Yesterday was memorable for several reasons.
Before yesterday, never before had I encountered an onion pungent enough to bring my tear ducts to their metaphorical knees.
And yesterday, I was told the story of someone I shall call Walid.
He had had leukaemia once. At that point, he was a Muslim by name only, but by the time he was pronounced cured, he had made one of the greatest transformations anyone had ever seen.
He had proposed to my friend, the sister of his friend, but her parents were concerned by the state of his health, and he decided to step down.
Some time later, he found out that he was in relapse, and that the leukaemia was back. Even with the bone marrow transplant he’s having soon, the doctors give him two years.
But my friend, the one who could have been his wife by now, told me that no one was really worried about that. Not because the reality of his illness was lost to them, but because they knew deep down that he would be fine. That when the time comes, he would have no difficulty of entering Jannah, because he had done good in this world.
Another sister who was listening, reminded us of the hadith qudsi, where Allah declares that should He love a person, then He will grant that person the love of the world around him.
Which was why, even through the scant beard and his pale face, nobody really worried about Walid.
I hid the stray tears behind a fake yawn.
Another moment would be at the da’wah table at during the Islamic Society’s barbie, where several sisters and I were standing, chatting with the people who came. A guy with brown curls, big eyes and a leather knapsack came up and asked about what activities we held. He told us that he was Muslim, but that he had drifted from Islam a long time ago, with a level of honesty that surprised me. As he signed up his details on the green sheet of paper, he told us when asked, of how he stopped going to the masjid when he was about thirteen. That his mother was non-Muslim, and that he could not see the point in praying anymore. When he went to get a pita-dog, I looked at his name, written in a neat cursive. Yasser.
And it was at that point that I told my friend that I needed a good souk, right then and there.
Yesterday’s brief glimpse of Yasser reminded me of this bloke who came by the UMIS booth during O-Week. His name is Brian, and whenever memory brings him back to mind, I see dark blue eyes and a huge, pleasant smile. I remember his earnest explanation of how beautiful he found Islam to be; of his nocturnal fasting month in
As it turns out, my deen can seem so different, and yet so beautiful, in someone else’s eyes.
Sometimes I feel as if I’ve taken Islam for granted. Sometimes I feel like I do not fully appreciate this understanding I’ve come to; this way of life I was born and raised with. Sometimes, I’m scared that I’m running away from it all, as if I’m trying too hard to find compromises with the world. As if I didn’t have to answer to Allah at the Mahsyar.
And yet even when my heart seems to forget, Allah showers me with reminders, so that my qalb will remember.
Parsou, the day before yesterday, brother Abdullah mentioned something during a rather heated UMIS meeting, which went something like this:
“InsyaAllah, all of us, we hold Islam dear to our hearts.”
And I thought, isn’t it wonderful, how a single line can take your breath away, and bring back spirit to your hearts?
“Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.”
(Surah ar-Rad, 13:28)
Labels: qalb, remembrance