How Long is Your Hand?

A'ishah, radiAllahu anha, was reported to have said...

Some of the wives of the Prophet (salAllahu 'alayhi wasallam) asked him, "Who amongst you will be the first to follow you (die after you)?" He said, "Whoever has the longest hand." So they started measuring their hands with a stick and Sawdah's hand turned out to be the longest. When Zainab bint Jahsh died first, we came to know that the long hand was a symbol of practicing charity, so she was the first to follow the Prophet (salAllahu 'alayhi wasallam) as she used to love to practice charity.

Al Bukhari (1221) and Muslim (4490)

This story does not only show how good charity is, but it's yet another example of the sweetness and wisdom of the speech of our Prophet, salAllahu 'alayhi wasallam. If he were to straight out tell them 'the one who gives the most charity will follow me first', they could have stretched their charity just for that sake, forgetting where their real intentions should be. But the real meaning of these words became apparent to them after-the-fact.

Never belittle any charity, and that's not just monetary, charity goes way beyond that.

"Help Our Girls", The Beg Family

“Need your prayers for Abeerah today. She having more frequent seizures this week. Thursday she had a seizure in school. Friday two seizure one seizure after other in school. And today she had another seizure at home which really shook me up. She bit on her tongue again and bleed during seizure. After 5 minutes, inserting DIastate she relief herself and fall a sleep. Unfortunatly Bilal was there with her watching and saw her. He got really upset and thought she is going to die and call 911. With taking care of Abeerah, i had to calm him down too. It had left a impact on him. I hate MPS. Some times moments comes in your life that you feel so helpless. Pain just shoot through your heart like some one stab you, stomach feel pains and eyes can't hold in the flow of your tears. Then what you do in times like this????

Moments like that comes a lot in my life and i live through holding my faith tight. I believe neither the good things of this world are forever, nor the bad things eternal. We are here for a short time. Pains and suffering are test and trial for some people. Allah allows some people to suffer in order to test their patience and steadfastness...” (continued here)

Can you imagine the joy after giving birth to three beautiful daughters and watching them grow into their infant years happy and like any other normal kid their age? Then suddenly their health begins to deteriorate and you’re disappointed time after time as you take them to numerous doctors to find out what is wrong, finally discover that the different diagnosis you’ve been getting are all wrong and your children are suffering from a rare, fatal illness? Your child goes from being happy and playful to being difficult to discipline. They become extremely active and suffer sleeping problems. To soothe themselves they begin chewing on anything they can grab, sometimes their own clothes or hands. Gradually language and understanding will be lost and so will the ability to properly use the bathroom. Then it will become difficult to feed themselves, walk, and potentially they can even lose the ability to walk altogether. And to top if off, they tend to have sudden seizures on and off.

…No, you can’t imagine this. Who could possibly imagine this happening to their child? For a friend of mine this is her reality, this is her day to day life. Not one or two, but all 3 of her lovely daughters suffer from Salfilippo syndrome (MPS). In short, these girls are basically missing a specific enzyme in their body to break down sugar molecules. Instead of these molecules being broken down and disposed, they store themselves into cells, thus causing progressive damage to the child.

Sister Tayyaba is one of the most humble and sweetest sisters I know. How she’s been dealing with this for almost a decade, I don’t know. She also has 2 sons, one which is autistic. Truly she is the bravest and strongest mother I know, may Allah always give her strength, ameen! I have no idea how she keeps up with her two sons and her sick daughters, making sure Ammar gets the proper attention he needs because of his autism, finding time to make Bilal feel like a normal kid, changing the girls diapers, feeding them, bathing them, cleaning up, making meals… just finding time to sit and clear her head… subhanAllah.

You can learn more about Tayyaba and her family by reading her journal I linked at the end of the journal excerpt above. Please take the time to navigate around the site and learn more about MPS and enjoy the pictures of her kids. And please please pleeeease sign her guestbook! Words of encouragement, love and du’as really do go a long way!!

She has a paypal link for donations, please send something to help with their whomping medical bills. I tried using the link and it didn’t work, please let me know if it works for you or not. She does have her address there anyway, checks can be sent to:

"Help Our Girls"

216 Manhattan Ave

Teaneck, NJ 07666

If you’d like to send something through paypal and the link doesn’t work, you can send it to me and I’ll get it to her, she lives a few blocks away from me alhamdulillah, you can even keep in contact with her to be sure she gets it. I hope most of you trust me since I’ve been collecting around $25,000 for a while for this project too. MashaAllah she is a sweet sister. I wish I knew more about her family before my son was born so I could go over and lend a helping hand. I know some sisters who would go there and help mashaAllah, I dunno how they even do it. I think I would break down in tears, but in time I’m sure you get used to it and know you’re doing something good.

What bothers me is cases like these go forgotten. I know whenever any of her daughters are in the hospital sometimes kids in the area make cards for them and all… but aren’t they suffering too when they’re home? Don’t they need that love and affection in their home as well? I’m sure everyday brings a new hurdle to Tayyaba and her husband brother Zarrar.

Please post post a link back to my blog or her site on your page or as your face book status or profile info or anything to make people aware of what’s going on, in hopes that they may contribute something - even if it is also just to pass the word along.

SubhanAllah it makes you think how simple our days are and how we may be tested from time to time, but for others their entire life is a test… and we only pray that Allah gives them the best in the akhirah for everything they are enduring here inshaAllah. Again please keep the Beg family in your du’as and pass the word along, please sign the guestbook and send even if it’s $5 to help the girls out. It would be nice to even form a habit of sending $5 every month or something like this. Because once you give your contribution we shouldn’t forget them, because there will always be the need for help. Let’s not be of those people who hear of something, get emotional about it, and forget it the next week.

JazakumAllahu khayran and may Allah grant ease and happiness to all families suffering like this but make the best of their days, ameen!

Helping Young Burn Victims, The Al-Ghaithi Family

I feel as though I've posted this in 51 different places (which I most likely have!) but I am currently working on a sadaqah project and felt obliged to fill you all in, and hopefully you choose to get involved.

About a year ago a Yemeni family suffered from a natural gas explosion in their apartment, just two weeks after moving in. Wife and mother, Alouf, died as a result, leaving behind her husband and four badly burned daughters. They were all in the hospital and just about a month ago the eldest was released. Finally the family is all together and just moved out of a homeless shelter into a new home. The girls' grandmother came from Yemen to help Brother Rassas (their father, and her son) with the girls. As you can imagine having four ill/disabled/recovering girls under the age of six is a burdening task. 3 1/2 year old Lina is now blind as a result of the fire, and her eldest sister Duaa lost three fingers and wears a nylon compression suit 23 hours a day to reduce scarring on her body which was 60% burned. She had to learn to roll, sit, walk, eat, speak and even breathe normally all over again during her stay at the hospital, subhanAllah.

I was shocked to read Brother Rassas was ONLY 29 years old, subhanAllah. When my husband and I went to visit him and his daughters at the hospital I knew he was young, but not that young. Clearly the grief and worry has aged him physically and I cannot imagine everything going through his mind, on top of that he is suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. He needs to find a job, his mothers visa is up in November and he is yet to know if she will be allowed to stay. Who will look after the girls if he is at work and she must return to Yemen? They receive nurse visits everyday and have frequent visits to the hospital, some of them have several surgeries they will have to undergo in the future. They lost everything and have to start from scratch, I cannot imagine how many bills have piled up for Br. Rassas, and what not. Nevertheless, right off the bat I saw he was a humble and softspoken brother the day we visited him. He was filled with joy and was excited to take us from room to room in the Pediatrics Intensive Care Unit to see his daughters. He would walk in the kiss them on the head, showing us pictures of how they looked before the blast. It was so difficult to look at the small body laying helplessly on the hospital bed with tubes coming from every possible place, her body covered in vaseline to prevent her burnt skin from drying out, her eyes were closed. "No see," Br. Rassas told us in his poor English, pointing to Lina's eyes. At that point, she had just had her 3rd birthday.

***

So far my husband and I have collected about $1,1oo.00 for them. We will continue to take donations until the 26th of this month, as we would like to give them this gift for Eid, give or take a day or two. We've received donations from people as big as $200 and as small as $5, even pocket change is acceptable. Just think how much we can gather if people even give just $1. I don't see why people should be ashamed to give that, I would feel ashamed to give nothing.

This is the perfect time, Ramadan, to purify our intentions and do what we can to help the Ummah. This is a family who have no one else to turn to and have been, walhamdulillah, receiving donations from non-Muslims. What about the Muslims? What about the Ummah reaching out to each other? Here is our brother in need, our young sisters learning to cope without the loss of their mother and with new challenges ahead, and we couldn't even give a few dollars to ease their burden? I urge each of you who read this to please give any small amount that you can, and don't just stop there... tell whoever you know. If you tell 20 people and you all give $1, that's $20 right there mashaAllah. We can easily raise a good amount for them inshaAllah.

So what can you do?

First off, if you have any questions or comments, you can email me at lazeena.hosain[AT]yahoo[DOT]com. If you feel this is a little shady, there are people right here on blogger who can inshaAllah vouch for me and HOPEFULLY my trustworthyness =P If not, I can send you their lawyers information and you can send a donation through them. I would hope you would trust the Muslim more though!

Anywho, here are your options:

A) Mail a check to me or a money order, if you email me I will send you my address

B) Send a donation via payal, which is under the same email address I wrote above

C) Send a donation through Western Union

If you think of any other possibility, by all means, let me know. And again, please don't feel lame giving even $2, seriously, it means something. This is an investment in your aakhirah inshaAllah and fulfilling your duties towards your brothers and sisters in need.

And most importantly, please do not forget to keep them in your du'as! If you get involved don't worry, I will keep you updated via email, here, or on facebook, if I have you added, on the status of the project and how much is being collected.

May Allah accept your intentions and actions this Ramadan and foreverrr! AMEEN!
JazakumAllahu khayran

Oh, and please check out this news clip of when Duaa was released from the hospital! : http://www.ny1news.com/content/top_stories/84818/girl-injured-in-harlem-explosion-leaves-hospital/Default.aspx?ap=1&Flash

Article with more detailed information: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20085486&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574902&rfi=_