Courage

Several weeks ago, a friend’s husband – Zayd - approached my father, introducing his own father, to Abu (my father).  Zayd knows my father, so there was nothing suspicious about Zayd introducing his father to Abu.

A few days later, Zayd’s father approaches Abu, asking if Abu knows of any suitable rishtas, for his younger son, Zayd’s brother.  My father, may Allah bless him and prolong his shade over me and my family, is a wonderful, simple, very straight forward man. So when Abu came home, asking mum if he knew of any suitable applicants, my mum said, “He is indirectly asking you for your daughter!!”

Abu really likes Zayd. Based on Abu’s judgement on Zayd, mum likes Zayd too. But Abu isn’t keen on Zayd’s brother.  For that reason, neither is mum. And for that reason, neither was I.

Therefore, nothing surfaced.

For me, one of the advantages of writing things down, is it helps make things clearer that would otherwise be mumbo jumbo in my mind.  Sometimes I’ve had so many things to do, been confused and stressed, and written them down, only to find myself much more organised and more in control.

Allah SWT doesn’t just haphazardly throw things at us. He wants us to learn from our experiences. Why? Well, how else could we better ourselves?.  Isn’t that what the point of muhasabah (self evaluation) is?

Anyway, preaching asides, what did myself & my thoughts learn from what had happened?

1. Firstly, just for the record, if I wanted to meet the guy, my parents would have had gladly advocated a meeting and let me make my own decision whether or not I wanted to take things further. But my father’s opinion is really, really important to me.  Not because I want to please him, but because I trust him. And I trust his judgement, at times, even more so than mine.  
2. I have admiration for Zayd, who, when he saw that there was an avenue, approached it, by introducing his father to my father.  So what if nothing surfaced. When one door closes, Allah opens another. (Zayd’s brother is now married alhamdulillah).

Elaboration on my second point
Therefore, if a guy sees/knows of a sister then let him have the courage to seek her out, whether he does this directly or indirectly. If it doesn’t work out, it wasn’t meant to be.  Can the same thing be said about a girl approaching a guy? After all, that is what Khadijah did with Muhammad SAW. In the type of society/culture that I am associated with it, it doesn’t happen that way (girl approaching guy).  If it does, the poor girl would have to live with the stigma of it for the rest of her life.

Khalas.
Haych