What is Ramadan to me?

* Being awakened in Karachi with the aroma of freshly cooked rotis
* Going to sleep with a suspicion that my mother may fail to wake me for Suhoor because I am not yet of age to fast.
* Being teased by my brothers to see if I would loose my temper during my fast.
* Walking four miles to visit Khalaji and the maghrib adhaan coinciding with the aroma of freshly fried pakoras
* During med school doing a trauma operation and forgetting that I am fasting till a nurse puts a cup of juice to my lips under my mask to open my fast and wondering if the cup was clean.
* Fasting the last day of Ramadan, and spotting the Eid moon and regretfully realize that I am on call on Eid.
* While rotating in the Well baby Nursery at St Mary’s as a pediatric intern, running across the compound before dawn to Anjum’s apartment to drink tea and eat suhoor together. Thinking of it as a great adventure, at the same time worrying about our patients.
* Traveling to interview for residency and missing a fast, and feeling guilty while eating lunch.
* Paul arriving in Brooklyn with five friends and his sibs to open his fast at my apartment and then drive to a mosque in New Jersey to take Shahada and accept Islam.
* Realizing that you cannot get married in Ramadan, and the reasons for it.
* Walking the streets of Cairo with Paul and buying mangoes to open the fast, and being surprised at finding sweet mangoes in a place other than Pakistan.
* Walking out of the Hotel in Cairo to hear disco music with young people spilling out of the nightclub and registering that with surprise, Muslim country? Ramadan?
* August in Lahore, an oven, fasting and burning my bare feet while running across the compound of the Badshahi mosque.
* Sightseeing Lahore from morning to evening while fasting in the intense heat, and being considered insane by the locals.
* Threatening Tariq that if he did not wake up with the first call for Suhoor, there would be no second call.
* Discovering instant parathas for suhoor.
* Discovering the ultimate luxury of sweet sleep half hour before Iftar, being awakened by Ammi to a fully cooked and served meal.
* Having my children around me eating, laughing and enjoying the suhoor I made.
* Making Ramadan action packages with Hina for the mosque school.
* Being surprised when Shireen makes feta pastries for Iftaar, which turn out to be more delicate & delicious than mine.
* Inviting Muslim and non-muslim children from the community for Iftaar and making giant chocolate chip cookies.
* Having the first Chand raat Mehndi party in Augusta with all the girls at our house.
* Praying maghrib together at home with each child leading alternately.
* Planning to read the Quran everyday and feeling guilty when unable to do so.
* The sheer pleasure of a simple cup of tea at Iftaar
* Discovering the humungous crowd that turns up at the mosque for Iftaar and then disappears for the rest of the year.
* Drinking Rooh Afzaa in milk at the mosque Iftaar and almost gagging with the level of the sugar in it and then drinking some more.
* Talking too much at Mosque Iftaar and missing the magic half hour before the fast opens when no dua is denied.
* Being appalled at the amount of food in the trashcan at the mosque after iftaar, and feeling helpless in preventing it.
* Secretly admiring the women who can stand for Taraweh everyday, and planning to join them some day but never making it in time.
* Being irritated by the children running around in circles at the mosque at Iftaar till I discover that one of them may be mine.
* Suhoor and Iftar become boring when the children leave for college
* Suhoor and Iftaar become simple after the children leave for college.
* Planning a Ramadan Iftaar at Agnes Scott and being surprised when more non muslims turn up at the Iftaar than muslims.
* Having no memory of the Ramadan after Tariq died.
* Being unable to either cook or eat an “instant’ paratha without missing Tariq
* Anticipating Ramadan as a stepping-stone to salvation.
* Looking forward to Ramadan and not to Eid.
* Discovering a wealth of spiritually uplifiting information on Ramadan in the talks by Mokhtar Magroubi on the CD simply titled “fasting”
* Being deeply touched by the Swarthmore students dedicating their last Ramadan Program at Swarthmore to Tariq, before they graduate.
* Being surprised at how many young men and women from Tariq’s college (Swarthmore) kept fasts to support their muslim friends.
* At the Ramadan night at Swarthmore college feeling the love for Tariq.
* At the Swarthmore dinner turning the brochure to see Tariq looking across Parrish with this message from his friends:
“Thank you for sharing your love and joy with us and for being the incredible person you were. You inspire us and bring us hope every day. We will forever think of you and miss you dearly” and the words becoming blurred.
* Walking through the Swarthmore campus knowing that Tariq will never return to these paths and yet feeling the love of his friends and colleagues reach out to me.
* Walking to the soccer field and then to the train station under the starlit night, with Tariq’s friends and Laila, suspended in a state of affection with no definitive end in mind.
* Tiptoeing through Ashton House in Swarthmore at dawn going down to the kitchen to prepare and eat Suhoor while the campus sleeps.
* Praying together with MSA students at Parrish, with Humza’s meticulously beautiful recitation of the Quran and wondering how this very young person could have learnt tajweed so well.
* Laughing with Baba Ali and his comic depiction of “life in the United States” at the Swarthmore Ramadan dinner.
* Imagining Tariq fasting at Swarthmore and seeing him in my minds eye open the package of “finger baklava” and imagining his joy.
* Placing the bouquet of roses on Tariq’s last resting place, a gift of love from his friends at Swarthmore.
* Listening to Shireen and the young medical students grapple with the issues of life and death and responsibility as muslims over iftaar at our house and realize how naïve I was at their age.
* Being thankful for being healthy enough to fast.
* Looking forward to spending Lailatul Qadr (The night of destiny) in the House of my Lord, feeling the spirit and the angels descend and spread “peace on us till morning comes”
Ramadan kareem

A GIFT…….ON THE EVE OF RAMADAN

It is Maghrib. A window of time I have always loved, connecting the day and the night, holding all promises of what’s coming and keeping the memories of the day that is almost done. The doors of night have opened but the doors of the day are not yet closed, sort of like fall, connecting two seasons.
The deep red, magenta and pale lilac sunsets have always been a part of my life growing up. I thought every one experienced them every evening till I started a life where the connecting times have no meaning, where you seldom see maghrib or experience that pause in time when the spirit of the day rests and the spirit of the night waits patiently to take over.
It is that time now, it has been a quiet day, I have already prayed Maghrib, and read a couple of pages from the Quran.
Something is missing; I have an inner need to read something more, and something I can read lying down. My side hurts from where I injured it in a fall recently. I pick up the book on The Names of Allah, and while the twilight wanes I start reading.
The first page that is marked, falls open at the prayer “La taknatu mer Rahmatullah” Never despair of the mercy of Allah, addressed directly to my inner restlessness. I continue, each Name is powerful and the effect of reading each particular Name after a certain prayer is underlined.
I pause and soak in one of my favorites, Al Aziz followed by a verse from the Quran: “He is Allah, than whom there is no other god. The Sovereign Lord, The Holy One the Author of safety, the Giver of Peace, the Protector, the Mighty One” (9:23)
I read the explanation and at the end there are instructions“ he who repeats this Name 40 times after fajr (morning) prayer for 40 days will not only become self sufficient but will be independent of need from others” I look outside, the sky has that gentle smokiness that comes just before the dark veil of night falls. I make a mental note of reading this for fajr allocating the 40-day period in the near future, but the need is not pressing, I am searching as I turn the page.
The power of His Names is overwhelming. If any one reads all of them, and asks for all that is promised, it would be extreme greed. Greed for the good but greed nevertheless.
I pull back and move to a Name I had not studied before: “As Sami” the “All Hearing”.
A prayer follows it from the Quran. A plea of an aged man, a Prophet, who sees the bounties that Allah has bestowed upon Maryam (AS) as she waits patiently with her pregnancy becomes bold and asks Allah for his desire…. an impossibility for an aged couple from the point of view of medical logistics:
“Then Zachariah prayed unto his Lord and said My Lord! Bestow upon me of thy bounty goodly offspring. Lo! Thou art the Hearer of Prayer”. 3:38
The authors explains the meaning and significance of As Sami: “He is the one and only being who will remain for ever and who listens to all the prayers in the minds and hearts that are not uttered in word or sound”.
Lurking at the edges of my heart is a prayer that I cannot pray because it is a physical impossibility. Can one experience the joy of “being” with ones dead child, not just seeing him in a dream but also being with him body and soul, and with all your senses? I do not even utter the words, such thoughts are at the outer edges of decent prayers, I should ask for the usual things, for this world and the Hereafter and just not focus on such flights of imaginative desires of a bereft mother.
At the end of the page are the instructions: “He who recites this Name 100 times without speaking to anyone on Thursdays after Zuhr (Noon) Prayer, Allah will bestow on him any desire”.
I close my eyes, it is now dark both outside and inside. If I was to do this prayer what do I desire……? My mind flits from item to item, I find that Allah has already given me a lot, and as my spirit and mind wanders it keeps coming up to the closed door. The forbidden area of impossibility, I skirt it even in thought.
In the etiquette of prayer one is admonished not to pray for the impossible, I abide by it but I find myself in front of the closed door again.
Somewhere as these thoughts flit in my head and my spirit waits, I very gently slip into no mans land a twilight zone. I am not asleep and I am not awake.
He is close to me; I can smell his child fragrance that signature smell that bonds the mother and child at birth, thus identifying forever who your mother is such that you can find her and she can find you with eyes closed.
Shireen is with him they are planning to go somewhere, he is natural, deeply contented, happy, not exuberant, but with a sense of profound comfort with an underlying goal and purpose. Mostly he is talking to Shireen, yet I am so close to him that I can smell the clean smell of his neck, which is vibrant & youthful with life.
As I get closer to kiss his temple I smell that baby smell in his hair mixed with his own natural fragrance, I have missed this for so long, I think to myself. I had tried to inhale it when I kissed his head at the funeral parlor after his death, but it was gone.
I am perplexed, he seems to be very alive, and I seem to be a spirit, there is no sadness, no heartache, no regrets, and no worldly material goals. We never make eye contact; I feel I am so close to him, and a little bit to his side. I feel I have no substance except for my senses, he knows I am there and yet I am not there. I have missed my child’s fragrance searching for him with that sense of smell that a mother is given to identify her child.
I kiss him on his head and inhaling that smell that only belonged to him since childhood. He is going and coming back and doing things, he and Shireen are busy with a project working out the logistics of something, and they seem to be in charge. I am there but like an invisible wraith, my senses filling themselves with my son’s fragrance. At times I am so close that I can see the edges of the neck of his favorite T-shirt, which after many washings has lost its crispness. I am not listening to what they are saying, just inhaling, engulfing myself with what I used to feel when he embraced me or answered to my “your mama loves you “ with “love you too”. It is a long and beautiful sojourn with no beginning and no end and no defined purpose.
And just as I had entered that world of my children, I eased out of it. I notice the book of Names is still on my chest, I get up to pray Isha but as I look out, it is another bridging time when the doors of the morning are opening and doors of the night have not yet closed. Somewhere between these two connecting zones someone had read my inner most desires and granted them. It is almost fajr…
On this eve of Ramadan, I have been given a gift that every mother of a dead son desires, but never dares to ask for.

A letter to you……….Why I want to?

You ask with surprise why do I want to go to Mecca again? And why for the last ten days of Ramadan? So let me collect my thoughts and share them with you.

In the odd nights of the last ten days of Ramadan is a night, the Night of Power or the Night of Decree called Lailatul Qadr. On this night the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). In the last part of the Quran is a brief surah about Lailat ul Qadr (Night of Decree/Night of Power). Allah Subhanwa Taa’la says this about the night in which the Quran was sent down:

Surah 97:1-5 “Certainly we sent it down on the Night of Power, and what will convey to you What the night of Power is?
The Night of power is better than a thousand months.
The angels and The Spirit descend in it, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees.
Peace it is till the rising of the dawn.”

It is this peace promised in the Quran, in this surah that I desire to experience, in addition to the peace that settles into every cell of my body and heart when I am in the House of Allah, it whisks me away from worldly distractions, daily chores and obligations, and worries of daily life. I am safe from the reaches of all anxieties, grief and the trial and tribulations that come with life and living.

I wish to seek sanctuary for ten days and nights, making my prayers as the night of Power arrives in all its essence and with all its ramifications and envelopes me, in the House of Allah.

It is said that the Peace promised during this night brings with it the angels who “descend by the permission of their Lord” and on finding a slave of Allah praying, drape her with their wings. Wherever the angels are, with them comes the mercy of Allah. I want to be one of those who receive this bounty of Allah in His home.

A man once asked Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him for a “brief & simple” advice about “life”. The Prophet peace and blessings upon him said: “Take five before five”
1. Use your youth wisely before you become old and are unable to do the things that will get you closer to Allah.
2. Use your health before illness befalls you
3. Use your wealth before poverty strikes you
4. Use your free time before you become busy
5. Use your life before death takes you

This year Alhamdullillah I am relatively young, relatively healthy, relatively well to do, and relatively less busy at this time of this year. Any or all of these may change by next Ramadan.
I know that it has been said and may cross the minds of those who hear or read of my going to Mecca AGAIN that this is “excessive”.

There are not a fixed number of times for anyone that is “enough”. For each person is his or her own measure. To many people the Kaaba calls but they do not hear it because of the ambient noise of this world, to others the Kaaba calls and they are unable or not ready to make the trip, and for some, once is enough. There is no magic number that defines “enough” One time does not fit all. It is entirely an individual feeling.
I personally feel I have served my family all my life. I feel I have been a good wife, a good daughter, a good mother and a good sister, doing my best to fulfill all these roles and my huqooq al ebad to the best of my abilities.
At this juncture of my life, above all things, I need the peace, comfort and spirituality to sink into me and the mercy of Allah to envelope me as I experience the Night of Power in the Kaaba.

I pray that I have the stamina, health and ability to experience the Night of Power in the Kaaba. Ameen.
My hope is that Inshallah my friends and family will understand why this means so much to me, and pray that Allah may grant me this wish!