The Faith Of A Muslim Woman

Manuscript by Mattox, sxc.hu

My auntie was admitted to hospital following a stroke a few months ago.  It happened in the early morning and it was fortunate that I was home on that Sunday morning.  If it had been any other day of the week, her condition might have been discovered much later and her prognosis would have been that much poorer.  But since then, she has made an amazing recovery and is able to walk and talk as if the stroke never happened.

But this hub is not about my auntie nor is it about her miraculous recovery.  It is about a Muslim woman whose daughter was in the bed next to my auntie.  Her daughter had been in an accident 2 years ago and her right arm was paralyzed.  She was in the hospital for an operation that might restore movement to her arm.

In the days following my auntie's stroke, I would visit her at least once a day in the evenings.  Every time I arrived, the Muslim woman would be there visiting with her daughter.  She will always have food with her and always insisted that I share in the food.  I won't have had dinner yet, and she would always have something tasty, so I helped myself.

But after the first few times, I started to feel guilty about taking her food.  There was one day in which I told her that I just can't keep eating her food every evening, but in her usual way, she brushed off my objections and said, “Eat!”  But I persisted and said that I can't take advantage of her generosity.  She looked at me and responded with 4 words that are the subject of this hub.

She said, "Don't worry,  God provides."

It was a simple gesture.  But that gesture spoke volumes about herself and her faith.  A lot can be written on what she meant by that, and what we can learn from those 4 simple words.

She is a Muslim, so we are obviously of different faiths.  She is Malay while I'm Chinese.  She is a mother and probably a homemaker and her world would revolve around her home, her family and her friends.  In any other setting, we probably would not even have exchanged a single word.  Even in the hospital, we didn't chat much, so we were really not that much better than total strangers.

But all that didn't matter to her.  In her world, God provided her with food, enough for her, her family and then some.  Since she has more than what she needed, she shared it with those in need, namely me.

In the recent past, terrorists have sacrificed themselves, and took a lot of innocent people with them, in the name of God.  They blew themselves up or attacked public buildings to set right injustices, real or perceived, against their God and their religion.

On the Internet, the perennial debate over evolution versus creation rages on on the Christian front.  Some debates are measured and intellectual, but more often than not, such debates turn into no more than a name calling contest, in which the only purpose appears to be to intimidate and to insult, but not to inform.

When all is said and done, when the Muslim woman, the terrorist and the creationist arrive at the gates of heaven, I wonder who will be judged the most worthy.  My money will be on the Muslim woman.