The Circle Of The Qur'an #1[The Arkaan Series] ✓

Crescent 8: The Challenge Of Eastern Waterfall(1)

"...One who submits to Allah as a Muslim, must cultivate the heart!

It involves subjugation and purification of the nafs(lower self) to the will - Divine!"

-Hilya's Diary

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"No matter how many things I can't help forgetting, I seem to always remember them among the other important words..."، he soliloquized." That time when I asked her name...she seemed to have forgotten her own name."
"Could it be...dissociative fugue!"، Arkaan contemplated.' Her diary must have been where she recorded her memories, and the things that were important to her. To be affected by such an amnesia - what sort of trauma could she have faced in life!!'

He quickly flipped through the pages again. He wanted clues - anything, to know more about this mysterious girl - who is she? Where would he be able to find her? Who are her parents? Who knows her? Anything!
After that one encounter, and seeing her state, he couldn't help but feel a sense of heartbreak for her. His heart felt like torrents of helplessness and empathy had been poured on it. " Yet, she was smiling... Yet, she was at peace...as long as she remembered her Lord...her most precious person. She remained grateful and contented with Him, as long as she knew He was close by, watching over her... "

Even as he went through, he noticed something in the most middle pages he hadn't seen before. A patch of a nightblue strip of cloth was gently sown unto one of the pages, it looked as tranquil and refreshing as the colours of dawn. He remembered she wore a dress of similar colours the day he met her.
Upon the strip of cloth was a simple embroidery of a tree and the number '١١٤', except - it was crossed over with ink, as if to cancel it.
When he saw the design, his mind went back to a distant memory of a kind scholar in the pale moon. He remembered the deep sorrow hidden behind the scholar's saintly countenance.' Sheikh Inaayat also had a similar design on his kaftan!!!'

"I see you've found Sheikh Al Iskandarī's study."، a calm voice sounded from behind Arkaan. Looking back almost in fright at the suddenness of the voice, Arkaan saw the old caretaker of the masjid, Old man Abdul Sattâr directly behind him, at the doorway.
He stood, leaning on the door, and an expression of fatigue could be seen in his eyes." I thought I knew you, when I saw you first." Arkaan was still relaxing from the previous fright, when he heard Abdul Sattâr say this.

He calmly replied, " I ever stayed in the south district of Tâ Hâ, where I met Sheikh Inaayat. He accepted me as one of his students, even though I rarely came here to learn with the others. He taught me elsewhere for sometime, before I left Tâ Hâ. "Arkaan held nothing back about his relation with Sheikh Inaayat, and the south district. " I know."، Old man Abdul Sattâr said, without any hint of surprise or suspicion, " I ever saw you, when you once came to meet with the scholar. Perhaps you never knew, but among those five closest of his students and then you, you were his second true apprentice after Zayn-al-Aabidîn, who was with him when they both first arrived on this island. The other four came after you two..."

Seeing Arkaan's surprise, he added," I know your standing with him, as he never allowed anyone into his study apart from those five and then you, even among all the pupils he has taught.
That's why I took no offence when I found you here. We've kept this place neat and clean, and left it how he left it, whilst allowing no one in, in expectation of when he'd soon return. It's been two years now..." Old man Abdul Sattâr sighed, deep sorrow written on his expression as he seemed to age in an instant.

"Sheikh, please - do you know who this diary belongs to..."، Arkaan asked suddenly. He was more interested in that, as he found the chance to ask.
Looking over the desk, Abdul Sattâr's eyes opened wide in shock as he walked briskly to the wooden table," You - you've opened it!" Noticing the key in the copper lock, he suddenly understood. He calmly put the book back down.
Looking into Arkaan's astute green eyes, he calmly answered, "Since the scholar first arrived here, once a month he'd leave the island to the city of Salâma with Zayn-al-Aabidîn. Nobody knows why they left every month but when they returned, the sorrow on their faces would have increased appreciably."