I immediately stood up, tears pouring like never before. My whole world felt as if it had ended. I paced the cell and then leaned on the wall crying, “Don’t, not here! Don’t tell me this here! No…no... Oh Allah, Oh Allah…” One of the older brothers embraced me and quietly repeated in Arabic: “Patience my brother…patience; it is from Allah.” I slumped down the wall on my back until I was seated. Tears in my eyes, I looked up and noticed how everyone was crying with me. I asked about my son; no–one knew anything. I jumped up and yelled for the guard. He proudly came to the door. I said, “I found out just now that my wife has died. I need to know whether or not you have all of my kids.” He said, “How do you know that?!” He opened the door brandishing his night stick saying, “You better get away from this door and shut up before I crack your head open!”

The Hardest Test

The hardest part of this whole ordeal was losing my best friend, my wife, my beloved, my soul mate, the mother of my children. May Allah accept her, ameen. She once told me in Somalia that she never felt so close to Allah and that she wished for shahaadah (martyrdom). “Whoever wishes to meet Allah, Allah will wish to meet him.” It is known that whoever protects their life, property, family and religion and dies while doing so is a martyr. She died while doing all of the above! We know about the hadith (Prophetic tradition) about the one who dies of fever and sickness or plague. We all know about the one who migrates for Allah and dies doing such. I cannot think of a reason that she wouldn’t be shaheed (martyred). She got what she asked for: body not washed for burial [a martyr’s body is not washed for burial], buried in the land she loved and did not want to leave.

You know, this comes as no surprise, as I have never known Umm Musa (may Allah accept her) to raise her hands (in supplication) except that Allah gave her exactly what she asked for. For instance, after the birth of our son, the doctors said she would not be able to have children again, due to many complications. Praise be to Allah! She gave me two beautiful daughters — exactly what she wanted!

She was simple and extremely humble, never making people feel beneath her. She was not the scholarly type, but she practiced what she knew. If you could prove it from The Book (Quraan) and the Sunnah (Prophetic Way), she would not argue, but submit to the proofs. She feared Allah so much! I remember her telling me while crying as if she had lost a beloved one, that she committed a grave wrong when we first became Muslim. She explained that she feared she would never be forgiven. I asked her what it was.

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