THE JOURNEY OF GRIEF……………2:38

Cherished moments for an unknown period

My letter of condolence to a dear friend on the death of his nephew………………

Dear B, Asalaam o alaikum,

I was deeply saddened to hear of the untimely death of your seventeen-year-old nephew. Every time a young boy dies I am reminded of what I heard at one of the khutbahs. The Imam said :

with the prolonged consistent and continuous supplications of a parent for her children they get a long and healthy life.

This makes me think that perhaps A’s mother and I did not pray long and consistently for our sons or at least not enough to elongate their existence on this earth.

But then I read in the Quran and also explained in the Hadith (paraphrased):

our time of death, our sustenance and our Qadar is predetermined and brought to us by an angel at 16 weeks gestation while we are in our mothers womb and pasted on our forelock/forehead. Eventually with time it gets covered up with tissue and thus others can no longer see it, but it remains is situ till the time is up.

Thus I go between the guilt of not having prayed enough for the salamati of my children versus my laying down my head with Sabr at my Qadar of losing my son before me.

A’s parents are obviously not at this point but will get there at some time in the future. Losing your child is like placing a hot brand on the heart of the parent, which sears it and never goes away. The response to the searing of the heart is of course completely individual and unforeseen.

You and T were there for us the night of Tariq’s accident. I have a surreal recollection of that time. It is sharp in its picture but sometimes hazy in emotion. It is the compassion and blessing of Allah Subhanawataala for making us incapable of fully reliving the emotions of that day.

A’s parents are blessed to have the two of you as their nearest and dearest. No matter when you decide to go to Pakistan, it will be a balm for their pain.

I cannot think of any advice for A’s parents to alleviate their pain or be able to survive this tragedy.

When I look back in these four years, I realize that I had to try medical and psychological grief support measures and read everything on grief help before I opened the book of Allah’s words and got to the point where I got help that eased my pain. It was a lot of struggle and searching in the words of Allah to get to this point and I still slip many a time.

However looking at how some other people find solace after grief tells me that delving into Allah’s words has not been an approach that they have taken.

In the throes of my grief, I was led by good friends in the direction of finding solace with my Creator. It started with a talk that Dr. S, a psychiatry resident, gave at Tariq’s memorial service at the mosque regarding the “Words of Solace” taken from the Quran. I hung on to them for a while and then I started my own search by googling “Sabr” in the Quran, because I wanted a quick fix. Of course the answer was ” no results”.

The study of the Quran cannot be done by googling a term. I eventually had to start from page one and struggle through each ayah trying to find a meaning that pertained to me and understand it’s potential to take the pain away.

After that at the various spiritual retreats that I went to I met people who were kind, empathic and patient in the path of Allah, and it reinforced my search for the balm for my never ending pain by reflecting on the words of Allah and putting this world and our presence or absence in it in a broader perspective.

I pray that Allah Subhanawataala guides A’s parents to compassionate loving God-fearing people who point them in the direction of Allah Subhanawataala’s therapeutic words that will help ease their pain. I know from experience that nothing else can.

The alternate option is painkillers and brain numbing drugs or other self-destructive acts, which are temporary and ruin not only one’s own life but also the life of all the family.

After the consistent support of family and friends, the rest of the journey they have to make on their own. This grief is one that stays with you till the day you die; there is no escape, no forgetting, and no true untrammeled joy anymore. The best one can hope for is that in serving others, one gives oneself as sadaqa with each act, for ones departed child.

Allah Subhanawataala has given you a kind heart and inshallah you will be able to reach out to the parents and sisters of A and bring them solace, and comfort, in your own special way. T’s serene presence will also be comforting for the family inshallah.

I pray that you may find the strength to be that beacon of light that the bereaved look for when they are blinded with pain. May Allah strengthen your emaan and grant you the ability and stamina to comfort your own brother in one of the most painful times of his life.

My prayers are for you, your family, and for A and his family. May Allah Subhanawataala give you all sabr- e- jameel.

Paul, and Shireen join me in sending their sincere heartfelt condolences; kindly convey these to your brother and his family.

With Salaam and duas,

A

Quran 2:38

………………….whosoever follows My guidance, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

HIS GAZE IN DEATH…………………

I am at the funeral parlor, they bring him out on a gurney at my request. His eyes are closed. He seems like he is sleeping, a peaceful expression on his face.

“May I see his eyes?” I ask the attendant and he removes something that is keeping his eyes shut. His eyes are open but they are not expressionless like the dead people you see in the movies. His gaze is focused on something……….that is moving away far into the horizon………………..

The Prophet (pbuh) was reported by Umm Salamah to have said “Verily when the spirit (Rooh) is taken the eyes follow it” (Sahih Muslim vol.2 p.437 no.2005).

The successful souls will be made to enter paradise as Allah said to the righteous souls “O soul (Nafs) at peace, come back to your Lord pleased with yourself and pleasing to Him. Enter among My devotees. Enter My paradise.” (Soorah al-Fajr 89:27-30)

UNTRAMELLED LOVE AND UNREMITTING GRIEF………………….

From the recesses of my mind seep out memories that have been uncalled for.  My two cousins and I have been asked to divide up my Aunt’s jewelry that she has left us after she died. This story belongs to one of them……………

They are diplomats on holiday. They are on the train from Karachi to Lahore. The entire air-conditioned first class compartment has been reserved for their family and the nanny.

Multan Station has been left behind and the train is on its last stretch to Lahore, with not much in the way of habitation between the two cities at least not in those days.

She is on the top berth and her baby brother is below, with the Nanny and her parents. She is a joyous kid, sensitive, kind, loving to the extreme and hungry for love.

She cries on parting from us even after a session of play while we live in the same town, and would soon see each other again.  I older than her has caught her imagination and she comes to me for hugs in between play with my youngest brother. She an immensely affectionate child in a family of what appears to me cynical detached parents from the diplomatic corp.

The Nanny is peeling an apple……….her knife pointing upwards as she expertly peels around it without interrupting the circle of the peel. “Who wants apple?” she asks in broken English, holding the knife and apple firmly in her hand and without taking her eyes of the peeling apple. The peel half hanging on to the last bit of apple.

“Me! Me! N jumps up and down in the upper berth and then she turns to jump down to be next to the Nanny. The knife is pointing upwards as the Nanny steadies the apple for its final separation from the peel, the trains lurches and N falls on top of the Nanny.

Suddenly the first class compartment becomes pandemonic. Confusion, shock and disbelief are written all over each person witnessing this horrific event.

As the Nanny tries to get out from under N, a rhythmic spurting of blood is noted from the heart of the child.

Someone pulls the chain and the train comes to a slow grinding halt, it is one of the village stations where normally Tezgaam does not stop.

The father, with the bleeding child in his arms, gets off the train and is running up and down the station platform, screaming……………….”is there a doctor somewhere, please save my child!” “Koi hay jo meri bacchi ko bacha lay”

I don’t know the condition of the others, the mother, the nanny, and the little boy.

The heart never keeps its lifeblood, like all unselfish beings it pushes the blood out to those parts of the body that need them most. N was like that, she was the life blood of affection of that family always gushing out her love to everyone around her but never getting as much back.

Her heart like her affection pumped all her lifeblood out onto the concrete platform, not even keeping a drop within her limp body. As the last vestiges of life left her body, her spirit melded into the hot winds of the unknown village., and no one answered the father’s call in this wilderness.

She is buried in Lahore and lies next to her grandfather who has joined her many years later.

The parents went back to their mundane life of a diplomat. Sometime later they had another daughter born to them, but never was there a child that had so much love to give than N.

Never was there a child who brought so much joy to everyone who played with her. Never was there a moment while I was with her that I would not feel sad and sorry for her and would then talk myself out of it, for this uncalled for emotion without a base.

I often wonder how her parents continued to live and laugh never sharing the depth of their sorrow with their family, or if they did, being a child myself I would not know, even though I was the confidante of my mother.

Why is it that now this memory seeps out of my mind? Is it compassion, or is it that the box in which it has been tightly held has opened and all painful memories are spilling out, and there is a need to be purged of pain by feeling pain?

I often wonder if N’s parents were aware of the Hadith about the predetermination of our life span and sustenance in the womb, and was it a source of comfort for them? But something tells me that they remained unaware of it. They buried all the grief deep within them, and trudged through life, behind smiling faces and cynical remarks.

If the grief ever surfaced, I thank God that I was never witness to it, for it would be another painful memory that would have to be held in the box.

Hadith: BUKHARI Volume 1, Book 6, Number 315: Narrated Anas bin Malik:

The Prophet said,

“At every womb Allah appoints an angel who says, ‘O Lord! A drop of semen, O Lord! A clot. O Lord! A little lump of flesh.” Then if Allah wishes (to complete) its creation, the angel asks, (O Lord!) Will it be a male or female, a wretched or a blessed, and how much will his provision be? And what will his age be?’ So all that is written while the child is still in the mother’s womb.”

DEATH AT CLOSE QUARTERS……………………..

island in the day, ocean in the night:The Quran: 055.010: It is He Who has spread out the earth for (His) creatures: 055.013 : Then which of the favours of your Lord will ye deny?

Have you ever seen death at close quarters and know that in some action done in the past you may have contributed to it?

And so it is………..

I am in khalwah on the beach; it is the remotest point of the island, where pieces of land submerge into the sea with the change of tides. Thus you may have left your shoes and bike at a safe place on the beach and walked till the sands ended. Hours later as you head back you see that you are separated from where you left your shoes and bike by a flowing river of water, waist deep. As you walk through the swirling water rushing with a force of determination to meet its destination in the salt-water lagoon, you have a new respect for the power of Allah who created this force, and are humbled by the thought that we human beings were sent as stewards on this earth (Ashraf ul Makhlooqaat)

Th force of the water separating the small islands

I am walking with my eyes on Allah’s creation in the sand where the water meets the shore. It is amazing to see what has been left behind by the tides. The ocean with its huge arm reclaims its possessions, giving them a just burial, in its depths, and also sometimes spits out on the beach the reminders of the cruelty of man to animals through their thoughtless and sometimes senseless and selfish actions.

On the sand as I walk I see the shells, the crabs, both live and dead, the sandpipers who watch me with the corner of the eye and keep on eating the small animals hiding in the sand in their shells. As the warm water touches my feet I am reminded that soon this part of the land will be reclaimed by the ocean.

Further on there is a white blur of birds patiently waiting for what I do not know. The words of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) come  unbidden to me and I paraphrase:

“Don’t the birds go out hungry in the morning and come back with their stomach full and satiated and know that their Lord will provide for them?”

It is Asar time and the birds are waiting to start dinner. There is no evidence of gluttony and of breaking rank to start eating before it is dinnertime for all. My approach is a signal; they all rise to the sky gracefully in a large C, well distanced from each other, organized in flight.

After I pass they alight back on the sand in a graceful swoop and again start their vigil for when the fishing is to begin for the Maghrib meal before night falls. I sneak a peak and find them grooming themselves…………wudu at the hour before Maghrib?

029.060
YUSUFALI: How many are the creatures that carry not their own sustenance? It is Allah who feeds (both) them and you: for He hears and knows (all things).

The birds take off in an organized graceful flight

042.029
YUSUFALI: And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the living creatures that He has scattered through them: and He has power to gather them together when He wills.

As I look back down again at the sands I see a piece of seaweed tangled with something glistening in the sun, and I recognize a piece of clear plastic bag, As I attempt to disengage it from the seaweed, I realize that its mouth has been tightened shut with almost a self made knot caused by twisting on itself.

In it lies a beautiful shell, the animal in it half extruding as if to find a breath of the fresh sea air, perhaps perplexed why it can still feel the sun but not the air. I touch it from the outside of the clear plastic bag, the kind that we often use for sandwiches or in which the newspaper is delivered, or an expensive scarf is usually placed in this type of a clear plastic to retain the newness of the gift. I realize that something is very wrong, and a shot of guilt pierces my heart.

I touch the plastic, and without a doubt I realize that the sea animal inside is dead! Dead as dead can be! Dead not as in by providing food for someone higher on the food chain, dead not because of age or injury, but dead in the prime of life, glowing in its beauty, its shell pink and healthy. Why? I think. My brain trying to refute the evidence before me. only because of the vanity and style of life of us women, men and children who inhabit this earth and use and toss things with a sense of Ghafala, unaware of the effect of our “innocent” acts on others.

Dead! unbeknownst to its murderers, who innocently are yet buying more plastic for their food, their clothes, their travel and then tossing it the trash can, thinking that this non biodegradable product that survives longer than a hundred years, will somehow disappear without causing harm.

A blue plastic bag spat out by the ocean onto the shore

Plastic, the essence of a fast life on the run (to earn more money). An essential part of an affluent society obsessed with germs, leaving in its wake a trail of blood and silent tears.

In its wake is the blood of many sea creatures, some fishes who swallow the bright pieces of plastic and asphyxiate, some turtles who choke, and some get caught in it. As they continue to die silently removing one more living being that was in tasbeeh of Allah, the hands of men and women who were sent on earth as stewards of all living things are being stained with blood.  The blood on the hands of humans is not only of their own kind, but of the creation of God that unlike us is continuously in tasbeeh and remembrance of God twenty four seven.

I stare at my hands and I do not see any blood, but I see countless plastic bags that I have tossed into the trash.  I look out at the ocean, a silent witness and I know that like Lady Macbeth,  all the water of the ocean cannot wash the blood from the hands of men, women and children who commit murder everyday without being aware of it (Ghafala).

How do you and I atone for it? Death by asphyxiation, by our own hands, slowly squeezing the life from this sea animal, who even in its last moments remains in the remembrance of God.

Death by Asphyxiation in a plastic bag

003.083
YUSUFALI: Do they seek for other than the Religion of Allah?-while all creatures in the heavens and on earth have, willing or unwilling, bowed to His Will (Accepted Islam), and to Him shall they all be brought back.

In Memory of all those who are not with us this Ramadan………..

Imam Ghazali’s last words bring light:

THE DESTROYER OF HAPPINESS……..

Courtesy:http://www.flickr.com/photos/freelancesalman/448085008/

I read a hadith that one should not wish for death because if you are a good person you may get bonus time to do more good and if you are a sinner than you get a window of opportunity to repent.

I have not yet read anything that tells me what to do……..when no matter what you do, good, bad, happy or sad it holds no meaning anymore. It is like you have lost the sense of taste.

Thus is life for me………there is no taste, no excitement, no anticipation, no disappointment only occasional fear for the loved ones alive, and that too soon disappears with the thought that it is not my protection that they live under but His. He will inshallah take good care of them, and if not then no one can change His decree.

I thus drag through the days and sometime watch my fellow women straining at the seams pushing their children into higher and higher academic stations, and marrying them off into richer and richer families and collect more and more paraphernalia for their houses and I wonder…………if they knew what I do, they would be different.

Nothing lasts for ever, and complacency is the biggest crime a muslim can commit, being one of those who has been guilty of it in the past, I can tell you that it is a termite that can eat you from the inside and suddenly with the last chew of the bug of complacency, suddenly everything that you have built falls apart, completely and irrevocably. Nothing remains except that connection with Him and your empty hands, like a beggar in the street……..

I don’t even feel like saying anything to my fellow sisters who are “busy” taking their children to dance, soccer, extra lessons etc etc etc, while they don’t have the time for their own self to study, reflect and act upon the words of Allah. Complacent in their daily routines of fulfilling their dunya duties with an occasional quick namaaz thrown in here and there, I fear for them, but am accepting of their fate as I am of mine.

Many times I think I should tell them, that all this is a waste of time. The sustenance of your child is already written, brown nosing the boss at a networking cocktail party will only gain him the disobedience of Allah and nothing more.

In the final analysis all you will be asked, as a parent will be if you taught your child the words of Allah and told him or her that he was an Amana from Allah, and treated him as such.

Sometimes I want to remark on the wasteful disobedience of Allah when they accompany their husband to cocktail/ business parties, some movies or other forms of entertainment, where there is an open display of the disobedience of Allah.

Should I say to these adult women that these are the very things they will be questioned about on the Day of Judgment? I remain silent, because all this seems so preachy and self-righteous, and after all once upon a time I was like them.

And then there is a hard part within me, who whispers to me that this is none of my business and that every one should taste their own punishment and reward. A part of me says they too have The Book in their homes.  If they were to be guided by Allah they would at least crack it open, who am I to remind them and shake them from their stupor of complacency…………and so goes the monologue in my brain as I observe with disappointment the choice and priorities that my sisters in Islam make.

But then perhaps I have lost the verve of life and as it has become meaningless for me but not for them, they still enjoy the activities of dunya and find deep complacent satisfaction with it……..

Who am I to shake their complacent world, I have to worry about my Akhirah. I see life differently from them. The destroyer of happiness has paid me a visit so close that I can neither ignore nor forget his presence. For them He is a very remote possibility well hidden under the layers of their complacency, and so be it………and life goes on for now.

Narrated Qais: I heard Khabbab, who had branded his abdomen with seven brands, saying:

“Had Allah’s Apostle not forbidden us to invoke Allah for death, I would have invoked Allah for death. The companions of Muhammad have left this world without taking anything of their reward in it (i.e., they will have perfect reward in the Hereafter), but we have collected of the worldly wealth what we cannot spend but on earth (i.e. on building houses).”

(Book #76, Hadith #438)

JULY 09 READINGS

WHAT WAS READ A FEW TIMES:

Surah Al Anaam 6:1-24 for……..
78:08 And (have We not) Created You in Pairs
THE HOUSE, MY SANCTUARY
HAJJ Mabrook to the HAjjiis and Eid Mubarak
Ya Ayohan Naas….. O’ Mankind
PREPARATION FOR UMMRAH
What RasoolAllaah (saws) read or emphasized in prayer
BEHAVIORIAL CLUES OF THE HYPOCRITES: 9:5
THE BLESSING….
ABOUT FASTS AND FASTING………
Islamic Perspective on Sex
WORDS………… WHAT YOU READ A LOT OF TIMES GRADUATION……. THE MOST MISQUOTED AYAHS OF THE QURAN SINCE 911 THE CONCEPT OF SABR (PATIENCE) IN ISLAM THE CONCEPT OF ‘EVENTS AT DEATH’ IN ISLAM Does Islam Allow Muslim Men To Marry Non.Muslim Women Hijab a la Syria IN PREPARATION FOR YOUR FRIEND’S WEDDING About SAJDAH- E- TILAWAT: First Sajdah in the Quran SABR IN ADVERSITY: SURAH HUD 11:9-11

NO FEAR AND N0 GRIEF…………Surah Baqarah

The Names of Allah:courtesy www.flickr.com

Surah Baqarah2.038
قُلنَا ٱهبِطُواْ مِنہَا جَمِيعًا فَإِمَّا يَأتِيَنَّكُم مِّنِّى هُدًى فَمَن تَبِعَ هُدَاىَ فَلَا خَوفٌ عَلَيہِم وَلَا هُم يَحزَنُونَ (٣٨)
In Surah Baqarah ayah 38 Allah Subhanawataala says:
002.038 YUSUFALI: We said: “Get ye down all from here; and if, as is sure, there comes to you Guidance from me, whosoever follows My guidance, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

On a personal note:

Let me share with you my journey with grief and fear.
After Tariq, and his friends died, I was in severe unremitting continuous pain and grief. I took Prophet Muhammad sallalaho alaye wasalaams advice and used every halal available means to allay my grief.
The intensity of the pain was blinding and unremitting despite all the secular and medical methods.

It was in one of these moments of blinding pain that I sought the guidance of Allah Subhanawataala’s words and tapped into His promise of no fear and no grief.
I am a slow learner so after quite a while, I realized the connection, that as long as I was in the presence of my Lord, I had no fear and no grief.

Thus ignoring His Subhanawataala’s guidance and going back to the ways of dunya, the rat race and the senseless acquisition of degrees, materialistic assets and fame became moot.

Allah Subhanawataala says………….. and it is the secret of inner peace:
Verily it is in the Dhikr of Allah that hearts do find rest.

There are so many people who spend their life in search of cure for their grief in the secular zone. The modern Muslims also, like me first search all the secular sources and yet are blind to the single ayah at the front end of the Quran, which is laden with Allah’s promise.

He or she who follows Allah Subhanawataala’s guidance shall have no fear nor shall they grieve.

When you reach out and take one step towards Him Subhanawataala He takes ten……..so goes the hadith from our beloved Prophet Muhammad peace be upon Him.

I sincerely hope and pray that you do not wait for a catastrophe to happen and the pain of grief to  smother you before you actually seek His guidance.

……On The death of your son

We went with Allah’s Apostle (p.b.u.h) to the blacksmith Abu Saif, and he was the husband of the wet-nurse of Ibrahim (the son of the Prophet).

Allah’s Apostle took Ibrahim and kissed him and smelled him and later we entered Abu Saif’s house and at that time Ibrahim was in his last breaths, and the eyes of Allah’s Apostle (p.b.u.h) started shedding tears.

‘Abdur Rahman bin ‘Auf said, “O Allah’s Apostle, even you are weeping!”

He said, “O Ibn ‘Auf, this is mercy.”

Then he wept more and said, “The eyes are shedding tears and the heart is grieved, and we will not say except what pleases our Lord, O Ibrahim ! Indeed we are grieved by your separation.”

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Volume 2, Book 23, Number 390:

THE WALL………….

July………….it is for me what December is for brother Anis.
It will be four years this July 13 when the cops came to our house to tell me that Tariq was “deceased”.
As I enter the last days of June, I can hear the anger of the ocean of grief rising with every passing moment. The tumultuous waters I cannot see, nor feel as there is a wall between me and them.

A wall created by the Dhikr and remembrance of Allah. I do not know when it went up, but when ever I hear the rising anger of the wild ocean of grief, I feel the wall separating me, protecting me from the raging waters, from being lost in them forever………my wall……. made to protect me from drowning in the ocean of grief…….made by Him Subhanawataala,

All I can think as I hear the angry lap of the waves of grief on the other side of the wall and feel their aggressive anger is:

“Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny?”   055.028

He protects me from the tidal wave gaining strength on the other side of the wall……….it is July again and as the waves of the sea of grief gain strength and crash against the wall …….it stands sentinel, strong and witness to all the grief as it protects me from its thunder.

I have to remind myself to thank Him Subhanawataala for protecting me and say:
002.156 YUSUFALI: Who say, when afflicted with calamity: “To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return”