Sun in Saudi: A reflection of faith and the one thing that makes life worth living
All my life I’ve always been encouraged to put kindness over anything. Be kind, first thing first. I remember my dad would take me to school and tell me “be kind with your friends!” before I got out of the car. Speak gently and slowly, share your lunch. That’s how I’ve been trying to live, and I haven’t given up though kindness could feel vain at times.
Well, however, my trip to Saudi shed some light to a better understanding of what kindness could look like, and how heartwarming it could be when it’s done with faith. It’s amazing to be able to fathom that no kindness will ever go to waste and to put a meaning to life in a kinder frame. Even after the shortest of moments, kindness stays, and I find it pretty cool.
It was a sunny Tuesday in Madinah. Thousands of people gathered in the Nabawi Mosque for the Asr prayer, including me. In my sight: some people were trying to find a place, some were waiting in line to fill their cups and bottles with the Zam-Zam water, and the others were sitting with their eyes closed and hands pried open to the sky. That very moment was beyond words, if I were to describe, but truly it felt sacred and peaceful: to be in the middle of a crowd that flew thousands of kilometers from home to pray and seek forgiveness, here in the vast land surrounded by rock mountains. I didn’t know that there are so many people from around the world that believe in the same faith as I do. Something very strange yet comforting tugged in my heart: it was at that moment when I felt so serene and grateful.
My parents raised me with the values and teachings of Islam since I was born, but only when I reached the age of sixteen did I truly learn everything and connect all the dots from what my parents had teached me throughout my life. Through the highs and lows that I have experienced since that age, I discovered the one thing that keeps me going, that holds me gently in place with my hands around this faith: it teaches me kindness, through and through. What comes from my hands and my mouth should only be what is kind, to myself and others. It sounds insignificant, and “kind” is a word with a myriad of forms and translations, but this trip made me realize that this “kindness” is within everything. It lies behind even the smallest of things when one sees it.
I made fleeting friendships with strangers here, in the Holy lands. Sometimes we only asked each other about our home countries, and the conversation would still go on albeit nameless. A woman sat beside me and spoke Turkish to me when I was sitting in the Nabawi courtyard. I replied with English but she only understood a little so we exchanged just a bit of words with very minimal understanding of each other, yet she smiled at me and stayed beside me until the prayer time was over. Another time, I was standing in line to use the restroom when a woman carrying her baby stood beside me and shot me a smile. She was even trying to introduce her son to me before it was my turn to use the toilet. Later on, we met each other once again in the ablutions room and she smiled one last time before I left. A man in Masjid Al-Haram brought two cups of water for me and my mom after we finished our prayer. His smile was so wide when he replied thank you to our Jazakallah and Allahumma baarik. An elderly patted my back twice before she sat and recited the Quran beside me. A store clerk said I was pretty. A waiter spoke in my mother tongue and bid my family a really kind goodbye before we left the restaurant. So on, so forth.
Those fleeting encounters might mean close to nothing to them, but being this far from home with strangers all around me I found these small interactions matter so much. They remind me of what this faith is trying to teach me: how God guides me through life by letting me meet kind people along the way and how He shows me that rahmah (love and compassion), really, is everywhere in the entire world, even when that woman didn’t know me and when I had no idea who that man was. I feel thankful that I re-learn kindness this way: in these cities that have witnessed God’s mights and watched meaningful lives that have gone before me. I too realize that maybe my ability to love and be compassionate also came from this innate rahmah that God has put in me along with my faith in Him. It kind of overwhelmed me when these thoughts struck through, but it just made another reason for me to be grateful.
It gives me purpose, this kindness. Like I said at the beginning, kindness stays, and God has promised rewards for those who are gentle to others. It encourages me to always try my best so that I can carry even the littlest form of rahmah everywhere I go. Other worldly things would vanish so instantly as the world will end one day, but kindness doesn’t. I would like to believe that every act of compassion that is done in faith would one day be carried to heaven and stay, if God is willing.
Through faith and kindness, I felt so easily at home even after a ten hour-long flight over the seas and dunes. May He keep kindness coming from me and be around me, and may this muscle that beats beneath my chest never loses its grip on this faith.
