Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Miracles of A Word

Not just a 'word'; it's a 'world'. I mean 'Fatimah', the word that has brought so many blessings to mankind, including myself.

For me, this word has been a 'miracle'. Six years ago, as a university student, I was blessed to make an Umrah pilgrimage. As I had a great love for Lady Fatimah (AS), I always prayed that if Allah is to bless me with a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, He would do this during her martyrdom anniversary. Soon it was time for me to leave Mashhad for Tehran for a flight to Jeddah. However, I was sad because I was leaving Mashhad just at her martyrdom anniversary evening. I supposed, therefore, all my dreams of being in Medina at my favourite time ruined.

There's not an exact date narrated for the martyrdom anniversary of our beloved Lady, and the two most popular narrations suggest the date to be 75 or 95 days after the Holy Prophet's departure.

As a result of something unknown, known to me as one of the Lady Fatimah's miracles, we had a 13-day delay for the flight, so we could be in Medina just a few days before her martyrdom anniversary, according to the most popular narration.

Another miracle was the Saudis' tolerance with our holding great nightly mourning Majalis behind the walls of Baqee', a holy cemetery, though destroyed by Wahhabis, where the graves of four Shia Imams and the possible grave of Lady Fatimah (AS).

Four years ago, while just got married and looking for a good job, I was introduced to a newspaper to work for as a translator. I was asked to search for an English article on her character to translate as we were approaching Lady Fatimah's birthday. Being unaware of Internet search tips then, I just typed the word 'Fatimah' in Google search. In addition to other resources, the word opened Converts to Islam to me. This was my first ever introduction to revert Muslims. Finding no interesting material on Lady Fatimah (AS) to translate, I was attracted to read the 'conversion stories' on that site. Sister Zaynab's story, though not detailed, was much interesting to me, so I decided to contact her (the webmaster in fact) to know more about her reversion. This led to an interview which was published in the newspaper and was interesting to many.

As my contact with Sister Zaynab continued, I got much interested, and of course specialized, in revert Muslims. Since then, I have been in contact with several new Muslim brothers and, mostly, sisters and many interviews with and articles by them have been published and appreciated by many. Add to these finding a good job in another newspaper and proving myself as an influential person in communicating with Muslims outside Iran. These are just the blessings I can remember at the moment and I consider all these nothing but miracles of Lady Fatimah (AS).

Fatimah: don't regard it just as a 'word'; it's a 'world'.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Let Me Not Ruin You!

There was a sinful situation I was involved in for a while; one I was going to be drowned in step by step. Whenever there was a 'signal' from Allah's side to avoid involving more and more, there were 'justifications' from my side not to follow.
On a Sunday night, the tomorrow of which I would be at the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza (AS), I stopped involving in the situation. To be honest, I had much internal conflict though I knew I did the right thing. I just feared the 'consequences'; I thought it would ruin many things.
The next day at the Holy Shrine I was worried I might spend my whole blessed day thinking on this. But quite miraculously, I was surrounded by events I had not enough time to think on that concerns. As an example, I met an old university friend after some years and began talking to him for a long time.
It was just the last minutes of my service when worries of the 'consequences' came to me again. Thinking on this for some minutes, I was made known that I was worrying about ruining 'myself', not any other thing. Getting this, I had tears in my eyes and said to Imam Reza (AS), 'My dear Imam! Let me ruin myself, but not ruin you. Let me break myself before ruining your reputation ...