A Page Left Blank

Chapter 23: The price of the prize

5th Feb, 2021

"Verily, the hearts of the children of Adam, all of them, are between the two fingers of the Merciful as one heart. He directs them wherever He wills. O Allah, the director of the hearts, direct our hearts to Your obedience."

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2654

Chapter 23:

The price of the prize

Rufaida was no more the lady seated in a pretty restaurant, in conversation with a friend with whom she shared massive history. Her mind had now gone back several years, to a time when she was a fresher in college and one of her semester assignments demanded her to read a fictional novel and write a detailed review. She had always felt reading fiction was a waste of time, you could be gaining so much Islamic knowledge instead of flipping through pages of a book whose events were made up. On the day of judgement, we would be questioned on how we spent our time, and you had to be engaged in better things if you didn't want to be ashamed while giving your answer. She had nothing against book lovers and readers and books that helped you grow, but she had seen people addicted to these imaginative stories that barely delivered real-life lessons, and she had always steered clear of it.

So now, when it came as an assignment, she had taken her time choosing the book she would invest her thoughts on. After consulting Sakina, her only Muslim classmate and avid reader, she finally zeroed in on a spiritual romance novel, ensuring the story wasn't something that had offensive adult content. Sakina had warned her that just because a book was labeled spiritual, it didn't mean it followed the guidelines of Islam because writers with little knowledge were not aware of the fact that just because they got their characters married in the story and the love that they shared was now halal, it was still wrong to unabashedly reveal personal details of their married life. They were crossing a dangerous territory, to instigate the young minds of their readers and cause thoughts that could lead to zina, which was a grave sin.

So after making sure all these details were taken care of, the novel that Rufaida ended up reading made her cry tears she never knew her eyes had the capacity to shed. A heartbreakingly beautiful story, of a chaste Muslim man and a modest Muslim girl, the love they shared for each other, for the sake of Allah, was so pure that even Rufaida, who maintained a hundred-mile radius from any path that ventured to marriage, had felt her heart soften. The story was so achingly sweet that in a very rare situation, in the weakness of the moment, Rufaida had wondered what it would be like to find a man who loved her this way, with the aim of having her beside him in the gardens of Jannah. The entire book and what it did to her had pulled at her heartstrings and as delightful as it was to lose herself in the world of dreams, Rufaida had gripped her heart for becoming liberal and she had thus stubbornly caged it, chastising it for invading a boundary it had no business delving into.

So now, while she should have been shocked by the question Afreen pitched at her, that too at a moment she least expected it, all she felt was nostalgic. She was back to being the girl whose heart had, even if it was just for a moment, overpowered its mind, wandering on a journey whose destination was love.

And just like she had responded to the situation all those years back, she did so now.

When Rufaida spoke, she wanted to laugh at how composed she was. She was like the gentle waves that hid the storm, the cool breeze that carried a hurricane, the firm soil that did not give you the slightest idea of the seed bursting inside it.

"Afreen," Rufaida started. "I admired you for your maturity after meeting you so many years later, but clearly, you haven't comprehended the words you just uttered."