Finding Islam

9: Brotherhood

--- K I N G ---

"Party of the freaking year!" I rolled my eyes as o heard Tyler's voice from a distance. He could be so loud sometimes. Too loud even. He was one of the worst people to be around after a hangover.

"Hey, hey, hey! Look who it is!" Peter said as they turned the corner and saw me sitting on the bench we always sat at. I had a fag between my fingers and I blew out the smoke in my mouth, watching them as they walked over and sat down.

"I feel like I haven't seen you at a party in weeks, man. What's up?" Jackson asked me with a raised eyebrow as he took out a lighter, lighting the cigarette in his mouth before passing it to Tyler.

"You haven't." I said with a smirk. It had been about three weeks since I last went to the mosque and in those three weeks, I was spending all the extra time I had to actually sit and read the Quran's English translation with tafsir of Ibn Kathir since Ahmad told me that to read the Qur'an by oneself with no knowledge of it can confuse people and will never make sense.

He had given me the volumes of the tafsir by Ibn Kathir which was where Ibn Kathir, a memorizer of the Qur'an had written an explanation of the verses that needed to be understood in more depth than just reading it on the surface.

I had learnt that Tafsir basically meant interpretation.

I had finished the second Surah Baqarah, which was the longest in the whole Qur'an in two weeks. Ahmad also told me to take notes of questions I had, verses that I liked, things I found interesting and already, after one chapter, one whole notebook was filled and I had to go buy another one to move on to the next chapter which I had finished last week. I was almost done reading chapter four now and still, notes were being taken down left right and centre as almost every verse of the Holy Book was amazing and always gave me tingles or made my heart race.

He was right when he said there was no way I'd understand it all if I had read only the Qur'an, without the interpretation as some verses were vague or in reference to a specific event at the time of the Prophet ﷺ that I had no idea about.

"Where've you been? It isn't like you to not come to a party." Jackson said with a laugh as he got off the bench and sat on the floor instead, leaning his back along the trunk of a tree close by.

"Yeah, especially not Helena's party. Poor chick was like a lost puppy looking around for her date the whole night." Tyler said with a laugh, making me curl my lips. I still had no clue how someone could be as dumb as Helena as to still think that I would eventually fall in love with her. I mean, it had been over two years now that I had been literally using her and her good looks for release and stress-relief when I had no other girl to go to.

"She asked me about ten times in one night where you were. Girl can't take a hint." Peter added, shaking his head as he carved his name into the wooden bench with a rock in his hand.

"Can you blame her? She's the only girl that King keeps going back to. How many other girls have you been with more than once?" He asked, before answering his own rhetorical question with a cheeky laugh. "Exactly. None."

I nodded my head. I guess he was right. "She's the only one that doesn't come nagging me for stuff. Yeah, she feels attached to me, but she never speaks to me unless I go to her and she never questions what I do." I muttered, butting the cigarette out with my foot on the floor as I stood up, knowing the bell would ring any minute. I still had to go for a piss.