I am on the island, I am gliding down the avenue lined by old Oaks with the Spanish moss draping them closely and the tresses hanging low as if to hold on to the memories they have witnessed.
I am counting the miles just like I did when I was with him.
He is sitting up alert but pretending to be relaxed as he stretches his long skinny legs, as we negotiate the bends and turn left into the condos. Today I turn right and I am alone.
In the apartment I am listening to Coldplay with the muted sounds coming from his computer just like the other day.
There is a stillness in the room……….we have just finished dinner, he says “Mom this is the best dinner I have ever eaten” my heart swells with happiness………..such uncomplicated moments; he is another person when he is with me, his guard is down and he is soft, affectionate and considerate.
This island unlike the other one has only one memory and no more. Its him and me and me and him spending our last vacation together, unaware, of the impending parting soon to come.
Every moment is precious, I try to give him his private time, but he invites me to join him and sit with him and watch this comedy show…………and I do.
Why am I back? Why am I walking the steps of memories, why? Because my heart is full and I am tired of being brave, I just want to be where he was with me and I want to remember and savor every moment and cry, I want to cry like Yaqub AS, incessantly and continuously. He lost his son in the desert I lost mine on the highway. I want to cry and cry and cry………….
I find an old Urdu song in his collection and it takes me back to the times when I only dreamed of the future and knew without a doubt that I would be able to pull myself out of the strife and find a better life far away.
Today I know there is no escape from the incessant needling of the fingers of grief, they poke, point and rub, till the wound is raw. The loss is refreshed, with the sadness. As I pull my suitcase out of the trunk of the car, my bones feel old.
There is no lilting young step beside me. I am tired of trudging this life, and a sense of hopelessness drenches every cell of my body. I am tired, I want to go……… and then I realize I am not ready, I am afraid of the FIRE, and I have not done enough to erase my sins and I need His mercy but I also need to work for it.
Translation (Pickthall) They said: O our father! Why wilt thou not trust us with Joseph, when lo! we are good friends to him? (11) Send him with us to-morrow that he may enjoy himself and play. And lo! we shall take good care of him. (12) He said: Lo! in truth it saddens me that ye should take him with you, and I fear lest the wolf devour him while ye are heedless of him. (13) They said: If the wolf should devour him when we are (so strong) a band, then surely we should have already perished. (14) Then, when they led him off, and were of one mind that they should place him in the depth of the pit, We inspired in him: Thou wilt tell them of this deed of theirs when they know (thee) not. (15) And they came weeping to their father in the evening. (16) Saying: O our father! We went racing one with another, and left Joseph by our things, and the wolf devoured him, and thou believest not our saying even when we speak the truth. (17) And they came with false blood on his shirt. He said: Nay, but your minds have beguiled you into something. (My course is) comely patience. And Allah it is Whose help is to be sought in that (predicament) which ye describe. (18)
TAFSEEER excerpted from Taleem ul Quran by Dr. Farhat Hashmi (with my take in italics from the retreat on Surah Yusuf with HY)
This is a 4000-year-old story…………a story of which Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) had no knowledge. The Meccans. Both the Quraish and the Jews were bent on disproving prophet Muhammad’s Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)Prophet hood. Thus he was asked about Yusuf AS of which he had no knowledge. It is then that Allah Subhanawataala revealed this surah with the complete story of Yusuf in its entirety.
Here is how the story goes………………..
Yaqub (AS) was approached by his sons (the eleven brothers of Yusuf)……………..they started their conversation by making him feel guilty that he does not trust them with Yusuf.
They reminded him that they are a large, strong group, and nothing can overcome them. They asked him to let Yusuf go with them on a picnic and that they would guard him and bring him back safe and sound. They of course had no intention of bringing him back period. Thus this falls into the earliest history of a premeditated crime.
What does a father do………….when one sibling is pitted against the other and is bent on mischief.
He appealed to them, and said, “ it fills my heart with sadness at the thought of Yusuf going away and I feel anxiety that something might happen to him like a wolf might devour him while you are busy……”
He watched as the brothers in a backhanded fashion accused him of not trusting them with Yusuf. They said that they were going for a picnic and did he not think that they were enough in number and strength to take care of one child and that being their own brother……?
The air was rife with treachery…….a murder had been planned and had been changed to abduction and disappearance.
The Nafs of the boys was riding rampant and its predatory tentacles had overcome their good sense. The whisperings of Shaitaan fanning their envy and jealousy for their younger sib.The mischief crystallized into a deliberate plan to get rid of their younger brother whom they believed to be the apple of their father’s eyes.
A parent can feel when something is amiss in his children. And so did Yaqub AS. He felt that the brothers were up to no good and yet………he submitted to Allah’s Divine Decree by making his fatherly anxiety and premonition yield to the will of God.
He let Yusuf go with them………..
Night had fallen. They came back with his shirt, stained with blood, which they said belonged to Yusuf…………The pain and anguish that he had spoken about when he was hesitant about sending Yusuf with them now filled his heart and overflowed through his eyes. Not a word of anger or complaint to anyone including Allah Subhanawataala escaped his lips………all he said was “ I will bear this sorrow with Sabr Jameel and only ask Allah for help” (a sabr that is beautified with perfection of the act).
The shirt……..covered with blood a reminder that Yusuf was lost, somewhere in the vast unending desert. His dear sweet, handsome, agreeable, lovable, child Yusuf was lost and there was not a thing he could do except be patient, trust in God and seek His help. Sabr jameel! There was no end point to his anguish, but he had vowed to have Sabr Jameel and only ask Allah for help, but his anguish flowed from his heart to his eyes.
The shirt……….was the only thing left of Yusuf to remind him that he was gone, irrevocably. Somewhere in the back of his mind or from his instincts as a Nabi he knew that his lovely child was not dead……..and yet he was gone, lost in the vast desert and it is said that he cried his heart out till he became blind. A father blinded with grief.
The sorrows of a parent for a child…. dead or lost are unfathomable………it is only the mercy of Allah and trust in Him and Sabr, that keeps one sane and patient in the face of the incessant waves of sorrow that threaten to engulf and drown one into the fathomless sea of grief.
The shirt………….Yusuf’s (AS) shirt is symbolic through out this saga as it continues.
Yaqub (AS) grief and his promise of Sabr Jameel and asking only God for help, brings to us the human example of a grief stricken parent given strength to bear endless sadness.
Most of all it raises the bar for the level of trust in God that we can have and that of Sabr to Sabr Jameel.
what drives us? Time and time again I have to admit it is our genes. Looking around at the attendees at the conference at the mosque given by this young Imam. I saw the faces of parents, who want and will their children to be successful in this world and in Deen. The question is why? What is their true intent?
When I am on a long drive I sometimes think back as to what propelled me to take my children to the mosque so regularly, tolerate the long and boring parties and get togethers of well meaning Muslim families, that I had nothing in common with, and continued to push them towards the Deen and excelling in dunya?
The conclusion is genes………..genes in the garb of religion, in the garb of success, you name it. The bottom line is that I and my compatriots cannot see the product of their genes go bad in any direction, be it academically, socially or religiously.
Driving back from work, I see the long line of SUVs parked alongside the road leading to the elementary school that my children went to. Each parent revved up to make sure their child gets the best teacher, the best spot to sit and the best selection of products………well then who gets the last best?
It is natures way of propagating the species, the better protection the progeny gets from its parents during the tender years the more likely he or she is to be stable in all the three areas mentioned above.
I pass by a truck selling seedless watermelon……..so what happens to their progeny they are lost for ever, after the vine dies and the fruit is eaten or rots on the truck, there is no progeny, and thus no genes …………
Drawing from my lessons on Tazkiyah, I wonder if we should ever consider our children to be an extension of us, and if we do, is that a form of arrogance. Allah Subhanawataala has told us that each person has their own DNA and has come with their own sustenance, lifespan and Qadaa wal Qadar.
It makes me wonder…….. Do we invest in our children because we want to protect our self from pain? for if they went sour we would look bad and we would hurt, or do we invest in them out of the fear of God ? Are we even aware that they are His Amana and that we have to provide them the best that we can and keep them in the ideal pristine condition of emaan while they are in our care. Thus when they return to our Lord from whom we have come, they are not in a sullied condition.
Children………..that is what drives us; at least that is what drives us Muslims. We do things that we would not do other wise. All this in an effort to save us from the pain of a bad egg turned worse. All this under the guise of teaching them our faith and the way to make money, never really considering the most basic of tenet that they do not belong to us, that we neither dictate how long they stay with us and that they were not sent to us for the aggrandizement of our Nafs, but as an amana from Allah Subhanawataala for a period of time.
Children………that is what drives us. May Allah Subhanawataala guide us regarding our children, before we bear them, during their lifetime and on their death, if so be it.
I can feel it knocking on the door, and I am trying to ignore it, the methods used for ignoring are not healthy, and create more anxiety.
Sometimes the knocking becomes insistent and cannot be completely ignored and for a fleeting second I am tempted to open the door and face the consequences and then the wall goes up and deadens the sound of the knocking………….
……………………….There is a gathering at my house. The house is filled with Tariq and Shireen’s friends. Some of them are sitting at the dining table, I am also seated with them, and she is consulting him about college. He in his most “seriously considering” manner is very graciously explaining the pros and cons of the various aspects. I silently acknowledge with surprise his maturity and thoughtful evaluation of the ramifications of the choices in college…………..and just as quickly as it came the memory fades.
Time has fast-forwarded four years, she is done with college and we are all celebrating her graduation dinner. This gathering is very different from her high school graduation dinner where he had given a speech, and one could hear laughter, and sense the air saturated with joy. Today there is a void that no one wants to acknowledge.
I feel the knocking at the door. It is grief…………. insistent on wanting admittance to my heart.
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.
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.”
I am in the first room with a lot of people they are all laughing and happy. It is a joyous occasion and I too am not sad…………..and yet I long to be in the second room.
The second room is the “lonely room” there is no one there except the rocks of my memories, the dark waters of “what ifs”, the Alligators of guilt and the sharks of Regret.
Why do I want to be in the lonely room when I can be in the first room with such a happy group of people, who are celebrating life?
The answer lies in what is at the other end of the lonely room………. I have to be brave to step into the murky waters of sadness, wade in the unknown depths of depression, avoid the Alligators of guilt and swim faster than the Sharks that can swallow me and then in their belly my skin will peel like Younus (AS) layer by layer as I am faced with regret………of actions not done.
I quietly leave the first room and wade into the lonely room, gently caressing the rocks of memories, worn down with the waves of time and sadness. I know that I cannot linger because I don’t want to drown in the murky waters, nor be swallowed by guilt or made immobile with fear of the sharks of regret………..
Thus from my past experience I begin my journey deeper and deeper into the lonely room, the words of Younus AS giving me company and tears, but never swerving from my initial purpose to reach the other side.
It had been on one desperate day that I had done the same and had swum the dark dank waters with all my strength, seeking……. seeking what? I did not know.
Guided by His (Subhanawataala’s) words coming from the lips of Younus (AS) in the belly of the whale, and I had found shore.
Climbing on to the sanctuary, small, the size of a musallah, which could barely hold my body in prostration, but lighted and protected from all predators and from the dark waters around me.
I remember I had fallen in prostration, with relief and a lightness and continued my salaat, my prayer, every supplication and surah that I knew by heart, again and again, tears streaming down my cheeks, entreating him to relieve my pain……….
And I remember distinctly a chink opening, and light streaming into the lonely room from the third room…………
I never knew that in this dark and lonely place there was an opening to the third room, I could smell fragrance, I could feel the fresh air, the sort of feeling when one comes out of cave into a verdant forest……….
Someone yells my name from the first room, I am needed, I have to fulfill my duties, and I must go back. I regretfully swim back and the door to the third room closes behind me.
Though I fear being lost in the dark waters of sadness and depression, I often long for the lonely room despite all its predators,………in the hope that I can cross it and perhaps this time enter The Third Room.
Prophet’s Reminder: “The highest dutifulness is that a man should give to those his father likes” (Riyadh As-Salihin).
Quran Today: “Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or more attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say, “my Lord! bestow on them Thy Mercy, even as they cherished me in childhood” (Quran 17: 23,24).
As the shadows lengthen, I hear the blackbird call……………..I am thousands of miles away from whence I heard her for the first time:
I am a pre- teen and I am visiting my grandmother in Lahore. The sun is bright and Shad the girl from the village, who lives with my grandmother, is spreading out the wheat, and shaking it on a tray to separate the wheat from the chaff. A sea of gold is spread in the Vairra (Punjabi for a private bricked in back yard). To my city girl eyes it is a gorgeous scene.
Suddenly as clear as a bell, the Koel calls from somewhere within the mango trees. Shad stops………… her hands dipped in the gold of the wheat, and listens attentively. She then addresses me in Punjabi “do you know what she is saying” , I lean forward all attention” no” I say “tell me” always eager to learn local folk lore.
“She is saying Yusuf Khooh” I know what the words mean in Punjabi, but I don’t know what she is referring to.
She looks at my confused expression and begins the story of Yusuf (AS) “His brothers got jealous of him and threw him in the well…………….and she goes on with the story in brevity.
“Yusuf Khooh” I repeat after her, which in English means “Yusuf (AS) is in the well” at that time I dismiss her story as a figment of imagination of the villagers.
Yusuf (AS) ……..I remember, whose beauty cannot be measured, that if all the beauty of the world was collected, it would only amount to half his beauty.
Somewhere what is currently Iraq, there was a little four year old boy (Yusuf AS). The intensity of sibling jealousy made him the target of their anger. One day they took him to play and lowered him into a well. As they were leaving him, he cried out and entreated to them not to leave him in the darkness………..but their hearts hardened and they left him in the well.
When the brothers went back to their father, and reported that Yusuf had been eaten by a wolf, he cried and kept crying till he became blind. He was a Nabi and knew that Yusuf his baby was alive, but where or in what condition he did not know……..and so he cried till blindness came upon him but the tears did not cease to flow.
The grief of losing one’s child is beyond the highest threshold of pain and the grief of losing one’s child and knowing he is alive somewhere…….. is a pain at a level higher than that.
I pause and try to think of the father’s plight………I cannot, it is too painful.
Yaqub (AS) was in a state where he could not even be angry with Yusuf (AS) brothers……..it was his own sons, Yusuf (AS) brothers who had left him in the well, to die or to be rescued but hoping never to be found.
Yusuf was his child, and every child has his or her own place in the heart of father or mother, a place that can never be replaced by another child no matter what……..and thus Yaqub (AS) cried his heart and his eyes out………..and so goes the narration in the Quran (Surah Yusuf)
Even though as a preteen I had chalked off the bird call and its Punjabi interpretation as a figment of the imagination of the villagers, today as I pause in my work and listen to the Koel calling “Yusuf Khooh” in the trees beyond my office, repeating, entreating, calling………..for help, I wonder……..
I know that nothing in this universe happens by chance. My imagination flies and I wonder if some ancestor of this bird saw Yusuf (AS) in the well and flew for help. Over centuries this little bird has passed on the message in every local language to the birds of the world………a reminder to those of us whose hearts may be hardening with what we see happening to the children of the world…….the shrugging of the shoulders with “what can I do I am so far away”
This little bird…………..with all its strength has changed her song to that of a call for help to inform everyone who can hear……………
It reminds me how “laissez faire” we may become by desensitization to inhumanity……………so many things can harden our hearts…….the acid of envy, the fire of rage, the frustration of unrequited love of a human being, not getting one’s way, of wanting to be number one in the eyes of ones father and not being one, of succumbing to the obedience of the schemes of Shaitaan, of turning a deaf ear to the wails of a four year old brother in the well, of being blinded by ghafala, and led by suggestions, whose source is evil (men led by shaitaan as the Quran states).
There are so many things that want to pour cement onto our hearts, but there is only one that can prevent it………the remembrance of accountability to Allah Subhanawataala, the finiteness of this world and the just due coming to us on the Day of Judgment.
I listen to the bird……..as Asar fades into Maghrib. Her calls of “Yusuf Khooh” become more frequent and more insistent as if she knows that with the waning daylight hours, the terror of the little boy in the well increases and the chances of being rescued, fade.
Presumably the little bird is doing her duty for centuries in perhaps reminding us of the plight of a little Muslim boy in the well ……..are we doing ours?
photo courtesy of :http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.nerdybirders.com/images/Birds/asian-koel.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nerdybirders.com/html/birds/asian-koel.html&h=483&w=640&sz=84&tbnid=u6opLVfaWcCdnM::&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpictures%2Bof%2Bkoel%2Bbird&hl=en&usg=__I70-C88enoTlX6XrAbzIZpW4DwM=&ei=miK7Se-5E8Oetwe8zIj3Cw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=3&ct=image&cd=1
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.
Masjid Quds in Capetown, South Africa :
Photo taken from behind the engraved glass balustrade on the balcony of the womens prayer mezzanine, looking down at the men's prayer section.
A truly beautiful Masjed with truly good people in it. My Bhabi's father took Shahada there.
