On the authority of 'Umar, radiyallahu 'anhu, who said: "While we were one day sitting with the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, there appeared before us a man dressed in extremely white clothes and with very black hair. No traces of journeying were visible on him, and none of us knew him.
He sat down close by the Prophet, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, rested his knee against his thighs, and said, O Muhammad! Inform me about Islam." Said the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, "Islam is that you should testify that there is no deity save Allah and that Muhammad is His Messenger, that you should perform salah (ritual prayer), pay the zakah, fast during Ramadan, and perform Hajj (pilgrimage) to the House (the Ka'bah at Makkah), if you can find a way to it (or find the means for making the journey to it)." Said he (the man), "You have spoken truly."
We were astonished at his thus questioning him and telling him that he was right, but he went on to say, "Inform me about iman (faith)." He (the Messenger of Allah) answered, "It is that you believe in Allah and His angels and His Books and His Messengers and in the Last Day, and in fate (qadar), both in its good and in its evil aspects." He said, "You have spoken truly."
Then he (the man) said, "Inform me about Ihsan." He (the Messenger of Allah) answered, " It is that you should serve Allah as though you could see Him, for though you cannot see Him yet He sees you." He said, "Inform me about the Hour." He (the Messenger of Allah) said, "About that the one questioned knows no more than the questioner." So he said, "Well, inform me about the signs thereof (i.e. of its coming)." Said he, "They are that the slave-girl will give birth to her mistress, that you will see the barefooted ones, the naked, the destitute, the herdsmen of the sheep (competing with each other) in raising lofty buildings." Thereupon the man went off.
I waited a while, and then he (the Messenger of Allah) said, "O 'Umar, do you know who that questioner was?" I replied, "Allah and His Messenger know better." He said, "That was Jibril. He came to teach you your religion.""
•••
"Weddings are so tiring" Aysha grumbles as they climb the stairs to the guest house. They both need a breather and since there are no guests in the guest house it is the perfect place , well apart from the twins that is. The twins being Abdulrahman and Abdulrahim, Aysha's older brothers and the first borns of their parents. As soon as the hustle and bustle of the wedding had started they both migrated to the guest house claiming that the main house is filled with ladies. Although the guest house is as a big as an average house she is pretty sure the only thing keeping them there was the food, they both are suckers for homemade food or they would've since left the house to rent a hotel suite too where all the other men are.
"I swear to God. Weddings are so much better when you only have to go as a guest, being part of the procession sometimes sucks away the fun" Hadiza complains too. Hadiza has been sleeping over since the wedding prep started and none of them could go back to sleep after subh prayers. Loud noises from the ladies cooking breakfast had kept them up, who knew cooking breakfast for the 50+ guests that were in the house needed to start from as early as 6am.
Aysha drops the breakfast tray she is holding on the floor so she can ring the bell, the only reason why they have been able to escape from the main house is under the pretense of bringing the twins breakfast. It's like all the elders were having a blast sending them around, while Hafsat is probably still asleep undisrupted, lucky her. Although she is definitely going to be woken up soon, because of the guests and other things.
Abdulrahim opens the door wearing a slightly rumpled jallabiya, his eyes heavy with sleep and he struggles to clear the sleep away.
"Toh alarm clock mai jini. Have you no idea what the time is? It's too early for you to start buzzing around" he says slightly annoyed from being woken up from sleep.
"Don't be mean. We actually brought you guys breakfast but it's okay we can take it back" she picks up the tray turning around, she knows there's no way he's letting her go with the food.
"No wait!" He says stretching out his hand to stop them from walking away, "I was just kidding mana, come in" he shifts to the side so they can both come in closing the door behind them.
They go to the dining table dropping both trays on it before going to the sitting room to at least watch something while they rest although they did stop by the fridge to grab some bottled smoothies.
The twins both come out of their rooms 30 minutes later wearing white inner shirts with their kaftan's trousers. They head straight to the dinning table barely stopping by to greet them. As she looks at them gobbling down their breakfast she actually wonders how they don't even get fat. As far as she knows, none of them work out apart from the football they go for every weekend.
"I just hope you guys can cook as much as you can eat. You can't just get married and be suffering someone's daughters " Hadiza snorts pausing the movie they're watching to look over at the guys.
"Ha'an, they should feel honored they even get to cook for us. Do you even know who we are?" Abdulrahim smirks making the girls to roll their eyes.
"Seems like you need a reality check. Apart from your social media accounts your name can't be found on any other site on google, so please, who are you?" Hadiza laughs.
"Ouch! The gossip pages on Instagram say otherwise, don't you know we're pretty famous there?" Abdulrahim smirks haughtily.
"Oh please, those sites are fake" she answers rolling her eyes and Abdulrahman laughs too, "what he means is that, it's not like they're doing it in vain since Allah will reward them" he has always been the matured one between the two of them.
"Yes right but at least you can help around too, with chopping the vegetables and all" Aysha says and Abdulrahim pauses to dramatically roll his eyes. "What? Stop feeling so entitled and it's even romantic" she adds.
"What do you even know about romance" he shoots and before she can answer he adds "wait I don't even want to know" he cringes as if just the thought is torturing. It gets silent as they both stare at each other for a moment before erupting into gales of laughter.
"You guys are crazy wallahi" Hadiza says shaking her head at the both, it always gets like this with them both. They are always bickering but they still find something to laugh at in between the bickering.
A knock sounds from the door stopping their laughter and Hadiza stands up with a groan to go and open the door. Aysha sinks back in her chair playing with her phone and she pauses as she hears Hadiza from the door saying, "ya Fahad" although it sounds more like a question, like she is surprised to see him, well that makes the two of them.
Her eyes widens as she tries to decide whether to make a run for it through the backdoor or just stay and man up.. well more like woman up or whatever the people nowadays say. She stands up hoping no one notices, but well, there's always that one person that does notice. She hasn't taken 3 steps when Abdulrahim's voice calls out to her making her to freeze.
"Aysha, where are you going? Won't you stay and greet Fahad?" From his voice she knows he's smirking and she feels like reaching out to him and giving him a smack, preferably on what he calls 'his beautiful face'.
She turns back and sees him doing that guy handshake that all guys seem to master with the twins. Fahad Ibrahim Garko, although he still looks like the the guy she has known since, time had gone by and he looks more matured and is now sporting a beard. She schools her face to an emotionless expression when he turns to look at her.
"Aysha? How are you?" He asks hesitantly and she stands there contemplating whether to answer him or not. Her eyes move from him to the other people in the room and Abdulrahim mouths for her to behave and she mentally rolls her eyes.
They all think she is acting childish over what happened years ago and they've told her more than once to just let it go but none of them really understand how it felt. Yes, what happened was childish but not how he reacted, and that's what really hurt her. Yet they all think it's okay for him to waltz back and for her to instantly forgive him like nothing happened, he never even apologized and for all she knew he probably still thought he wasn't wrong.
She hesitantly waves her hand at him and says 'hey' before quickly making an excuse to get the hell out of there.
❧
Cars are lined up in the driveway of the oversized mansion of Ismail Garko. The setting looks like a depiction of a movie of the rich and wealthy, the over expensive cars adds to the glitz and glamour of the wedding procession. The bride is escorted by her groom and he leads her to a vintage Rolls Royce that is parked right outside the humongous double door leading to the house' foyer. Her long bridal train sweeps across the floor as she moves, she has on a burgundy ball dress with matching turban and Umar looks equally dashing by her side in a white babbar riga and a zanna bukar cap. They are headed to the reception party.
Aysha slips into one of the cars, a BMW, the scent of rich leather assaults her senses and she sighs a blissful sigh, it is such a weird smell but it smells so nice. She is broken from her reverie when she remembers she left her phone in her room charging.
She quickly gets out of the car and runs upstairs to her room which is pretty hard considering she is wearing a rather tight fitted skirt with heels on and she has to run past a long and staircase and an equally long hallway.
She manages to get to her room and right as she is about to carry her phone she doesn't notice the blob of water on the floor and ends up tripping, and if that wasn't enough she hears the sound of fabric ripping. She murmurs some prayers hoping to God the sound didn't come from her. Oh who's she kidding?!
She slowly stands up and goes to the full length mirror trying to assess whether it is indeed damaged and she lets out a deep groan, her skirt's zip is completely ripped off and not in the way that can be temporarily fixed with pins.
Her ears perk up as she can hear the sounds of the cars driving away and she knows there's no way she can fix her skirt and get down before they leave.
She contemplates on what to do before deciding to call Hadiza, she had earlier left to get ready at her house.
"What's up?" Hadiza says after picking up at the first ring, her background sounds so noisy and she has to shout to be heard by Aysha, she's probably already at the reception venue.
"My skirt just ripped" she answers while slipping off the skirt and putting on a random skirt she has removed earlier.
"What?" She laughs moving to a much quieter place.
"I'm serious and now all the cars have left and I just don't know what to do" she complains pacing around the room. All the drivers have gone to drop the guests to the reception and she can't even drive to save her life.
"Oh shit. How bad is it? Wait let's switch to FaceTime I want to see" before she can even reply she hears the beeping of the FaceTime.
She answers it turning the rear camera so she can see it and Hadiza gasps, she didn't think it'll be that bad. No tailor is going to be available at this odd hour so she has to find a way to stitch it up herself asap, but seeing as she has a bad habit of poking herself with needles she decides to ask for help from one of the maids.
She calls one of the maids who manages to stitch it up in 10 minutes and although it isn't perfect it has to do for now. Hadiza had said she'll find one of the drivers to come and pick her up and so she sits on one of the plastic chairs outside waiting for whoever it is to come and pick her up while she plays with her phone checking all social medias for any update of the reception.
A black car drives into the compound and it's so dark she struggles to see who is in the car till the car comes to park not far from her. This is definitely a set up, she stares for a minute before deciding to confirm with Hadiza.
"Who exactly did you get to come and pick me up?" She asks after she picks the phone.
"All the drivers were unavailable and I couldn't even find the twins so I asked Ya Fahad if he could pick you up and he said yes" she says so fast trying to get it all out at once, although she knows Aysha didn't like him both of them know he was their only option and that's the only reason why she had him to pick her up.
•••
Salam,
what do you think of this chapter?
I don't have anything against Feminists o, I'm so pretty indifferent for the most parts.
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Amatullahag.
1th August 2016
REWRITTEN