Sakina Khan [05/01/1986- 19/11/2009]
[extracts taken from Sakina's diaries; reproduced here with minor typographical edits]
Fajr
14th February 1993:
Yesterday I finished learning my namaaz at mosque. Khala Rifat said “Shabaash meri thi!” after I read my sabak to her. The fat old cow. If she thinks I forgot how hard she hit me with the sauti last week she’s lost it. Tomorrow me and Farzana are gonna hide her sauti again, it’s gonna be sooo funny and we’re gonna hide it in a better place than last time. Last week we read the most dhane but she still battered us, we didn’t even talk that loud.. meri thi my ass!
Anyways it’s roze enit, so this morning mum woke us up for sehri after making us parateh with the daal. I ate one and a half! We listened to naats on the radio, and we tried to make Rizwan walk, he nearly did as well. He stood there for about two seconds before falling on his arse. It was sooo funny, we couldn’t stop laughing.
Then Abu jee went to the masjid and I read the morning namaaz for the first time ever with mum and Hina. I really wanted to just go back to bed rather than do vuzu, I hate doing vuzu, it’s so flipping cold and I was just so tired. But once I did it, it didn’t matter and then it was nice to read namaaz with mum and Hina, and I felt happy that I know it all now.
Mum gave me a kiss on the forehead and said “Shahbash meri thi” and that made me feel really good (unlike when the fat cow Khala Rifat said it). Then her and Hina read Quran…
…and yeh I read namaaz -safe – but no way am I staying up. I legged it back to bed!
Dhuhr
10th December 1999:
Today was Dada abu’s janaza. I still can’t believe he’s gone. All I can think about is his face; the way it was completely drained of colour. Rasheed had been standing next to me when we saw him for the last time, Aunty Shab was sobbing into his chest and he just stood there tall and quiet. When I looked toward them he pushed up his glasses like he always does, then put his hand on the glass pane on the coffin through which we could see Dada abu’s face and he said “porcelain and lifeless… finally put out of his misery.” and one tear made its way down his face. I don’t know why but that line stuck in my head. Hina was on the other side of me and heard it too, I saw her give Rasheed a look of contempt. Later, she hissed into my ear, “How dare he! Put out of his misery? Anyone would think he was talking about dog that’s been put down rather than a human being, and that his own Nana! I feel like punching his face in. Porcelain? He’s such an arrogant stuck up sickening snob! Even facing death he can’t stop himself from being so obnoxious”. I told her to calm down and shut up, Dada abu is having the miti shovelled back into his grave and Hina is boiling with hatred at Rasheed over how he expressed his grief. She’s the one that can’t stop being obnoxious in the face of death!
Dada abu. Thoughts of all the petty family politics that simmer away when everyone comes together fade from my mind every time I think of him… of his face. His eyes were closed, his face was symmetrical, balanced, I thought I could see a slight smile, and his lips were restfully closed. He didn’t look strained, his face didn’t look twisted or in pain like it did after the stroke. I was so glad inside, that he looked peaceful at last. When I first saw him after he passed, where they lay him at rest for family to come and “view the body”, he had looked completely different, so contorted, so swollen. I hate that, I hate how in a single moment, so quickly, straight away everyone stopped referring to him by the names they would call him.. did he suddenly stop being “Uncle”, “Abu”, “Paijaan”, “Khaan saab” or Mr. Khan? Suddenly everyone began calling him “the body”. I felt like screaming at them all, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t stop crying when I saw him that first time. I didn’t want him to go looking that way. I didn’t want anyone else to see him that way, I knew they all would at the janaza. I don’t know what miracle made him change from that to how he looked today, but I kept thanking Allah again and again. I kept looking at Dada abu’s face, walking with his coffin, with Abu and Aunty Shab and Rasheed and Hina and Dadi amma, poor poor Dadi amma.. I kept looking at his face until the men finally took his coffin and placed it into the hearse and drove away. I just wanted to keep that image in my mind, of him being so serene, so normal, slightly smiling, as though seeing a nice dream.
We’d all prayed Zohr together. Dadi amma was next to me on one side, and Mum on the other. Dadi amma made whimpering sounds throughout the prayer, I could see her body shaking in her chair from the corner of my eye. I tried to focus on the spot where my forehead would touch the ground, but instead my eyes moved from one spot to another trying to figure out where I should be looking. I can’t remember if I thought about worshipping Allah, I tried to, but I thought more about Dada abu and how he would soon be questioned in his grave, that between that interrogation and now was only his janaza and the drive to the cemetary.
I wanted to pray the janaza, Rasheed had told me that women and girls can and should and explained how it was meant to be done. It’s not like a normal prayer, you don’t to sajda. But after Zohr all the women did their sunnata and sat down, none of them did the janaza prayer, so neither did I. I felt angry inside. I asked Mum what the hell the point was of them sitting around talking rubbish and socializing in the masjid, falling over one another to see Dada abu’s face when half of them didn’t even know him or bother to come and visit him when he was ill. What was the point of them making a big show of crying and wailing and coming and sitting for hours… when the important thing was reading the janaza? Why did none of them do that? How could I do it on my own, I wanted to read it but no one else was. Mum told me to be quiet and said the women just didn’t do it where we’re from. I just cried and burned inside, and ignored all the stupid fake cow’s who saw me crying and tried to console me.
Afterwards I told Rasheed what happened and he said I shouldn’t feel bad, that Allah knew my intention and so did Dada abu and that my duas would help Dada abu and that now I should just keep praying that his questioning in the grave is easy and that Allah make his grave like a fragrant, spacious, beautiful garden of Paradise.
Asr
25th June 2003:
Last exam was today! No more college stress until September. Now just a long summer of loitering about town with the girls.
After our Chemistry exam Nafeesah and me went to the toilets to do our hair and make-up. I was putting on my mascara and she just stops what she’s doing and starts staring at me. So I stopped and said “What?”
She went dead serious and said she has to be tell me something… apparently she is thinking about starting to wear hijab. After the summer hols, she’s planning on making her big entrance to college as hijabi.
“You’re joining the Holy Moly brigade?” …If the look on my face wasn’t enough of a clue to say I wasn’t majorly impressed, I thought I’d make it obvious.
She got all defensive… told me she’s not like that… as if I don’t know! But people change I reminded her. Look at Rehana! Scarf goes on and suddenly we’re not good enough for her. Putting a hijab on doesn’t suddenly give you the right to self-righteously judge everyone without one as beneath you and no longer worthy of your friendship. She can shove her hijab up her ass as far as I’m concerned, we don’t need friends like that. I don’t think Allah would love these arrogant “religious” pricks more than us bare-headed or clean-shaven “munafiqs“.
“Look, it’s not about all them. I’m not interested in the ISoC or the cliques in college or whatever else. And if you think I’m going to be different with you because of them… that would really hurt Sak. You know me better than that don’t you? I’m not a “Holy Moly” or about to turn into one. I won’t do what Rehana did. For me it’s not a social thing… it’s not about college… it’s nothing to do with all of that.”
Then she started telling me again about the things her brother had been saying, and more about that course she went to with him up North and about that Sheikh that taught them and about the people she met and how they were nothing like the stuck up kids at college… and how everyday she felt more and more like she needed to get closer to Allah, and that her brother had said she should start with praying all her namaaz and then start wearing hijab in September… and so she was thinking about it.
Fair enough I said… she’s my best friend, of course I’m going to support her in anything she does. But I just wonder how this is going to effect us, and what we do. Today, after the exam, after lunch, after wandering around town for a few hours we were gonna go watch a movie at Odeon… all the other gals were going to meet us there and then Nafeesah says she can’t. I asked why and she said she’d miss Asr. I was pissed. Why cancel at the last minute?! I asked why she couldn’t just leave to pray Asr when the time came and then come back in. She agreed eventually and did leave part way.. when she came back to her seat I asked where she prayed, “by an emergency exit!” she said.
I dunno… but I just get the feeling that things are going to change.. that next year isn’t gonna be the same at college.
Maghrib
5th Sept 2006:
Nafeesah and I got rooms in the same block.. Maryam, Farah and Sabina are here too! Rizwan and Rasheed came afterall, I am sooo glad! I know they’ll find it amazing… and Saleem can find a way to introduce himself. I feel sick and euphoric all at once.
The atmosphere here… well I just don’t know how to describe it, but I’ll never ever forget it, so there’s no need really to put this in words.
Saleem spoke to Sheikh during the brother’s meetings and asked for his dua for our marriage, and Sheikh made dua there and then that Allah make things easy and facilitate our marriage and put blessings in it. Saleem said he nearly threw up though, sitting there and asking for that because after the dua Sheikh made looked at Saleem with his penetrating gaze and told him to fear Allah, to respect Allah’s sanctuary which is the things He has made unlawful and to not trespass there. Sheikh said that how can you expect your duas for something to be answered when you don’t rely on Allah at all, and instead try to take with your own hands what doesn’t belong to you. If you rely on Allah, then you have to truly leave the matter with Him and not do anything to disobey Him. Instead be humble, obedient and beg Him late at night with moist eyes. Saleem said he couldn’t look at the Sheikh, he couldn’t speak or move, his heart was pounding so loud in his own ears. The Sheikh told him to come forward and took his hand, and made more dua for him, and told him with a kind loving voice to make tauba with a particular dua every morning and evening and then asked if he had any other questions. Saleem barely managed to shake his head and thank the Sheikh, give salams and leave the room.
He text me all this, and reiterated again that we can’t call each other anymore, not until we’re engaged… and I know this, but my heart breaks and aches every time I think of it. But then I think of Sheikh, and our parents, and of Allah.. and then of Saleem meeting Rasheed and Rizwan.. and then it flies with all my highest hopes and soars at the thought of the duas Sheikh has made for us. The dua of a real Wali, those blessed lips, that light-filled heart so close to Allah, and our names uttered in that powerful prayer…
Allah IS the Most Merciful and everything is possible for Him and His Bounty is Infinite… and from that infinity, we ask for something that would be so easy, so small, so insignificant for Him to grant… we just ask for each other. But for us that would be the greatest bounty He could give… greater than all the beauty of treasure of this universe combined.
We spent from Zohr until Isha learning with Sheikh, having breaks only for food or time to make wudhu to pray. Every prayer was like standing outside this dunya. The adhan made by the African Sheikh is the most beautiful, haunting, soul-stirring thing I’ve ever heard. At Maghrib, I stood next to two sisters I didn’t know. As Sheikh read the Fatiha, every word he uttered seemed to reverberate through my chest, it was like I could feel my heart vibrating, buzzing. My eyes filled with tears that splashed down onto the prayer mat, my nose was running and my head was hurting. I could feel the sister to my left to me shaking with sobs and saw the tears of the one to my right fall just the same as my own did. I didn’t want to notice these things, because I felt I shouldn’t be aware of anything apart from the effect the prayer was having on me… but how could I be oblivious to it? Isn’t that the most amazing thing afterall? That it wasn’t just me?
Everyone in the jamaat was experiencing the same thing. You didn’t need to see tears or feel shaking next to you to know that… I know that everyone just knew, everyone could feel the heavenly atmosphere. Everyone felt the baraka of the gathering.
How can I write it? I just can’t.
But I know I’ve never ever felt so close to Allah in prayer as I did today. Never have I felt so moved. Never have I felt so spiritually high, so hopeful, so ecstatic, so emotional.
SubhanAllah.
Isha
19th November 2009:
I just can’t do it. My back hurts so much. I need the toilet every two fucking seconds. Saleem tries to be helpful, tries to be nice, but everything he says or does makes me want to explode with anger.
I shouldn’t feel like that. I keep bursting out crying. It hurts to sit down. It hurts to lie down. Standing up gives slight relief until my feet hurt.
The kicks I used to find wondrous and heartwarming, that made me beam and excitedly grab Saleem’s hand to feel, now just annoy me. I just wish she would hurry up and come out.
I’ve been swearing this whole past week. At times I’m overcome with guilt about her hearing it… or it having some kind of spiritual effect on her. Then I think about all the prayers I just haven’t had the himma to perform. I can’t tell Saleem, I’m too embarrassed to admit it, even though I know he would be nothing less than reassuring and loving.
The truth is I feel like I’m already on the path to failure as a mother.
I missed Isha.
Saleem had wudhu and said he would wait for me to do mine. I told him to just pray and go up to bed, that I would follow, I just had a few things to do first and there was no point him waiting. He prayed and went up.
I needed another piss… it’s so bloody cold in the bathroom, and the water is too cold, or then goes too hot and scorches you. I just get so angry I can’t be dealing with it. I went to the loo, then came back into the lounge and waited fifteen minutes by which time I needed to loo again and then went up to bed. I came down twice again and have just stayed up this time.
I know I can’t carry on like this. I know it’s no excuse. I need to pray.
In my head I was going to be such an amazing example for her, I was going to be reciting Quran to her everyday of the pregnancy, and everyday after she’s born… but what have I done so far? I can’t even do all my prayers… and why? Frustration, discomfort, laziness… this vast spiritual gulf between me and Allah… I hardly ever think about Sheikh even. I can’t keep ignoring it and pushing it to the back of my mind like I have for so long. I need to fix it.
I need to get out of this rut… as soon as Saleem wakes up I’m going to speak to him, we were always meant to work towards things together, but I’ve just fallen so behind him lately and not even wanted to put in the effort to move forward that I’ve hidden so much from him thinking that I could just sort it out within myself. I’m such a stubborn fool.
There’s not long to go though, and I don’t want to let her down, or let Saleem down… I want to be better than this.
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[Sakina died later that day due to blood loss caused by multiple stab wounds injuries. She returned from a visit to her mother's house to walk in on armed intruders. Saleem discovered her body upon arriving home from work.]