I sat in my weekly study circle the other day, and had a blast from the past moment.\u00a0 I thumbed through the book we were studying, and couldn\u2019t help but be blown away for a few minutes.\u00a0 I was holding in my hand a well-worn family treasure, and I was the lucky one who owned it now. Even though I didn\u2019t think I deserved it, I was blown away with Allah\u2019s mercy on me that it now lay in my hands.<\/p>\n
This was the book that I read growing up as a teenager.\u00a0 The book that my sisters studied while they sat with my mom in self-imposed family time.\u00a0 The book that my brother wrapped with a brown paper bag and wrote on in his beautiful Arabic writing, with a typo that still designs the cover.\u00a0 That my sister graffitied with her name.\u00a0 That my mom stamped with her side notes, written in her tiny, unclear handwriting.\u00a0 That my father thumbed through endlessly, lovingly.<\/p>\n
As I sit here, I remember the last time it was given to me.\u00a0 I had moved out to my own place and left behind a wealth of books in my parents\u2019 storage attic, too lazy to bring it down.\u00a0 While shopping in my father\u2019s bookcase, he sat there and happily gave me book after book, so sure that he was fulfilling me and egging me on to read more in Arabic.\u00a0 He handed me this book, Mukhtasar Minhaj al Qasideen,<\/em> the book that I loved reading in the past, but had not read in a long while. It was the book that my mother studied endlessly, and that my siblings had marked with their own marks.<\/p>\n At that moment, my mom put her foot down, \u201cNo, I still read that book.\u201d \u00a0I recall how happy I was when Baba slipped it into my hands and said, \u201cIt\u2019s ok, Fatima will read it.\u201d<\/p>\n I cried the day in my study circle when I remembered this memory. For over two years the book sat on my shelf, unread, unused.\u00a0 How selfish of me.\u00a0 But subhanaAllah<\/em>, here I am, two years later, finally using it, thinking of him and making dua\u2019a for him.\u00a0 I love how Allah\u2019s plans for the future play out in our past. Perhaps we can\u2019t see the reason for something, only to be surprised by it slapping us in our face many years later.<\/p>\n \u00a0Fatima Abdallah<\/p>\n Fatima lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and three little musketeers.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I sat in my weekly study circle the other day, and had a blast from the past moment.\u00a0 I thumbed through the book we were studying, and couldn\u2019t help but be blown away for a few minutes.\u00a0 I was holding in my hand a well-worn family treasure, and I was the lucky one who owned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1573,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[377,415,1075],"class_list":["post-3828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motherhood","tag-encouraging-children","tag-fatima-abdallah","tag-remembering-parents"],"yoast_head":"\n