Portrait of a Muslim Family

Bismillah ir-rahman ir-rahim
Assalaam alaikum

As you probably noticed, I haven't posted for over a week. Partially this is due to absentmindedness, partially it is due to my Spanish midterm that I wrote this morning, but mostly it has to do with the difficulty of the subject.

A quick point of interest: I learned a Spanish phrase today. It is ojalá que. It means something alongthe lines of "I hope that..." but it has a very strong meaning. Espero que would be your normal, everyday way of saying "I hope that..." but ojalá is much more strong.

Has anyone divined the origins?

Arabic, of course, from when the Arabs were in Spain. They had a very interesting influence on the Arabic language, as you can tell with ojalá. Anyhow, that was just interesting... now on to the real post.

As I continue to work on my difficult post, I will, inshallah, make smaller posts and not leave my legions of screaming fans waiting... or something.

So this entry is call Portrait of a Muslim Family. I will use their real last name (it's common enough), but since they don't know I'm doing this, I will use a different name for their first names.

This family is the Khan family. The Khan family is composed of Abdullah, 'Aisha, and their two sons Musa and 'Isa. May Allah bless them in the Dunya and in the Hereafter. My husband and I owe so much to this family.

To start with the very basics, 'Aisha is an amazing cook. That on its own is enough to constitute a friendship. But, alhamdulillah, every time my husband and I see this family, we walk away saying what good friends we have.

Abdullah and 'Aisha are a good 20 or so years older than my husband and myself, but they have never treated us like we're a bunch of kids. We are welcomed as brother and sister into their household.

Anyhow. When my husband (boyfriend at the time, so I'll call him that from here on out until the point we're married) and I started looking into Islam, it was mostly a game for us. You see, we had read this book about a guy who had lived literally by the rules of the Bible for a year and the results were hilarious. When we finished reading it, my boyfriend said "Hey, what would you think if we did the same thing with Islam."

Having been interested in Islam since I was 13 or so, I was totally gung ho. We dove right into our research. I wentthrough the Qur'an, trying to find every rule it had written in it. After talking to a few Muslims in the community and after having gotten through about two and a half chapters of the Qur'an, we realized a few things. First of all, there would be no comedy in us following the Qur'an. You see, unlike the Bible (I am not badmouthing the Bible, I am stating facts), there is no rule in the Qur'an like "If you get in a fight with a man and your wife tries to intervene and she accidentally touches your opponent's privates, you must cut off her hand," (yes, that is actually in the Bible)--no, the Qur'an was all business.

Then we met the Khans. By the time we'd met them our plan had morphed from "be Muslim for a year" to "try out the rules for a year and afterwards just follow the ones that are comfortable." Abdullah came to pick my boyfriend (at this point, my fiancé) and I up from our apartment. He asked us about where we're from and what we do and this and that.

Then we got to his house and it was all business. My fiancé and I had infinity questions to ask and Abdullah and 'Aisha had the answers. They were kind, they were humble, they were helpful.

These are the people who helped us take the final step.

Of course, when I told them how helpful they had been to us, they humbly said that it was Allah. Subhanallah.

Allah had to work through someone to help my fiancé and I, and it was the Khan family. May Allah bless them with all the good things of this world and the next and may their children grow to be pious and good Muslims and help others as their parents do. Ameen.

Thought Musa and 'Isa were shy the first time we were over, they aren't anymore. 'Isa--the younger--much to 'Aisha's horror, asked to see my hair last time he was over, then when I said no he asked if I was bald. Hehe...

Musa is almost a teenager, and I can tell how much he admires my husband. Musa tries to play it off like he's a really cool kid, but he listens to every word my husband says. I am more of a novel "That cool guy's wife" to Musa, but that is okay. He is comfortable with me and mostly respectful (giving leeway for the typical teenage thing).

It is hard to give the Khan family enough credit, because the magnitude of their amazingness cannot be limited to a silly blog. Both Abdullah and 'Aisha are incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable people. I have come to take their word on what they say about Qur'an and Hadith because of how wonderfully they have helped us in the past. Every now and then when the quasi-racist attitude of Alberta gets to me and I dream of British Columbia where hippies love minorities (teehee), I quickly forget my silly dreams because I do not want to move away from the Khans.

Abdullah and 'Aisha exemplify everything that--in my mind--good Muslims should be. They care for their neighbours. They are humble. They are helpful. They are knowledgeable. They are modest. They are honest. Abdullah is helping my husband and I find a place to live on the west side of town and 'Aisha calls me to tell me whenever something good is on one of the Islamic TV channels. They are devout followers of Qur'an and Sunnah. They have brought nothing but positivity and happiness into our lives.

Alhamdulillah. Please make dua (pray) for this family. Inshallah, you will be as lucky as I am one day and meet them or meet others like them. As a Muslim, I aspire to be like them.

That having been said, I am going to go make supper, though it won't be as delicious as 'Aisha's cooking. I should mention that 'Aisha has a cooking blog--definitely worth checking out. Follow this link: click me! If you like Indian food, this is the place for you.

I hope you enjoyed this brief entry. Inshallah, I will finish my long entry soon. For the time being, assalaam alaikum.