Treasured Reminiscences

I was juat reading a couple of blogs and felt horrible about not writing on my own. It’s been a long long while I have written something with the intention of letting my mind wander on paper (figuratively!) and blabbing to my hearts content. I have justified my procrastination and laziness with various reasons but today I thought enough is enough and its time to give myself a kick in the ass!

I started writing about myself generally and ended up writing about my beloved university, BNU. The university I havent gone to in 2 months and to which I have no desire to return to any time soon. The university which gave me so much…

Lets trace my journey in BNU  from the very beginning. I was happy in the beginning that A-Hamdulillah, I went with some friends who I knew from before, so  I was saved from the initial awkward, embarrassed and quiet phase that comes when I am exposed to a new hostile environment. I changed. BNU gave me its share of things to chew over. I was in a different environment, with different people, doing different things, thinking over different issues etc.

How ABSOLUTELY, UTTERLY, COMPLETELY mad BNU drove me in the beginning can be judged from  the article I wrote a long time back and which can be found somewhere in my archives. So I’m not gonna rehash those pleasant memories.

Lets move onto what we, as a “group” of 4 abaya-clad, relatively good students and the founders of the Prayer Room Commission contributed to BNU…our university-the center of our life, the focus of our thoughts, the throb of our hearts… 

We introduced the ‘Taliban’ Movement in the poor university; we forbade poor girls who wore jeans to use the washroom in the Prayer Room; we dessiminated Anti-BNU-spirit documents to create divisions amongst the unified community of BNU; we barged into classrooms, terrorised the teacher and students alike and warned them not to play loud music in or near our Prayer Room (or else…); and we were so successful that we even took the Administration under our wicked Taliban wing and sent out letters to the parents of ALL the children that they should dress up their children appropriately and decently, a.k.a in abayas and jubbas and hijabs and amamas.

As a university, BNU has given us a lot. It has given us the titles of “Ninjas” (quite unoriginal, I must say) and bestowed upon us the honor of starting Talibanisation in the university (personally I’m flattered! We must be really awe (or terror) inspiring that we actually motivated BNU (I REPEAT) BNU FOLKS to sit down, write, print, distribute and even hang up notices of “STOP TALIBANISATION IN BNU!!!” in every nook and cranny of the uni! All this done for 4 people…Chaa nahi gye hum? )

Like I said, I owe a lot to BNU. Specially a couple of lectures we got from Someone Special on how Islam wasnt spread by the sword and Dawah isn’t the job of normal Muslims but the work of scholars. But the most cherished gifts BNU blessed me with were the series of lectures we got from “excellent, spectacular, dazzling” experts and scholars of Islam. What knowledge I gained! What insight I got into the truth and reality of things! How grateful I  was to know that abayas are just cultural things, definitely not important, and how it is okay to do with modest clothes (define modest clothes??)! How absolutely motivated I felt to change the appearance of my husband when I was magnanimously told that beards were the trend of the Prophet’s time and that my husband shouldnt keep a beard because even Abu Jehel had a beard and we so don’t want to copy him, right?

I love and miss BNU from the bottom of my heart! May it prosper and continue to spread the love, beauty and modernity it is spreading!

LONG LIVE BNU!

Uncle Rum again…

Sometimes in order to help He makes us cry.
Happy the eye that sheds tears for His sake.
Fortunate the heart that burns for His sake.
Laughter always follows tears.
Blessed are those who understand.
Life blossoms wherever water flows.
Where tears are shed divine mercy is shown.

-Rumi, “Mathnawi”