15/9/08
An Unconventional Fairy Tale
August 11, 2008
My husband is my cousin...so you all must automatically think that it was an arranged marriage.
Well my dear friends, it didn’t quite happen that way. Born and raised in Canada, I went to Pakistan in the summer of 1997 to visit family. My husband just so happened to be one of the many cousins whom I interacted with during my visit. Being only 15 years old, and having gone through many changes the previous year with school and life in general, I was an emotional teenager who was quite unsure of herself. When my cousin approached me and said “I love you”, I automatically responded in the same manner. After overcoming the shock of this encounter, I was able to reflect and think deeply about what had just happened. Did I know what love was? Does any 15 year old know what love is? Coming from a Canadian background, I didn’t initially take my cousin seriously as I thought his sentiments were only based on physical attraction. I eventually grew to understand the sincerity of his words and realized that this guy was ready to devote the rest of his life to me and marry me...WOW! We made secret promises to each other and four weeks later I returned to Canada not knowing what will happen next.
Luckily, another cousin was getting married in a few months and I somehow convinced my parents to take me with them to Pakistan. This was just 4 months after I had returned from my trip. I surprised him when I showed up at their house for a family visit. He was in awe that I had come and at that moment I knew that the past four months were not a waste and that waiting for him was not a mistake. We made the best of the situation and renewed our promises before I left once again.
Eventually my mother figured things out and was really upset so we were not allowed to be in touch. We spent two years without speaking or writing to each other. The only thing we had was a ring of a phone once a month. He would ring the phone and hang it up and that meant “I love you” and vice versa. On my birthday we would talk for 3 minutes and the phone would click off automatically. We wrote endlessly in journals to each other so that when we would finally meet, we could read what the other had been thinking during our separation. We wrote birthday letters to each other and wrapped them all up so that we had something to open from the other on our birthdays. We even recorded voice tapes for each other, pretty much pouring our hearts out.
The time that we were apart and not allowed to write or talk to each other, was a test to see how devoted we were to our promises and also a proof that love doesn’t require emails or phone calls to grow. We also wanted Allah to be on our side so that’s why we followed the wishes of our parents even though in this high tech era no one could have possibly found out if we were emailing each other. We think this devotion convinced our parents that we were serious about the decision we made at a very early age, mashAllah.
At the end of 1999 we finally got permission to email each other from both of our mothers. But the hard part remained; who was going to tell our fathers? Another ordeal awaited us as our parents discussed this matter. Mashallah we overcame that and our parents were on board with emails and chatting...yeah! This in itself was not enough for my father, being the girl’s father, he wanted something more official so in January of 2002 we had our nikah done over the phone. More then anything we wanted to be together but this is the way things had to be done. Summer 2003 would be our official wedding reception and ruksati.
So after five and a half years in July 2003, I arrived at the airport in Pakistan to see him...now my husband. It was such an amazing feeling after such a long struggle. A month later was our ruksati and we were finally living together as husband and wife. It took a lot of faith in Allah and many prayers to get through those years. This year we celebrated being together for eleven years...from 1997 to now. It’s been five years since our ruksati and we are so happy and blessed that it all worked out for us. Hope, faith, trust, and love are what kept us going for those five and a half years. We were young but we found each other. This is our fairy tale love story.
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oh my God is this true..
Such a beautiful story about 2 incredible people and their inspiring love story:) I’m so lucky to have been able to witness the story in action over the years. And to think it all started out with a keychain… lol.
Really to be honest, as “sweet” as this all is, its also quite naiive.
Your fairytale reminded me of the novel Lovel in the time of Cholera. By Gabriel García Márquez. Gabriel writes about a character with an excessively romantic attitude toward life.
The danger of this is that life and reality are a sharp contrast to this naiive view of the world.
Personally I am unsure of what you are trying to communicate…your happiness at finding your love? Your belief in Allah to help you find and maintain love? Or that love and romance is alive?
Call me a cynic if you wish…but the truth is, I’m moreso a realist.
A naieve view of the world would be one where love and life are seperated.
The story is simply about how the author came to be with her husband, and the unique circumstances that surrounded that. What’s not to get?
Is there a point to the story? did you learn anything from it? did it make you question any beliefs that you previously held to be true? or was it purely a story?
I did not say life and love are seperate entities...BUT when your lovelife is the only life you have...then you have issues.
Just out of curiousity, how old was this 15 year old girls cousin when he first approached her and told her that he loved her? Did young girl pursue her education? or did she sit at home for five and a half years in a lovestruck state?
why should love a young age automatically mean ‘barefooted and pregnant.’ Love isn’t a condition that prevents one from persuing an education, a career and a family. One can have it all.
my point being ‘true realist’ that this article mentions NONE of that. It is focused on a lovelife and not love IN life.
My concern is that young woman that are reading the Western Woman do not read this and see a strong role model, what they see is the fairy tale...the happily ever after. This is the fantasy, and honestly, I have nothing but well wishes for the young couple. However, the article is generally not a true reflection of the Western society that many young Muslims are growing up in.
i think we’re dealing with semantics here. Lovelife and love IN life (as you call it) are one in the same
hmmmm I think not.
how about you keep focusing on the semantics and not the argument being made.
LOVE is an ASPECT of life
LOVE is NOT life in and of ITSELF
LOVE IN LIFE - Love can be an all encompassing part of your existence, you may love the people around you, your job, your car, pizza pops, whatever it may be...it is an ASPECT within ones life. With a spouse you have love within a relationship, again, an ASPECT.
LOVELIFE - What young teenage girls spend hours fretting about. The kid who cries when the hero in the story doesnt get the girl.
LOVELIFE - Can be an element of your life...*danger* - when your lovelife is all you have and all you relate to in your existence
“Realist” has some valid points. An article such as this, although very insightful, does not necessarily reflect what an average Western Muslim deals with in a “Western” Society. The focus of the article is upon the author finding love overseas, which has little relation to how people here in the “West” are dealing with the same topic.
Many young, intelligent people with a sense of deen and duniya understand that love is an important aspect on ones life, but it shouldn’t be the primary focus of your life. Furthermore, “lovelife” and “love in life” should be understood as two very separate entities. Love in life can entail someones love of food, culture, sports, their families, etc. whileas “lovelife” is more about your relationship with someone whom you share something more intimate with.
I think “true realist” had it a little wrong with that one.
well, i would have to disagree because there are many muslim women who are living in the “west” who are getting married overseas. So it is something that women in the “west” are having to deal with.
Great comments but I think we have swayed from the topic, from my understanding the topic of the article was “how you met your spouse or wish to meet your future spouse?” Looking at it in this light the author has done just that. She has told us about how she met her spouse. She could have gone on about her life in the past 11 years but I believe she just focused on the topic. Wasn’t that what she was supposed to do? She could have gone on for pages about what they have accomplished individually and together as a couple both in their love life and their careers.
Just to let you know she and her husband are both professionals living in Canada. She pursued her degree as did he and succeed. They didn’t put their lives on hold for each other but their goal was to ultimately be together. Making their story a very neat and unique love story on how they met each other, hence she posted it online. Love is a part of life and this is shown in this article. Since the topic asked for specifically how they met she chose to focus on ONLY their love life. This article isn’t meant to reflect the Western society that we are growing up in, but it’s THEIR story. It was mostly to reflect on their devotion to each other and how in this day in age it MAY be possible for some…maybe not all. You don’t let love stop your life, but I think their love for each other made them stronger and they had a goal in mind which helped them succeed in all aspects of their lives, not just their love life. It’s hard to get it all but if you work hard for it, as they have and showed perseverance it could happen for anyone.
interesting choice of “how we met” story for the Western Muslim to publish.
A realist or a cynic would have focused on how difficult it is to sustain romantic love, rather than making assumptions about the writer and the intelligence of the young women reading her story.
What we have above are the tracks of a curmudgeon.
ay-ay-yay...I give up explaining myself.
good luck living the hindi movie :
Why are we comparing real story with movies or we do not believe that romantic relationship can exists in real world. Comparing 120 minute movie with relationship of 11 years doesn’t make any sense. I think 11 years are enough to prove that what ever points raised by realist are become invalid for this particular story.
I dont understand why everyone is chopping this girl up…
Its not an account of what she hopes to happen or expect, she’s relating her experience and the outcome.
What I take from this is patience and faith and self-restraint! ....and yes it is very romantic...but halaal-romantic lol
How many of us can say our pre-nikka was completely halal? That we always communicated with our fiance(e) with a mahraam or ‘supervisor’ or not at all?
If anything, I admire her self-restraint. I dont see anything wrong with what she did. Just because it ‘does’ happen to sound like an Indian movie doesnt mean we should dismiss her experience; it doesnt discredit her.
By the way, about being realistic, again - shes not deluded...it was a real experience and for all we know she could be doing well in life and in her marriage with all the baraka (blessing) Allah gave them for their patience.
it wasn’t exactluy miraculous for two such unbelievably sheltered teenagers to remain “in love” for so long without stimulus. unfortunately, the rest of us can’t fall in love with a phantom created by our own minds, and we also don’t let our parents decide who we can email. it’s nice for you that it worked out, but how exactly was it NOT going to work out when you were cousins and you obviously never had much of a chance to explore any other romantic relationship?
Sheltered??? Why would you say that? No we don’t let our parents decide whom we email but out of respect because of the situation it was good that both of them chose to do so. The chances of it NOT working were great...they were living far away from each other but still managed to keep the faith. They could have easily found new mates in their respective countries. Why would they want to explore another romantic relationship when they were happy with each other???
If you are being sneaky and hiding your actions from your parents...then obviously you realize that your actions are wrong.
How can one argue that these children were not sheltered. “He would ring the phone and hang it up and that meant “I love you” and vice versa” - I love you? was this love? or was it in love with the IDEA of being in love.