To my unborn child,
Welcome to 2020. This year has many names. It is known as the year of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The year of locusts, wildfires, and global economic distress. It is also the year where Allah SWT manifested a glimpse of His infinite power and gave us a taste of what His punishment could look like.
But do not be disheartened. For our Prophet Muhammad SAWS was born in the year of the Elephant. The year where Abraha attempted to destroy the Kaaba (the House of Allah), and yet still it stands 1400 years later. That was the year where Allah SWT gave humanity the Prophet Muhammad SAWS as a Mercy to Mankind.
This year is no doubt a year of calamities, fear and the realization of our complete and utter vulnerability. Collectively, as medically, scientifically and technologically advanced we have become, our united strength could not stand to a battle just one tiny microscopic virus that Allah SWT permitted to cascade through His earth.
This year is also known as the year of major deception. It is hard to navigate knowing what the truth is and what has been falsified. Was COVID-19 created in a lab and used as a biomedical weapon targeted to destroy global economies? Is this virus as elusive and lethal as the mixed report indicates and contradicts? Is there a deeper plot to create a new vaccine and control the masses in an unprecedented manner? Is 5G really involved? Is Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men, behind the deception, illusion and agenda of this pandemic?
How do I raise you in a world that has become so unfamiliar to me? How can I teach you the truth when it has become difficult for me to see?
Despite the storm the ravages the earth just before your birth, there has been a tremendous amount of mercy that has descended upon mankind. Everyone is looking up to God again. Every faith, every believer, every person who was too busy to think about God has been forced to stop and think. The Sunnah of Allah SWT and His Messenger SAWS has now become the primary focus of many Muslims. People are reading Qur’an again. Prophetic Medicine has been revived in every heart as people desperately seek protection and healing from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad SAWS. The Kaaba and Mosques have been closed down, but families are praying at home together perhaps for the first time. Ramadan is approaching and there will be no social dinners, no Taraweeh prayers at the mosques and probably no Eid celebrations this year, but the hearts are filled with the need for Allah SWT and duas (supplications) are upon everyone’s tongues.
Despite the fear and distress, there will be many families blessed with the addition of a new baby — which in and of itself is an incredible miracle of life and continuity. There will be some blessed with marriage this year and some blessed with prosperity. Some have been blessed with the death of a martyr. Tranquility descends upon the hearts of many who turn to Allah SWT.
And though we are home and isolated from our families and friends, we have focused on building our little community within our home. We are learning how to be more self-sufficient by reviving traditional methods of food production. People have taken interest in baking breads, making butters and growing their own fruits and vegetables.
Allah SWT promises in the Qur’an:
For indeed, with hardship will be ease. Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease. (94:5-6)
Know that your entrance to this world was decreed by the Almighty. The mercy and blessings have been showered upon us from the moment you were conceived.
So long as Allah SWT is our guiding light, we will never be lost no matter how dark the world may seem.