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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

TIME2CHANGE IS NOW,PLACE2CHANGE IS HERE

Today, as I think back and recall a simple school essay I wrote a few years ago, my heart is filled with shame and regret. That feeling of immense joy, that adrenaline rush, which enveloped me when my teacher returned my script to me headed with the radiant red digits, “98%”, now seems like a bitter joke. I feel like a hypocrite. I preached about the benefits of taking calculated risks to better our lives, better ourselves. But those who preach have the responsibility to practice. Who was I to talk when I could not face my own Nafs?
We are all familiar with the word Nafs, it is a word we come across time and time again in Islamic books, lectures and talks, but do we know its true meaning? I was ignorant till last year when, at the age of seventeen, I discovered my true Nafs.
I sat in the silver-grey BMW staring out in a daze at miles upon miles of yellow-green grass baking under the furnace of the harsh unrelenting South African sun. My bloodshot and swollen eyes burned from lack of sleep. I felt a newfound dryness in my eyes. A feeling we experience only when our eyes have no more tears left to cry. As we retreated from the small town I tried to make sense of the past forty eight hours, my mind a whirlwind of emotions. Fear, confusion, disbelief, grief, despair, sorrow, rage and self-blame swirled around me colliding and growing. I sat in the eye of the storm, cold and still, unable to correspond. I hung precariously from a thread which I recognize only now as my faith in my creator.
My hands trembled at the thought of the phone call I had received a day ago at 3:20pm. A hoarse and frantic voice on the other end of the still phone line had hastily blurted out that my best friend had passed away in a horrific car accident. The galloping horses of time which had always seemed to rush past me now stood still. Abruptly. Suddenly. Spirit crushed, I hung in a cloud of emptiness while my shell of a body went into an automatic mode. I packed overnight bags, cleaned the house, showered, changed into a cloak, prayed in a trance and took a 3-hour journey to attend the funeral.
The grey and white house swarmed with strange faces. The crowd was like an ocean. Waves of sobbing, heaving sighs and distressed cries overwhelmed me one after the other. All this while only one line remained on my lips: “La illaha Illalah Muhammad ur rasoolullah”.
At one point my thoughts evolved into anger. “Angry with whom?” I asked myself. Was I angry with almighty Allah? How could I be? My Imaan, only my Imaan had pulled me through this nightmare. In this black period of utter despair my Imaan was my only light. Something stirred within me and I recalled a phrase I read in the English Quran. It states that just as plants wither and wilt in the scorching dry heat of a drought and are then revitalized and rejuvenated to their natural, lush and bright beauty by the rains. So too is the effect of Allah’s tests for us in this world. I realized that I had two options. I could crawl into a little hole and fill myself with hatred and hostility (for which my creator would scorn and punish me) or I could rise above like the wilting rose using Allah’s mercy and the strength of the Imaan He has placed in me as my rain. I chose to see that almighty Allah took my friend away for a reason. He used her beautiful soul, her shining example, to change the lives of others and bring us closer to Him. At that precise moment I said “the time to change is now. If I do not change now, I never will”.
I pondered on all the things I could change in my life to make me a better Muslim and one stood out above the rest. As trivial as it may seem to many people, my Nafs was not observing hijaab (not covering my head). It was a Nafs created by my westernized and foolish ways of thinking which created a barrier between me and my creator. Eight months has passed since that day and although the pain and the loss of someone who was a sister to me is still as tangible as if it were yesterday, my hijaab has become a part of me. It gives me a sense of satisfaction and solace. I know that each and every time I wear my hijaab she will be rewarded by almighty Allah. And wherever she may be, her soul will be happy. May Allah grant all murhooms jannat-ul-Firdaus and May He grant us all the ability to overcome our Nafs and become pious Muslims Insha Allah?

By: Sister
Aaisha Haffejee

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