Never Lose Hope

Words Mariam Moiz S.  
Illustration Fatema A. (cosmicweavers)
Foreword Zahabiyah H.

Foreword

Turbulence. 

Struggles take on many forms but the hardest ones are the ones where there is nothing you can do but wait. Wait for a solution, wait for change, just wait. That’s when hope doesn’t seem to be coming from anywhere any more and when your current supply runs short. Or so it would be were it not for what we have. Mariam Bhen below talks about her experiences with a struggle where waiting was all you could do and how hope made its way to her.

The third in our “Turbulence” series this month.

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We all come into this world with titles. Titles are added as life goes on. At the very beginning, you come into this world as a precious “daughter”.  Your next title will be “wife”. The title which follows, you assume will be “mother”.  Little did I know that this title would be the hardest for me to achieve.

My husband and I got married in 2010. We were typical newlyweds who enjoyed our time together, not knowing that hard times were in the horizon. As a little girl, I had always assumed that ‘first comes marriage, then comes the baby in the golden carriage’.  This was not the case for us.

We started noticing that people around us were being blessed with little angels and we were yet to be blessed ourselves. The doctors appointments started, and as time went on, we began to feel worry and despair. What if we were never going to be parents?

The awaited Ashara would prevail and we would be fasting on 2nd Moharram every year for 6 years. We would recite Dua e Kaamil everyday. We went to Karbala to ask Imam Hussain AS, who had given 7 children to a sahil when children were not in his naseeb. We did countless arzis to our beloved Maula TUS. We did endless tasbeehs, zabhiyats, ziyarats, chalisas… you name it, we had done it.  

In January 2016, I was lucky enough to spend a long period of time in Mumbai. I had decided I was going to make the most of every minute by spending as much time with our Beloved Burhanuddin Maula RA, crying, praying for a child. What gunah must have I done that Khuda was not giving me the thing I could not live without? I would sit in Raudat Tahera for hours and hours, asking Burhanuddin Maula RA to grant me my wish. My husband and I were losing hope, we had no more paths we could try. Our friends were on their second, third, even fourth bundles of joy and we were yet to be blessed with our first one.  

After returning from Mumbai in mid January, I was sitting in my room one night, frustrated and restless. I picked up a pen and some paper and began to write a letter to Aqa Maula TUS. I wrote everything I felt, knowing that I wasn’t going to send this letter. I poured my heart out and wrote and wrote until the paper I used was soaked in my tears. I knew in my heart that my Beloved Maula TUS could hear me and my desperation.

Just a few weeks later, to our disbelief, my husband and I received the news which we had lost hope of receiving. An absolute miracle. After 6 years of disappointment and frustration, we received the unexpected news that we were being blessed with our first child, Inshallah.

I can truly say, with full Yakeen that this is the miracle of Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin Maula RA, Syedna AaliQadr Mufaddal Saifuddin Aqa TUS and Imam Hussain AS.  As a person who has gone through the unimaginable, I reach out to all women and men who are going through this and I would like to say to them – DO NOT GIVE UP HOPE. It’s easier said than done, I know. However, Khuda has a plan.

If and when He believes you are ready, He will give it to you.

The natural feelings one has when going through this are anger, frustration, disappointment, humiliation, jealousy, sadness, panic, desperation and much more. These feelings can not be controlled, however, they can be overcome by the duas, tasbeehs, namaz, Quran. Take it from a person who has experienced it all first hand. What got me through those 6 years (even though I didn’t know it at the time) were these paths which are frequently reminded to us by our Aqa Maula TUS.

Keep calm and do not give up hope.

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