Al Masjid Al Nabawi (The Prophet's Mosque), in Al-Madinah, photo by Noushad
"Love and Death in Al-Madinah" is the sixth story in Urdustan (get a copy!).
I wrote this story for a man that I deeply love and loathe at the same time. This is a fictional love story written straight from the heart.
"Love and Death in Al-Madinah" is a spiritual love story set in the holy city of Al-Madinah during the Hajj (pilgrimage). I am sure that quite a few Muslims would be outraged at such a sacrilegious notion. But my intention is not to offend or provoke, nor push people's buttons.
One way of getting closer to Allah is for humans to connect to each other on an intimate level. The narrator of the story, Avalika, goes on the Hajj to Makkah and Al-Madinah. Avalika is an angry, bitter woman with a broken heart. She vows to never love anyone or let anyone get closer to her again. For her, the only thing that matters in the world is Allah, ya mighty Rabb. Avalika vows to devote her life to Goddess forever, yet she has difficulty in trying to get closer to Her.
Sometimes, praying and whispering du'as don't always work. Sometimes, one needs that extra push in life, a kick to the head, a punch in the gut, a tender kiss, to really bring one closer to the Divine Being.
While spending time in the holy city of the Prophet, Avalika weeps often because she feels so distant from Allah, even while she is completely bowed in Salat. She notices a very strange looking man at the hotel in Al-Madinah. This man is so unbelievably beautiful, never uttering a word to anyone and barely moving an inch. He stands in the hotel lobby everyday, in his white thobe with the keffiyeh wrapped around his head. Avalika can't take her eyes off him because she is intoxicated by his blinding beauty. By a chance encounter in the hotel, they meet each other and connect on a deeply personal, extremely emotional level.
Avalika isn't a real name. I made it up of two names merged together: Avatar (Incarnation, from Hinduism) and Malik/Malika (Angel, from Islam). The Avatar represents what happens to Avalika toward the end of the story. She is incarnated as something else (in what form? you have to read the story to find out the answer) before returning to her normal self. The man she meets... well, he's not exactly human.
The story is dedicated to a very special man in my life, someone I desperately want to hold onto, yet I also feel the urge to bitterly reject him. His name starts with "S." Read one of my most very personal (yet fictionalized) short stories which I've written. Read it and get a copy of Urdustan.
NEXT WEEK: "BUSHRA, PHYLLY JANE" (the seventh and LAST story in Urdustan)
"Love and Death in Al-Madinah" is a spiritual love story set in the holy city of Al-Madinah during the Hajj (pilgrimage). I am sure that quite a few Muslims would be outraged at such a sacrilegious notion. But my intention is not to offend or provoke, nor push people's buttons.
One way of getting closer to Allah is for humans to connect to each other on an intimate level. The narrator of the story, Avalika, goes on the Hajj to Makkah and Al-Madinah. Avalika is an angry, bitter woman with a broken heart. She vows to never love anyone or let anyone get closer to her again. For her, the only thing that matters in the world is Allah, ya mighty Rabb. Avalika vows to devote her life to Goddess forever, yet she has difficulty in trying to get closer to Her.
Sometimes, praying and whispering du'as don't always work. Sometimes, one needs that extra push in life, a kick to the head, a punch in the gut, a tender kiss, to really bring one closer to the Divine Being.
While spending time in the holy city of the Prophet, Avalika weeps often because she feels so distant from Allah, even while she is completely bowed in Salat. She notices a very strange looking man at the hotel in Al-Madinah. This man is so unbelievably beautiful, never uttering a word to anyone and barely moving an inch. He stands in the hotel lobby everyday, in his white thobe with the keffiyeh wrapped around his head. Avalika can't take her eyes off him because she is intoxicated by his blinding beauty. By a chance encounter in the hotel, they meet each other and connect on a deeply personal, extremely emotional level.
Avalika isn't a real name. I made it up of two names merged together: Avatar (Incarnation, from Hinduism) and Malik/Malika (Angel, from Islam). The Avatar represents what happens to Avalika toward the end of the story. She is incarnated as something else (in what form? you have to read the story to find out the answer) before returning to her normal self. The man she meets... well, he's not exactly human.
The story is dedicated to a very special man in my life, someone I desperately want to hold onto, yet I also feel the urge to bitterly reject him. His name starts with "S." Read one of my most very personal (yet fictionalized) short stories which I've written. Read it and get a copy of Urdustan.
NEXT WEEK: "BUSHRA, PHYLLY JANE" (the seventh and LAST story in Urdustan)
