Crescent Moon of 1 Muharram 1441 AH Credit: blog.al-habib.info (2019)

It’s heeeeerrrreeeee! New year, new resolutions, and all that jazz. Okay, settle done dudettes, this blog does not stand for any celebrations, innovations, revolutions, yup. We’re those middle ground conservatives that everyone loves to hate. Traditional to the coint. Bone. But coint is my current favourite word. Bear with us. So yeah people. I’m not about any of the Sudais bashing, Saudi opposing, Hamas supporting bandwagon that just about everyone I know seems to be on. Or a blind supporter of the so called arab spring. And this is coming from a self confessed rebel who’s long supported just about any sort of revolutionary movement around me. In class. At home. At work. Public transport. Russia. My rebelliousness crumbles like wet sugar before The Most High, and everything He stands for. Ignorance is a killer, y’all. That is not to say that I condone any injustice whatever my aversion to the critique of my leaders. And however abhorrent the individuals supposedly are. Le sigh. There’s something to be said about this beautiful patience that we’re enjoined to exercise. Nothing about it is easy.

So it’s also my birthday month, and I was tempted to post something insightful to mark my day but I realized I was making too big of a deal of one day, however significant. I was also exhausted after a long day’s work of serving guests. Cushitic women exist on a whole other plane y’all. Men? Bah! they can’t ever complain that the coffee is too rich, or the food is too salty.  The women though – I could write a whole novel about them and their ways. 50 years’ worth of cooking and home making seems to give one the dictatorial rights to order you around and demand, because there are no polite requests really, whatever they wish of you. So there I was running around like a headless chicken fulfilling every edict, and cutting this, and peeling that, cleaning this and picking massive wads of popcorn off the floor that someone deliberately threw…because! Significant day, significant year but I could barely keep my eyes open at the end of the day.

But thank God that happened, because 1441 AH was just right around the corner,and boy, haven’t we got a lot to say about that. Big big plans, as usual, ahem. But come now, surely none with the level of excitement we have for this one. None with that, I assure you. Taasua and ashura.  A trip around my favourite places. A reunion with my Lord, because I don’t give two figs if I go broke, for sure, when it beckons. Not that I would ever want to turn away from its call anyway. Pssshh. New skills acquisition, and a re-connection with my passion. Knowledge gathering, the real knowledge y’all. My Lord, please make it all happen for me.

An acquaintance recently called me to ask me to help them, and in the same vein could not resist abusing me. And I was hanging up in disbelief. You want me to help you, but you see nothing wrong with insulting me, and attempting to put me down. Or probing for private information that you can clearly tell I’m not willing to share. And you know, I would normally just leave one speaking midway, hang up every subsequent call or respond in the same tone. But this is the year of letting everything slide off of me. Michelle Obama’s we go high philosophy. It’s not easy, this patience thing. But you gotta try it, because the Exalted has promised us the world, the hereafter and everything we desire if we tried it. It costs everything. Nothing less than everything.

The idea of speaking to people I can’t stand and ordinarily would never entertain is new to me. I had another acquaintance recently call me to relay that a friend was speaking about me. An acquaintance. Reporting a friend. Let that sink in. Of course I find all this to be trés outlandish because I’m the very last person who’s interested in any of society’s social parameters of popularity and success. I genuinely don’t care about you, and your life and business. I don’t know what possible advantage you’d ever obtain from updating yourself of my affairs. If I knew it, I could perhaps attempt to understand it. But there isn’t, you see. You’re not anyone special. And I’m nothing special. You won’t die if you focused on yourself. Really. Our lives are inordinately full, what possible pleasure would one ever derive in butting their heads, tongues and malice in other people’s affairs. This life. And this promised patience – so beautiful, and powerful, and dense, and unbreakable. Unimaginably difficult and immensely rewarding. Like most good things in life.

So 1441 A.H. is my year of patience. Forbearance and self-restraint and fortitude and composure and all that jazz. Here we go again y’all, around the mulberry bush, serene, ready to slay some more dragons this year, ahem human beings. No murder of course. You know what I mean? And some more fears. And challenges. We’re ready to slay them all.

So without further ado, ladies, and ladies, welcome to 1441 A.H.