There are so many things about this talk that I like that I’m not even sure where to begin.  SubhanAllah.

I thought I would post a quick dua request here.  It is an odd night, and the 27th too.  So more people making dua is good, right?  So what do I ask for?  What if I miss something?  How can I make a quick request that covers every possible situation, need, shortcoming, or deficiency that exists in the world and in every one of its people, living, dead, and yet to come?

اللّهُـمَّ أَنْـتَ السَّلامُ ، وَمِـنْكَ السَّلام ، تَبارَكْتَ يا ذا الجَـلالِ وَالإِكْـرام .

‘O Allah, You are As-Salam and from You is all peace, blessed are You, O Possessor of majesty and honour.’

Allah is He, than Whom there is no other god;- the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Source of Peace (and Perfection), the Guardian of Faith, the Preserver of Safety, the Exalted in Might, the Irresistible, the Supreme: Glory to Allah! (High is He) above the partners they attribute to Him.

Nothing in the world is as important as peace- salam, from As-Salaam, The Source of Perfect Peace.  To be ok with everything, and to have everything be ok.

Ya Salaam, please give us salaam.

Ameen

Darkness lies around him
and watches with dark eyes
whispering suggestions
suggesting lovely lies
the smoothest path is downward
the uphill path is rough
(faith is but a tiny light
but faith is light enough)
a human walks in darkness
he says his eyes are bright
he cannot see his blindness
and his eyes are wide with fright
he says his heart will lead him
but his heart is dark inside
a light once sputtered there
but even that has died.

O you who have believed, respond to Allah and to the Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life. And know that Allah intervenes between a man and his heart and that to Him you will be gathered.

The Qur’an, Surah Al Anfal, line 24

HF left for Umrah this evening.  We loaded up the minivan with all three kids to drop him off at the airport, even though it was three hours past their bedtime by the time we got home again, because we wanted to give him a proper send-off and to help the kids understand where he was going.  Khalid and Iman were confused, but Iman was happy because she loves this nasheed and was excited to hear that baba was going to the Kabah to pray and drink zamzam.  (ZAMZAM!)

Khalid wasn’t pleased though, and actually started crying on the way home. When I asked him why, his confused answer involved ‘scareding,’ and baba being angry. The gist of it seems to be that baba has left because yesterday Khalid made baba angry when he bit him. Ouch. Tomorrow I’ll write a social story for Khalid and we’ll read it together. I want to reinforce that baba is, indeed, coming back, and didn’t leave because he was mad at Khalid. SubhanAllah.

(Truthfully though, I have no guarantee that HF is coming back.  Not to be dramatic, but people die at Hajj/Umrah every year.  It’s a statistical inevitability: when you put 4 million people together for the world’s largest gathering, there will be mortality rates.  The sick, the old, the people in wrong place at the wrong time when accidents happen- people die in Makkah and Medina, and while it’s sad to lose a loved one, I can’t think of a better place or situation to lose them in.  If I could think of somewhere to die, in sajda in the haram would be my top choice, and if Allah chose to take HF the same way, I would be jealous.  I’m not being morbid, just pragmatic.  We’re all going to die, we might as well try to die awesomely.)

I digress.  I’ll be putting together a big ole dua list for HF.  If you would like your prayers added to the list please let me know and I’ll pass them his way, InshaAllah. May Allah accept his Umrah and make it easy for him.  May Allah forgive us all for our sins, and make us among those earn His pleasure in this life and the next. Ameen.

Alhamdulillah, I’m fasting. I didn’t think I would be able to, and while Day 2 of Ramadan may be a little early to announce success, I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to continue for the entire month, InshaAllah. The heat isn’t bothering me, Alhamdulillah, and neither is the hunger. Even the dehydration is mild despite feeding a seven week old baby.  The only challenge is the sleep. Musfira fussed from 6pm until 1am yesterday. By the time I was able to put her down, I had one-handedly:

• Served iftar
• Eaten Iftar
• Prayed Maghrib
• Had the kids put to bed
• Eaten dinner
• Attempted to clean off the table
• Cooked for suhoor- daal and oatmeal
• Watched three short documentaries and listened to Surah Mulk twice

Yes, all of this was done either one-handed or hastily in between being able to put Musifra down for five to ten minutes before she woke up again.  Sometimes we have weird nights, and sometimes they spill over into weird days as well- Musfira will fuss- tired but refusing to sleep- and I will rock/walk/bounce her to sleep only to have her wake up again five to ten minutes later, regardless of whether I stop rocking/walking/bouncing or even holding her.  Normally, Alhamdulillah, she sleeps easily for four hours at a stretch, and that’s more than enough time for me to get stuff done in between.  Occasionally, she has these weird days, and those are the ones where I never get of my pajamas and Musfira cries, fusses, sleeps, wakes, and cries- later, rinse, repeat- for hour after hour until the sun rises and sometimes even until the sun sets the next day.

So last night was a weird night.  By the time I was able to put Musfira down (1am!) I was too exhausted for any Tarawih or any Qur’an, and had barely any concentration in my prayers.  I crashed into bed and just two and a half hours later, had to get back out of it for Suhoor.  HF kindly got me out of bed, steered me to the kitchen and placed a bowl of oatmeal into my hands as I stood with my eyes closed and my head against the kitchen door.

Then we prayed Fajr and went back to bed, and two hours later, Musfira woke up in need of a diaper change and a feed.  I’m not hungry or thirsty as much as I am tired and, yes- disappointed.  I love Ramadan.  I need Ramadan desperately, in order to counteract the downward spiral I’ve been in for the rest of the year and to help realign myself mentally and spiritually.  Ramadan is the reset button, ideally because you’re conquering your laziness, kicking bad habits, and remembering the sweetness of Ibada- ideally.  In actuality, I’m so busy juggling Musfira, cooking, shopping, taxiing Khalid and Iman around town, and working that I feel like I’m losing out.  My immediate thought is that I need to prioritize extra worship and the energy required to do it, but I’m not doing anything that I can cut out of my schedule.  I need to take time for Ibada, but I don’t know where to take it from.  If I get any less sleep than I already do I’m going to crash.

(Two nights ago I jumped out of bed to pick Musfira up.  I took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and crashed face-first into a corner.  The next morning I had a headache and a swollen eye, and it took a few moments for me to remember why.)

So here’s the reconciliation.   Allah is responsible for any circumstances I am in, and they are all good, regardless of whether I am able to recognize that.  Last night, when I wanted to pray tarawih but instead spent the six hours between maghrib and qiyaam rocking Musfira, there was good in that too.   Ramadan is challenging enough, Ramadan plus young motherhood must be the next level for me.  I need to push through the busy-ness and the tiredness and somehow find the energy that I need to make the most of it.  I’ve always said Ramadan is spiritual boot camp.  Now I’m at bootcamp with a baby on my back, a spatula in my hand, and two children dragging me backwards by my apron strings.  It’s no longer enough for me to reach the end on my own, I have to make it there with a serene smile, clean and alive children, Surah Mulk memorized, and a tray of freshly baked samosas.

May Allah make the path to righteousness easy for all of us, and grant us the trust in Him to know that all of His decrees are good ones.

Ameen!

The Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) said: “There are seven whom Allah will shade in His Shade on the Day when there is no shade except His Shade: a just ruler; a youth who grew up in the worship of Allah- the Mighty and Majestic; a man whose heart is attached to the mosques; two men who love each other for Allah’s sake- meeting for that and parting upon that; a man who is called by a woman of beauty and position (for illegal intercourse), but he says: ‘I fear Allah’, a man who gives in charity and hides it, such that his left hand does not know what his right hand gives in charity; and a man who remembered Allah in private and so his eyes shed tears.’” (Abu Hurairah & collected in Saheeh al-Bukhari (English trans.) vol.1, p.356, no.629 & Saheeh Muslim (English trans.) vol.2, p.493, no.2248)

I saw two people standing in jamaa’ for prayer on a sidewalk in Garhoud the other night.

They were teenagers, and they were praying Isha.

No older man/father/authority figure was leading the jamaa’, and there was no apparent need for the urgency in their salah- they could have prayed Isha later that night by themselves, at home on a rug instead of outside on hard cement in front of Fuddruckers.

May they grow to be righteous men, and may I be able to give them big, squeezy hugs in Jannah, where it won’t be a sin anymore.  They made my day, and this old fogie of a thirty year old has a new respect for teenagers.  Just because they dress like greasy, gangly doofuses in pink polo shirts with popped collars doesn’t mean they don’t have stronger Taqwa than I do.

May Allah grant them Jannatul Firdaus. Ameen!

Alhamdulillah, my new baby girl is a little over a month old now, and when she is first introduced to friends and family members, I am inevitably asked what her name means, and inevitably, I have a hard time trying to give the answer. Here’s why:

Imagine this- a blast has just sounded, tearing through the sky. It is so loud it can be heard throughout the entire world. Every living thing, except as Allah has willed, has dropped dead. The mountains themselves have vanished- reduced to dust and blown away. The seas are gone, the earth has been flattened to one tremendous expanse, and without a doubt, it is the Day of Judgment. Then the blast sounds again, and the dead are coming back to life.

Look around you- there is pandemonium. People are in a state of terror and panic, fleeing wildly in all directions, men from their wives, children from their parents, brothers from their brothers. Some are trying to escape, some are sobbing, others are begging to be destroyed rather than judged. The hell that they’d been writing off as a figment of monotheistic imagination has been stoked and brought near, and amidst the wailing and crying out for destruction, you can hear the inferno drawing in great roaring breaths. It’s alive, and it knows it’s about to be fed.

But wait, what’s this? From within the sea of darkened, tear-stained, dust-covered faces you can see points of light- and they are people shining with happiness. They are unaffected by the fear or misery, and are instead overjoyed, laughing out loud, delighted, and elated that the promise of justice they have been waiting their whole lives for is about to be fulfilled. They are not looking towards the mouth of hell drawing breath in the distance, but rather to the gates of Jannah, as Paradise has been drawn near, and the only thing standing between them and eternal happiness is a meeting with Allah, whose blessed Face they have been yearning, not dreading, to see.

Some faces that Day, will be Musfira- bright. Laughing, rejoicing at good news. Surah ‘Abasa

Some girls are named for beauty, intelligence, or success. Some even for precious gems- Almas means diamond, Lulu means pearl. Others are named for righteous qualities- Saima is one who fasts, Naasira is one who is helpful- but I wanted to name my daughter something that would point her towards the one thing that would mean the most to her in this life and the next- when the world had been destroyed and remade, and the dead had been raised, and every recorded action hung in the scale of balance, I wanted her to be among those shining with joy. I wanted her to be Musfira.

And so she is- baby Musfira.

May Allah guide her and keep her on the path of righteousness.

May she shine with joy in this life and the next.

Ameen.

Hena Zuberi just published a great, awesome, relevant, necessary, important article about sexual harassment in the Muslim community, and I found myself typing a comment so long it could stand alone.  And I think it should, because the more websites, the more people, the more Muslims talk about sexual harassment, the more people there will be to stand against it, InshaAllah.  Before reading my post, I recommend reading the original post here.

Unfortunately, I know the humiliation of the Pakistani bazaars and tailors too.  I learned to carry a big, empty purse (empty, because the bag would be exposed to pickpockets) and place it over my backside while walking through the crowded streets, and to walk with my elbows out to make more space around my body and to move only in groups. We learned which tailors were safe and which were not, and it didn’t matter if he made your sleeves too big and your pants sideways, at least he was shareef and you could go back and have the clothes fixed without being groped.  My extended family in Karachi has been using the same tailor for so long that he was the family tailor when I was 9, and I’m 30 now.

I have heard stories of getting fed up and screaming one’s head off, but in a tight crowd, you don’t even know who you’re screaming at.   I’ve spoken to cousins who say they want to smash someone’s face in, but they turn around and don’t even know who touched them.  Even here in Dubai there are cases of taxi drivers, men in shopping malls, coworkers, legal sponsors, even waiters and cleaners making deliberate, inappropriate contact with women.  It is punished, *when* it can be proven, but when women are so shocked they don’t react or are too humiliated to draw attention to it, it simply repeats itself as silent abuse.
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Owl and I have both had plenty of experience with this, and I used to think it was because we were half-white, and therefore gori-chitti-ai hai recipents of unwanted attention anywhere we went.  It turns out that this happens to any sort of woman in Pakistan- anywhere where molesters can hide in the crowd.  Another one of my cousins told me about a man touching her through a space in the seats while seated behind her on a bus.  Yet another got her chest grabbed by catering staff in typical wedding-buffet traffic, and for years afterwards we held our dinner plates at chest level for the same reason.

I was angry about it as a young woman, but now as a mother, I think I would fly into a face-punching rage if I saw someone inappropriately touching either of my children.  I never reacted this way as a young girl or teenager, but perhaps I needed those years of suffering (I lived in Pk for eight years!) to help me break out of the passive shame.  The first time I ever spoke out was at a wedding here in Dubai, and I was standing near the bride & groom’s seating area when I felt someone press very definitely against me.  It was not a crowded space, and although there were other guests standing around and socializing in the same area, there was no question about there being enough room to pass me without initiating full body-on-body contact.  At first I was stunned.  I turned and looked behind me to see one of catering staff sidling away from behind me without making eye contact or even acknowledging what had just happened.  Then I wondered whether or not I had imagined it, which I think must be a standard reaction when that happens.  You doubt yourself, and sometimes if the groper is subtle you might even make excuses for them.  Your mind would rather do anything than admit what had just happened, and that’s what my mind did.

And then I remembered Pakistan.  And I remembered what it feels like to be bumped in to accidentally by a waiter (Oh, sorry! So Sorry! Excuse me!).  And then I remembered being pushed against, brushed against, pressed against like this in bazaars, on crowded streets, sometimes within shops themselves by men craning  to look at merchandise just over your shoulder, baji.  And unless someone is walking pelvis-first and in slow-motion, there’s no reason why I should feel that part of another person pressing against me.  That’s not how human beings walk, especially here in the UAE, where employees trip over themselves to stay out of a woman’s way for fear of being arrested and deported (and maybe a little beaten, too) by her angry husband.  The police do not deal very graciously with groping here, so if you want to keep your job, you have the sense to watch where you’re walking.

So I told HF, and I adore him for this, his first question was Who?  He didn’t say ‘are you sure?’ or ‘maybe he just bumped in to you?’ or ‘you probably imagined it.’   He took me on my word and even told his brother, who was also a guest at the same wedding.  At the time I was embarrassed that he did so, but later I felt happy and relieved that HF found nothing shameful about what had happened and brought in reinforcements to help protect a woman in the family.

I was able to point the man out.  HF made note of the name on his tag and discreetly found the manager.  About half an hour later the manager came to apologize with the same server.  He said he had tripped, and while the man looked blank and unapologetic as the manager issued an apology on his behalf, at least he had been caught out.  About an hour after we left the wedding a higher level manager called to apologize, saying the man had stumbled somehow, but was profusely sorry.  Nothing much happened, and nothing much came of it (as far as I know anyway) but hey- I did it!  I told someone!  And no one yelled at me, or called me a liar, or told me I was making things up.  And most importantly, no one said it was my fault.

Alhamdulillah for good men, and Auzubillah for the bad ones.  I guess every man needs to decide which one he’s going to be.  And every woman needs to decide whether or not she’s going to suffer in silence or take a stand.  Angrily turning around and yelling ‘who touched me?’ may not yield any immediate confessions, but at least a groper will think twice about whether he wants to be caught.  The sooner we stop blaming and shaming ourselves, the sooner we can speak up and InshaAllah, give sight to the blind eye that is otherwise turned to casual sexual harassment.


Video from the Harassment in Egypt Blog

So I’m home again in Dubai, 32 weeks pregnant and horribly sick- I’ve spent the last four days more asleep than awake, if you can count passing out punctuated by coughing myself silly as sleeping.  Today I get to see an ENT finally, Alhamdulillah.  We’re getting ready to pack the kids into the car and make a family trip to the hospital.  In the background, onions are frying.  Tonight, HF is making biryani.

A few days ago we sat down and watched an adorable anime called Summer Wars, which has a nice, non-violent, non-romantic story line that the kids enjoyed.  There was only one problem though- Obacha dies.  The old grandmother, who is the matriarch of the extended family, passes away in her sleep and animourning ensues.  And of course, Iman fixates on this, and a full two days after having watched the cartoon, she pipes up at dinner:

“Momma, what happened to the gwamma?”

-pause-

(HF looks at me expectantly)

“The grandma died and InshaAllah she went to Jannah.  Do you remember the story about Jannah?  Jannah is the most beautiful place ever, with castles and lovely clothes and yummy food!”

“Werizit?”

“With Allah!  Allah is up!”

“Up onna house?”

“No, higher than that.  Up past the sky.”

“Up inna stars?”

“Even higher than the stars.”

Khalid swallows his rice and says, “Moon.”

“Very good Khalid!  But Allah is past the moon too.  He’s higher than that.  And that’s where Jannah is.”

“Angel.”

-HF and I are collectively flabbergasted-

“Yes, the angels are in Jannah…”

“Angel fell down.”

*blinkblink*

“Shaitan wasn’t an angel, but he fell down to earth. You’re right.”

“Angels onna earth.  Angel is there.  Jumping.”

We turn and look towards the front door, where Khalid is gesturing.

“If you say so sweetie.”

The End.

In the culmination of a journey that began in November, I finally have an assessment of my knee from Dr. Extremely Awesome of Harvard and pro-sports patients fame.  OB’s have pictures of babies from happy parents.  Pediatricians have thank-you’s posted on their walls that are drawn in crayon.  This man’s entire clinic is cram-jammed with autographed jerseys, posters (and one basketball  signed by Hakeem Olajuwon) from happy, rehabilitated soccer, football, and basketball players, so if he can fix them, he should be able to fix me, right?

Right?  *earnest nodding*

*more nodding*

Right?

Alhamdulillah ‘ala kulli haal.  Praise be to Allah in all circumstances.  Dr. Awesome and his Head King of Physio collectively concluded:

Surgery Number 1: Unnecessary.  The surgeon says he is fixing a tear, but that’s not a tear.  He melted it back together with laser.  So he melted bits of my knee that never needed poking or melting.

(“You’re saying I have a chop-happy surgeon?”)

(“You said it, not me.  In most hospitals surgeons only get paid when they do a surgery.  In this clinic, they all earn a flat salary.”)

Surgery Number 2: Removal of problem that first surgery caused.  Failed “repair” of meniscus then leads to partial removal of meniscus.

Surgery Number 3: Clean-up of back of knee cap can be warranted following a dashboard injury, though wouldn’t do much to help other problems in knee.  Though it was nice that the crunching and grinding stopped afterwards.

The advice?  If I meet anyone else who says surgery will fix my knee, run (or hobble) the other way.  Apparently I have a combination of flat feet and knock knees that cause my legs to turn in slightly, therefore making my kneecaps rub against my femur lopsidedly.  Instead of the force being distributed evenly between the convex femur and the concave kneecap, I have a 75% destroyed kneecap (grade 3 condramalasia [sp?]) rubbing against a the same side of my knee where the meniscus is no longer present, resulting in 1+1=3.

The solution?  Very specific physio to tighten ligaments and muscles all the way up my leg with the desired outcome of properly re-aligning my kneecap so that the force is evenly distributed, reducing the pin-point wear and tear that is otherwise accumulating between my crooked knee, missing cartilage, and busticated kneecap.

I find this all amazing.  SubhanAllah.  I’m not sure how much of this is medicine and how much of this is physics, and I am even more amazed that it’s taken three surgeries and six years of physio, painkillers, and hyaluron gel injected into my knee to have- not a solution- but for once, an idea of what’s going on inside my knee.   Everything happens for a reason, that much I know for sure, Alhamdulillah.   At the very least, I got to post some cool surgery videos to my blog.  Plus any trial/affliction that a believer faces with sabr and trust in Allah helps expiate sins and increase them in blessings.  That’s a given too.  Alhamdulillah.  I’m still disappointed with the last two surgeons though.  And I can’t help but wonder why they were unable to nail the problem down six years and three surgeries ago.  It’s been six years since I’ve been able to do sajda and I miss it.  I miss my face on the floor, feeling small and vulnerable and at peace, submitting everything that is human ego, “intellect,” and self-serving justification to Rabbi al-’Alaa, my Lord Most High, before whom I am His servant, most low.

I miss being able to run, to walk any amount of distance, and it was only last year that I realized I wasn’t pressing for Hajj and Umrah because I felt humiliated by the possibility that I would do tawaaf in a wheelchair before I’m even 31.  It stings even now, thinking about it, but who am I to feel stung by what Allah has decreed?  Obviously there’s good in this for me, otherwise He wouldn’t have given me this challenge to overcome.  And I may not be happy with losing what I feel is my physical capability, but I would be an idiot if I did not try to build my spiritual strength in its place.

I’m still human.  Very much so.  And my own frailty is frustrating.  It always has been, but Alhamdulillah, I know it’s a test.  I can’t climb a mountain.  I can barely climb the stairs.  But I have other abilities and Allah has given me the opportunity to do more than many, many other people. Yeah, so one knee doesn’t work so well.  So the floor is far away and I keep my shoelaces knotted because I can’t tie them myself.  Big whoop.  I have my faith, I have my beautiful children, lovely husband and family, and the cognitive abilities to take my time and turn it into an act of service and a sadqa, InshaAllah.  I can renegotiate my surroundings without being able to physically function in them, because I don’t need to climb over obstacles when I can work around them completely.  I have resources, Alhamdulillah.  And above all, I have Allah’s promise of complete justice, equity, and compensation for patience, faith, trust and hard work.

And at least now, Alhamdulillah, I have some clarity.  There is no ‘fix’ for my knee.  There is exercise and a long road of hard work for trying to physically change how the inside of my leg works.  That’s ok.  You know what else there is?  Jannah.  Where everyone has perfect everything.  Perfect bodies and features- lovingly remade by Allah to exclude illness,tiredness, pain, and the impending doom of mortality.  Nothing but perfect everything- not in the monotonous ‘strumming of harps on puffy white clouds’ version of eternity- but perfection in a capacity beyond the best conceivable spouse with the best, most emotionally, sexually, interpersonally fulfilling relationship you could imagine in the best, most amazing abode, with the best company among humankind, with the best food and having earned the best of rewards- Allah’s pleasure.

I want it all- safe, permanent, gorgeous, spacious home- a palace, in fact- the interior decorating of which is done by God Himself, which includes gardens and pavilions in an estate so vast that you’re suddenly the inheritor of an entire world of gardens beneath which rivers flow, where your next-door neighbors happen to be Prophets, companions, beloved family members- the best of mankind in the best form they could ever be remade in, free of pettiness, dishonesty, cruelty and sin, and retaining the personalities, souls, and memories of the lives that earned them Jannah in the first place.

I want all that’s good from this world, magnified and exponentially increased without any of what’s bad.  I want an all-you-can-ea-buffet from Allah’s-Own-Catering that never causes fullness, obesity, indigestion- I want my husband six feet tall and sculpted like a work of art, I want everything that I cannot have here, the silk, the gold, the brocade, the rich carpets, the enormous estate, the wine without intoxication and the contentment without limit or end.  And if I compare all that to wanting a working knee, well then I say nuts to the knee.  I know that we’re supposed to ask Allah for everything we want or need, even a shoelace, but I’m not asking Him to fix my knee.  I want him to replace it with a better one.  A permanent one that never breaks, bruises, buckled, grinds, creaks, or aches.  And I want everything else replaced too- the flabby body, the dry skin, the filled teeth, the indigestion- and in its place, I want Paradise.

InshaAllah.