Al-Hasan Al-Basri said: The believers are commanded to be patient in the religion that Allah chose for them, Islam. They are not allowed to abandon it in times of comfort or hardship, ease or calamity, until they die as Muslims. They are also commanded to endure against their enemies, those who hid the truth about their religion (At Tabari 7:502).
May 24, 2023
Last night, I was groaning in pain.
I remained in the washroom, alone, gasping for breath and waiting for the pain to be subduced anyhow.
I could hear the mild laughter and chatter of my brother. I knew dad and mom were sleeping, quite oblivious of what I was going through. But I know that if they knew, they would run from to and fro, with an extensive lecture on how I should maintain a proper diet and to what extent my carelessness knows no bounds, which are true.
But I was kind of missing a trace of warmth. I didn’t know how to, just how to tell someone that I am in severe pain.
I know Allah is always there, with me.
It’s just that I don’t know how to talk with Him. I am a silent person. I have difficulty in expressing myself. Oftentimes, I don’t know what’s happening. Most of the time, I don’t find any logic or explanation or cues as to what is happening and how so.
Despite this situation dyed with loneliness, I found my mom preparing a bottle of saline at midnight and rice porridge at dawn, just for me. I mean, who else will ever do that for me? No one!
Not to mention, I am constantly being reminded of wearing winter clothes by my dad. I know. No one except my dad will be that much concerned over my clothing.
Yea Rabb, safeguard them. Please, do that, for real. I am counting on you.
January 5, 2025
……
Can I send a letter to a destination where it will never land upon?
My emotions are all over the place.
Lost.
Numb.
Surreal.
AndIdon’tknowwhatishappeninginsidemeandsurroundingme.
And some more.
An array of confusion, that aching silent sob, pain in a shape I can’t exactly figure out.
I am just gritting my teeth.
And I am praying. With my desperate hand gesture, with my tangled mess, with a paradoxical paranoia, with anything, with nothing.
I so wish to disappear right now.
To not get tangled with more lives, more lives. To not mess with anyone and anything.
Now I know why Hazrat Maryam Maryam (AS) cried out: “Alas! I wish I had died before this, and was a thing long forgotten!” [Quranic Transliteration 19:23]
I so wish to die, to just vanish, to never return here.
I so wish…
19.06.26
Bushra Tasnim
I went to university today. I was in girl’s common room to grab a window-side chair. Aside from feeling lonely, I didn’t feel that well physically. Something was off. I don’t know which deficiency it was this time. It doesn’t matter what the names are, deficiencies and diseases don’t ever betray to make you feel the worst, their loyalty is at its best, every single time.
I fell asleep at one point. And I happened to see entangled dreams. I saw two persons. I had a way of connection with them through this dream. But the surprising thing is I’ve not talked with them in real life for how long I don’t remember. Bondings once broken/detached can never be put back- this is what I think. Because making connection in such manner slowly takes away yourself, your last ounce of self-respect and the supposed version of reality from you. Hence, my subconscious self got this unsolicited connection with them-not the literal persons who might be far away from my idea of who they are.
Oh yes, back to my earlier story. I feel completely numb these days. But my numbness has different versions.
At times it is me staring at a thing, dissecting it into so many pieces that my inspection apparently can beat any of the Hubble telescopes from these days.
Sometimes my numbness is equivalent to this throbbing pain coming from where I can not exactly pinpoint. It’s just there. And I’m there as well without doing much. That pain does all the thing which I’ve to silently endure.
There’s another kind of numbness by the way. I think it is a sort of uplifted numbness. A different type of lightened aura seems to emerge from some scenarios, both real and unreal, and I know that these are happy moments which don’t require my processing of them in their actual forms. It’s like how a cricket ball bounces over the head of the batsman who can not even make any contact to this far flown ball with his own bat on the crease.
Sometimes it’s me simply zoning out.
Also, there happen to be these disorganized and muffled words coming from my mouth to a simple question posed to me. My vocal system must be in a dilemma as to which word to use to denote anything, for pretty much everything has ended up in a singlehandedly drawn line bereft of both emotion and expression on my part.
I can’t just extract some handful of words from an endless ocean of bluish grief, blackened lapses, raw experiences & deepened injuries, none of which is visible to the outside world. It is me, carrying all the load alone or this is what I’ve thought thus far.
However, it turns out that I was not alone. Despite my mistakes after mistakes, lapses after lapses, He exactly is aware of all these things I’ve gone through. He has been there with me even before my birth. He will be there with me for ‘eternity’, which, aptly suggested by the name, doesn’t and won’t have an ending. It’s a no-ending story between the Almighty Lord and one of His fallible slaves, me being the shameless me. Simply put, I am a nobody and yet He has picked me up, has paid attention to me and is always there in my stories.
My dream was suggestive of my inner agony followed by some halfway resolutions through which my burried up self was on a smooth sailing ride to an unknown destination. After a long period of time, I felt ‘peace’ in my dream, to my utter surprise. I thought that I was incapable of processing anything. But it turns out that my Lord has enabled my subconscious self to do the very thing – feeling or experiencing anything with all my might.
Who cares if it is a dream or a reality?!
Now I know that He knows.
He knows everything. He manages everything. He perceives our tangled messes we’ve created out of ourselves. He has known all the while. And as long as my Lord is beside me, I am okay. I will be okay. I’ve to be okay, for this is not about me, rather it is about how everything seems to revolve around Him, much to our oblivion.
‘How can ye reject the faith in Allah?- seeing that ye were without life, and He gave you life; then will He cause you to die, and will again bring you to life; and again to Him will ye return (2:28)’.
Bushra Tasnim
16/08/22
bushrawriteshere 