Monday 27 June 2011

Madinah

by Maimona Khan on Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 8:10pm
They say in order to write well, we must write what we know –
And what she knows right now is this:

That in spite of feeling as though she carried around a soul far older than the age of twenty-four,
And only seen and heard of life lessons learnt from beloved real/imaginary creations around her,
Only now was she experiencing life, in all that it could offer her.

No longer does she feel like a princess locked in the highest tower of her own making,
She has climbed down and being here, is different,
Yanneh sometimes great, sometimes not so –
Yet,
Still the naiveties, nay foolishness of younger entrapped days still persist.

Of course,
The reality of the duel between disappointment and faith persist away from the tower,
And what keeps her from spiralling into defeat: the Knight in Shining White Armour,
Who is not Whom she could have ever imagined herself being worthy of,
Which is not to say she is worthy,
But just that He Cares is –

A most Beautiful consolation Prize.

However, only when she is there is His Presence truly Manifest,
How superficial we princesses are,
Needing the delight of the eyes in order to appreciate the Truths of life…

And see how these so called benchmarks of wants crumble and the backpack, nay suitcase of longstanding worries that she carried around are now –
chucked-
out on to a conveyor belt to a bygone destination,
And the only feelings subsiding
are the surreptitiousness of a Deen
so incredible, that you abandon your best friend - Melancholy,
As you bask in one’s  soul somersaulting in the melodies of a Faith so real you don’t ever want to leave.

Stitches

by Maimona Khan on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 1:35pm

You see,

It wasn’t so much about his non-presence in her life,
which had led to the deep gashes in her existence, no –
It wasn’t about him,
he wasn’t all that significant in the grander scheme of things,

It was actually all about her,
Why she had allowed herself to become so short-sighted,
No blind-sighted,
Why she devalued the worth of her goodness,
Willing to settle for a mere deformed crumb falling from the table,
When it was very obvious that she deserved the whole loaf.

Becoming numb wasn’t all that difficult for her,
Tribulations tended to trigger such a reaction,
She needed help,
And it came to her, to shock her back to life.

This time, he was adequate to serve the desired prescription,
He stitched her right up,
Unfortunately, she did not actualise the purpose of stitches,
Settling again with pinning delayed dreams with him,
Falling again, into the trap of unfulfilled hopes with a created being.

However, there was hope this time,
Just like when stitches are removed, there is that initial moment of excruciating pain,
It was soon followed by relief and acceptance of lessons learnt.

Alhumdullilah 

Beginning January 2011


by Maimona Khan on Saturday, January 8, 2011 at 8:40pm


There once was a little girl, who for 23 years of her life stomped her feet at the floor, wanting, wanting and wanting. Yet these obvious and exaggerated cries for help led to no amend, because she did not receive what she could at the time, say with the utmost certainty, she needed.

 And then, through some bygone miracle, these pretty little parcels that should have greeted her as precious diamonds on the Final Day, began to fall from the sky and she began to receive what she had wanted, once upon a dream…

So she received, and collected these parcels of apparent beauty and precious-dom, the biggest parcel being far too heavy for her to carry alone, so she asked her companions to help her lift the jewel, a jewel that others had possessed for so long.

This jewel was exactly as she had remembered wishing for; carved with memories of longing and pining… she clung to it tightly…

This soon impacted on the jewel as it began to de-shine and rust.  Being up close to the jewel, the little girl noticed these obvious shortcomings, but contended herself with the remindings that this had fallen from the Sky, so surely it could not lead to any harm.

The holding on to the abovementioned jewel began to have an impact on the little girl, as the days went on, she would disappear into solace for longer and longer.  And soon one of her companions noticed that this little girl had too, begun to rust like the jewel. The little girl denied the allegations that the rust had anything to do with the jewel, and decided to cling to the jewel even more tightly.

Soon the jewel began to cut her deeply, so much so that her beloved companions had to rip her away from it. And as this tug of pull occurred, the case of the jewel shattered, revealing the jewel to be nothing more than earth that had encased itself in krystal. The grains of earth fell to the ground, and began to reek.

The little girl weeped. And weeped. And weeped.

Time trickled by with no meaning –

In a random moment of searching for hope, she happened to pass the place where she remembered burying the other parcels that had fallen from the Sky, that day.  She decided to de-friend pessimism and dig these other parcels up. This time she did not pay attention to the parcels themselves, as doubt was still an intimate friend of this little girl. Instead, as she franticly shuffled the parcels out of the hole, she noticed the hole was not just any ordinary hole.

There was a trail leading to somewhere, which she, and even doubt believed she ought to follow. And so she bid adieu to her companions, whom had followed her since her departure from familiar grounds. She believed this journey would lead her to befriending Knowledge and enable the purification from the rust that still encrusted her soul.

She made her way through the hole that appeared to be a tunnel leading to somewhere. However, pessimism trailed after her, and she soon found herself lost in a tunnel of darkness. She locked herself in this place, cradling herself and not wanting anything except the quietude of her own imprisonment.

The girl sat, rocking back-and-forth, and although she had overcome the disease of wanting and wanting, a fundamental need overcame her state. As she whimpered for air, realising her companions could no longer help her, Hope happened to pass by, and decided to keep her company, though she did not welcome it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been a dull day in the city. In spite of the Beauty encircling it. The boy had had enough of the artificial routines insignificant bystanders busied themselves with. As he trailed off into the sunset, escaping in to the nether regions of the village, he flung a pebble in to the air, contemplating contemplations. Some were deep, some were superficial, and amidst these superficial thoughts he noticed the misplacing of his pebble. He paused and backtracked.

For some reason he became determined to find his lost pebble, and decided to search in the sand around him. The sand somersaulted over and over but revealed nothing except mere versions of itself. He soon gave up, and instead amused himself with sketching words into the sand, suddenly stopping and gazing at a particular word that had Come to him.

The engraving of ‘More’ seemed familiar to the sand and it began to fold within itself. As the sand continued to trickle in to what appeared to be hole, he reached his hand into the melting grains and found someone holding onto it from below.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She weighed him down, threatening his own enclosure, but he was determined and yanked her out of the darkness that she had satisfied herself with.

Time passed –

 the companionship held healing for both the boy and the girl. She was amused by his quest in search for more, meanwhile he was confused by her betrothment to misery.

He wanted her to stay with him, but he had nothing to offer except boredom. She too wanted to stay with him, in spite of her marriage to misery. This is when she began to panic, realising her desires had been reborn and threatened her better judgement. The rust on her body began to grow. She knew she would have to leave.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a peaceful evening, he thought, the sukoon he found with her was unparamounted to what he had ever experienced. But was this because he had not experienced enough himself? – he thought.
As doubt bantered between the two figures, the boy decided to retire from the conversation, as the girl continued gossiping into the early hours of the night.

She didn’t want to leave him, but this was exactly what she did. She returned to the scene where he had rescued her from, with doubt backpacked upon her, she climbed back in to the hole continuing on her journey to find a remedy from the rust that now occupied more of her then she would have ever liked to admit.

She cursed herself for having stomped her feet wanting and wanting, once upon a time. 

Reminders

Healing Hearts 

As-salamu’alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu! “ Allah subhanahu wa’ tala says:
‘On that day nothing will benefit the human being, neither wealth nor children, only the one who brings Allah a sound heart.’ A sound heart is one that is free of defects and spiritualblemishes. Though the spiritual heart is centred in the physical heart, the heart being referred to here is the spiritual heart, not the physical heart” 

~ Shaykh Hamza Yusuf:
'Possessing a sound heart is something we all aspire to accomplish, and we’re constantly working on it for a significant period of our lives; in fact, most of our life is spent on trying to purify the heart. It’s a tough battle, and we often find ourselves trapped within the shackles of this life; struggling to overcome and deal with tests and tribulations; engaged in futile thoughts, words and actions. We begin to fear, lose hope and motivation to achieve our aspirations; transgress ourselves to fulfil our selfish desires, thus setting up obstacles and slowing down the process of achieving a “sound heart”. Life is not always meant to be easy, and it’s the heart that feels the impact of the state we find ourselves in. We constantly need reminders which provide us with hope, inspiration and contentment so that we can “heal” our hearts, and strive to achieve our goals/aspirations. The best remedy to heal the agitated or broken heart is with the remembrance of the One Most High. As He subhanahu wa tala says says: Verily in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.' [13:28]