“Whoever is mainly concerned about the Hereafter, Allah will make him feel independent of others and will make him focused and content, and his worldly affairs will fall into place.
But whoever is mainly concerned with this world,
Allah will make him feel in constant need of others.
He will make him distracted and unfocused,
and he will get nothing of this world—
Except what is already decreed for him.”
—Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him (At-Tirmidhi)
“For me, the certainty that Allah has accepted just one of my prayers is more beloved to me than this world and all it contains.”
—Abu Ad-Darda (Ibn Kathir)
Sulayman shut his eyes and pursed his lips as he embraced his wife after Fajr prayer Saturday morning, the thirteenth of September. He couldn’t tell Tamika the real reason he was traveling with his mother on a plane to Indiana, and why he would return that night, less than twenty four hours after he had left. And that disturbed him more than the trip itself. His mother was hurting, and more than anything he was hurting himself. He needed his wife. He wanted her to hold him and tell him it would all work out in the end. Even as he knew, in all likelihood, it would not.
The determination and hurt in his mother’s voice had both stunned and terrified him. He was not accustomed to seeing his mother like this, and he was even less accustomed to her confiding in him as a person, a son—a young man with a mind of his own. He could barely register what she was saying three weeks ago, let alone comprehend its destructive significance in his life. It sounded like some perverse puzzle, a morbid riddle he was left to make sense of on his own. The words still became jumbled as he stood there savoring the warmth of his wife’s embrace, even as he had already put the words together after his mother divulged her pain, and way out of it.
Divorce. His mother. Going to Kate’s for “sometime.” Alika. October third. Married already. His father. Khula’. Divorce. Irreconcilable. Three months. Can’t stay. Won’t stay. My soul.
My life, Sulayman thought. Is this what is in store for it twenty years from now?
Sulayman held Tamika tighter, not wanting to let go, the ominous words moving, shifting, taking their place, their meaning, and portending his family’s ruin. The mysterious words settled over him, coming together, close together, too close together. Closing in. Choking him. Merciless hands at his throat—cutting off his source of life.
What had his father been thinking? His mother? And Alika, well. She was nothing to him, and a part of Sulayman couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She had no idea, no concept of what she was getting into, had already gotten into.
He wanted to be angry, had tried to will himself to be, if for no one’s sake but his mother’s. But he couldn’t. That’s what bothered him, confused him. He couldn’t will anger, or even fury.
How then could he muster feelings of blame? He had talked to his father a week ago, when his father had said they needed to talk, man-to-man. They had taken a drive after Fajr, and the painful, weighty story his father had imparted left Sulayman immobile, as if a load too much for his parents to bear had been placed on his shoulders. And he was left to bear it alone.
He knew, of course, that his father was a man, had always known. But somehow it became real only that day when the darkness of dawn was retreating to reveal a gray blue in the sky as he sat next to his father in the car.
Sulayman listened to his father’s candid recollection of his first meeting with Alika, an innocuous attempt at doing something for the sake of Allah by inputting the Muslim point of view, the Islamic perspective. It scared Sulayman when his father said he had no idea, even after the meeting itself, that their subsequent conversations would culminate in the beginning of a fondness of heart.
His father recounted the prayers, the doubts, the denial, and finally the submission to something neither his heart nor his soul would let go. Then he told Sulayman of the meeting with the imam, the imam’s discouragement, and the imam’s contention to never engage in polygyny, and why.
The contention terrified Sulayman even more than the reason for it. It seemed so…unnatural. Yet, Sulayman could not help but respect and admire it, hold it up as if an antique to be examined, preserved, and analyzed. To be placed on the shelf of his home. In case, and only in case, he would need it.
Is it this easy? Sulayman had thought as he listened to the calm, yet pained words of his father. Was it this simple to change from husband to man overnight? Was it this easy to make a decision, one born from prayer and logic, and Qur’an and Sunnah, to have it result in the utter destruction of a union blessed by Allah?
Even as Sulayman sat in the airplane next to his mother, who quietly sipped tea from a small paper cup, he couldn’t escape that sense of recognition, of understanding that was between him and his father. He understood, even as he was too overwhelmed to discern if that also meant he agreed.
His mother wore a slight smile on her face, holding the cup of tea in one hand as she turned the pages of a magazine she had bought in the airport. Then there was her soft laughter, the shaking of the head, as if the world had been shrunk to the glossy pages before her on the stow tray.
Sulayman couldn’t help it, he concluded. There was nothing he could do about it. Although there was a tinge of guilt he felt at the realization, as if he were betraying his mother somehow. He couldn’t help it, and he couldn’t be blamed. There was no other reason for the feeling than the reason he, and not Aminah, was traveling with his mother in the first place. He was a man.
And in that lay a burden greater than Sulayman could even prepare to bear.
His mother laughed again, this time, as if urging him to read too. But he looked away, toward the window, though he couldn’t see it clearly over his mother’s head. He couldn’t watch her amused expression without a mixture of resentment.
And the resentment was at the both of them, its potency more toward one than the other at a given moment. Right then, it was his mother.
How could they do this to him, to Aminah? To themselves?
“Sulayman,” she said finally, a trace of amusement still in her voice as she read aloud the excerpt from the article.
Sulayman could not hear what his mother was saying because he was too distracted by the stampede of his thoughts. It was as if Satan were there, laughing at them, from his throne.
Iblees, the devil himself, sat on a throne that was placed on water, even as his mortal victims disbelieved in him, just as they disbelieved in his Creator.
Sulayman heard his mother laugh between words, a droning in the background of an amusement only Satan himself could enjoy. Each day Iblees sent out emissaries to incite harm and destruction in people’s affairs, each emissary vying for closeness to the Evil One, a status enjoyed only by the one who caused the greatest fitnah.
Sulayman thought of how one of the emissaries would come to Iblees, Satan himself, and share his success in inciting harm and sin, saying I did such and such. Satan would then reply, You have not done much. Then another would come and say, I caused division between him and his wife. Then, his status would increase before the Evil One, who would draw him near to him, saying, How good you are.
“…this test to see how good you are,” Sarah finished with a smile, looking at her son.
At the sound of her last words, an eerie feeling came over Sulayman as he realized the synchronization of the hadith to his mother’s words.
“Let’s try it,” she said, and it was as if his heart leaped from his chest in trepidation.
He gathered his eyebrows. “Try what?”
“The test.” Her forehead creased, and a grin was on her face as she searched her son’s, as if he should have known what she was talking about.
“The test I just told you about.” She sighed, but it was playful, joking. “In here.” She motioned to the magazine.
“What’s the test about?” he asked, feigning interest just then.
“To see how good you are,” she said with a laugh, shaking her head at him for not paying attention. “Let’s see. I’ll go first.”
He tried to summon up the will to participate. But he could not. He could only watch, thinking of her last words. Yes, he thought as his heart ached with love for his mother, you already did go first. He could only pray his father had the strength, courage, and wisdom to be the one to bring her back. Sulayman feared, had the uncanny sense, that his mother wasn’t coming back. Ever.
And he could almost hear Iblees, a whisper in his mind, saying to his companion, “How good you are. How good you are.”
Dear Diary,
The strangest thing happened to me this morning. I was dead tired, so when I heard Aminah’s alarm clock blaring, I groaned and put the pillow over my head, and literally counted the seconds until she turned it off. I heard her move in her bed after I got to 48. I stopped counting, thinking the alarm would be off any second. But the sound kept coming, that noisy patterned sound that is somewhere between a baby’s cry and a bullhorn. Why couldn’t she buy a normal clock with a beep like everyone else? Finally, and it had to be a minute later, she turned it off, or at least I thought she did. I had just dozed off again when the annoying sound was at it again. It was almost six o’clock in the morning, and I had an eight o’clock class, so I was really irritated by now. I figured Aminah should have prayed and gone back to sleep by now, so I sat up, almost seething in my aggravation and got out of bed and fumbled for the off button. But to my disappointment, the radio came on instead and a country song mixed with the fuzzy whispery static of “between stations” filled the room. Startled, I tried to turn down the volume, giving up my search for the off button. The station changed almost immediately, and Bette Midler’s soft voice penetrated the darkness. I stilled and listened to the familiar song that for the first time held a deeper meaning for me.
…God is watching us. God is watching us.
From a distance.
By the time the song finished, I was fighting the tears gathering in my eyes. It was the voice of the radio host and Aminah’s groan that brought me back.
I sat in the dark room, my eyes adjusting, barely registering that another song had begun to play. My thoughts were on Aminah in the bed, the sight irritating me somehow. “Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place, such a lovely place… You can check in anytime you like. But you can never leave.” The eerie words haunted me, and I hurriedly reached to silence the radio, miraculously finding the off button right then.
I should pray, I thought, the guilty feeling engulfing me. So I stood and started for the bathroom, my body feeling as heavy as lead. For a second, I considered waking Aminah, in case she hadn’t prayed. But then I remembered the night before when she had reminded me to pray, and I had lashed back, saying she should pray herself. Then she told me, “I’m not praying.” It would be a week before she could pray the formal prayers. Being the stubborn person I am, I left the room and resumed studying, hoping she’d think I’d prayed and just leave me alone, imagining that I was somehow punishing her by being ornery.
It wasn’t until this morning after I started to pray that I realized that I was the one who was suffering. In the last month, I hadn’t prayed unless Aminah was leading. As soon as I raised my hands to start the prayer, I felt so lonely standing there in the living room without her next to me. It felt so unnatural, as if I didn’t belong. My voice even sounded strange to my ears. But the sound of the Qur’an coming from my throat was hypnotizing. I had forgotten how much I loved to hear myself reciting. I was beginning to feel the numbness of guilt in my limbs as I recited Al-Faatihah.
Shameful scenes from my life passed thru my mind like clips from a movie, and I cried so hard that my breathing was affected. The scenes switched to happier moments, moments when I had gotten the gift I wanted, felt better after being sick for so long, got another A in school, so many clips that I couldn’t even process them all. Except that they all pointed to one thing, Allah’s Mercy. Never once had I been denied His generosity. And at moments when I thought I was being denied, it was really silver lining on a cloud that would bring me better than I had hoped for in the first place.
When I recited, Maaliki-yawmid-deen, my cries were so terrible as I thought of Allah’s reign over the Day of Judgment, the day no one could escape from, not even me. I whimpered so much that I couldn’t quiet myself.
At that moment, I didn’t care about modeling. I didn’t care about singing. I didn’t even care about Kevin. I just wanted to get my life back, my soul back. Oh, these things were so stupid, so stupid! Even if I did them, couldn’t I at least hold on to my religion? Couldn’t I at least pray?
I wanted to stand there all morning reciting, and I opened my mouth to recite the next verse, and that’s when the strangest thing happened.
My mind went blank. This by itself wasn’t all that strange. It happens to every Muslim. Even a hafiz can’t escape such moments. But this wasn’t the normal forgetfulness. I drew a complete blank, as if I had never known what verse came next.
My heart slowed to its normal beat, and although my cheeks were still wet with tears and my nose still stuffy, my eyes dried. And, frankly, I felt stupid. What was I doing standing here? I had a test in Organic Chemistry, and there were a few things I needed to look over before class. I remembered Kevin. I was supposed to meet him after my classes to practice a few songs, and I wasn’t even prepared. There was also this Bio student who I promised to tutor some time today, but I couldn’t think of any way I could fit her into my schedule.
My head started to hurt, and I tried to regain my concentration. But I felt nothing. It was as if all my previous feelings had suddenly left me. I tried to think about my soul, but strangely, at that moment, I thought, What’s the point? Was I really going to stay on top of my prayers? Was I going to bring a change of clothes to all my singing engagements so I was ready whenever prayer came in? And was I really going to go to the restroom and ruin my makeup by rubbing water on my face? And what if I hadn’t made wudhoo’ that morning? Then I wouldn’t be able to simply wipe over my feet. I’d have to literally take off my pantyhose to rinse them.
Pushing the doubts from my mind, I started over, starting from the first verse of Al-Faatihah. The sound was routine and dry this time, despite my best efforts to beautify my voice using the tajweed I’d learned years ago. I was to the third verse again, where I had stopped before, and I still couldn’t remember what to say next.
My heart started to pound again, but this time it wasn’t from the beauty of Allah’s Words. It was out of fear. Not even fear of Allah. Just fear. I was scared.
Was it really a case of just ‘drawing a blank,’ or had I truly forgotten the rest of the most oft-repeated verses in the Qur’an? Had Allah taken the knowledge away from me? Was it earned by my own hands for my thoughtless actions over the past few years? Or because I refused to pray except on the rare occasions Aminah was able to convince me?
I stood there fighting myself, refusing to believe what I was thinking. I must have started reciting from the beginning three more times before I finally gave up. Frustrated, I just stopped praying. I pulled the khimaar from my head, and I was about to get back in bed when I saw Aminah’s Qur’an sitting on its stand next to the couch. Part of me didn’t want to pick it up for fear of what the Words would evoke. Or maybe it was just the fear that even after I read the verses to remind myself what I’d forgotten in prayer, I wouldn’t resume praying even then.
So I guess it was just curiosity that made me open the Qur’an to Surah Al-Faatihah. Well, call me crazy, but I was at least grateful that I hadn’t forgotten where to find it. But, then again, how can you forget where to find the first surah in the Qur’an, a surah that itself meant ‘The Opening’?
Aminah’s Qur’an was the Arabic-English one with the Arabic on the right and the English translation opposite it. The Arabic script was small, but I could make out the letters, so I skimmed down to verse four. I was looking at the words so carelessly, so routinely, that it took me a minute before I realized that I couldn’t make out what it said. Yes, I could still recognize the Arabic letters, but I couldn’t remember the sounds of them all. I saw the yaa and knew it was a long e sound, but I couldn’t remember how to pronounce the letter before it, or after it.
My heart beat faster as the realization began to sink in: If you abandon the Qur’an, it abandons you.
I shut the Qur’an, but I was too weak to stand. I sat there, and the only thing I could think was, O Hell, is this it for me?
“But why, Sulayman?” Tamika sat with her back against the headboard of the bed and Sulayman on its edge, still dressed in the clothes he’d worn this morning. It was almost midnight, and he had just gotten home twenty minutes before. The purple journal sat on her lap, and she loosely gripped it with one hand.
“I didn’t want Aminah to have it.” His voice sounded so tired that Tamika regretted confronting him about this now. But she couldn’t sleep without knowing. She had spent the whole day reading the diary, and she wanted answers.
“But why not?” None of it made sense to Tamika, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that Sulayman was hiding something.
He exhaled, as if too exhausted from today to care what happened tonight. “To cover a Muslim’s faults.”
Tamika narrowed her eyes in confusion. “What?”
“To cover a Muslim’s faults,” he said louder. But it wasn’t that Tamika hadn’t heard him. She just didn’t understand the relevance of it.
“Cover a Muslim’s faults?” She shook her head, and started to laugh but withheld. “Aminah knew about Dee.”
“I know that.”
“Then what would you be keeping from her by taking the diary?”
Sulayman rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I didn’t know what Durrah would’ve said in there.”
Suddenly, Tamika understood, and she felt bad. She should not have read the diary herself. Sulayman was right. Dee’s diary would likely say more about her sins than Aminah, or even Tamika, had known. Although after reading it, Dee was more mysterious to Tamika than she had been as a roommate. Dee didn’t even mention any of her sins, except the obvious ones, which someone could learn from opening a local newspaper. Still, Tamika should have respected her Muslim sister’s privacy—well, her friend’s privacy. The diary was more a chronicling of Dee’s soul searching and reflections on the torment of allowing singing and modeling to keep her from her prayers, her religion.
“I thought about that,” Tamika said regretfully. “I was curious and didn’t think about Dee’s right to privacy.”
Sulayman turned to Tamika with his brows furrowed. He looked as if he wanted to say something then shook his head before he turned back toward the wall, his gaze distant. He was silent for several minutes, and Tamika imagined his mind had drifted to the trip with his mother earlier today. Tamika had no idea what was going on, but she knew something was happening in Sulayman’s family, something painful. She didn’t want to think about it, and she couldn’t bear the thought of something hurting Sulayman.
“I wasn’t talking about Durrah’s privacy.”
Tamika’s forehead creased in confusion. He met her gaze a second later, turning so that a bent leg rested on the bed as he faced her.
“I was talking about me.”
Eyes narrowed, she shook her head, confused. What was he talking about?
Then it came to her, suddenly. The conversation on the night of their marriage when he had asked Tamika what she had been afraid of.
“You,” she had said. When she couldn’t confess her pre-Islam sin outright, she said, “I wasn’t always Muslim, Sulayman.”
“I’m no angel, Tamika,” he had replied, “and I didn’t expect you to be one.” He then said what would transform him from a Muslim saint to a human being. “I was always Muslim, so I have no excuse.”
Dee.
SubhaanAllaah. She would have never guessed.