My FYP is mowing all the few strands of hair left on my balding head!

A Tribute to Someone Very Special

This is dedicated to one person who in spite of what the world used to say always used to tell me that determination is key to succeeding and Alhamdulillah I followed those words of advice and so have reached wherever I am and a lot of credit goes to that one particular individual(May Allah Have mercy on his soul).Today marks 1 year and 1 week since he passed away, since my beloved father and mentor returned to Allah.

Indeed when he was alive I feel that there may have been times when I used to wonder how much do I love my father , what is the extent of my love for him yet I believe that we only know the true extent of our relationship with a person when we lose them forever or at least for this lifetime. The hole that is made when we lose someone close to our hearts can never be filled no matter how much and with what we try to fill it. The loss of a parent can only truly be understood by one who has lost one or both of their parents and I say this out of experience. About 2 years ago a close friend of mine lost his father and a few months before my dad passed away another friend of mine lost her father and to both of them I sent my condolences, trying to put myself in their feet and imagining that I was doing it the right way yet when I experienced it myself , I later realized that the magnitude of a loss like that can only be understood by someone who themselves have felt/experienced such a big loss.

I still remember the day as it were yesterday. The whole experience is still very fresh at times and yet at times it feels as that less stressful, more peaceful-ish life of mine was a long time ago.

Now everybody says that their father is special or wonderful and like everybody else I will say the same. However I can say this that I have only good memories of my father and for that I am grateful to my father for leaving me with such a high standard of who, what and how a father should be and I also thank Allah for blessing me with such a father, so Thank you God and Papa!

There is a multitude of songs and poems written about the importance of a mother and indeed this is true the importance of a mother is three times that of father as in the Sahih Hadith from the Prophet(saw).Having said that I feel that at times we tend to understate the role of a father in the upbringing of his children. As a father, husband, friend my Dad managed to have a certain bond of trust that continued even after he passed away and it was evident not only in the family(both immediate and extended) circle but also in the many people who spoke of his trustworthiness, honesty, humbleness and one quality which I strive to emulate above all his many, the ability to walk away from an unnecessary argument/fight or quarrel and still be patient with the provoker. As one family friend put it “Your Father was not one in a million but rather one of a Kind”.

I pray that Allah, The Almighty blesses the soul of my father with his Rahmah(Mercy) and grants him Paradise and the company of the most Righteous in Jannah (Heaven).

Ameen

Publicity!

Interfaith Disclosure

Sometimes the things we condemn, because of tradition, just might be the way to bring the message to people who otherwise might not be open to the opportunity to listen to the true message.

It is only God who guides us

Four years on....

There are a few weeks left for my stay as a University Undergraduate to end inshAllah. It has been four years since I joined this institution or rather in April it will be four years. I still remember my orientation week, running around the campus in a batik shirt and then going from Mahallah (Hostel) to Mahallah. Coming late into the hall where we had our orientation and having the camera train its lens on us which resulted in about a thousand people looking at us on the big projector screens as we tried and might I add…unsuccessfully to sneak into the hall.

After that the briefing with our faculty and department heads, it was a great feeling. We have finally made it i.e. we made it through matriculation and into university. When any Aunty asked me “Beta, tum kiya parr re hu? (i.e. Son,what are you studying)” I would raise my head and proudly exclaim Biomedical Science. When further questioned on what such a subject is , I would mutter something about science and drugs and pharmaceutical research and try and run away at the first available opportunity as I also did not have much idea on what the hell I was studying.

4 years on – I have to admit at times I am still hazy but still now I can gorEng(make up something) more easily on how the world cannot survive without scientists and the future of mankind depends on research and blah..blah..blah.

However that is not the moral of the story, rather the moral goes something, like this-

“The times spent as an undergrad student has blessed me with the opportunity to make friends the like of which I never thought possible. As one friend if mine today said “Haris I’ll tell your kids that …”. The very thought that eventually inshAllah we’ll become parents and have children and these people will become family friend uncles to my kids is strange yet nice . This is the time just after finishing when some friends, Fahmi+ a couple of others are getting married InshAllah soon and maybe I’ll be at their weddings , maybe not but what I will tell their kids is all the crazy times we had as friends/roommates and indeed it will be strange , just as strange as it is for me to remember school and my friends at school. I hope that I do a better job at staying in touch with these friends than I did with my friends at school. But dear friends/roommates it has been a great time with you guyz and may we meet before the day of Judgment and on the Day itself I pray we will be in the shade of God’s grace and mercy and may we be in it together inshAllah”


Oh well now its time to get back to studying for the final finals inshAllah and working on that thesis due on the 28th.