If equal affection cannot be

It’s past midnight, and too close to my final paper for comfort. A little rant – hopefully one less hyper and cringeworthy than the previous one – is only due.

I left Malaysia thinking nothing much would change. I started uni this semester thinking that my life would fall into routine – that it would be as it always were, marked by insignificant moments that engulf entire days with emotion, and epiphanies so wrenching and yet so brief that they go ignored.

And as always, God never fails to prove me wrong.

In the hope that my mother does not read this until years later, this semester has been my craziest and most disorganized. And yet I didn’t feel lost like I did in first year – alone most days and bored for the others. It didn’t feel new like last year, where I discovered so many things I ignored in lieu of comfort and routine the year before. This semester felt like rediscovery. In more ways than one, it felt like coming home. I hear echoes of everything my parents drummed into me my whole life, repeated in the mouths of others and reverberating in my mind, like some forgotten memory.

Old questions resurface for air, and I find my brain working harder and my heart grasping tighter to new words which name my deeper convictions and make sense of patterns, mangled before by rejection of that which was unknown and feared.

These past twelve weeks and some, I have made new friends, reinforced my relationship with old ones, and realized that the surface as a facade lies more than I thought it did. I feel like the bonds now forged are less forced, less trite than the ones made before, and it never did have to follow a pattern.

I am more willing now to look for the beauty in chaos, even if I ask that you keep that statement from my mother.

I’ve found people I can learn from and who are willing to let me grow.

I’ve found people who see me changing and are learning to let go.

I’ve found people I disagree with and yet who love me all the same.

I’ve found people who share my beliefs and my faith in the ability to trigger change.

I have found new thoughts to believe in and new means to understanding, even if they feel like they were always mine.

I’ve found that old friends – old acquaintances, rather – can turn out to surprise you in pleasant ways.

I’ve found trust and faith and patience and respect in the people who I now – too eagerly it may seem and yet never with sufficiently due honour – call my friends.

And then I remember than my finding them is only a parable for my having been given them; blessings from God for whatever they may give me and however they may mould my future.

Here’s to us sustaining the Now and the After, together. InshAllah.

BananaToffeeCake and Me

Yesterday, while looking over the CBD skyline at sunset, I poured my heart out to Banoffee.

It was a summarized version. Three minutes, tops. But I felt so much better afterwards. When she placed her tiny hand on my back, I felt that yes, she actually understands.

Today, I gave her a longer version of the tale. And believe it or not, she actually managed to stare down at me. I was impressed, and also distressed. I suppose it showed. I was afraid that she might begin to worry for me, and she had a class to go to, and so I trudged over to the computer lab alone.

Which brings me here, thinking about all I have and all I have yet to do. This week will be impossibly busy, much like the ones before. Homesickness has yet to knock on my bedroom door, although nausea most certainly has. At times, stopping to breathe calmly is so foreign now, that I even think that I am about to have a heart attack.

How’s that for zikratul maut.

This computer lab is swelteringly hot, and I feel like I am about to pitam soon. But before I make my escape, I would like to share a hadith which has been on my mind for quite some time now:

“How amazing is the case of the believer; there is good for him in everything, and this characteristic is exclusively for him alone. If he experiences something pleasant, he is thankful, and that is good for him; and if he comes across some diversity, he is patient, and that is good for him.” [Muslim]

Don’t worry, Banoffee. Tawakkal tu ‘al Allah. I will be fine.

New Favourite Hindi Song

Moving into Baitul Avenue has exposed me to many, many Hindi songs.

However, I must say, this is my favourite of them all:

Isnim bina, wa nu’min sa’ah.

Sometimes.

I feel as if little time has passed between before and after Melbourne.

And then a nagging feeling strikes me between the lungs and asks me:
“Have you forgotten everything you went through in Melbourne?”

And every time someone asks me about how it’s like, studying overseas,
I wonder if I have.

The things I do seem to suggest that.

Have I tripped at the first step, yet again?

Sometimes I stop to think. I falter at the thought of nixing my principles.
It’s hard to be the bearer of change.
It’s hard to tell people that something is wrong –
Not by you, but by God.

The thought unnerves me.
What scares me more is conforming to what I feel is wrong, merely because I feel like I cannot overpower culture, not on my own.

And when I see what goes on around me, it catches me by the throat that all I can do is just criticize it in my heart.

I do not agree.

I am so worried that I act as if I have never undergone change.

For now it often strikes me that I do not act like an example should.

So maybe this is a cry for a little help.

Please.

(Missing the bi’ah)

Jotting from between Bouverie and Victoria.

Yesterday was hectic. And so was the day before.

From packing to saying (insyaAllah, temporary) goodbyes to shopping for the people back home (coming soon to an airport near you!), there hasn’t been much time for reflection.

Sure, your mind may ramble with incoherent thoughts, barely making sense from one insight to the other. It really requires some show of will power to actually sit down and muhasabah — maybe even put those slivers of ideas into words, as seems to work for me.

Yet, it seems, I haven’t had the time. Where has it all gone to?

And please, don’t check with my bank. They’ll only be too keen to answer that question.

After I had finished packing and clearing out the house (with a sense of sheer desperation) and had lugged everything onto Qaswak, Ummu Faiqah, Caah and I decided on an impromptu dinner at a fish and chippery, right at Port Melbourne, which I had never been. And so without even bothering to unpack, we opened up the trusty Melway and made our way to the Port Melbourne just in time for sunset.

MasyaAllah, the sight was a lovely one to behold. True, having fish and chips under close observation by seagulls is a bit unnerving, but we soon ignored those prying, beady little eyes when Ummu Faiqah asked us about how we felt upon returning to LITW.

While Caah listened quietly and patiently, as I have now discovered she is wont to do, I blurted out long sentences of unfinished questions as I wrangled with the right words to shape my thoughts into something somewhat tangible. Ummu Faiqah has always been one to explain earnestly and passionately (but maybe not at her fullest while driving), and she answered so many of my questions last night, it’s amazing we did not get lost on the way back.

I won’t write down a dialogue of our discussion — that isn’t what I’m going after, since I think our voices, peppered with insiders’ terms and jokes and whatnot won’t help explain anything to this blog’s audience. What struck me as we unloaded my things from Qaswak’s ‘hump’ was about something I’m certain everyone can relate to: friends.

I know I’m not a very good friend. I can be a pain when I’m under stress or infleunce of hormones, I’m not terribly eloquent in either of the two languages I can speak, I have scarce common sense, I’m messy, and I’m selfish.

Talk about self-confession.

But I have just realized that the person you are really is defined, somewhat, by the company you keep. Now, I’m not insinuating that us humans are all drones who only stick to our kind, and no one else — that we prefer people who are just like us and alienate everyone else. I’m just saying that more often than not, the only people you can truly stand for long periods of time are the ones who don’t really hold conflict with everything you believe in. Friends are optional; the love you share is not forced upon you through long, painful hours together, or even blood ties.

As the saying goes, ‘You can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family’.

As I’ve learnt over the past few years since leaving high school, friends are the extensions of you. They will be the people who have stood by you through everything; sometimes they are unexpected, but upon closer inspection, they become tried, tested and true. They show how far your limits are by the things they do that do not irritate you; they say things that have crossed your mind more than once, and you usually share a common passion.

Difficult as it is for those who believe that the people I hang out with ‘blend into each other, the poor conforming beings’, let me tell you that we’re all as different as the colours of the rainbow, once you learn to look past the superficial stuff, like what we wear, or our togetherness as a unit. Many of them still surprise me; alhamdulillah, I’m learning something new everyday.

We share a common passion and a common love for our Maker and the Deen He gave us, and that Love forces us to overlook any differences of mind and principle. We were made different and unique, and our Love forces us to accept that as well. We embrace each other’s strengths, support each other’s weaknesses, and upon request, help fix each other’s vices.

(I do not find compulsive nail-biting a vice, by the way. Take note, Suzuka.)

And I suppose the best sort of friendship litmus test is when they will tell you what is good for you, whether or not you like to hear it. When it’s important, when it’s needed, they will always be there to remind you.

When you fall, they’re ever waiting to catch you and help prop you back up on your feet.

And so this is another tribute to my friends, or more specifically, my ukhti –

For always reminding me.

For showing me what it’s like to be a friend.

For accepting me as I am, and for correcting me when I err.

For never judging me, or let me judge anyone.

For being that bit of buoyance when I feel like sinking under the weight.

For preparing me for what lies ahead.

Alhamdulillah for our friendship, and may it last through our lifetimes. All the way into the next, insyaAllah.

Salaam mujahadah for summer 2006.

From the bottom of my shallow heart.

Assalamualaikum wrh. wbt.

It’s tough, exams month is. And not even for the reasons you’d expect.

Everybody is so busy, and I can’t help but feel the spirit and the energy get sucked out of me.
I tend to rely on others to infect me with enthusiasm, to help me go on. To keep me on the straight and narrow, so I don’t de-VAY-ate, as the Wafaks would say.

Stumbling upon the wordds of my akhi and ukhti remind me that there are healthy alternatives to the self-centred, angsty, emotional outbursts that are typical of most blogs. There are people out there who are willing to make you think, rather than just presenting you with THEIR view on life. I really can’t find anything to argue with them. They do not impose or judge, but simply tell you like it is.

Take a stroll down Circling Thoughts, and you’ll probably see what I mean.

We — or maybe, I — haven’t had the time to stop for a while, and nu’min sa’ah. My final paper is nearing, when so many are already done with theirs. That also tend to suck the life out of me, just a wee bit. I’m resisting the urge to pack and spring clean, just yet. Such an itch it is, too.

And so, what a pleasant surprise it was when two of my ukhti actually stayed over to accompany my now-daily study sojourn into the early morn. One of them had just finished her exams (and graciously offered to be our cook until our last papers were done, alhamdulillah ), and the other was studying with me.

And what an amazing thing, that from the moment they entered until the moment I woke up, a mess of blankets and beanie Assad, that all our conversations centred around our Deen.

It was something I didn’t know I had craved for so long.

Just when I thought I was probably going to flail alone until I was done with 610-122, Allah s.w.t. gave me the strength and energy to go on, in the form of my sisters.

Our night was a funny mixture of the future, common friends, and chocolate cake, but I’ll remember it long after that flight back home.

Maybe even long after that ‘flight’ back Home. InsyaAllah.

Because they reminded me just now, just where our Home really was.

‘And you prefer the worldly life
While the Hereafter is better and more enduring.’
[Al-A'la, 87:16-17]

Jazakillahu khayr, ya ukhti. Syukran jazilan.
Uhibbuki fillah, abadan abada, insyaAllah <3

Wassalamualaik.

Disconcerting farewells.

There were many tears shed tonight.

There was a tone of muffled sadness from the evening onwards.

Laughter and tears took centrestage by turns.

We bid premature farewells to well-loved people — we pray for the safeguarding of their hearts, of their souls, of their nafs. We pray for their Love to withstand Time.

We bid a premature farewell to a cherished month — and prayed that it should be Written in our fate that this beloved and us should meet once again, one day soon.

Tonight we prayed for strength in going back and facing the reality we forgot we left behind.
Tonight we prayed for Love to bind our hearts together in our journey for our Homeland.
Tonight we prayed for safe returns, strong hearts, stronger wills.
Tonight we prayed for the souls that were to leave soon with memories and love, both shared.
Tonight we prayed for hearts to remain — for straightness of the path, and the might to stay on it.

Tonight we prayed the Rabitah. We recited it over and again.

‘Fawathiqillah humma rabithotahaa
Wa adim wuddaha
Wahdi haa
Subulaha
Wam la a haa
Binuurika lazhi laa yahbu
Washrah
Suduu rahaa
Bi faidhil imaani bik.’

‘Therefore strengthen, O Allah, these bonds,
Retain the love of these hearts on Your path,
Fill these hearts with the light of Your Rabbani which shall never fade,
Free these hearts with the overflowing of faith.’

Amin.

P.S:- Any corrections in the translation or the romanization must be duly noted to blogger. Jazaks.

Ukhuwah fillah fil Melbourne…

We Stood in Lines
by Zakkiratul Syazwina

We stood in lines once.
Maybe you and I both know it
We awaited the world
And feared what would be
Resigned to fate
Faith held tightly
We entered the world.
And now
Here we are again in lines
We stand side by side, shoulder by shoulder
Our hands are crossed before us in resolve
Our hearts are linked; they become homes
To every other heart
As far as the eyes can see
And we stand in lines still.
Your tears prick my heart
And feed my soul
With hope
Because you –
they
– We still stand in lines.
And whence the next full moon arrives and bids its time
And call some to its fray
And the lines shift and fill and flip over and again
Shall there be a meeting of these hearts once more?
For maybe there will be some who lose the fight and resign…
Their hearts not ours to hold…
But new numbers
New souls and hearts will fill the ranks
‘Tis a promise made, tested true.
And once again, we prepare to move into the world.
We stand side by side, shoulder by shoulder
Hands crossed in resolve,
Hearts linked.
Because we begin in His Name
And part in His Name.

‘Souls are like conscripted soldiers; those whom they recognize, they get along with, and those whom they do not recognize, they will not get along with.’
(Hadith from Usamah ibn Shurayk)

And (moreover) He hath put affection between their hearts. (Al-Anfal 8: 63)

Uhibbuki fillah, abadan abada, insyaAllah. <3