1:1 Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

In the name of Allah, the Lord of mercy, the Giver of mercy.

 

When desperately seeking answers to life, there’s only one line that can start the process for you. And that’s how life began. A mercy from Allah, our one and only Creator. I shudder at the thought of how many times I directly witnessed, felt, and was saved by His mercy.

From a sharp broach that I was once foolishly playing with. It popped open into my face, pin side up, missing my eye by millimetres to a recent incident of boiling hot water, scorching hot, erupting on me, again missing my eyes. But got my face and my chest and neck this time.

The pain and blisters were so deep. I was convinced this was going to scar me for life. Desperately seeking ways to treat it, I used honey and prayers. Miraculously, the face didn’t even get red. But I was worried about the unsightly look of the chest and lower neck. Well…

He is ArRahman

One and half short years later, there’s no evidence of any such burn event on my body. Did Allah know that I was incredibly vain? Because I am not sure that I did any particular prayers at that moment. It was just everyone in my family and me, randomly asking Allah to heal me.

My two nieces who were with me rushed as they were desperately seeking to get ice on me and then the honey. After that, people from my community who were scheduled to come over for a dhikr (prayers and recitations) session at my home, came over and we did the prayers together.

No one knowing what had happened just a couple of hours before they came, the Sheikh randomly suggested that I be prayed for, for opening up my home to them on this beautiful evening.

He is ArRaheem

And because after the session, this special man leading the prayers said a beautiful prayer for me and my home. This, no doubt, made a beautiful difference. Despite the discomfort and pain for the next few days. And the worry of the permanent damage.

Somehow, the next few months were magical. I moved to an incredible place in Spain. And I did that because my mom who had moved there a couple of months earlier was alone. Though she was a part of a beautiful Sufi community there, I could not accept that she was living alone.

So in desperately seeking for ways to get her to come and live with me in London, all of which she refused, I decided to move to her and work remotely. Man, did I get a telling off from my friends in London. Pretty summing up that I would never meet a man in the tiny village in Spain I was moving to for my mom….

I met the man I would soon marry just days after moving there. Miraculously, the scar began to disappear. No shrivelled up skin, no gashes, no indents anywhere on me. How were so many good things happening at once? Not to mention the magical place I lived in with my mom.

That is one, of uncountable occasions where I should have been desperately seeking for answers, but I just knew that Rahman and Raheem are no small thing. It’s so huge, in fact, that I cannot get over it. When you say these names, shudder at the thought of what massive attributes of Allah you are calling on.

And while you shudder, also consider how relaxed you should be. There is no better way to go through life than to know that you are absolutely in God’s hands. No other hand needed, not even yours.