بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Contents of this post:
A phrase in common use in Arabia
Conversation between a mother and son
An update from the events of last year
Ted Bundy & Josef Fritzl
Prophets who ‘spoke up’ about wrongdoing done to them
My childhood
The sad situation today
My mother – may Allah have mercy on her
Attempted robbery at DHA phase 1
The culminative, “showdown” incident just before this Ramadan
Conclusion – Please ‘help’ my parents
Click or tap here to skip the prelude and get directly to the point of this post.
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Today, it is the 17th of Ramadan, 1445 hijri.
It is the same date in the Islamic calendar, in which the iconic and history-changing Battle of Badr took place, 1443 years go. This day has been referred to by Allah in the Qur’an as “Yaum-al-Furqan”: the day that differentiated (between the truth and falsehood).
During this confrontation, the Muslims who fought valiantly were in the state of fasting, as am I, as I type this post.
What is interesting to note is that in the Battle of Badr, most Muslims in the small army of 313 people were facing their own blood relatives across the field, who stood among the opposing army of the pagans of Makkah.
In fact, in the one-on-one duel that began the battle of Badr, the 3 men who came forward from the army of the Quraysh, were the biological father, paternal uncle, and brother of one of the young men who stood in the Muslim army, named Abu Hudhayfah ibn Rabi’ah. Hind bint `Utbah, the wife of Abu Sufyan, was his biological sister.
It was Abu Sufyan who had summoned this army of pagans to the wells of Badr, to grant him protection for his passing trade caravan from the imminent raid on it that was to be carried out by our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his companions (the Muslims would raid these caravans to extract from them their rightful, legally owned possessions, which they had been compelled to relinquish when they were forcefully expelled from Makkah after being unjustly persecuted).
`Utbah ibn Rabi’ah demanded that his blood-related cousins step forward from among the Muslim army to fight him, his brother Shaybah, and his son Waleed, in the one-on-one duel that would commence the battle.
That was when his cousins Ḥamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib , `Ali ibn Abi Talib, and `Ubaydah ibn al-Harith stepped forward. The three pagans were finished off, with `Ubaydah suffering fatal injuries that would decree his martyrdom a few days later (رضي الله عنهم).
Now just imagine this for a moment. Imagine what the young companion Abu Hudhayfa experienced at that moment, when he saw his father, his paternal uncle, and his brother, all three of them, being killed by his Muslim companions (all 3 of whom happened to be his relatives as well). Don’t forget that Abu Sufyan, whose caravan became the reason for the battle of Badr, was his own sister’s husband.
Can we even begin to feel what he must felt?
But he stood steadfast in faith.
Now before I go on to share why I am bringing up the Battle of Badr, first I want to talk about the topic of this post.
A phrase in common use in Arabia
فِدَاكَ أَبِي وَأُمِّي
The above phrase “May my father and mother be sacrificed (ransomed) for you” was used often by the Prophet’s companions, in his presence. It is reported that he once used this phrase as well, for one companion, named Sa’d ibn Abi Waqas.
The Prophet ﷺ tacitly approved of the use of this phrase.
However, not once, ever, in my entire life, have I heard any living Muslim use this phrase for another. No one, including me, has ever said this phrase even when referring to the Prophet Muhammadﷺ, viz. “may my parents be sacrificed for the Prophet”. Although in innovative gatherings of milad, naat khwani and qawali nights, we openly hear (and sway to) many other phrases that border on shirk.
But this phrase, “May my parents be sacrificed for Allah and His Messenger ﷺ” is never used.
Even though it was approved by our Prophet, and was used often by his companions!
The reason for this, in my opinion, is that it would cause immense social backlash in the country and culture from which I hail. You see, if you are a Pakistani Muslim, you are supposed to (or expected to claim to) sacrifice everything for your faith in Allah (or for a noble cause), including your life, your wealth, your body, your time, your children, your wife (the most ‘disposable’ commodity of all) but never – I repeat, NEVER – sacrifice your parents for anything.
Despite the fact that many of the companions of Prophet Muhammad practically did that i.e. they sacrificed their parents, directly or indirectly (e.g. by relinquishing all prior tribal and familial allegiances for Islam) to heed and respond to the call of the Prophet to become a Muslim – today, if a Muslim would openly utter this phrase, “May my parents be sacrificed (or ransomed) for Allah and His Messenger ﷺ”, they would be met with glaring eyes and dropped jaws, followed by censure and backlash.
I know that the parents of many of the companions of the Prophet were not Muslim (Abu Hudhayfa’s father `Utbah certainly wasn’t), but this phrase does not differentiate between non-Muslim or Muslim parents. It just mentions parents.
Because, for most cultural Muslims, especially for those who lack the praiseworthy spiritual ghairah (protective anger for the sake of Allah and His Messenger), the line is drawn when it comes to parents, especially when the latter are elderly.
If you are a (Pakistani) Muslim, you are supposed to forgive everything that your parents do, and overlook everything they say, no matter how harsh, untrue, false, or bigoted it might be, in the name of ‘ihsan’. Even if they commit a heinous crime in front of your eyes, you are ‘supposed to’ ignore it and not censure them, let alone take them to account, in the name of ‘doing ‘ihsan’ towards them.
Furthermore, for most born Muslims, loyalty and allegiance to their tribe or clan remains superior to even the practice of their religion of Islam. Therefore, most cultural Muslims (including those in Pakistan) follow the rituals of Islam only (and very strictly) according to those practical methods or logistics that are prevalent in and approved by their tribe or clan (family or clan is known in the Urdu language as برادری).
Those who persistently dissent from decades-old tribal customs are swiftly ostracized and cut off from the clan; they can be disowned, kicked out of the house, cut out of the family inheritance, and abandoned; left alone to fend for themselves on the streets.
Just like those 313 Muslims who fought their own tribal kinsmen on the fateful day referred to in the Qur’an as Yaum-al-Furqan, the day of the Battle of Badr.
Conversation between a mother and son
“Come and sit down, my young son. I have something to tell you.”
The teenaged lad, with a quizzical expression on his face, came and sat down in front of his forty-something-years-old mother.
“Since you are my son,” she began, “I feel that it is my duty to inform you about what might await you in future, given the ethnicity, geographical region, race, and tribe that you hail from.
“You might need me today, my child, for doing basic life activities. Today, you have little or no money of your own, especially that which you have earned with your own hands. You might not own a house, nor have a wife and children. Today, you need your parents in your day-to-day life, especially your mother. For example, whenever you feel hungry for food, or need your clothes to be washed, or require medicines for relief from an illness, or books for your studies, you approach your parents to have your needs fulfilled. Since you are a fortunate young lad, my son, you usually have your needs fulfilled very quickly and easily. You are even more fortunate, my son, in that you do not have a mother who is cunning, selfish, manipulative, and ignorant. She truly loves you sincerely, and wants to one day see you flying high, being honored and respected by the righteous, Allah-fearing people of your time; possessing lofty moral character, doing righteous good deeds, and pleasing Allah, your one true Master Who first created you as a blood-clot in her womb.
“However, even though you need your mother for your basic needs right now, things will not always stay this way. Life is all about change, my son. The winds of change, they call it. As time slowly but surely passes, a boy grows up into a young man. He becomes independent and emancipated, especially once Allah decrees for him to start earning a livelihood, and he gets married and has children. It is a decreed law of nature that an adult man stops needing his mother for his physical needs. Her role in his life, as fate decrees it, is almost over.
“My son, it is for when you reach this particular point in your life, that I want to give you some pertinent advice. Once a boy becomes a strong, mature man, Allah might test him severely through his parents, especially his mother.
“The once loving and caring mother, who sprang to fulfill your every need when you were young, might become a tiresome burden upon you now. She might become harsh, cold, unloving, indifferent, unreasonable, even mentally challenged, physically handicapped, and chronically ill.
“My son, it is for this contingency scenario that I want to leave you my special bequest. Because I am not a selfish mother. I am sincere to you, and I love you, so I want for you perhaps more and better than what I want even for myself.
“My son, if I were to ever degenerate to such a pathetic state, mental or physical, I want to forewarn you that the people of your society might urge you to tolerate everything vile and harmful that I do to you, intentionally or unwittingly, in the name of ‘doing ihsan towards your mother’. Even if I were to suffer from a mental illness that made me harm you physically, hurl abuses at you, shower you with undeserved curses, make unreasonable demands that are impossible for you to fulfill, and generally become a fitnah (tribulation) in your life that begins to slowly but surely destroy it, a group of people from among your fellow Muslims will incorrectly advise you to tolerate everything that I do ‘patiently’.
“They will not allow you to utter a peep of complain. They will cite Qur’anic verses and Prophetic narrations about the greatness of my rights upon you. They will discourage you from availing the services of professionally trained staff to take care of me (even if it is to restrict me from seriously dangerous actions, such as violence, which harms you and your family), because they will gaslight you into believing that you are a bad son for neglecting your mother and delegating her care to strangers.
“Do you know, my son, that once I become an elderly woman, I can pick up any sharp object and attack you with it, piercing holes in your body, even maiming you with it, and then when you will go and show your bruises to religious maulvi’s and mufti’s and other Muslims in your generation, they will show not an iota of sympathy towards you? Instead, they will stare at you in disbelief, then say something along the lines of, “But your mother could never do this to you! She is your mother! The one who brought you up with so much love and sacrifice.”
“At that moment, even if you were to show them solid evidence of the fact that it was indeed I who inflicted these grave wounds upon you (e.g. through cctv footage or a video), they will tell you to tolerate all of my attacks with patience, by not retaliating, or even restricting me from my violent behavior. They will incorrectly exhort that you will be rewarded very highly for tolerating every stab, every wound that I inflict upon you, and upon your wife and children (physical or emotional), by smiling and speaking to me lovingly in return.
“Finally, if you will lose your patience, because you are a human being, born with shortcomings and natural limitations, and start to give up on tolerating my verbal, psychological, and physical abuse, these religious Muslims will look at you very sternly and ask, “What sin have you committed in the past, my brother, because of which your once-loving mother has become so vile and violent towards you? Did you disobey and disrespect her when you were young? Did you anger her somehow, because of which Allah is inflicting her anger upon you now, when she is elderly and in need of your care? You should take yourself to serious account, our brother, because verily, in a mother’s anger lies Allah’s anger, and it is clear to us that Allah is angry with you, and that is why your mother is behaving this way towards you. Please repent to Allah for whatever wrongs you have done to her in your past, and tolerate all of her abuse patiently.””
Her son is looking at her with fear and disbelief in his eyes, as she smiles back at him.
“Please don’t worry, my sweet boy. But this is a fact. That is why I am warning you in advance about it, so that you may protect yourself from it in the future. The misguided religious interpretations of many if not most Muslims regarding how to do “ihsan” towards elderly parents is usually based on the outdated advice of bygone sages that ends up gaslighting and demonizing the Muslim offspring who is sincere and caring towards their abusive parents, into believing their lies.
“Don’t fall into this trap, my son. If you were to follow their advice, you could end up getting killed by a mother who is suffering from an incurable psychiatric disorder (Allah forbid) that makes her violent towards her own kin.
“They will make you believe that her violence is somehow the result of your own past sins, and your bad treatments towards her, instead of a test from Allah. They will make you believe that defending yourself against my attacks, whether verbal, psychological, or physical, is a sin and a disobedience to Allah. And they will chastise you for even screaming in pain as I plunge a knife into your arm and slash your flesh, again and again. “This is against beautiful patience, my brother”, they will say on repeat, like a robotic cult, doing nothing to help you as your elderly mother plunges a knife into your limbs again and again, and you scream in agony. They will just repeat the outdated advice that they have read off of jaded, decades old juriprudential fatwa books.”
Her son is now looking at her in wide-eyed shock, stunned into speechlessness. She chuckles and gives him a warm hug, tousling his hair lovingly.
“Do you see how great are my rights upon you, my child? In future, if I become elderly and deranged, I can get away with even trying to openly murder you in cold blood, and no one in the Muslim society around you, from the police, to the lawyers, to the doctors at the hospital, to the mufti’s and Islamic scholars, to your own blood relatives, would sympathize with you, or even believe your side of the story.
“They will look at you with accusing eyes, and belie whatever truth you speak. They will act as if it is somehow your fault that your elderly mother murderously attacked you and tried to kill you. They will tell you to repent, as you sit there nursing your wounds, alone.
“It is for such a possible future scenario, my beloved son, that I want to warn you right now. Never, ever allow yourself to be gaslighted when it comes to the crimes or vile actions of others, be they anyone, even your own elderly mother or father.
“Turn to Allah, and He will respond to you. You should then be the upright, responsible, and justice-upholding Muslim that I would want you to be. If a test as terrible as this were to be sent upon you from Allah, then remember that you should physically restrict me, with as little pain as possible, even if you need to medicate me, from inflicting harm upon you or anyone else. Your ‘ihsan’ upon me then, in such a situation, viz. Allah forbid your elderly mother becoming a source of harm-inflicting tribulation in your life, would be to do everything in your power to restrict this harm; to restrain me from causing damage and pain to others, and to publicly proclaim my afflicted condition to the world, so that those who can see and recognize the truth for what it is, can help you in doing this noble action – of ensuring that your mother is stopped from inflicting harm upon others.
“Don’t be a cowardly, two-faced, people-pleasing liar, my son. Be an upright, justice-upholding, truth-speaking Muslim in the face of any transgression, no matter who is perpetrating it..
“Just remember! I forewarned you about this…. now don’t ever forget my warning! It is obligatory upon you, as a Muslim, to stop evil when you see it, with your hand. And kindness begins at home.
“OK? You will always remember my advice, won’t you?”
Her teenaged son conjures up a half-smile, nodding, his head bent low in thought.
She sighs with relief.
“O Allah,” she prays silently, “Don’t ever let me reach a state in which I become a source of pain and misery for others, especially my own offspring. Aameen.”
An update from the events of last year
Last year, as the year 2023 came to a close, I blogged about how it would be a year that my children and I have resolved to ‘never forget’. If you have not read that post already, please tap on the links below to read it now, including the other, related post before it. Here they are; you should read them in order:
Life Update
2023: Never Forget
The fortress of my marriage took a near-fatal blow because of the characterless actions of my weaker half, my husband Irfan Hassan (the coward), and how his immediate family jumped at the opportunity to force him to divorce me (they’d never been too fond of me to begin with, anyway… but as if I cared). I elaborated on how he suffers, since 1994, from a chronic mental condition that was first diagnosed by Dr Shifa Naeem as ‘a mild form of schizophrenia’, but which has now been termed by his current doctor, Dr Hanif Mesiya, as a ‘delusional disorder’.
This condition requires him to take a pill named Aripip every day, to function normally. His disorder generally emasculates and weakens him, and makes him get scared of people who pressurise, intimidate, and bully him.
In that blog post, which was published in December, I mentioned at the end, how my parents had provided me with ‘a haven of support’ during this trial in my life.
However, today, I want to elaborate more upon that aspect of the situation, and make a serious, much needed correction.
In early September 2023, Irfan dumped me and my children here at my parents’ house after our savings ‘ran out’. In reality, these savings were ‘allowed to’ drain by a covert conspiratorial agreement that he had entered with my parents behind my back. My parents had instructed him to wait until our savings run out, then bring me and my children to their house, and leave us here.
He had complied like a slave, in the hope that this would recitify his marriage and reconcile us.
Come December 2023, my children and I decided to perform Sidr leaves treatment upon ourselves, for seeking a cure for possible effects of Sihr (witchcraft), Nadhar (the eye), or Hasad (envy).
We followed the treatment methodology, to the letter, that is outlined on this link. The way Irfan and I had been separated, and were being kept apart, was making me ponder upon the reality of our situation, and the reasons behind it. Also, our rizq (provision) had been truncated so abruptly and eerily, that it made us wonder. It seemed as if there was an unseen force preventing our previously happy family from reuniting.
After undergoing the Sidr leaves treatment, the effect was almost immediate in removing the distances that had cropped up between us as a family. Thanks to this treatment, as I also slowly began to recover from the trauma that I was suffering, related to an attempted break-in at our former home by robbers (which was inadvertently foiled by my brave daughter), and because of which I refused to leave the house, I began to notice some weird things.
I began to observe how my parents’ body language and their outward actions were contradicting their words. As the Sidr treatment took effect upon us, Irfan and I resumed talking, even meeting. I contacted a religious person who had been at the thick of the whole divorce conspiracy last year, and they informed me that my father, Mohammad Shahid Farooqui, had secretly advised my husband Irfan Hassan to go ahead and separate from me. This was because, like I said, Irfan had visited my father in secret, asking for his help, citing the mounting pressure from his family upon him to divorce me (this pressure was primarily spearheaded by his sister, Vajeeha Inam).
Irfan had not told me this up till then, because he has always been very scared of my father, and gets easily bullied by him.
After the Sidr leaves treatment, when I asked him if what I had been told by my source was true, he corroborated it.
I could not believe what I had just heard.
Now, before I go on further, I want anyone who intends to be my “gheebah police” to stop reading and leave this blog right now.
I mean all those well-intentioned Muslims who think that rightfully complaining about someone who is doing something wrong over a long period of time, or bringing public attention to crimes and sins that are going on behind closed doors, is ‘gheebah’.
I want you to please leave! You are not welcome here. Go volunteer at an old people’s home, instead of reading my blog. Then when one of the tenants of such a home tells you their morbid personal stories of true crime, which caused them to be thrown out of their houses by their own kin and end up in that old home, tell them to stop doing gheebah too!
Sheesh (*eye roll*). It is partly because of people like you that abusive and unjust people continue committing crimes behind closed doors, and their scared victims abstain from speaking out or reporting their actions, because of fear.
Anyhow, since the past 3 months, things at my parents’ house have escalated, once my children and I were alerted to the truth, and my parents could no longer keep up appearances.
You know, when you live with someone under one roof, there comes a time when you can no longer hide or sugarcoat the truth and reality. What has been most eye-opening, for me, has been my observation, during the past 6 months, of the chasmic change in my parents’ own mutual relationship (their marriage) since I got married and left this house, 20 years ago. The dynamics in their marriage have changed completely. My mother is the ruling ‘boss’ now, and my father is her compliant ‘assistant’ (I am using mild words here, because they are my parents, but the truth is much more grave).
But before I go on to give more details, first, I want you to take a look into the lives of two famous convicted criminals.
Just for some relevant analysis.
Ted Bundy & Josef Fritzl
Ever since I was younger and got access to the Internet, I have had an interest in true crime. This is because the psychology of criminals who commit grave crimes intrigues me, and I now read about what they do in the light of the Qur’an. I never could understand how someone could choose to do evil to others, and that too, again and again.
As it is, time and again, Allah exhorts us in the Qur’an to ponder upon the historic events of bygone nations, the Prophets that were sent to them, the evils and crimes that these nations were involved in, both physical and spiritual, and how Allah demolished their cities and destroyed their dynasties, leaving behind just enough archaeological ‘heritage sites’ that would enable forthcoming human generations to take heed from what Allah did to them because of their actions.
In this context, studying the cases of convicted criminals is eye-opening, to say the least.
But the reason I am bringing up Ted Bundy and Josef Fritzl in particular, is because of one main factor that was common in both of them: they were a whiz at maintaining social appearances that would make it impossible for anyone, even their decades-old neighbors or partners, to believe that they had committed the crimes that they did, behind closed doors.
Secondly, both of them were able to maintain a moderately respectable source of livelihood while committing their crimes over the course of many years.
Ted Bundy was, on the contrary, quite ‘charming’ in demeanor. Even during his incarceration, he would sometimes engage in friendly banter with the policemen who handcuffed him and took him to and from his court proceedings.
What criminologists found absolutely, gut-wrenchingly horrifying about Ted Bundy, however, was the way he showed no iota of regret whenever he would be interviewed, for having raped and murdered scores of young girls.
On the contrary, he would describe in great detail, the horrors he had inflicted upon his victims, without a hint of remorse. He remembered every crime, and the traits of every girl, in astounding detail, giving clear instructions and clues to the police, even years after having murdered a girl by taking her to the wilderness in the middle of nowhere, miles upon miles away from habitation, about how they could reach the place where he had buried/hidden her body. Police would then reach the spot following his directions, years after the murder, and find the remains; bodies that they had already been searching for in vain, for years.
Crime investigators were shocked and stunned at the level of Ted Bundy’s intelligence, ….. and at the high level of his ‘evil genius’.
As for the Austrian monster Josef Fritzl, who has recently penned a memoir with the help of a lawyer about his crimes (as a monster in human form), he is in such a defiant, unrepentant mental state that he wonders why none of his family members talk to him anymore.
He expresses the ‘hope’ (delusion) that he will live to be 130 years old, eventually get released from prison, and reunite with his family.
Now tell me. Can you believe it?
In both the above cases of extreme, gut-wrenching crime and abuse that went on for years, just one – I repeat, ONE – instance of the victim conjuring up the courage to speak out or fight back, eventually led to these criminals being exposed and brought to justice.
It was only when a victim decided to fight back, and/or break her silence about the crimes, to expose these criminals, was justice meted out.
For Elizabeth Fritzl, she spoke up at a hospital, when a second child of hers was about to die, after 24 years of being imprisoned in a cellar, beaten, and incestuously raped by her own father.
For Ted Bundy, it was one girl, a potential victim, who decided to violently fight him back when he was attempting to knock her out and kidnap her, the way he had successfully done previously with many other girls.
She managed to escape and report him to the police, who had been looking out for him for years already. She said that she kept ‘violently’ fighting him back, with punches, bites, kicks, and scratches, until she was able to tumble out of the car through the passenger door.
This allowed her to escape, and ……
… the truth is that this brave girl who fought back, unlike any of Ted Bundy’s previous victims, became one of the reasons that this monster was eventually caught by the police. She ended up saving the lives of scores of other possible future victims.
Lesson learnt?
Unlike what many religious Muslims today incorrectly advise victims of injustice from among the younger people, to continue to tolerate abuse and injustice from elders in the name of respect (‘adab’), covering up others’ sins, and ‘beautiful patience’ (‘sabr jameel’), especially when it comes to ‘doing ihsan’ towards elderly parents, I intend to speak up and proclaim the truth today.
Not that my parents are anywhere near these 2 animals in human form that I have named above.
This was merely an analogy, presented to you in order to show you how speaking out and fighting back benefits humanity and deters future, would-be (possible) oppressors from committing similar unjust and abusive actions.
I have been thinking about doing this for years now. The situation has been pretty dire since a long time.
Since my marriage in 2004, my relationship with my parents, particularly my mother, has been on a steady but sure decline.
It deteriorated to such an extent that, since the year 2017 almost, I had become increasingly socially isolated due to the combined actions of my husband, his toxic immediate family, and my own parents. Recent events (of the past and current year, in which my home broke up, and almost permanently collapsed) have now made me decide that it is high time I do something that is called for:
I HAVE TO SPEAK OUT AND PROCLAIM THE TRUTH!
Because it has been decades now that my persistent silence in response to anything that they do, has enabled some of my closest family members to continue to mistreat me and gaslight me.
They know that I will keep my mouth shut, no matter what they do to me behind closed doors, so they continue doing whatever they want, using my penchant for staying at home and not socializing much, nor talking much to people on the phone (I was wary of committing gheebah), as a fuel and fodder for their negative behavior.
That is why I am intentionally writing this blog post in the state of fasting, during the holy month of Ramadan.
I bear witness before my Rabb Allah, that every word that I have written in this post is the truth.
I also bear witness that both my parents need urgent and serious help.
The kind of help that is needed to stop the oppression of an oppressor:
Allah’s Messenger ﷺ said, “Help your brother, whether he is an oppressor or he is an oppressed one. People asked, “O Allah’s Messenger! It is alright to help him if he is oppressed, but how should we help him if he is an oppressor?”
The Prophet said, “By preventing him from oppressing others.” [Sahih al-Bukhari]
Prophets who ‘spoke up’ about wrongdoing done to them
Before I talk (sorry for yet another prelude, but this is important), I want to quickly mention the incidents in the lives of the Prophets of Allah, in which they (or their kin) spoke up to provide details, including the names of perpetrators, about the crimes and injustices that had been meted out to them.
First, we have Prophet Yusuf. He spoke up thrice, as mentioned in the Qur’an, to proclaim the injustice or crime that someone had done to/against him.
First, when he was a young lad, and was fleeing from the wife of his master Aziz, to protect his chastity from her attempted (probably statutory) rape.
When they both found Aziz standing at the door, Prophet Yusuf did not remain silent. He bravely spoke up the truth to tell all the people who had gathered there by then, including his master Aziz, about what Aziz’s wife had intended to do to him.
Second, when he was about to be released from prison by the ruling king, he sent back the king’s men with the instructions to find out what happened to the ‘women who had cut their hands (with knives)’. Meaning, he brought up their years-old, combined conspiracy against him with the wife of Aziz, via which they intended to seduce/rape him, and/or forcibly induct him into their circle of morally decadent activities. Once again, despite years having passed in the interim, he did not remain silent in order to ‘forgive and forget’ and let his past criminal oppressors get off scot-free.
No, he not only brought up what they had conspired to do to him as a group (in a modern context, their crime might even be labeled as attempted ‘gang rape’, followed by wrongful imprisonment), despite the passage of years (بضع سنين) in the interim, but he did so publicly, in front of a ruling authority, i.e. the king of the time, who had the power to stop these decadent women from carrying out their vicious agenda.
Third, after being released from prison and being given a government post, when the time was right, he confronted his 11 brothers, all of whom were older than him in age, about what they had done to him in his childhood, by throwing him into a well:
قَالَ هَلْ عَلِمْتُم مَّا فَعَلْتُم بِيُوسُفَ وَأَخِيهِ إِذْ أَنتُمْ جَـٰهِلُونَ
“He asked, “Do you remember what you did to Joseph and his brother in your ignorance?”” [12:89]
Had he taken the ill advice that is thrown around a lot by the likes of ‘well-wishing’, ‘pacifist type’, spineless and cowardly Muslims today, who urge victims of chronic abuse (that spans years, without abating) to remain silent, not retaliate, tolerate everything ‘patiently’, and just pray to Allah for relief and for the guidance of their oppressors, Prophet Yusuf would not have spoken up on the 3 occasions in his life that I have mentioned above.
In 2 of these cases, he brings up crimes that were committed against him many years ago, in the bygone past.
Next, we have Prophet Musa (Moses). When he fled Egypt due to the accidental homicide that he had unwillingly committed against a Coptian (with the good intention of saving a weaker person from his oppression), he met with the kind, elderly Prophet Shu’aib (عليهم السلام).
He henceforth told the kind elder his whole story:
فَلَمَّا جَآءَهُۥ وَقَصَّ عَلَيْهِ ٱلْقَصَصَ قَالَ لَا تَخَفْ ۖ نَجَوْتَ مِنَ ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ
“When Moses came to him and told him his whole story, the old man said, “Have no fear! You are now safe from the wrongdoing people.”” [28:25]
Third, we have our mother, A’ishah bint Abi Bakr (رضى اللهُ عنها).
She has narrated, through several detailed and lengthy ahadith that are quoted in Sahih al-Bukhari, her side of the story regarding the painful and scandalous incident of Ifk (‘the slander’).
Rumors marring her impeccable character were swirling around in Madinah, gaining momentum, which caused her to isolate herself socially, leave her husband’s house to go to her parents’, and cry unrelenting tears of grief for a whole month. During this painful period of trial, in which Allah withheld the revelation (وحى), the Prophet was being advised by some people to divorce her.
When Allah finally sent revelation that completely absolved her and she was publicly declared chaste, she did not go on to ‘remain silent about it’, as if nothing had happened. No, she went on to narrate her side of the entire story, from the very beginning, and these (rather lengthy) narrations have survived to this day, for us to read and take lesson from.
This is what is prescribed for a blameless, chaste woman to do, when rumors are being spread about her, and she is being slandered, mistreated, or subjected to injustice of any kind.
And that is what I, too, now intend to do.
My childhood
I want to start off by saying that I was born in a household that was tainted with misogyny. I will try to leave unnecessary details out, but will definitely mention anything that throws light on the matter being discussed, because this helps in understanding the reality of my family situation, as it is today.
I was an ‘unplanned’, ‘oops, how did that happen?’ baby. I came only 14 months after the birth of my sibling, a brother. My parents did not have any more children after that (no conceptions, no pregnancies, qaddar Allah). So I was the youngest and weakest member of our nuclear family.
My mother was the third child and daughter of her parents, who had always wanted only sons. She grew up in not only a much more misogynist, but also a much more abusive household than the one I was born in. Her parents did not have a happy or loving marriage.
During my childhood, since it was just my brother and I, things were much better. Before the age of 10, my childhood was pretty good, and I remember that my parents were, for the most part, kind and loving towards me, physically and emotionally.
My brother often bullied me and my younger cousin, though, but this he only did when my father wasn’t around. As a child, he knew that my father would reprimand him for mistreating me. So if he dared to do this when my father was at home, my crying and sobbing would immediately summon my father into the room, who would harshly scold him for hitting me, or making me cry. My father would then also pick me up in his lap and console me, wiping my tears, until I calmed down.
Despite being a minor child, my brother knew which parent of his (hint: the one who preferred sons) was spoiling and enabling him, so he would hit me a lot if we had a fight when our father was not at home. When I hit him back in defense, he hit me back harder, until I burst out crying, my shoulder throbbing painfully under the brunt of his repeated punches.
At this point, my mother would intervene to stop the fight, but she would not say a word of reprimand or reproach to her son. She would just say to me, as I lay on the floor (where I had often been shoved), sobbing, “Get up, Sadaf, get up. Just get up. Stop crying. Stop crying. Get up now!” She would keep repeating this until I was silenced. She would not hug me, pick me up, or console me at all.
Besides the above incidents, I had a more or less abuse-free childhood, save the occasional slap or harsh yanking of the ear by either one of my parents when I misbehaved.
As I grew up, I was encouraged to sing and dance. It was common for the songs of Indian films to be viewed on the VCR, particularly UmraoJan-type dance numbers (including ‘item’ numbers a.k.a mujra’s) أَعُوْذُ بِاللّٰهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطٰانِ الرَّجِيْمِ. Many of the families of my school friends also had this ‘family entertainment’ trend at home (i.e. prerecorded songs of Indian films being played on the VCR on television, as a daily routine), so I did not think much of it back then, although now it makes me cringe with disgust. Throughout my childhood and young adulthood, I have heard my father body-shame the women that he viewed on screen. He has always watched a lot of TV and films.
Growing up, I was also expected and instructed to do degrading tasks that no one else in the family besides my mother or the maid were willing to do, such as hand over the filthy trash bucket to the garbage collector, take milk from the milkman, or give a glass of water to the painter who was hired to paint the walls.
Singer. Dancing girl. Waitress. Maid. You get the drift.
Things changed greatly as I entered my teenage. My parents’ attitude towards me seemed to change almost overnight. Around the same time, my maternal grandfather (Nana) also died, in 1991, and from then on, my parents became more….. hmm, what should I say? They began to show more frequent outbursts of anger, often raising their voices at trivial things, shouting at or fighting with servants or other members of the help, and in general being less kind and humble. My Nana had been quite a hot-tempered man himself (may Allah grant him forgiveness), and his death seemed to bring out the hitherto hidden side of his many close relatives who had been too afraid of him to speak out or be themselves, until then. And Allah knows best.
At age 13, I was repeatedly sent into the kitchen, despite showing signs of academic excellence. “Go help Ammi in the kitchen. Clear the table and take all the plates back into the kitchen. Learn to make a complete handi from scratch. You must now learn to make roti’s.” I was also forced to join a sewing course for girls in my summer vacations of 1992, when I was 13. On the weekends, when the maid took her only day off, I was coerced to wash a huge pile of oily dishes in the sink right after breakfast, a chore that the maid did every morning of the week. I was also trained to do the dusting of the drawing room once a week.
You get the drift, right? Cooking, sewing, washing dishes, taking out the trash, serving others (including the painter, or carpenter), dusting etc.
At age 13, it was very clear to me what role I was expected to play ahead in life.
When I was left on my own, I would study, read, write, craft, paint, play with dolls, or a pet. But eventually, someone from my family would always summon me and send me into the kitchen.
My brother, on the other hand, lounged around when he was at home, as a teenager, holed up in his room with his door shut, napping, watching TV, or studying. As he grew older, he was allowed to leave the house whenever he wanted, without taking anyone’s permission, to hang out with his neighborhood friends. He was not even expected to get a spoon or fork from the kitchen when he needed one. Either my mother got it for him, or…. “Sadaf, go get your brother his fork.”
Chuckle. ‘His’ fork!
As I grew older, my diet also began to be restricted, tacitly and slowly, especially after my mother fought rudely with my paternal grandmother (Dadi) in the year 1990, which coerced my Dadi to buy her own apartment in the neighborhood and move out within 2 years of this fight.
Beyond that point, once I would be alone at home, with my father away at work and no one else besides my brother to see how much I was eating, my mother began to say things to me that would encourage me to eat less; to reduce my portion size, to leave the food ‘for others’ (viz. the male family members).
“Leave that piece of chicken/mutton for your brother. Leave that parattha for your father. Even if you get only chutney roti to eat, you should show gratefulness.”
Eventually, she and I would be eating the previous day’s leftovers for lunch, and fresh food would only be cooked for my father in the evenings.
I think that is enough of my childhood background, to shed light upon the taints of misogyny that were prevalent and entrenched in the home that I grew up in.
Many people might be reading this and thinking, “So? What’s the big deal? Every Pakistani girl is raised like this.” The answer to that is, may Allah open your eyes and grant you wisdom. Just because misogyny, demeanment of girls, and neglect towards a child is widely prevalent in a country or culture, does not make it okay.
The sad situation today
Since undergoing my Sidr treatment, by the grace of Allah, my children and I have been cured of whatever it was that was causing dissension in our family, although more treatment definitely needs to be done.
Before I underwent this treatment, I just stayed cooped up inside the house, miserable, depressed, and socially cut off from almost everyone.
After I was brought here in September last year, visitors to the house were discouraged, and my parents handled all incoming phone calls with their signature, smooth-talking, social finesse. I was suffering from trauma bordering on agarophobia, but I noticed how little sympathy they showed to me up till then. I mistakenly attributed this to me being older and them being elderly now. Food intake at meal times was, as it has always been (for me), restricted, but this time it was also being restricted for my poor, innocent children.
But my children began to protest.
Two of them are teens and one is a tween, and I have NEVER underfed any of my children, especially based on their gender. So cooking the same portion of food every day, which had been cooked before our arrival, despite 4 more people being in the house now, did not make sense. When I brought up the budget and money, “Money is no problem at all,” my father said to me.
My parents, may Allah have mercy upon them, began to display signs of passive-aggressive negative behavior, at first, and then outright aggressive and angry outbursts, once I began recovering because of the Sidr treatment.
It was as if a veil began to lift from our eyes, as the 4 of us began to see reality.
When Irfan started visiting us, my parents resisted his visits and sleepovers, and showed a significant change in behavior towards me. They suddenly began to insist that I give my father a grocery list of anything that I needed from the market (up till then, they had not asked me to do so. I would just verbally request them to get something I needed). When the first time Irfan sent over milk for my children, since our arrival, my mother said to my father, “Are these two on talking terms?”. He gruffly told her to keep quiet.
When I started to leave the house (to go out for a walk in the street with Irfan, to drive their rickety old car to take my son for Jumuah (when my father was sick), or to attend a visiting-from-abroad-friend’s sibling’s wedding dinners), they discouraged me, especially my mother.
Treating me paternalistically like a teenager, she would ask me where I was going. If I did not return within an hour, she’d commence what I will explain further below as her signature ‘phone intimidation bullying strategy’.
Once again, I mistakenly attributed their irrational behavior to them being elderly and/or senile now.
As an aside, I was never (and still am not) allowed to take the ‘better’ car. My father only allows me to use his rickety, rust-infested, 30-year-old car, which has problems starting, and keeps breaking down.
As for driving his prized, middle-sized SUV (eye-roll), my father once said to my children over dinner, knowing that I was in earshot, “Forgive me, but women drive slow and do not keep up with the flow of traffic. A woman behind the wheel driving a car makes me nervous …”
I have never, to this day, driven, or taken a ride in, his dated, middle-sized SUV (although riding in larger, better vehicles is nothing new for me and my children, whether in Pakistan or abroad, …. yawn, big deal. For me, these things are just cars, Too bad my fellow Pakistani’s attach so much social prestige to them).
His insulting, sexist, and discriminatory insinuations when it comes to stopping me from driving or even sitting inside his prized SUV (an ordinary, middle-sized Toyota Harrier 2003, ….. once again, yawn) is something that I have been overlooking for years now.
Actually, my father has NEVER, to this day, sat with me in ANY car, with me driving behind the wheel. He does not even know how his own daughter drives, 24 years and counting. This is because of what I call ‘the taaghoot’ – his ego, which makes him avoid any situation in which someone who is younger or less experienced than him, might outdo or outshine him, in performance or expertise.
My brother, on the other hand, and his aulad-e-nareena (oldest son), are allowed to drive and ride in his SUV when they visit. This is because of my mother’s ingrained beliefs, penchant and preference for the male child (and his first male child). It has deeply-ingrained roots in her own childhood.
Just mentioning this in passing, to highlight the sexism and misogyny that has historically been prevalent in the Farooqi household.
My mother – may Allah have mercy on her
For years, I have been subjected to the detrimental effcts of my mother’s regular anxiety and panic attacks. The phone becomes her lifeline and beeline during such an attack.
Whenever she calls up someone close (which is very often), she expects them to answer immediately. If they do not, she keeps calling them until they do. If their phone is powered off, on silent mode, or battery-dead, she calls up other people close to that person, tells them how worried she is about them not answering their phone, and orders or begs them to also start to (and keep) calling that person until contact is established. Her mind is being bombarded by irrational fears (the worst kind) until she is able to talk to that person. Viz. what if they are dead? What if they are kidnapped? What if they are injured? Etc.
With each passing hour, the number of people who she calls up, in desperation, to contact that person, increases, until everyone in her close circle is calling up that person (or a person they know, such as a spouse, neighbor, or close friend) to establish contact with that person.
If all else fails, and she does not get to hear from her first intended recipient, she would (in the past) get in the (secondhand, rickety) car and drive all the way to that person’s residence to check on them herself, in person. If she found that person safe and sound, with their phone merely off or on silent (and if that person happened to be me), she would launch into a vicious, anger-laced verbal tirade and outburst, demonizing the person about the so-called ‘torture’ that they had put her through.
A thoroughly false and undeserved accusation, yes. But this is her habit.
She pins the blame for her irrational behavior, exaggeratedly ‘imagined’ fears, anxiety attacks, and narcissistic attitude (such as calling up someone again and again and again without necessity, just to ask trivial questions such as, “Have you reached back home?”, or “Has your husband come home from office?”) on the innocent intended recipient of her phone calls, to make them believe that they had done her a great injustice by being away from their phone for an hour or two, not realizing that it was on silent or off.
Today, since she is partially disabled in her right knee, she just has a prolonged anxiety attack, with intense brooding, an onslaught of the worst kind of irrational fears and negative thoughts, even tears, and eventually, shouting very loudly, until contact is established with the person she is wanting to call up out of so-called ‘concern’ and ‘worry’.
This is what I call her ‘phone intimidation’ (which it is). It is done in the guise of intense worry and concern for the other person, but it is actually her way of establishing complete power, control and manipulation over that person’s life and daily activities.
It is also degrading, demonizing, and embarrassing, to say the least.
It is also a tool for bullying, a form of stalking (demanding to know where you are), harassment laced with emotional blackmail, and pure intimidation.
Such behavior is considered rational for a mother of a child or a teenager, not for the mother or sister or in-law or aunt of a grownup adult who lives an independent life.
Yet, no one, to this day, has had the courage to call her out on this anxiety-based irrational behavior that is just a thin disguise for an attempt to manipulate and control. Especially my father, who allows her to use her landline and cellular phone to call up whoever she wishes, and whenever, for whatever reason, even if she engages in hours of gossipy conversations, or uses sly tactics to stalk people and to glean private information of a sensitive nature from them, then pass this information on to others. He lets her do this so that she does not bother him during one of her anxiety attacks, and he can remain free to watch TV or go out somewhere, as and when he pleases. This is the reason that today, he leaves his cell phone at home whenever he goes out (although he claims that he does this for security reasons).
Today, I am calling her out publicly for this tormentful behavior that she has been doing to me, my brother, her deceased brother, my father, and others in her circle, for decades now.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
What level of extreme distress can such a mother be putting her own daughter through, you can guess by the fact that she (or my father, or brother, or anyone else in my extended family) DOES NOT HAVE MY PHONE NUMBER ANYMORE.
YES! I changed my number to save myself from not just the creepy robbers who had attempted to break into our home after stalking me online and stealing my personal information, but ALSO TO SAVE MYSELF FROM MY MOTHER and her ‘phone intimidation’ tactics.
I hereby proclaim to everyone out there, who is reading this. If you or anyone you know, EVER gets their hands on my personal phone number, DO NOT, and I REPEAT, DO NOT give it to my mother, or to anyone whom she sends your way to acquire it.
She no longer even trusts if a text that I send to her via an app is truly from me or not. She wants to hear my voice to believe that I am the one who is communicating with her on the other end.
Since both she and my father have started lying regularly in their daily activities, even to each other, they don’t even believe me when I answer their questions. They want proof. And this has put a further dent on our already strained relationship.
She used to have these irrational panic attacks even when I was a child. She was very afraid of being outside the house after sunset. She would be consumed with irrational fears in public places, such as airports or train stations.
Nevertheless, as she grew older, she developed the confidence to go out alone in the second car (which my father willingly gave to her, giving her full permission and freedom to roam around in it anywhere, where ever she wished) whenever she wanted. Once again, he did this so that she would remain distracted, and not bother him with her anxiety attacks.
So, please, now try to digest the extreme irony of this situation: my mother, Mrs Nazli Farooqi, has been roaming around freely in a car provided by her husband, for trivial hops such as grocery runs and tailor trips, since decades, BUT NO ONE EVER called her up to question HER where she was, what she was doing, why was she there, and when she will return home. Not her parents, not her siblings, not her husband, not her children, and CERTAINLY NOT HER IN-LAWS.
NO. ONE.
By the time she hit age forty, she was so used to going out of the house in the second car, that my brother and I, when we returned from school as teenagers, sometimes found the house locked and our mother gone.
This was especially more so after my paternal grandmother (Dadi) had bought her own apartment and moved out (after my mother fought with her, raising her voice loudly to protest over why my Dadi let my brother watch TV on her television set, which was in her room).
Like I said, Mrs Nazli Farooqi could go out anywhere without ANYONE, ANYONE AT ALL (including her mother, siblings, husband, or in-laws) stalking her, or ‘worrying’ about her, or demanding to know where she was, and when she will come back home. Her husband gave her a car, ample spending money, unlimited petrol that he got through his job (and later, a mobile phone), and full freedom, to go out of the house whenever she wished, as long as she returned in time to serve him his dinner.
Her own teenaged children would (sometimes, it was the exception, not the norm) return home from school, and sit outside on the steps leading to the apartment, waiting for her, feeling hot, hungry and thirsty.
When she returned, she would laugh in embarrassment and explain to us why she got late, but never apologize.
I want everyone out there to note this.
That there used to be a time when my mother, Mrs Nazli Farooqi, did NOT allow her husband, (deceased) brother, son, or daughter, to roam around ‘freely’ outside the house EVEN AS INDEPENDENT, MARRIED ADULTS with their own families, unless SHE KNEW WHERE THEY WERE, at any time of the day, any day of the week. This was done by making repeated phone calls to their phones every day.
She also demanded that they inform her as soon as they returned home (like a child or teenager does). Today, when she finds out that someone has gone out, she keeps sitting on her bed or sofa, thinking negative thoughts about them and their ongoing outing, giving reign to the worst fears about their situation (e.g. if they are on a flight, that the plane will crash), until she receives a phone call or text from them that says that they have reached their home (or destination). Only then does she feel relieved and resume her personal routine.
She also demands FULL ACCESS to the inner details of our personal lives. What we ate, what we wore, where we went, what we did there, who we met, what we bought, how much money we spent, etc.
If we attempt to withhold anything, she accuses us of ‘hiding’ things from her, as if this is wrong.
What is wrong is HER INVASION in our personal lives.
Furthermore, the harassment and intimidation does not stop there.
Once she has found out what we ate, what we wore, what we bought, where we went, who we met, and what we did, she starts off with what I call the ‘moral policing’ of our activities. This commences the day after we did what we did, after she has brooded about it during the night (she suffers from a sleep disorder that commenced during the 80’s. More on that below).
Literally, anything we do is chastised or criticized. This happens once a day or half a day has passed, from the time that we made the mistake of sharing any details at all about our private lives, with her.
She spends the interim night, brooding over and thinking negative thoughts about whatever we told her (about where we went, and what we did). This is because she suffers from a chronic sleep disorder related to the trauma she faced when a robber broke into her in-laws’ home when we were children, and her husband was out of town; more on that below). She lies awake at night, usually after 2:30 am, mulling over about what her close family members have recently being doing.
The next day, she calls me up (cue her ‘phone intimidation’), then begins a tirade about what I should or should not have done. “Why did you eat that? It is not healthy! Why did you buy this? There was no need to! Why did you take the children there and let them do this? It is not right. Why did you say this to me, in such a tone? What was the need to buy such-and-such thing? Etc. etc.”
On and on goes the harassment, until I am silenced and she is done venting her negativity of the day upon me, ruining my whole day ahead.
Understandably, anyone who is bullied and harassed like this for doing something as normal and trivial as going to a restaurant, or buying clothes from a store, or meeting a friend at a cafe, or giving a certain medicine to their child, or using a pressure cooker, or installing a standby generator, would eventually resolve not to share these details with their anxiety-and-phobia-riddled mother again, to save her the agony (bred by her nightly brooding, irrational fears, and negative thoughts) and to also save themselves the future distress caused by her over-the-phone harassment and intimidation.
But nope. The intimidation-phone-calls persist, as does the interrogation and bullying. “Why do you people hide everything frome me?” she demands to know. She also calls up other relatives and people who know me, complaining to them that “Sadaf hides things from me. Sadaf doesn’t talk to me. Sadaf doesn’t call me up. Sadaf doesn’t answer my calls or messages.”, conveniently keeping her side out of the sordid story, about how she takes me to account so harassingly for doing normal life activities once I have told her about them.
And the cycle continues.
At the times when I get COMPLETELY FED UP with her manipulative and bullying behavior, and stop talking to her for a while, that is when the real drama starts.
Playing the innocent victim; putting on the (now-partially-disabled) ‘lovingly concerned’, elderly, worried and sincere mother act, she (again) starts to call up close family members to pump lies about me into the ears and make me out to be ‘the villain’ of the whole (sorry and exaggerated) story.
Here are the words she then uses to describe to these contacts, me or my behavior towards her:
- Enmity (دشمنی)
- Hatred (نفرت)
- Cutting off of relations (تعلق نہ رکھنا,قطع رحمى)
- Resentment (دل میں رکھنا)
- Suspicion (شک کرنا)
- Giving her the silent treatment (بات نہ کرنا)
She plays this act of the innocent, hurt, sorry victim so expertly and flawlessly, that the person she has been demonizing me to immediately falls for it, and then they call me up (or text me, via apps, as no one has my number now) to begin round number 2 of the ‘signature Nazli Farooqi phone intimidation’ – to berate me about being so mean, so rude, so cold, so cut off; that she is (now) so elderly; that I should be more kind to her, show her compassion, and basically do the whole ihsan with your mother, your mother, your mother; ‘your mother having the greatest rights upon you Islamic tenet’, et al.
The full onslaught of psychological manipulation and harassment.
Furthermore, in order to help their agenda, this little group of manipulators always use verses from the beautiful Qur’an and words from lovely ahadith, to gaslight me and make me feel guilty.
Such as the punishments in Islam for being disobedient to parents, the prohibition of keeping resentment in the heart, the sin of turning away from your fellow Muslim for more than 3 days. Etc. etc.
Although I curtail contact with them only temporarily in order to PROTECT MYSELF FROM THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIPULATION, HARASSMENT, BULLYING AND INTIMIDATION, both individual and combined, they accuse me of the worst sins in the Book of Allah.
For years, if not decades, their tactics would work upon me.
Now they DON’T.
I want this to be publicly known: that my mother, Nazli Farooqi, has sent me mean, hurtful and accusatory messages on the phone that have accused me of major sins (kaba’ir) such as shirk, qata rahmi (cutting off of relations), and takabbur (arrogance). To most of these messages, I did not respond. I would only retreat further into my shell, hurt and emotionally distressed, as always.
But now, I want it to be known, that my children are growing up, and they are finding all of this to be too difficilt to tolerate.
They can’t stand their mother being bullied, harassed, and gaslighted like this.
In future, if this intimidation, harassment, manipulation, and bullying at the hands of my mother (and her ‘agents’, such as my father, and to a much lesser extent, my brother – all of whom want to make it easy for their own selves, to keep her anxiety attacks averted from being directed towards them), continues towards me, my children intend to obtain a legal restriction on them, especially on my mother, from being able to contact me in any form.
I, however, hope and pray that the situation never descends to that point.
My biological family members perhaps do not realize that harassment, stalking, bullying and intimidation are now considered CRIMES in many countries and legal systems.
But even if they did, they would perhaps not care, because, like I said above, Sadaf has been, for them, by and large, the ‘Stepney tyre’ of the family: the one who is ‘used’ for doing working-class tasks and chores (that of a maid, dancing girl, singer, cook, cleaner, trash-thrower, and now, nurse and caregiver/attendant for a disabled elderly person); the one who is called in for hasty damage control or emergency relief whenever something that they have done, goes drastically wrong. But when that Sadaf gets a blow in her life, or sheds tears and shows distress, she is just ignored and her sorrow or physical afflictions are downplayed until she calms down and becomes normal again.
Available for future ‘use’, as and when required.
Attempted robbery at DHA phase 1
My mother went through a traumatizing ordeal during the mid-80’s, when my father was out of town (in Sui, Balochistan) for work. My brother and I slept with her in the same room, on a double bed. We lived in my Dadi’s house in DHA phase 1 back then. My Dadi would take turns sleeping on the downstairs floor and her bedroom on the upstairs floor (where my paternal uncle lived with his wife and children). My parents lived downstairs.
During that fateful night, my Dadi was sleeping upstairs, so my mother was sleeping alone with her children, aged 8 and 7, on the downstairs floor.
A thief entered the floor in the dark of the night, his face wrapped in a scarf, through the external kitchen exit (by cutting the wire mesh to put his hand inside and unlock & unbolt the door). He came into the bedroom and started to talk to my mother, whilst she lay asleep, demanding that she give him all her money and jewelry.
When she awoke and saw (and heard) him, bent over her, as expected, she let out a piercing scream of terror. He immediately fled. He was able to get away. I, being a young child, slept through it all, but my brother awoke and saw the thief running away.
After that incident, my mother got insomnia and lost her natural ability to get a good night’s sleep – permanently. She has never recovered from the trauma of this terrorizing incident, which was exacerbated by the fact that her husband was out of the city when it happened, and no other adult in the house was with her on the same floor. So you can imagine what she must have felt.
Eventually, she was able to sleep only in the early hours of the night, but would always wake up at around 2:00 or 3:00 am, maximum 4:00 am. From then on, she cannot go back to sleep, not even after sunrise. Once awake, she just sits or lies down, and that is when negative thoughts and brooding (usually about the actions of close relatives) take over her sleep-deprived mind.
I have realized that my mother has perhaps chronically suffered from what is now known as PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
Please remember that she already had a nervous, under-confident, timid, and scared disposition in her personality since her childhood, perhaps due to the fact that neither of her parents brought her up with much love, attention, or appreciation (she has never said this, but I am saying this).
And Allah knows best.
The culminative, “showdown” incident just before this Ramadan
To what extent both my parents can now go to join forces in accusing me of sin, became painfully, shockingly obvious to me a day before this current Ramadan began, on 11th March 2024.
My children and I were in the process of spring-cleaning the clutter-and-filth-filled basement (an indoor portion) of my parents’ house. As an aside, I want to mention that one of my father’s current favorite reality television shows, which he watches regularly, is “Hoarders”. Also, my mother has always had the habit of hoarding extra things. She hardly throws anything extra away, or donates superfluous things from the house; she just hoards things, in cupboards, bags and boxes. So there are items from my childhood (over 3 decades ago) still found lying around in the basement.
In the Clifton apartment that we lived in priorly, there was no space to keep my mother’s “extra things”. She would often say how she wanted a store room. So when my parents built their current house, a basement was planned with the architect. This, they told the extended family, was going to be a portion in which regular Qur’an classes (dars) would be held.
But in reality, it was just intended to be an ‘extended storage space’ for my mother’s hoarded stuff.
When we came for our current (unplanned and unwilling, for us) stay at my parents’ house in September 2023 (may Allah make it end soon, aameen), she repeatedly said to me and my children how much she wanted to just give everything extra away. She kept going on and on to me about how she wants to clean out the extra stuff lying around the whole house.
The upper portion, occupied by my brother and his family before he emigrated to USA in 2015, was also uncleaned and unlived-in for years, making it infested with geckos. He had it cleaned, upon my request, on his last visit (may Allah reward him). Initially, my children and I were asked to live in my bedroom downstairs. But we found the space too cramped (4 people in 1 room? What is this? A dorm in some ghetto university?). So we moved upstairs.
There was a lot of work to be done, but masha’Allah, my son did it, all the while listening to disdainful and demeaning, sarcastic comments from my father (whose ego – the taaghoot – was beginning to get a bashing by watching his grandson single-handedly do what he could not do in 16+ years).
Upon hearing my mother’s continued lamentations about the basement clutter, once the upper floor was more or less set, we moved downstairs to commence spring-cleaning. Take a look:
And now take a look at the almost finished look, after spring-cleaning, done mostly by my son:
My son moved all the clutter unto the inner portion of the basement. May Allah reward him immensely. Aameen.
So far, so good.
But then, when we decided to de-clutter the boxes and start to throw out only those things that were identified as ‘absolute trash’, by having my mother personally approve them for disposal first, did things begin to take a very unexpected, sour turn.
You see, up until then, things were just being moved around, and the floor cleaned (with minimal help from my parents or their part-time maid; most of this unpaid and unappreciated ‘manual labor’ was done by my son, masha’Allah).
Also, – and this is important – I had mentioned to my father that, to our horror, we had found some Islamic books having verses of the Qur’an and ahadith in them, cascading out of a muddy carton, lying on the floor in the basement.
To my surprise, he remained unaffected and brushed this off lightly, as if it was just an oversight, or must have happened by mistake. I was horrified at his casual, indifferent reaction. My children then found a dated copy of the hadith book RiyadusSaliheen covered in mud, completely distorted and misshapen by being drenched cover to cover in flood water. Horrified, they cleaned it up and tried to bring it back to its original, honored condition.
Once again, my parents gave a sullen, unconcerned response. Remember: actions speak louder than words.
This was beginning to really bother the 4 of us. Surely, if even accidental desecration of sacred Islamic scripture is such a sin, it should not be taken so lightly, even if it has happened unintentionally? The torrential rains of 2020 had flooded their basement, and perhaps made the cartons having the Islamic books topple to the ground, and stay there, submerged in the water that had come up from underneath the floor.
When we brought up some filthy, mud-covered garbage to give to the trash collectors (it was literally useless cardboard, plastic, and paper, nothing but trash), my mother started making a U-turn in her attitude. She started giving us these weird looks and a cold, silent vibe.
Did I tell you that my father watches Hoarders? Do you understand now, what they were probably thinking? Sigh. Okay, suffice to say this: hoarders find it difficult to give anything away (duh). Also, they harbor secret hopes of encashing some of their hoarded stuff. So when my children and I started the disposal of the trash in the basement, her attitude took a U-turn.
Please keep in mind that it was my mother’s constant laments about the clutter lying around her house that had made us commence the basement spring-cleaning in the first place. My children and I do not enjoy providing unpaid ‘manual labor’ to people who do not bother to ever spring-clean more than half of their residence, nor have any respect for Islamic books.
“If I wish, I can hire men to do this cleanup in one day” my father had claimed haughtily to me, “and money is no problem,” he added. To which I quietly replied, “One day? Well, it has now been 16 years and counting.”
Bear in mind one more (important and relevant) thing: they readily invest money to regularly brush up those portions of their house that can be seen by the outside world, such as the outer walls, the garden, the wooden gate, and the ground floor (where they live). Floors are polished, walls are painted, plants are watered, grass is mowed, and the geyser is repaired.
The other, uninhabited portions of the house, which no one from outside on the street, or any visitor to the house can see, such as the upper floor and the basement, have been subjected to neglect. Therefore, these portions are tainted with seepage, peeling paint, out-of-order electrical appliances such as AC’s, fans, exhausts, light switches, and a fridge.
You get the point.
Anyhow, when we had kept the trash pile outside the front door to be given to the trash collectors the next day, that was when the “showdown” incident happened.
My mother had retreated to her room after giving us the silent, weird vibe, the kind she gives off when she is in her negative-thoughts-onslaughted, ‘brooding mood’.
My father summoned my oldest child. He was holding up a set of pages in his hand, on the top of which was printed a verse of the Qur’an (its Arabic and translation).
He then claimed that he had found this set of pages on top of a trash bag that we had kept outside, for the trash collectors to take. He then told us to stop the basement cleanup activities in order to avoid such further ‘mistakes’.
As my child, horrified, denied that they had seen those set of papers on the trash bag, my father, looking down at the ground, repeated his accusatory lie.
At that point, I came forward. I had assembled the entire trash bag myself and kept it outside. That set of pages had NOT BEEN IN OR ON THAT BAG. However, I had seen it in my mother’s hands some minutes earlier, when I had asked her to inspect and approve the trash for disposal. That set of papers had not been in the basement, in the first place. We had not seen it anywhere downstairs. It had been somewhere upstairs.
My father defiantly kept repeating his accusation, claiming that my children or I must have overlooked the set of papers by accident. He said that it was our mistake and oversight.
He was defiant that it was us 4 who had (unintentionally) committed Qur’an desecration. Cue when my children and I would tell both of them earlier, horrified, about the Islamic books that we found lying on the ground in the basement…. he knew that this was something we were very sensitive and concerned about. And hence the false accusation.
That was it.
What followed was the most historic blowup of anger that I have ever experienced in my life, at my parents. EVER.
Anger that is for the sake of Allah; for the sake of the sanctity of the Qur’an; for the sake of defending my children’s (and my) character and innocence in the matter.
I mean, my children and I were being accused, falsely, of accidentally placing a set of papers that had a verse of the Qur’an on it, on a TRASH BAG which was to be thrown away.
Furthermore, the 4 of us were absolutely, 100% sure that we had not even SEEN that set of papers in the basement (which we had been combing since some days, going through everything, item by item, with our hands covered in filthy, sticky mud), let alone ‘accidentally put it on a trash bag’.
He was lying, in cahoots with my mother (who had, as she always does when she lights a fire and pumps someone up against me, retreated silently to her bedroom).
And for WHAT? WHAT was the purpose of his accusation?
FILTHY TRASH that could perhaps get them some measly notes of cash, as they so watch on Hoarders?
It hit me fully in the face, at that moment, to what level my parents could now stoop, just to get their way; to demonize me; to falsely accuse me of a SIN that is AS GREAT as the DESECRATION OF THE QUR’AN.
All for preventing some of my mother’s treasured, hoarded stuff from being discarded!
This was it. A line had been crossed. Here is what I have to say about it:
!فِدَاكَ أَبِي وَأُمِّي يا ٱللَّٰه
“May my father and mother be sacrificed for you, O ALLAH!”
And, in lieu of what I said at the start of this post, I hereby proclaim that no relationship, no allegiance, no attachment in life, for me, comes before, or even equal to, my allegiance to Allah and His Messenger:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا كُونُوا قَوَّامِينَ بِالْقِسْطِ شُهَدَاءَ لِلَّهِ وَلَوْ عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَوِ الْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالْأَقْرَبِينَ ۚ إِن يَكُنْ غَنِيًّا أَوْ فَقِيرًا فَاللَّهُ أَوْلَىٰ بِهِمَا ۖ فَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا الْهَوَىٰ أَن تَعْدِلُوا ۚ وَإِن تَلْوُوا أَوْ تُعْرِضُوا فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرًا
“O believers! Stand firm for justice as witnesses for Allah even if it is against yourselves, your parents, or close relatives. Be they rich or poor, Allah is best to ensure their interests. So do not let your desires cause you to deviate ˹from justice˺. If you distort the testimony or refuse to give it, then ˹know that˺ Allah is certainly All-Aware of what you do.” [4:135]
Some time later, angry and hurt beyond words, my children and I went downstairs and testified in front of my father, who was by then so overwhelmed that he could no longer look up at us, by holding up our forefingers and taking Allah as our witness, that none of us had even seen that set of pages in the basement, let alone put it, even accidentally, outside, on top of the trash bag that was to be thrown away.
I also told them that IF I WAS BEING INTENTIONALLY SLANDERED, then Allah will take to account whoever was guilty of doing this.
My mother was hasty in trying to calm me down and in asking Allah for forgiveness of what she called “our sins” (keeping the ‘me’ out of it, indirectly implying that my children and I were sinful too). My father remained silent, not looking up.
I swear, by Allah, I have never, ever felt such anger for the sake of Allah well up inside me, especially at my parents. To have my own parents accuse me and my innocent children of desecrating a verse of the Qur’an, is….. I cannot even begin to describe my feelings.
I can still not believe that this actually happened. And that too, just one day before the month of Ramadan!
Since the start of this holy month, I cannot bring myself to even see the faces of my parents, nor talk to them, much less break my fasts with them.
I am constantly being reminded of the Battle of Badr, and how blood-related kin were facing each other on opposite sides. And yes, those 313 Muslims were facing non-Muslims, but so what? They were their blood relatives.
After that incident, there was no sign of any apology or regret. Keeping up with her history of gaslighting and demonizing me, my mother pleaded with me ‘not to get angry’ (and hence, as is her usual style, she implied that my anger was unjustified; that what had been said, which counts as slander, was no big deal; that I was over-reacting).
By the way, with more than half of Ramadan gone, please don’t worry about the state of my ‘elderly’ parents: the two of them are doing just fine. In fact, this disgusting showdown over a pile of filthy trash that instigated them to slander their daughter and her children of (accidentally) desecrating the Qur’an, seems to have been good for them. Gone are the exaggerated oohs and aahs of pain, the complains of multiple physical ailments etc. They are fasting and praying normally, just as they did when they were younger.
Anyhow, I want to round off by summarizing some things:
- I want to request the world out there, that no one, I repeat, NO ONE, should ever believe a single word that my parents say to them about me. EVER. This is ingrained in stone now. They constantly lie through their noses, and are aces at maintaining the perfect ‘posh DHA resident elderly couple’ social appearance.
- Please be informed that I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE AT MY PARENT’S house. This house is NOT my home. It is their home. I have not wanted to live here for years. Please let it be known that, before the current time period of the past approximately 7 months, in 2023-2024, I had not spent even a single night at my parents’ house in a decade, because of the negative vibe that I get from them, and because of my strained relationship with my mother.
- My mother is now going around telling people that my children and I have moved into her house’s upstairs portion. HEAR IT FROM ME: THIS IS NOT TRUE. We were conspiratorially brought here by my cowardly, backstabbing husband Irfan, against our will, only as a last resort, because we had no where else to go.
- Like I said, my parents hatched a conspiracy in cahoots with my mentally ill, coward of a husband, Irfan Hassan, who is too scared of my father to take any significant initiative without his prior permission or approval. Like I said, he came to them secretly, behind our backs, to solicit their help in warding off the divorce pressure from his immediate biological family members, but in response, my father told him to go ahead and separate from me, and my mother ordered him to bring me and my children back to their house (from Punjab, to where we had relocated). And the spineless Irfan Hassan complied with their orders, like a slave.
So here we are, today. Very sadly.
Not a day goes by without the 4 of us, especially my oldest child, praying to Allah to quickly take us back to Punjab. We have not wanted to live in Karachi anymore, for several years now.
Currently, my children have seen the true faces of my parents. They have witnessed them shouting at the top of their voices, glaring with eyes that are red-rimmed with anger, protruding forebodingly from their sockets; my mother mistreating and harassing her maid without necessity; she hitting a coconut with a fat wooden stick in order to break it open (extremely violently); she yelling at the gardener at the top of her lungs; and even raising their voices at their ‘pet’ cat, and other negative behaviors that have made my children extremely wary.
If their fat son-in-law, being a 54-year-old, fully adult male, can be so scared of them and their angry outbursts, with the ‘loudspeakers’ naturally fitted inside their throats turned up to full volume, then what can be said for 3 young children, all of whom are under age 20?
Would a youngster not feel intimidated by such aggressive, loud, and borderline violent behavior?
The 4 of us no longer feel comfortable or safe here.
But what can be done, right? They are my parents.
For years, I had sensed that both our families wanted us to separate. I could sense the danger, and I tried to protect my home from it.
I even tried to relocate to Punjab to save our home, and to strive to attain better health for myself and my youngest child.
I suffer from hyperthermia in Karachi, and its prolonged, unrelenting summer heat that goes on for over 9 months a year, makes me suffer from recurrent dehydration, cotton-wool tongue, hot flushes, and hours-long, splitting migraine headaches. My youngest child also keeps falling sick with nausea, vomiting, and is unable to put on weight here.
The cleaner Punjab water, climate, and air suits us. But my parents just ignore our health issues whenever I bring them up. Even if I am crying, they remain cold and unaffected; whatever I say about our health and well-being, goes into one ear, and out the other.
My children and I feel imprisoned in their house. Surely, we are discouraged from going out anywhere, treated paternalistically like children if we ever do, and our food intake is severely restricted (my father has set a cap of Rs 1800 per night, for a dinner of 6 people, 5 of them adults).
When my brother sends over money for food expenses (may Allah reward him), my parents are reluctant to spend it (hail my father’s ego – the taaghoot – due to which no one besides him can be at the helm of any situation, or a car, or his television set watching the show Hoarders).
I have never, ever felt like this before in my life.
It is extremely sad and disturbing.
Conclusion – Please ‘help’ my parents
“The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”— Rosa Parks, activist and pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement for ‘black’ people that changed history forever.
Like I said, Islam obligates us to help the oppressor.
So I want to request you to please help my parents! Please make dua for them.
My parents, may Allah have mercy on them, have become so different, oppressive, two-faced, harsh, cunning, and unjust, that my children and I can barely recognize them anymore, as the same 2 people that we have hitherto known.
I don’t understand what mother or father in their right mind would want their daughter’s home to be broken up so that she comes back to their home with her children, to live with them, just to take care of her partially-disabled mother (who is still walking); wanting her (and her 3 children) to merely survive on morsels and tidbits thrown their way; to live in a previously neglected upstairs portion as a (metaphorically) chained, housebound, 24/7 slave and nurse?
Discouraging her from going out anywhere, even with her husband? Psychologically manipulating and intimidating that (mentally challenged) husband to believe that now, at the age of 54, he will not be able to find a good job, nor be able to purchase a house for himself? And doing all of this in a cynical and foreboding manner, to subjugate us and get their way?
My parents seem to be losing their grip on right and wrong, and they intend to just use me for their personal benefit no matter whose rights get trampled, or whose bright future gets adversely affected.
Please, if perchance you have read this post all the way up till here, remember them in your dua’s, because via what they are planning to do with me and my children, they seem to be headed for destruction in their Akhirah (afterlife).
As for me, I have seen much worse. Insha’Allah, my children and I will survive, as will that spineless man who dumped us here.
In my book titled Daughter: A Force to Reckon With, I have penned my life experiences about growing up as a female child in a misogynist culture.
I will end this (already too long) blog post here.
In future, I intend to talk more about my mother’s life-affecting attachment to her deceased younger brother, Rizwan Ali Aziz, and how this attachment (and his death in October 2019, when she was visiting USA) is currently detrimentally affecting her mental and physical condition. Why does she feel guilty about his death? And why is she so obsessed with the family inheritance issue that was left dangling when he died?
As for her hoarded trash and other useless, decades-old paraphernalia lying around covered in dust in the basement, I intend to clean it all out and donate it as soon as I have the power, freedom and ability to do so, insha’Allah. Top of the list: find and restore each and every piece of Islamic scripture from there, to a clean and respectable condition, then donate.
So help me, Allah!
Thanks for reading.
JazakumAllahu khair. May Allah grant all of us the rewards and blessings of the remaining days of Ramadan, especially the nights of al-Qadr. Aameen.
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Sadaf’s Space: From Blog to Books 
Allahu Musta’an,
May Allah ease our affairs for us all.
salaam. I was wondering why you don’t move out and live independently in whichever city suits your health? Why do you have to live with parents? I didn’t understand that part.
It’s clear at this point that this cannot continue…if we reach this stage, isn’t it better to just live separately and build/resolve (however you see fit) relationship with husband?
Duas for afiyah in all your affairs. Ameen.
salaam. I was wondering why you don’t move out and live independently in whichever city suits your health? Why do you have to live with parents? I didn’t understand that part.
It’s clear at this point that this cannot continue…if we reach this stage, isn’t it better to just live separately and build/resolve (however you see fit) relationship with husband?
Duas for afiyah in all your affairs. Ameen.
Wa alaikum ussalam,
You are 100% right. JazakAllahu khairan for your support and dua’s.
The links I shared in this post right in the beginning (2 links to 2 previous posts), explain the whole story. My husband currently does not have a job that can enable us to live independently, which is exacerbating the situation. Allahul musta’an.
Assalamalaikum wa rahmatul-lahi-wa barakatuhu.
i don’t know where to start…
This is a heavy, sad post to read. It is eye opening too, however, and I am glad you decided to deal with all this head-on.
I cannot possibly comment on everything you’ve written but I will say this- sometimes, the most strongest, morally upright, honest and people who are closest to Allah face the most shocking circumstances. And from close quarters. And defiantly so. And whatever you may be facing now, perhaps Allah wants to make you an example of standing up for what is right, even when the situation is extremely taboo. And a blessing in disguise that I don’t think anyone must have pointed out to you but- with your parents, husband, inlaws, etc being the way they are, it is surely a miracle from Allah that you & and your children are sane, upright people. Mashallah, and may allah always keep you that way. Ameen
Brown girls face these kind of discriminations all the time since generations of our existence, and every girl has a different story to tell. I too have struggled with this
Its perhaps both comforting yet horrifying- but you’re not alone, and you’re always in my prayers, especially on these blessed nights.
inshallah, you shift to Punjab, and find people who support you and let you thrive- and yes, even if our parents, the ones who are supposed to be our protectors, our mentors, and the people ‘we look up to’ turn out to be the complete opposite of all that- there ARE people who will understand you even if they are not your blood. The age old lie is- “no one will understand you better than your parents, even yourself”. Truth is, you WILL, if you’re a good person. ( i have witnessed it!). And if you don’t, you always have your beautiful children, and Allah. (PS- I could not email you because of various reasons, that I cannot get into here.. but I did try the Sidr leaves remedy. And it worked. May allah bless you for all the good you do, Ameen🥰)
PPS: I too faced agoraphobia of a severe kind recently.. the sidr leaves helped with that, but also what did help was homeopathy. Many people don’t believe in it, but I tried it out of utter desperation and not wanting to use any allopathic medicines for the fear of addiction- and it did help- alot. It might benefit you too, allah willing if you go to a good enough doctor.
وعليكم السلام ورحمة الله وبركاته
True, true, true words! Thank you for saying them here. I completely agree. The Qur’an is a witness to this fact too e.g. Prophet Musa being helped by Prophet Shu’aib; Prophet Yusuf being rescued and fostered by Aziz.
The irony? So many people who were unrelated to Allah’s Prophets by blood when they helped them out in their time of need, eventually became their ‘in-laws’ e.g. the Prophet’s companions Abu Bakr and `Umar, Prophet Shu’aib and Prophet Musa (عليهم السلام). As for us Pakistani’s, the word ‘in-law’ in our culture is enough to raise up our guard on high-alert and send shudders up our spine in apprehension of what could possibly happen when they are around.
May Allah accept all your worship and prayers. AAMEEN! 🤲🏻
Jazakillahu khairan for your comment, sister. May Allah grant you shifa from every ailment. Aameen.
I also use homeopathy, and alhamdulillah it works, by the will of Allah, in giving me quick shifa. Glad it worked out for you, too. Could you perhaps email me the homeopathy treatment that you successfully used for agoraphobia? I want to add to my knowledge.
May Allah expedite your release from this situation and send abundant ease and relief your way, ameen.
assalamalaikum Sadaf! Its been a while since you posted. How are you? How are things? Ive been worried since the last post. Hope things are better iA! Keep your readers posted, were genuinely worried abt u n are praying for u.
Alaikum ussalam sister. I am doing okay, but not so good.
Still trapped at my parents’ house. Still not talking to them, because they are defiant and utterly unapologetic if not discreetly and gloatingly exultant about their actions.
I do have a post planned. Insha’Allah, it will be published soon.
May Allah reward you for your concern, comment, and most of all, for your dua’s. Please continue sending them our (me and my children’s) way.
I pray that Allah relieves you of all your worries and difficulties and grants you all your righteous dua’s too. Aameen.
Assalamualaikum dear Sadaf…I have been a fan of your books and blog posts for around 15 years now ..I just love your sincerety and dedication towards our deen..I have always been inspired to better myself religiously due to your writings…I felt so sad when I read this blog post . As an Indian muslim woman struggling in my own marriage for 20 years now, I could totally relate to your feelings…I pray to Allah to ease your affairs and to give you more strength to withstand this test…Surely Allah tests the ones He loves most…
Please keep posting inspite of your situation because you are truly inspirational to muslims …