Whitehead

"A true story from Oklahoma, USA: A Chinese woman converted to Islam, but her husband refused. God blessed them with a son and a daughter. However, the husband divorced his wife, took the children with him to America, and forbade the mother from seeing them or travelling to them. The mother remained in China, patient, steadfast, and unwavering in her faith, even if the price was the loss of her husband and children forever. Many years passed… Then suddenly, after more than 15 years, her eldest daughter (now in her twenties) called her and said, "Mom, please come visit us in Oklahoma. Dad has finally agreed." The mother travelled immediately. As soon as she arrived at the Oklahoma airport, she took out her phone, searched for the nearest Islamiccentree or mosque to her daughter's address, wrote the number and address on a piece of paper, gave it to her daughter, and said, "If anything happens to me, call this number immediately." The daughter asked in surprise, "Who are they?" “They are my brothers,” the mother said calmly and confidently. The daughter didn’t pay much attention to the matter. The mother was Chinese, knew no one in America, and didn’t know the mosque, who ran it, or the nationalities of its worshippers… but as a Muslim, she knew that the words “brother” and “sister” in Islam weren’t just words, but a reality. Just three days after her arrival… the mother, may God have mercy on her, passed away suddenly, without any prior illness. The daughter immediately remembered her mother’s words and called the number her mother had given her. What happened next was astonishing: it turned out that the mosque the mother had randomly chosen from the internet was a small mosque in the suburbs of Oklahoma, which owned a plot of land the community had purchased years earlier to be an Islamic cemetery… but they had spent five whole years fighting in the courts to obtain a burial permit, and hadn’t been allowed to bury any Muslims there during that entire time. Just now—only a few days before the Chinese sister’s death—official approval was finally granted, and they could legally use the cemetery. The call came from the daughter, the very next day after the permit was issued! The imam of the mosque himself went to meet the family and told the daughter, "The first grave to be dug in this new cemetery will be your mother's, as an honour to her and to us." On Friday, the mosque was overflowing with people they had never seen before, and an incredible, majestic funeral procession took place: hundreds of people walked behind the coffin, men and women of every race—white, black, Arab, Indian, African, Asian… A sight that the daughter, her brother, and even their father had never witnessed before. The family was shocked and wept, asking, "Who are these people?! What is their relationship to our mother?" The imam replied that they were her brothers in Islam. In Islam, a Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. After the burial, the daughter took out a small piece of paper she found in her mother's bag. It was written in Arabic in her mother's handwriting. She asked the sheikh to tell them what was written on it. He said, "She wrote: 'O God, guide my children… O God, guide my sons…'" When the sheikh translated the supplication for them, her ex-husband said, "I want the grave next to hers." The sheikh told him, "The price for that is for you to bear witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God." He recited the two testimonies of faith and embraced Islam. That same night, her son also embraced Islam and recited the two testimonies of faith. We ask God to forgive her, have mercy on her, and grant her a spacious place in Paradise. This story is 100% true and witnessed by all the Muslims in the area. It has been previously recounted on religious programs." ✍️ Ali Abdul Al-Raziq