Like you all know, being the new kid on the block is never easy. I suddenly became that kid when 4 and a half years ago I came back to Mauritania after spending 11 years in Paris.
Don’t get me wrong, people here are super friendly, especially the ones in the company I was lucky enough to work with. We laughed all the time and they taught me that it's never the end of the world, even the day the team missed the deadline of a call for tender we'd been working on for a whole week!
They used to say with a big smile : "when it’s not meant to be it’s just meant to be :-)" Coming from a Parisian environment, where missing the metro is viewed as a tragedy, this attitude was sooo refreshing!
But outside the office, I just couldn’t find a circle that was willing to have me and that resembled me..
Looking back, it was a good thing I didn’t find my bunch immediately, I had a lot of time on my own, to reflect, which was exactly what I needed after so many years in the rat’s race.
But after two years in Mauritania, I wanted friends to share thoughts and experiences.That’s when I started hanging out with the American girls, they were sweet and had this great thing about them : permanent good mood. At the question ; How are you? They invariably answered “GREAT!”
WOW… in Paris,no one ever gave me that answer expect Marie a friend who was bi-polar and therefore was afflicted with incredible highs but also incredible lows!
So there I was hanging out with the American chicks, but never feeling quite at ease ; it was considered uncouth to speak about politics, religion and they hardly ever spoke about private matters so after a while it just wasn’t enough for me… I felt no progress, we didn’t get closer and I didn’t learn anything, sometimes it was even so shallow my heart sunk…
So I started hanging out less and less with them and praying Allah Almighty to send me the right people.
So one day, I went with the girls to a neighborhood I had never set a foot in and never would have set foot in, on an expedition to buy fabric. I remember we were joking and laughing, but I was distracted.. You know, one of these moments where outwardly you’re laughing but in reality you’re just not in it? It’s like your body is there but your soul isn’t because it longs to be somewhere else.
I was in that state when I walked out of the store with one of the girls, Sarah, a very beautiful girl.
A guy wearing a jellaba came up to me and said "EssalamuAleykum sister, my name is Ahmed, I come from South-Africa…"
We struck up a conversation and surprisingly during all the conversation; he did not give my friend a glimpse, not a single one… It’s incredible when you know that my friend is a tall, superb Puertorican- American and that men, women and children cannot but look at her!
Now that I know him well, I put this on the account of his natural adab (modesty) but also on the fact that this encounter was predestined, I was the one meant to meet Ahmed and his lovely wife and children.
Little did I know at the time that this encounter was the answer to my prayers… I actually had some prejudice when I met Ahmed, I thought someone who had come to Mauritania to study would have a wife wearing a burka… For me that's the sure sign that at the time, I still had some serious cleansing even scrubbing of the heart to do!
If she had chosen to wear a burka, it was none of my business and was not for me to judge.
When I finally met her, my dear dear Zeinab did not wear a burka and turned out to be the most cultured Muslim woman I had ever met, how humbling! I will also always remember the first time I saw jumping out the taxi, those little gremlins I have come to love soooooo much, Amina and Jaber, they were sooo cute mashallah.
Not long after we first met, I was with Ahmed, Zeinab and the kiddos (that's how I call them;-) at Sheherazade a play ground and we were discussing our favorite topics, spirituality, islam etc.. when we happened to talk about the command from Allah that the Prophet (SAW) be dearer to the believer that himself.
I remember worrying whether it was case with me and asking Ahmed what could I do to ensure it was, he answered that one the Shaykhs said that saying many Salats ala Nabi (Blessings on the Prophet (SAW), increased his love in one’s heart.
So I came back that day and said 1000 Salats on the prophet (SAW) and decided to started cultivating his love in my heart.
Listening over and over to “His character was the Qur'an” a CD lecture by Shaykh Abdullah Binbayyah helped enormously; in it Hamza Yusuf who's the translator, is overcome (several times) by emotion when recalling how much the Prophet (SAW) loved all of God's creation.
Cultivating the love of the prophet has softened my heart and has made me discover so many things, I discovered that following the sunna is the surest way to free ourselves from the boundaries, limits and limitations set up by this materialistic world, to know about this you should watch this incredible lecture "Breaking the two desires" of Shaykh Abdel Hakim Murad.
Before meeting my friends, as a learned arab, I sensed the 3ijaz of the Qur'an but sometimes failed to grasp the miracle of the character of the Prophet (SAW). Ahmed told me something very interesting in this regards, he said that most non Arab muslims couldn’t realize 3ijaz el Kuran, because they simply did not speak the language but fully grasped the miracle of the character of the Prophet (SAW). Many of these people's ancestors became muslim after hearing the stories about this incredible man and have passed this immense love on to their descendants.
I am glad to say today that I LOVE THE PROPHET more than my life, my entire family and I pray that Allah resurrects me on the Day of Judgment in his company, this is truly my dearest dream.
