Episode 38 - You will see them in a more joyful sight, by the will of Allah!

I wrote this reflection in 1431 AH, 2010 AD:

My current ordeal of being away from my family began when my twin daughters (Layn and Lajin) were five months old.. and one of them still has an image stuck in my mind; I would place her on her back on the ground, then she would flip onto her stomach and lift her chest with her hands.. when our eyes met, she smiled a smile of victory and her head shook with its weight on her small body!

As much as this sight was joyful at the time, it has become painful to me now as I am away from my children in exile. I wish to see the little ones growing day by day, to see the development of their movements stage by stage; they flip over, then crawl, then walk holding onto the furniture, then walk short distances with quick, eager steps encouraged by those present.. this stage is passing now while I am away from them, losing the pleasure that will never return!

This thought was a painful sting to my senses.. until I told myself: (Do not grieve, you will see them in a more joyful sight, by the will of Allah)! {Perhaps our Lord will give us better than it. Indeed, we are to our Lord returning [68:32]}.. I told myself: What do you gain if you experience the development of your daughters' movements until they grow up and approach the age of accountability, then they surprise you by rejecting wearing the hijab for example?! What beautiful memory remains at that time if your daughters from your own flesh reject the rituals of a religion for which you sacrifice?!

I ask Allah the Almighty, whom I have been tested for, to compensate you not only in the Hereafter, but also in this world, so that you see your two daughters one day, having put on the hijab on their own initiative to go out with you on a journey, and their eyes filled with joy at what they have done, and a smile of satisfaction drawn on their innocent faces.. At that time, there will be a more beautiful, purer, and more radiant sight that spreads joy in your heart than any sight you have lost by being away from them {If Allah knows good in your hearts, He will give you better than what has been taken from you and forgive you [8:70]}..

Often we lament the blessings we lose or stages of our lives we do not live as we wish because we believe they are not compensated. Have good thoughts of your Lord, O brother, and ask Him to compensate you with good for what you have lost. And remember at the same time that this world is too trivial to strive for enjoyment of all its permissible things.. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: ((And the bow of one of you in Paradise or the place of a whip is better than the world and all that is in it))!.. So our lamentation over the loss of worldly enjoyment is more than the loss of great opportunities to win Paradise.. Indeed, this lamentation is a sign of our heedlessness, which we must be ashamed of and strive to rectify.

It is expected of you, O believer, not to strive for enjoyment of every moment of this world, but of those who do not believe in the Hereafter, for he laments what he misses from it because it is everything in his view.

So attach yourself, O brother, to the blessings of the Hereafter, and do not whisper to yourself that there are enjoyments in this world that you miss without having a compensation of their kind in the Hereafter.. Are you not, if you enter Paradise, able to ask for the return of what you missed from the enjoyment of this world? Yes {For them is whatever they desire with their Lord [39:34]}.. but I do not think you will do it! For a bliss that the Almighty described as great {Indeed, Allah has with Him a great reward [9:22]}.. will occupy you from an enjoyment that has passed in a world that does not weigh with Allah the wing of a mosquito!

So comfort yourself with sacrifice for the sake of Allah.

Note: The years passed and her sister Sarah put on the hijab on her own as a child, then she died with a good end, praise be to Allah.