Humble beginnings...

     بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَانِ الرَّحِيم 

The dream...

About a year and a bit ago

I had a dream.

I was on a bus and as though I was on a tour with people we arrived somewhere that looked like the grand Colosseum on the outside..

It had old broken walls and I remember seeing a horse with a rider on it suspended within its walls

I know that’s really weird, but alas.. such are dreams..

But that wasn't the strangest thing about this place, indeed the strangest thing about it was that beyond those old mud-brick broken tall walls,

was the Ka'ba.

Scholars say the first dua you supplicate to Allah upon sighting the Ka'ba is a 100% guaranteed-to-be-granted dua

So what better dua to make than "O Allah accept all my duas!"?

I can still hear Umm Abdur Rahmans voice saying this so emphatically:

This is tijara (trade) with Allah, and Allah loves that we trade with Him.

So there I was in my dream, looking at the ka'ba and I recited in Arabic

"Allahuma ij'alni mim mustajibaat ad da’waat.."

O Allah make me of those whose supplications are accepted..

Now my Arabic is pretty weak, I'm not sure if I had said it correctly in Arabic with the right vowel-ing and the right pronunciation.. But that's what I said in the dream subhanAllah...

I was so ecstatic to have had a dream like that... Truly, it made me feel so elated; what a blessed dream from Allah! I couldn't but help but have a small tiny blinker of hope in the back of my mind that perhaps Allah will accept all my du'as because I saw the Ka'ba and made that dua, albeit in my dream! Why? Because me being anywhere in the vicinity of the real Ka'ba in Makkah Al Mukarramah didn’t ever cross my mind, I never imagined myself there- seriously... I have pictures of the ka’ba all over my room, it’s all over my Islamic calendar, every month I flip admire it and that’s about as close as I ever got to the real deal, It's strange but I don't think I even dreamed of going there, realistically speaking, how could I, I am a uni student, I’m poor most of the time, I’m in exams nearly every month, whenever I go overseas it’s straight to Egypt to visit the family, my adorable teta and then back to Australia.. I mean seriously people, I’ve been in Australia for 22 years and I haven’t even gone to Queensland which for any Arab living in Sydney that's a strange thing! So Makkah? Yeah right.. 

Where things get interesting...

Buuuuuuuuut then something very interesting happened...

My older sister decided she'd go on Hajj that year- 2010...

Quite random, out of the blue, really sporadic but that’s my sister for you, she just puts something in her mind and does it, mashaAllah.

I, for some reason decided I wanted to go with her to her Hajj preparation course organised by Daar Aisha- my Shari’ah college coz that’s who she was going with

And honest to God

I cried my eyes out when Umm Abdur Rahman spoke about Madinah and described it

Thats when it really hit me

She’s going with my beloved Shari’ah college

and I wasn’t.

Wow, no words could describe that moment.

I couldn't go because I was

1. A student living on a student budget for the past 5 years

2. I had exams during the 2010 Hajj season for my last semester of my Masters degree-

but really 1. is where the dream crumbled at.. 2. was just adding salt to the wound.

It burnt pretty bad. I couldn’t fathom that someone so close to me, who shared a wall with me to be quite exact, was about to go to the two places I didn’t even dream were possible of going to. She had obliterated the impossibility that I was sitting and nesting on so feverently and it was almost as though Allah had shown me through her going; that Makkah and Madinah are a reality for anyone He Wills.

Truly this dunya isn’t about cause and effect- Allah will make any cause cause any effect- whether it’s logical to us or not. It felt like Allah was saying to me, if I want someone to come to My House, I will bring them,

believe it.

Then I thought khalas! 2011 is my year! I mean heck, If my sister goes this year there is *no*way*jose* I’m not going next year!

I set my one year short term master plan it was the cause and effect logic ms plan-it-all kinda plan.

At the time I finished my master of Pharmacy; I had to do one year of paid intern training to get registered as a pharmacist. I'll secure my year long internship and work long ugly hours (by force anyway) and save up and go at the end of the year..

Sounds all good yeah?

Hmm..

Salt on my open gaping wound!

It was by Allah's Will that I didn't end up getting an intern position.

I was in Egypt from December 2010 till March 2011 and that is when they were taking all the interns and so I came back and missed out...

I tried looking for a position for 7 months..

Pain was the name of the game.

And as the 2011 Hajj season crept in..

I lost all hope of me going...

2011 wasn't to be my year after all..

No words to describe the feeling.

Then, as if that wasn't bad enough,

I kept getting emailed by Daar Aisha (my Shari'ah college) constantly advertising the 2011 Al Haramain Hajj package..

It was soooooo painful, I'd go to class and Umm Abdur Rahman (Umm AR) would happily announce and keep announcing the package, “Hajj Haramain package is open for 2011!”

I was so cut.