still remains is His Loyalty.

Whoever loves for the sake of Allah and hates for the sake of Allah and gives for the sake of Allah and denies for the sake of Allah has completed his faith (Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi).

Everything was only for Him, through Him and because of Him. There is no loyalty but with Him.

And it was because of that that here I was, hanging on by a thread in choppy waters, knowing that at any second, even that thread could snap.

And it was at the most inappropriate moments that technology intervened, and Mohsina’s phone ringing interrupted my thoughts while I couldn’t help but glare at it like it was the bane of my life.

She too was snapped out of her own thoughts, and she looked at me apologetically and sighed, glancing at the phone as on the countertop.

”It’s Nani,” she said apprehensively, glancing at me and wiping her hands again as if to ask my permission to take it.

I immediately softened, glad it wasn’t anything to do with work. That might have been the final straw for me.

“Take it.”

My words still hung in the air as she picked up the phone, and I shifted my own attention to Zaid as I watched him attempt to toss some shell-shaped pasta off the feeding table. Throwing food discreetly off the feeding chair was one of his favourite hobbies.

Even though he was so mischievous, he was so cute at moments like those that it made me wonder what he was going to be like as he got older. I could only imagine how much naughtier he would get as the years went by, and the thought actually made me smile.

I grabbed what I could from his tightly fisted hands while Mohsina spoke, wiping his face and taking him to wash up while I listened to my wife try and speak normally.

Her cheeks were flushed, like they usually were when she was a little flustered, and it was obvious that she was still a bit overwhelmed from our conversation, and it made me hopeful that I had actually penetrated something. She had been  so rigid and unyielding these past few days. Nothing I could say would make her budge.

All I needed was time, to set this right. It would give me an opportunity to get something solid on Faadil. As much as I knew about his dodgy activities, I knew that I would only get what I needed if I gave Zubair more time and resources to find evidence to turn this whole thing around.

“No, I didn’t hear, Nani,” I could hear Mohsina saying, her voice steadying as she spoke again. “What happened?”

There was silence from my wife but I could hear Nani’s voice from where I was on the other side of the room. I couldn’t help but smirk as I did.

“Oh no,” Mohsina said softly. “I don’t think she thought about that.”

There was more animated talking again from the other end of the line, while I checked my own phone to see who had called, swallowing slightly nervously as I saw the name.

Zubair’s number was listed and I made a mental note to call him as soon as I got a moment. Perhaps it was something important. In fact, I was really hoping that it was.

Mohsina’s voice cut through my thoughts as she spoke again.

“Yes, it’s very soon but Nani-“

She was cut off by another audible burst of emotion and I actually stifled a smile as I turned to watch her while Zaid pulled at my beard with his clammy hands.

”Nani, I’m not sure if we can-“ she tried again, but I knew from past experience that there was probably no use even trying to talk her way out of whatever Nani wanted.

“Okay, I’ll ask Hamzah,” she said finally, and I could see her roll her eyes in frustration.

She was tired. And I was so glad for the diversion.

Something had shifted within her. With Nani, sometimes Mohsina seemed like an entirely different person.

Whatever Nani had said obviously wasn’t in her plan but it had somehow got me hopeful.

She said a few more words before finally greeting Nani, cutting the call and then looking at me worriedly.

I looked back at her, frowning slightly as I watched her fiddle with Zaid’s messed bib, and then wipe the table a third time, despite it being clean enough.

And it was weird that I was still sticking around, watching her like a creep when I was supposed to be gone, but her actions were making me wonder what was going on.

She was doing the same thing as I was. Stalling. Buying time, to make this less painful. Procrastinating reality, despite knowing where we were heading. Why though, the sudden change in approach… I had no idea.

It took a few minutes before she finally looked up at me, and gave me the reason for her temporary silence.

”I think you may have to just stick around a while longer,” she said stiffly, and I could feel my heart rate already increase as she said it.

Now that was good news.

I raised an eyebrow at her, not trusting myself to speak as yet. I was still partly in shock.

“I think you may know something about it,” she said, now looking at me questioningly. “Zubair wanting to meet Jameela?”

Ah. Puzzle pieces clicked into place as I recalled the conversation I had had with him after Mohsina told me about how upset Jameela was. It was a simple conversation, guy to guy, where I basically told him that there was no need for him to punish himself his entire life, because of his past. that Allah doesn’t hold our deeds against us, so why should he?

I had convinced him about the beauty of Nikah. Of how a woman may bring out a better part of him (he had actually laughed, when I wasn’t sure if the guy could even smile properly). I had convinced him that he didn’t need to be alone for the rest of his life, just because he felt like he deserved some sort of punishment.

This was before everything between Mohsina and I had spiralled downward.

I didn’t know that he had actually taken the conversation to heart. It meant that Zubair had actually changed his mind about what he wanted in life, and I may have been the reason for it.

How ironic. On the brink of my marriage collapsing, he was making one for himself.

”Nani wants to talk to us altogether,” she said stiffly, wiping her wet hands on a dish cloth. “And we will have to be there together on Sunday too so I guess…”

I breathed out as she trailed off, feeling an immense surge of relief and gratitude as she said it.

Allah Ta’ala had somehow managed swayed the plan for me, and I knew that this was no coincidence.

It wasn’t what I expected but it was more than I deserved.

It was just what I needed to buy more time, and turn this entire thing around.

Whether it would actually work, was another question entirely…

---

Mission Sunnah Revival

Sunnah of Thinking Good about others  

We’re so quick to assume bad things about people, even when we have no idea what’s the real story. Thinking the best about others is part of the Sunnah of Nabi (Sallalahu Alaihi wa Sallam) and is a great way to give us a positive outlook and always be good to others.

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

#RevivetheSunnahofUsingtheRighthand

FB/Instagram: @thejourneyingmuslimah

Breaking Down

Bismihi Ta’ala

Mohsina

Part 72

Just like I learnt the golden rule of thumb (ie. silence of the thumb is golden)… I also learnt that in certain cases, with certain people and circumstances… actual silence is also golden.

And now, I know very well that Nani never means to be the way she is. She is a force of nature but also an exceptional source of wisdom for our family, and even though we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs over the years, never in a million years have I ever thought of her as less than the caring grandmother who always wants what is good for us (even though we may often disagree).

She was who she was, and though there were times when she annoyed me and made me want to run away, I was taught by my parents that there was still no way I would ever trade her for a lesser version.

Respect. Always. I knew that it went a long way.

It was just that sometimes… just sometimes… she was a tad bit too much. Now and then, when Nani borders on break downs, she really does get a little all consuming.

”She said no.”

Nani was saying it to herself, almost like a mantra, as I watched her, shaking her head. She had already been through it about three hundred times with us, and now she seemed to be going through it with herself.

”She said no.”

On repeat. There were the words again. The ones that she was struggling to understand.

“I don’t understand, Mohsina,” she said, looking at me, now, a certain panic in her eyes, as she stared into a blank space. “Can you believe it? What I did wrong in my life to deserve this? How can Isthikhaarah be negative when the boy is so positive?!”

I wanted to snort with laughter but I meekly covered my mouth and held my piece as I watched Nani, and then switched my gaze to Hamzah, who was staring fixatedly at his phone, and I could tell that he was trying very hard to keep a straight face.

He kept an eye on Zaid who was rolling around on the floor next to him, chewing his teether erratically, looking like he wanted to bite its head off. His first tooth hadn’t popped as yet, but we were still checking every day. He kept stuffing his cute little fist in his mouth and there was no doubt that he was teething.

I, on the other hand, grabbed a dhikr counter and urged myself to profusely recite more Adhkaar. It was so true that Dhikr was a means of even preventing inevitable problems. Also, keeping my mouth closed was a recipe for success when it came to Nani.

Also, keeping quiet wasn’t my nature but I was feeling bad. I sighed as I watched her forlorn expression, shifting my gaze to the gloomy weather outside.

Seemed like Jameela was bringing the London weather back with her return, and though her return was much anticipated, I wasn’t exactly feeling the whole getting drenched while we pulled her countless bags out of the car idea. Though Jameela wasn’t a huge shopper, my mothers lists of Marks and Spencer favourites Maahira insisted she send back were something else.

”Nani, I think it’s for the better,” I said as I grabbed the teacup that had half a cup of murky coffee inside it.

With Jameela’s romantic notions about life, I really hoped that she could at least get somewhere close to that kind of love that built you and bonded you, and that can be your safe space and shelter. A love that not only was good for this world, but also carried through to the hereafter. I really wished so much more for Jameela than what Doc seemed to be able to give.

“What better?” She said snappily. “He is got a broken heart, poor chap. I don’t think it is possible that Jameela is thinking properly. Maybe something happened to her head in the plane. All that fitna air made her go mad.”

I suppressed another snort of laughter and took a chug of coffee as I watched my mother’s face expression change slightly, and she shot me a warning look. Hamzah was barely meeting my eye. The truth was, no one but Nani really liked Muneer.

I knew that Doc didn’t tickle Hamzah’s fancy either and Jameela refusing meant us saving him from a lifetime of having to make conversation with someone who he could never relate to.

”Rather now than she say no later,” my mother said weakly, as she checked the pots on the stove. “There will be someone better for her, you will see.”

”And for him also. So nice boy he is.”

Okay, so I added that as a second thought because I was trying to score brownie points with Nani, and sometimes these things were essential.

Nani shook her head disbelievingly, almost as if she was in shock that we could even suggest that.

“Mohsina, just come here one minute,” Nani said, flapping her dupatta around and taking a seat after a few seconds, the melodramatic expression appearing on her face, as she patted the small of her back. “Just massage here. On the top part. All this stress is giving me back ache and I can’t even sleep properly. Every night I am tossing and turning because how will I explain this kind thing at Khairoon’s house next week to all the ladies. Nevermind. How much I suffer for my grandchildren, Allah knows.”

I ignored the urge to roll my eyes. Shame, Nani’s social status was under threat. But it really was for good reason.

She had completely ignored our attempt to try and explain the beautiful phenomenon of Allahs plan is the best plan. That no matter what happened now, if they were meant to be, they would be.

She also seemed like she didn’t believe us when we said that there was Khair in everything. She was convinced that we were lying, and we just couldn’t let Jameela make a decision like that when everything depended on it.

She also kept sneaking me looks, as if she didn’t believe me when I said that I tried to tell Jameela to think carefully.

Of course I did (not).

Jameela was due to be back any minute and I could tell that Nani was getting all revved up for a full frontal assault. All I knew was that I was going to try very hard to protect my sister from whatever was in store.

My poor sister was probably dreading coming back home and I really did feel sorry for her.

The moment had arrived as the first drops of afternoon rain had decided to appear from the formidable sky, and everyone was already rushing around, trying to make sure that all bags and luggage could be brought in before the full downpour.

The weather matched the atmosphere almost perfectly, and seeing her, in actuality, as she jumped off the car and Hamzah had already went out to help my uncle with bags, was another feeling completely. I didn’t realise how much I had missed my sister these past few weeks until I saw her there in the flesh.

And as I followed behind, staying under cover as I watched her exit the car looking as pretty as a picture, even though she was probably exhausted, I couldn’t help but notice on her face the look of resignation.

Tiredness. It had to be. And of course she would be feeling that way. Jet lag was real, and that was completely expected.

“Zubair is coming for the bags,” my father said to Hamzah as I approached the car, watching as Hamzah pulled a suitcase out from the boot and greeted my uncle with a hug.

I knew Papa relied on Zubair to do all the physical work at home because of his health, but Hamzah was perfectly capable of doing it too. I supposed that he was so used to relying on Zubair that he sometimes forgot he had an actual son-in-law.

“It’s okay,” Hamzah said in reply, but I could already spot the familiar figure as he walked toward us with a rain jacket on, and my eyes instantly switched to Jameela as I watched her glance in his direction and then simultaneously turn away, and I couldn’t help but conceal my smile.

Today, for some reason, Jameela’s demure actions didn’t make me feel all that concerned. After finding out that Zubair was actually not a horrible guy, for some reason, the things that had worried me about the two of them seemed completely irrelevant now.

And as Hamzah pulled out a bigger bag and Zubair efficiently went to take it from him, along with a smaller one that was next to the car, I couldn’t help but notice something in Jameela’s  entire demeanour change.

And it wasn’t unexpected. I knew that there would be some sort of underhand back and forth, but what Jameela did next was completely out of the blue.

She had literally morphed from some coy teenage girl to an assertive young women who immediately stalked over to where they stood, mere milliseconds before Zubair could reach the bag in question. Her fully clad arm stretched out, snatching the bag handle out of his reach just as I caught his gaze linger on her for a few moments longer than necessary before he looked down.

”I got it, Papa,” she said flatly, glancing at my father, as Papa’s brow furrowed and Zubair instantly took a step back. “We don’t need his help.”

And with that, mouths slightly agape, Papa and I both just watched her wheel her bag through to the house, barely even knowing how to react, before I hastily followed right behind her, determined to figure out what on earth all that back there was all about.

That was weird. Not to mention, completely awkward.

It was so unlike Jameela that I could barely believe that she did that. It was so unlike her normally sweet and sensitive nature, that I could barely believe that this had actually happened.

Pure-hearted, considerate Jameela had come back from London in such a combative mood that I could barely believe it was her.

And as I watched her in her free flowing abaya and tightly wrapped hijab, enter the house, greeting my mother and Nani, briefly, I couldn’t help but shoot them a look to tell them to give her a break. Doctor and his broken heart was all by the way, because what was happening was what was making me a little unsettled.

I followed her as she made her way up to her room, wondering why she wasn’t even looking at me.

Two weeks away had made her a different kind of person, and I was still struggling to come to terms with it.

She had stomped up the stairs in a bit of a huff, and as I walked behind her, it took me a while to figure out that she was avoiding eye contact. Whatever had happened down there was completely intentional and I was going to get to the bottom of it, no matter what it took.

Jameela had pushed her room door open, tossed her smaller bag on the bed, and turned around before plopping herself on its edge.

”What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t help but ask. I could see that something was up. I mean, she barely even stopped to greet zaid. When Jameela ignored Zaid after weeks of not seeing him, something was definitely up.

“It’s stupid,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes briefly before shaking her head. “I’m stupid. Just don’t worry about it.”

”Jameela, you’re not stupid.”

My voice was soft and coaxing and it was all it took for the tears to start welling up in her eyes again. I wasn’t sure what was bringing it all on, but I knew that this was not just any normal reaction.

“Did something happen?” I asked, sitting down next to her as she fell back into the bed, almost in surrender, and covered her face with her hands.

”Y-you don’t want to know.”

Her voice came out all strained and muffled and I could tell that she was really uncomfortable about whatever she was going to say. It didn’t mean that I wanted to hear it any less. In fact, I now wanted to know more.

Something major had gone down and I now needed to know.

”Talk to me, Jamz,” I said soothingly, knowing that I had to be there for her. “What’s going on? You know everything happens for a reason. You’re not yourself, and it can’t only be the proposal causing all these weird emotions…”

I grinned at my sister, but she didn’t smile back.

Okay what on earth was up with her?

I looked at her enquiringly, tilting my head to the side as she took a deep breath as if she was going to say something big, and I was already all ears.

“You remember Nusaybah?”

Nusaybah.

Nusaybah. Mr Mujahid’s (aka Zubair) sister.

I looked at her, narrowed my eyes and nodded as she sat up and yanked her scarf off, revealing her hair that was tied up in a loose bun and stretched her slender neck.

Jameela was perfectly and naturally slim and I was sure she would stay that size her entire life.

“Zubair’s sister?”

I said it as naturally as I could. I only hoped that Jameela hadn’t taken things into her hands and gotten involved in something haraam. She knew better than that, but with temptation- you could never tell.

At the mention of Zubair, expectantly, her gaze faltered. I did expect that.

She took a deep breath.

”She wanted to ask him about what he would think about me,” she blabbered, and I focused on her a little more intently as she spoke. My poor sister was looking distraught, ans I was soon going to know why. “I don’t even know why… but she was convinced that Zubair may have been a little interested in me. And because she said it, well… I was stupid, okay? I got my hopes up too.”

Uh-Oh. I wasn’t sure if I liked the way things were sounding. Seemed liked these two girls were playing a matchmaking game. I stared at her, but remained silent as she continued.

“Anyway,” she said, sounding tired and embarrassed as she visibly flushed. “She told him that I may be interested. And I told Papa, because he suspected a while back… and I wanted him to know that Nusaybah was talking to her brother about me. It wasn’t anything official, it was just a little feeler to decipher what he felt…”

Oh no. Oh no oh no.

She wasn’t looking happy and that didn’t mean anything good. And then, it all just made sense.

Zubair was looking so awkward and out of place out there, especially when Jameela grabbed the bag and stomped off. It was all happening so fast and I wasn’t entirely sure what had gone down but I knew that it was something completely unexpected…

And now I understood. It was all crystal clear.

”He said no, Mos,” she whimpered softly, looking visibly stung by the outcome, as if she was reliving the moments that she heard of the first time. “He said no. I  mean, deep down, I knew that he wasn’t really interested but I thought that after Nusaybah had mentioned him, she may have had a better idea. I had already said no to Muneer at that point. I thought that everything about him seemed wrong because maybe Zubair was actually better for me.”

I was still digesting it. While Jameela was away in London, so much had happened in these past three days, and I was completely unaware of it.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” she went on, shaking her head and sitting up. “Maahira said that maybe you were right. All my stupid dreams and fantasies. I’m not like you, Mos. Now I understand what you said before, about me waiting till I’m a bit older. I think I don’t know a thing about real life and marriage and I’m really am sworn off men for the next year at least. I cannot deal.”

Maahira? She spoke to Maahira about this. And she didn’t tell me. I was hurt.

”Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked her. I couldn’t believe all this that had gone down without knowing a thing.

“Mos, I knew you are dealing with so much yourself,” she mumbled, her eyes slightly misty again. “How can I trouble you with my stupid worries that aren’t even worth it. You have your in laws and Zaid and Rabia and plenty more to sort out…”

I breathed in, and the sting subsided a bit. Yes, had other things on my mind but Rabia had been quiet for a while and I was hopeful that things between us would return to normal. Rabia was the type to hold a grudge and though I didn’t make a huge effort to end the feud, I figured that her silence was a good sign.

My sister had a problem and I was hurt that she hadn’t confided me in me but I couldn’t quite imagine what she felt.

“Besides,” she said, taking a deep a breath in. “I’m not even worried because I’ve started reading this amazing Duaa. Nusaybah actually told me about it. You know the Duaa of Musaa AS? I was feeling completely down and depressed and it’s the only thing that got me through. I’m in so much of a better state than I was…”

رَبِّ إِنِّي لِمَا أَنْزَلْتَ إِلَيَّ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَقِيرٌ

Rabbi innee limaaa anzalta ilaiya min khairin faqeer
“My Lord, indeed I am, for whatever good You would send down to me, in need.” (Surah Qasas, ayah 24)

I heard of it.

The recitation of this Du’aa was after Musa (as) was forced to escape from the city, into the desert, and headed towards Madyan.

After a long journey, Prophet Musa (as) came across a group of male shepherds who were watering their flock at a well. Keeping their distance, he noticed two women waiting in the back with their sheep. They felt it was safer to wait than to mix with the men who were gathered at the well.

When asked, they explained to Musa (as) that their father was an old man and unable to feed their flock, so they had to take on this duty. Now keep in mind that Musa (AS) himself was disheveled and exhausted from his travels, he likely did not have much to eat or to drink.

Still, he empathized with their situation, “So he watered (their flocks) for them; then he turned back to the shade…”(28:24) as he turned back to the shade he recited this du’a,

Rabbi innee limaaa anzalta ilaiya min khairin faqeer meaning, “My Lord, indeed I am, for whatever good You would send down to me, in need.”

Musa (AS) acted in an honorable manner to help these women in a foreign town amongst strangers. He prayed to Allah, asking him to provide more opportunities to do good acts like the one he just did. Also note, after having helped the women he did not stay and mingle, it says “watered (their flocks) for them; then he turned back to the shade”. Musa (AS) in this du’a also uses his state by saying that he is faqeer- meaning in dire need, or in poverty.

And through this Duaa Allah Ta’ala gave him so much more than just a home. He got food. He got provisions. He got a wife. A home. A family. Security. That was the blessing of that Duaa… that Allah gave so much more than just what was apparent to him at the time.

“I read it, Mos, and it’s like a calm descends on me,” she said with a certain kind of hope in her eyes. “And I’m okay. Really. I know I can trust Allah to reveal my story in the best way. I just have to avoid Zubair as much as possible. I don’t know how I can ever face him, and with him being here…”

It was going to be a difficult task to do forever, but she would get over it.

I wanted to hug her. I felt terrible for her. And I knew that I never liked him and always thought that he wasn’t good enough, but now I couldn’t help but feel insanely protective and want to break his legs for breaking her heart.

I really had no words for him! How could he say no? Without even meeting her, or even getting to know what she was about… Mister Mujahid made a decision based on nothing at all. As for Nusaybah, I wasn’t even sure what possessed her. I knew what rejection felt like and to see the hurt on my sisters face was like I myself was punched in the stomach.

“I’m so sorry, Jamz,” I said quietly, a cheeky smile creeping on my face. “If I knew earlier, I would have slashed the tires on his motorbike. I can still do it.”

I knew that I was being mean, but I was only trying to make her smile. And it worked.

”Please,” she said softly, the smile fading. “Just don’t do or say anything. It’s already so embarrassing.”

Poor Jameela.

I smiled sadly as I tried soothing her the best I could, letting her take a small nap as I went downstairs to tell Nani and my mother that she wasn’t feeling great.

My mother went to check on her too, but Nani was still looking completely out of steam, and I was kind of glad. After everything, she really didn’t need Nani telling her what a bad decision she had made by rejecting Doc.

I wondered if she regretted that part. I knew if I was in her position, I would, but Jameela wasn’t me. When she had her mind set on something, she was pretty one-tracked.

All I knew was that somehow, during this time, so much had happened that I couldn’t quite believe that I had no idea all this while.

And of course, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even as we got home later that night, Zaid in his cute little car romper, almost asleep, as Hamzah helped me out of the car, it was all still racing through my mind.

Why did Jameela let Nusaybah do it, if she wasn’t almost sure that he felt the same way? Did she just feel pressured? Was it something she just wanted to strike off her list? Or was there some reason that Zubair had actually said no. The way he looked at Jameela… well, I knew that I was no expert but I could definitely tell that something more than awkwardness was in his gaze as he watched her match back to the house.

But maybe not quite.

I shook my head and sighed, letting Hamzah push open the door as I walked to the room and placed Zaid down, wanting to talk to him about it. I had tried to ask him about Zubair in the car, but had to stop because Zaid was popping his head up at every word and behaving like he was the main participant in the conversation.

He was becoming more alert with every day, and even though it was cuteness overload, it meant that Hamzah and I didn’t quite have the moments we used to have, when he would quietly feed and fall off to sleep.

These days I couldn’t even take out my phone without him wanting to grab it, and I knew that it was a lesson for me to have less screen time too.

I smiled at Hamzah, telling him that I would be with him in a minute, as I glanced at my laptop in the corner of our bedroom.

I wanted to ask him if he could talk to Zubair. Perhaps he would have some way of asking what Zubair’s deal was. Was he really that uninterested in my sister? I really couldn’t believe it.

Jameela was gorgeous by any standards, and the fact that he wasn’t even remotely attracted to her, to the extent that he didn’t even want to talk to her, just didn’t seem feasible.

And as I pulled off my scarf and checked my browser, waiting a few seconds for mails to load, and clicking on one that claimed to be urgent.

Mostly, these were mails with queries that had to do with previous accounts or budgets I had drawn up, and for a while it had been kind of quiet. I figured that there was someone competent in my old position, and I was genuinely glad.

This time, there was a single e-mail that stood out, and as I opened it and skimmed its contents, my heart beat with a certain kind of intensity that I’d never felt before.

The mail stated that a case had been opened against me, from Hammonds, claiming that I had stolen a large chunk of money with signed documents (by me) to confirm. It cited references from bank statements and messages and pictures from some Instagram accounts that I didn’t recognise. There were a host of accusations and allegations and I couldn’t even see anything made sense to me at that moment.

I actually couldn’t even think properly. I was in absolute shock, as I scrolled down in a daze.

My world had stopped. It was like everything had frozen in time. I wasn’t even sure what on earth had happened, but all I knew was that someone was out there to get me, and they were doing everything in their power to do so.

I glanced at the e-mail again, closed my eyes, and then, for first time since Layyanah’s death, I completely broke down.

---

Authors Note: Apologies for the delay. Signal issues since I’m not in the city. And the drama starts once again…. 

Mission Sunnah Revival: 
Sunnah of Noble Character: 

Nabi (SAW) gave attention, spoke and showed love to even the worst person of a nation until the person felt that he is being given special attention.

May Allah make us of those who uphold the Sunnah of character always.

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

#RevivetheSunnahofUsingtheRighthand

FB/Instagram: @thejourneyingmuslimah

 

 

When we Lose Ourselves

Bismihi Ta’ala

Mohsina

Part 68

We all have our things that we do, that no one knows about. We all have our sins that we hide, until we find ourselves sinking into them. We all have moments when we lose us, who we really are, and become something that we’re not.

And as I gazed outside, the sun making its way out for the day, I found myself wondering at what point in ones life you hit that Nanima level, where the sun is at its brightest, and you can sit with a kitaab the entire day, and have no inclination to chase after the next best thing.

I often wondered, when I thought of Nani in great admiration, at which point I could ever be like that.

In theory, it sounded easy. Be good. Read your Qur’ān. Sit for Taaleem. Keep away from sin. Just stop craving excitement. Stop chasing the need to always be entertained.

And I wish I could just be so straight and pious, but the fact is that, as noble as our intention are, and as easy as it may seem in theory to only have Jannah vibes, we’re not always as strong as we think.

And it scared me. There were days when I felt that I was just barely pulling through. Almost like when you’re looking out after the sunset, into the darkness, trying to see the shadow of your hand… or even the glimpse of the shadow of it in front of you, and all you can see is the blackness.

That was me.

I was in a state the entire morning. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t bake. I couldn’t focus on much besides the fact that Hamzah was completely ignoring my messages and I had no idea what had happened to make him like this.

Only, I couldn’t handle the pressure, and so I caved.

I slipped. I had spent way too long fighting my inherent tendencies to be the horrible person that I was, and so I caved and finally let it out. It had been way too long, staying away from all the haraami-girl things that I stayed away from during the last few months and somehow, I just gave in the the inner Shaytaan because I couldn’t hold myself back any longer.

Completely and irrefutably. I had absorbed myself in the new Netflix Turkish series that everyone was raving about while trying to divert my mind, until I realised that it was two-o-clock and I hadn’t even taken a shower.

Yes. That bad.

And then Saaliha messaged to say that Hamzah was there at the farm with some mafia guy and was meeting more mafia people and that’s when I turned into Nani and found myself losing every desire for haraam, because I felt like I was probably being punished for slipping up.

And I supposed that it happened for a reason.

I sighed.

And now, after all the drama of caving and guilt after, came a Mohsina who was panicking about her husband who seemed to have thrown himself into the midst of people who were most probably after our blood.

I was sitting on the couch, tasbeeh counter on hand, Nani style, diligently reading page after page of the book she had gifted me on my Nikah day.

My. Goodness.

I was turning into Nani. And the notion was making me feel all kinds of crazy, but as I sat on Friday evening in my burka and with my pansoora, as Nani would, making a very fervent Duaa for Allah Ta’ala to save us from all harm and destruction, I felt very positive that I was turning into my grandmother way ahead of time.

And although those moments were very rare, I had a very strong feeling that it was only in these private and desperate moments that I was finding my base, my truth and really connecting with my Lord to find my own self. It was true that dhikr was the only time that I could find myself warding off the tactics that Shaytaan always used with me…

There was just way too much going on all at once and simply being the way I was used to being didn’t help a thing.

And besides stressing over my husband having a death wish, the next thing I knew, Nani was WhatsApp calling me (like normal calls don’t even exist) and told me in her very secretive voice that Doctor Muneer had proposed for Jameela, and I went into a state of panic.

Jameela was nineteen. Nineteen. Was it really wise for her to be embarking on the marriage journey right then? 

“Don’t tell anyone yet,” Nani had almost whispered into the phone.

She didn’t call me often but when she did, you had to be certain that she had some really juicy news.

“Khairoon says he wants go there properly and speak to her again, but you know Jameela will think too much.”

“Mhmm,” I said vaguely.

She was allowed to think too much. Was Nani suggesting that she should just accept blindly, without even thinking properly, just because the proposal looked good on paper? 

She was still talking.

My sister was beautiful. Intelligent and amazing, and all the rest. I also knew that Doc was quite a realist and very much in touch with his own self, and it may be a bit of a shock to her. But also, well, isn’t that exactly what she needed to come back down to earth?

“…but I told them to rather phone and give proposal first and make it quick. You know Maulana was saying we must do whatever goood we can do fast fast, because the fitnas also are coming so fast. Fast fast.”

I wasn’t sure if Maulana had meant forcing your granddaughter into a marriage, but she was right about the fitna part. It was like things were overcoming us without even warning. Everywhere I looked, there was some new kind of challenge for people like me, who got trapped into everything. With social media so accessible, and everything so fast-paced… There were no gaps between to even give us a break between, and true to the Hadith, it felt overwhelming in every sense.

Just like the beads fall from a necklace, the fitan are falling with no relent… it felt like the darkness was layering upon more darkness until we were just slipping more and more underwater.

And who knew it better than me, who was always consumed with some social media event or something online. Our phones had become the main source and cause of this and the reason for Imaan leaving a person.

It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) observed: Be prompt in doing good deeds (before you are overtaken) by turbulence which would be like a part of the dark night. During (that stormy period) a man would be a Muslim in the morning and an unbeliever in the evening or he would be a believer in the evening and an unbeliever in the morning, and would sell his faith for worldly goods.

It was so true. So true that we won’t even realise that the trials are overtaking is. So achingly true that we had to keep in guarding ourselves, even when we didn’t feel threatened.

“She doesn’t know how lucky she is,” Nani was still going on for herself. “He will make Jameela soooo happy. It’s not often doctor comes with marriage proposal.”

I wasn’t sure about him making Jameela happy. Being a doctor or a Maulana for Nani was the ultimate career option for a spouse. Being fair and Nani’s connection was an added bonus.

But all that didn’t matter, I reminded myself. What Jameela wanted was most important.

“As for you Mohsina,” she was saying, and I already knew that I was in for it. “Now you are moved into your place, you must make habit of Taaleem every week. All this phone phone phone business is no good for your silly head. You don’t know what what kind filthy fitna can come into your home..”

As much as I wanted to roll my eyes, I knew that she was right. And I knew that I needed to do it but I was just so damn lazy.

I sighed as went on a bit about how my mother is having Taaleem that week and I had to come, before she rushed off to make her whudhu for Asr, and I put my phone down, thinking about how much was going on.

My brain was overloaded and emotions were overwhelming. Marriage wasn’t always beautiful and easy, and the thought of Jameela heading that was making me a tad bit anxious.

Now, I had to do what I needed to build my shield. Now, I had to do whatever good I could do. Now, I had to keep encouraging my man to attend masjid for every salaah. Now, I had to make a resolution to do daily taaleem.

I had to immerse myself in so much of goodness before I felt like I was so overwhelmed with darkness that my heart was completely submerged.

”Oooh,” Rabia squawked as she sauntered in, making me jump slightly as I realised that she was actually here, in my flat, with Hamzah wheeling in her bag behind her. “Fanc-eeeee!”

It wasn’t fancy. It was just spruced up. Her eyes swept over my table setting for two as she walked in, scanning me momentarily as I held my chin up. Underneath the burka, I was all dressed up, a simple wrap over dress and I had even put on a little heel to appear more alluring.

Zaid was seated in his chair with some boiled carrots, stuffing his soft hammer toy in his mouth instead, and lucky for me, she had already gone over to him before any further comments were issued.

I glanced at Hamzah for a minute, putting my kitaab down and noting him give me an apologetic look as I moved around to the kitchen counter.

“Sorry,” he whispered, coming over and pecking my cheek as I got up to busy myself cutting cucumber while Rabia turned her back to us “I’m so sorry. It’s been a crazy day. Everything’s looking… wow. I didn’t get a chance to warn you about Rabia though…”

”It’s okay,” I said, plastering a smile on my face as he squeezed my shoulder apologetically. “I’m just glad you’re home.”

I really didn’t mind. After what if learnt about Rabia, I had decided to cut her some slack. So what if she annoyed me sometimes, right?

It wasn’t like I was the type to sit back and take it. I would just focus on trying to be a better person and make her feel that maybe I was on her side. Maybe I just needed to win her over. I could handle my own just fine.

As for Hamzah, after going through the notions of wanting to scream, strangle and then chase after him that day, I was now at the pathetic stage of just being glad that he was here, alive and in one piece. I really was.

And the thing was, I know that I hadn’t been the best person in the world. I had been selfish and petty. I had been proud and unapologetic at times. I knew that I had much to work on myself and the entire day alone was enough to make me rethink my entire stance on life.

I needed to be better. No. I wanted to be better. I had tried several ways to divert thoughts and improve the way I lived life, but I had still gotten caught up.

“How was your day?” He asked softly as Rabia took Zaid to the room with her, and he left his bag near the door.

Where did I even start? 

“Jameelas guy called to propose.”

The words were out of my mouth sooner that I could even think about them.

Hamzah raised his eyebrows.

“Mr Smoothie?” He said with a shocked expression, and I could help but let out a snicker.

Mr Smoothie, indeed.

Shame. He was just super health conscious, and according to Jamz, he was super smooth too.

”You think she will accept?” He asked, narrowing his eyes slightly as he pulled at his beard and leaned over the counter.

He had removed his kurta and hung it up on a coat hanger near the door that proved to be so useful.

I was having so much of fun buying all these sale items for our new place to make it functional.

Functionality was the new fashion. Decorating on a budget was also a great diversion from all the online junk I usually got caught up in.

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “I heard that she got her London visa and I doubt that Nani will be happy about her going. She wants everything to be ‘fast fast’. Quote unquote.”

I looked at him and he smiled.

”That’s good advice,” he said softly, a hint of emotion behind his voice. “I wish we… anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s good advice.”

And although it gave me a slight ache in my gut, because it was our choice to delay everything… I knew that he was right.

So much could have been avoided if we really did make it fast fast.

The topic immediately took me back to all the things that happened in between, and how things had digressed with Faadil and I really wished that sometimes I could smack some sense into my past self.

“Are you okay?” He asked me, standing up and glancing at his phone, a quizzical look flashing on his face as he paused to watch me.

I wasn’t sure what to tell him. I wasn’t really okay, but I had tortured myself enough for the day and I really didn’t need any more.

“I’m just worried,” I said truthfully, knowing that it encompassed most of the feelings that had been on my mind. Not about him getting murdered, specifically. I could be worried about anything, really. “Are you okay?”

So much was still hanging in the air between us. I wanted to ask him about his mafia people. About what was going on with Zaid. But Saaliha had sworn me to secrecy.

All I knew was that he was looking a million times better than he had that morning. That morning, he had been all agitated and on edge, as if he was waiting for a bomb to explode at any second.

“I actually met with Hashim,” he said, dropping his voice as he spoke.

I had to pretend to be shocked at least.

”Hashim?” I asked, feeling my chest constricting with the mere mention of his name.

He nodded feebly.

”Do you know how dangerous he is?” I said, realising that Hamzah probably had no idea of what Hashim was really like.

I was angry earlier, but now that I had calmed down and was getting angry again… it was like another emotion entirely.

I loved my husband, but he wasn’t always the easiest person to read and I hated that. I really wished that he was just more open with me.

“But it was all okay, Mos,” he said calmly, coming closer and reaching for my hand, trying to placate me.

I pulled back, not bothered about how this all looked if Rabia, who had just waltzed in, had to see. What mattered was that he had put himself into a situation that was completely compromising.

From what Saaliha had said, the entire thing had a potential to get so dangerous. And I knew that I was relieved that he had made it home, but him being so careless and flippant about it was what was frustrating me more.

He had a meeting with one of the people I had sworn to never give the time of day to, about our son, and didn’t even bother to inform me.

What was consuming me now was the possibility that Faadil and Hashim were conspiring against us in a most dangerous way, and I just couldn’t figure it all out.

What if it was all a big ploy? Somehow, all these pieces that seemed interlinked, just weren’t fitting together. All I knew that Faadil was never one to back down easily, and hurting someone else to get to me wasn’t beyond his abilities.

We needed to talk. Hamzah and I. Properly. But now, with Rabia here, was barely the time.

The thing was, as much as I felt like he was hiding something from me, I hadn’t been completely open with him either, and the more that I thought if this situation, I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault too.

It was a long, torturous night. Hamzah was busy till late and with Rabia around, the conversation was completely stunted. It was extremely difficult having an argument with someone else in the house.

I knew that she sensed something was up between us. She hadn’t asked but the more Hamzah tried, the more annoyed I got. I wanted to have a full discussion but it was really difficult to fight with your spouse in the midst of company. I knew that it would have to wait till the following evening, if I wanted to have some solution.

I hated sleeping without speaking, but he had been busy on a call and somehow, things were still awkward between us the following morning.

And with the weekend starting, Saturdays were always a busy day. We often went to Liyaket’s mother to see her and spend some time with her, and Zaid sometimes stayed with her for an hour or two. He sometimes tried to go through some of Liyaket’s stuff when he was there. It was Hamzah’s way of fulfilling his duty to his friend, and paying tribute to the legacy he left behind.

With Hamzah and I still on shaky ground and Rabia around that particular day, I had decided to let Hamzah take Zaid on his own, and finish some baking before I headed off to my in-laws that evening. It just seemed like a feasible plan at the time, and I barely realised that it may have not been the wisest one.

I had already got a host of orders for the following week and as Rabia came in from the gym, which was literally opposite out apartment block, I gave her a once over while she sat opposite where I worked, sipping on a health smoothie that she had probably bought from there.

“Salaams,” I greeted kindly, cleaning out the bowl of cheesecake filling as she watched me work. “Did you have a good workout?”

I had ventured out on the gym scene for a few months when I had first started working but as soon as my mother found out about it, she had made my father stop me. There was way too much of free mingling for her liking, too much of blaring music and the thought of me being seen on the treadmill next to some strange muscle man gave her a hernia.

“Amazing !” Rabia swooned brightly, looking all shiny and refreshed with her hair pulled back and her cap on.

Somehow, there was no space for hijab in her gym attire. I wasn’t judging her but with her new vibe that she was trending, I could see that she was trying a little too hard to fit in to the whole new instagram fitness trend. I knew it because at one sordid stage in my life, I had been exactly where she was.

”Cool,” I said, not really wanting to engage in conversation as I piped a caramel topping over some completed mini cakes.

It took a certain amount of concentration to do them neatly, and I was kind of glad that it distracted me from saying anything I would regret later. It was her expression. The whole gym with instagram and having to always validate herself with her selfies. I knew exactly where she was in life and how illusive that world could seem.

“Lots of orders came in?” She said inquisitively, sipping on her smoothie again as I continued with my task. “I see you’ve been very busy with the advertising.”

“Mhmm,” I said absentmindedly, hoping she would get the hint and go and get dressed. The sooner we went to my in laws, the sooner the rift between Hamzah and I cousins be resolved.

I honestly just wanted to be alone so I could wallow in self-pity for a bit longer. I was feeling confused and depressed, and I couldnt quite figure out why.

“A friend of mine sells the most amazing cookies from home,” she said admirably, swiping her phone open to open sole insta account. “When she told me how much money she makes, I was shocked. The home industry has amazing potential, doesn’t it? I’m sure you’re coining it, nuh?”

I frowned slightly, wondering what she was getting at. Money wasn’t the most important thing.

Pastry cheffing was my passion. If my father hadn’t insisted I study something ‘real’, if would have been my default career. I loved every bit of creativity it squeezed out of me. I loved the thrill of completing orders, and the looks of utter besottedness that I see in clients faces when they fetch their orders.

Although auditing was fun, for me, that contentment was nothing like I felt when I saw the sheer appreciation with the result of my delicious creations.

”I love your ring, by the way,” she was going on, looking up from her phone and glancing at the diamond ring on my right hand, her eyes almost bulging as she gawked at it openly. “Is it your wedding band?”

She looked confused because there hadn’t been a wedding band. There was barely any time for that when Hamzah and I made nikah. We weren’t even thinking about those things…

”Hamzah gifted it to me a few weeks back,” I said quickly, before she said anything else. To tell the truth, when we got married, we were both so bowled over by grief and emotion that we didn’t think beyond Zaid and just trying to make things work between us.

”Wow,” she said, looking surprised. “So the eternal flame pendant… and now the ring…”

I narrowed my eyes slightly, feeling the acceleration in my chest as she mentioned the pendant, hoping she wasn’t going to ask me about the pendant.

Be patient, Mos. Rabia doesn’t really mean to annoy you. She just can’t help herself. 

I wanted to be good. To be strong. I had slipped yesterday and didn’t want to lose my resolve to be a better person. I had to try, as hard as she made it.

“It seems like my brother will do anything for you,” she said, her voice sickly sweet, but I could tell from a glance at her that she was being anything but.

I breathed in deeply, avoiding eye contact with her. What was this girls vibe? 

I had a resolve to be better, but she was making it really difficult to. 

”I didn’t ask for the ring,” I said stiffly, knowing what she was thinking. She was implying that I was a gold digger. Duh.

“Oh, you don’t have to ask,” she said. “Hamzah lurrrvs to spoil his women.”

His women? Did she really just say that?

“I’m not women,” I said bitterly, anger rising like bile in my chest. What was her problem? “I’m his wife.”

I wasn’t sure if I was being sensitive, but I felt almost as if she was poking me where she wanted it to hurt most. Why, I wasn’t even sure. She was way too comfortable with talking people down.

“Well, since you made it here by default,” she cooed with a cynical smile, cocking her head at me. “I hope that you don’t plan on cashing in from him this entire marriage. I’ve seen the type of things you like to show off…”

My mouth dropped open as she said it, looking so serious as she stared me dead in the eye, and I couldn’t help but gaze at her for a few seconds, waiting for her to say she was joking, or at least retract her statement.

But she didn’t. She didn’t, and I was not going to stand here, in my home, in my kitchen, to listen to her saying things to me that made me want to break her lip-glossed mouth.

“Please leave,” I breathed, my cheeks flaming and my voice steady as I glared at her, just as I heard the key in the door turning. “Leave.”

At that point, I didn’t care what she had been through, and I didn’t care what I sounded like. I didn’t care that Hamzah was there, staring at us now as he entered, as I placed down my piping bag, stiffened my shoulders and gave her a death stare.

All I knew was that this girl needed to go, right then, before I lost my mind. Before I lost myself.  All I knew that there was no way I could spend a single second longer in her company, without punching her in the face, and so I had to get rid of her before I did.

“Please just go,” I said again, my voice thick and slicing through the air like a knife.
“Just leave my house and never come back.”

---

A little bit of dramatics… is Rabia pushing the limits or is Mohsina overreacting… will reply to comments soon 💕

Love to hear from all the readers

 

Much love

A x

Mission Sunnah Revival: 

Being able to view the lives of others as if they are our own in the main building block to social media life.

It is only human to begin to think that the lives of strangers appear to be so perfect, as opposed to reality. Little do we notice that their content is carefully crafted to do this very thing, making us discontent with our lives.

To combat this, we should look to those inferior to us, so we do not become envious and begin to realise the bounty Allah Ta’ala has gifted us with.

Keep in mind:

Abu Huraira reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Wealth is not in having many possessions. Rather, true wealth is the richness of the soul.”

Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6446, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1051

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

#RevivetheSunnahofUsingtheRighthand

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When Adventures Begin

Bismihi Ta’ala

Mohsina

Part 53

There are moments in your life when you realise that time is divided into two parts- that’s there’s a before and there’s an after, and you realize that nothing will ever be the same again.

Okay I’m just kidding. But honestly, I could not believe this was happening to me. The first day I decided to use a stove and load shedding gets right in the middle of my good house-wife plans. No electricity from 6AM that morning was really a pain in the most inconvenient places.

You see, when Hamzah told me that the stove was gas, I figured it would be no issue. I didn’t know that you literally had to burn your fingers off before getting a decent flame to cook with. And after striking the match about a hundred times, I had finally got somewhere, before I managed to crack an egg in the stainless steel bowl I had found in the third drawer. I had attempted what I would have found impossible at any other point in my life.

I was just as bad as figuring the kitchen utensils but I knew that today, more than any other day, when Zaid was busy gurgling away in his bouncer and feeling like a king, and Rabia wasn’t around, would be a good day to start learning. At least it meant that I  could have the kitchen to myself and not have to worry about her watching me like the incapable chef that I was.

“Are you using the stove yet?” Hamzah called in a concerned tone, from the top of the stairs. “Are you sure you okay?”

”Im fine!” I said bluntly.

Gosh, how rude. It was his code for saying: “Please don’t burn the house down.”

He was worse than Nani.

“Hamzah seems to think we can’t cook,” I said quietly to Zaid, who was smiling at me adorably. “Let’s give him the shock of his life, okay?”

Zaid gurgled happily, looking exceptionally pleased with the idea. I wished I could knock him for a six with a 5 course breakfast but it was a tall order. Eggs and baked beans were all I could manage for now.

Yes, I was a bit insulted but I sucked it up and poured the egg into the hot pan with oil , watching it splutter with glee as I took a step back, a little concerned for my face. Like, what if the gas exploded and hit me? It was the first time I had used a gas stove and I didn’t have a death wish.

Also, I was super annoyed because I couldn’t even send Jameela and Nani a picture of my cooking accomplishments right then, because signal was as crappy as ever. Nani had already sent me some easy recipes and a request for pictures and I had gotten the hint that cooking for Hamzah was an essential.  She was convinced that Hamzah’s sole purpose in life was to be fed three full meals a day, and he wasn’t exactly self sufficient. The most he could do was boil kettle water and burn toast.

Right now though, I couldn’t even pacify her with evidence of anything worthy.

With the lack of basic privileges we become accustomed to, it sometimes felt as if I lived on an entirely different planet.

And I hadn’t realized it yet, but I ought to have understood by then that gratitude is magic. That electricity, water, WiFi and even petrol or all bounties of Allah Ta’ala and the thing is we have done nothing to earn our bounties, yet, regardless, we’ve been blessed with it.

What we didn’t realise was that sometimes Allah was saving us from other harms, in the process of not having that signal to message and call someone. Perhaps we were getting saved from some gossip, or argument, when that call couldn’t be made. Perhaps we are getting relieved of some Haraam in the fact that WiFi wasn’t always at our disposal. The thing was, all these favours were gifts from Allah Ta’ala that we take for granted.

And as the egg blubbered all happily and so did Zaid, I felt amazingly accomplished as I tossed around, feeling a bit more optimistic about the way things were heading.

I just hoped that the food would be edible and Hamzah would live to tell the tale. Also, well, this was way too early in the morning for me to even start with kitchen shenanigans, but it was just as well that I had already woken up to the sound of the shower water running, and there was barely even a sliver of daylight in the sky.

I had no idea that Hamzah was such an aspiring early bird. His waking up routine was a little bit too much for my own laid-back one, but I knew that marriage was a ball game that I’d have to start playing properly at some time. I wasn’t even sure where he had gone to before the crack of dawn, but he took a while to come back after Fajr and I was glad that I had a little bit of time before making my way down.

The thing was, my in-laws would all be back tomorrow and I knew that I had to at least be competent at some cooking. Hamzah could not survive on cheesecakes and pastries for the rest of our lives.

Also, well, the point of immersing myself in my cooking  task was due to me trying to get my mind off yesterday’s horrifying images as fast as I could. There was so much that had happened in such a short space of time, and I couldn’t hell but feel a little overwhelmed by the events.

Somehow, I just felt more responsible. I wanted to prove more, that I was doing a good job, before anything else stood in our way.

And the thing was, yesterday, we barely had any time to discuss it any of the issues that were lurking.  Hamzah had been rushing for Esha salaah, and I had let him focus on driving because I knew very well how he hated to miss Salaah in Jamaat. The only concern was that the traffic was appearing to intensify as we moved along the main highway.

I wanted to know his real thoughts on the doctors advice but as the traffic doubled up and we moved at a snails pace along the main freeway, my thoughts were halted as sirens from behind us started blaring, and I literally went cold as the scene ahead of us already came into view.

Naturally, all other thoughts were shelved as I looked out now, into the stack of cars that were ahead. Hamzah’s window was slightly open due to the cigarette he had been smoking earlier, and I could already hear people in the next car talking, their phones out their window, trying to capture the graphic scene ahead, as the chaos around us ensued.

And as much as I wanted to block my ears as they started talking, their voices were still as clear as day.

“Ya Allah, there’s a baby in that car,” someone was almost screaming. “Put the phones away, its not right!”

The person had a point. This was someone’s worst nightmare. A horrible tragedy that could be fatal. Capturing it on camera seemed so heartless, but who cares these days?

My heart pounded in my chest, as I closed my eyes, knowing that we were nearly at the scene. It seemed like it had just happened and I couldn’t bear it…

For a minute, as I held my breath, I was almost hesitant to look, for fear of what I would see.

”There’s a small child in the car!” Someone screamed again, and without even casting a sideways glance, Hamzah’s finger pressed down on the button, eager to shut out all the sounds, my mind going into overdrive as I processed what this meant.

I couldn’t even look at him at that point. All I could think of was how Hamzah was still going to move past this devastating collision, the part where two cars were already overturned and the truck was on its side. The part where all I could think of was our dearest friends who had just passed on. I wasn’t sure how we were going to keep ourselves together as we egged on, but all I knew right then was that I couldn’t  bare to cast my gaze anywhere on the road.

And of course, I could barely do anything else beside hastily turned my face away as we got closer, not wanting to even process the condition of the truck on the side of the road and unsightly smashed cars.

I didn’t even realised that I was holding my breath as I kept my eyes shut, hearing Hamzah’s breath quicken and clutching Zaid a little tighter as we by passed the main point of congestion, already aware that Hamzah was purposely going a little faster than the other drivers. While other cars were slowing down to get a good look at the accident scene,  Hamzah sped up, trying his best to move past it all, without having to directly process it, and I knew exactly why.

My heart was already contracting painfully, as I remembered that fateful night.

The baby. There’s a baby. There’s a baby in the car.

The car was a crumpled mess and the words were still echoing in my ears. The emotions that had pulsated through me then were still wrecking havoc within. The whole scenario was something that I could barely, for the life of me, come to terms with.

And it was undeniable that everywhere we turned, there was a reminder about our friends that we just didn’t have the heart to deal with as yet.  I heard that there had been pictures of Liyaket’s car, but I knew that I couldn’t dare to look at them.

This was close. Too close for comfort. Seeing the accident scene was something that had caught us both completely off guard, and as my heart pounded in my chest, nervous about the outcome of what exactly was going to happen here, I couldn’t help but feel myself shudder at the possibilities.

Riveted by what we had just been faced with, even after passing the worst of it, I could sense the obvious trauma and discomfort.

And like it had never happened at all, the car was silent again, except for Zaid’s breathing. Both Hamzah and I were too shaken to even talk. I looked out the window, tears streaming down my face, as I tried to keep it together. Internally, I could tell that Hamzah felt exactly the same way, but he expertly held himself back.

It didn’t take long to get home after he stopped for Salaah at a mosque on the way. We had entered the silent house, walking up to our room, placing Zaid down in the cot Hamzah had bought for him, still reeling from the shock of what we had just witnessed. The house seemed almost lonely without Rabia’s noise there. Rabia had gone to her cousin ten minutes away, on account of us coming home so late.

And of course, a half hour after we had seen it, I could not stop thinking about it. For a while, I wished that I did look. At least then, I would have known what had really happened, instead of tormenting myself and thinking of the worst possible scenario.

And I wanted to ask Hamzah about it… to talk about the accident and to touch base with how we all felt, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I didn’t want to bring it up, to revisit that place, to go back to the place where I was on that fateful night, while I sat in my upmarket Hammond’s apartment up to no good, before my life had changed so suddenly.

For a few minutes, I couldn’t meet his eye.

I kept myself busy, as he hung up his kurta and I took off my abaya. My scarf was unpinned and placed over the chair. My motions were purposely slow as I did it, feeling the intensity of his gaze on me, as I finally met his it…

I hadn’t trusted myself to say anything. The room sounded almost eerily quiet, and there was not even a sound that was coming from outside. For the first time that week, we were completely alone and we could barely even think of words to say to each other.

But I knew I had to, as he came closer, almost as if he didn’t quite understand how to deal with this… we didn’t know how to seek comfort after this.

It felt like just yesterday, when that sting of loss had sunk us to the depths of grief. It felt like hours ago when I had first gotten the call, telling me that my friend had lost her life, much earlier than I would have ever imagined.

Everything was coming at us like never before, and though it had nearly broken us inside, we knew that we had to accept it. We knew that the reminder was just what was needed for us to seek the truth of what we knew.

Allah Ta’ala says in the Holy Qur’an:

”And say to them, Oh Muhammed (Sallalahu Alaihi wa Sallam), the things of this world are few (temporary), the things of the Aakhirah is better for him who fears Allah; you shall not be wronged (even the amount of) a single date fibre. Wherever you are, death will reach you, even if you’re in strong and high towers.” (An Nisah 77-78)

And now, as I stirred the baked beans and heard Hamzah making his way downstairs, I couldn’t help but think of how much Hamzah had matured over these months. All I could think of was that a helluva lot more than what I knew must have happened for him to have become the man he had. One day, I hoped that his experiences and thoughts would be narrated to me, and I could get a glimpse into what was really on his mind…

“Zaidoo!”

I turned to look at him as Hamzah’s voice cut into my thoughts now, as I buttered the toast, placing it on the side plate as he picked Zaid out of the bouncer. I mean, I wouldn’t usually butter someone’s toast but I’d always seen my mother do it for my father and it just seemed like a cute thing for couples to do for each other.

And naturally, as I caught the scent of his familiar oud, whilst I just smelt of onion and oil, the awkwardness was unparalleled. And though I had actually made an effort to look as good as I could early on a Saturday morning, I was still wearing my bunny slippers and I just felt a little ridiculous as I snuck a glance at him, dressed in a fitted sage t-shirt with a white three-quarter pants, all ready for the day. Also, it was super nerve-wrecking because he was looking at the food a little reservedly, almost as if he wasn’t quite sure whether he should tuck into it or not, and I wasn’t even sure whether to invite him to.

”This looks good,” he said optimistically, giving me a thumbs up. I didn’t want to tell him that looks could be deceiving and he should taste it first, so I just smiled back nervously.

And of course, if he was wary, he hid it well. He had already headed the safe route by taking a toast from the plate and biting into it. I was scrutinising his every move and I knew I was acting crazy but I couldn’t help feel excessively nervous.

And of course, I was extremely relieved that the toast wasn’t burnt, and his hand slowly ventured towards the baked beans spoon, as I simultaneously tried very hard to distract myself and bring some tea cups to the table.

This was very awkward but I knew that I had to act natural. Like I cooked for my new husband every day.

”It’s good, Mos,” Hamzah finally said with a smile, and even if it was forced, I didn’t care.  I did appreciate the compliment, but as I was about to dish out too, Hamzah’s phone from behind me just started ringing and I hastily got up to bring it to him.

And I didn’t even notice Hamzah’s slightly panicked look as he saw me reach for it, and I was hardly the sneakish type, but I couldn’t help but notice the caller ID that had popped up on the screen a few minutes before.

For a minute, I was just stumped. It had jolted me a bit, but not in an entirely bad way, as I processed exactly what it said, and passed it to him, not able to really comprehend what it meant.

Your Jannah is Calling.

Like, my heart was literally endowed with amazement for this man by now.

It was like an awakening for my dormant soul became I could not really process what a unique thing Hamzah had saved his mother as, and how that made me feel right then.

I mean, imagine if I were the reason for someone’s Jannah? Imagine if I appeared in that way on someone’s caller ID. What an honour that was… to be the reason for their Jannah.

As much as I wanted to have my own kids at some point, the fact was, I hadn’t thought about it recently. I had been so consumed by Zaid and then by marriage with Zaid, that my own needs had been completely sidelined.

“Mummy,” Hamzah said instantly as he answered, glancing at me a little weirdly and then turning away. “Wa alaykum Salaam.”

I could hear my mother-in-laws voice on the other side, and as he answered I could see that she was asking after Zaid and how he was feeling.

“Sure, I’ll call you back, Mums,” he said quietly, after he answered the first three questions. “Just having some breakfast. Mohsina went all out this morning.”

I flushed because he couldn’t have been farther than the truth. But shame, it was sweet of him to make me seem like I was being a good wife. Also, he barely even acknowledged his compliment as he cut the call, looking at me, and then frowning slighy as if he was deliberating if he should really say what he wanted to.

“So you’re really going to do it?” He asked finally, looking at me questioningly.

I was a bit confused as I munched on my toast and looked back at him, I hadn’t even realised that I had been fiddling with the bottles that the doctor had prescribed for me the day before.

“Do what?” I asked, and he gestured to the them. And it seemed coincidental and maybe even subconsciously…. because I had just been thinking of that very amazing thing…

”The feeding thing,” he said with a slight smile, sitting back and pouring water into his cup for tea. I could see him looking inside to check if the teabag was there, and of course, if wasn’t.

I passed him one from the counter top, trying hard to keep a straight face. I had no idea that Hamzah was so pampered.

”I don’t know,” I said, to answer him.

Which was true. The feeding thing. I liked what he called it, and it was an awkward topic. And of course, I wanted to have this full on discussion, to weigh the pros and the cons and talk about the doctors advice as a couple doing this but there was one thing that was holding me back.

“I’m still so two-minded,” I said, pulling a slight face. “I don’t know which side of the fence I fall on. I mean, I don’t even know if I would have breastfed my own kids and I’ve been hearing so much about how it can change your body and stuff…”

Oh gosh, now I just sounded shallow and forward too. Hamzah and I hadn’t even discussed having our own kids, but Maahira had been telling me stuff that had been making me hesitant and I couldn’t seem to stop the worry. Hamzah didn’t meet my eye.

“I just feel like I’m stepping over the limit here,” I said quickly, before he got any odd idea, knowing that it was my main reason for holding back.

I was stepping over the limit. But where were the limits even? What Hamzah and I were in… well, I wasn’t even sure.

And I was feeling all flustered because the crux of it was that I almost felt as if I was taking Layyanah’s place. The feeling had been coming at me, from the week before, when I met Layyanahs sister, but it was now as clear as ever, as I wondered what exactly to do.

It took him a few seconds before Hamzah spoke.

“Mos… I think we need to face up to what’s happened,” he said quietly, his gaze not meeting mine, as he put some sugar in his tea.

I nodded, looking at him questioningly, before he started talking again.

“I’ve been living as if I’m waiting for Liyaket to come back and tell me what to do. Im so used to him giving me advice. Asking him where to go from here. Living as if life is on pause, until that happens. I’ve been living as if I can’t live… you know? But that’s not what death is supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be so hard on us, that we lose hope in life.”

I nodded, swallowing hard, feeling like I wanted to cry again. As if yesterday wasn’t enough for us.

I couldn’t think of what to say. I felt like a traitor. Like we were living the life that they were supposed to be living sometimes.

“I went to the graveyard today,” he said softly, glancing at me. “For the first time since Liyaket passed.”

My heart kind of plummeted in my chest as he said it. For the first time?

“I know I’m terrible… and it’s my fault,” Hamzah said quietly, his voice dropping even more. “We need to stop tiptoeing around Liyaket and Layyanah’s life. We need to go back to their home. We need to visit the places we used to meet them. Do the things we used to do with them. We need to show Zaid more of what his parents were.”

I sat there silently, not even touching my food, my heart bursting with emotion, but knowing that he was undeniably right. We were behaving as if they were going to come back and question us, or reclaim what was theirs. We were living our lives in their shadow. Afraid to accept the reality.

“You’re right,” I said, my voice not quite coming out the way I wanted it to, as I glanced at Zaid who was rubbing his eyes now, and looking quite tired. I needed to snap back to reality. Stop waiting for Layyanah. Stop feeling guilty.

“So I’ve been doing some research,” I said, looking at him as I spoke. “About all the things that can happen… the fatwas there are out there and-“

“Listen, Missus Google, let’s forget about all of the virtual stuff,” Hamzah said, winking at me and I rolled my eyes at him.

“Can I tell you what I want to do?” He said, stirring his tea as I watched him. “I just want to live. Do you know what that means? To shut off everyone else and just live for now? Stop worrying about the world and statistics and everything else. Just stop, Mos. There’s so much more that life has to offer you, if you just let everything else go.. you’ll see. See the beauty in everything. Stop worrying. Stop assessing. Stop being such a genius at things that don’t matter…”

He was right. He was so right. I had lived in virtual worlds and in parallel universes and none of it was ever real. Everything had been about illusions and filters and most of the time, everything in my life had been channeled toward the next Instagram post and how I was going to make the world swoon.

I closed my eyes for a moment, shutting out all thoughts and reservations and knowing that although I had things to say, it wasn’t the wisest thing to do. It just felt so right to be in the moment.

And it was. Hamzah was right.

Sometimes being in the moment was a hundred times more amazing than any virtual experience. And maybe once upon a time, when I was silly and deluded, I didn’t think so. Maybe once before. I had been enamored by the reels and taken in by a filtered world, but now that Hamzah had come into my life, I knew that there had to be a purpose for it.

It wasn’t only about Zaid. It wasn’t about this situation. Right then, it wasn’t just about circumstances.

“I should do it, right?” I said with a cock of my head. “It’s going to be something of an adventure for us all, don’t you think.”

“I’ve got bigger things planned, pookie,” he said, grinning like a nutcase. “Real adventures. Choose adventure.. choose excitement. Stop with the virtuality. Let’s just live, okay?”

Lets just live. He was right. Maybe I analysed things too much. Got too caught up in my virtual worlds.

“And how do you suppose we do that?” I said, leaning forward and looking at him with narrowed eyes, as he gave me his one dimpled smile.

“I know just the place to take you to.”

---

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
الحمد لله رب العالمين

On the Day Of Ashura

The Prophet ﷺ was asked about fasting the day of Ashura and he said, “It will expiate the sins of the past year.”

The hardships we face are paths leading us to ALLAH, to build our reliance on ALLAH alone. The story of Moosa AS is one of perseverance. He knew the situations were from ALLAH and the outcome will come from ALLAH. He showed us a path of gratefulness, by fasting on the day that ALLAH had saved him.
How many oceans has ALLAH opened for us and not caused us to be swallowed into the darkness!
The Rabb of Moosa AS and your Rabb is the same, so let your faith overpower your fear, for your Rabb has not abandoned you nor forsaken you.

May Allah make it easy for us to keep these fasts ❤️

Sunnah of Forgiveness:

With the New Islamic Year already here, and these auspicious days, one of the lessons from the Seerah is how Nabi (SAW) forgave his oppressors, and let go of old whims.

A sublime quality that Nabi (SAW) inculcated into his life on various occasions, and especially on the occasion of Hijrah.

May Allah Almighty give us all the ability to forgive others for the wrong they do to us and make us more productive Muslims through this and may Allah forgive us all for our sins, ameen.

O Allah, purify our hearts from grudges, envy, and cheating. O Allah, amend our relations with our relatives. O Allah, amend our relations with our loved ones. O Allah, make life an increase for us in every good and make death a relief for us from every evil with Your mercy, O Most Merciful of the Merciful.

Aaameen.

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..💕

#RevivetheSunnahofbeingGrateful

#RevivetheSunnahofQur’aanTilaawat

#ReviveSunnahofDuaa

#SunnahofMaintainingTies

#RevivetheSunnahofSadaqah

#RevivetheSunnahofGivingGifts

#RevivetheSunnahofGoodAkhlaaq

#RevivetheSunnahbeforeSleeping

#RevivetheSunnahofGuardingtheGaze

#RevivetheSunnahofLickingtheFingers

#RevivetheSunnahofMiswaak

#RevivetheSunnahofEnteringtheToilet

#RevivetheSunnahofSpeakingGood

#RevivetheSunnahofUsingtheRighthand

FB/Instagram: @thejourneyingmuslimah

The Battle Within

Bismihi Ta’ala

Part 52

Hamzah

The buzzing of my iPhone in the early parts of the morning had already awoken me in a cold sweat, as my breathing quickened.

And there I lay, so far from that nightmarish reality I had just witnessed, in the stillness of the night, I could still feel the wetness of my t-shirt clinging to my back. I turned slightly, feeling the slight weight of my wife’s slender fingers on my shoulder, sliding them away as gently as I could, and shifting toward the edge.

I was almost holding my breath as I shifted toward the edge, with one eye open. I had already glimpsed the caller ID and my heart immediately sank, even lower than I had thought possible at that moment.

Hashim (3)

Layyanah’s brother, the new bane to my life, was at it again, and this time, I could see his relentless pursuit of Zaid’s credentials and custody preferences.

The message came a few seconds later.

Call me back or ul be sorry

Why he couldn’t and wouldn’t let this go, was still beyond me.

It was late. Too late for the crap. Almost 2AM, and I rubbed my eyes, closing them momentarily as I pictured it again the scene that played before me. This time, it was a little earlier than my habitual waking, that I had been doing consistenly since Ramadhaan. The last third of the night. The Barakah of praying then had always brought so much more to my day.  Coming back from Al-Aqsa that Ramadhaan had stemmed a whole lot of vigour in me, but  the haunting dream I had just endured was also due to it.

Spitting on my left side, I tried to desperately suppress the emotions, as raw as the first time I had seen the little girl in them, her blue-grey eyes large and almost translucent, brimming with tears flowing continuously…

“Please don’t shoot,” she was crying, speaking in Arabic, and I had gazed her in the dream, not even understanding how a tiny and pristine creature like that could be abandoned, with not a single soul one to even account for her.

Soldiers had been streaming into the scene at that point, an open road all around Al-Aqsa, running to her, as if she was an enemy out to get them. I was helpless, unarmed and wondering how I could ever assist… 

I had only been able to shake my head, trying to decipher how anyone could ever even think of hurting such an angelic and defenseless child.

“Baba, where are you?!” She cried, searching around her, her eyes filled with terror, sobbing then, as she calls out for her mother.
And as the dream goes on, I attempt to find who she is looking for, but as I turned to look around, I glimpse the blotches of blood splattered on the floor, and without even processing what I was seeing… I already knew that there was no one left… her family’s gone… only a brother, whose barely 5 years in age, lingers around.

And as she wanders, through to the street, I wondered how anyone could be so heartless to hate a child so innocent. I wondered how a child so small, could ever deserve this? How could pointing a gun at a baby, who screams, “please, don’t shoot”, ever be justified?

And as I follow her, thinking how absolutely afraid, yet self-sufficient she looked, she turned to look up at me, her eyes conveying a message of deep determination that I can’t even begin to understand…  just before the muzzle of the gun is felt in my neck as fear shoots through me, and then everything just went black.

It was something close to terrifying, that last part, but it had been a while since the dream had played out again… almost 10 days since the last, but it felt more real than ever this time. I couldn’t understand why it haunted me, but my subconscious was obviously a lot stronger than I knew.

And I knew I shouldn’t have been as terrified because for a believer, martyrdom was the purpose. Not the wealth or booty of this world, we had become so obsessed with, but the feeling of victory that came with the name of Islam flying high once again, was absolutely untouchable.

And of course, I could only have a glimpse of how much they had to endure, from my 10 day experience there. The persistence of the Palestinians, even in the face of death was something that made me fully comprehend the strength and vehemence of even the littlest of children. Their fervor. Their courage. Their utmost perseverance and Tawakkul, even in the face of imminent danger, was unbelievable. And the thought of what they are subjected to made me shiver with terror, I couldn’t seem to stop try mind from replaying the scene over and over again.

I opened my eyes again now, staring into the darkness as my eyes adjusted to the room light. It was the first time since my Nikah that I had had the dream, and I was aware that the events of yesterday that were still fresh in my mind had probably brought it on. I recalled the accident scene we had witnessed on the way back from the doctors room… the raw emotions that came with it and everything that had been gained and lost through it all.

There was a mixture of aching relief that came with the realization. I was one of the lucky ones. The ones who lived in peace, with no fear of war in my midst. The ones who were still alive, despite everything that had transpired. I was the guy who had seen so much, yet couldn’t make it to even voice my inner most thoughts.

I sighed, as my gaze fell on the two people who I now cared about more than I could describe. The reason for my resistance. The point of my patience. The motivation for the heartfelt emotions that were travelling through my veins. The battle within me was one that I didn’t realise yet that I was fighting.

I turned my head back again, with the light peeping through the gap in the curtain, to reassure myself that I wasn’t imagining the blessing I had been endowed with.

I couldn’t quite believe that here I was, next to my wife as Zaid slept soundly on her chest, just a week after my Nikah. And that when I got it… what Liyaket meant when I had watched him all those months back, and I didn’t even know how it had happened.

Somewhere, in between the sins and the thoughts that haunted my mind, in between winging parenting and tip-toeing around each other’s feelings, we had reached this comfortable place. A place where things were good. Hopeful. A place where I felt like I could finally breathe and fill my lungs with a good dose of gratitude  and awe at the great favour of Allah on me.

Unconditional love.

There was a reason that I once told Liyaket that I would be happy alone. It was somewhere in between my breaking things off with Mohsina and his passing and finding Allah had just been the most satiating thing for me.
Also, having felt the way I had felt before, I knew that falling apart over a girl once again, was something like having a huge hole that needs to be endlessly filled. I had battled with every urge, every temptation and every prospective vice before I made it through. It wasn’t that I really thought I’d be happy alone forever. What I was scared of was, was feeling broken to the point of never finding Allah again.

What if I found that I needed the love of someone and then depended on it? What if I actually ended up with the feeling, and actually liked it?

But there I was. I know life can be pretty messy, And as I sat, my heart somewhere precariously close to being on my sleeve, I felt alive in a way that I had never quite felt before.

So let me be honest and just say that I wasn’t ever completely convinced that this was the right thing. That coming back to this place with Mohsina would be the best idea.

But circumstances had happened and we had been somewhat forced to cross paths again. Seeing her, having to interact with her… well, it was different from the image I had conjured up in my mind. The pieces weren’t quite fitting together. Instead of being the money-obsessed Instagram girl, I had seen a new person.

But this was the thing with Duaas, and I remembered Liyakets one with absolute clarity, as I tried to avoid every technique he was using to get me settled.

I never quite knew the meaning of love, of what Liyaket had always wanted for me, until I met Zaid.

And although I had, on many occasions, joked and mocked him about it, when I first held him in my arms as he looked at me like I was the only hero that he would ever know, I couldn’t hold my heart back.

”So this is what you talk about,” I said to him, still looking down at the little human he called his son, not entirely sure if I believed that this child actually belonged to him. “Unconditional love.”

”You got it, bro,” he said, his smile all sentimental and cynical at the same time. “Doesn’t it make you want this too?”

I looked at him and narrowed my eyes, lying through my teeth.

“You think I’m crazy?” I asked, fighting the feeling, as I handed him back over a little sooner than I wanted to. “My life is way too easy without worrying about women and poo nappies.”

He grinned, his dark eyes twinkling with laughter.

”One day,” he said, putting Zaid over his shoulder and smirking. “Someone’s going to make you change your mind and you will eat your words. And that’s going to be my Duaa.”

“No man,” I squealed, still not believing his audacity. “You’re supposed to be my best friend.”

”Exactly,” he said knowingly, a glint in his eye. “And I know what’s best for you, but Allah knows better. I just have a feeling that it’s going to happen in a way you least expect.”

And he was right. Maybe not the way he expected either, but a Du’aa was a Du’aa.

And I knew things weren’t perfect. It had taken a week to get to this point, anyway. The point where all barriers had been crossed, and something very close to love had completely taken over. The point of no return, well, at least for me.

And it had been brought on by a number of things… after the scene of the accident we saw on the way from the doctor had evoked all kinds of emotions. The crumpled mess on the side of the road had made it seem like we were reliving Liyaket and Layyanahs death all over again. We had entered the silent house, walking up to our room, placing Zaid down in the cot I had brought for him from Liyaket’s place, still reeling from the shock of what we had just witnessed.

For once, I wished for noise of a busy household. For people around, to tune out the turbulence in my mind. The house seemed almost lonely without Rabia, who had made a trip to our cousin ten minutes away, on account of us coming home so late.

And of course,I could not stop thinking about what we had seen. For a while, I wished that I did look. At least then, I would have known what had really happened, instead of tormenting myself and thinking of the worst possible scenario.

I had no jokes, pranks or witty remarks to even soften the blow for Mohsina, as she hung up her Abaya and avoided eye contact at all costs.

”You okay?” I had asked, my voice sounding coarse and even peculiar to myself, as I looked at her, full of emotions.

It had been a helluva lot for one day. The advices from the doctor. The fact that Zaid may have an immune deficiency that needed to be confirmed with bloods. She was so strong, for taking this all on… for wanting to go ahead with feeding him, and as I watched her,  her hair tied back in a ponytail, I couldn’t help at look at her in admiration, because it just struck me right then how amazing she was and had been all this time.

And yes… I knew that a lot of this was about Zaid and even though she was still silent, I yearned for something… anything… to prove to me that she wasn’t in this just for him.

And as she approached me, and her arms enveloped me one of the most fiercest of hugs, all we did, for a few minutes, was stand there, in silence, knowing exactly how the other felt, seeking some kind of comfort, fully comprehending how painful the entire experience had been.

It felt like just yesterday, when that sting of loss had sunk us to the depths of grief.

It felt like hours ago when I had first gotten the messages, confirming for me that my lifelong friend had lost his life, much earlier than I would have ever imagined. All I needed right then, for the first time ever, was to let myself sink into the consolation that this degree of closeness had brought, and draw every bit of solace that I could.

“Liyaket was part of my life for almost two decades,” I whispered, and I could feel her breathing quicken as I spoke. “I feel like I’ve lost a major part of me, a portion of my heart and my sight. I can’t erase those chunks of my life, and go on like it never happened.”

She nodded, pausing before she spoke.

“I know,” she said softly. “Two decades… Why would you want to erase it?”

I shrugged.

Because it hurt too much to remember.

Two whole decades of the best friend someone could ever have, guiding and advising me, loving me explicitly, always having the most diplomatic and amazing way to look at things. I loved the guy with a helluva part of my heart. I felt incredibly lost without Liyaket.

”I feel like we are losing more and more of them, every day,” I said softly, breathing in her familiar scent. “I want to hold on…”

“I feel like we’re trying to take over their roles,” she said, so softly that I barely heard her.

I nodded, feeling the same way. Were we unintentionally trying to fill their shoes?

“What if we hadn’t lost them?” she asked softly, and I could hear something that I never heard from Mohsina before, in her voice. It was almost like fear… like an uneasiness that had consumed her, as she said it.

“It was Allah’s will,” I murmured into her hair, knowing that was my only consolation… thinking that’s what she wanted to hear, my voice finally steady. “You can’t question-“

”It’s not that,” she said firmly, pulling back and looking up at at me, her eyebrows slightly furrowed and her brown eyes glistening with tears. “All these questions are going through my mind and I can’t help but wonder. Where would I have been then? Where would you have been? If all this hadn’t happened, would I have changed? Would you have even come back…?”

I knew all these questions. I had asked myself the same ones over and over. I had so many more too. What if things didn’t work out? What if she changed her mind? What if she woke up one day and decided that even though I loved Zaid with everything I had, I wasn’t the right guy for her?

But I knew the answers already. For me, things were either black or white.  I had decided one thing, before I decided to marry her, and that was what I had to stick to. I had never asked her, but from the day I had seen her in Bossman’s car, I figured that he had some sinister intention and though she denied it at the time… I assumed something had happened between them. And though it had plagued me… Right then, though… well, right then, he was the last person I wanted to talk about.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, shaking my head, my eyes holding her gaze. “What I thought or what I wanted… What happened or who featured… Can we just stop thinking?”

And it was true.

Because she had apologized. I had apologized.

And at times it happens that we apologize, but the trust is still shattered. You forgive them but to look at them the same way, is something that you are tested with every day.

And I had felt that. I felt that deeper than I ever thought I would feel anything, but thats where Maulana Umar got me, when he explained it to me.  Allah Azza Wa Jal, in His infinite mercy, not only forgives, but even wipes away the sin completely, as if it never happens. Allah Azza wa Jal, in his astounding love, even commands the writing angels to erase those sins, as if they never happened.

Ar-Rahman forgives those who ask forgiveness with repentance. In the noble Qur’an Allah Almighty says:

“. . . and let them pardon and overlook. Would you not like that Allah should forgive you? And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.”

Forgiveness. Only Allah knew how much it had taken out of me… how much it hurt me not to ask… but it was that verse that pushed me to overlook. I had made that promise to myself, because of what Maulana Umar had told me.

She had changed. Whatever had happened, we had to both let go.
And it was no coincidence. This is not something that happens by chance. This was not something that you decide to do on a whim. A desire to turn towards Allah… towards Deen, towards goodness, is only from Him. Only a favour that those who are blessed and truly loved can ever be privileged enough to encompass.

It was nothing short of Taqdeer, and destiny had a funny way of making everything fall into place.

It all seemed surreal for a while, coming home with so much of devastation and loss… as we grew together, as a family, but what I didn’t anticipate was feeling the way I did. It had been the most emotionally taxing day, but somehow, as our hearts took over, I had silenced the concerns that had been in both our minds, broken down the barriers Mohsina had put up and found solace in the comfort that only a wife could offer. The love, that was slowly creeping over my heart and overtaking it… well, it took me by surprise.

And though our road had been rocky, the way it had panned out, it felt almost as if Allah had made it happen in such a way, that the entire journey I had been through was leading up to what was playing out in front of me.

From Yemen ; back home, and then to Palestine, and then coming home again, with the intention of such great responsibility, I thought that through everything I had been through and seen, I was ready to go all into this.

A new era was approaching, and my resolution was to put everything else behind me, and head in, with a clear motive.

Like at the time of Hijrat, when the Lion of Allah, Hadhrat Hamzah (RadiAllahu Anho) entered the borders of Madinah, he knew that there was much opportunity for the Muslims. Within his breast was Imaan so strong and steady, that the first flag in Islam was handed to him. Within them all, was forgiveness, and hope, and a hope for a new tomorrow.

It was just that, as I walked out the room with my phone in hand, in the early hours of the morning, I now felt more on edge than ever.
Within me, I was fighting a bigger battle. I felt on edge. Threatened, and unwavering. My resolve to protect Zaid from Hashim was even stronger now, than ever. That lion within me… the one that sometimes made its way to forefront in the most trying situations… was bearing its teeth again.

I wasn’t one to back down. I picked up my phone, wondering if I should call him back right then. Let him know that I won’t stand for anything. Be the man I felt myself become, over these past few months.

But as much as I wanted to, something within me held me back, and I stopped myself. Maybe it was Imraan’s words, that had told me not to ask for trouble with him. Maybe it was the thought of starting something that I didn’t yet have the power to finish. All I knew was this Jihaad was something I would fight with my heart and soul.

And for me… as I kept this in mind… I knew that if I had to challenge Hashim from that point on, life would never be the same again. Putting up a fight could harm more people than I wanted. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t help but stop myself, because I knew that nothing good could come out of it.

I knew people like Hashim and I knew how they worked.

But now, as I looked at the caller ID glaring at me again, a wave of ferocity washed over me as I renewed my intent. No matter what. No matter how. I knew that I would stand by my word.

No matter what happened or who came in the way, I was going to protect them from every bit of it, with every ounce of me, but I was also fully aware that I couldn’t ever let Mohsina get an inkling of this.

And in doing that, as I fought my inner battles, what I didn’t know was that I was risking losing everything else in the process…

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Authors note: I was aiming for a bit of a change up with perspective. Will try and post sooner this week InshaAllah … x

Abu Qatada reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: A good vision is from Allah and a bad dream (hulm) is from the satan; so if one of you sees anything (in a dream which he dislikes, he should spit on his left side thrice and seek refuge with Allah from its evil, and then it will never harm him.

Sunnah of Forgiveness:

With the New Islamic Year already here, and these auspicious days, one of the lessons gfrom the Seearh is how Nabi (SAW) forgave his oppressors, and let go of old whims.

A sublime quality that Nabi (SAW) inculcated into his life on various occasions, and especially on the occasion of Hijrah.

May Allah Almighty give us all the ability to forgive others for the wrong they do to us and make us more productive Muslims through this and may Allah forgive us all for our sins, ameen.

O Allah, purify our hearts from grudges, envy, and cheating. O Allah, amend our relations with our relatives. O Allah, amend our relations with our loved ones. O Allah, make life an increase for us in every good and make death a relief for us from every evil with Your mercy, O Most Merciful of the Merciful.

Aaameen.

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..💕

#RevivetheSunnahofbeingGrateful

#RevivetheSunnahofQur’aanTilaawat

#ReviveSunnahofDuaa

#SunnahofMaintainingTies

#RevivetheSunnahofSadaqah

#RevivetheSunnahofGivingGifts

#RevivetheSunnahofGoodAkhlaaq

#RevivetheSunnahbeforeSleeping

#RevivetheSunnahofGuardingtheGaze

#RevivetheSunnahofLickingtheFingers

#RevivetheSunnahofMiswaak

#RevivetheSunnahofEnteringtheToilet

#RevivetheSunnahofSpeakingGood

#RevivetheSunnahofUsingtheRighthand

FB/Instagram: @thejourneyingmuslimah

A Ray of Sunshine

Bismihi Ta’ala

Part 36

Jameela

How do you say goodbye when you didn’t even know you were supposed to say goodbye?

I mean… The thing is, all goodbyes are different. Some are for a day. Some, for a month. And some, as painfully heartbreaking as they are, are forever goodbyes.

And in a beautiful narration that so aptly captured my heartfelt emotions as I recalled it on that fateful night… in one of his books, the famous saint, Imaam Ghazali Rahmatullah writes that Nabi Sallalahu Alaihi wa Sallam once asked Allah Azza Wa Jal:

“O my Rabb, where can I find You?”

And to this, Allah Ta’ala replied:

“You will find Me by those whose hearts are broken.”

(Al-Hamm wal Huzn no 61)

And that’s all it was.

Broken-hearted. Heartbroken.

The emotional transition was something that I could barely understand before this, but now, I could so accurately comprehend.

Was there any way to dull the pain, to lessen the blow..  Was there any less painful way to put it… to feel it… to digest it?

And on that earth-shattering evening, it was blow after blow. Heartbreak upon heartbreak. A slow but steady ache as the evening edged on, hearts bleeding with anguish… we were struck with such an immense feeling of devastation that breathing didn’t even come easily anymore.

And as I looked up, my mind an overwhelming jumble of emotion as the second blow came that night, the only resort I had was to submerge my heart in the knowledge that Allah Taála was the Ultimate Planner, Healer and Over-seeer… the tranquility that had descended thereafter was almost unbelievable. It had all occurred just before Maghrib Salaah, as Liyaket headed back home to drop Layyanah before he would go to Masjid… when his car met in a tragic accident that would be etched in the memory of many, for a long time to come.

”Allah knows best,” was all I could hear, at the end of every sentence, as I heard the voices in the hospital corridor. “It’s Allah’s will. It’s all His plan.”

And that was the only thing that really gets you through it, doesn’t it?

Allah doesn’t take something from us without giving something in return.

Sometimes Allah takes something away from our world, but even through that, surely there has to be a ray of sunshine that will make its appearance, although it just needs its time to come to the shore…

Because amidst the shattered hopes and broken dreams, is a beautiful plan that comes to remind us that every now and again, we must be awakened from our worldly slumber to shift the focus from this meagre world, to the one that is eternal. From a world of futile pursuit to a place where there is no grief, no pain and where glad tidings for the ones who withstand the hurt and the pain with patience are able to say that they’ve truly been humbled by it all..

And oh yes, we were.

Humbled to our very knees, praying with utmost fervency with bated breath almost, my sister and I stood there, in the dreary hospital corridor, on the brink of insanity, as we waited for the news about Liyaket, as the doctors on call tried with every ounce of theirs to give us some hope and keep him with us.

No less than several hours later, using the jaws of life to extract Liyaket from the drivers side of the car, With him being on the side of impact, the devastating collision had injured him significantly.

And as the paramedics rushed him to the nearest hospital and doctors had attempted with every ounce they had to keep him from flatlining, it was only two hours later that Liyaket was announced to have joined his Queen in the abode of eternity, to meet his Lord and reside in forever together.

For the living, though, death was brutal. Like a punch in the stomach… Blurring your vision for a short time, and then bringing the reality of life that we had long ago lost the essence of into focus once again.

Death didn’t look at your wealth, status or your dependents. Death didn’t look at your youthful beauty, your aspiring career or wait for your child to grow up..

Death, in it’s ferocity, didn’t even look at your age.

And as Mohsina and I drove to the house after in silence, the glorious horizon stretched widely ahead of us in the wee hours of Saturday morning, the bloody sunrise that broke over us brought with it it’s own emotions. Crimson and tangerine streaks of light covered the width of the skyline, almost as if reaffirming the tragedy that had rocked our world just hours before.

”I just can’t believe it,” Mohsina almost whispered, her gaze fixed in the road ahead as we drove. “Life is so short.. No one knows at what point it’s all going to be over, but Layyanah’s life change … well, that was really something that that was one in a million, wasn’t it?”

I swallowed, fighting back tears, thinking of her as I nodded.

They are a few souls from amongst this world are those who sell their own selves, searching for the happiness of Allah. Layyanah had come, like a gust of wind, knocking us all out of our delusional world, with her colorful personality and complete aversion to material things, in her new found escape.

How she had sacrificed so much, so deeply, was still a mystery to anyone who knew the life she had come from. And on one occasion, just around a month back, she had said it so beautifully, as she looked at me, with a contented smile on her face, reading something she had picked up from the bookshelf a minute before.

She had come to visit my mother with little Zaid, because she had said she missed seeing the activity the coffee shop brought every day. Even though Papa had employed someone to assist, she was adamant that she would be back to help us once Zaid started crawling around and she was a bit more capable.

We sat on the lawn while my mother went to fetch some iced tea that she was trying out for the coffee shop, so we could give her our reviews.

“Ah,” she said whimsically, her eyes bright as she looked at me. “Just listen to this.”

And I had sat on the damp grass, as she shifted on the wrought iron outdoor chair, and read aloud.

It was a heart rendering incident that was said to have occurred on the occasion of Faathima’s (RA) wedding, where she appeared to be a little reserved and despondent. Her beloved father (Sallahu Alaihi Wa Sallam) knowing a little about her concerns, went up to her, addressing her so lovingly as Nabi (Sallalhu Alayhi wa Salam) said  that he knew that Ali (RA) was poor, possessing very little and living in difficulty.

He also mentioned that he stayed in a rented house, had to work for a living and owned no wealth or property of his own.

And then, Layyanah’s face brightened as she looked at me, her eyes warmth with contentment and a huge smile on her face.

“But then, listen to what he says next,” she murmured delightedly, sounding awestruck as she glanced at me again. “And it was as if this part was meant just for me to see and digest…”

I looked at her and smiled back, waiting to hear what she was so ecstatic about. And it didn’t disappoint.

”’I’m also aware that I have turned down many proposals of many wealthy individuals,’” she continued softly, with a teary smile on her face. “‘However, Oh Faatimah! Don’t be sad. The trials and poverty of this world is only a few days. Keep your gaze on the Aakhirah and it’s bounties, because the wealth of the Heavens is for you. Allah Ta’ala will make you it’s owner!”‘

And that, she certainly was.

SubhaanAllah.

And what more could anyone ask for? To meet Allah at a place where you know that you sacrificed everything in this world for Allah’s pleasure alone, and your reward is waiting for you in your final abode.

Mohsina’s  eyes were red-rimmed and teary as I narrated the incident to her as she looked at me with tears falling unashamedly from her eyes, and I really had nothing more I could say to even make them stop.

We had reached the funeral house now, and donned for the occasion, we entered to see streams of people who were already there, as Layyanah lay there with us for her final few minutes, I sat in a corner of the room an wept my heart out.

All I could think of was how beautifully Layyanah’s  life had changed, and how amazingly she sacrificed so much of this world because she saw the reality of the one she was about to enter.…

And that was precisely what I saw here, as I saw our friend being lifted, as they carried her over to the vehicle that would take her to her final abode, with hope upon hope that her resting place would be expanded greatly upon her arrival.

For those selected few, amidst the cries of grief and loss that hearts are submerged in, as their final journey to their resting place would begin, it is said that the deceased is already yearning to meet their Lord. Surely Allah had fulfilled His promise. Surely her abode would be a pleasant one.

Yes. We cry. Yes, we hurt. But, no…

No matter how much you hurt, pine or grieve… we don’t say that which will displease Him, because the knowledge that Allah is the full and only controller of life and death is sometimes all we needed to process.

I looked at my sister, who was utterly and emotionally exhausted, and I couldn’t help but see a completely different person to the one I had thought she had become all along.

Isn’t it funny how life keeps us apart, and death brings people together?

Right then, I felt closer than I’d felt in months to her, as we worked together, trying to piece all the fallen parts together and make this make sense once again .And it was still there. The little rift that existed between us, and all the things that we didn’t and couldn’t quite yet say. Somewhere, within us, existed so many hidden secrets, so many untold stories, so many words that were still left unsaid…

I yearned to break down all those barriers that had been built around us set our affairs right again, smooth over the creases and gain that courage once again to make her my best friend…

Moreso, now that new information of how much she had really endured over the last few months became apparent to me just the week before, a new light was shed on her, and my heart contracted momentarily for everything she had probably been through, trying to keep our family together. Putting herself at stake. But still holding out a torch that maybe her and I would somehow meet at a place where we could bare our souls and let everything out.

Maybe tonight, once this lengthy day was finally over… we could bare our souls once again.

Sleep though… well, that was a distant memory and a yearned for escape. None of us, from our family, had had the luxury as yet. My mother had planted herself next to Liyaket’s  on a bench at the hospital, completely broken, almost as if their entire world had fallen apart in front of her eyes.

I couldn’t imagine the pain that his mother  was feeling, because when it comes to someone who your heart held oh so very close… you don’t just lose them once.

Losing someone is a journey, not a once-off. There is no end to the loss, there is only an attempt on how to stay afloat, when it washes over.

I breathed in as I looked ahead of me, tears blurring my vision as I thought of how this had even happened? So many questions were still hounding me as I processed it all, for the umpteenth time since that evening.

There was so much to still process. To digest. To sort out… before life could ever return to some kids of normal.

But for now, as Mohsina’s phone rang again, I hastily picked it up without a second thought as she came out, not expecting it to be the long-awaited call that she was expecting from the hospital about Liyaket and Layyanah’s three-month old son, who was the most adorable piece of pudding that I had ever seen.

Within the chaos, I barely even had time to wonder about what would be the end result here. All the doctors had said was that he was under observation and no further information could be given until they checked with welfare about his guardianship.

My heart was in my throat from the minute they said it, because I knew that it could go either way. No information could mean that he was really critical or the complete opposite.

I watched Mohsina as she took the phone, walking along the edge of the grass outside at their house, basically responding with a series of ‘okays’ and ‘right’, as she spoke to them. I awaited either an exclamation of grief or joy, but none came yet, as she finally put the phone down, and then looked at me, with the most peculiar expression in her eyes.

“What’s happened?”

I was aching to know.

“He’s okay,” Mohsina said, a grim smile flashing on her face for a milli-second.

Somehow, he was alive and safe.

It was an overwhelming feeling of relief that was coupled with several waves of grief.

She explained briefly that baby Zaid had, by divine miracle, slipped down into the section between the dashboard and the seat, safe and secure, only by Allah’s intervention, but there was still a deep sense of loss for his deceased parents that acompanied the glorious news.

“They said he can be fetched later today.”

He can be fetched? Well, now, that was amazing news.

It was a ray of sunshine, amidst the darkened clouds. A rainbow of hope and a deep sense of gratitude, as I joyously went forward to embrace her but Mohsina stepped back for a minute, as she took a deep breath and looked at me, that peculiar expression now settling in her eyes as her brow furrowed.

“That’s not the end of it,” she said, swallowing as she looked around us, at the people in and out of the house now, coming forward to give their condolences, a squeeze of the shoulder or a sympathetic smile, before heading out back to their cars.

Soon the house would be empty again, and the loss more real than ever.

”What do you mean?” I asked my sister, narrowing my eyes.

“They said I could take him,” she said blandly, obviously completely torn between two unyielding factors that I had no idea of as yet. “They asked me if I want to sign for him. As a guardian, who was capable. To apply for adoption.”

Her voice was shaky as she said it, almost as if she couldn’t bare the weight of the responsibility that was suddenly on her shoulders.

I too, was slightly in shock. Layyanah’s sister was spotted at the funeral, but I wasn’t quite sure what their deal was there. Liyaket’s mother, I knew, was in no position for sole guardianship. She had all kind of medical complications and had started dialysis the previous month. Layyanah had mentioned that it meant long hours away at the hospital and lots of rest. She was almost always tired. Although she loved her grandson to bits, to expect her to take care of the baby on her own would be a little ridiculous.

”Okay,” I said carefully, trying to assess the situation. “So you will need to think about it. Maybe it’s not such a huge thing. Maybe you just need to-“

”It’s not that,” she cut me off, shaking her head. “I would take him in a heartbeat. There’s one catch…”

”What is it?” I asked, holding my breath. I didn’t want to say it but I so badly wanted her to say yes. I just wanted to open my heart and love that little guy with every ounce of me that I had.

”According to documentation, there’s someone else who has just as much right than I do,” she said, her expression now painfully resilient as she said it, almost as if she was entering a battlefield of her own.

“And I’m going to have to ask for his consent first.”

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Mission Sunnah Revival

Revive the Sunnah of Giving Constant Sadaqah.

Sadaqah as a means for cure, a way to cool the anger of Allah and proven to ward away calamity. There are many other benefits, and this great deed was a practise that is not only a reward but a barrier agonist the fire of Jahannam.

Nabi (Sallalahu Alaihi Wa Sallam), with the commencement of Ramadhaan, would become even more generous. 

It is narrated that he was most generous to the people and even more so in this blessed month that is approaching. Let us try and increase on our Sadaqah, InshaAllah ❤️

Regarding the 15th night of Sha’baan, Especially as we head toward Ramadaan, we should try and increase in good deeds and prepare ourselves more for longer stretches of ibaadat, in preparation for our Aakhirah. May Allah grant us the strength.
There is a specific Du’aa for the 15th of Shabaan that is below.

Du’aa for Sha’baan 

اَللّهُمَّ بَارِكْ لَنَا فِى شَعْبَانَ وَ بَلِّغْنَا رَمَضَان

Allaahumma Baa’rik La’naa Fee Rajab(a), Wa Sha’baan(a), Wa Bal’ligh’naa Ramadhaan.

“O Allaah! Make the months of Rajab and Sha’baan blessed for us, and let us reach the month of Ramadhaan.”

#ReviverheSunnahofGivingGifts

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#RevivetheSunnahbeforeSleeping

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#RevivetheSunnahofEnteringtheToilet

#RevivetheSunnahofSpeakingGood

#RevivetheSunnahofUsingtheRighthand

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The Real Stuff

Bismihi Ta’ala

Khawlah

“By the Glorious Morning Light,”

“And by the Night when it is still,

“Your Lord has neither forsaken you,

Nor has He become displeased.”

“And surely the hereafter will be better for you than the present (life).”

“And soon your Lord will grant that with which you shall be well-pleased.”

“Did He not find you an orphan and sheltered (you)?”

“And He found you wandering and guided (you).”

“And He found you in need and made you independent…”

(Surah Duha, The Glorious Qur’an) 

Tranquility descended as the verses played through my mind, again and again, almost as if they were a gentle reminder of everything I had forgotten all along.

There was something strange about a broken heart. There were times when it almost craved the pangs that it felt, in an almost sadistic way. And then there were times when you dreaded the hurt so much, because it felt like your chest would cave in, and the only thing stopping it from doing so are the gasps of air you take in between the tears…

The verses of Surah Duha had come like a breeze of inspiration… bringing with it relief and consolation.. easing the pain that had come from a very palpable loss. As a young girl, I recalled Khalid narrating the detailed events that led up to it’s revelation that was my ultimate refuge. How such a young heart had captured the intricacy of what transpired at the time of revelation of this beautiful Surah, was completely beyond me. At a tender age of seven, Khalid had exhibited such splendid insight, that even my nearly seventeen-year-old self still struggled to grasp.

It had been fifteen days that had passed since the beloved Prophet (SAW) had received any revelation. The disbelievers taunted him. His heart had felt burdened… as if his Lord was not happy with him.  And when the verses descended on him, like refreshing rain after a scorching drought, it gave him a new strength, and brought him immense hope. And of course, it didn’t just come as a ‘proof’ to those at the time, who were too arrogant to see the truth. Till this day it comes with the unchanging message to remind him (SAW)… and us all… that no matter what… our Merciful Lord has never left us alone. 

At the time, it had been two weeks since Mama’s passing and though the chaos at home had died down, the torrent of emotion in my heart was still very palpable.

I missed my Mama. Enormously. It felt like the pain of longing had penetrated to the depths of my soul. But being with Khalid and Aunty Radiyyah helped me forget about the reality back home. I was good at pretending, when I was there. I pretended that nothing had changed.  I had pretended that Mama was still here, like she had always been.. busy in the kitchen.. laughing at something that Abba had said… or getting together our things for school the next day.

Mama was at home, I silently told myself. She wasn’t gone so far away.

And for months, as I escaped through the back door, down the familiar path to Khalid’s gorgeous garden, that would be my life. Day in, day out… I would pretend that home was still the same. That nothing had changed. And through my routine that I had become so accustomed to, somewhere along the way, I had forgotten to pretend. For a boisterous six-year-old, life was too exciting to keep living a facade. Somehow, reality had become bearable again, and I supposed that’s how people heal.  The mind forgets. The soul repairs. Happiness returns, once again…

It doesn’t mean that everything goes away. It just means that the feeling of loss no longer controls our lives.

And as I thought of those days once again, whilst the verses that had comforted my siblings then.. consoled me now, the memories were vivid as I thought back…

I breathed in deeply as the verses played through my mind. No matter how long.. what time.. or what place.. the effect that they brought was never lost.

Ans just as I felt like dwelling in my misery for a few more hours, because I had become so accustomed to it, Nusaybah’s jovial voice came as a piercing reminder that regular life had to go on…

”Nus!” I squealed, pulling the blanket over my head as she inconsiderately yanked open my curtains. “Don’t you have any consideration for people who sleep? I know you barely get any shut-eye, but come on!”

“It’s past 11AM, girl!” She said, appalled at my statement. “Get yourself out of that bed and lets get cracking with some work! Plus, there’s a car stalking your house…”

I groaned as I crawled further under the covers. Why, oh why, didn’t Nusaybah stay away longer?

”Didn’t you miss me?” Nusaybah asked sweetly as she placed her hands on her hips and grinned at me. “Or have you been too busy with Mr Perfect to even notice me gone?”

If only she knew the truth about ‘Mr Perfect’. I had felt like I had unwrapped the most beautiful box of decadent Belgian chocolates, and just found a dead cockroach inside.

“What car are you taking about?“ I said, peeping out from the top of the duvet.

”A black one,” she said obviously. “With tinted windows. And a sinister looking male inside.”

I groaned inwardly again.

“On the other hand,” Nusaybah said, cocking her head to one side thoughtfully. “That car was really shady looking… it may just be a throw off. You never know what extra-terrestrial creatures may be lurking within…”

“It’s Aadam’s car,” I said, knowing what kind of delusional thoughts would be going through my friends mind. Her imagination was way too vivid for my liking.

“Ah,” she said, as if a bulb had been flickered on in her extremely active brain, as she peeped out the window. “But he’s gone now. So what’s going on? Why was he waiting outside like a creep?”

My best friend was an amazing soul, but one talent she didn’t have was the knack of being politely subtle.

“It’s been a bit of a crazy week…” I started, as Nusaybah crawled into bed next to me and listened to my lamenting for almost fifteen minutes. Besides the fact that Aadam and I weren’t on the best of terms right then, the conflict was causing other problems in the family that I didn’t anticipate.

Ahmed’s Samoosa run had gone off well from his side, but the dramatics thereafter were what made him go off on a tangent with me about Aadam. He was convinced that if Aadam was there like he should have been, no issues would have stemmed… And although I honestly was just a naive girl who had no inkling of worldly matters, my difficult brother had no sympathy whatsoever.

And there I was, pouring my heart out to Nusaybah about how genuinely awkward the situation had got at this girl’s house when the aunties started asking me all kind of weird questions, and all Nusaybah could do was sit next to me and crack herself up about my unseemly predicament.

Let me just put it lightly. I was not impressed.

”Oh… my… days!” Nusaybah managed to say between fits of giggles. She was nearly wetting her pants at my expense whilst I stared at her stonily.

“Let me just make sure I haven’t gotten the wrong end of the twisted stick here,” she finally spluttered, almost blue in the face to stop herself from laughing more. “Ahmed went to see a girl… and you ended up being a girl… that someone else wants to see?!”

She burst into fits of giggles as she looked at me, completely oblivious to my annoyance. I couldn’t see the humor here, as yet. I was just appalled at everyone. Including Nusaybah.

”I’m sorry,” she finally said, pursing her lips and looking at me with a faintest of smirks. “You just kill me, girl. Whenever I talk to you, I feel like we’re living in some amazing novella!”

”What on earth is a ‘novella’?”

”Nevermind,” she said, waving her hand. “I think we can deduce that your life will always have more drama than the usual sixteen-year-old, for various reasons that we will no longer mention…“

She glanced at me demurely, and then smiled.

”But honestly, hun,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and sitting up to look at me. “You’re amazing. I mean, firstly, you’re my best friend, so that already speaks for itself.”

She smiled as she said it, with a humorous glint in her eye.

“You have so much going for you… no wonder those aunties were trying to set you up with their rather unsuitable connections… but you know what..?”

I looked at my friend questioningly, softening a little at the edges as she spoke.

”You’re so hard on yourself,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Really hard. And I know it’s been tough growing up and things have been difficult… I mean, I can’t imagine how it must have been to have that kind of constant reshuffling in your life… but I suppose that’s what makes you hard. I mean, you lost so many people you loved… And over the years, it wasn’t just about being hard on yourself. You’re scared to let anyone close to you, because you’re hard on everyone else too. It’s almost as if you don’t want anyone to take that special place ever again….”

I blinked as she said it, her words striking a chord that I didn’t expect. Emotion had been evading me, even as I tried to let it all out. Although I was hurt and confused and really quite upset about Aadam… I wasn’t sure how to behave with him after this. How to get back to where we were… or even if we should…

Had I really been just shoving him off? Not wanting to get close… because I didn’t want to open my heart?

“That guy,” Nusaybah said, pointing towards the window. “Is a genius. And I’m not talking about his computer skills here. He’s a genius because not only did he see an opportunity to change his entire life… he’s a genius because he bagged the girl who inspired it. And then of course, he’s something like a wizard, because he made you- the ultimate warrior-hijaabi-princess who can do freaking Kung Fu- go all gaga over him.”

I opened my mouth to protest but Nusaybah held her hand up to stop me.

“Don’t you even try to deny it!” she warned, widening her eyes at me. “Goodness, Khawlah.. which guy in this day and age will build you your own garden on a damn rooftop, with a REAL hand-crafted swing, when you marry him?! Which guy will take you horseback riding into the mountains and quote you higher grade tafseer verses as you watch the dazzling sunrise?! Bloody hell, Khawlah, which guy buys you a hundred red roses to apologise- and I know its a hundred because I counted them before I came down to your room- and still sits and waits for you for days while you decide when you’re ready to talk to him? If I was a guy, especially one that resembles your husband, I’d be gone to find some other fish.. and believe, there are plenty..”

Why did Nusaybah always make me feel so… terrible?!

I breathed in as I looked at her, stunned at her attention to every detail I had told her in passing. How did she even remember all these things? 

“Remember that day when you turned your nose up at him like he wasn’t good enough for you?” she said softly as she met my gaze. “And remember what I told you? That his past is his past. You expected this. Everyone’s got sins.  I said: “Take a chance, ‘coz what Allah has decreed, who are we to challenge?” I don’t know what exactly he’s done, but if he hasn’t murdered anyone, broken your trust in him or sucked your blood as yet.. then believe me, in this day and age, you’re good to go.”

She gave me a small smirk as she said it, contented with her words and leaving me just a little bit speechless. I didn’t tell her what Aadam had done. I didn’t think it was fair to him… but Nusaybah was a child prodigy, the way she put everything into perspective.

It was no wonder that I suddenly had this overwhelming desire in me that some day… One day… I really wished that I’d get a chance to repay Nusaybah for all this jacking up that I constantly needed. One day, I hoped that I’d be the one that would help her through her own battles that she faced too… This friendship was one of those forever ones.

There was no getting rid of her now. Nusaybah knew way too much.

“So what do I do now?” I said, knowing what Nusaybah was trying to say but not knowing how to start. I knew that I had been difficult this week. I had switched my phone off and disconnected myself from everyone. To me, I just needed time to think. A lot of ‘what ifs’ and ‘what nexts’ had been going through my mind, but since Nusaybah had come to make me see the sense that I had been missing all this time…

“Go and have a shower, for starters,” Nusaybah said, scrunching up her face and pinching her nose as if I was a bad stench. “I’ll be back in ten minutes to tell you what to wear, since you look like you forgot what real clothes are. Then we’re going to get your life together so you can stop moping around like a crazy old spinster who lives with cats.”

I rolled my eyes at her and got out of bed, ready to take on the day. Nusaybah had so much of energy that I just couldn’t help but catch some of it from her.

And of course, after a hot shower, I already felt so much more optimistic. I supposed everything had just taken a toll. I sighed as I heard her shuffling outside the door, wondering why she was taking so long. I pulled on my nightgown that I wore the previous day, calling for her while I towel dried my hair and dumped my towel on the chair.

“Nusaybah, what’s the plans for today?” I called, a little annoyed that she wasn’t here as yet. “Will we be indoors or can we get some sunlight? I have no idea…”

There was a tap on the door as I pulled out two more dresses and an abaya dumped them on the bed. I felt like one of those irritating girls who kept on trying on outfits, even though I hadn’t even put one on as yet.

“Come in!” I yelled, frustrated that dressing up was taking so long. “Its way past ten minutes, now, Nus… I cant sit around and wait-”

“I’m sorry.”

I spun around as I heard his voice, my breath catching in my throat as he looked back at me steadily.

“I didn’t mean to make you wait for me,” Aadam continued with a small smile as I gaped at him, and he made his way to the edge of the bed. “All I came to do was claim back my wife..”

Where did he come from?

I stared at his easy posture as he grinned back at me. Trust him to make a joke out of everything. At least he wasn’t angry like Ahmed had been. He hung up my wet towel, pulling up the (embarrassingly damp) chair to sit. I was still in shock that he was actually here… so much so, that I had even forgotten my hurricane-looking room and ghastly appearance… until I looked down at my toes so realise I was still wearing my the dreary grey nightgown that Zuleikha had handed down to me just before she got married, and my hair was not even brushed. It didn’t help that he looked like some kind of Kurta-clad Arab prince and I was Mrs Frump. Aadam really did choose his moments, and Nusaybah was probably going to get a helluva mouthful too. I was quite certain that this was her master-work.

“Um, I..” I swallowed, not really sure how to react. How crazy was it that I couldn’t even talk to my own husband?

“Sorry to barge in like this,” he said apologetically, his one dimple visible as he smiled at me. “I can see you’re not exactly expecting me.”

He glanced around my room, while I tried to keep a straight face. Inwardly, I was horrified.

“I suppose sometimes we just have to take a chance,” Aadam murmured, looking at me as he spoke. Why did I get the feeling he wasn’t only talking about now? “Some things come our way, and sometimes we take the risks and just have to hope for the best.”

I stared at him as he said it, my heart feeling like it was on fire.

“But,” he almost whispered, breaking his gaze away as he continued. “Sometimes we don’t always know what we are setting ourselves up for. The path that we are supposed to tread is not always perfectly paved out for us. We don’t always have a map. Some of us grow up to think that we’re free… like birds just finding a rooftop… living for the moment… To fly as we wish and at liberty to do as we please.. And then, we get overcome by emotion. And emotion is amazing, but it’s also scary and overwhelming… and sometimes… sometimes, these emotions… they make us give into our desires… do things that take us away from the point of life… away from our Loving Creator…”

He swallowed as he said the last part, and I knew that he was reliving those moments in his mind. My own heart was thudding in my chest as I saw the turbulence in his eyes.

“And that’s when we lose ourselves to it, yeah?” he continued softly, his eyes boring into mine. “We give in to temptation. We think it’s really love but it’s not. That’s when we get lost. And when I finally realized it and went looking for me, I found you. Through that chaos, and that disarray, there was a beauty that I found. I found the journey, and the path.. and then I realised that everything amazing that I saw in this life, was what you already had. From your light, the guidance you had… you had shone into our darkness. You had this thing that we needed to nurture within us and I saw it in just one glimpse. You had so much that I had missed out on my whole life and I already knew that you had something different. You have that ability to change people just by being with them… and I promise you, Khawlah, you are my navigation, my anchor and my absolute dream… and I never felt this way about anyone before. I wished with all my heart that I never did the things I did in my past… but what happened was a turning point in my life, and if it didn’t happen then I’m absolutely certain that I wouldn’t have been looking for the gold when I finally found you… ”

And I suppose that you couldn’t blame me when I just stood there and stared at Aadam like a stunned chicken, because there really was nothing that you could say back to someone who tells you crazy stuff like that. Now that, was the stuff. Real stuff that didn’t play.

“I just wanted you to know that,” he said softly, looking down a little shyly, almost as if he had just poured the entire contents of his heart out and had nothing left to leave. “I wished we could go back to five years ago and start all over again…”

I was still feeling a little breathless. I was blown away, amazed at how the promise of Allah worked… when you took that step towards Him…

Of course, my Allah had never abandoned me. No matter what. No matter when. Even in the future, no matter how deeply I would hurt. Soon… sooner than you think…

He grants you those things that will not just please you, but make your heart soar with untold joy…

The real stuff that not only makes the cut now, but is so intensely profound that it carries through to a completely different realm, beyond the present… to a Jannah that knows no pain…

I nodded meekly as Aadam searched my eyes openly, and then smiled as he came forward and planted a tiny kiss on my forehead. He knew me so well by now, that he could tell when he was off the hook.

“I just have one more request,” he said softly, as he stepped back. ”If you can tolerate this unruly husband of yours and you don’t mind giving him a chance to show you who he truly is… Will you come with me? There’s somewhere I really want to take you…”

---

Apologies for the delay. Hope it was a happy read !

(Btw: This was post number 200 on achancetochange.. Alhumdulillah.. Duaas always needed..)

Much Love,

A xx

Sunnah of Drinking Water:

Prophet Muhammad (Sallallaho Alaihi Wasallam) said, “Do not drink water only in one breath, but drink it in two or three breaths.”

Scientific studies show that there are many harmful effects in drinking water in one gulp. It can cause choking of esophagus. It especially weakens the muscles and nerves. It is also detrimental for the liver and stomach. Amazing, SubhaanAllah!

How easy to practise…!

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Despite the Storm

Bismillahir Rahmaanir Raheem

Khawlah

At times, life throws you things that you don’t quite know how to deal with. Sometimes you don’t quite know what to do with the lemons. Like a rainbow in the midst of winter … Or sunshine on a rainy day… Sometimes life is not quite what you expect. And, as we stood staring at her for at least a minute, we weren’t quite sure of what to do. Our minds lost any form of comprehensive thought for a while before we realised that something needed to be said.

The silence was deafening,

“What do you want?”

It was Ahmed who spoke first. My elder brother was firm as he said it, and his brow furrowed into a frown.

Indeed. What on earth did Aunty Nas want from us now?

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she said, her eyes blinking furiously. “I didn’t do anything to you!”

Goodness. The woman was still the same.

She was talking about Ahmed specifically of course. Out of the four of us, it was Ahmed who had received the least slack. It could have been because he was a male. It could have also been because in appearance, Ahmed mostly resembled Abba.

His solid jaw, olive skin and aesthetically pleasing face was growing to look more like Abba every day.

“You didn’t do any good for us either!” Retorted Ahmed, fiercely thrusting himself forward as he spoke. He was tall and looked quite threatening. I dare say he was even taller than Abba now.

“You father would probably give you a hiding if he saw this,” she snapped. “Where is he? I tried phoning him and he is not answering. I need to speak to him.”

I looked at her, amazed at her audacity. After everything, she still had a nerve. She still felt that she had a right to demand my father’s time and attention. As far as we knew, my father had divorced her. She had no right over him.

“My father,” Ahmed said, with a glint of heated humour in his eye. He rolled his eyes at Aunty Nas, stepped away from the door, and slammed it in her face. He turned the key, ignoring the incessant banging.

“Go away, or we will call the cops,” he shouted to her, turning around and pulling a blue tie around his collar to fix it expertly.

I was hoping he would have worn something less fancy, but like Abba, Ahmed loved to dress up. He was at that age where looking good and acting all macho was important to him. He admired himself in the mirror, fixing his straightened hair methodically. All this time, as everyone gathered near the staircase, Ahmed ignored the calls from outside. Yunus came down wearing a white Kurta. At least my younger brother listened to me when I told him to dress Islamically for the Nikah.

“She better stop, or I’m probably going to shoot her,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.

I gave him a look. I knew that he was annoyed, but what good will it do if we treated her with the same kind of hospitality as she had given us. Would it even make us  feel better?

It wasn’t the morals that we were brought up with.

Hadhrat ‘Umar (RA) was reported to have said said: “There is no better punishment for the person who sinned by being bad to you, than your obeying Allaah by being good to him in return.” (Tafseer Ibn Katheer).

The pounding at the front door had ceased, but instead there was a weird sound coming from the doorstep. It was a continuous mauling that was beginning to irritate my ears.

It took me a few minutes to realize that it wasn’t the cat making that sound. The shrill noise coming from the front patio was Aunty Nas… and she was crying. Not just sobbing… the woman was howling her eyes out.

“Ahmed, open the door.”

It was Zuleikha who said it as she came down the stairs. Her face was drawn with worry and slight frustration, but there was a sympathy that was hidden beneath it all.

Ahmed raised his eyebrows at her and stepped away from the door.

“Be my guest,” he said in a flat voice, shrugging his shoulders indifferently.

We all watched as Zuleikha, in her bridal gear and beautifully made up face, make her way down the last lot of stairs and reached for the door handle. She unlatched the top and turned it, pulling the door open almost in slow motion. As the draft from outside made its way in, the open door revealing a broken women too, crumpled on the floor.

My heart almost stirred as I saw it, but then I remembered… then I remembered everything. Her evil cackle and condescending gaze. Her accusing voice… the time she had twisted my ear with contempt.

She wasn’t worth feeling sorry for, I convinced myself.

Voices were raised and comments were hurled at each other on the next few minutes, whilst Zuleikha came to the bottom of Aunty Nas’s visit.

Why was she here? What did she want? Why should we even listen to what she has to say? 

Rehab. It was the place she had come from and now she wanted our help. She wanted us to help her with Hannah. She needed a good place for her to stay. Her husband too had been involved in drugs. Besides that, there was another complication.

“He never loved her,” Aunty Nas moaned now, her shoulder slumped and her defensive demeanour completely dissolving. She was slowly unraveling the layers that had made her the ferocious and hard-hearted step-mother that we knew.

I frowned now. Being silent all this time was the best thing for me. I didn’t want to put my foot in it by saying something that could incriminate me again. What if this was all a big put-on?

And then she slowly told us a story about how she had lost Hannah’s twin brother. He had drowned in a pool, and everyone blamed her. Since he had died, Hannah had gotten little attention or time from her father. They wanted a son to ‘carry’ the family name. It was ridiculous.

“That’s why your father married me,” she finally said. “He wanted to help me. He was a good man.”

I blinked, quite shocked that this person who was some type of dragon could actually utter kind words. Her story, if it was true, actually explained a little of Hannah’s behavior. It might be a bit late but her mother wanted something different for her now.

The moments dragged as they deliberated and contemplated. Finally, Ahmed had had enough.

“I have to go,” he said. “It’s nearly time for the Nikah. Will you’ll be okay?”

He was looking at me, and I understood what he was saying. Would I be able to hold the show down while he was gone? Right now, we couldn’t kick Aunty Nas out. Despite all the evil things, she had done… I wasn’t quite sure how to treat her.

I grabbed a walking stick of Dada’s and held it in my hand, just in case. I wasn’t taking any chances where Aunty Nas was concerned. She didn’t have a very good reputation.

I sighed and nodded, hoping she would leave soon. Foi Nani was also looking tired. All this was too much for her. She didn’t need to deal with so much of drama  at this stage of her life. Our Mamajee, her son, was also going to be down in a few days. I heard her complaining to the aunty next door that she wanted to prepare for them as well, and she wasn’t getting down to it.

I found myself wishing for Abba’s presence once again, as Aunty Nas spoke. I supposed it was true that you only noticed the good things that people do when they weren’t around anymore. She seemed to hold my father in high esteem, praising him excessively. Although I recently found Abba falling short of my expectations, he had never deliberately hurt us. He kept his promises to Mama, and whilst she was alive, I didn’t remember them even having a single argument.  Abba was a good man, after all.

I breathed in, trying to remember his once familiar face. It had become vague. It had been a while now. Almost four months. the pain had become consistent but bearable now, and when we heard about good things that Abba had done, or someone reminded us of his soft and generous nature, the yearning for him would grow once again.

It made me think. It made me understand. It wasn’t how much of money you had or what car you drove that mattered. It was the little things… and the small gestures that made you stand out. Abba wasn’t the most religious. He didn’t always do the right thing. But what stood out was his sterling character… and because he had that on his side, I was sure that Allah would help him. I hoped that it would be his salvation in the situation he was in.

My mind was working overtime now. Aunty Nas needed to leave, because I didn’t want to feel sad on what was supposed to be a happy occasion. I didnt want her to dampen everyone’s spirit. Zuleikha had convinced her to work on Hannah and try and make things work with her ex-husband. Frankly, she felt we had enough problems of our own to take on hers. I think she was right. The timing wasn’t great either… we had too much going on right now, and I think Aunty Bas knew that too.

I breathed a sigh of relief as she left that day, hoping she wouldn’t come back again. There were so many things that were on my mind now. About Aunty Nas. Hannah. Abba. It was too much for me to think of… too much for my mind to process. I needed to stop thinking.

Instead, I shifted my focus to Zuleikha now, as I watched her breathe, and silently adorn a little Alice band that would complete the final touch of her bridal hijab. My elder sister looked absolutely breath-taking in ivory and mint, and as the time neared, she sat and folded her knees inward on the carpet in the passage where the receiver was. Her breathing was steady.

She lifted her eyes ever so slightly when she finally heard voices through the speaker, and then lowered them almost immediately. I could sense her inner turmoil as I spotted her trembling hands. I could almost feel her anxiety, as the two of us sat, shoulder to shoulder, and waited for those weighty words. We listened carefully as the Nikah Khutbah began, and of course, the words that would bind her for life. That would raise her to another dimension completely, as the words of Nikah would finalize the union that she would have for life .

Though my sister sat with her head forward and her body still, I could see beyond the physical strength of  her outer being. Her frazzled nerves were clearly apparent as she clenched and unclenched her first, with the whiteness of her knuckles startling me as they caught my eye.

Of course, as the sermon ended, with her head lowered, Zuleikha closed her eyes, and her heart poured out as they immediately filled with involuntary tears. Like a revelation of her soul, I caught a glimpse of what lay behind the armour that she had worn, and her true emotions became apparent. She had hidden them well but she couldn’t hold it in anymore. Hot tears flowed down her cheeks, and Zuleikha turned her face away, not wanting anyone to see. She couldn’t let this bring her down. Not today. The pain she wore was on her sleeve, and her heart too.

This too, was a test for her.  A test for us all.

I hastily retreated to my room quietly, not able to bear it any longer. Instead, as an antidote, I busied myself with the adornment of the simple dress I had chosen for the occasion, and a matching hijab. I tied the hijab carefully and silently, gazing back at myself in the mirror. I saw a twelve-year-old girl with an enormous burden. Her shoulders were weighed down by its ferocity, and her eyes told the tales of their pain.

And then, I blinked, and looked again.

Her button nose, unruly locks and darkly draws eyes stared right at me. All I saw now was a little girl. A little girl with a little heart, that had been through a little too much.

Aa I gazed at her deep, dark eyes, I felt her within me. Her eyes were a window to her damaged soul. She was the girl with the lopsided smile and silent laugh. Her eyes were pleading…. she didn’t want this to hold her back any more. She stared at me, almost challenging me to reach for the stars. Almost beckoning me to endure…  prompting me to rise above it all.

I blinked again, and averted my ears to hear car doors outside. With my heart in my mouth, I gazed out the window. The Nikah was over. I shouted out to Zuleikha to tell her that there were people here. The noise levels fluctuated as people spoke. Familiar faces came into view, and I pulled back, not wanting them to see me too.

I breathed out. I felt like everything had happened so fast. My sister was going to leave us already. Our foundation would be shaken, and we might struggle to find the balance once again. Zuleikha would make a new home, and we might feel like ours had been lost.

But after the storm is over, the sun may still find its way out. No, it wasn’t a fairy tale, but there was something very magical about what I had found within me that day.

The little girl with the world on her shoulders was no longer alone. Her heart was filled with a Power greater than anything else that this world contained. She didn’t need anything else.

When the heart was filled with Allah, then everything will fall into place.

Life happens. People die. Nothing lasts forever.

Eventually, everyone will leave and venture on their own path. Everyone has to at some stage. But there are treasures that we carry with us. The strength that each of us gain and carry will build us, and get us through, despite the storm. The hope that makes us believe that there will be a better day will always live inside of us, even if it’s buried in the innermost crux of our tarnished soul. Through a loss, maybe we could gain so much more. A reminder for the patient heart lies in time. In the ticking of the clock was both a comfort and a warning.

Although today was gone, the hope for a better day will still live on.

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Authors Note: Apologies for the delay and if the posts have not been up to scratch.  My brain has been too busy studying for exams. 🌼

Request for Duaas. 

Much love

A 🌸