Tuesday 3 August 2010

Allah knows best

I've recently been thinking a lot about a friend that I haven't spoken with in some years now.

This friend used to be a colleague of mine. We worked in the same office but in completely different departments, we would get chatting over the photocopy machine and that's how our friendship started.

When I got married, she and one other person were the only people I invited from my office to my wedding. I had a small wedding, so each and every person there was very dear and special.

Soon after I got married I changed jobs and my new office was nowhere near the old. But we continued to stay in touch over email, SMS and phone. We met up a few times, and when I was with her I always enjoyed her company, we got on well, understood each other, had a similar sense of humour, made each other laugh a lot.

Soon after that I started wearing hijab. I was a little nervous at how certain people might feel about it, but thought if they are true friends it won't bother them.
The response I got from colleagues was really positive actually. It was a great conversation starter, and people were sincere and interested to hear about my reasons behind it.

People from my office were also friends with people from my old office where I used to work, where my friend still worked.
Gradually I found that every time I texted her, I wouldn't get a reply, if I called, no-one answered, if I left a voicemail no-one returned my call, if I emailed, still no response. This went on for almost a year and then one day I finally got a response to a voicemail, in the form of a text, saying "sorry, manic year, all is well, hope you're ok". That was it, despite more attempts on my part I have not had any other contact from her. And lately, I have been wondering if she had heard about my hijab from someone and maybe that was why she stepped away from me. I know that if that is the case then I should just think that I now know that she isn't a true friend, but I just find that so hard to accept. You have to remember, my wedding was really small, and she came to it because her friendship was really important and valued, how can such an important friendship just vanish like that? I thought she was a friend for life.
So it hurts.

But yesterday when I was reading Qur'an something I've read many times before just clicked something new within me.

I won't go into what it was that I read, as I don't wanted to be quoted out of context later by anyone, so often in the western media verses from the Qur'an are quoted out of context and makes our holy book and Muslims look bad. But the point is that Allah (swt) has given us so much guidance in the Qur'an and He knows best, and even though that has been difficult for me to swallow that I no longer have her friendship, I now feel satisfied and at rest about it since reading that verse, and its something I've read so many times before, but this time, its meaning had something more for me. I love that about the Qur'an no matter how many times you read it, you still learn something new from it.

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