Lessons and Stories

After staying away from the internet for most of Ramadan and then having the computer crash after Eid, I have not been able to blog or reply to e-mails. Today my brother-in-law brought home a rather nice laptop which is now mine and which I hopefully will manage to keep away from the kids long enough to stop it crashing. I also hope to use it to connect to my work server which would mean I could work from home insh'Allah.

Staying away from the internet has had it's benefits, it can be a time-stealer if you are easily distracted like me and whilst I was waiting for the computer to be fixed, I managed to re-arrange and organise the house and pay a lot more attention to the children and what they are getting up to (mostly fighting and complaining, plus jumping on my bed at every opportunity).

I wanted to write up some of my notes from my time away during Ramadan insh'Allah if I get the chance and post, but in the meantime, three stories stand out from that time:

Three White Horses
My husband met a brother in the masjid who had reverted from Hinduism as had his two older sisters and his father. He told my husband what happened to him a short while after he reveretd. When he reverted he was scared to tell his mother but screwed up the courage to do so. On hearing him say he had become Muslim, she didn't get angry as he expected but told him about a dream she said she had one night before her children had been born. In the dream she said she heard the Muslim adhan (call to prayer) and then saw a white horse. She heard the adhaan again and then saw another white horse, she heard the adhaan a third time and then saw a third white horse. She said that when her two daughters became Muslim, she knew her son would too.

Tests and Sisterhood
Another, very sweet Chinese sister I met had become Muslim six months earlier. She had kept it secret from her strict Christian family until her father caught her praying tahajjud at 3am and put her straight out onto the street. Another sister in her town took her in on the request of a mutual friend and the sister had lived with the kind sister and her children for six months. The sister insisted that the new sister could stay as long as she needed to subhan'Allah. The new Sister was super keen to learn as much as possible about Islam and was learning the Quran in Arabic.

The Alternative Masjid
One very cool sister (think niqabi on a quadbike) told us about her revert husband's adventures as a new Muslim. When the brother first reverted he travelled around the country with some other new Muslim friends and visited different masjid's. One in particular caught their attention and they found it very beautiful. They were impressed at how the Quran was kept on a stand with great respect and all of the people had long beards. They began to pray salah in front of the stand and found there was soon a crowd of people around them. That was when they realised that they were in a Sikh Gurdwara and not a masjid! They made a very quick exit at this point.

Alhamdulillah, it was good to meet so many different people. There was another cool niqabi who drove her husband's truck, there was the alimah (scholar) who has newly wed to to a hafiz (someone who has memorised the Quran) and was head-over-heels in love. There was a Sister who had tried to conceive for 10 years only to go on Umrah (pilgrimage) and fall pregnant on her return subhan'Allah. I met a Polish Muslimah who spoke Arabic to her toddler daughter and a Pakistani Sister who married and came to the UK at 15 and encouraged her whole family to come closer to Islam.

Some of the things I learnt during this time were:

• Dawah is not always about preaching, but often about our own good behaviour, good manners, serving others, taking care of their needs and being sincere in our actions. After all, if we act like model Muslim's who live by the sunnah, who would not want to be like us?
• The foundation of everything is intention and we should check our intention at the beginning, end and middle of every action or good deed to ensure that we are doing it for Allah (SWT) only.
• Allah (SWT) does not let the sacrifices we make for him, no matter how small, go to waste. We will feel the effect of what we give up for Allah (SWT), or suffer in our love for Him, in our lives and in the lives of those around us.