DHIKR: THE ROPE OF ALLAH

As I look upon the abyss of my grief in which there is no beginning and no end but continuing pain and anguish. I feel no hope as I free fall, plunging down into its dark despair waiting to hit rock bottom, but every time I look up to seek help from Allah I see his rope being lowered towards me to hang on to. As I reach for it with the Dhikr of Allah I feel the descent into the abyss of grief slowing down. When I persist in the Dhikr of Allah there are moments when a parachute opens and I am actually lifted out of the abyss of my personal grief into the sunshine of Allah’s bounties.
With the help of His righteous people, who give me a hand and their love fi sabillillah, I survive in His graciousness for He is Musabab-ul -Asbaab. I hope to stand in the ranks of shakir and sabir, inshallah!

THE IMPORTANCE OF MARRIAGE

I have asked several people, young and old, single and married to help me crystallize the essential aspects of this subject. The results ranges from the spiritual to the practical.
As Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, the importance of marriage lies also in the eyes of the beholder.
The importance of marriage differs if you are a girl or a boy. It also differs if you are a community leader who wants order and peace in society through a strong family system or if you are a rebellious renegade who wants anarchy & discord.
You may be a concerned parent who wants to see grand children, or an aging parent who want to assure a legal partner in marriage for their child.
You may even be one of the business executives for one of the numerous marraige.com sites who wants a lot of traffic on their website.
Thus the first step is to look at our self and determine where are we in this equation before attempting to evaluate the importance of marriage.
I will be candid and say that my viewpoint is biased, coming from a vantage point of 29.75 years of marriage and looking forward to the marriage of my dear daughter someday.
Most of what I can say is derived from hindsight
I have been blessed with a self-help book: The Holy Quran that has guided me in these past thirty years of partnership with my dear husband.
On asking my husband what was the importance of marriage he said that a husbands duty first and foremost is and I quote “ to bring in the groceries and take out the garbage”
Actually looking up the duties of a Muslim family I noted that we are asked to remove the garbage daily as Shaitan resides in it, polluting the sanctity of our homes.
I thank my husband for continuously keeping Shaitan away from our home☺
Some of the young folks when asked about the importance of marriage addressed the need to prepare for marriage. They stressed the need of a strong basic broad based general education and a strong specific education in Deen in order to field the challenges that life and marriage throws at them.
On the other hand a seasoned married person observed
“ Men and women in our society are conditioned to expect that our spouses should meet our hitherto unmet inner psychological needs”. This expectation is a burden on the marriage.
As Muslims we have to remind ourselves that only Allah SWT can provide us the strength and faith to meet our inner needs in order to be whole within.
The importance of marriage is not in acquiring a spouse as a material asset for worldly prestige. We all know that today’s prince can be tomorrows beggar and vice versa.
In my humble opinion the essence of marriage that every man, and women seeks is a partnership in spirituality, to fulfill a marriage in its entirety.
What is the importance of marriage for our Creator? He (Allah SWT) knows His creation best. He knows that we find rest and mercy in the company of each other and
Allah SWT says in his book: and I quote:
“And among His signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your hearts. Verily in that are signs for those who reflect.” (Qur’an Surah 30: ayah 21)
For lasting success of a marriage, it is important that we search for a mate based on the spiritual qualities rather than the “hotness” level or the heaviness of the wallet and continuously hold our actions accountable to Allah (SWT) alone.
In summary the importance of a God Conscious marriage (With Taqwa) lies in three areas:
1. Accountability: It is important for us as spouses to abide by each other with gentleness, kindness, compassion and mercy that He (SWT) has put between our hearts as we are in all finality accountable to Him (SWT)
2. Respect: Respect is Love in plain clothes and what is Love but Respect dressed up in the garments of romance. Respect smoothes the bumps in the course of a marriage and perseveres in the event of lost beauty, lost jobs, illness and calamities.
3. Companionship: This is the comfort ingredient of marriage that psychologist’s say is most needed by men and women and yet the most denied by one or the other.
Every husband and wife are witnesses to each other’s life history. Every milestone they experience together can never be erased. It is a bond of strength that Allah grants God conscious men and women of Taqwa to weather the joys and calamities of life. And a final quote: A husband and wife, to paraphrase the Qur’an, are “garments for each other”

“With work and persistence, and commitment on the part of both partners, a marriage can be long lasting and successful, ultimately becoming like a favorite sweater, soft in just the right places, and worn with such love and ease that even the grayed spots are comforting and familiar.”

MY LAST PRAYER AS A CHILD

I am standing in the chapel again. It seems that time has stood still. Two years and seven months have never passed.
It is Anjum’s birthday. I haven’t sent her a card nor a gift. I am on my way to Ammi’s hospital room in the ICU. She is awake; her eyes are open and looking at me questioningly. I hold her hand; it is warm, soft and reassuring as always. I look at her, in the eyes and tell her that I am going down to the chapel to pray. I reassure her about my siblings and myself. We are going to be all right I tell her and that she should not worry. How many times I have said those words in the past without effect. Today she believes me. Relief and satisfaction settles in her eyes, the creases of her face relax, a wave of peace washes over her expression, and she attempts a smile and then closes her eyes. The warmth of her hand sending me love.
I rush down to the chapel. I hurriedly put down my prayer sheet and perform the absolute basic of Dhuhr prayer; my youngest brother has almost finished. He has neither waited for me, nor did I ask him too. I am ignorant of the fact that if we pray jamaat prayer that we would be blessed 27 times for one prayer, but we are both ignorant of the beauty and finesse of the perfect prayer.
I pray to Him (Allah subhanawalta’ala) to take away my mother’s pain and do what is best for her, to release her from her pain and the indignities of the struggle. There is fervor in my prayer. I want him to listen!
The curvature in the right wall of the chapel is the direction of the Kaaba, how different from the real one. I have no concept of what I face when I pray. I have never seen the Kaaba.

I am distracted. What is happening upstairs? I feel that in my absence something terrible may happen. I feel I have to be there to stop it from happening. I hurry my prayer. Little do I know that I have very little control on what is to happen. I am on the brink of being irreversibly pushed into the adult world, and the doors of being a child with a mother are going to close irrevocably. I hurriedly rise from my prayer sheet, unaware that this will be my last prayer as a child.
Inna lil lahe wa inna alayhe rajaeown, ” We come from Him and unto Him we shall return” (Quran)

Once upon a time I had a brother………

Today I am febrile and in my feverish state I feel his gentle presence. The heel of his soft hand gently kneading my aching forehead and asking me “does it hurt here? Bringing solace with his touch. Sensitive, kind and gentle at this moment, cuttingly sarcastic at the next. A man of many layers.
He is no longer in the realm of the living. A wall of smoke came between him and me when I was fifteen and he nineteen. He had started to smoke. Once standing in the outer garden of my father’s house, the petunias blooming in a garden the size of a field, he pulled out a cigarette. “Do you want to try?” His eyes were sarcastic. I with my bravado was never one to refuse a challenge. Visions of Dames of Hollywood flitted across my brain as I envisioned myself with a slender cigarette between my fingers, and me nonchalantly exhaling slowly into the face of some gorgeous hunk.
He lit it for me and I took it and inhaled. The smirk was in his eyes. He wanted an ally in me but felt I would not be able to make the par. I inhaled and all my breathing tubes closed, collapsed, and a burning sensation rent my chest. My windpipe turned into a raging inferno. I coughed and coughed and coughed. That was the end of my effort to join him in his adventures. From then on it was a strange association, I would want to be with him, but when he smoked I would end up with such a miserable headache which I later discovered was a smoke triggered migraine. The ironies of life that I never connected the two. As long as he was in the vicinity, my chest burned and my head hurt, so my heart and my body were always at war with each other about his presence.
“Come and listen to this” he would say with the volume of banned poetry of Mir in his hand, he would liltingly recite a couplet, I would run to get my red diary to write it down, he would say “just listen”, but in the end I would make him repeat it to write it down. He was my intellectual oasis.
He was also the most popular of all my brothers with my friends, he was polite, answered the door and actually asked them if they wanted to come in. He very politely informed them if I was not there and offered to take a message. One would think that was normal behavior, but in my house this was very gracious behavior.
My dear friend of my childhood was once sick and a friend of his had come to fetch him. I quickly made a bouquet of jasmine from the vine in our yard and gave it to him. “Please deliver it to Shehla, and tell her to get well soon” I said as he took off sitting behind his friend on the Vespa, clutching a bouquet of flowers, a lock of straight dark hair fallen on his forehead. One would have thought he was carrying the bouquet for his sweetheart not for the sick friend of his little sister.
I have many vignettes of childhood memories with him. He was the silent gracious caring person in a house of hellions.
One clear memory is of my mother, bidding goodbye to him when he was leaving for Boarding school. He was wearing his blazer, which said on the pocket “Never give up” or something like that. A boarding school in Murree, hundreds of miles away from home. He was standing forlorn by his suitcase and “bistara”. The pathos of the scene hit me in my heart, he was too small too vulnerable even to my five year old senses, the boarding school had mean boys, he was only nine!
He left with my brothers silently, and my mother wept for days. Even to my young eyes I could see the mother son bond that I later saw mentioned in the Quran and Hadith. Later Ammi told me that he wrote her one letter every day of that first year at the Boarding school. It was there that I think he developed the outer crust that none of us could ever get past. One thing became evident when he returned that it was going to be difficult to get close to him.

My chronology is mixed up as he went in and out of our home so many times starting at the tender age of nine. I was fourteen and he was an English major at the University. Through him I read all the scandalous books of those days: Lady Chatterley’s lover, Madame Bovary, the Scarlet Letter and The Confessions of an Opium eater and several others. Where these books intrigued him, they left me confused. I felt they were far from reality, I found it hard to identify with these characters. These were people from another culture, another way of life, another level of ethics; it was like reading a fairy tale.
He went to one of the elite private schools in Karachi and broke all records of academia in the entire commonwealth. His intellect did not bring him peace, he was restless, and flowing with whomsoever showed up, reading whatever was available. I thought he was all grown up since he was at University. He was only 18. At nineteen he had completed his Masters in English and passed his civil service entrance exam. We said goodbye to him again as he went away to Lahore and was now going to be trained as civil servant.
Academia came easy to him but life was difficult for him, I always felt he was something else internally that was exposed to no one after that first year at boarding school.
He could be cruel and cutting in his selection of words if he wanted to, he was a verbal fencer and no one could win an argument from him.
Ammi and I went to Balochistan, The land of the feudal lords, to visit him. It was a memorable visit, driving through the hills, and the furrow on his forehead telling me that he was worried. Later I was told that we had driven through the highway where no official had passed unharmed. Allah SWT was looking after him and us.
The smoke always interfered between me and him, it made me non functional, and I waited for the time I could leave and when I left I wanted to see him again and listen to his stories that even though had to be pried out of him, were worth the effort.
He was like a spirit that came and went from our home at will, without permanence or stability. His intellect was always understated; he never proclaimed himself as intelligent but in his early teens he was many times puzzled how dense other people were.
Do I miss him………? it is difficult to evaluate. He communicated with me by letter three times in the twenty-six years I was away from him, and yet my leaving home for advanced studies was thanks to him. My mother wanted me to marry and not go alone to the States, he said “ If she gets married how can she go to the States, her husband may not be ready to do so” For this I am eternally grateful to Allah SWT who sent him to help me.
Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon him) said that when one’s book of life closes, our deeds cease. However one leaves three things behind after death:
* Righteous children, who continue to pray for their parents
* Good deeds that are continuous (sadaqa jariya) and
* Written ilm (Islamic knowledge) that others can benefit from.
Even though I do not fall in the three-abovementioned categories, I continue to pray for him in every prayer: now, in Hajj and in Ummrah. I hope Allah (SWT) accepts my prayers.
I have not seen him in many years; even years before he left the realm of the living and yet, he is alive in my life, absent though alive as he had always been.
I feel I have just left him sitting at the dinner table, a book in hand, a lock of hair fallen on his forehead, a lit cigarette in his fingers and a half sipped cup of tea in front of him, he was passing life by.

MY FATHER’S SONS 5:27-40

It is my first free morning of the Thanksgiving week. The day stretches out unfettered by schedules. I am sipping tea and listening to Farhat Hashmi. Out of the blue while tafseering ayah 27-40 of Surah Al Maidah, she comes upon the age-old story, and explains the Quranic reference to Cain and Abel. The entire story is riveting. I have read it in many secular forms, in books, in references, but I have never heard a detailed explanation from a scholar, with so many layers of meanings.

As she continues to talk in her soothing conversational voice, I can feel the heat of Cain’s anger, the gnawing helpless pain of envy and the extreme sibling rivalry. Unlike the rivalry that I have observed in my siblings and in siblings of many other families this rivalry is not a simple rivalry for the love of a parent, it is a competition of love and acceptance of a gift to the loved one, who in this case is our Creator. The desire to acquire, or win Allah’s goodwill and love is a far more potent reason for the rivalry in these siblings than anything we experience between our siblings for our parents love. For Allah to accept the sacrifice of one and not the other is unbearable to Cain. These ayahs unfold not only the story of Cain and Abel but hold the secret of the etiquette needed to gain the love of Allah.

As the tafseer progresses with the story from the ayahs it is vivid enough for me to see in my mind’s eye the extreme disappointment in Cain’s face being transformed into hate, rage and envy. The predatory part of his Nafs taking hold of these emotions and unleashing them onto his beloved brother. I am stunned at the words of Allah. He is asking Prophet Muhammad (sas) to recount this story as news to the Arabs and the Jews and now to the future generations of Adam (AS). Why is He doing that? The answer comes later in the ayahs.

Envy in the Quran and Hadith as I understand it (Allah hu Taa’ala Alam) is defined as an emotion that challenges the decree and decision of Allah SWT. Envy challenges Allah SWT in His decision to bestow a blessing on one and not the other. The feelings that arise on observing someone get a blessing pertaining to this world or the next and being angered by it is Envy.

If I think & feel that I am more worthy of what the other person has, then I am questioning Allah’s decision to give this particular blessing to another than to me. In short the statement I am making by being envious is that I do not believe that He (SWT) is giving it to the right person, and thus He is unjust or that He has made a mistake. (Astighfirullah)

This type of Envy (in which I may think that I am worthier than the person who received the blessing) is also tinged with Kibar, which are all names for the rage, and anger that allows us to overthrow all respect, humility and submission to Allah and his Rasool and makes us challenge His (SWT) decision.

Listening to Abel’s response I sense a thread of empathy & a gentle warning in it, and perhaps fear of what may happen. These feelings are shored up by his resolve that he voices “ I will not raise my hand to harm you as I fear Allah because He is Rabb ul Alameen” I see him trying to instill the respect for the decision & power of Allah and hoping that perhaps his brother’s envy and rage will be tempered and modified by this admission.

Cain overcome by his envy and kibar, is being ridden by the wild beast of his predatory ego which blinds him to the Taa”a (submission) of Allah. I see his ego and envy like a blindfold on the eyes of a horse, and anger a whip for it. Thus Cain is galloping over unfamiliar terrain, being ridden by his ego, forgetting all else except the insult that his sacrifice for Allah SWT has not been accepted while his brother’s has, and he does the deed.

Regret comes later on the wings of fear and dismay for his action. Is it too late? Too late for Cain? Or too late for the entire human race that will come after him? We are to learn more as the ayahs unfold.

According to Abdullah bin Masood Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said “ The person who is killed without just cause then the sin of his death also falls on the first son of Adam”

Thus Every time a murder of an innocent person is committed in this world by a son or daughter of Adam, the sin of that action in addition to falling on the perpetrator is also visited on the son of Adam who initiated this action.

Bukhari’s Hadith “ Someone who initiates a wrong action for the first time, and people follow him, then some of their sin also falls on the originator of the action”

In summary these ayahs are potent and filled with examples of actions, those, which should and should not be done, and what drives us to these actions. Allah SWT gives a method for us to get closer to him, and also gives us acts that are forbidden.

I can envision our gentle Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) listening to these ayahs, understanding them, his tender heart shaken by the happenings and their consequences. I think to myself, what did I learn……….and find I have a long list to make and act upon!
Jazzaa ik Allah hu Khairan!

Key words: Envy, Ego driven, First dead man on earth, teaching of burial, the bird as a teacher, the conscience, shame, regret, Fear of Allah, killing without just cause and its ramifications. Saving someone from harm and its ramifications.

Intention of Qurbani, when is Qurbani accepted? And when not.

For details listen to: in Urdu: http://www.alhudapk.com/home/online-classes/tq-online-2005/course-material/TQ-2005-06/para-06.htm (lesson 71 tafseer)
For English: http://www.alhudapk.com/audio-video/tqe-hijab-iqbal/para6.asp (lesson 6, tafseer part 1) May Allah accept your efforts.

Is it Lailaltul Qadr and are they my guardian angels?

It is the 25th of Ramadan, 2007 and I am lost! Lost in the Haram? The very thought is comic, how can one be lost in the House of Allah, the reference point is always there, large as life. And with this thought the first layer of dunya peeled off of me.

I was in the Haram and I could not be lost, I could always look at the Kaaba and orient my self. On the wings of insecurity comes the thought “But what about my things”? I recall Haifa saying, “You may come back to your musallah of Itikaaf and you may or may not find your “things” but they are not lost, just moved to someplace else, by someone”. But nevertheless despite all the platitudes, I am feeling lost, displaced, and disoriented. After spending five days in one spot, only leaving for absolute needs, suddenly I am displaced not only from my “place” in the Haram, but also from my companions.

I have to accept it and move on, and I feel another layer of my dependence on dunya peel off. I feel my journey now is on my own with Allah as my guide, unfeterred by worldly needs and dependencies. As I go from row to row from my Itikaaf spot forward, I ask several people if I could pray next to them, but they shrug the classic Arab shrug which means “I am not saying no, but look around you, do you see any place to squeeze a sajdah” I walk on and now I am almost to the front exit of the women’s area. I have now come to accept that I will have to pray Asar somewhere else in the Haram.

As I approach the front section, I see a gold plush prayer rug laid out in waiting for a hitherto absent worshipper, calling me. On the top center is a small emblem of the House of Saud, (which I only recognize much later). There is a young woman sitting on the right of the prayer rug. I speak to her in the universal language of the Haram, i.e. I speak a combination of urdu and English with Arabic words like “salli” thrown in while pointing to the rug. She looks at me appraisingly and to my surprise says in clear English that I can pray Asar on her prayer rug, but after that I would have to leave, since she is expecting the rest of her family to join her and the others who are already here. She waves her hand around at the two rows of women of all ages. They are all in her family.

Thankfully I approach the inviting prayer rug and start my Tahiyyat –e Masjed. As I pray I feel increasing warmth in her hospitality, it is a feeling without any concrete action. She does not disturb me. Only when I take a break that we make conversation and I learn more about her, and her family. On the night of 24 Ramadan she and her extended family pack up and come from all corners of Arabia. They meet in Mecca where they have some rooms, where they shower, dress and prepare to spend the next five days and Eid in the Haram. They have done this every Ramadan for many generations. . What a beautiful tradition!

The soulful voice of the Muezzin echoes in the halls of the Haram, and almost like genetically coded behavior, I rise along with the other hundreds of women in this enclosure, and pray sunnah. Each one of us dialing in to our Creator. Unmindful of any other distractions. Clearing out the static, and submerging the acts of daily living in anticipation of connecting with our Creator. As if on a timer as the Sunnah finishes the Iqamah is called. Between the Iqamah and the first takbeer is that moment when Allah SWT does not deny any prayer of His abd.

Each of us knows this moment and we try to efficiently prioritize what we need fulfilled urgently, and then flow into the Asar prayer, behind the Imam.
My one prayer equals 10, 000 done at home I think happily and then Shireen’s smiling face comes to me with her comment “Mom who’s counting?”

I regretfully shorten my post Asar Dhikr, as I do not want to take undue advantage of the generosity offered to me by this Arabian lady. I rise and pick up my shoulder pack. It feels light. I have forgotten to bring my bottle for Zam Zam and I have neglected to buy anything for the opening of the fast. Confident of the hospitality of my neighbors, this does not worry me. Thus my slippers in my shoulder pack I descend to the courtyard of the Kaaba and silently merge into the tawaf crowd.

Today I have no agenda, no plans, or schedules to get back to the second floor. I am no longer in control of my time and my direction, I have no other plans except to do tawaf and pray maghrib and then perhaps get back to the musallah for Itikaaf and pray Taraweh with my companions. Maybe by then the crowd may have thinned and I may be able to find my spot and my companions.

One of the many pleasant anticipation of Itikaaf is the pleasure of being able to performTawaf at anytime, and for as long as one can.

I wait the evening with anticipation. With Maghrib begins the 25th of Ramadan. As I walk in Tawaf I wonder if this is THE NIGHT! How will I know? I feel that my heart will know, I pray that my heart will know. I look around me the evening shadows are lengthening and the lovely lamps around the Hateem have been lit. My fellow worshippers and I are fatigued, sweating from the heat and thirst of a hot fast. However there is a sense of determination as each of us works towards our destination.

I am slow today, I have not slept more than four hours in twenty-four for several days, and it is slowly telling on me. I will do one tawaf and go back to the masjed; I think to myself. Little do I know what lies in store for me?

Tonight I am gradually giving up control, like a child gives up to the elder knowing with full confidence that he or she will be well taken care of. I am in the hands of Allah and He is personally going to determine and guide what I do and when I do it. It is a beautifully freeing feeling; I feel I am light as air.

On completing the tawaf I realize that it has taken me a long time, Perhaps because I am at the outer edges of the circle, which seems to be swelling by the minute. Yet each one of us has our place on the blessed floor of the Haram, where our feet touch the hallowed grounds, and each one of us has a place in front of us where our hands are extended in dua, and each one of us has a sliver of space behind us. Only occasionally a woman puts a hand on my shoulder, urging me on.

It is very different from Hajj, where there is a time constraint. Today it seems the pilgrims have unlimited time and unlimited lamentations and supplications that they have to complete in this tawaf before Maghrib.
I walk to the Zam Zam coolers; they are being brought in, for the opening of the fast. I pause and regretfully note that there is no Zam Zam in them right now, not even to put a few drops on my head and face to cool me. I move on my eyes scanning the area around the Muqaam e- Ibrahim that Allah SWT has designated as the selected area for prayer (musallah) after the Tawaf. I have to find some women, as I now know that I should not pray in front of men by choice.

I see a group of women and I join them and start my two nafil. I am amazed how wonderfully peacefully I pray the two nafil, no disturbance; no one passes in front of me. There are more women praying in front, the Muttawatta is three rows away, his hands are full with other things.

I complete my two rakat and my supplications in peace and turn towards the Masjid to ascend the steps. To my surprise the map has changed, the steps are teeming with people getting ready to pray maghrib, which triggers a slight sense of alarm within me, it is getting late and I must get back and find a place to pray maghrib!

I thread my way up the stairs, but I am blocked by women sitting together packed like sardines blocking my passage both ways, I change my mind and decide to go back to the courtyard and work my way behind the men’s section to the next entrance into the Haram. I do so with great difficulty and thanks to the reluctant chivalry of the men seated on their prayer rugs in dhikr awaiting maghrib, I manage to reach the next entrance to the Haram.

To my dismay and rising consternation, it is completely blocked with people, as I try to make my way in, I am literally blocked by the women, their faces set, silently telling me there is no place for me to go in.
I am now getting desperate, I turn to look at the Kaaba, and the sky is now pink though the sun has not yet completely set.

I am now quite sure that I cannot reach the second floor in time for Maghrib and I will have to find a place to pray here in the courtyard. Along with that thought I scan the courtyard for a spot. I laugh to myself at the absurdity of the thought. There is no place left to pray in the courtyard, everyone has taken a place in readiness for the Maghrib prayer. The tawaf is continuing, the only place open is the place where I am standing which is the entrance into the courtyard for Tawaf from the Masjid el Haraam, it is a path lined with muttawattas actively dissuading people from sitting down for prayer in the path.

I am at a loss, I look around and see two slim women in shalwar kameez, hurrying to join the Tawaf, I look up, the sky is now truly pink, thus it means that the azaan for Maghrib is not too far. I have never done tawaf into the maghrib prayer.

I, on the spur of the moment tap the younger one on the shoulder, she turns. She is a beautiful Pakistani woman with doe like eyes that are distant in expression and her lips are in supplication. I say “excuse me are you going into tawaf?” She says “yes”, I ask, “May I join you?” She says, “of course, just follow us”. Relief pours over me; I seemed to have found two guardian angels in this teeming humanity. As she and her aunt (I find that our later) reach the spot where one melds with the tawaf crowd, I note with dismay that we are being approached by a determined Muttawatta whom I have observed has been stopping people from joining tawaf since it is to late to begin a new tawaf and the time for prayer is approaching.

A strange thing then happens. As they reach the edge of the tawaf crowd ahead of me, I see the muttawattaa purposefully honing on them. I am sure he is going to stop them from entering the tawaf. Suddenly another policeman appears and puts a hand on his shoulder and asks him a question and they both turn away.
The three of us, the two pearls from Pakistan and I melt into the Tawaf. I try to keep up with them, occasionally losing them. The doe eyed niece looks back with a silent message of comfort to tell me that they are looking out for me.

We have completed four circles and suddenly I notice men in sparkling white long clothes with the crisp red and white or just white Arabian headdress appearing out of no where, sprinkling into the pilgrims in tawaf. They are offering dates and Kleenex. The first few offerings I bypass still naively thinking that I will be opening my fast somewhere else, till I realize that Maghrib is upon us. Someone extends a plate of juicy Medinah dates and I take two, because that is the unspoken custom, and then someone else puts in my extended praying hand two date candy ball, which were the most delicious dessert I have eaten.

I hurry towards my companions and ask them, “what about prayer?” In the unspoken language of my homeland, they understood exactly what I was asking. They replied, “We will be praying here”. “Here as in tawaf in front of the Kaaba?” I asked aghast? “Yes” she said, “just stay with us”. They had a method, they had done this before, their graceful steps, measured for the marathon we were in, our destination clear, our determination unstoppable, we were going to pray in front of the Kaaba in grace!

My right hand was sticky with the dates and the date candy balls, I declined more of the date packages offered but accepted a tissue from a young person giving them out. Soon glasses of Zam Zam were being handed out and I took one and gave the others to my companions. They were oblivious to the needs for Iftar, they were on a mission, a personal mission, both the beautiful niece and her aunt dressed in white the pearls at the Kaaba were making our tawaf welcoming the 25th of Ramadan, perhaps THE NIGHT OF LAILATULQADR! Their hearts and mine resounding with the message in the words of a very old man with a stick who was walking in tawaf saying: “ Dunya ke jhutlaye huway, teray pass ayay hain” again and again……….on every circle we would catch part of his lamentation.

As maghrib was approaching we were all supplicating. The gentle niece and her aunt, tears in their eyes, there own personal grief only visible in their demeanor and in the desperation of their walk and in the concentration of their supplications.

The azaan came and the pilgrims popped the dates into their mouths, drank the Zam Zam and lined up facing the Kaaba. I could not believe it! I, humble me, a nobody, was here behind the men, three rows from the Kaaba, looking at it, in all its splendor as the sky turned to red and the Azaan resounded in and around me and the Kaaba.

It was a tight squeeze, but I am deeply thankful for the privilege of praying in front of the Kaaba! That elusive House of my Lord which so far I have had to imagine in front of me, while praying. Silence fell and into it came the beautiful innocent voice of Sheikh Jouhani, reciting the Quran, bringing the words of Allah Subhanawataa’la to His visitors like a gift and bringing His warnings right next to His promises.

In the pin drop silence in this congregation of 4 million people in the Haram, I felt the words of Allah Subhanawataa’la enter my heart.

I looked up at the Kaaba, and I felt that this was His house in this world but He had the lordship of many worlds. I felt His immense unmeasurable presence and His promise that He was not only here but also everywhere. I had to look for His signs to find Him. He encompassed everything and that he was looking upon us as a giant looks down upon an anthill, but with affection, care, indulgence and protection…….. And there delivering his message through the Quran was the young voice of Jouhani, entering into the deepest recesses of my heart, I wanted to stand there forever and for the prayer never to finish, and yet it did.

I had prayed so hard and long asking Allah Subhanawataa’la to not let me fall asleep on the night of Lailatul Qadr. I had envisioned it as a peaceful, serene night, which might lull me into sleep. Here it was! THIS NIGHT starting with all the power and majesty of Allah Subhanawataa’la’s presence, With His message resounding around His house and His ebad standing in respect and awe and me with them in deep gratitude. Happiness and light making my heart soar.