Holding Onto Allah’s Helping Hand

By Nasreen Abdulla

The morning of February 12, 2000 dawned peacefully. After my music classes in the evening, I returned home with a friend so that we could study Math together for an upcoming test. As soon as I entered home, I knew something was wrong. My mom was sobbing with her head in her hands and my dad was consoling her. Dad explained that my grandfather was gravely ill and that we needed to go to India to visit him. The rest of the evening passed in a blur. When we got to India and we entered the house, we saw Vaapa (grand father), as I called him, lying in the center of the hall, shrouded in white cloth. He was no more. My mom burst into tears and collapsed into her brother’s arms. I learnt later that my dad had lied to us. Vappa was never ill. He just died straightaway. My dad just didn’t have the guts to tell us.

At the age of 12, I was too confused to understand what exactly had happened. All I knew was that he would no longer be with us. It was only after he was gone that I realized what he was to me. He was an excellent lawyer, he was a magnificent speaker, he was the first Muslim notary of our state and he was a learned Arabic professor. But more than anything, he was the one person whom I admired the most. He was not like everyone else’s grandfather. Everyone else’s grandfather was just there. They were just old people who adored their grandchildren a lot. Nothing more than that. But my grandfather was different. He had his own opinion about everything. He always treated his sons and daughters equally, unlike most people in those days. He educated his children well, irrespective of whether it was his son or his daughter, even though it meant severe financial strain. He was so just that in his whole life, he never took a rupee as bribe even though he was offered it more times than he cared to count. He could have been a millionaire with all the bribes he was offered. But he chose to remain poor but a man of principles. These were not the only thoughts that were swimming in my mind in the days that followed his death. As each of us, my mother, my grandmother, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins and myself, grappled to come in terms with his death, I also thought about how inconsistent life was. One moment you are there and one moment you are not. How powerful was Allah the Almighty. We human beings are such conceited beings. We were so proud of ourselves and commit such haughty deeds. All it takes is a moment to be wiped out from earth. Never before had I thought so deeply. Never before had I felt Allah’s presence so strongly. Every time I stepped out of the house, I looked at it not knowing whether I would see it again. Every time I spoke to someone, I did so hoping that it wouldn’t be the last time. I realized how momentary life was. It was in those days that I started to become more regular in my prayers. Every time I stood to pray, I knew that I was in front of Him. I started covering my head. Earlier I had been very proud of my beauty. But now I felt I was so mere in front of Him. It took me another year or so to completely switch to hijab. But I am glad about it. Today my belief in the hijab is stronger than ever. Every other day people bombard me with questions like “You look so pretty when you don’t wear the hijab, why do you do this to yourself?” Had someone forced me to take the hijab, my heart would have become disillusioned. But since I took the hijab whole heartedly, understanding its purity in every sense, I feel pride when I wear the hijab. I know that it’s a sign of Allah’s decision to guide me when I could have gone wrong. There are so many people in the world who have to deal with death. But they all don’t become as spiritually charged as me. Allah decided to guide me and thus put the light in my heart. Of course, I don’t think this life is enough to count the Blessings he has given me, be it in the form of the spirituality I feel or in the form of a husband who thinks that the most beautiful woman in this world is his wife only because she wears a hijab or in the form of friends who encourage me to delve deeper into my faith. May Allah Bless me so that I can be a faithful servant and may He Bless all of us with that spiritual feeling.