something

Amirah

I am seriously beginning to question my sanity. At present I am sitting up in bed in the middle of the night because I can’t sleep because I’m terribly heartbroken over the loss of my cat. Amirah. She left me almost exactly a year ago. I sent her off to live with a nice family because I was coming overseas. Then three months turned in to a year.

I miss her a lot. I was cuddling my hot water bottle (winter is blowing a cool crisp gale through the slit in my window) and it reminded me of how she would curl her furry little body next to my belly for warmth at night after nosing her way under the blankets. And then , once sufficiently warmed, she would unfurl. Purring. Needing my stomach to push me onto the cold side as she lolled happily in the body heat I’d left behind. I miss her. But she’s living with a wonderful family. She has a friend (Rage). Her very own bathstool so she can play in the water. She’s outdoors. No doubt harassing the birds she could never get at though the flywire. Climbing trees. Digging up the gardens of unsuspecting neighbours. Stealing Rage’s food and battling for his share of the attention. She was a wonderful, beautiful, amazing little girl.

My God I am possibly certifiably insane! I have an excuse (many actually should you care to listen)... I’m hitting the one year wall. 2 weeks, 3 months, 6 months...the one year wall. Been here before. Not enjoying it this time round either. Funny I’m not in the slightest bothered about XH, just Amirah. I always said I cried more at the loss of my cats than XH. Funny that – guess there just wasn’t much to cry over in the end.

Playing the “nothing affects me” role at the moment – brave faces and all – quite convincingly if I may say so myself. Now I just have to work out what to do with my life.

The one year wall...

Ya Allah, take me to Palestine.

Pathways

The path to contentment is something that I have been pondering over for quite some time.

The last year has seen some large (and not so large) changes in my life and at times it has been so entirely overwhelming. I’ve found myself exhibiting an attitude of ungratefulness and it has disgusted me in my moments of clarity and reflection. I often felt that I was losing grip on the fundamentals, and as the “why?” reared its ugly and damaging head I was weak enough to take that path, but all it conspires to do is drag you lower than you have ever been before. Maybe it is only from the depths that people can really reassess things. But with every new change, new challenge, there are two paths, and the hole only gets deeper if you allow yourself to fall.

Upon hitting the bottom you realise two things:

1. Your own stupidity/recklessness/disregard/heedlessness has bought you to this place
2. Allah swt wants you to be there
   

And it is in two that you realise had you only been conscious of it sooner you would not have had to arrive at the place you are via one. However, Allah swt has placed us in the situations we are in because He knows, in his infinite wisdom, that it is the best thing for us.

You may feel like you’re drifting; your marriage has failed or has been slamming itself on the rocks for months, maybe years; you didn’t get the marks you wanted at uni – you didn’t even get in to uni; the guy you’ve been seeing who was meant to come propose never arrived on the doorstep – forget that you can’t even find a decent bloke; you can’t get pregnant and the inlaws are circling; you don’t know what to do with your life – and everything you want to do is out of the question; the sister you thought had your back stabbed it etc. Indeed it is our very human limitations, our bounded rationality, that prevents us from seeing beyond the pain of the moment and causes us to make decisions that only lengthen the fall. There is something in everything to learn from.

Patience – the favourite words of Shaykhs from all corners – is often maligned as “fake” advice. But it is only after weathering a storm made worse by none other than yourself, do you realise the virtue in patience. Patience is the only thing that breeds contentment. If you can be patient with your circumstance, accept what it is you have been dealt and play the cards with taqwa, only then will you find the burden easier to bear. And I’m not talking about the type of taqwa that requires the donning of a niqab and berating all and sundry about their kuffur-ways, I’m talking about the purest form of submission – the acknowledgement of Allah swt as the Soverign, the One, the Most Wise and Most Merciful, the Knower of All.

I once heard an incredibly wise man say that Allah swt tests us for two reasons:

1. We’ve strayed in some way and he wants us to remind us, to provide us with the opportunity to return to the path of righteousness and make amends
2. He is providing us a unique opportunity to provide for the Hereafter – a chance to raise our rank
   

Such opportunities can only be realised from a position of submission – it is only when we truly accept that Allah swt is the One, the All-Powerful in every manner conceivable, that we will be able to see our struggles for what they are – the opportunity to find contentment.

There is something very wrong with a world in which intelligent and educated women believe that they must be subservient and tolerant of blatant disrespect in order to keep their husbands happy and their marriages stable. Tonight’s dinner table conversation was initiated by a question posed to me by one of two flatmates taking a marriage course (neither of whom are married or have ever been married and for one this is like the 8th course undertaken on this topic – and no it is not about "the fiqh of"). It was a question of whether a husband telling his wife “Don’t interrupt me!” (with attitude) because he was “busy” with “something” and “not interested in her at that moment” would be considered rude.

Well, in a word, yes. The husband needs to have some sense knocked into him. Its not rude – its just downright disrespectful. But this is apparently OK. However, apparently it is NOT ok for the wife to say the same thing to her husband, but it IS a perfectly acceptable way to speak to a child: her words not mine. Sickening. I wonder if a few words of disrespect, a couple of smack downs later and some black eyes and or lost teeth would change these women’s perspective on disrespect – somehow I doubt it. How could you venture into bed with such a pig?

I don’t really care all to much if women hold the view themselves (as long as they don’t want to access state services when it all goes pear-shaped), but to promote it to impressionable and vulnerable individuals is not on. I am living in a very sick community. Actually I don’t think you can call it a community. It is a bubble. A bubble in which a select few people’s words are worth more than a milligram of common sense and where “outsiders” are being “ridden by shaytan”. Yet we are all brethren in Islam. Subhan’allah.

I’m not in the best of moods tonight – the self-righteous and condescending arguments coupled with complete inanity and stupidity with a touch of judgementalism thrown in for good measure have me wanting to kick something (productive I know). Sometimes I think that my sisters in Islam have nothing more interesting to speak about than marriage and to be honest it bores the shit out of me. If there is a gathering of more than two sisters inevitably it comes up, needs to be discussed, hashed and rehashed – you’d think world peace had been declared years ago and that it was the most pressing issue of our time. AAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

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Anyway. There’s a film festival starting tomorrow so insha’allah I hope to attend some of it – at least interact with some people that are not bubble-bound if nothing else. Why does thins place bring out the worst in me? Why do I feel so gross about me living here? Why can’t I just get the hell out - oh wait I know the answer to that one – the dollar has tanked and I can’t afford it lol!

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Ya Allah protect me from myself.