When A child Learnt DUA From a Women on Death Bed
Aasima Waqas shared this in Pakistani Lady Bloggers...
I remember being small; maybe 8 or 9 years. We went to visit an ailing relative. I remember her calling Nani. She wasn’t my maternal grandmother but my mother’s relative of some sort. I can still clearly visualize her dingy house. The walls were grimy. The floor seemed like it had not been swept or scrubbed in days. The tattered sofas and the filthy kitchen gave me creeps. When we entered her room, she was lying on a hospital bed that had been brought in for her from the hospital. Her husband escorted us in the room with a sad smile on his face. He motioned us to sit down on nearby chairs and quietly went to stand beside his wife. She couldn’t recognize any of us. Her eyes were half closed and whenever she wanted something, she would call out to her husband. Her words were completely unintelligible to us. But her husband could somehow immediately understand her.
To be honest, I was bored. What business did I have here? I was left with no choice but to look at her saggy and creased skin with pity. I noticed a urine bag hanging from one side of the bed. Not being able to relieve oneself in the washroom was a scary thing! The thought made me shudder.
Apart from her husband’s name, she would chant something after every few minutes with a loud voice that slowly faded towards the end. It was a dua maybe. My mother listened to her husband talk about his wife’s ailment and how doctors had lost all hope. My young mind could not fathom the seriousness of it all. The old woman was dying and here I was, thinking about how long I would have to sit and forcibly listen to this extremely uninteresting conversation.
The conversation was rudely interrupted by loud interjections from Nani’s chants. She would keep saying the dua after every minute or so. Since I was hardly interested in what was being discussed, I started to focus on what she was actually saying.
The repetition finally started to make sense. “Ya Hayyu ya Qayyum birehmatika…”, her voice ebbed away..
Allahuakbar! So this is what her slurred speech meant! The old woman had lost all sense of recognition but her tongue remembered to say what she must have uttered frequently all her life! It intrigued my little mind so much that I would just stare and wait for her to say it again throughout our remaining visit. As much as it fascinated me, it bewildered me. How can a person, who is absolutely clueless about her surroundings, remember something like that? It only meant one thing; this is what she used to say the most. The mind forgot but the tongue remembered.
I could hardly recall what happened after that. It wasn’t like I was magically transformed into some god-fearing person but the moment stayed with me for all the years to come. The adult life, being the harbinger of tough days along with pleasant ones, came. Without an ounce of conscious effort, I started to put to use the lesson I had learnt so long ago. Whenever something troubled my mind, I would recite the same thing that I had heard the dying woman utter, only to realize later how powerful and profound this dhikr is. May Allah reward her immensely for giving me a remedy whenever I’m distressed.
Hazrat Abdullah Bin Masood (RA) narrated that whenever the Prophet Mohammad (ﷺ) had any problem or affliction, Prophet (ﷺ) used to recite this Dua:
Ya Hayyu Ya Qayyum Bi Rehmatika Astaghees
“O Living, O Self-Sustaining Sustainer! In Your Mercy do I seek relief”
(Al-Hakim)
Time passes so quickly. What we unwittingly learn or experience as a child comes into play as we grow older. Her mother gave her an experience that stayed with her all these years, and brought clarity with time.
So profound!