Mr. R comes to masjid

This past week, our jamaat lost some of its very valued members. The repeated hits have taken a toll on the psyche of the jamaat. Yet today, even as the rain fell upon this grey day, the sun shone brightly inside the masjid. 

We experienced a momentous and uplifting afternoon, for the man who saved so many of our mumineen visited the masjid. Our jamaat invited him to come and visit as our honored guest.

He brought his family with him, and from the moment they walked through the door, we made it our priority to make him and his family feel welcome and to try to impart to them how meaningful his actions were to our jamaat.

If not for Mr. Mike R, we would have lost 9 mumineen instead of 1. It is unthinkable. 

And it is deeply spiritually satisfying to think that Allah put the right person in the right place at the right time. Alhamdolillah.

I was asked to be a liason between the members of Mike's family and our jamaat. It was my honor and pleasure to be able to show them around, make them comfortable, explain our customs, get to know them. 

The family Mike saved was introduced to him. Many hugs ensued. Emotions were running high at this point- so many people had tears in their eyes. And before my own, bridges were being built. It was truly a beautiful moment amidst the tragedy of the past week.

My dad delivered a small speech to Mike. Mike took the mic and said a few words too. The jamaat then presented Mike with a shawl. When I explained the significance of the shawl to Mike's wife, she looked as touched as I felt.

Hundreds of people made their way over to Mike and his family to shake their hands and say thank you. Mike, you could tell, was overwhelmed with the outpouring. But as I told him and his family, we are all one. You save 8 of us, and you have 800 more who want to embrace you as their brother. In a way, he saved all of us - with his selflessness and his bravery, he gave us something to praise, to wonder at. To raise up and to gain strength from.

We took Mike and his family down to eat. They ate the kheemo and the daal chawal and we talked about the thaali and college and our customs and parenting and... well... life.

There was just love, love, love. Sadness, support, taziyat, dua, and love, love, love. Alhamdolillah. That's all it takes.

Post Ashara 1437

We just got back from Houston Ashara 1437.

Still reeling. Processing my feelings. Trying to absorb this incredible experience.

Hectic, chaotic, exhausting, amazing, beautiful.

We stayed with friends who are like dear family. And my parents stayed with us for a few days too.

I got to attend waaz daily with someone who is my dear bhen. We got deedar. We got qadmbosi. We got nazar. I attended my R2S meetings and there I got to connect with new people and old friends - all wonderful people. We went to a ziyafat where such intense and surreal and beautiful things happened that I haven't yet been able to journal about them.

And the waaz. The daily, incredibly rich, metaphor-filled, enlightening, reassuring, encouraging waaz, which charged our batteries and renewed our strength and readied us for the year ahead. The best new year's resolution one can make at the beginning of moharram, the first month of the year, is to spend the following first month of the new year exactly the same way. Letting these waaz envelop us.

We are lucky, blessed. Alhamdolillah.

I think the feeling of renewal and recharging has trickled into other aspects of my life too. I am noticing that as I read, I am picking out gems the way I used to, writing them down- I haven't done this for years, since I had kids and my leisure time diminished. I still read constantly, but I don't have the luxury anymore of easily transcribing the gems into my journal or this blog.

But let me try to get back into that.

I am reading "The Little Paris Bookshop" at the moment. Two gems I came across so far:

"Some stars had seen the dinosaurs and the Neanderthals; they had seen the pyramids rise and Columbus discover America. For them, the earth was one more island world in the immeasurable ocean of outer space, its inhabitants microscopically small."

"Perdu suspected that these small children, listening with eyes wide and in rapt concentration, would one day grow up to need reading, with its accompanying sense of wonder and the feeling of having a film running inside your head, as much as they needed air to breathe."

Touching Base

It has been a while since I blogged. Lots of balls in the air :)

The new house is coming along well. Alhamdolillah. We had another walkthrough last week, and it is very exciting seeing everything framed out. It is becoming so easy to imagine the house being finished, where our furniture will go, what activities we will do where. 

We have had several of our family members come to the house and sign the wooden frame of the house in various rooms. All 4 parents and Yusuf and Nooriya came after Nooriya's ballet recital. Some of the brothers/bhabis/nieces have come, and the rest intend to. 

It's neat, having their signatures and well wishes and funny messages on the walls. When the drywall is up and painted and we live in the home, we will know that right here, inside the wall, this person wrote this, and that person wrote that. 

Built on the foundation of khaki shifa from Karbala, and framed with the love of our family. Alhamdolillah :)

On a different note, I lost a friend on Sunday. She wasn't well for a long time, and her passing wasn't a surprise, but the loss of her has reminded me of how much there is to do shukr for. I am eternally grateful that I got to speak to her on Saturday, the day before she passed. That she heard me and knew I was thinking about her. That her pain is over. 

Onward. We just have to keep spending our days teaching Yusuf and Nooriya to do shukr and to be kind. That's it.

Alhamdolillah.

Women's Ijtema in India

A couple days ago I returned from a week-long trip to India. I was there because I was asked to speak at a Muminaat Ijtema (a women's educational forum) that was taking place in Mumbai. 

The ijtema was organized by Zaenab Bhensaheb, the wife of Moula's (tus) oldest son. Over 300 women attended. The event primarily consisted of a moderated panel discussion, but also included videos, visual presentations, and a couple of poetry readings/speeches.

The point of this ijtema was to open up a dialogue and reach out to the young women of our community- to create a space in which these women could gain perspective, ask their questions, and be heard. Not too different from the mission of ISFM :)

I was proud to be a part of this ijtema. I think honest dialogue is powerful, and in widening an individual's perspective, you are giving him/her the tools to affect positive change in this world. We all have so much to learn from one another, and united in our desire to carry out Moula's (tus) khushi, we embody potential in the very best sense of the word. I have never been so proud to be a muminah as when I looked out at the audience and realized that I can count myself one of this group of strong, intelligent, curious, beautiful, caring women. It was a powerful moment for me.

I was supported by many people as I endeavored to go on this trip. My mom came with me, so that I had her company and her solid presence with me throughout; Taher gave me immense peace of mind as he beautifully handled the kids, his job, and the house while I was far away; my dad told me he was proud of me- praise that continually ranks higher than any other I have ever been given. Thanks to the women who attended the ijtema and to those who have been sending in their feedback- thanks especially to the lovely young ladies who approached me during and after the event to tell me they were inspired by what was discussed and that they gained fresh perspective.

Alhamdolillah- a great experience :)

my mom's letter

in september 1978, aqa moula (tus) made his first trip to america, and my parents had the enormous barakat of having utaro at their house.

the first american house into which aqa moula (tus) stepped is the house in which i took my own first steps.

when this historic visit took place, my mom wrote a letter to her parents and family in india, telling them in detail how the visit came about, what it was like to have aqa moula (tus) there, what went on, who was there, etc. she read the letter to me last week and it was suspenseful and thrilling and written in such amazing detail that i was riveted. it is such an important letter, in that she has caputured a part of our family's history as well as a significant moment in the history of dawat.

my family- my parents, brother and i - were lucky enough to have two private ziyafats in the period of time that aqa moula (tus) was in the house, and i received qadam bosi at the age of one month. i know that the happiness i have experienced since then is a result of this barakat.

the letter that my mom wrote is a treasure- without it, i would never have known that as aqa moula (tus) took afternoon chai in the backyard of my house, he asked my mother to bring me over to him, and then had my dad take a video of this. i would never know that aqa moula (tus) gave my mom a taweez that he wrote by hand just for me. the visit was marked by one perfect moment after another, and after reliving these moments through my mom's letter, i am so infinitely thankful for the barakat of that visit.

alhamdolillah.