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But when the youth accepted Islam from reading the Qur'an and reading about it in his school library, he was met with absolute ridicule for praying at work. Not one co-worker said he shouldn't pray, but they asked what kind of trouble he was in that he couldn't wait to get home to pray. They answered his preaching with rude questioning, going beyond neutral discussion into bad manners with him because of his age. "My father prayed to Jesus, my mother prayed to Jesus, their parents prayed to Jesus. Why should I change all of a sudden and I'm an elder while you're only a youth?" They'd say to him. "No way you can know better than everyone else on the island."
One even said to him, "So you're prayin' to Saddam Hussein? You think he can hear you? You don't know it's wrong to pray to a false god?" When Jeffrey explained that he wasn't praying to Saddam Hussein but to Allah, the co-worker said to him, "I don't care what you name him, it's a false god. Jesus alone can save you!"
What angered Jeffrey was that they always wanted to talk him down but not listen, so he was constantly interrupted in the process of trying to clear up misconceptions. So one day in sajdah, he asked Allah to deliver him from that environment and to even destroy Montserrat with him in it if they wouldn't even consider Islam just because of his age. Two days later people talked about evacuating the island because of the plume of extra smoke coming from Soufriere, which had erupted lightly already a few years before. The officials on the island began to say that there was no immediate danger, and they wanted to continue with the elections due in a few days. But the British officials said there was danger of another eruption soon. Just the ash from the smoke was blown directly to Antigua by a hurricane and caused Antigua's airport and businesses to close. When the British evacuation choppers showed up, Jeffrey was on one. He watched as Soufriere kicked out more smoke and some of the mountainside of it seemed to fall towards the city of Plymouth. He was one of 7,000 to evacuate, leaving behind 4,000, many of whom would be injured and some of whom would die. He had never had a cold day in his life, and he landed in London just before it began to cool down there. By the time he was settled in, his older sister had to buy their first jackets. The bonus was that he received a check for what was the equivalent of 3,840 US dollars from the Crown, promised to all of those who wished to leave the island and relocate. He had not expected this, nor had he even heard of this promise. Their parents had refused to go to England, instead choosing to relocate to the Cayman Islands, but he had specifically elected to go with his sister because he felt there may be more of a community there.
It turned out there was. He went to high school and spent his weekends and evenings with the brothers. His sister, ironically, became a born-again Christian and married a St. Lucian man from her church. But when he was eighteen and in his first semester of college and the towers were hit in New York, she never joined the Islamophobes, often using her brother as an example of Muslims being about personal and societal reforms. No one could convince her to turn her back on her brother because he had always been good to her. On the other hand, he was good to most Christians because he wanted to avoid being the cause of any of them rejecting Islam. "If they insist on Christianity then at least it won't be my fault," he reasoned.
The turning point came when he strolled into a friend's house in 2003 for a Friday lecture. His friend, Yusuf, had said to him two days before, "You can come to my house where we have Jumua some Fridays, because our previous imam got deported after a demonstration. But this is only for you because you left Montserrat for your deen and not because of the volcano. We need you to not tell anyone else unless they're fed up with our khateebs giving watered-down khutbahs. This is really serious and every Muslim isn't ready for this yet." So when Jeffrey, now Jamal, showed up, he learned why.
"Shaytan doesn't even entertain hope that you'll worship him openly and knowingly. He doesn't expect that. He only seeks to throw us off the path of Islam and tawheed. And since he can't get most Muslims to knowingly leave Islam, then he attempts to get Muslims to compromise Islam by entertaining taughut notions mixed in with it. He will settle for that, and we have gladly gone along with it. Haven't we? Don't we not know that democracy or communism are equally at odds with Islam and Shariah? Don't we know that any of these political systems are kufr in Allah and the Qur'an? No, we don't know. But then when we hear this, we don't want to accept it! We're quite the problem, you know! It's not just in the Qur'an, which is clear in this verse, but it's also explained in the tafsir which the Muslims accept as valid and don't dispute! Whosoever rules by other than what Allah has revealed is a kaffir! And the tafsir explains that it means not applying the Shariah in the rulings, at the government level, not just in the masjid, or even worse just in the minds as it exists today, only in theory! No! Allah said Shariah or kufr! He didn't say anything else! He didn't give us a third or fourth option! Allah wants us to rule with justice and not commit oppression, not to take another system and then call it justice! Ibn Taymiyyah even called the Tartars kuffar because they stopped ruling by the Shariah and replaced it with the book they had called the Yatsik. There are two things that happened then that are happening now today, too. The people argued with Ibn Taymiyyah and asked him how he could call them kuffar when they had accepted Islam! He said because they abandoned the Shariah in their ruling, they had apostated and should be fought. The people thought that because the Tartars were in power that they must be right even if they ruled by a mixture of religions and shariat. So they refused to fight for a while. But Ibn Taymiyyah told the people, 'If you find me fighting for the Tartars, then kill me !' And only when the Muslims stood up to the Tartars and fought them did they get back to being free as Muslims under the Shariah. Not before! The people did not know that to replace the Shariah is kufr, and the Muslims don't know this now today, do we? Likewise, they followed behind who ever had authority, whatever they did. Aren't we doing this now?"
From this khateeb, who turned out to be a sheikh, Jamal learned the importance of the Shariah, hijrah, and many parts of Islam which the Christians and atheists hated so much. This took about 5 years, during which time his sister, Jacqueline, left the church and accepted Islam. Jamal had to implement this knowledge when Jacqueline refused to leave her husband until he accepted Islam. He argued with her and told her that she was absolutely forbidden from living with him until he accepted Islam, even if she loved him and he was good to her. She said, "Submission to Allah's will is too beautiful a religion to make me leave a good husband! That's you talking, not Allah!"
"No, it's Allah's words that disbelieving men are not lawful husbands for believing women. Muhammad's own daughter left her husband and lived with her father until her husband accepted Islam. Then she went right back to him. She loved him. But she did the right thing and stuck to her guns. You got to do the same thing! I'm sorry it's hard, but think about it like this; if he were a bum and had nothing but he was a nice guy, you wouldn't have even married him in the first place! Nice guy, but not up to standard. If he had even been a little wimpish he wouldn't have been your type, I know for sure as your brother. So now that you've accepted Islam and he hasn't you have to move out and let him know that you have to live separate from him and not consumate the marriage until he accepts Islam. If he refuses, then the marriage is over and no hard feelings but--"
"No! What if I leave him and then I wind up with some good-for-nothing man! I know how Muslim men can be! Christian men, too. I got a good husband, a good marriage, and that makes me lucky no matter what religions we have! You want me to just give it up?"
"Allah does, whether I want you to or not."
"Why?"
"Allah demands that we demonstrate that Islam is superior to other--"
"How does that prove anything?"
"All right, imagine you become a homeowner tomorrow."
"Okay!" she said impatiently.
"Now, you got that financial part of your life in order, good job, good car, and you own your own property. All you're missing is your husband, so you go on a match-making website to find someone. You put in your specifications, he has to own his home and car, he has to be educated, he can't be too short or too skinny or unemployed and he has to be willing to treat you right. Then, all the hits you get are from guys who have everything except the house and car and education. I know you, Jacqueline. You'll either stay single or you'll pick a guy with the status but not the character. I can see why, I understand, I'm not knocking it. It's cool. But the point is when you got religious and went to church, you had your same standards in addition to one more for a man to meet. He had to be Christian, right? You didn't compromise on those things. That was the Christian thing to do. You said in effect that your Christianity was superior to someone else's being just an agnostic, right? Now, you've accepted that Islam is true and Christianity isn't. And it's in the Qur'an that Muslim women aren't to put a disbelieving man in position over them. We agree, Islam is better than Christianity, and your Islam has to be protected. He's not gonna do that when you tell him you're Muslim, is he?"
"No, I admit that."
"Then invite him to Islam and hold off on living with him or consumating until he accepts. Go on the offense. Believe me, he'll accept or I'll search for a husband like him from the Muslim brothers myself until I find one you like or I die first! If he accepts Islam, it's all the better!"
She outright refused, and Jamal explained to her that it meant she was leaving Islam since he had explained it to her. "Then I'm leaving Islam," she agreed. "I still call myself a Muslim, but you go ahead and call me a Christian again if you want to," she said dismissively.
"Doesn't matter what I call you anymore. I'm really not allowed to call you. Please try to get back into this religion before you die," he admonished her. "And let me know if you do."
Jamal walked out of the coffee shop and didn't contact her until 2011, when he had saved enough to make hijrah and began to take advantage of London's diversity to ask nationals of different countries what religious life was like in their homelands. He had travelled to other European nations in his time in London, but had never left Europe since his first arrival in London in 1997. But he had never forgotten life in Montserrat. He longed to go back to certain normalities there, such as the equal and constant hours of night and day throughout the year as opposed to England's very long summer days and very long winter nights. He missed going outside without concern for the weather, and when he first travelled to Italy, he realized how much he missed just having reliable sunlight for a change. He missed having summer rains that came and went instead of the northern rains that lasted all day. And in his asking around, he learned that an Islamic revival was occurring in Gambia. Gambians were small in number compared to their neighbors, the Senegalese, who were ethnically the same people, but who were more liberal in their Islam by miles and miles. The West Africans had often been the least fearful of the Muslims but also the most liberal, until the Gambians got a new president in the special elections of 2010 who repressed the practice of Islam in the capital cities. He attempted to forbid the hijab in public places except outside of the capital city and relegate all of Islam to the masjids and the Muslim homes, but the problem was that the population was 99% Muslim and they had never had problems with the few Christians there. As they had never offended them and never fought with them, they refused to tolerate the repression of this new president who self-identified as a Muslim. So when their protests were met in the streets by reluctant police who were ordered to fire in the crowd but only fired in the air, the entire population reacted with revival. President Idris Sillah was in bad shape after that. Everyone knew that he had promised the CIA he could repress Islam in The Gambia to supplement his offical salary. Already a group of mujahideen had arisen in the woods of the interior and made two incursions into the city in less than a year, attacking the Executive House.
Gambia became an easy choice for Jamal. The people were friendly towards Africans of the Diaspora and towards Muslims in general. Jamal was both. When the next hajj came around, he would embark on it, then go to Banjul and not return to London. He began to sell his belongings except for his clothes, and he applied for a hajj visa from the Saudi embassy. He found employment but he didn't count on it being available when he got there, so he planned on being unemployed when he arrived there. When everything was all worked out, and one day when he sat down on some of his pillows to just relax after a day of work, his sister called him. After 3 years, he still remembered her number in his caller ID and he answered without the peace greetings. "Did you come back in?"
"Salam aleikum to you, too," she said sarcastically. "And yes, I came back. I told him about 2 years ago, and it's gotten harder every month to live with him. He started off being nice about it, but then he got pushier over time. He just tried to rape me because he knew I could get pregnant, and he even told me why."
"Rape you? So I take it it's over, then, huh?"
"Of course, Jamal! He tried to rape me! He said he wanted to put a Christian baby in my belly, and if I left him he'd tell a divorce judge that I was plotting terrorism and teaching extremism to the child so he would get custody. He said if I won't serve Christ then I'll serve the servant of Christ. I had to hit him and run out of the house with out anything. I'm here now while he's at work, but I'm not finished and he's going to get back home soon. Can you please come over?"
Jamal went to her house and helped her pack some of her stuff, then loaded alot of it into his little car. "You should come stay with me," he said to her, to which she nodded with tears in her eyes and then hugged him with a few sobs.
"You were right, I just didn't realize how much. I even hoped Allah would make it easy to leave, but when he tried to rape me it was too much. He has never been like this before!"
"That's why I'm gonna teach him a lesson. He'd always been a nice guy before, so now that he's made an exception just for the Muslims, I'll make one for him now."
When Paul showed up, Jamal hid so he could catch Paul unawares in his hostility. Jacqueline had taken up for him as a big sister when they were kids, so now he would protect her. And sure enough, Paul came home and Jamal heard Jacqueline scream. As Paul was telling her, "Oh yes, you come back for what you run from earlier!" Jamal came behind him and knocked him unconscious with a lamp. Paul slumped to the ground, senseless, and Jamal told Jacqueline to go on and pack whatever else she needed. He stood guard over Paul's sleeping body until she was ready to leave, then he slapped Paul in the face lightly to wake him up. "What happened?" asked Paul.
"You had to learn a hard lesson, Paul. I liked you as a brother-in-law until you started to oppress my sister for being a Muslim. This is why Allah doesn't let our women marry kaffir men. Good day, sir!"
To get a ticket for Jacqueline to go to Gambia at the last minute cost more, but it as still affordable, and so Jamal got one for her since she had no hajj visa. She would have had to go Gambia before he would get there, as he was afraid to leave her in London alone where Paul might attempt to track her down. But it occurred to him that a friend of his from the masjid who lived with his sister might be willing to come check on her daily with his sister to make sure she was unhurt. When they agreed to check on her once he was departed for hajj, they went even further and insisted she stay with his sister. His sister was new to London, actually having come from Gambia herself two months before. She would be indispensible in informing Jacqueline of what to expect, and Jacqueline would be of assistance to showing her her way around London while her brother worked without her having to go out alone to learn it.
Jamal shortly after left for Mecca, landed in Jeddah, took the bus to Mecca, and went through the hajj rituals. He walked where Muhammad and the companions had walked, prayed in the Haram where they had prayed, got to touch the black stone, and stoned the pillar of Shaytan. When it ended, he went to Madinah where he had a chance to pray in the Masjid An-Nabawi and get many photographs. He encountered a bit of racism from the locals in Mecca and from some of the Indians and Pakistanis living there, but in Madinah he encountered a much more polite crowd. After the rigors and the emotional highs of the hajj, Madinah was a relaxer for him, much like walking after a long and hard jog. He was finally away from the Islamophobia-induced hardships of the UK and the rigors of the hajj, where he could breathe deep and relax.
His flight back to London wasn't for him to return there, it was for him to meet Jacqueline at the airport and catch their connecting flight to Banjul, Gambia. He was happy when his flight was descending on London again, because this time he would be leaving again shortly in a few hours, for good. In the international terminal, biding time until his next flight, he was joined by Jacqueline and by his friend Yahya with whose sister she had stayed. He asked Jamal's permission to marry her there in front of her, in the terminal. Jacqueline explained that Paul had showed at Yahya's house demanding she return to him. Yahya had told him she was a guest of his sister, and they did not give up guests. So when Paul tried to force his way in past Yahya, they fought brutally until Yahya's sister called for help and some other brothers showed up. Since Yahya lived in a Muslim area, Paul was beaten senseless by several Muslim brothers who showed up to help Yahya. Paul had a serious concussion from it, but Yahya pressed charges against him successfully. In the meantime, Jacqueline saw Yahya's defense of her and was sure that he would make a better husband than Paul. Paul had been excited about being Christian when they met, but Yahya was a man who truly feared his Lord and behaved as such. His respect for her and his defense of her impressed her. Jamal agreed as long as Yahya paid the dowry she asked for, which he then pulled out and handed to her right there. "You're married now as far as I'm concerned," said Jamal.
Yahya flew with them to Banjul so he could give a feast there with his family. And since his family was meeting him at the airport, Jamal did not have to check in to a hotel until he found a place to stay. He was almost forced to stay as their guest, and he had the guest house while Jacqueline stayed with Yahya as his wife. Then, a cousin named Samirah took a liking to Jamal. She was a divorcee of half a year, having been left by her husband when she wanted to practice Islam more seriously while he wanted to remain unobservant and continue drinking. When Yahya bragged to the family about Jamal's character in Wolof, which neither Jamal nor Jacqueline understood, Samirah's father was alos impressed, and later asked Jamal if he would ever marry a woman older than himself. "How much older?" he asked.
"How old are you?"
"31. I'd consider marrying a woman up to 35. Age is less important than who she is."
"My daughter is 33. How would you feel about marrying her?"
Jamal had barely looked at Samirah, so when he talked to her where her father could see them, he was impressed that she was so nice-looking and flawlessly complected and still a divorcee. But the revival in the Gambia separated the serious from the unobservant, the strong from the weak. She was not the only one and many men had likewise been divorced by their wives for being serious in their Islam when their wives had insisted on taking Islam lightly. She asked certain things she felt she needed to know, and he then asked his own questions and they worked out a dowry.
With Jacqueline married to Yahya and Jamal married shortly thereafter to Yahya's cousin, Yahya joked that "You two are now stuck with me for ever. It appears you will never be able to shake me." Both of them had local guides to show them around Banjul, and their plans changed. Jamal was asked by Samirah and her dad to stay at the house with them so she could still be with her relatives. He insisted on paying some rent, though not much. Yahya planned to eventually go back to London and work some more to save up more money, but the revival of Islam in his country enticed him to stay there and find work there instead. Jamal looked at the city, and the country side he visited on day trips with Samirah, and he felt more at home than he had in Montserrat ever.
One day, while watching the sun go down over the Atlantic Ocean at the beach, he looked around at the city to the east of he and Samirah. The people were winding down their businesses and shops, getting ready to go to the masajid to pray maghreb once the sun was below the watery horizon. A sea of jet-black people, under a sky that would reliably alternate between days and nights of equal length, in the tropics where time mattered less because there were no winters for which to prepare, where Islam was gaining a foothold and not losing it in the lives of the people, and where he had been appreciated for his Islam instead of ridiculed for his youth, were relaxedly getting ready to and line up in rows to communally ask Allah for guidance again. "I thought I wanted to go back to Montserrat, but couldn't because of the damage to it from the volcano, and so I was torn apart. But now that I'm here in Gambia, I've gotten better than what was destroyed in Montserrat. I don't miss London or Montserrat anymore," he told Samirah.
In the breeze coming off of the ocean, with her hijab and dress blowing in it like a flag of tawheed, she smiled at Jamal and told him, "Hamdulillah, you did what a Muslim is supposed to do. You asked about where to go that is best for your religion, and then you came here. Now, you have contentment in this life and you did not have to give up your akhira to get it. The only thing left is for you to be ready to fight for Islam if President Sillah gets control again or someone like him does."
"Jihad?"
"Exactly."
"Would you help me if it was needed?"
"I love Allah, and I love you for Allah's sake, Jamal. You became the only Muslim in your country and then left your home at age 14 just to go where there were other Muslims are. Now you have come here to be with better Muslims and have helped me in my religion in doing so. Jamal, I would do more than help you. I would be on your side with the same weapon, making du'a to Allah that we die together. If it were allowed, I would even ask to share a grave with you."
"I love you, too Samirah. But now I love you more. When
you told me that, you just proved to me that you would never discourage me from
righteousness, even when it's hard. Muhammad, sallalhu alyhi wa salam, had
Khadijah, and you are my Khadijah. May Allah keep us together forever."
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