My Ummah, My Ummah

Saad had written the title an hour ago: Why I Love the Prophet ﷺ. Nothing else.

The madrasah homework was only three sentences. He could have done three sentences on the Romans in his sleep: straight roads, marching soldiers, a great wall across the north of England. All true. All important. All a very long time ago.

That was the trouble. The Prophet ﷺ felt exactly the same to him. True. Important. Very far away.

The kitchen clock ticked above the cooker. Through the doorway, he could see Dadi in her armchair, her tasbih clicking softly between her fingers.

"That pen hasn't moved since Maghrib, puttar," she said, without looking up.

Saad sighed, carried his book through and sat on the rug by her feet, the radiator warm against his back.

"Everyone at madrasah says they love him more than anything," he said quietly. "And I know he was the best person who ever lived. I do. But he lived such a long, long time ago, Dadi. How am I meant to love someone who never even knew I existed?"

He waited for her to look shocked. Instead, Dadi set down her tasbih and was quiet for a while.

"Shall I tell you a hadith?" she said at last. "It's in Sahih Muslim, one of the most trusted books we have."

Saad nodded, and Dadi began.

"One day, the Prophet ﷺ was reciting the Quran, the verses where Prophet Ibrahim عليه السلام and Prophet Isa عليه السلام each speak to Allah about their people. Then he raised his hands, like this." Dadi lifted her hands, palms open, her gold bangles sliding down. "And he said, 'O Allah, my Ummah, my Ummah.' And he wept." Dadi lowered her hands.

Saad looked up. "He cried?"

"He cried. So Allah told the angel Jibril عليه السلام to go to the Prophet ﷺ and ask him what made him weep."

Saad frowned. "But Allah already knew. Allah knows everything."

"He did," said Dadi, pleased. "The hadith itself says so. The scholars say Jibril was sent to show how honoured the Prophet ﷺ is, and how high his place is with Allah."

"What happened then?"

"Jibril came and asked, and the Prophet ﷺ told him what he had said. Then Allah sent Jibril to him again with a message: 'We will please you concerning your Ummah, and We will not sadden you.'"

"Dadi, who is his Ummah, exactly? The people who lived in his time?"

"Them, yes." Dadi leaned forward. "And everyone who follows him after them, right up to the Last Day. Me, a little girl in a village near Mirpur, with mud on my feet. Your abbu. Your mum." She tapped his exercise book gently. "And you."

Saad sat very still. "So when he said 'my Ummah'…" He swallowed. "That was me too? Before I was even born?"

"Long before you were born, puttar, you were inside that word. He didn't wait to meet you before he cared about you."

Saad had cried when he broke his wrist in Year 2, and when his best friend moved to Leicester. He had never cried for someone he had never met. He had never even thought about people who weren't born yet.

But someone had cared about people like him, long before they were born. Someone had raised his hands, and wept, and asked.

Something warm and enormous opened up in Saad's chest.

"Dadi," he said slowly, "is there anything I can do? Back, I mean?"

Dadi smiled, her eyes crinkling. "Learn his way, a little at a time. And send salawat on him: ask Allah to send His blessings and peace on him. Say it with me: Allahumma salli wa sallim ala Muhammad ﷺ."

"Allahumma salli wa sallim ala Muhammad ﷺ," Saad repeated. It felt small. It also felt exactly right.

Back at the kitchen table, the pen finally moved. He wrote:

I love the Prophet ﷺ because he cared about me before I was born. He raised his hands and cried for his Ummah, and I am in his Ummah. Now I want to get to know him properly.

That night, Saad lay in bed, the orange glow of the streetlight soft on his curtains. Across the landing came the slow click, click of Dadi's tasbih. He thought of the Prophet ﷺ raising his hands, and of Allah's answer, carried by Jibril: We will please you concerning your Ummah.

The Romans still felt a very long time ago. The Prophet ﷺ didn't.

Saad pulled the duvet up to his chin and whispered the words he would say every night from now on: "Allahumma salli wa sallim ala Muhammad ﷺ."

Click, click, went Dadi's beads, slow and steady. Saad closed his eyes and let the gentle sound carry him off to sleep.