Today, I had the opportunity to pray Jummah after almost three weeks. I had lost all hope before today...Like the previous three weeks I had to go to another town for a stocktake...I had no idea if that city/town had any mosque...A certain feeling of depression and guilt was overpowering my heart...I don't know but I had read somewhere that if someone missed three Jummahs' on the trot, they no longer remained within the circle of faith or something like that...I missed the Jummahs of Pakistan. I hardly ever missed any. It was a ritual of sorts. Taking a bath especially for the prayers, wearing freshly ironed, starched whitle shalwar kameez, smelling nice etc...Jummahs always strengthened the sence of community coz you got the chance to meet and chit chat with people living in the same uni/muhalla's etc...It was something that I looked forward to every week...I missed that thing in UK...My line of work meant that I was always in a different city...Sometimes that city/town didn't even have a single mosque..Infact once I was waiting for a train and there was no mosque, so someone told me to goto an abandoned church nearby and I actually prayed in the church which was weird but I consoled myself by saying that it was atleast a house made for the worship of God...So today when I was on my way to Wigan, this overpowering remorse and guilt was crushing my heart...Somehow, by some miracle of God, the firm I was visiting had amongst its all gora workforce a bearded Pakistani looking guy...I was like OMG, this is a sign and after quickly completing my stocktake I asked him whether he was a muslim (just to confirm) and when he said yes, I asked him whether he could take me to the mosque for Jummah. He said he would be glad to not only take me to the "only" mosque in Wigan for Jummah but also drop me off to the train station afterwards...May God bless him for this...It was an amazing mosque...Again this was built in some abandoned church I guess but it was filled with Muslims...People from so many nationalities, Arabs, Indian, Pakistanis, Turks, Persians, Afghanis etc, all praying and bowing shoulder to shoulder to the same God...Just halfway through the namaz, my eyes just welled up with tears...It was like a catharsis...Just this thought, that today when I was so upset for just one namaz that I've been missing, God somehow facilitated me and I managed to pray...I remembered that Hadith that If you take one step towards God, he will take two towards you. If you come to Him walking, He will come to you running...And in a way that happened and I was overwhelemed...
That unfortunately wasn't the only time I cried today...When I came back home and put GEO on, I was horrified at the news...Totally dumbfounded and speechless...I had previously asked myself that same question...Their atrocities had spared only three places before: "hospitals, mosques and graveyards"...Not even graveyards really...I heard they blew themselves up during the funeral prayers as well...But this was just horrendous... The forty deceased people would be someones sons, fathers, husbands, brothers, fiances...Forty people who came to the House of God to worship, to bow before their creator...IT WAS THE HOUSE OF GOD FOR GODS' SAKE!!! What religion, what school of thought, what human ideal can ever ever justify that...17 children whose dreams and youth never blossomed fully..The murder of one person is the murder of entire humanity, its written in such plain words in the Holy Quran...Yet these so called bearded buffoons dont consider that at all...I just couldn't help myself thinking how my mom would send me for Jummah, lovingly combing my hair and asking me to bring back something from the market for supper...I just thought how many mothers would never got the stuff they asked their sons to bring back from the market today...My youngest sister loved candy and she would always remind me to bring some soft mints or fruitella on my way back after Jummah...How many sisters might have been waiting for their brothers/dads to bring some goodies for them on this tragic day...Instead these maniacs, these barbaric bastards, these God-forsaken terrorist murdered them in cold blood, just when they were bowing before God...Surely, Surely the wrath of God should inflict them in Hell for this...May they be forever cursed!!! Just the thought of the sister waiting for her brother and the mom for her son, made me cry...Its not fair! Nothing is! None of this makes sence! May the souls of the departed rest in peace...May Allah grant patience to the bereaved families...Ameen!
I will just quote one of the few words said by a senior from my school who was amongst the martyrs:
"life is cruel, yet so beautiful"
He died while saving his nephew from the barrage of bullets...He was engaged and about to marry his fiance...Extremely talented, well spoken and a brilliant person...May God grant him heaven Inshallah :'(
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