Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Pain. From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah
    Pain. From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah
    Pain. From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah
    Ebook206 pages1 hour

    Pain. From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah

    By Umm Zakiyyah

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Excerpts from the personal journal of Muslim author Umm Zakiyyah.

    She says, “Here, I am sharing with you pieces of my heart as I penned them in my personal journal over the years. Unfiltered in all their pain, conviction, and hope, these words represent a small part of me as I traversed some of the most difficult times in my life. You will see my hurt, anger, and confusion. And prayerfully, my faith. I speak of the deeply personal, the profoundly spiritual, and my sometimes frustrating attempts at making sense of the world around me. Read them as I wrote them. With the heart.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUmm Zakiyyah
    Release dateMay 17, 2016
    ISBN9781311298546
    Pain. From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah
    Author

    Umm Zakiyyah

    Umm Zakiyyah is the bestselling author of the novels If I Should Speak trilogy, Muslim Girl, and His Other Wife; and the self-help book for religious survivors of abuse Reverencing the Wombs That Broke You. She writes about the interfaith struggles of Muslims and Christians and the intercultural, spiritual, and moral struggles of Muslims in America. Her work has earned praise from writers, professors, and filmmakers and has been translated into multiple languages.

    Read more from Umm Zakiyyah

    Related to Pain. From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah

    Related ebooks

    New Age & Spirituality For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Aug 27, 2021

      Dear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for a chance to be featured – please try to ke

      8 min read

    • Article

      You Belong

      Oct 27, 2020

      You Belong
      4 min read

    • Article

      How To Flourish In Dark Times

      Apr 8, 2021

      How To Flourish In Dark Times
      4 min read

    • Article

      Rooted IN Compassion

      Dec 17, 2019

      Rooted IN Compassion
      7 min read

    • Article

      Continuing Thay’s Teachings

      Nov 19, 2019

      Sister Chan Khong has been Thich Nhat Hanh’s closest collaborator for more than fifty years. She’s also a dedicated activist and gifted teacher in her own right. When I went to the United States to explain the suffering of the Vietnamese people and t

      7 min read

    • Article

      Every Family Has A Story

      Jul 1, 2023

      Every Family Has A Story
      3 min read

    • Article

      Changing The Narrative

      Aug 20, 2019

      Changing The Narrative
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Abuse Of Boys

      Mar 22, 2023

      The Abuse Of Boys
      2 min read

    • Article

      Transforming Fear Into Hope

      May 23, 2022

      Transforming Fear Into Hope
      4 min read

    • Article

      Message On a Mirror

      Nov 11, 2020

      Message On a Mirror
      3 min read

    • Article

      From Blame to Love

      Sep 24, 2019

      From Blame to Love
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why Empathy Can Be So Hard

      May 1, 2023

      I RECENTLY SPOKE at a conference for CEOs in North Carolina, and after I gave my presentation, an enthusiastic gentleman came over to speak with me. He told me how great my presentation was and how he worked with “coloured people” back home and how i

      7 min read

    • Article

      Hands Of Compassion

      Mar 19, 2024

      Hands Of Compassion
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ask The Teachers

      Sep 14, 2021

      BREESHIA WADE: The dharma provides tools through the eightfold path and the paramitas to help guide us into translating internal acceptance into concrete actions. During clinical pastoral education, chaplains utilize the action-reflection-action mode

      5 min read

    • Article

      Give Me Your Pain: One Man’s Quest to Bear the Pain of Others’ and Heal His Own

      Aug 23, 2020

      — Usually, people think that I’m a strong, happy person…but behind my smiles they just don’t know how much I’m in pain and almost broken…” Pain. How can a person understand life when life was crushed before living it? And what about the crude impact

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Pain. From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Pain. From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah - Umm Zakiyyah

      Author’s Note

      Here, I am sharing with you pieces of my heart as I penned them in my personal journal over the years. Unfiltered in all their pain, conviction, and hope, these words represent a small part of me as I traversed some of the most difficult times in my life. You will see my hurt, anger, and confusion.

      And prayerfully, my faith.

      I speak of the deeply personal, the profoundly spiritual, and my sometimes frustrating attempts at making sense of the world around me.

      You will find no dates or context.

      And that is the point.

      Read them as I wrote them.

      With the heart.

      Dedication

      For the unsettled soul in search of solace and direction

      "There are just some stories that no heart or mind has the ability to understand, not even the heart or mind of the soul carrying the untold."

      —from the journal of Umm Zakiyyah

      Pain.

      From the Journal of Umm Zakiyyah

      Silence.

      I started to say I don’t know if I have the words for my story. But I realized that’s not completely true.

      Or at least I don’t know yet if it’s completely true.

      But right now, I don’t know if my story has words.

      Because some stories aren’t really stories.

      They’re not packages of words to be shared with audiences eager or willing to understand.

      Some stories are simply packages of life, packages of pain that no one can taste, feel, touch or see.

      Except your own soul.

      And there really is no other option but to suffer in silence. Because speaking will only increase your pain.

      ~

      I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut and focus on my own home. I’ve lived for more than fifty years and raised several children. When I was younger, I had a lot of opinions about other people’s marriages and children—and I didn’t keep quiet about it. And now, by Allah, every single thing I criticized in someone else’s home, Allah put it in mine.

      — reflections of an elder friend

      ~

      A still tongue is not a silent voice.

      The more you suppress someone’s voice,

      the more it is fueled by the blood flowing through the heart, such that when it reaches the tongue,

      it has more life and power than before.

      Strength.

      It’s less about strength than it is about survival. People do what they do because they have no other choice, not because they are strong.

      ~

      Strength comes at the moment of weakness. So you don’t know how well (or poorly) you’re doing until you become weak and must display fortitude in the face of it. If you can push yourself through the most debilitating moments of weakness, then you have a glimpse into what it means to be strong.

      ~

      I was standing on broken legs,

      barely steadying myself as I smiled.

      And the foolish people looked on,

      and called me strong.

      Loss.

      That’s my baby, I thought sadly.

      I stood on weakened legs looking in eerie calmness at the small form that I held in my hands. I stood near the trash bin, hesitant to throw him—or her—away. It was too soon to tell whether it was a boy or a girl, but I felt connected to my child nonetheless.

      I’d always wanted my daughter to have a brother or sister. And here they were, and I couldn’t even give them a name.

      I could make out only the beginnings of a spine and the curvy contentment of a baby snuggling comfortably in a mother’s womb.

      In my womb.

      There will be no janaazah, I thought to myself. And at that moment, it seemed unfair. No one would grieve with me. No one would pray for me. No one would feel this loss.

      And that’s when my legs gave out, and I collapsed on bended knees.

      Oddly, I felt empathy and understanding in my nearness to the blood that had come from me. It was like my body saying, I understand your pain, when no one else could.

      An unintelligible moaning came from somewhere inside me, and tears spilled from my eyes. I couldn’t stop the sound, and I couldn’t stop the tears.

      Patience is at the shock, a voice inside me said.

      Then I cried more. Because I realized at that moment that I was a bad Muslim too.

      Small Kindness.

      The more I live, the more I appreciate small kindnesses, like people taking a moment to really, truly from the bottom of their hearts assume the best about someone, even when the person’s words come out wrong. And even when their word choice is far from best.

      The hardest time to do this is during disagreements, especially when you’re upset or when you perceive the other person is upset.

      One of the most powerful lessons teaching internationally has taught me is the importance of communication through the heart. Many of my students (who were middle school, high school and college age) were not proficient English speakers, so when they were upset or even really happy about something, I had to expend a lot of energy working through what their tongues were saying to actually hear what their hearts were saying. It wasn’t easy, especially when their choice phrases were borrowed from popular TV, movies, and offensive song lyrics (because that’s what they’d been exposed to).

      But it was worth it.

      I learned to work harder at giving people room to vent, to express happiness or frustration, and to even offend me personally. I wanted them to know that they matter, that I wouldn’t silence them, and that everyone had a right to share both the good and bad of what they felt inside.

      I miss that.

      So often we get lost in our own heads, in our own convictions and causes that we no longer see a fellow human being in front of us. We see a rival, someone we’ve already made assumptions about, someone we assume is challenging us—even when they’re merely offering another perspective or wishing to engage in fruitful discussion.

      The hardest part for me personally is that with each day, I’m learning that as an African-American and as a visibly Muslim woman—and especially a public figure—I won’t be afforded that small kindness most times, even by fellow minorities and believers.

      I remember reading a status posted by Yasmin Mogahed once, and it said something to the effect of, If you have someone in your life with whom you have emotional safety, treasure them. It is rare.

      And I couldn’t agree more.

      Having a relationship of emotional safety in this world is very, very rare. Most people are more interested in theoretical love and harmony that can be expressed in moving quotes and posts than in the love and harmony borne of the hard, humbling work of dealing with actual living, flawed human beings.

      Tragedy.

      And here is the tragedy. Muslims, African-Americans, and other oppressed groups learn that suffering is something they must endure for the greater good.

      So private abuses and traumas are kept quiet so as to not upset or disrupt an already fragile reputation and tenuous image.

      You don’t cry out when you’re in pain, and you don’t seek outside help when you need it, because this (you’ve come to understand) is itself a crime. And what right do you have, sufferers ask themselves, to commit a crime while seeking healing from another?

      ~

      Many Muslims do not seek healing from childhood wounds because they think that to do so is blaming their parents.

      In this, they are like ones struck by accidental gunfire, but they refuse treatment because the person didn’t intend to harm them.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1