The Mercy Of Allah

Decline

24 months ago, I was normal. I woke up, I skipped breakfast, took the bus to school, sat with my friends, took the bus home, did my homework, watched TV, had my dinner, texted my friends and went to sleep.

It was a cycle that I went through continuously starting in August, when the academic year started. The time when summer still has a good grip on you but you prepare for Autumn. In New York, you can feel the cold creep in on you until you realise that your gonna have to start wearing a jacket out and you don't need the cold air conditioning.

I wasn't a muslim in practice, which is something that I've come to regret. I firmly believed in Allah (SWT) and his messenger (SAW). I kept all thirty fasts, I read the Quran but not as regularly as I really should have. I guess I put my education before my faith and in a way that was a really stupid decision. As I sit alone in the hospital, I begin to wonder whether if I had been pious, then maybe my life would have different.

It started 12 months ago, minus a day when I was first sat next to Calvin Creek in my AP Calculus class, that idiot. He was a jock obviously, the kind me and my friends despise and I didn't wear a hijab (head cover worn by Muslim women) at that time so I never told anyone about my faith and nobody knew about my faith.

At school I was this Latin looking girl with a Latin sounding name whose vegetarian and never let's anyone go to her house. The girl whose never had a boyfriend or been kissed. The other Muslim kids respected my decision to not want to come out with my faith and so did the teachers. So Imagine my surprise when Calvin Creek passes me a note in the middle of our psychology class saying

" I know your secret, terrorist."

The second I read that, I scrunched up the note and paid no mind to Calvin throughout the entire class. I looked down at my notebook to stonily make notes all the while wonder how in fudge did this guy find out. All the while his presence made my hairs stand on edge. He thinks I'm a terrorist, the fudging bum must have found out I'm Muslim, but by definition how does that make me a terrorist?

This racist white boy must be making assumptions, getting a reaction out of me, something.

This is not happening. I thought to myself, honestly, people here probably won't take a good liking to Muslims and I'm not ready to face the racism and the questions. I can't give away the fact that I'm Muslim, maybe he doesn't have solid proof that I am a Muslim and this is just some test.

I gave him a sidelong glance to see he was focused on the teacher. Great, he wasn't even giving me any indication. I dropped the matter and continued writing at fast pace to miss out on the notes that I didn't write down. But I wasn't focused and until I sort this out with this sniveling jock, I doubt I'll be able to focus at all.

That's why after class I grabbed onto his arm as he was walking away. Great, touching other men, might as well just walk into hellfire and salute the shaytaan (satan). "Calvin, what was that note even about?" I asked him, careful to keep a neutral face.

He walked up to me slowly, sizing me up "I wanna know Jasmine, are you a muslim?" he asked, keeping an innocent face. I tried to read his emotions but he looked like a skilled liar. I learn't my lesson the hard way that just because they look innocent and stupid, doesn't mean that they are.

"No." That felt painful to say, the guilt that went through me knowing that my creator heard me disown my faith in front of someone just because I am afraid made me hate myself even more. "Why call me a terrorist, that was a dick move Calvin. You could have just asked me nicely." I rolled my eyes and walked away from him, I didn't need him to see me with my guilty face.

"Lying is a sin Jasmine" He called out from the other side of the hallway but before I could turn around to argue with him he was gone. I searched for him in the crowd and decided against trying to find him, it would only confirm his suspicions. The rest of the day, I was on edge.

9/11 happened only 15 years ago but the amount of hate crimes that have been circling, the hatred towards the Muslims was scary. People died. I didn't want to be on that list of hate crimes. My dad lost all of his jobs until he disowned the faith, my mum took off the hijab, my sisters turned to western clothing and my brothers no longer visited the mosque. It's been like that ever since, even though the hate crimes died down there was still that fear, the paranoia.

I specific memory I remember was walking down the street, if was 5 minutes away from my house. We where going back home from a friends house we visited and we kept our heads down, ignoring the stares. A group of men that I couldn't really remember surrounded us, called us terrorists, blamed us. My mother begged for them to leave us alone and I was astonished with their harsh words. She was pushed to the ground and her hijab was ripped off of her head, as the men laughed at her. That memory still bring tears to my eyes seeing her being humiliated like that, paying for someone else's crimes.

I closed my eyes and returned to the situation at hand, I don't want to look like a weakling at school weeping on my way to AP Biology class.

If Calvin where to say anything about me being Muslim and I where to confirm anything then that would be the end of me and the start of relentless bullying. The start of scars, the start of never ending hate just because a few people where stupid.

Me and my family where happy, I was Juwayriya Khan, now I'm Maria Joseph. My family changed their lives just to stay alive, we started to live a lie but then that lie slowly became the truth to us. Before we would draw the blinds and pray in the dark. Trips to the mosque became occaisonal and soon our prayer mats started to beg for attention, the mosque was never visited again and our imaan weakened.

I guess this was a wake up call from Allah that this will all come back and bite me in the arse. It was, it definitely was because that period after 9/11 left all Muslims crippling, including me and Calvin Creek started the decline of my faith in Allah.