My son, being the only boy among my five children, is, of course, like gold to us, but that is not what
I meant. Whatever it is on your mind, guessing why I called him the Golden Boy isn't it. I am sharing this strange story for the first time, and I want you to
take it with a grain of salt. My religious beliefs may differ from your own
perception, and I wish not to influence others. If I am wrong, I will be an
accessory to your deviating from the right path. I will answer before God for
my own salvation. I will not be burdened with others.
I felt like a kid
unwrapping a newly acquired toy. The date: January 22, 2013. This is the life
of overseas foreign workers (OFWs). You feel like hovering in the clouds
whenever you receive a package from home, whatever its contents. There were the
pocketbooks I asked for, socks, and an Alcatel Tablet with a lovely note from Nishreen, but there were others I did not ask for: a beautiful jacket and 2
shirts, gifts from my son. A smile crossed my lips when I looked at
the price tags. Hmm! Very expensive, I thought. I'm an M.D., but although I can well afford it, my wife and I never learned to buy and wear signature clothes.
We both grew up in poor families, so we feel more comfortable in ordinary
clothes, but not our children.
Funny: my wife and
I would be at the ‘sale’ corners whenever we were at the mall scouring for cheap clothes, while our children would be at Petit Monde, Dalagita, Bench, and other
expensive stores. My wife and I would look at each other amusingly. “Yeah,”
my wife would say before I could say a word, “they have a doctor father while
you and I didn’t,” and we would laugh out loud. We used to joke about it.
MIRACLE
“Go back and pray 2 raka’at,” I
told my wife. We were in the vicinity of ‘Beit’ul Allah’ (house of God). We
prayed separately; my wife was in the female section after we performed the
‘Tawa’f’ (circumambulation). I forgot to tell her to pray for a son, so I told her to go back near the Ka’aba, pray two raka’at, and ask for a son from ‘Allah.’
She was in the second month of her pregnancy with our 4th child.
Exposure to
Rubella (German measles) in the first trimester of pregnancy can cause
congenital malformations. My daughter Naira developed a very high fever with very fine rashes all over her body. Our dermatologist diagnosed it as Rubella. I took a blood sample from my wife and sent it to Assir Central Hospital in Abha for
antibody studies. It will take at least a week for the result to arrive. I had
sleepless nights.
Three days before
the result came, I had a dream about delivering my wife. She gave birth to a perfectly
normal infant. Not only did I know from the dream that my wife’s pregnancy would be fine, but I knew we were going to have a son. The laboratory result showed that
my wife had immunity to rubella, meaning she had already been exposed to the virus in
the past. Seven months later, I delivered my wife with the help of the OB and
nursery staff exactly the way I saw it in the dream. I was the hospital
neonatologist then.
The Egyptian
doctor I worked with in the Pediatric Clinic wished ardently for a son. She
already had three daughters like me, and since my wife had a son, she felt she should have one too, at least statistically. Not quite;
I saw her walk into the clinic with a beautiful daughter in her arms…in a
dream. She gave birth to another daughter :-)
I was supposed to
slaughter 2 sheep for my son’s ‘akika’ after his birth. Friends keep teasing me
on the big day. Unlike Christianity, there is no baptism in Islam. Every
living thing with a soul is born by the will of God and is, therefore, a Muslim.
One ceases to be a Muslim only when baptized into another religion. Because I
don’t want to be an ignorant believer, I have certain doubts about animal
sacrifice. I asked some Muslim friends about the practice. I was told it is
not an animal sacrifice; I was ignorant of this. It is a Thanksgiving party where you invite your neighbors, especially those in need, to share in your joy.
PREDESTINATION
When I told my wife to pray for a son, was my wife carrying a female fetus that God changed into a male, or was it a coincidence that she
was already carrying a male child at the time my wife and I prayed for a son?
Do I believe in the power of prayer?
Predestination is one of the most controversial issues in
Islam.
Do I believe in predestination? NO!
Did God predestinate Hitler (World War 2), Bush and Cheney (9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan), or Mladic and Milosevic (Balkan War) to launch wars that killed millions and brought horrific pain and suffering to the rest of
mankind? I am sure that they must have prayed for something, and their
prayers may have been granted. When you pray for something, you must be
prepared for the consequences here and in the hereafter.
Was my book of life already written and sealed on the day I was born? YES!
That on the same day a person is born, his/her book of life
is already written and sealed according to Islam, which is correct (my opinion of one), but I believe it is grossly misunderstood as predestination.
THE LOGIC
God’s power of foresight is absolute. On the day I was
conceived, God knows if I will make it to term, for how long I will live, and
the kind of life I will have. He knows exactly what date and what time I will
pray for such and such. In short, God knows precisely in absolute terms the contents of my book of life, meaning when my wife and I prayed for a son in Mecca, He already knew on the day my wife and I were born. He already answered
our prayers long before we even uttered the words of supplication :-) Meaning it was no coincidence that my wife at the time we were in Mecca was, in fact, carrying a male fetus. God already knew beforehand that we would ask for it.
If you are a Muslim who prays five times a day, imagine how
many prayers God will have to answer on the day you are born. If you live for a hundred years, God will have to answer your tens of thousands of prayers in your book of life. Allah’u Akhbar! If you pray infrequently, pray more often and witness the change in your life. You
just have to believe.
Our lives are molded by our prayers because when you pray
for something, you are, in essence, giving life to your vision. One who rarely prays
has no concrete vision of his/her future. It is in the fog.
Epilogue
The night before
the ‘akika’ (Thanksgiving party), I had a dream where a white sheep turned into gold right in front of me. I said, " Wow, what a dream.” I called the friend I had delegated to purchase the animals and told him to buy only white lambs. I knew then that my son would be okay—a golden boy inside and out.
