It’s undisputable – the publication of exam results (amongst the sisters at least) is the most unnerving period for the perpetual student.  The days, hours and moments up to which I find myself mildly frenzied, moping with fellow kin in study – finding some comfort in the sense of communal fear & mass panic we arouse together, with kindred hope that perhaps the long nights of prayer and petitioning may just have paid off

My dad’s unwitting decision to purchase flight tickets for Umrah before results were out found me already over 2000 miles away from my UK sororal solace this year, in Jordan on the eve of results and on route to Saudi the next day. My fear largely was not the thought of having to deal with the stress and hassles of revising and resitting had I failed, rather, these flashing spectres of my precarious stay –the possibility of having to return to London, to be disinvited from the House of Allah (swt) & the City of our Beloved (saw) without having set foot in the first place

But that is not what Allah had willed for me, Alhumdulilah & by His Grace only I passed.

I got the message by text from a dear friend, late in the day about the time salaatul maghrib was due and I was inside the Harem

Only then you realise how perfect the timing – Surely Allah swt is Perfect & the best of Planners – that moment I would have cared to be no where else, I was in the best of places to entreat Allah and now, to thank Him.

My short stay in Jordan however, cannot go without mention. I was ignorant of the richness of Islamic heritage that lay in this blessed landscape:

Jordan being the possible site of the childhood encounter of the Rasool saw with the Monk Bhira and the later encounter with the Monk Nestor at Umm al Rassas

Many companions of the Prophet (PBUH) are buried in Jordan and include: Zeid ibn al-Haritha (the Prophet’s saw adopted son); Jafar bin Abi Talib (cousin of the Prophet saw and elder brother of Ali ra); Abu Ubaydah Amer Ibn al-Jarrah (one of the “Blessed Ten” companions promised Paradise); Mu’ath bin Jabal (the Prophet’s saw governor in Yemen) to name a few 

Do you think that the people of the Cave and the Inscription were a wonder among our signs? {Al-Kahf: 9} The Cave of the Seven Sleepers at Sahab, south Amman, is mentioned in the Qur’an as the site of a story like the Christian Sleepers of Ephesus about pious youths who were persecuted for believing in the One God, but were protected by God by sleeping in a cave for 309 years

The earlier Abrahamic prophets – including Prophets (AS) Nuh, Lut, Ibrahim, Ilyas, Musa, Shu’ayb, Harun, Daoud, Yahya, Isa, whose lives touched the land of Jordan and whose missions are mentioned in the Qur’an & Bible

A Sister