Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu

******

Ma'arij

He had yet another meeting today. The members of the Dubai Fashion Committee wanted to use one of their hotels to host a fashion week. He was just discussing the finer details along with them and the Event Manager whom they had brought along with them. After discussing the important aspects of the deal and ensuring to them that everything would be handled, Ma'arij escorted them out and shook their hands, before returning back to the seat and going over the detailed demands of workers in another hotel. He sighed as he went through the complaints and demands, before pulling a notepad towards himself and writing rough solutions to the problems.

Ma'arij lost the track of time and missed his Jumu'a prayers. The meeting had been scheduled on a weekend because Ma'arij tended to work on holidays and the DFC were quite busy on the other days. Ma'arij sighed as he finished his work and went towards the Mosque in the office to offer a quick Dhuhr prayers, before going towards the food court.

He was in his casual clothes and attracting loads of attention, as he walked towards food court, where he intended to hrab a quick bite before returning to his work. He reached the Pizza Hut in the food court and ordered for himself, the pasta and garlic bread, before taking a seat and watching the people around him. His phone rung.

****

Nawal

She had missed Fajr, was the first thought that ran through her head, when she opened her eyes and saw the brightly illuminated ceiling of her room. A strong pang of regret hit her chest and she gasped. The very next second a dull ache formed near her chest and a lump formed in her throat. She hastily got off the bed and ran towards the bathroom. She needed to pray it now as soon as possible. Her brother and Bhabhi weren't home as they had gone to visit relatives. She was usually woken up by her Bhabhi. Today in her absence Asweera had let go the fard. She did her ablutions in hurry and prayed her Salah. Sitting on the prayer mat, she contemplated. Was she the kind of a muslim, who needed the support of others to fulfil her obligatory duties? Was she so weak? She sighed.

She stood up and went towards the kitchen. Making the white sauce and mixing the chicken, she hastily prepared two rotis and ate it along with the bechamel chicken. The next thing she did was to take a long and relaxing bath, washing the bathroom and the clothes. She chose to wear a long, cotton, side slit kurti and a flaired skirt within it. She put the clothes to dry and then sweeped the house before preparing simple but tasty prawns fried rice. She read Surah Kahf next and prayed her dua. After praying Salah, she ate her food and came to sit at her desk. She had another lecture to listen to and make her own observations on it, along with contemplating about the points.

Without her family to make noise, she could concentrate on her lecture peacefully. This was truly the first time in her whole life that she had been alone. Someone or the other had always been there with her. She suddenly felt lonely and missed her mother and sisters. Sighing in acceptance, she began to play the lecture.

The effects of sins, on the life of a person. We all need to understand that our ultimate goal is to please Allah and acquire Jannah. Thats the primary concern of our life, everything else comes secondary. The rest of the life is just an extra class but the major subject is our will to please our Master. Now sometimes we forget this goal, shaytan makes us forget this goal. He makes us think that the dunya is everything. Hence we encounter obstacles on the way of achieving the goal. These obstacles are the sins. Nobody is perfect and everyone of us, sometime or the other in our life will commit these sins. So we need to understand just what these sins will lead to and how this will affect us and our regular life and Aakhirah.

We all know that there are two types of sins, the major ones and the minor ones. The major ones have major of the major and minor of the major sins. The minor sins when repeated again and again will lead to major sins. So we need to be aware of what we are upto. How these sins will affect us and how far we can fall due to them.

When we are going through something stressful, the first thing we need to wonder about is, if our link with Allah Zuljalalah is strong or are we far away from Him? If we have a strong link with Him then the rest is secondary. It may just be a test from Allah Rabb Al Aalameen. If it is bad then it might be a punishment from Allah. And the punishment may not even be to hurt you, it may just be to remind you to come back to your Lord. So do not panic and return to your Rabb and do loads of istighfar. Istighfar is seeking forgiveness from Allah and it increases the chances of us entering the Jannah. A true mumin is never done with the Istighfar. Till the last breathe, the heart of a believer keeps on doing the istighfar. So make it a habit forever and May Allah bless us with success. Remember whatever kind of a sinner you are, Islam is the religion of hope. And our hope lies on the words of our Rabb that proclaims that his mercy overcomes his wrath.

The first affect of the sin-
1) Fear. Allah instills in tour heart the fear of people, because while sinning you did not fear your Rabb. So you are basically scared of everything that might lead to the unveiling of your sin and are scared that a punishment might affect you. Thats how the sin will affect you. By making you fearful of the whole mankind. But if you fear Rabb you do not have anything else to fear because you abstained from sin if have taqwa and if you do that then You do not have a need to fear anything else. In addition to that Allah instills your love in everyone's heart.

2) Your heart narrows down and you begin to worry. You might have everything in your life but you may not find happiness at all because Allah instills in your heart a worry. You just feel sad and do not feel like doing anything. You feel heartbroken. This is how you know if what you are going through is test or a punishment from Allah. Both of these things are outwardly the same, but when you are going through a test by Allah you are satisfied in the decree of your Rabb and when he is punishing you that satusfaction is replaced by the feeling of worry in your heart.

3) Loneliness. You may be present in a big joint family or maybe living in the same house with a big community, but even amongst the countless number of people, all you feel is loneliness. You feel like you are alone and nobody cares for you. That's because your link with Allah is weak. You do not talk with the Best of the Listeners and hence no one listen to you. Some people may live alone and yet feel the most loved and cared for person in this whole wide world. Because their link with Allah is so strong that Allah himself cares for him. Try to eliminate this kind of feeling by talking to your Rabb and istighfar.

4) Everything becomes difficult for you. You may go anywhere and everywhere, with anyone of your choosing and do everything that you like, but nothing works out. Everything goes haywire and you are just facing troubles and rejections everywhere. You have cut your ties with the Owner of Solutions and hence the problems themselves find you vulnerable and weak. Try to cultivate a relationship with the Owner of Solutions and you will see that slowly but surely this works out. In his own time Allah will filfill your wishes if he so wishes. But again I stress on the istighfar.

5) You become lazy in accomplishing the acts that pleases your Rabb. You do not pray properly or maybe you feel lazy to get out of the bed for fajr or to read quran. The heart and energy that is used in the deeds that displeases Allah cannot strive in attaining his pleasure. So maybe the sinning is pulling you away from your duties to your Rabb and you do not feel like doung the obligatory acts of the deen in His way. The only thing that can erase any sin is the Istighfaar. So try and strive on the way towards your Rabb and he would not disappoint you.

6) Shamelessness. When you lose shame then do what you want. When you sin for the first time, you are embarrassed about it. You try to hide it and not let anyone come to know about it. Even your feels ashamed to admit it aloud. Then you may witness someone else doing it and you start feeling that it is a normal thing to do. You commit it again and again. Then you do not feel ashamed to do it in front of people and even if someone else do it you ro not bat an eyelash. Why? Because the shame is no more. The heart has lost the shame. And the next time the same sin is done by you in front of everyone become an encouragement for someone else to become shameless, continuing the chain and filling the book of deeds with sins which we committed and the others committed after being encouraged by us. So remember, unless and until you have the feeling of fear and shame to sin in front of people and atleast of you do not stop you still try to hide it, because it needs to remain between you and your Rabb, then there is still some hope for you. In our deen there is nothing like confessing the sins to a middleman. What you confess you confess to Allah and Allah alone. Keep the sin hidden from everyone. Do not be shameless to commit it and advertize it. That doesn't mean you need to sin first of all. If you could let it go completely then that is the best option.

Asweera's heart constricted as she went on listening to and writing about the effect of sins. She measured the closeness of her heart to Allah and she found herself severely lacking. Tears came to her eyes unbid. Her heart wrenched and then she started apologising to the maker of worlds. A heaviness had settled itself on her heart and try as she might, it refused to budge. Somewhere her mind was whispering that whatever she was doing was extremely wrong. She sighed. Was it wrong to know the guy who was going to be your husband in some months time? Was it wrong to talk to him and seeing if they are compatible? What was the harm if they would end up getting married anyways? Her feebly protested but the awakening Imaan didn't let her step back from her resolve and she wiped away her tears as she went to her contact list and called the one name she was supposed to avoid at all cost.

The phone rung. She waited with baited breath. What she had decided was not at all easy and she wished Allah would give her the required strenght ro face what was coming next and stand firm through it all.

"Hello... Aaj meri yaad aapko pehle kaise aa gayi (how did you miss me first today)?" He asked her playfully. She sucked a breath in. Her heart hammering inside her chest awkwardly. She didn't want to spoil his rare mood but what she had to do was important.

"I..." She breathed and fell silent. She could feel the change in his mood without him speaking anything. Everything suddenly grew chilly. The same chill seeped into his voice when he next spoke.

"What happened?" He enquired firmly. She felt clammy and cold just by hearing his voice. Her heart was beating too harshly and she was scared. Too scared to think about what his reaction to her decision would be.

"I..." She tried again but her throat closed down with both the heartbreak she was going through because of this self induced separation that she was bringing about, however brief it might be, and also fear of his reaction.

"Nawal!" He was growing impatient and irritable as the clock clicked. Yet the way he spoke her name, with full authority over it, somehow touched her heartstrings and made her blush just by the intensity. "What happened?"

"I don't think we should be in contact anymore!" She rushed the words out and bit her lips but there was no reaction on the other side. She grew more worrisome by his cold silence.

"You promised me to not ever do something like that again Nawal. Have you already forgotten? Is this the worth of your promise?" He finally spoke and each word he ittered pierced her like a dagger. She sucked in a cold breath of air and the first tear escaped her eyes, as his accusatory ridicule reached her ears.

"Am doing this for the both of us. This is wrong."

"Speaking is wrong?"

"You are still a namahram and speaking with a namahram is wrong." She tried to reason with him but already knew that he was long past reasoning.

"Namahram?" He growled. "Wasn't I a namahram all these days?" He enquired angrily. She gasped. He was right. She had been stupid and now him so openly pointing fingers at her was only making her feel more guilty.

"You were." She squeaked. "But now I cannot do this anymore. I really like you but-"

"You like me?" He didn't let her complete her sentence and interjected in between. His tone was mocking her. "What happened to your declarations of love?" He asked harshly. She sucked in a breathe as she felt her stomach flip uneasily due to the ugly confrontation.

"Farhan-" She tried to pacify him.

"Do not take this name from your lips Nawal!" He hissed angrily. And she sagged at the enormity of his anger. Her heart lurched in her chest and she kept a hand over it, like it would barricade the heart if it wanted to jump out. "You don't want to keep contact with me till the wedding? So be it! I will make sure that you and I are not connected anymore!" He declared and even though this was what Asweera was hoping for, she felt like someone had pulled away the earth from beneath her feet. She harshly breathed in and out and finally let out a sob. "This must be the doing of your Rubdha di!" He spat her name. She sucked in a cold breath of air and a spark lit in her heart. No body had he right to ridicule her di.

"Farhan!" She admonished angrily. "You don't even know Rubdha di and yet you have so much dislike for her! She doesn't deserve it. And this is my decision. My di have never taken my decisions for me. She suspects something bt even then she told me to take my own decisions but after thinking everything carefully. I haven't sppken to her since so many days and yet the first thing you say is she is affecting my decisions? I am alone in my home and no one is affecting my decisions. I heard a lecture about the effect of sinning and decided this for both of our sakes. But you? You had to drag my di in this! Why do you do this always? Why do you have so much irritation reserved for my di?" She was on a toll and he had fallen silent.

"Nawal." He started but she stopped him.

"I don't wanna talk with you right now." She told him calmly and disconnected the call through his protests.

*****

Farhan uttered some choice words and banged his phone on the table. He had angered her. He knew how much she hated it when he got defensive over that woman and he still had to jump to do so. He stiffened. Her anger on such a small issue was affecting him so badly. Would he be able to bear tears in her eyes due to himself? Would he be able to go through with his plan and strike her with grief and pain? He hated it and wished that he vould cancel all of his deals but he was helpless. He had to do something for her sake. Right now reducing her anger was his priority. He decided the best vourse of action and dialled a number.

*****

Ma'arij recieved the call and began speaking with the person on the other end. His eyes was fuming and his lips were pursed in irritation as he listened to the person on the other end.

"I don't care what you are going through. That's really not my convern. You have been handed a job and it's your duty to finish it!" Ma'arij spoke in the phone.

"Sir! It's going to be really terrible for both our families!" The person exclaimed.

"I don't care! You have signed a contract and remember, I will make sure your job opportunities end, if you even try to back out!" Ma'arij proclaimed. There was a bitter silence on the other end. Ma'arij imagined him to be sitting on his chair and trying to calm his rage at his boss aka himself. He smiled mockingly.

He ended the call after a few more instructions and then settled down to enjoy his pasta. He himself was feeling out of sorts and angry with his employee. If he could he would have killed him with his own hands but that guy wasn't at fault and he didn't kill innocent people. He still felt like a demon when he imagined how tearful her brown eyes would become when he finally extracted his revenge. And each time his heart would lurch at the pain he imagined in them. He shook his head off such thoughts and strengthened his resolve. His mother had suffered and so would the people responsible and for that if he had to make the grief her permanent asset then so be it. He decided.

*****

Her phone had been ringing continuously and she was feeling really grateful for the fact that her brother and his family weren't home. Her secret would have been hard to contain with all this messages and calls, which she had been ignoring continuously.

She couldn't even get back to the lecture whose notes were still incomplete, because of the disturbances. Finally her cell fell silent and she sighed opening the lecture. Right then, the door bell rang. She growled at the intrusion and went straight towards the main door. She watched through the peephole to spy a man holding flowers. She was confused.

"Who is it? Whom do you want to meet?" She asked.

"Ma'am we are here to deliver these flowers to Miss Asweera Nawal." The guy replied.

"Just leave it on the doorstep and I will recieve it in some time." She called out and waited for the man to follow her instructions before she heard him walk away and then slowly, carefully opened the door and picked the beautiful flower bouquet before bringing it inside and closing the door hastily.

The bouquet was beautiful. There was no other word to describe it. It was simple yet elegant. There were just four flowers and lots of decoration around it. But the main attraction still were the centre most flowers. There were all orchids. One was midnight black with electric blue inside. The other was elgant grey with black centre. Between them both stood a pure white orchid and a blood red orchid. She sighed. She serched the bouquet for something to lead her towards the identity of the sender and finally came across a card.

"Sometimes my words may wound your heart,
But remember that I share such a bond with you,
Every time your heart is wounded mine bleeds,
Whenever you cry, it's my tears that fall,
Whenever you are in grief it's my soul that aches.
So know that when I hurt you I punish myself."

She sagged on a nearby chair as she held the card in her hands. Why was he doing this to her? Each time she tried to walk away from her, he was pulling her more closer to himself. Her hands were trembling. She was so deely in love with him that staying apart was becoming painful for her. She sighed and picked up her phone finally. She had to hear him talk. His phone rung once before he picked up.

"Am I forgiven?" She heard his deep voice and her heart leapt. How could she even stay without listening to his voice? This was her new addiction.

"Yes..." She whispered.

"You know your silence is something I can't afford." He told her and she smiled tearfully.

"I love you F-"

"I love you too Nawal and I was getting desperate to hear you say that." He sighed making her giggle amidst her tears.

"I can't stay without some contact from you." She whispered, sobbing.

" I don't think I can either." He confessed. "Each time you will take one step away, I will pull you two steps closer. When you try to walk away I will bind you to me and when you get upset with me I will send you orchids with beautiful poems to make you smile. And this I promise. So please stop crying. It's wreaking havoc on my heart."

Asweera smiled. This was where she wanted to be forever.