Pregnant Widow

Story of Thanna - Single Mom

Ramadan Thought: Are you ready to return to your Creator?

My name is Thanna Alghabban. The year is 2015 and the year I will be celebrating my 28th Birthday. This year is also the year I married my soulmate and best friend, the year we found out I was pregnant, and also the year I lost my husband. Here is my story...

Background

I was born in Manchester and moved to London when I was seven years old. I was raised in a moderately religious Muslim family, all of whom observed hijab. I therefore decided to observe hijab myself when I was eight years old. I continued to wear a headscarf (though not in the most modest of ways) up until I was 25. At age 25, I decided that I was going through a midlife crisis and that my hijab was the foundation on which my crisis stood.

Unfortunately, although my original justification for removing my headscarf was ironically to try and focus on the other pillars of my religion, such as praying, fasting, reading more, I found myself going in the opposite direction

I had just started work at a law firm and so began my "westernised" lifestyle; "drinks after work", "Christmas parties", "events", you name it- I did it. I justified my participation as just doing what was necessary to integrate with my peers, and because I didn't drink and I didn't engage in what was strictly and very outwardly "haram", day by day I found myself becoming numb to the situations I was being exposed to. Soon enough they became normal; what seemed like a big deal at first, became normal and what became normal, became instilled in my life.

The second I met him, something in me woke up, suddenly going out with my friends wasn't important, and suddenly "living my life" meant nothing.

For about a year, I got worse and worse, until I eventually reached what I thought to be a "balance". I call it a "balance", but what it was really just a new outlook on religion, where even though I was committing what might be seen as 'minor' acts of haram on a daily basis, I justified it to myself by the following ideology; "I am a good person with a good heart, even though I am doing this, God knows that my intention is pure and therefore this will be taken into consideration" - a laughable ideology now that I look back.

During my "balance" I met my husband; Mohammad, through the unorthodox, not-so-Islamic means of social media dating, a platform called "Tinder". After speaking for one day, we decided to meet up for a meal on 11th June 2014. The second I met him, something in me woke up, suddenly going out with my friends wasn't important, and suddenly "living my life" meant nothing. Something just clicked for the both of us, and despite us both not being hugely bothered about what was strictly halal and haram at the time, something inside pushed us to what seemed like the right path and we decided to get Islamically married before we pursued our relationship further. So on 21stJune 2014, just ten days after I had met what I would soon find out to be my true other half, we had our Nikkah recited.

I moved in with him straight away, I found myself tiring of my old lifestyle just by being with him. I wanted to become a better person although I gave myself all the time in the world to get to the best person I could be. Similarly, he began integrating with my family more and it sparked a new-found interest in religion for him. It was safe to say we were both headed on the right path to becoming better people, but it was a very slow progressing path, one that was part of a 20-30 year life plan.