I thank Allah for giving me the chance to spend a month with the greatest Muslims alive in this 'Ummah' today!
At the end of Ramadan, I went to a family home in Rafa
one of the poorest refugee camps in the poorest areas,
of the over populated city in the entire world.
I had 'Iftar'
with a family
there who had about 16 mats,
which were used at night to sleep on.
In the middle of this tent area the mother places
the meal if she has any for her children to eat...{!}
This lady greeted me at the door
and it was as if she
was welcoming me to the Taj Mahal not a hellhole
in the Gaza strip...!!!
”Sallam Alaykum!” she says with a smile that lights
up the whole area.
I asked her:
“What is it like in Rafa at Ramadan with
very little food ?”
She said: ‘Alhamdulillah!’ with such joy I couldn’t help
but smile. And as I sat there on the floor of this home
eating what little leaves that they had;
a bit of hummus, a pita bread that was our 'Iftar'.
I got angry … really angry !
I thought what is this God that makes hungry people
even hungrier ? What is this God Who creates a fast
for the poorest of the oppressed people in the world.
So, I turned to this sister and I said---
“With all due respect I want to ask you,
why does your
God starve you in Ramadan ?
Why do you fast in Ramadan sister, just explain to me?”
This lady who never owned a handbag,
whose children didn’t have, never had shoes.
Whose children I was sitting with didn’t have pen
or paper to do any drawings,
she said to
me:
“Sister we fast in Ramadan to remember the poor.”
And a key went to my heart and unlocked it...!!!
But of course Islam wasn’t for me that was for somebody else
so I put the thought of how great Islam was to one side and said
so what ...?
I like the Palestinian people but it has nothing
to do with Islam.
Then
last year
in Ramadan again I went to Iran as a journalist
and I visited a mosque there,
it’s the Bibi Fatima Mosque
and I made 'Wudu' because I knew
how to do it and I put on a 'Chadur'
and I made a simple prayer:
'Allah … and I used the word Allah.
“Allah, don’t give me anything. I have everything.
Thank you for this journey,
but Allah, don’t forget the people of Palestine.”
Then I sat down in this busy mosque with women feeding their children, pilgrims coming and going;
but when I sat down, this immense
feeling of peace came over me.
Peace and tranquility that I never knew before,
such a calm that the tension in my heart went.
There was no sound in my head for the first time in my life as an adult - just deep, deep joy and calm.
I sat there for a long time in this place of calm
knowing
that somewhere in the universe everything is like this.
Over the course of that evening women kept coming over to me
holding me by the shoulders and saying:
“I love
you.” At one point a child came over and held my hand
and just said in Farsi (Persian): “I love you.”
I said to my friend Nadia, “Is this what it is like in the mosque?”
She said, “Not really.
I think something is happening.”
I slept that night on the floor of the mosque with a lot of other pilgrims and the next morning, Fajr sounded and I was inside the mosque and I prayed Fajr. Then I came outside and had a cup of chai and the sun was coming up and I had one very specific thought...
“O, no... not Islam, please not Islam.”
I just want to say that a couple of strange
things happened to me after
that. I took the plane back to London from Tehran. As
the plane was coming into London the pilot said: “Thank you for flying Tehran airways we’ll be in London in 20 minutes.” And at that point every Iranian Muslim woman took off the hijab
and made out like she was from Sex in the City
even showing some cleavage.
I thought great !
Thank
goodness, my hands wouldn’t take off the hijab.
My hands wouldn’t take off the hijab !
and I thought I was having a nervous breakdown !
Seven days later I said my Shahada in a London mosque
and it was time for me to return to the Qur’an.
This time I opened the Qur’an, and Surah Al-Fatiha
(the opening chapter) look like saying to me:
‘Hello Sarah where have you been,
welcome to the religion of peace, joy and tranquility,’
and I couldn’t put it down.
Someone once told me, and I feel much like
that before Islam
I had given up on God but God never gave up on me. Alhamdulillah.
The question everyone wants to know is how did your family or children react. My two daughters who are very practical and are aged 8 and 10. They came to me with three questions:
Mummy when you’re a Muslim will you still be Mummy?
I said: 'When I am a Muslim you know what,
I will
be a better mummy', they said: “Horrayyy!”
Mummy will you drink
alcohol?
When I am a Muslim I will never drink alcohol again
and they said “Horrayyy!”
When you’re a Muslim will you show your chest ?
I said why would you ask such a question?
They said when you come to the school and your
chest is showing we are embarrassed and we hate it
and we want you to stop it..
When I am a Muslim I will cover all this area and to which they said:
“We love Islam.”
It was that easy. When you look at those 3 questions
the basic female womanhood is summarized in those
3 questions from the purity of children.
Question no. 1. Will you be the center of our household?
'Can we
rely on you as a mother to be there for us rather
than putting your work, your colleagues/friendships or the bar in front of us' ?
Question no. 2. 'Will you remain in the limits that Allah has
described for all of us in behavior' ?
Question no. 3. 'Will you be a modest dignified
woman in Islam' ?
Alhamdulillah that is all I have to say.
What I have learnt this year in being a Muslim is this,
when you have problems don’t tell to your friends or family ...if you can read the Qur’an every night or read 10 min. everyday your Imaan is much, much higher. If you live in a non-Muslim country those of us who do it can go very low very quickly, you must read the Qur’an.
If those who are not on the path of Islam if they come to Islam like me; or, if you’re a Muslim -you are on the path as well, so make sure that you don’t miss those signs in everyday life.
All praise is to Allah (Almighty).
