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An "Out-of-Sequence" Chapter in the Story of - Muslimah - 04-01-2009
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
Assalamu Alaikum wa Rahmatuallahi wa Barakatu. I actually started writing this as a part of a reply to an email I received from a sister that happens to also be a foreigner living in Riyadh. Subhan’Allah, my dear Heather (jibrielsmommy), thinking I might be lonely, was searching through other e-groups and found one with a sister in it living in KSA and she wrote to her and told the sister about me…masha’Allah…Krista wrote to me after receiving Heather’s email and I let a few too many days pass before replying (you know me…)…but then she apologized right back for taking a few extra days to answer me, too…and such is life. LOL!! I didn’t realize my return reply to her would turn into a story in-and-of-itself, but before I knew it, I had been typing from the end of Maghrib until the adhan for Isha (and then some!). So, are you ready?!?! Cause here we go! Off on another of Aishah’s journey’s…Make sure you’ve got a few minutes…because in MS Word this is 12 pages long! Oh, my goodness!! {{smile}} Note: Please bear in mind that the experiences that I write about here are those of a single person and are not necessarily representative of how life in KSA is throughout the entire region.
And so begins the chapter.
This past Friday after Asr, Mustafa and headed out in search of something to do, and found ourselves being dropped off in front of the Taif International Mall. Wow…what a shock… I could not believe this shinning, gleaming, marble tiled place…it was all clean and beautiful…but it was completely filled with shops (most of which contained Western clothing) in which only women would want to buy anything…and each and every shop (it seemed that there were at least 100 between what was on the inside and the two row of shops on the outside of the mall) was operated by a man.
Now lets ponder this…the majority of women in Taif walk around wearing niqab, lest she cause a man to have even a momentary sinful thought, and at the same time they are forced to go into shops selling negligees, bras, panties, makeup, and other “female” items…and have to deal with a man in order to make their transactions!! Let’s see…mmm… “Ah, I like that bra over there, do you have it in black, maybe in the back of the store?” “What size would you like, sister?” “Ah, do you have a 34-C?” – okay, right! LOL! And this guy is supposed to be hanging around all day looking at this stuff and not be prone to having a single “sexual” thought? And even though the pious shopping sister is wearing niqab…the shop clerk/owner isn’t supposed to wonder what her 34-C bosoms would look like in that sexy new bra as he gazes into her immaculately beautified eyes peeking out from the slit in the fabric covering her face??? Yes, that’s right…to add insult to injury…the “pious” niqabi has a truckload of eyeliner and mascara (sometimes eye-shadow as well) on her eyes! Come on…get real…I mean…Al-hamdulillah for those sisters who sincerely wear niqab piously…but is it really pious to wear niqab and at the same time wear eye-shadow, eye-liner and mascara; products designed to “beautify” the eyes? I mean…sisters…please…it is not my intention to make anyone upset here, but, seriously…what is the point? The point of the veil is modesty…those sisters making a personal choice to wear niqab do so, insha’Allah, as a deed for which they hope to be rewarded in the hereafter, right? This can also be because they believe that revealing their beauty to those from whom it is forbidden to reveal it is haram. So if the one who chooses to cover everything, as in the case of niqab, turns right around and beautifies her eyes with eye-shadow, eyeliner, and mascara, thus purposely making them appealing, and by default attracting the attention of men in front of whom she is forbidden to reveal her beauty, then what is the point of covering at all???? I think the “point” is missed altogether and the reward cancelled out! Astaghferullah…the act is supposed to be something in which one would hope to find pleasure from Allah (swt)…not from non-mahram males… Well, I am sure this is getting me off on the wrong foot somewhere along the line…so lets journey onward!
I guess the good news is that I have since learned that in Mecca and Jeddah you can find shops for women with darkly tinted windows that are run by women…that ought to be fun shopping experience…we should, by all means, be protected from each other!!…sigh…alas, even in the United States I didn’t like to shop in malls…as long as I had a debit card and an internet connection I could safely, privately, and securely shop in the freedom, comfort and relaxation of my own home…but here everyone uses cash…something else for me to get adjusted to!
Anyhow, the next leg of our journey took us in search of a place to eat …ahhhh… but herein lay another dilemma…my husband wanted to eat out with his wife. The streets are literally lined with shops and restaurants…and not a single one would allow a man to eat with his wife. Unbelievable… Like women are non-persons or something?!?!…astighferullah. Okay…hang in there with me…all is not lost…
We ended up catching another taxi, and subhan’Allah, the driver knew of a “Chinese” restaurant with a “family” section where we got dropped off and were able to enjoy a nice meal together. Al-hamdulillah. We were both starving! Ah, and let me say, the food was good, and the Pepsi was g-r-e-a-t! LOL!!! It was a good thing that afterwards we were planning to go to the grocery store because that gave us a chance to walk off our meal. Boy was I full! It was the first time (all the more reason not to disappoint your wife…) I had eaten outside of the apartment since we arrived so I have to say I did enjoy this part of our outing. The company wasn’t bad either… a rather dashing young man my husband is…masha’Allah… LOL!
Alas, I would be remiss in forgetting to acknowledge that we have encountered some very nice taxi drivers during our stay here…Al-hamdulillah. That seems to be a recurring theme in my life over the last three years…discovering nice and helpful taxi drivers! Two of my dearest friends in the U.S. are Muslim cab drivers…subhan’Allah…one affectionately refers to me as a “headache” (hahaha) and the other one (from Morocco) has told his family that he has an adopted sister in the U.S. who looks out for him so they need not worry about him any more…masha’Allah… In return, when I was getting ready to leave, I asked my Moroccan brother to take care of my adopted daughter, Hanane (also from Morocco), the same way he took care of me…and, Al-hamdulillah, she reports to me that he has done just that. May Allah (swt) reward him for his faithfulness and good deeds in this life and in Jannah. (FYI - I was one of those rare people in the U.S. who did not drive…living in Washington, D.C., driving and parking was such a wretched headache that I just opted out! LOL!! The plus side to my not driving is that in KSA I can’t drive anyway, so I’m, Al-hamdulillah, at least already accustomed to that!
Anyhow, my not driving is how I developed a network of cab/friends and Muslim brothers and sisters to adopt as my new family.) After eating my husband and I left the restaurant and headed just up the block to a grocery store we had frequented a couple of times before. This one is kind of like a mini Wal-Mart…way mini! LOL!! Oh, I just remembered something! One of the things I just love (I say this facetiously), about this grocery store is that from the moment you pick up the first item off a shelf, you just have to forget the urge to go and wash your hands until you get home. Everything is dusty!! Mmm…this could be a plus to wearing gloves…except the black fabric would just show all the dirt!
By this time it was approaching Maghrib, and knowing that it would be useless to begin our shopping because the businesses would be closing for salat, we opted instead to walk further down towards the “mosque”…
There are two different grocery stores that we take turns frequenting for our shopping. The store we were going to on this occasion is in the vicinity of a KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken, of all things…), and an ATM machine at which I can withdraw money from my U.S. Citibank account, Al-hamdulillah! Across the street from the grocery store is a huge “park” of sorts. As I have come to understand it, with the “weekend” being Thursday and Friday here, many families gather at these parks, which you can readily find as they are sporadically laced throughout the city.
The first time we shopped at this particular grocery store it was between Maghrib and Isha, so when the adhan called us to prayer, we headed in the direction of a nearby mosque. (One thing about Taif, there is no shortage of mosques!) Well, wouldn’t you know…we had been “told” that we could find a place for sisters to pray…but I’ll be darn if we could figure out where it was squirreled away!! I got completely frustrated; I was the only sister “lurking” around outside looking for a place to pray! Abandoning my fruitless search, I ended up walking back up to the park to sit by myself and waited for my husband to return from praying with the brothers… Subhan’Allah…the men had a place to pray…
Upon arriving at the park I found a little place where a husband and wife had arranged boxes and boxes of shoes for sale. It reminded me of a scene from the local flea market in a city that I used to live in back home. There were only sisters and their daughters gathered around the boxes, as it seemed that the shoes were for the female gender, so I thought I would look as inconspicuous as possible (with my glaringly white American face…), by sitting on the curb of the sidewalk beside where the couple had set up their shoe stand.
As fate would have it (or in other words, it seems to be typical that if I am sitting somewhere, somehow children seem to migrate around me), a very young (maybe 2 or 3-years old) brother and sister (about 4 or 5-years old), snacking on small packs of potato chips, seemed to find entertainment in “chatting” with me while I sat smiling, and looking at her wide-eyed, as if I understood what she was saying. Well, the little girl seemed chatty anyway…LOL…the little boy just seemed to bashfully stare at me with equally wide-eyes…LOL…oddly enough that seems typical, too. {{smile}}
Anyway, the second adhan announcing the commencement of Isha started, and when it finished the most adorable and astounding thing happened. The little girl, in her sweet little Arabic tongue, immediately began to recite Surah Al-Fatihah, followed by short little surah’s and Allah Akbar’s that sounded so melodious that I just wanted her to keep reciting…it was so beautiful, masha’Allah, and yet melancholy at the same time. There we were in a park crowded with people busy visiting, eating and shopping, and from amongst them a single voice prayed… Is this where I say “Astaghferullah” or “Al-Hamdulillah”????
Anyway, back to the "current" grocery store adventure...(sorry, I get side-tracked sometimes!)
As Mustafa and I were preparing to leave the Chinese restaurant to embark on our latest trip to the grocery store, we sat there trying to decide which one we would go to, and ended up choosing the one in the vicinity of the “mosque” referred to above, as it was closest to the restaurant; within walking distance, in fact. Thus started our second misadventure to the same mosque…
As predicted, the adhan for Maghrib sounded just as we approached the grocery store. I was secretly dismayed as I recalled our prior experience with the “mosque”, but my husband seemed convinced that if we walked back over there a second time, we would somehow magically find what we did not find before. And once again, I walked back up to the park filled with people oblivious to the call for prayer, and waited while my husband prayed in the “mosque” that wouldn’t accommodate his traveling wife.
In retrospect, having made wudu at the Chinese restaurant before we left from eating our dinner, I have to say that on this occasion, I noted (out of all the people crowded into the park), three sisters who stood in their own short line to pray Maghrib together. Wallah, I wish I had had the courage to just go ahead and fall into line with them. But as it happened, in that precise moment, I was still in an agitated state from my experience at the mosque. Combined with the fact that I had once again found myself alone in a strange place waiting for my husband, together with the additional circumstance that I happened to be only one of a handful of women brave enough (or brazen enough), to wear just hijab and not niqab; I was virtually paralyzed with anxiety.
This anxiety was exacerbated by the fact that two children, a boy and girl that I assumed to be brother and sister, had been passing through the area where I was waiting selling scarves. I had been watching them pass among the small groups of women, asking if anyone wanted to buy a scarf, and when they were moving from the small group nearest to me, they passed right by me and moved on to the next group, as if I had not been there at all…and truth be told…I had intended to buy a scarf from them just for general principles…and not because I actually needed one…but just out of the kindness and generosity of my heart…just as I also know that I would have insisted that they accept more for the scarf than they were actually asking…just because…instead, I turned away from the scene in front of me and sat down on the edge of the curb along the sidewalk facing the street to wait for my husband. Al-hamdulillah, Allah (swt) in His infinite mercy allows us credit for a good intention even if something happens negating our ability to fulfill it.
After salat my husband found his way up the winding sidewalk from the mosque to the front of the park to retrieve me…gosh…at this point I don’t think anyone would doubt that I felt like little more than a piece of lost luggage…
Note: We are still car-less and dependant on taxis so grocery shopping is always a truckload of fun. Not… Most of the time my husband goes alone and just gets enough things for us to “survive” (which I am so completely sick of…“surviving”, that is…), and if I’m lucky, once a week, or in the alternative, once every other week, I get to accompany him so I can listen to him complain about the trip being a headache because he had to take me with him (astaghferullah…he’s just a man…). My husband’s annoyance stems from the fact that my traveling with him necessitates his getting a taxi when, if he went alone, he could catch a ride with someone leaving the hospital complex, which would cost him nothing, and on the return trip he would only pay 5 riyals for a ride in one of those little diesel engine, pollution emitting, two-seater, Suzuki taxi/trucks that he refers to as a “debaab” – which, by the time he gets home, has him smelling so badly of fumes that he has to go straight to the shower while I put away the groceries. (Mmm…I think that was a “run-on” sentence! LOL!!)
To add insult to injury, even if we run out of groceries, if my husband is “on-call” he cannot leave the hospital grounds because the signal for his pager will not travel beyond the mountains that the campus is surrounded by. So, on this particular Friday evening, we really needed to get a good supply of things because of his being on call for the next few days, and with us being together, I thought it would be a productive shopping trip. The last time we made the shopping trip I just waited at the front of the store with my grocery cart for him to return with the taxi. Gosh…it didn’t seem like such a big deal to me…the weather was great and it gave me a chance to just quietly observe my surroundings.
But on this particular shopping trip my husband seemed to want to hurry through the store without picking up too many grocery items. This really irritated me because I was calculating the number of days in conjunction with the complete lack of supplies in the kitchen, together with his on-call schedule, and I knew we would be looking at bare cupboards before our next shopping trip. However, as fate would have it…we’ve been in “survival” mode again for the past three days, and quite frankly, I am a little more than ticked off about it. Astaghferullah. I am venting now…please forgive me…I just get so frustrated sometimes because I am so accustomed to being able to do things for myself.
Back home in the U.S. I never had to depend on anyone else to do anything for me…(another monumental adjustment in moving to Saudi Arabia…) in fact, if my work schedule had me too busy, I could even go to www.peapod.com and order my groceries through the internet and have them delivered to my apartment for a mere $4.00 service charge! Yes, it’s true! And an amazingly wonderful service it is, too! If you’re East Coast, stateside, there might be one near you!!! LOL!!!
At any rate, we ended up moving through the store more quickly than would have ordinarily been possible for me to pick up all that we needed to survive comfortably for the next few days. Before you could blink an eye, we were at the check-out, only this time, with so few bags when it was all said and done, that we elected to just walk together out of the store vs. my waiting for him to return with a taxi like before.
As we walked along the sidewalk in the direction of the hospital, I noted that soon it would be time for Isha, and yet I couldn’t help but notice that the park was still full…children were running and playing, men sat in groups together on blankets playing cards, smoking cigarettes (astaghferullah), eating, drinking tea, and talking, while the women sat in little groups, clad in their niqabs, literally just staring blankly out into space; some quietly chatting amongst themselves…(a few actually keeping an eye out for their children)…somehow I felt depressed looking out at the scenes falling behind me as we walked along in search of a cab to take us home; all I could think of was getting away from there and quick.
Unfortunately, for some reason (we’re always being tested on our patience, aren’t we??) on this particular night it seemed that we would be hard-pressed to hail a taxi. As I stood at the curb waiting (something else I am growing more and more accustomed to…not!!) with Mustafa, I opened one of the grocery bags, and Al-hamdulillah, found one of the cans of Pepsi that happened to be from a refrigerated container inside the store. Aaahhh…sometimes there’s nothing like the “real thing.” (That’s one of Pepsi’s slogans…“The Real Thing.”) {{smile}} Oddly enough, for some reason Coca-Cola just isn’t the same here…Mustafa and I jokingly refer to it as “fake” Coke…boy, wouldn’t the marketing department at Coke be dismayed to hear that! LOL!!
Anyhow, after what seemed to be about 20 minutes a taxi finally happened along. Uhhhh…and these are not the famous Washington-Metropolitan-Area, Lincoln/Crown Victoria, air-conditioned, leather seated Red Top cabs, oh, no! Many of the cabs in Taif are (for the most part) out-of-production Toyota Cresseda’s, and many of them are typically on their “last leg” – or…if you can’t figure that out…it is a miracle that they get you 10 feet up the road…lol…but, Al-hamdulillah, we were finally rescued from the curbside and on our way home.
Entertainment for the journey home consisted of listening to the Arabic conversation taking place in the front seat between my husband and the cab driver as they both spoke amicably with arms flailing in front of each other…(as is the Saudi/Egyptian custom when speaking). In my Red Top cab my husband would have been sitting in the back of the cab beside me, and most likely even holding my hand! (Astaghferullah!!) Anyway, I sat (quietly of course, as women are not to be heard around here either…), alone in the back seat of the taxi holding my half-empty (give me a break…if you were in my shoes you would say half “empty” instead of half “full”, too…) can of Pepsi. As the taxi passed by the light-filled businesses inside the small city (most of which are clearly meant to be frequented exclusively by men), many of the shop owners stood in the doorways looking out into the streets; willing a customer to drop by, even if just to chat. As we hit the outskirts of town the view changed to that of barren mountainside illuminated by the moonlight settling into the evening sky…I found myself feeling quite somber…
The ride home, Al-hamdulillah, did not take long, and before I knew it, we were pulling up in front of our apartment building at the hospital complex and stepping out of the taxi. My husband and the taxi driver exchanged multiple salaams and various other un-translated well wishes spoken in Arabic, and we headed up to our apartment, at last.
When we got inside, we placed the few bags we had on the dining room table and Mustafa walked over to collapse onto the sofa as I proceeded to begin emptying the contents of the grocery bags out onto the table. Suddenly I felt almost limp, and I couldn't even think or stand there a minute longer, and I walked over to the loveseat facing the sofa where my husband sat, across from the coffee table, and slumped down, emotionally exhausted. I reached up to begin tugging at my hijab in an attempt to remove it, but my arms simply felt too weak to finish the job.
After a few moments of silence, my husband began the conversation. He said to me, "You know, Aishah...a friend of mine back home warned me about something before we left..."
I gazed blankly across at him, mustering up enough strength to ask him what it was his friend had warned him about, and my husband replied, “He warned me that bringing you here might cause you to revert back…” and before he could even finish his sentence the tears were streaming from my eyes. I pulled myself up from where I was sitting and walked across to the sofa and fell down beside him, burying my face into the warmth of chest, and as his arm fell across my shoulders to embrace me, I just cried and cried and cried…
The only thing I know to do right now is to keep in the uppermost part of my mind, the words that my husband said to me, that now seem to have been spoken such a long time ago…
If your concept of Islam is based on what you see in people you will certainly be setting yourself up for disappointment. However, if you remember that the reason you are Muslim is to worship Allah (swt)…then your focus will become clear again. And as my husband also so often says, “La’Hawla wa la quwwata ill’a bill’ah” – or “There is no power nor strength save in Allah.”
In my two short years as a Muslim what I have learned is that so much of what many Muslims “practice” is not even a part of the actual religion itself, and that somehow true Islam seems to have become so clouded, or diluted, and lost or ignored, that what I was feeling in those moments of sadness was not sadness for myself…it was grief for what I imagined Allah (swt) must feel as He looks down upon us…Is He scratching His head? Is He holding His chin and pondering what went wrong? (Astaghferullah…) When did Muslims become so self-defeated??? When will Allah’s (swt) patience run out? La’Hawla wa la quwwata ill’a bill’ah, La’Hawla wa la quwwata ill’a bill’ah. How can an entire park full of “Muslims” sit and amuse themselves; seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was time for prayer? Astaghferullah…The good deed of spending time with their families outside of their busy workweeks was cancelled when they purposefully ignored the call for prayer…
Subhan’Allah…I was so looking forward to coming to a “Muslim” country and meeting Muslim sisters (I’m still waiting for this to happen…), and experiencing the wonder of what it might to be like to live in a Muslim country. Al-hamdulillah…yes…I get to hear the adhan from my apartment window, and I am free to wear hijab without glaring or curious eyes (well, except for those who are trying to guess where I am from…the funny thing is, people guess me from Turkey or Syria, and even London…but never from America…I wonder what that says…). I am also free to pray without having to worry if I can get away from my work, but the other realities are starkly different from what I might have been imagining prior to my arrival. Like the scene in the park during the time for prayer when everyone just kept entertaining themselves, and the following time when the little girl recited Surah Al-Fatihah while everyone else around her continued with what they were doing, seemingly oblivious to the adhan…Astaghferullah…
What puzzles me the most is that everything is accommodated here for Muslims to make salat; mosques, the adhan (in stereo), even the closing of businesses, subhan’Allah. So how is it that one of the basic pillars of the religion can be ignored by so many??
Earlier this afternoon as I watched from my living room window, I noticed a doctor coming around the corner to the front of the mosque. If you are walking along the sidewalk coming from the direction of the hospital towards the mosque, immediately after turning the corner the first open doorway is the place where men can go to make wudu. As I stood watching the scene outside from the split fold of the curtain covering the window, I noticed that the doctor stopped in front of the entrance for wudu and glanced inside. There happened to be several other people making wudu, but the doctor, appearing to consider that the room was too crowded, hesitantly moved forward as if to move to the next entrance that would take him into the mosque for salat. But then I noticed that the doctor stepped back again, and in hesitancy, again moved away from the door; and, wallah, he moved towards the door yet a third time before abandoning going in altogether…I couldn’t help it, but this left me wondering…astaghferullah…did the physician, knowing he needed to make wudu, abandon the act simply because the wudu room was too crowded for his liking? Or in the least, did he abandon the need to relieve himself (which, even still you should do before making salat) because it would have meant making a fresh wudu? Either way, he was forced into a decision…to go inside or not go inside…and he chose not to…and instead, proceeded to walk into the mosque for salat.
On another occasion on a morning after the first adhan for fajr, while standing at my window perch (I am generally looking for my husband, in case you are wondering…as if I have much else to do, [unless I’m writing!]…I’m not looking particularly “at” anyone else unless something particular catches my attention), anyhow, much to my surprise, a boy of about 9 or 10 approached the mosque for salat. Subhan’Allah. I think school is out now, so a few of the younger boys have started coming out for fajr. Anyway, there is no door to the front of the wudu room and an uncovered window beside the entrance, so there is a clear view of the front area where you can sit down to wash your feet. Wallah, I don’t just sit at the window watching what is going on in the wudu area all day…LOL…but the child caught my attention…and I found myself watching intently…out of curiosity…as he performed wudu. What I saw was a child in need of tutoring…Al-hamduillah that he got himself up and came to the mosque (I also noted that he appeared to come alone), but he clearly did not know the proper way in which to perform his wudu…again, I felt saddened…
Let me interject here that there really is another reason why I keep a lookout for my husband during the times for salat, more particularly afterwards. You see…we have this arrangement. Al-hamdulillah…my husband does his best to make salat in the mosque as often as possible, but in truth…sometimes he is really pushing himself because he would prefer to just go straight to pray and come straight back home. However, it seems to be more customary for the general population of brothers attending the mosque for salat to remain in small groups outside afterwards, chatting for much, much longer than my husband cares to stay, and invariably he gets caught in a situation that takes him much longer than his liking to get himself out of. So…we have a deal – LOL!! If I notice that he is “stuck” – well…I dial his pager number…and beep…beep…beep…my husband is rescued and free to excuse himself from the conversation in order to jog over to the guardhouse whereupon he borrows the phone to say, “Thank you! I’ll be there in a minute!” (hee hee hee)
Okay, back to the story.
For the most part, I’d say roughly 6 days out of 7, my husband gets over to the mosque for Fajr (even if I have to shove him out of bed with my foot – LOL!!!). You see…he has this thing…he tells me that if he prays in the mosque for Fajr and Isha that it is the same as if he prayed in the mosque all night…now I’m telling you…this is a man who likes his brownie points! LOL!!! Al-hamdulillah! But the sad part of this is that Mustafa also reports back to me that, while there are row upon row of buildings here housing physicians, and the mosque is so close you can walk to it with ease…there is only one short row of men who appear in the mosque each morning for fajr…Astaghferullah… And do you know…(of course not!)…the one who makes the adhan, ten times a day (so as to not confuse the unlearned reader, yes, we pray five times a day, but the adhan is called ten times because it is called twice for each salat; once to let everyone know the time is nigh, and once as the Imam begins the prayer), seven days a week (well, every once in a while someone pinch hits for him…and believe me…calling the adhan is a talent, and even if our little Asian brother’s Arabic isn’t perfect…some of the others that have tried in his absence will make you appreciate him all the more when he returns! {{smile}}), is a tiny man who spends the rest of his work day in the maintenance department, and who, I am sure, is paid a pittance of the salary that the physicians here are paid, and yet he humbly serves Allah (swt) every morning (and throughout the day, of course), even if it is at 4 am, while all of these men that Allah (swt) has blessed with talent, education, free housing and relatively nice, tax-free salaries…remain in their apartments instead of coming out for fajr…Astaghferullah…
Incidentally, this same mosque has a partitioned area to the far right of the main auditorium where sisters can go inside to pray…but there is no place built for them to make wudu…in other words…you’re welcome to come and pray at the mosque…but not really…I’ve been inside there one time since I arrived and was so disappointed that I never went back.
Al-hamdulillah that Allah (swt) in His infinite mercy helps me to remember my husband's words during times of need...because if I allowed myself to think about the things I've described here too much...the possibility of the prediction of my husband's friend coming true might just become more of a reality than I care to think about. But, Al-hamdulillah, Allah (swt) gave me a husband who, even though he irritates me sometimes {{smile}}, is kind and gentle with me, and always seems to know when I need his gentleness the most, and who always seems to know just what to say to make me feel better...and sometimes it's not even words...it's just a hug. {{smile}}
I often refer to Mustafa as my very own walking, talking, breathing encyclopedia of Qu'ran and Hadith. Subhan'Allah. I was 42-years old when I met my husband...we have now been married 11 months...and I guess what I want to say here is that, Sisters...there is wisdom in everything...and Allah (swt) is the perfect planner. I know sometimes it is so easy to try to take things into our own hands when we are looking for a husband; I have done it myself in the past. But you know what? What I have learned (albeit the hard way) is that when you stop trying to hard to control things on your own...and you let go of the reins and let God's direction fill your life...that's when, around a corner, out of nowhere...you just might run right smack into your destiny...just as it happened between myself and Mustafa at a peace rally in Washington, D.C. A mere three days later Mustafa announced to me that he wanted to be with me in Jannah. As I reflected on these words, I was astounded...no one had ever said anything even remotely like this to me before...it was worth more than a thousand "I love you's" - and within two weeks we were married. Subhan'Allah.
Okay, well...this has gotten quite lengthy, so I will close with these final thoughts:
Al-hamdulillah that Allah (swt) hasn’t given up on us yet…but I fear the time is drawing close…(I guess it’s all that CNN gloom and doom I see on TV everyday). But the evidence is before us, and insha’Allah…each of us…insha’Allah…will all be cautious of how we spend the rest of the time we have in this dunya…I pray for each person that reads this story…I pray that each reader will take pause to consider the shortness of this life…and that we will each reflect on how we spend our time and, insha’Allah…we will draw ourselves closer to the one who facilitates all our needs…the one who is so merciful with us…and the one who forgives us when we seek His forgiveness in sincere repentance…Ameen.
May each of us who are Muslim seek the highest level of deen…that is Ihsan…which means worshiping Allah, as though one sees Him; that is, a Muslim must be conscious of Allah and should know that He sees him wherever he may be.
May those of you reading whom Allah (swt) may guide, find the peace that truly exists in Islam…despite what the headlines in the media say…and despite what you may personally observe around you…and may you seek to learn and accept the truth…thus, insha’Allah, causing you to freely utter the words that will take you to eternity in Jannah:
To become a Muslim you only have to sincerely believe in and say the following phrase:
"Ash hadu an la ilaha ill Allah wa ash hadu anna Muhammadar Rasul Allah."
("I declare there is no god but Allah and I declare that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.")
(Additional information can be found at http://www.sisteraishah.com/Islam123.htm)
Ubadah b. as-Samit said on his deathbed: I heard the Messenger of Allah say, ‘He who testifies that there is no true God except Allah alone having no partner, and that Muhammad is the slave of Allah and His Messenger, and His word (BE) which He said to Maryham, and a soul from Him, and that Jannah (the Heavenly Garden) is true, and Hell-Fire is true, Allah will admit him into Jannah regardless of what he did.’
Subhana Rabbe yal Aa'la - Glory to my Lord Most High.
Wa'Salaam Alaikum.
~Aishah