.بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Your Lord and my Lord is: the Most, Most, Most Merciful,

Loving, Nurturing, Kind, Knowing, and Wise.

Sometimes, we might find ourselves… not paying enough heed to this fact. Who provided for you, the chai in your cup, and the love in your lungs, and

the multiplicities of our human tongues? [Arabic, and Swahili, and Spanish, and Dutch, and…]

Who decided that you would go to that place, where you would encounter that beautiful ‘little’ thing. Leave your shoes before the door. There is so much to do, here. And people to meet, and things to see, and to seek to better understand.

It’s Masjid al-Haram, and wondering, I suppose, when might be the next time, In Shaa Allah, that I go there. How will that experience be different, for me, from the last time?

What has happened since then, and… What had been the values of all these things, and… What happens next?

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Tie up your laces. Be prepared. Equipped:

There’s just been so many things to process. Re-evaluate. Re-learn, perhaps, via fresher perspectives. And actually: yes, I quite love that. A new day, a new dilemma. New things to do, and new ways to develop.

The vicissitudes and waves, sometimes gentle and soothing, sometimes roaring and storm-like: of life. They will come and they will go, and your Lord, the Most Merciful, has not forsaken you, and nor has He left you alone.

He’ll bring peace to your heart. Flowers through your door. Qur’an to your mind and ears, and good friends to sit, facing, on the train journey to the masjid. And: next to, while being enlightened with knowledge. And: opposite, outside, on a royal-blue-coloured night. In the darkness, too. And then: on the train journey back home.

Yesterday, I met a woman called Eman, who is a mother of four, Maa Shaa Allah, and she is from Egypt. She has offered to help teach me Arabic, free of charge. I met her little daughter too: she is named after a type of red flower.

A couple from Warsaw, Poland. Kind of lost, in finding the train station. We’d been placed on each other’s paths; there had been Khayr in it.

I saw a man playing karate or something with kids outside the masjid. Making sound effects. [Brothers: if you are ever trying to impress a woman… be good with kids. I think it would be quite difficult to find a woman who disagrees with this.

You’re welcome for the advice.]

I saw adults gently, lovingly, handshaking little children, making them feel valued. And hugs, and reunions. A girl asking her mother, bit by bit, about how to do Wudhu [Wudhu: how we wash ourselves, typically before praying/reading the Qur’an.]

And gorgeous trees, in bloom, and a single bird, finding his Lord’s provision, within one of them. It’s Written.

The whole entire Plan is quite majestic, and sublime.

I learned a little more about the other People of the Book [Jewish people and Christians], and about how we share such things as the high, high, high importance of prayer, and fasting, and charity.

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I find I can’t be so afraid. I can’t grieve so much, or be so sad. I have this Lord to love, and Who loves and cherishes me, most beautifully. I have these people to love, and to be loved by. The beautiful, sublime, awe-inspiring Qur’an. The natural world. Food. Knowledge, illumination. Smiles, and light, and beauty, and fun and joy, and kindness. Things that feel quite like poetry.

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If I look back, and, indeed, within the present: I find so many signs. Presents.

Pointing towards His Mercy. The Most, Most, Most Merciful. [Don’t let anybody fool you into thinking, for a moment, otherwise.] He is:

The Best, Most Supreme, of Providers. Subhaan Allah.