“Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
it doesn’t matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair
Even if you have broken your vows
A thousand times
Come, yet again, come.”

- Attributed to Muslim poet and mystic Jalal ad Din Rumi

Today was a day of returns – to the blogging world, to the mosque for the first time in eight years, and for one young man, a return to his Lord, a journey that we all must make one day.

Imam Sayed Ahmed Shahin, of Masjid Dar ul Salam (the Islamic Society of San
Francisco -ISSF) downtown lost his son to gunfire three days ago.

His son, Ali Shahin, was only 18 years old and had recently completed the Umrah (religious pilgrimage to Mecca).

I had a free ticket to hear Barack Obama speak at a pricey, high-profile SF women’s luncheon but once I got the news this morning, there wasn’t even a question of going to it. In the face of such an unexpected and devastating personal loss to Ali’s elderly parents, and the gravity of a life’s ending, a presidential candidate’s stumping is just noise.

Much as I am leery of meddling mosque goers, I wanted to be present at Ali’s janaza (funeral prayer) with my community (the good and bad of it) around me.

As I bathed this morning, running my hands over my strong, living body, I couldn’t help but think of Ali’s loved ones washing his dead body to prepare it for the funeral. My father sometimes speaks of doing the same for my grandfather after his death in 1995.

It is an intimate, private farewell – a final embrace – to a loved one, knowing we will never hold them again, feel their arms around us, or hear their laughter near us. It is one of our last gestures of physical love and caring for the deceased, one that I have always found touching and bittersweet, especially in a society that gives its dead to strangers to be stripped and filled with chemicals.

Imam Shahin led the janaza for his son himself. He wept…and hearing a father’s repeated, wrenching, thick-throated but controlled appeals to God to spare his young son even the barest touch of the fire brought me to tears too, standing there shoulder to shoulder with other quietly weeping women.

It’s been reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings upon him) said that the most difficult test is when God decides to take back a child unto Himself from his/her parents. The Prophet (peace and blessings upon him) wept on the death of his own young son, Ibrahim and said: “The eyes shed tears and the heart feels pain, but we utter only what pleases our Lord. O Ibrahim! We are aggrieved at your demise.” As far as I am aware, he buried not one but all of his children – except the Lady Fatima, may God be pleased with her.

How difficult it is to attain faith, to be a believer: to acknowledge at the hardest of times that we belong to God, that we trust Him even when we do not understand life’s unfolding or ending or suffering. If we are spiritually prepared, we can allow ourselves to be humans feeling loss, and then allow faith and patience to reassert themselves in our hearts as believers.

It’s easy to write what should be our ideal reaction, but difficult for me to imagine saying “alhamdolillah” in such circumstances. These days the thought of sudden death is with me often, with suicide bombings in my hometown of Islamabad, home now to my sister, nieces and nephew. The thought of anything happening to them, of them being hurt in even any slight way frightens me. May I never know what it is to have to call upon those deep spiritual reserves in the face of such loss, may my iman (faith) never be so tested…but if it is, stand Thou beside me.

When Imam Shahin passed me in the hall on the way to the graveyard where he would bury his son, his eyes were red from weeping but his face was composed. The father walked slowly, supported by others; a believer, bowed low but patient.

We all must make the return that Ali Shahin made today and many of us will make it as unexpectedly as he did.

Turn in reflection and return to God in the time you’ve been given. No one is promised tomorrow.

At some point, sooner than we all imagine, we will be the ones being given the last bath by loved ones, lowered into darkness and, with our spiritual self still aware, hear them walk away, leaving us alone with the reality of our actions, in the presence of God.

“Even if you have broken your vows/A thousand times/Come, yet again, come…”

“If you come to Me sincerely with a world of sin, I’ll give you a world of forgiveness.”

That is His promise, but we have to take the first step ourselves; we have to re/turn to Him to realize it.

“We will surely test you
with something of fear and hunger,
and loss of possessions, persons, or crops.
But give good news to the patient,
those who say,
when calamity afflicts them,
‘Inna lillahey wa inna illeyhey rajioun - We belong to God and to God we return.’
They are the ones
upon whom are blessings
from their Lord,
and mercy;
and they are the ones who are guided.”

- Qur’an 2:155-157

—

As Ramadan approaches, please make du’a that God grants Ali’s parents patience and strength and grants Ali peace in his grave and a blessed afterlife.

If you would like to help or contact Ali’s family you may do so at:

Imam Sayed Ahmed Shahin c/o ISSF
20 Jones Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

[Photo credit: Bazuki Muhammad-Corbis/Longing for the Divine Calendar 2007]