O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

Part 1

The sun shone high in the sky casting a spectrum of glory across the landscape. The trees and bushes, a thousand shades of green from Brunswick to avocado, while the purple of the lavender competed against the reds, pinks and whites of the roses, and the yellow of the marigolds. The waters of the placid pond, disturbed only by the brown-green-blue mallards, reflected back the azure vista above while the sunlight glittered gold on the ripples.

The glory of creation blazed all about and all was well.

All was well save in the eyes of Rashid Khan. His eyes saw only greys. His eyes saw only despair. His eyes saw only defeat. Whichever way he turned he was reminded of what was being taken from him; of what made life worth living and was denied to him and him alone.

“If Allah wants to do good to somebody, He afflicts him with trials,” he muttered to himself, yet the words offered no solace.

On his horizon only one pinprick of light remained, one vestige of hope. In his mind’s eye he pictured the hijab-framed face of Soraya; the kindness of her smile and humility of her visage proof of the piety that lay behind them. She who had pledged herself to him until death. She who was soon to become his wife.

He looked up, still blind to the glory all around him. Glory that would soon be shielded from him forever. But if she were with him then at least it would be bearable… just about.

“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun!” he cried.

And then, as if in answer to his prayers, she appeared, like a mirage in the desert, walking towards him, blurred and indistinct yet getting clearer with every step. Modest and pious yet still elegant. The way she took every step, the way the hijab and jilbab hung on her body spoke of the very epitome of femininity. He silently thanked his Creator. He was lucky indeed to have won such a woman. She was like a precious pearl. Whatever other afflictions he might have, she would carry him through.

Her face looked a little disturbed, angry even, as she approached him. “Rashid,” she said when she was near, “what is the meaning of this, asking to meet me without a wali. You know it is un-Islamic. It is haram, it…”

“Soraya, please, normally I would never ask such a thing, but I have something to say to you, something that I need to tell you first. The thought of other people hearing, listening in, I could not bear it, I…” He tried to stifle the tears but one escaped. Then he recovered himself. She looked concerned. “Please, sit; this is hard but I need to tell you.”

She sat at the far end of the bench. Modesty preserved, fitna limited.

“I have just come back from the hospital. Remember I told you that I’d been having trouble with my eyes, words blurring on the page. The optician couldn’t understand it so he referred me to a specialist. I’ve just been there… they… they…”

“They what, Rashid?”

“I… I have a condition. Retinitis pigmentosa they call it. It is rare in people our age but more common in those over seventy. My eyes… my eyes… they… I… I am going blind. In a year, maybe two, I will be totally blind. There’s nothing they can do.”

“Astagfurallah!”

“I needed to tell you. We will be married soon and so this will affect you almost as much as me. I…”

“I need to think about this, Rashid, to pray. Our plans, to spread dawah, to support the Muslims in Palestine and Syria, for you to train to become an imam…”

“All is still possible, Soraya, Allah will protect and guide us.”

“I need to think Rashid, I need to pray. I must go…”

“Wait!

“I must go, sorry, I must go…”

And so, she went, the mirage dissolving as quickly as it had formed, leaving him alone with his afflictions. He understood it of course; it was a big thing to take in; it would transform both of their lives completely. To seek solace and guidance in Allah was only understandable. Yes, he understood her reaction.

What he did not understand however, was the later which was brought to him the following day from her brother. He did not understand, could never understand, how such a pious and pure girl could break off their engagement with the words, ‘Rashid, I am sorry, but I cannot marry a blind man.’

---

He wandered lost and lonely. Through rain-sodden streets. He passed neon-bright kebab houses, pink-lit massage parlours, house upon house each with a blue bin out for collection; he passed bus stops with no passengers and railway stations waiting for a train. He passed through parks dark and gloomy and shopping centres bright and soulless. He passed over rivers fast-flowing and canals brown and languid. He passed offices where a thousand worker-bees toiled and factories where the machines no longer whirred and clanked. He passed all of these and more and still he wandered.

He wandered through faceless estates of identical houses, each with a family car in the drive and a well-trimmed lawn; he passed by blocks of flats twelve storeys tall and rows of bungalows, each with a pensioner inside. He passed by sports clubs where people played tennis, cricket, rugby and football, by martial arts clubs where people kicked and punched using Japanese names, and working men’s clubs where people drank and played pool.

He walked by office blocks full of aspiring executives and then the gyms where they worked out after completing their deals. He passed by pubs and pools, supermarkets and schools, tanning salons and taxi ranks, churches and charity shops, cinemas and cemeteries.

He walked through all of this yet saw none of it. He did not think, did not speak, did not hear and did not smell. Prayer time came and went, but he did not pray. He left one city and entered another, all the time wandering, one foot before the other, onwards and onwards, with no goal, no purpose, no direction.

And then when he could wander no more, and his strength failed, and mind cried out for rest, he fell. In a park, in a bandstand, overlooking the bowling green.

---

“You alright, luv?”

He opened his eyes. Everything was blurry, but this was due to sleep, not his condition. Framed in his sight was a woman. A gorah woman with dyed blonde hair and a drinks can.

“You alright? You look a bloody mess. Do you need any help?”

He sat up. “No, err, no, I’m ok. No problem, miss. Just sleeping.”

“Just sleeping my arse! No one goes just sleeping around here unless there’s a problem. And I haven’t seen you around here before. This your first night?”

“First night?”

“On the streets. Rough sleeping. I can give you the number of the team. They’ll find you a bed and that. And up in that church on the hill there; they give away free breakfasts from eight onwards. Get yourself a feed.”

“No, erm… no problem. I’m not rough sleeping.”

“You could’ve fooled me.”

“Yes, it looks like it, but I’m not. I just had a problem, so I went for a walk and…”

“Then why don’t you tell me about it? Talking can help and I’ve fuck all else to do when all’s said and done.”

His head had cleared by now and the grouchiness had set in. This woman was in his space and she had laid her hand upon his shoulder. Physical contact between an unrelated man and woman is haram. Besides, that can, he had by now realised, contained alcohol. “Excuse me miss, but I don’t know you. Please, leave me alone.”

“Well fuck you then, fuck you arrogant paki!”

And she stormed off.

And Rashid went back to sleep, wishing he would never wake up again.

---

“Here you are; I got you a drink.”

“Uh?”

“What I said ten minutes ago. It was wrong, I shouldn’t have said it. I’ve had a drink, haven’t I? Anyway, I got you a cup of tea. Here!”

She shoved the golden-arches-blessed cardboard cup in his face. ‘She’ was the same woman as before. His stomach let it be known that it wanted the tea, but he did not take it and instead just closed his eyes again. He heard her put it down by his side. “I’m not going away,” she said. “You can pretend to sleep all you like, but I’ll still be here when you open your eyes again. Like I said, I’ve got fuck all else to do.”

“Why not? Why don’t you go away?”

“Because you’re obviously in trouble and need help. Maybe I’m the person to provide it? What kind of woman would I be if I passed by someone who needed help?”

He opened his eyes and sat up. He looked at her. She looked a mess. Like one of those women who fall out of pubs on a Friday night drunk and dishevelled. She was half drunk now and… he glanced at his watch. 08:23.

He took the tea and drank a sip. It was heavenly, just what he needed.

“I’ve got sugar if you want some.”

“No, I’m alright, thanks.”

“Sorry about what I said earlier, the racist bit.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He looked at her again. She did look a mess, but she had stopped for him. She had thought about him. She had cared for him. Compared to Soraya, this woman was nothing. Soraya was pious, pure, modest. This woman was a drunkard and could probably not spell pious, let alone be it. And she was a kuffar, a non-believer. And yet, she had cared, she had been there for him while Soraya had not. There was kindness in her eyes as well as a whole lot else.

“So, what’s up?”

“Up?”

“What’s a smart young student like you doing sleeping in the bandstand on a Thursday morning?”

“How do you know I’m a student?”

“It’s obvious. The clothes, the hair. Anyway, don’t change the subject: what’s up?”

He looked at her, drank in her whole spoiled visage and alcohol-wasted form. And because it was the park – which park and even which city he did not know – and because he would never see her again, and because he desperately, achingly, needed to talk to somebody, anybody, he told her.

“I am a student, you are right. In the university. I study chemistry there. I am also in the Islamic society. We spread the faith and encourage the Muslims there. I enjoy it. And have a fiancée; her name is Soraya. I met her through the society; she’s the president of the female section. She is a wonderful woman, a good Muslim, devout, a good family. Yesterday she told me that she was breaking off the marriage. I didn’t know how to take it.”

The woman gave him a knowing look and nodded her head. “I get it now. Us women can really fuck you guys up, can’t we? Love, eh? I broke a guy’s heart once. I broke a few in my younger days, but this one, he took it bad. I felt bad. Your Soraya probably feels bad. What reason did she give?”

He stared into her watery, blue, perfectly-functioning eyes. “She said that she could not marry a blind man,” he replied.

“But you’re not blind!”

“I will be in a year or two’s time.”

She was silent for a few seconds, her face aghast, and then, to his astonishment, she began to sing:

“O Love that wilt not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee;

I give thee back the life I owe,

That in thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.”

Her voice was soft and melodic, angelic and haunting. He could not believe that something so sweet could emanate from someone so rough.

“O light that followest all my way,

I yield my flickering torch to thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray,

That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be.”

Rashid was transfixed. His heart felt guilty because he knew that music was haram, a tool of Shaitan to bewitch the believer and yet it was so beautiful, so pure, and speaking to his heart so directly.

“O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain,

That morn shall tearless be.”

“What is that song?” he asked.

She stopped singing and looked at him. “Sorry,” she said. “When I can’t put things into words, talking like, I sing. You might find this hard to believe, what with me being in this state and all, half-pissed by nine in the morning, but years ago I used to be a big churchgoer. I loved the old hymns and memorised scores of them. And your story reminded me of that one.”

“Why?”

“Because the bloke who wrote it – I forget his name, I was never much good with names – he was like you. He had something disease which caused him to go blind. And, like you, he was engaged to be married, but when he told her she broke it off, like you, saying that she couldn’t marry a blind man. I always thought that was really cruel, but he never said anything bad about her. Instead he wrote that hymn, all about how even if she has left him, God still loves him and stays with him regardless. Not that I need to tell you that, you being a religious man and all, even if it is a different god.”

But Rashid had needed to hear that because, in a flash, he realised that he’d forgotten.

“Well, it is beautiful, thank you for singing it. Please, carry on.”

“If you like:

O Cross that liftest up my head,

I dare not ask to fly from thee;

I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be.”

Part 2

Two years later

It is the day of Soraya Farouq’s wedding. The nikah has been performed, and the dinner eaten. Everyone who attended – and there were over five hundred – all expressed approval for the event. The bride’s parents had been generous yet Islamically appropriate. Separate rooms for males and females so no intermixing of the sexes, and uplifting speeches from some respected imams on the role of marriage in Islam.

But they expected nothing less. Soraya Farouq is a light to all Muslim women. Formerly the female president of the Islamic Society in her university, she is articulate and intelligent, yet also a model of piety. Indeed, her recent decision to adopt the veil only confirms that. Not that it is necessary of course, but it is a mustahabb act, proof if it were needed of her modesty and piety. And, of course, her husband, soon-to-be the imam of the Abu Bakr Masjid, approved.

Thankfully, no one spoke of that awkward issue. Of the young man who Soraya was formerly engaged to. It was such a tragedy what happened to him; going blind at such a young age. He had been such an upright boy too, a leading light in the Islamic Society which was where, when all was said and done, he had come across Soraya. One couldn’t blame her, of course; being the wife of a blind man is hard and, certainly, it would make her work spreading dawah more difficult. A tough choice, but the right one.

And time had proven it to be correct. Soon after the engagement was broken off, the young man in question changed. Perhaps it was due to the trauma of his retinitis pigmentosa diagnosis, that could affect anyone of course, but it was sad nonetheless. Whereas before he had been so pure and correct in his devotions, he started to let bid‘ah in. He ceased condemning music and began associating with a pir who was known to promote dancing, contact between the sexes and other haram activities. Indeed, one brother had even spotted him entering a Christian church in the evening time when the singing service begins. Inter-faith work is ok, of course, but there are limits. No, it is best not to mention that boy these days and instead focus on how things are, on the marvellous marriage that Soraya has made to Yusuf Badri and the happy life that awaits her as the mother of his children.

After all, she has followed all the rules.

And now the bride is alone. She has been guided to the room where she will spend her wedding night, the large bed covered with rose petals. Her sisters came in with her and helped her remove her veil and the beautiful gown that she has worn for her nuptials, but now even they have gone, and she waits. Waits for her husband.

And as she waits she thinks. She thinks about the man whom she was pledged to marry before disaster befell him and she went to her father for advice on what to do. Of the man who has fallen in his faith and whose smiling face is etched in her memory.

She thinks of Rashid Khan.

---

Rashid Khan sits with his back against a wall and breathes in deeply. He is unaware that today is the date of the marriage of Soraya Farouk, the girl to whom he was once pledged, although he had heard on the grapevine that she was now engaged to the austere Yusuf Badri. If he had known, he’d have wished her well, but as it is, she is far from his mind these days, only returning occasionally in his dreams as an object of curiosity and what-iffery. Soraya is far, but the incense, warmth and sounds of the darbar are all around him. He sits, as he does every Thursday, here at the Shrine of Madhu Lal Hussain, and listens while qawwali singers wail and the dhol drums beat their steady rhythm, working the crowd into a passion. He loves the sounds and the smells of this most sacred place, as he does the story of the two saints who are buried here. He has travelled around the world to many holy places, but nowhere quite touches him like this.

The dhamal starts, the rhythm quickening and the devotees getting to their feet. Rashid rises to his feet, as steady and sure as when he had sight, and starts to pound his feet, shake his head and then turn, around and around, in a dance of divine joy, love replacing the rules that he once put on a pedestal. As the music rises in tempo, he lets it carry him along, devoting his entire being to worship as he lets the dhamal engulf him. Love fills his heart, overflowing, blessing him, making him reach out to all humanity and give thanks for the many gifts he enjoys, before ascending to an even higher plane and embracing union with the divine itself.

---

Soraya sits alone on her marital bed, waiting for her husband to arrive. She looks down at the veil that she has just removed from her face, cradling it in her gloved hands. Everybody believes that she embraced it for purely pious reasons; only she knows differently. To her that cloth protects her, it hides her. She no longer has to look in the mirror at the face of the woman who rejected Rashid Khan. She pictures his smiling, joyous expression when she last saw him at their graduation, his eyes already misting over yet, perversely, full of life. He was the man that she had dreamt of sharing this night with ever since she first saw him manning the society stall during Freshers’ Week. He is the one whom she still sees when she dreams at night.

A tear falls from her eye and soaks into the material of the veil on her lap.

Written 08-09/07/19, Stoke-on-Trent – Manchester Piccadilly – Stoke-on-Trent – Manchester Piccadilly – Stoke-on-Trent – Oxford, UK

Copyright © 2019, Matthew E. Pointon