The little things that actually means a lot ...

When I came to Yemen, small things make me realize that they are actually things that remind us of our deen and help us connect to our CREATOR.  Everyone here gives you salam when they meet you ... spreading salam is a sunnah ... a prayer to wish you peace.  When we appreciate something of beauty, we say "MashaAllah", when we are grateful we say  "Alhamdulillah". when something befalls us we say "La haula wa la quwata illah" when we want to wish blessings to a person we say "Barakallahu feek", when we depart we also say salam. In our greeting and departing we make dua for each other.  We start everything that we do with "Bismillah" and we end our meetings with the tasbih kifarah..  When we want to thank someone we say "Jazakallahu khairan".  

There are no suraus here but we have masaajids (plural for masjid) at almost every corner that makes it easy for people to have access to the masjid for prayers, and in keeping in line that the best prayer for a woman is in her home, it is not as easy for women to have access to masjid for prayers.  When the time for prayers come, the azans from the different masjids are just so disctinct that it is impossible for you to miss the call for prayer.  When people want to pacify or advise you, they take from the stories of Rasulullah s.a.w or that of the companions.  When people seek advise they go and meet with the scholars whom are easily accessible at the masaajids.  Meeting qaadhi (judges) with your problem is not something that requires you to go through layers of clerks, but you get to meet the qaadhi direct with your problems before filing a proper case.  This is how it should be.

We do not have shopping malls like back home for people to hang around at and no cinemas to go to.  Public eating places are segregated ... so no dating between males and females.  In busses, we do not sit freely among the men, men will have to make way to provide a place for the women folk, its like playing musical chair, only the women get to sit in proper sitting places.  You do not see female teenagers out on the streets doing nothing.  The women folk here are pretty much protected.  It is not something that is normal for a girl to be allowed to a friends house.   We may look at all these as backward, but pondering deeper it is really to protect from the free mixing of gender that usually leads to other things.  Just look at where we are today with all the modernization and  globalization.  We have lost so much of any value we ever had, let alone Islamic values.

I guess my realization here is that I was very much heedless of my relationship with our CREATOR and practices of the deen, but little things that I have experienced in this now world renowned so called terrorist infested country with the most talented bomb makers in the world, have made me realized of how far away from the deen and the practise of it I was and still am, have made me desire to be living the lives of the companions - heeding to Allah's every command and prohibition and conforming to the sunnah of  Rasulullah s.a.w., have made me desire to be blessed with that unshakeable faith.