A Mercy Case

I don’t have the right words, but I have to try.

Life keeps coming, making it feel like a dream.

But I saw my roommate last week at the masjid.

And my friend followed me on Twitter.

And I asked the shaykh a fiqh question over email.

They were all there.

It was real.

الله الله الله

A minaret from Masjid al-Kufa, the seat of Imam ‘Ali’s caliphate

Writing solidifies memory. It is an act of forcing the self, and the listening world, to affirm something. Time slips ever forward, but words have a sense of stability. “Come back,” they say, “Come back to this.”

The this I speak of is so many things. It is the tears that poured from my eyes in front of Imam ‘Ali. It is the smiles of Faiyaz, Huda, Zaynab, Qurat-ul-ain, and Kadhim. It is the sadness I felt for the Iraqi mothers who lost their brave sons to the evil of ISIS. It is the hope I feel that they will be reunited once again in Paradise.

The this that I want to hold onto is the feeling that it all makes sense. That one day the Mahdi will appear, and justice will reign on this corrupt earth. That one day we will see Fatima and Husayn in beauty and splendor, our tears gone and the pain in our hearts removed. That one day the journeys we took across land and sea will appear before us as deeds beloved to the Creator, and by a Mercy we cannot comprehend, we will be welcomed home.

It is the human story. The story that begins with Adam, upon him peace – a man whose name we know so intimately, but whose traces remain only in books. They say that Adam prayed when he died:

“I testify that there is no god but God who is one and has no partners. And I testify that I am the servant of God and his vicegerent on earth. He has shown me undeserved kindness since the beginning. He made the angels prostrate before me, he taught me all the names, and then he let me dwell in his garden. But he did not make it a permanent abode and a place to call my home. Rather, he created me to live on earth and to fulfill his purpose for me upon it.” [Arastu, Rizwan; God’s Emissaries (Dearborn, I.M.A.M.: 2014) p. 68]

That is it. That is the story. We were created to live here for a purpose that each day we are trying to discern. That is why I went to Iraq.

الله الله الله

My roommate Kadhim and I in Karbala

In Karbala is when I first really felt it. I had to take a shower, as I was trembling and crying.

They killed him. They killed Husayn!

It is a strange thing to love someone you have never met. I love my wife. I love my parents. But to love Husayn? It is something I am only beginning to understand.

But in Karbala, that love was a burning pain and a searing anger for the sake of God. If all of my most pious mentors and closest Muslim friends were rounded up by government forces and executed, it would be but a drop in the ocean of Imam Husayn and his family.

They killed him. They killed Husayn!

More than anyone, three friends are responsible for instilling love of Imam Husayn in my heart: Naqi the Organizer, Faiyaz the Scholar, and Aqeela the Poet. I had asked all of them for advice on making ziyara many months prior, and it was because of that email that the possibility of going with Faiyaz emerged.

“…they were planning, and Allah was planning, and Allah is the best planner.”(8.30)

In Karbala, I did a ziyara to Imam Husayn especially for them, and wrote this poem for them:

to be a drop in the vast ocean of love for Husayn

to what more can a human aspire

to serve the one to whom even angels descend

to what rank could a soul climb higher

to know that your love is for God and from God

to what other refuge could we seek from the Fire

to have friends who understand what your heart wants to say

in your gratitude may I never retire

And so I begin to understand that Imam Husayn’s sacrifice reverberates through time, and enters our lives in myriad ways. For me, it was through people who quickly became my friends. Not friends for the sake of complaining about life, but friends for the sake of making life as meaningful as possible. As I wrote many years ago about Seth, a friend who passed and for whom I also did a ziyara:

It would have been easier to be cold. It would have been easier to not develop a friendship with him. It would have been easier not to share myself, and my dreams, and my fears….It would have been so much easier. But I would have missed so much.

Two years ago, none of this was on my radar screen. I thought I had it pretty much figured out. How wrong I was.

These friends brought me to Karbala in different ways, and I pray that as our lives meander through each others, that we are all returned by Mercy, along with our loved ones, to the abode over which Husayn is a master.

And so I can now see that those who killed Husayn utterly failed. They failed to keep Husayn from me. He is with us, my friends and I, as we struggle to live his message in 21st century America.

الله الله الله

The Shrine of Imam ‘Ali al-Hadi and Imam Hasan al-‘Askari in Samarra

A lunch with Iraqi soldiers near ISIS territory and hundreds of pilgrims from Karachi is a stark reminder of the bodily risks of loving the Ahl al-Bayt. And yet, our congregational prayer was one of the most peaceful I have ever known. Fitting that it all took place in the presence of two Imams whose lives were filled with persecution.

But that was not the moment I will most remember. It was holding onto the dharih like a distraught child clutches its mother.

“I came halfway across the world for you. I cannot believe I am here. Please please, help me to understand who you were. Who you are!”

I am still trying to understand. Every day I am trying to understand. The words of al-Ziyara al-Jami’a al-Kabira haunt me:

whoever declares loyalty to you has in fact declared loyalty to Allah

whoever shows enmity towards you has in fact shown enmity towards Allah

whoever loves you has in fact loved Allah

whoever hates you has in fact hated Allah

and whoever holds fast to you has in fact held fast to Allah

At least I am trying. Writing these words is me trying to make the best use of the free time Allah has given me.

Maybe that’s enough right now.

May Allah accept.

الله الله الله

A view of the interior of the Shrine of Imam ‘Ali in Najaf

I don’t know much. I feel that these words are a whirlwind of emotions and ideas, still searching for a home in my heart and mind. But I know this: my heart is still in Iraq. It is in Kadhimayn at fajr prayer. It is in the Shrine of Imam ‘Ali in the middle of the night. It is in every news story of every unspecified Iraqi multitude that is torn apart by an ISIS suicide bomb. It is the book market of Najaf, where I realized I know so little. It is in the hope that one day this will all make sense, and we will look back and see the traces of God’s guidance woven into the days of our earthly lives. That we will echo Adam’s final words, “He has shown me undeserved kindness since the beginning.”

They say that Adam, peace be upon him, is buried in Najaf. I am not qualified to confirm nor deny such a doctrine. But I like the idea that I stopped to say two rak’ahs ziyara prayer for the father of the human story, while on a journey of discovering the meaning of my place within it.

A journey that continues.

الله الله الله