From bride to widow in 30 days - Thanna Alghabban

I was born in Manchester and moved to London when I was seven years old. I was raised in a moderately religious Muslim family, all of whom observed hijab. I therefore decided to observe hijab myself when I was eight years old and I continued to wear a headscarf (though not in the most modest of ways). I had just started work at a law firm and so began my “westernised” lifestyle; “drinks after work”, “birthdays”, “Christmas parties”, “events”, you name it- I did it. I justified my participation as just doing what was necessary to integrate with my peers, and because I didn’t drink and I didn’t engage in what was strictly and very outwardly “haram”, day by day I found myself becoming numb to the situations I was being exposed to. Soon enough they became normal; what seemed like a big deal at first, became normal and what became normal, became instilled in my life. For about a year, I got worse and worse, until I eventually reached what I thought to be a “balance”. I call it a “balance”, but what it was really just a false outlook on religion, where even though I was committing what might be seen as acts of haram on a daily basis, I justified it to myself by the saying; “I am a good person with a good heart, even though I am doing this, God knows that my intention is pure and therefore this will be taken into consideration” – a laughable ideology now that I look back and whenever I hear someone saying such words I feel pity for them, because I know now how misguided this way of thinking is.During my “balance years” I met my husband; 

Mohammad, the second I met him, something in me woke up, suddenly going out with my friends wasn’t important, and suddenly “living my life” meant nothing. Something just clicked for the both of us, and despite us both not being hugely bothered about what was strictly halal and haram at the time, something inside pushed us to what seemed like the right path and we decided to get Islamically married as soon as we could so we could avoid anything haram. After only 10 from our first meeting we had a nikah, shortly after we had a small reception and to both our surprise I became immediately pregnant. We were surprised at first almost couldn’t believe it, but ecstatic with the prospect of starting a family together. We decided to keep it to ourselves because it was still too early to announce to anyone.My Tragedy. On Saturday 28th March 2015, my husband had work, he kissed me in the morning before he left while I was half asleep and told me he would see me later on in the day. I had the day off, so, when I woke up I decided to go baby shopping because I was so excited about it. Throughout the day, he was messaging me letting me know how work was going, funny things that happened at work…all normal things. As soon as he finished work we made a plan that he was going to come and meet me at the shopping centre. At 5:01pm he sent me a message saying “I’m coming babe xx” to let me know he was leaving work.It got to 7:00pm and I had heard nothing from him, I kept calling but there was no reply, Although I was worried because it was at most a 45 minute journey, I forced myself to be angry at him for being late and not letting me know where he was because I did not want to believe anything bad had happened. I sent him messages asking “where are you”, and “can you at least tell me if you are dead or alive” believing he was just being a ‘typical guy’, decided to stop off somewhere, didn’t think to let me know, lost track of time, just a whole other scenario that I wanted to believe instead of the truth, which was that he is not the kind of person who would ever go three hours without contacting me to tell me where he was. I decided to go home hoping that he had just gone home and not told me. As soon as I entered the house I ran upstairs, and I continued to call him. Within less than five minutes I heard a knock on my door and I ran to the window and looked down to find two police officers at the door. My heart dropped to my feet as I was running down to answer the door. As soon as I opened the door, SubhanAllah, I saw the next ten minutes play in my head before they had even uttered a word, a sort of déjà vu, and I burst into tears. They told me my husband had died in an accident. That morning I woke up a newlywed bride excited about the beginning of a beautiful new life together, and in that moment I became a pregnant widow. Never in my darkest fears could I ever have predicted this turn of events; that I have my wedding reception on 8th March 2015 and I bury my husband exactly one month later, on 8th April 2015. It may seem easy to look at my situation and blame God- why did God do this? There must be people in the world who are more deserving of such fate? We were on the right path, albeit slow, why cut that path short? On the contrary; instead of making me lose hope in all that is life, what feels like the worst test of all has actually brought me so much closer to my creator; Allah. For those of you that don’t know me as a person, I have rarely experienced any hardships in my life, no close deaths, no illnesses and no financial hardships. I have been what one would class as blessed, but unfortunately, even with all these blessings, I did not ever stop to truly thank God for all he had done for me. So when the time came for him to give me one of these hardships, he gave me what one could argue is the toughest one of them all, losing the father of your unborn child. Before losing my husband I used to get stressed about the smallest things and worry about matters that would really meant nothing. But now I use my worry for matters of the deen. I would always get signs from God to change my ways, like strange dreams or hearing about other people tragedies. Signs like this, I got about once a year. I would get them, completely freak out, vow to change my ways, then fall back into my old habits within a month or two. Now that my husband has passed away, I can’t help but look at it las my FINAL SIGN from God, to take his hand. I look now at all the other signs before this and I think, all of these would have been sufficient enough for God to tell me on the day of judgement when I am being tried that I had every opportunity to turn to him, but STILL I chose the wrong path. This thought alone, in the midst of what appears to be of the unluckiest situations, makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Why? Because Allah (SWT) doesn’t always bless everyone with a clear sign calling someone back towards Him and Islam, let alone in my case; three or four or five. In Surah Al Baqarah it says:“…those who choose to do the wrong and they choose not to see, God will make them blind to the right path and will allow them to stay on the wrong one”. Although this is the most hurtful of experiences that I truly do not wish on my worst enemy, I fully accept that this was Allah’s (SWT) will, and although I may not see its true extent now, it is what is best for me and for Mohammad. For Mohammad, he experienced more problems in this last year than he had his entire life. I believe God did this to purify his sins before he was due to return to him. Furthermore, Mohammad was not raised with religion in his life, he pretty much raised himself because he was on his own but the closer he got to my family, the more he began to open his eyes and ask questions about religion. Mohammad was the closest he had ever been to religion in all his life when he was taken away, that in itself is a blessing. The way he died, was instant and painless, he was thrown off his bike and was dead before he even hit the ground SubhanAllah. As personal as this experience is to me and as fresh as my wounds are still, I chose to share my story, to reach out, even if it’s to just one person, who like me, didn’t always pray on time, if at all, didn’t thank Allah for every blessing He had given you, big or small, distracted yourself with this world more than your preparation for the hereafter, engaged in conflict with others for stupid reasons…. and so many more things. For me, Allah (swt) gave me the chance to take his hand once again, but this time He gave me a test that I could not ignore after a month or two. I look back at everything preceding this tragedy and even down to the song we chose last-minute for our first dance, I look at the lyrics now and it just makes sense “I thank Allah for opening my eyes”. I pray that everyone who is anything like I was, who believes that having a good heart is enough to make them a good Muslim, can see things for what they really are without having to go through such a painful experience. Our actions on this earth will be our currency in the ahkira, not our words, or thoughts or feelings. BUT OUR ACTIONS! Our life is a journey, we take nothing with us but our good deeds and our constant remembrance in Allah and the blessings He has bestowed upon us. 

Credits : Thanna Alghabban