I want to…

I want to change the world, one person at a time….

 

 

I want to walk the path of my predecessors and traverse in their very footsteps. I want to feel what they felt. I want to see what they saw. I want to be what they were… They were the Ambiya! The Sahaba! The Ummul Mu’mineen ( the mothers of islam)….

 

I want to fall asleep under the desert skies and wake up before the dawn comes to shake my limp and sleepy hand. I want to take a meal from the pre dawn meal and spend the rest of the day lost in thought, lost in submission to Allah….

 

 

I want to live like nomad and travel through the mountains of Afghanistan. I want to live amongst the pages that I’ve read describing the snow capped peaks and the lush green fields in summer time. I want to bathe in the rivers and eat a fresh roasted meal as I sit around the fire with kuchi nomads….

 

 

I want to walk the journey to hajj, one foot at a time, one day at a time, one heart beat at a time. I want to utter dhikrullah as I feel fatigue hug my muscles. I will call the labbaik and allow it to strengthen my verve and my bones. I want to envision the baitullah and my arrival at is golden door….. Labbaik Allahumma Labbaik!

 

 

I want to close my eyes as I sit at the foot of the sea. I want to hear its waves tumble through me. I want to feel its embrace sweep underneath my feet. I want to remember Allah at that moment as I lose myself in the sound of the sea….

 

 

I want to drink coffee from a freshly brewed pot as I sit on a South American mountain top. I want to hear stories of old, of islamic history, as I hear which Sahaba traveled with Nabi SAW’s message to this end of the globe. I will listen enthralled as I turn my head to gaze in awe and in wonder as my mind paints the picture and my heart fills the image with a soul and with life….

 

 

I want to bandage a cut and splinter a fractured bone in the forgotten hospital of Shifaa, Filasteen! I want to wipe blood and tears from little girls faces or hug little boys with scraped knees and dirt smudged faces….

 

 

I want to believe that these are all things that I can do if I want to, if I attempt to.

 

 

I want to live to see a day when peace will engulf the continents of this earth. When neighbors near and far smile a friendly smile and wave a warm hello.

 

 

I want to live to change myself and then to change the world….

 

 

I do want to do all of this….

 

 

but maybe not today….

 

 

Today my coffee pot brews on my messy table top and scraped knees and wet eyes beckon to me from outside.

 

 

Tales of my predecessors await me in the pages of history books. And the only desert I will see is the one I will summon to my sleepy mind as I close my eyes and fall asleep before my pre dawn meal…..

 

 

When my day gets too much and too unbearable I will sit on my prayer mat and summon the sound of the waves to crash against my ears. I will lose myself in the imaginary sea, in the moment, as I utter the dhikar of Allah….

 

 

I will enter the pages of a book and travel to a land I’ve never been to and escape to the persona of a person I’ll never be as I tumble and roll through each word, each page, each landscape and picture…..

 

 

Before peace travels to the ends of the earth it has to start flowing within my beating chest. I open the taps to its flow as I smile and wave a salaam to someone who passed me by…..

 

 

I will utter the labbaik, allahumma labaik everyday until that day that Allah returns my tired body to this sacred piece of earth, calling my feet and my body to circumambulate the centre of the world….

 

 

Tomorrow I will awaken to these and to more beautiful dreams….

 

 

 

Haajar…