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.”

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.

A DAY OF REPENTANCE……………

Today is one of those days where you do everything wrong and no one except your conscience knows it. At some point it overwhelms you and you actually weep with your Istighfaar and ask Allah Subhanawataala to help you………have you ever had such a day?

It started out when I got out of bed with the rays of morning peeking through my window, and Fajar was almost over. Did anyone question me or care, none except myself and I found that was more punishing than my mother waking me for Fajr and me procrastinating.

As the day went by, I thought more and more of Tariq and wondered what sort of a person I was when he was alive and what sort of a person I am evolving into after his death that even I can no longer recognize myself, leave alone others.

As the evening falls, I find myself buying plates for Shireen’s mehndi dinner. I stand and think about paper versus plastic, the “green” in me burgeons to the front and I pick up the paper plates, and then the practical side of me elbows in front and asks me how did I plan to serve my guests a middle eastern fare in these flimsy paper plates……..and so goes the warring sides within me as I dawdle at the paper plate aisle. Anyone watching me would think I was trying to solve the world’s problems instead of buying some paper plates.

I look around at the store filled with tinsel and paper décor, and think back to all those times where I tried to make Eids and birthdays special for my children because we lived in a country where Christmas began even before Thanksgiving. I wanted to make sure that my children did not feel any less than the Christian kids when it came to our holidays……how silly and useless it all seems today, all the preparations and stress in preparing for Eid and Ramadan celebrations, why did I make such a big to do………Tariq only saw nineteen times two Eids….and Shireen…….. anyway always thought I went overboard and was too flamboyant and did too much and had too many people over etc etc etc.

As I am wrapping up my shopping for the evening a song comes on the radio in the store…..a signature song reminiscent of Tariqs ebullient spirit. I listen to it with a strange feeling of awakening pain. As I leave after paying my bill, the wave of repentance crashes over me………….I was in Ghafala when he was alive, may Allah forgive me for being so happy in my heedlessness, my life revolved around my children and my religion was basic minimum in my actions and all of it in my heart. I spent the days as if we all had plenty of time to make our Maghfirah at some later date.

I am driving home and the tears of repentance are streaming down my face, I truly was happy in this world, I had everything any human being could ever want and was satisfied with it, May Allah Subhanawataala forgive me for being so heedless and happy with my condition.

I miss my child….that He took, and a thought lingers in the back of my head.  Was it to awaken me to the reality of life and dunya? To let me know that valuable time was passing and I was not ready for the Hereafter and had lots of work to do? I don’t know, I don’t want to think of Tariq’s death as a punishment of my sins, but his death sure brought awareness of my heedlessness of my religion to the fore, showing me how little time I had and how much ground I needed to cover.

Repentance actually is a return to Him (Subhanawataala), with the regret that we have been away so long and needed to return after being lost. With the prayer that we don’t get lost again…….. While on our retuning path to Him.

A TIMELESS INTERLUDE………….

It is morning and I am in a yoga class, it is misty outside, the soft music changes to the sounds of nature and suddenly the room recedes …………

The birds are chirping outside, I am inside the room, where the scent of candles mixes with the outside breeze laden with herbal fragrances. There is no door to the outside instead there is a curtain of thick white cotton which is gently blowing in the breeze……. and he asks from the other side of the curtain “Mom are you done? Come out when ever you are done……”

I am in Costa Rica and Paul and Shireen have left to go back to the hotel. Tariq and I are at a Herbal Retreat Center where this natural herbalist doctor grows her herbs. It is raining gently, mixed with the rays of the sun and there is no rainbow. Faraway there is a mist in the mountains; on the patio overlooking the mountains there are petals in her fountain….. and in the restroom there are exotic flowers that I have never seen before in my life……..

I feel his love, his care and consideration. He is waiting for me though everyone else has left. However I am in no hurry, I feel his interminable untroubled patience; I am enjoying the fragrance, the breeze, the still moments of peace.

I feel moisture in my eyes, and I know he is waiting………. The question he has asked for which I don’t know the answer, is……….when am I going to be done?

And in Allah Subhanawataala’s words in the Quran:

003.145
Nor can a soul die except by Allah’s leave, the term being fixed as by writing. If any do desire a reward in this life, We shall give it to him; and if any do desire a reward in the Hereafter, We shall give it to him. And swiftly shall We reward those that (serve us with) gratitude.

Photo courtesy of:http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/137177148/in/photostream/

IM’S DAD…………..THANK YOU ALLAH FOR SINCERE FRIENDS!

Asalaam o alaaikum,

Four years have past…………. four years of joy and anguish. It only seems like yesterday when Shireen was talking with you about medical school, was doing interviews and we were planning on going to spend weekends in her away rotation with her and visiting you.

I have always as a young person wondered about the references given to us regarding this life as being a nano second compared to the one that awaits us in the Hereafter, wherein we will dwell forever. In perspective of the past four year I now understand the full flavor of the meaning.

It seems that these four years have passed in a blink of an eye. In most ways what ever happened in these four years is like a blur in my memory. It seems like when Tariq and Imran and Ebad left us time stood still and lost it’s meaning, we lived as if waiting for its end.

Events happened, people came and went and like a robot we spent this time on earth waiting for the next bus to Akhirah, having the fear but not the energy to prepare for it. Meanwhile people around us reveled in the events at the bus stop (this dunya) their eyes not even glancing towards the bus that Tariq and Imran boarded before us.

In these four years so many times I have admired your ability to go to work and to accomplish meaningful work, whereas I sludge through the mire of time and my past memory to complete each day, trying to make sure that my patients did not suffer.

My silence and lack of expression of appreciation comes from this deep quicksand of grief that we share. I deeply appreciate how you have extended your affection to all of us, you always have done so, but even more after Tariq and Imran left us. Whereas I feel as if I am in a quicksand where even moving my lips for saying a thank you pushes me further into it.

I cannot honestly think how I can return the favor of your affectionate caring for Shireen, Paul and myself. I know that Allah Subhanawataala has a beautiful place waiting for you when you board the bus to your final destination and Imran inshallah will be at the bus stop at the other end to receive you with his usual charming smile.

Thank you for being patient, caring and affectionate towards us and giving such thoughtful guidance to Shireen in medical school. As she gets ready to graduate, I know that she has someone to turn to if and when Paul and I are no longer here to be with her.

I pray that you find the solace that you seek and that the time that you spend in the service of Allah Subhanawataala be accepted in total, and that you and your charming and patient wife find peace and sakina with each other and that your dear sister is gifted with health and energy, and that your children and grandchildren be given the barakah of Allah in this world and the next and that their words and deeds are always pleasing to Allah.

Thank you again for being a wonderful friend and brother. Please keep us in your prayers.

Your sister in grief and gratitude

NISYAAN AND THE SEAT OF OUR MEMORY……….

There are two seats of memory within us. One is in our brain and is experienced and stored by our senses. This one fades with time and change in circumstances.

The other of which there is no measure, no limit in time or space or form of storage, is in our hearts……….and therein lies our memory of grief, of faith and of the love of Allah.

WHY ARE HOLIDAYS TOUGH?

It is Thanksgiving and the turkey is ready. We are all home and we have added another family member to- be to our little family. Shireen’s fiancée is now adapting to us and we to him.

As the carving time comes, there is no banter to be had between brother and sister and no friendly teasing while the wishing bone is tugged on by the sibs. The photograph of thanksgiving is taken to remember another year together and the empty spot next to Shireen is poignantly evident.

So why are the holidays tough, don’t we remember Tariq every day? Or is it just on the holidays?

Everyday his memory is a personal remembrance of what he and I shared a connection that I personally had with him that I miss.

At the holidays whether it be Thanksgiving or Shireen’s white coat ceremony it seems the loss becomes compounded and public. It almost reflects off of the people present and the void next to them is pronounced, the missing piece in our life is even more apparent.

We cannot replace Tariq nor Shireen, whether they are absent from life or from circumstance. We miss them; they each have their own particular characteristics that they bring to the holidays that make the time together fun, and at times amusing, but always memorable.

So why are the holidays tough? We still have Shireen and she still has us and now she also has her fiancée. It is difficult to assess. Why when we get together as a family on a happy or sad occasion that we miss the person who is absent.

Eid is here, I remember putting Tariq on the airport shuttle on his way back to college after his last Eid with us. It was cold and he was reluctant to go as I was to let him. There was a feeling of finality; I mistook it to be his return to college and a separation of parent and child as we move on and away into different life spheres.

So why do we miss him and my mother so much at the holidays?

My mother……..I celebrated so many Eids with her, actually I can think of very few when she was not with me either as a child or a grown up married women. I remember the gusto and affectionate detail with which she would buy her cards for each holiday for each child and grandchild and secretly one for me………..I miss the words she chose so carefully for each card such that they seemed to be written by her and coming from her heart and so why do I miss her on the holiday.

The preparations for Eid were always a joint project, first the plans for the day, then shopping for gifts both for her grand kids and her sons and their spouses, then the painstaking process of wrapping them and taking them to the post office. As long as she drove, she did all that seamlessly, it is only when she could no longer drive did I realize the hours she put into the care of choosing a gift and card and gift for each child and grandchild and their respective spouses, preparing them for mail and then sending them off in a timely manner.

With Eid came the discussion for the Eid menu with her and the décor, I was good at the later and she would make her famous “saviyou ka zarda’ unmatched to this day.

I would make sure the table was set for a formal brunch for the family to be partaken after prayers. She would admire and appreciate my artistry and sometimes even laugh affectionately at my inordinate attention to ambience.

No matter what happened we had our formal brunch with the immediate family followed by the children wishing a formal Eid Mubarak to her with salaam, their hands itching for the Eidee that they knew was on its way from her to them.

As they got older they became more sheepish at continuing to accept cash for Eidee from her knowing that she was on a restrictive income.

She and I and the kids would then go out for putt putt or to visit others or do something the children wanted………we did this year after year, and so this became the fabric of our lives.

………And this is the reason holidays are tough, because I can see the rents and holes in the fabric of our lives and I feel the cold air of loneliness coming through these holes.

As I listen to Surah Al Anfal I realize that the kith and kin of the tribes of Arabia were realigned with the Battle of Badr. Friendships of faith sprung up side by side where blood relatives became blood thirsty, all in one defining moment. This gave me pause and has allowed me to reflect on why I miss my kin on the holidays, and perhaps do some redefining and realigning.

This year there was no one at home to celebrate Eid ul Adha with me. Each family member had a reason for their absence. I decided that this was the time to regenerate my family and reach out to my sisters in Islam and make them a part of my life, share what I could, with them, meager and simple as it may be, with genuine hospitality and love giving what is most precious to me ………….Time!

They came and along with them came a sister for whom this was her first Eid. She has been a Muslim for only a year, and as the afternoon unraveled we sat over glasses of wassail and tea and bowls of soup and listened to her journey to Islam. She traveled to the path of Deen via the west coast, Afghanistan, and Iraq and then finally reaching the south, she found the answer to her search for truth.

Her saga for the search for the genuine Deen was riveting: how her heart was always guiding her toward Allah Subhanawataala. How at every curve that her life took, she was placed on the path facing Islam and as she put it beautifully while we sat in pin drop silence listening to her life story “Jesus took me by the hand and placed me before Allah as the one God”

And thus I had a family this Eid at home, not one that you would think of in terms of tradition, but a family nevertheless, each member of which was kind, graceful and caring in their own unique manner in the sharing of their love. Thus this Eid……… though the holes still remain in the fabric of my life but the air that comes through those holes this holiday is fragrant with the perfume of friendship and love fi sabillallah. (For the sake of Allah).

Holidays are tough………. but there are friends of Deen waiting out there to send the fragrance of friendship to us fi sabillallah, if we show an inclination to invite them in as our family and accept the fabric of our lives as is, with holes and all……….

Are Holidays tough for you? What do you do to help yourself?

carnation photo: courtesy of www. flickr.com :eidcards

FRAGRANCE…………….

I am sitting in the computer room; everything is in place including his music that wafts out of the surround sound speakers that he had installed with such excitement.

How often we work long hours for inanimate things, a play station, a stereo set, a car, a house, clothes, jewelry and other toys, though none of those things have the warmth, fragrance and comfort of a hug and a kiss.

None of those inanimate objects that you and I sweated for all week long have that distinct fragrance that comes out of your child’s skin when he has played soccer and is bathed in sweat and has literally been washed clean of everything except this own special fragrance. No bottle can hold that distinct fragrance that comes from his head as I kiss it when he sleeps. Or from his hair as I kiss it as he hurries out the door to his final destination.

Fragrance………… the essence of life, death and the Hereafter, different and distinctive at each stage. In life we can hide our natural fragrances by using those from the bottle.

Those who remain in Taharah have a distinctly clean fragrance that reminds you of clean sheets in the sunshine or the essence of the Kaaba as you put your head down in the Hateem or pass your hand along the cover of the Kaaba as you approach the Yemeni corner……..

Blessed are those individuals who are always in a state of Taharah because in death they will have a beautiful fragrance coming from their spirit as they are carried to the heavens prior to being returned to their grave. As they pass the different levels of the heavens the guard angels will ask who is this pure person? I wonder will I be among them?

I am at Juma and look around at the congregation at the mosque, I wonder how many of us will be perfumed with our taharah at death and will be called out to, with respect by the angels as we are borne upwards to the heavens in death…………

At juma, the first adhaan is called and few people enter the mosque and join the even fewer who are already there.  The second adhaan is called and that is when I see the majority of my fellow muslims, rushing in. Some sloppily dressed, some in work clothes, some dripping from their hurried ablution, as the Imam is well into his khutba. What of them? I wonder? I pull myself back and remind myself I am not to be concerned for them, only of myself.

And yet did I not walk in their shoes once? Working all day to collect inanimate objects that you can neither kiss nor inhale the fragrance of life from them, nor gain the fragrance of Jannah from them.
Priorities……….that is the key; everyone’s priorities are different. I look at my fellow women in the congregation. their priorities are the lives they lead in the now in this world. I too walked with them once, heedless and uninformed, how foolish I was! I never gave thought that all this effort to obtain the toys and status of this world will remain here as we journey towards our final abode. What is with us will certainly perish, what is with Allah survives.

I am deeply grateful to Allah SWT that I am at the stage where I want to lighten my suitcase. I have reached this stage through loss, and a lot of pain and anguish, but I have reached it never the less and am happy to see my destination finally in sight and my face turned towards it. I now know what to seek.

I now understand the significance of the taharah as not just an ablution for entering salaat but an ablution to enter jannah. I pray that I renew my taharah often enough and be continuously in the state of taharah and often in prayer that perchance if I am taken I do not have the stench of a non-taharah person which is offensive to the gentle nostrils of the angels. I pray that the fragrance of a momin emanates from me in death, in life and in the Hereafter.

I have no desire or energy to say to my fellows in the congregation……….”I have walked your walk and it takes you no where. I can no longer smell the head of my son nor inhale his characteristic fragrance that aroused my mamta…. you too will lose your beloved people one by one, so make time for them and bask in their fragrance, especially if they have the fragrance of taqwa.  Cleanse yourself and remain in taharah at all times for you may meet your end not on I-20 but perhaps even in the safety of your own home. Your taharah is not just to get you ready for salaat for now, but to remove forever any other fragrance from you other than that of a Momin”

My lips are silent as is my heart, my concern is not with them, only with myself as I advance toward my God everyday, one step at a time.  How can I cleanse myself such that I am always fragrant in my taharah. How can I ensure that the purity of my personal environs allows me to inhale and recognize the fragrance of jannah and turn myself towards it as my journey continues through all the stages, it has to go through before I reach my final abode.

Please pray for me.

SONS…………………..

I am not a father so what I say I speak as a mother. Allah (SWT) has created a special bond between a son and his mother; I always wondered what is the reason for this special bond?
I have always believed and practiced this that children of all sexes should be treated equally.
As I realized my special bond with my son, I also knew with a certainty within me that I loved my daughter just as much and each had his and her individual and irreplaceable place in my heart.

I know now that the bond that Allah SWT makes between mothers and sons is created for a special purpose. It is designed to create unmatched love between the two, early in life………..because as the mother grows old, and wizened with life, sometimes soured by time and ailments, taking care of her is the duty of the surviving son who is now young and strong.

The resulting product of age, disappointments and failing health in a mother are all very unattractive with the passage of time to the casual onlooker, but to the son who has this bond with his mother, to him she is always as she was. His vision is colored by this bond created by Allah to make it easy for him to take care of her in her cantankerous years.

Only that memory of childhood with his mother and the strong though unseen bond put in place by the Divine for a purpose, stays the tongue and impatience of hand of the young son. The son now an adult whose stride is longer and whose unbounded energy exceeds that of his old frail mother who can neither keep up with him nor last out his enthusiasm of life except in her duas.

Sometimes Allah SWT also takes into account that women outlive men and thus usually an old mother is left to the care of her son when her husband dies.

Allah SWT tests us parents particularly mothers with that bond. He tests us with death, with grief, with illness, with prolonged pain in the son and dysfunctional sons, and sons who do not make it in the eyes of dunya.

Sometimes sons injure themselves when they are unable to climb out of the black well of their dark world confined to their own self. Material goods their lack or surplus of it has nothing to do with their dark world.

For some reason their inner pilot light is weak or extinguished or living in the dark for so long has blinded them………I don’t know the answer; But I see them all around me…sons lost and stumbling in the dark, groping for the light.

For me I am trying to stoke my pilot light with the light of the Quran, which Allah SWT has promised is all the light I need to light my inner world and the world around me.

I see in my minds eye my mother with a dysfunctional son, sheltering him, giving him some of her light all her life.
Then there is me …….telling my son that he had a long life ahead of him and that I will not always be there to help him that he must seek help from Allah who is always there for him.

He telling me that I have him for: “the first twenty and he will have me for my last twenty…” The mysteries of the wisdom of Allah (SWT) are unbeknowest to me.

All these events, the blighted sons of some and the absence of others, as I see them, are tests from Allah: Whom do we love more, His creation (our children) from our wombs or Our Creator, the source of all Love and light?
I see myself and all the mothers around me stumbling to share their light with their sons who are in the dark, a light which may be too weak to light the path for two.

How can we find our sons their own source of light or strengthen ours so that it shines for all those around us?

How strong is your Light?