Finding Mufeeda

Said I liked you, but I lied.

Chapter four

The weather was just right for jogging that Sunday morning. Mustafa put on his trainers, picked up his adhkar counter threw his face towel over his shoulders and hit the road. He jogged leisurely today, not the intense way he usually did. The Amir at the centre had advised him to do so anytime he had those thoughts and feelings that could lead him to sin. "Jog it brother and shrug it off your mind!" was his slogan.

Today he wasn't only going to jog and shrug, he was also going to look it out. He smiled as he went. "Looking at the beauty of the world always gives me peace... I mean our eyes see beauty better when we look at creation with an open heart." Mufeeda had said while they cooked in Mama Jami's kitchen the day that Saturday.

She had spoken like someone describing a lover when she spoke about the beauty of Taruwa. "A place that would forever melt my heart" were her exact words.

He looked around as he lifted his nose into the air as he had once seen her do, picking the fragrances of the early morning bloomers and the morning dew. My flower girl he mumbled smiling.1

He looked keenly at the hilltop ahead of him as his altitude increased, the sky looked bluer and the scenery looked greener. He saw trees he had never paid attention to and for the first time he noticed the way their branches stretched and interlocked within their mane of leaves.....it was so breathtaking and all he could say was "Subhanallah...! Allah The Ultimate Designer!"

He kept saying Subhanallah wa bihamdihi until he felt free from that feeling he had gone to bed with. He knew it was because he was strongly attracted to Mufeeda and he was beginning to think it would be better if he spent less time in her company. Not that he blamed her, it was not any direct fault of hers, instead, he blamed that look.

It was the look that had finally hooked him. He was certain she didn't do it on purpose, being true to herself was her second nature. He had been tidying the kitchen when they were almost through with the cooking and had turned to place something on a shelf above her head, she turned unexpectedly and their eyes met and in those beautiful eyes, he saw something he did like to assume was affection. She had lowered her long lashes perhaps to hide it before moving away.

At that moment, in his playboy days, he would have probably touched her face and kissed her. "Stop it!" he scolded himself as he jerked his own head.

He paused for a while to give his last thought some rethinking.

'Is it wrong to feel attracted to her?' he asked himself.

'I need to ask the Amir.' he said aloud to himself raking his fingers through his hair.

He felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket. It was a call from his superiors at the Presidency. They needed his services urgently for an overseas trip. He had to report to work first thing the following morning. 'Come prepared to be away for a week or two. The Chief had instructed.' He was supposed to be off duty for two weeks. This was his ninth day and he hadn't anticipated this. Travelling will mean not seeing Mufeeda for perhaps a week or two. The thought alone changed his mood. He had planned things he wanted to do with her, friends he wanted her to meet and places he wanted her to see.

It was then he knew it with every fibre of his heart that he loved her. He had fallen hard for the flower girl in a hijab.

He could go to any length to make her his. He wanted to be with her, he wanted to be part of her life, he wanted her to have a permanent position in his life.

O my God.....! Could this be happening to me? How did she find her way into to my heart this fast?

His pace reduced as a series of questions popped up in his head.