I woke to the greatest of news!!! An email from my Edmonton Apartment manager telling me he found a tenant for my apartment which means I will no longer be responsible for the rent. I WhatsApped AMA – who responded:
He: Mabrook
Me: I do not know what that means.
He: Congratulations and blessed. Look it up in Google
Me: I already was when I got your message. See I can read your mind. Hahaha You will be happy to know that Wikipedia agrees with your definition. “Mabrouk or alternatively Mabrook (Arabic: مبروك, romanized: mabrūk), is a vernacular Arabic interjection meaning “blessed”. It is also an expression for congratulation.”
He: Check the Arabic word Barakah.
Me: I did! An interesting word!! Thank you. It is an absolutely perfect word and is totally applicable in this situation. I am going to put this interchange on my blog, so all may learn.
Barakah roughly translates as blessings, but it’s so much more than that. Barakah is when Allah (SWT) takes a particular positive aspect and multiplies it many times. As an example. Barakah in your money can be when you find yourself contently spending on your necessities, you never sensing any loss.
I did more research. There is not one word to describe the meaning of Barakah:
“Barakah is something that keeps on growing and progressing above and beyond expectation. For example, like planting one seed and getting ten trees. Another meaning is a camel which does not move; which has sunk it’s feet in sand and remains there. So such a persistence and stability is also part of the meaning.
Then found a video. It is a Yaqueen Institute treasure. A woman explaining how to use Barakah in your everyday life. Listen to it, it is so useful, and in many ways easy. https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/ep10-take-advantage-of-barakah-habits-to-win-here-and-hereafter#.
This all is living, undeniable proof, of the advantage of getting up (and staying up) after Fajr prayer, It is at this moment only 6:30 and look what I have accomplished!!
Returning to the topic that began this blog. I left Edmonton on September 20, 2023 with the intention of perhaps having two homes – one in Saudi Arabia, keeping my apartment in Edmonton. But along came October 7, 2023 with the news that Islamaphobia was rampant in that city and I am a Muslim woman – alone and undefended. It was not just my safety but I did not know other Muslims there and so would be isolated. I enjoy being in the presence of other Muslims, and associating with other Muslims is preferred in the Quran. I emailed to terminate my lease – to be informed that I would be responsible for the rent until another tenant was found. It is a usurious rental provision to discourage tenants from, shall we say, moving on. It was totally inapplicable to my situation. I had left all of my possessions in the apartment. Complicated negotiations with the help of friend Manjinder reached this solution. My possessions are in storage there – my furniture, dishes and kitchen equipment to be given to the needy. Perhaps some day I can retrieve my books, winter clothes, art, prayer rugs etc etc. This took three months, but the joy at the solution is actually an example of Barakah. Alhamdullah I am safe here and surrounded my wonderful Muslims – and some bad guys as well. I am no longer in touch with the bad guys as you shall soon see.
I was reminded of the phrase, Every cloud has a silver lining. I have never thoroughly understood what the expression meant, but have an inkling that it has special significance to a recent event in my life.
Inkling is a slight knowledge or suspicion; a hint. Every cloud has a silver lining is a proverb every sad or unpleasant situation has a positive side to it. In other words, It is an advantage that comes from a difficult or unpleasant situation. If you really want to know, (but probably you do not ) its origins are from a John Milton poem Comus: A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634:
Faithful readers will know my iPhone froze resulting in an intervention. All the data on one phone was erased, including all of my WhatsApp contacts. Oops. Found that some people did not appear in my contact list as they went straight to WhatsApp. I have lost contact, therefore, with several lazy correspondents. It is possible to regain contact by sending me a message but these people would be expecting continuing contact from me and it ain’t happening.
This is a silver lining, positivity shall shall reign. I am now forcibly out of touch with people. Cannot give them a second, or third or fourth chance. If suddenly they miss me, they can contact me and I might respond. I have no guilt, no remorse – just more free time. PHEW. If you are one of those people and are reading this blog you know what to do. But those sort of people, that subclass, are probably not reading the blog anyway.
Revenge was the topic of a prior blog, I did find more quotes after I sent the blog to Chris. I will now pass them onto you. One or two are funny.
If a man steals your wife there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. (Sacha Guitry)
Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you. (Austin O’Malley)
Then there were two that were rather unlikely, causing me to comment. .
Revenge is sweet and not fattening. (Alfred Hitchcock)
(All I can say about that, is this, Alfred. Something you did, said or ate must have been fattening because you were corpulent.)
Gorgeous hair is the best revenge. (Ivanka Trump)
(I guess Ivanka has never been motivated by revenge, never been impressed with her hair).
I have more than one dimension to my personality. I can be very serious and rather intellectual as shown by the research and concentration illustrated in the beginning of this blog but I also love to joke, laugh and have fun.
I am thoroughly enjoying joking with a tall man about his being tall. I shall have to come up with a nickname for him. THE – Tall Handsome Exceptional. If I get angry with him I shall call him THY Tall Handsome Yuck.
Anyway. Once when no one could overhear us, I jokingly asked him a question.
Me: Once, a long time ago I asked a tall man if it was true that tall men had big penises.
His answer was fast and funny.
He:(smilingly) No it is not true!
Me: Oh darn!
He won that round because it was me, not he, that blushed.
I was writing this while sitting in the lobby of this hotel. There is a very important man, dressed in a thobe with a rosary in his hand. One often sees Arab men embracing, holding hands. It is cultural – in the West such behavior would be considered ‘gay’ but here, all of this is the exact opposite. Men and women do not hold hands in public, not embrace, nor even shake hands. It is cultural – not religious. To do so shows no respect for the woman. Some of the ‘rules’ are relaxed due to my advanced aged. I can laugh and joke with younger men; but not older men. They get freaked, but that is perfectly fine and dandy with me. “This redundant colloquialism (fine and dandy both mean “excellent”) today is more often used sarcastically in the sense of “not all right” or “bad,” as in You don’t want to play Snakes and Ladders?
Cultural differences has and does play a huge role in my life. Just last week I was in despair. WhatsApped AMA in pain. He thoughtfully and immediately called me, He, an “Americanized’ Saudi, able to help me with his concern to bridge the gap. I am feeling better these days. I just did a blog search to find I had mentioned it thirty-six times over the years. It does seem to haunt me.
Wikipedia has an amazing article on culture shock which makes for excellent reading. I shall highlight some of the wisdoms imparted. The first with disbelief, because I was thinking of this very thing when I ponder returning to Canada. There is something called reverse cultural shock. The paragraph describing it ends with this sentence.
“This phenomenon, the reactions that members of the re-entered culture exhibit toward the re-entrant, and the inevitability of the two are encapsulated in the following saying, also the title of a book by Thomas Wolfe: You Can’t Go Home Again.”
I had, honestly and actually, when thinking of return to Canada (or the US), saying to myself:
Me: Alexis, you can’t go home again.
Alter Ego: it does not look like you can.
Me: But that is fine. The Islamic Faith tells Believers that earthly relationships are only temporary. The only permanence is found with Allah (SWT)
Wikipedia also discusses the best of all outcomes for those suffering from the pain of culture shock.
“Some people manage to adapt to the aspects of the host culture they see as positive, while keeping some of their own and creating their unique blend. They have no major problems returning home or relocating elsewhere. This group can be thought to be cosmopolitan. Approximately 30% of immigrants belong to this group.”
So there! So there! So there! I am Cosmopolitan, or about to be Cosmopolitan. I can give up being a refugee and be a Cosmopolitan. Phew! Mashallah
The first photograph you shall see is a photo of the book that greeted me when I first walked into the Ithra Library. It is Ansel Adam In the National Parks. That has such HUGE meaning for me for two reasons. His photographs of Yosemite National Park, my ‘home park’ during the fifty years I lived in California. Also because of my self education in photography. I began as a black and white photographer working in my San Francisco apartment ‘dark room’ kitchen. Then along came color, then slides, and now the iPhone. Knowledge of the basics made me adaptable as the photographs you are about to see will show.
Left behind in Edmonton were certain treasures. Photographs enlarged and framed from my Saudi Arabian travels. One of them The Photo is permanent under The Photo banner. It served as the inspiration to return to Medina – which I did in July 2023, and then in September 2023. It is, an amazing photograph, inviting the viewer into the photo wondering what the fascination is to the Muslims looking through the fence.
