After a long,
hectic day’s work, I decided to have a cup of coffee at a nearby café before
going home. No sooner had I sat by a window when it started to rain. Looking at
the green hills that extended to the horizon was a magnificent view from a
fourth floor window.
As I enjoyed my
hot coffee, listening to the symphony of the rain, I looked far at the horizon admiring
a white cloud clearly made visible by a dark, grayish backdrop of a distant
rain. A song I had never listened to for many years popped into my mind; a
clear imagery of what I was seeing. It is by the late Abdalle Sagsag and the
melodious voice of the legendary Faisal Mushteeg felt soothing the mind.
Out of the blue,
a tall, slim, beautiful lady appeared and brought me back from those distant
memories with her asking if the seat next to mine was taken!
She sat just my
opposite. Smiling, she introduced herself as Asli. “Ha igu ciyaarin!”“Are
you kidding?” I exclaimed. This is so because she was carrying an Oud and wore
a headscarf, two things a conservative like me always finds incompatible. Asli
told me she was a pediatrician and had also a degree in Fine Arts and that she
sometimes worked as a fashion designer, something which exacerbated my
confusion!
Looking out of
the window, she asked me if I could see anything special outside. I told her
what I had just experienced. “That is great” she remarked, adding “you are not
blind to the natural beauty, these days people are not always that observant” my
reply was just a sincere smile. Stirring her coffee, Asli once again said “Imagine
the sun was shining as it rained what you would have seen”
I had nothing to
say. She picked her Oud and told me to let her know if I remembered anything as
she played. Admiring her expert command
of the Oud, I could not control myself and involuntarily sang “….
Waxa aad udhigantaa dhibicdiyo cadceedoo isku soo dhawaadee…….” A song written by the great poet Haji Gujis and performed by the legendary Giriig, which roughly
translates to “….You are like a clear drops of water falling from the sky as
the sun shines….to me you are like a pure diamond from heaven”
She then told me
that no matter how much we tried to despise music and poetry or the art in
general, our souls will involuntarily fall for it. “God is good and He loves what
is good” that is what our holy Prophet Muhammed taught us she added. I asked
her why she was covered and hid her beauty like an oppressed women yet she was
a highly educated professional. With a stern smile she told me that she was
disappointed in me to think like that.
“I thought you
were a Muslim! Why do you talk naively like those who don’t know what Islam
is?” she gently asked, Asli continued to talk to me and explained contrary to the
perception that every highly educated Muslim woman loses her identity and acts
like a Western, majority of the Muslim women are not.
“It is one thing
to live in a modern world and another to be a Muslim” she continued, telling me
that Islam has never oppressed women but rather came to their rescue. It is
Islam that liberated women and guaranteed their rights of inheritance, economic
freedom, intellectual freedom and freedom of choice a millennium ago. “Those
trying to educate us on our rights were in caves by then” she angrily replied
again, “why is it that you, our Muslim men, can’t differentiate patriarchal cultures
and Islam?” she added.
Noticing how
cornered and uneasy I felt, she stopped and again played her Oud this time
herself singing one of my favorite songs “Ma Jinbaa, Ma Jaanbaa” by Maandeeq, after which she turned to me and said “
this is my personal choice, it is how I express my submission to my lord;
Allah” she continued to tell me that
Quran does not coerce people to follow it, but rather being the source of freedom it only gives people the choice of
either being God conscious and follow his way or to reject and face the
judgment in the hereafter. My motto in
this life is, she said, “Covering outward timely beauty to reveal the
everlasting inner beauty”. This had
really touched me and sent me into deep thoughts. I was in awe of her beautiful
figure and artistic expressions of her talk. I realized how we can sometimes
descend so low to only consider the opposite sex as an object of lust. A lower
animals’ behavior that can make us blind to the real beauty of human beings and
its essence that is to respect and cherish human values and variety of cultures
in order to appreciate and deeply meditate to understand the hidden divine
secrets in God’s creation.
I tried to talk to her and called her name
loudly, Asli. A waitress collecting the empty cup before me replied “Ndio, hii ni kahawa Asili”. Meaning
“Yes, this is of genuine quality coffee”.
That woke me up
from my day dream and sent away my guest, Asli the ghost, who had me appreciate
the beauty of God’s creation including her.
What a day! What
a ghost!
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