Saving Sajdah

Wednesday August 26^th

8:00 pm

Nothing.

She hasn’t moved all afternoon, I’m used to her kicking throughout the day. Especially when I have something sweet. I started to cry uncontrollably and felt like I couldn’t breathe.

Maybe she’s just sleeping, and Inshallah she’ll wake up later, when I lay down.

11:00 pm

I started crying my eyes out.

I knew.

My husband calmed me down and convinced me to get some sleep, and we would go to the hospital first thing in the morning.

Although it’s not something I was conscious of, my views of having a family were very ‘American’. I wanted to finish school, work for a year or two, and then maybe I would think about it. It took the better part of my first trimester to get over the fact. I thought I had my life planned out. I thought I knew what I wanted.

Thursday August 27^th

11:00 am

“Hassan!”

I immediately got up and followed the midwife into the ward. She asked me what was wrong. I told her that the baby hadn’t kicked for 24 hours. Without taking her eyes off my record she told me to have some cold water. “That always gets them going.”

I waited for 5 minutes and still, nothing. The midwife told me to have a seat, and she would call me. I remembered Mom telling me that when she was having my brother he slept for 24 hours straight and scared her to death. She’s probably just sleeping.

Inshallah nothing bad will come out of this. I’m probably just panicking for no reason. Inshallah there is nothing to worry about.

My name was called, and a senior midwife ushered me into an examination room she began to search for the heartbeat. In the adjacent room I could hear someone hooked up to a monitor and a constant little heartbeat was echoing in the ward. At that point in time, there was no sound more beloved to me than hearing my baby’s heart.

She searched for about 4 minutes. My eyes began to swell with tears as I followed her instructions to breathe in and then out.

She then turned to me and asked how long it’s been since I felt the kicking. When I told her, she asked why I hadn’t come in yesterday. I began to tell her that I figured… She abruptly cut me off, “With a baby we don’t figure, we don’t take chances.”

She asked me to wait there and she left the room. I began to cry again. Now, all I wanted was to know that my baby was alive. I’m supposed to be becoming a mommy. I’ve mentally prepared myself for this. This is the most important job I will ever have.

I was then escorted into the exact room I had just been in 2 weeks ago. In fact, the same technician that handled my 5-month sonogram greeted me. I was sure, but I was hoping with all my heart that I was wrong.

In a matter of seconds and with a few clicks of the scanner she confirmed the thought that had been haunting me for the last day and a half.

“I’m so sorry love.”

I started sniffling and was trying to hold back tears.

I asked, “what happens now?”

We were taken to a small empty room with a window and two chairs. We sat quietly and after I cried some more, I called my Mom and told her the news. She was so distraught, and was in sheer disbelief. I felt her pain; she was helpless, all the way across the Atlantic.  “ You’re a Mom, and no one can take that away from you.”

Her words resonated in my mind. I just sat still, and stared out that window.

Sunday August 30^th

6:20 pm

Sajdah M. Othman was delivered, at 5 ½ weeks she weighed 1 lb 6 oz. She was small and still. There was a peace about her. I held her for a little under 15 minutes, and she was whisked away by the midwife.

All the Inshallahs, every other sentence. Every other thought. People tend to sprinkle their conversation with religious words, it wasn’t like that. I knew that the story in Surat Al-Kahf was about when the Prophet PBUH didn’t say it, and revelation was withheld for a little while. The verse was sent down as a reminder to say “Inshallah.” So I was adamant on remembering to say it. I hadn’t however, fully internalized what it meant. Not until now.

This was my reminder that Allah SWT has the ultimate control over our affairs. We can try and plan and make decisions to the best of our abilities. But in the end, it is if Allah SWT wills it or not. Inshallah isn’t some magic word, that when said, things have to occur. It means exactly what it says, “if Allah SWT wills it.”

This is what He willed.

I accept that.

I considered calling this post ‘Losing Sajdah,’ but when I thought about it in its proper context, she is one of the only things saved for the hereafter, and most else in this world is to be lost.

Fragile Life (part I)

“Sometimes the point is too much to concentrate on, and people spend all their time looking for it, and they refuse to recognize that it’s right in front of their eyes.”

“Umm Sumayah wel hikam,” She piped; Sumayah’s mother and her wise words.

We agreed that she was right. Sarah hated to admit it but she knew what I was saying made perfect sense. Mom wasn’t random, she was serious about the things she said to me, I soaked them in not knowing their value or how strongly they would affect my transition into adulthood or help me skate over the thin ice of adolescence.

I stood there ironing my school shirt, watching the steam silently rising off the fabric as the iron smoothly slid across it. Sarah sat on my couch talking about something irrelevant to my concern at the moment. The iron hissed as I put it in its upright position, then switched to the left arm. We had agreed to skip first period to talk about the issues she was going through. I moved quickly because according to mom I needed to make it out of there on time, and I was adamant on making a show out of rushing through the front door.

The cold air and fog were familiar to us on school mornings, the street was filled with kids in uniform headed to school, some walking others in cars, taxis, or buses. At this point in my life I was in love with Cairo, and Egypt was the only place I had lived long enough to dare call home.

We walked against the crowd towards the park two blocks down. Sarah usually kept her sleeves rolled up. And like myself, her shirt was never tucked in, ties hanging around our necks, and our grey pleated skirts falling loosely to the ground. Except today she didn’t.

We stopped at the far end of the park and sat down at the passageway. I looked her in the eye but she intentionally avoided looking back.

“Ana mish tay’ah nafsi” I can’t stand myself.

Malik? What’s wrong?

I’ve just been depressed lately.

Over what?

She shrugged, and carefully rolled up her sleeves.

I’ve just been feeling bad lately. I don’t know.

My attention was drawn to the scabs on her left forearm. She had apparently been cut, repeatedly, with something sharp in vertical lines about 4 inches long.

Eh dah?! What is that?

to be continued.

Not-So-Happy Camper

When I taught summer camp in with a program in the Washington D.C. area. One of my students, in the 7^th grade at the time, was explaining to me that she felt ugly. This student wears hijab, but otherwise dresses much like any other middle school teen. With all the effort she puts into assimilating you would think she should have gotten more bang for her buck.  She told me that there were prettier, more popular girls in her class and that she felt ugly.

In order to understand her concept of “pretty” I asked her to describe them to me.  She said they wore stylish clothes, were cool, friends with all the talented people, and got attention from boys. Candid response, I’ll give her that, but it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that being, or should I say appearing, as a Muslim was a burden to her.

Another student in the 9^th grade decided to chime in, and told me that she felt the same way. She explained that she was a loner. She had no friends, and no one really liked her. This came as a surprise to me, because both students had awesome personalities (in my opinion at least), talented, and were decently good looking from what I could see. In addition to their distorted self-images, D.C. and Virginia have sizable Muslim communities.  Could it be possible that she was a loner because there was no other Muslim student s in her school? When I asked her, she begrudgingly mumbled, “There are, I just don’t like them. They’re boring. They’re losers.”

This struck a chord with me, because interestingly enough, when I was about their age, I had made a similar divide in my judgment when it came to choosing friends. In that stage of my life, I thought I was too good to hang out with the simply religious crowd. Although I can now admit that they were mature for their age (in some aspects at least), I can also admit that they were far from adventurous.

Everything they had to say was corny. They did nothing daring, nor did they have anything interesting to say. They were simple, avoided risks, and they always wanted to do “religious” stuff. Despite all of these points of criticism they had one vice that took the cake hands down: They told their parents everything.

So I had to resort to making a new clique that represented my concept of superhero-rock star-best-buds-forever. Eventually, I made a habit out of this. As a teen that moved a lot I had many opportunities to start over and test the integrity of my clique formation processes. I ended up going a year or at least a couple of quarters without friends, dedicating my time to casing everyone out. It definitely had its hard-knocks but once we found each other, it all paid off.

Back to the point, the core issue here is that the Student’s foundation is totally off. Her understanding of being a Muslim is one that translates to negative points of difference. It’s imperative that our youth internalize the idea that being Muslim is a privilege. She should feel sorry for the popular girls, who by the way suffer from more insecurities and social illnesses then they can even begin to imagine.

Being Muslim shelters you from so much, it protects you from all the crazy things out there. Would she have been an alcoholic by her mid 20’s? How many regrets would she have accumulated during her debut in the dating scene? Visits to the abortion clinic? Would she be lucky enough to make it to rehab? Does she care to imagine the extent of how distorted her image of self could get? How much emotional, mental and physical damage could she handle?

Allah SWT chose you to be a Muslim, how are you being grateful in return?

By wishing you were something else.

You aren’t limited to wearing clothes that cover everything but your hands and face. You are honored, and secretly envied for doing so.

Envied by every young lady that wears a short skirt to work and spends 25% of the time trying to pull it down, who is limited? By the one who runs 5 miles a day to get better “gams”, who is limited? By the one who soaks her feet when she gets home because the heels kill her, who is limited? By the one who is starving herself to be a size 2, who is limited? Girls and ladies alike, go to extreme heights to be considered attractive, desirable, sexy, wanted and loved. They are also repeatedly let down by the far from satisfactory results they get. They are suffering on a daily basis. You are not limited. You are free.

Adults aren’t excluded from having these feelings. They need to have confidence in their identity outside the mosque and religious gatherings. How “Muslim” are you at work? Do your co-workers know something positive about Islam because of you? Do you tell people, “Well…in my religion I’m not allowed to drink alcohol” or do you say, “ I am Muslim, I don’t drink alcohol” ?  How strong are you when it comes to your beliefs and practices as a Muslim?

Are you proud?