A Close Call

My fate is etched out by Allah Almighty, if and who I will marry, what I eat, the work I find, my health, the day I will die are as He alone wants them to be. To think otherwise was to slip down, the feel the world narrowing, dreary and tight.

-The Translator (written by Leila Aboulela)-

I finally got the chance to visit F over the weekend. She was involved in a serious car accident that left her with 40 stitches. I learnt about it from facebook but the severity of the situation only hit home when I saw her just now.

It was a miracle she survived. In fact, she was literally thinking "That's it. I'm going to die" as the vehicle she was in plunged into a ravine and she was thrown out. The 4-wheel drive landed on top of her but luckily, it didn't squash her. When people arrived at the scene, she was found lying right in-between the tyres.

F said the whole ordeal was a life-changing experience. She was grateful to be alive. She cried every time people came to visit her as she had thought she would never get to see them again.

The accident also served as a wake-up call. She realised that she had had her priorities mixed up. She was too preoccupied with work that she had neglected some of the more important things in life.

F and I are both planners. We are overly reliant on our organisers and our To-Do lists but talking about the accident made us both realise that nothing is within our control.

"They plotted and planned, but We too planned, even while they perceived it not." (An-Naml, Verse 50)

Coming back to the extract at the beginning of the entry: "My fate is etched out by Allah Almighty", there are 2 more instances in the novel which deal with the same issue.

Sammar, the novel's protagonist, had found it strange that Rae's daughter had sent him a card which reads 'Get Well Soon, Dad'.

"...it was an order, and she wondered if the child was taught to believe that her father's health was in his hands, under his command"

In contrast, in Arabic, when wishing someone well, one would insert the word 'I pray'.

Another instance is when Sammar said in English 'I'm leaving on Friday' to her colleagues.

To Sammar's ears, the sentence had sounded "incomplete, untruthful without insha' Allah".

I guess this entry is to remind myself and others that Allah has complete authority over us and He is the disposer of all our affairs, lest we should forget Him in the busyness of our lives or worse, erroneously think that we are self-sufficient.