A Page Left Blank

Chapter 24: An unattainable dream

17th Feb 2021 

"Do people think once they say, "We believe," that they will be left without being put to the test?"

[Qur'an 29:2]

Chapter 24:

An unattainable dream

Rufaida spooned some rice into the two boxes resting on the counter, before proceeding to mount last night's mutton curry on it. She closed the lids, placing one box in her bag and the other in her mother's jute basket.

"Ammi, I'm leaving, I'll see you in the evening in sha Allah," she called after her, as she slung her leather bag over her shoulder.

"Beta, one second," Asma interrupted, coming out of her room, dressed in an abaya while holding a bundle of her students' answer sheets that she had carried home to grade the previous day. "Do you need more time, or can I hope for a response today?"

Rufaida bit the inside of her cheek, last night's conversation playing in her mind. Her mum had put forward the same question as she did now, and Rufaida had told her she needed to pray Istikhara once more before she proclaimed her verdict.

So now when she was caught in the same query, Rufaida forced herself to come up with a reply and get done with this. But the truth was, she didn't know what she wanted. Ever since her encounter with Afreen, it felt like her heart was carrying extra baggage that had no other place to rest. She wanted to be mad at Afreen for proposing this, she wanted to straight-up confront Ahmed and ask him if it was he who felt this way about her, she had so many questions and she needed so many answers, she was no more as composed as she had been.

But the worst of it all was that at times when she wasn't preoccupied with her mind, it was her heart that was driving her nuts, weeping at a loss of something that didn't belong to her in the first place. If her heart was a person, she imagined putting it in a cage and running far away so she didn't have to bear the questions it had the audacity to throw at her. She detested the fact that her heart had turned into a rebel and she was losing control over it. She couldn't believe it had begun to imagine Afreen's suggestion, and wonder what it would be like to spend the rest of her life with a guy like Ahmed.

The question was always followed by an ache in her chest because the image was so beautiful that it actually hurt.

For as long as she could remember, Rufaida was always considered the girl who ran away from marriage. At an age where young girls dreamed of lavish weddings and smartly dressed grooms, she worked on her goals to ease her mother's burdens. While it seemed like she hated all men and the topic of marriage barely piqued her interest, it wasn't true. The real reason for her anti-marriage attitude was her fear of never being able to find a man who would honor her the way Islam prescribed. She never thought she could meet a man in her life who struck the right balance between deen and Dunya, who feared Allah enough to give his wife her rightful place, and she had given up on the concept altogether.

But she would never admit Ahmed had proven to her, time and again, that such men existed. He was humble and well-mannered and his actions were a reflection of the deen he followed. She had never seen him miss a prayer, he never looked her in the eye when he spoke, and any person who stretched his hand in front of him never had to return empty. She knew guys like Ahmed were rare and now that she had stumbled upon someone like him, her heart, who had been snoozing all her life, now stood all wide-eyed and jaw dropped, working in hyper mode, unwilling to let go.