Tawakkul and Dua Found in a Lost Wallet
At this moment of doubt and consternation, I’m reminded of a particular story that, in time, I believe will become the defining story of my life – not because it has shaped it in any meaningful way, but because it was the moment I most clearly saw the
Where I am in my life right now, I feel as if I’m standing at a fork in the road. One path leads to a fairly normal life – career, marriage, kids, and couples dinners on the weekend – and the other leads to uncertainty, anxiety, and the possibility of something truly special. At this moment of doubt and consternation, I’m reminded of a particular story that, in time, I believe will become the defining story of my life – not because it has shaped it in any meaningful way, but because it was the moment I most clearly saw the hand of God. It is the story of how I lost, and the recovered, my wallet.
But this story starts in 2017, a year earlier, when I was faced with a choice that would become the catalyst for an entire series of events. I had just picked up things from the local Muslim grocery store named Madinah Market (because halal markets are all variations on Madinah, Makkah, and Halal) when a needy family of a mother and her two children approached me. I had watched them as I loaded the groceries in my 2005 Civic, the front carriage of which was held together by a literal shoelace (I had to tie the front bumper and part of the undercarriage that was constantly scrapping the ground with an old shoelace). I had seen them asking locals for help, but no one had paid them any attention. I watched them go person to person, be turned away, and try again. Until they finally reached me.
They looked exhausted, walking in what had progressively become a more intense late-spring heat of the DC area. The mother covered her eyes from the sun as she spoke to me, and I looked down so as to avoid eye contact that might embarrass her as she asked me for help. They didn’t want money; they wanted food and basic necessities for the house. I looked up to the sky, made a quiet dua, and remembered the words of my grandfather: “do you not fear dying?” If I turned them away, what face could I present my Allah on the day I meet Him?
I went back to Madinah Market – this time, with them. As they weren’t Muslim, asking them to get their groceries from Madinah would ensure that I didn’t buy anything haram for them, and that the proceeds of the sadaqa would go to supporting a Muslim business run by well-known and outstanding members of the community. I vowed to my Allah that, no matter what they put in their carts, I would not object.
They began filling: pots, pans, plates, cups, utensils; then rice, oil, bread, cheese, meat. They filled their cart like people who had nothing and needed everything. As the cart became heavier and heavier with the essentials anyone might need in any home, I suddenly realized what my vow was going to cost me. I was not well to-do, with about $3,000 to my name. As I watched the cart, I started reading what we in the subcontinent call durūd sharīf (ṣalāt Ibrahimiyya) under my breath. This was going to be an expensive trip to Madinah.
The uncle I had known for my entire American life looked at me hesitantly as he rang up the groceries, item by item. He mouthed, “are you sure?” and I nodded in return, keeping up the durūd. I was reminded of ᶜUmar al-Fārūq (ra) and Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (ra), when the first brought half his fortune to the blessed Messenger of Allah (SAW) in sadaqah while the second brought the whole thing. Then I was given the final bill: just under $1200 – and that’s after uncle gave me a discount because of my predicament. I took the family to their car, loaded the groceries into their old, tiny sub-compact, and they never saw me again.
But my Allah did, because He is always watching over me. And He rewarded me immensely and continuously, until I was left shy before the sheer weight of His generosity. It started a couple of months later, when I had parked my car next to the mailbox. As I was gathering the mail, a work vehicle scraped by my car, damaging the side and snapping the shoelace-ed front bumper in half. We exchanged information (his boss would rather not involve insurance and do everything directly), and I got an estimate from my mechanic: $1200.
A few more months later, my sister, who lives in North Carolina with her husband, called me with a request that was out of the blue: she wanted to go for Hajj, and her husband’s work situation prevented him from going with her. At the time, I had, once again, $3,000 in my bank account, and the combined expenses for Hajj would be close to $8,000. I made niyyah then that I would do everything under my power to take my sister to Hajj rather than let her go alone, and so I called in every loan, favor, and penny hidden in the sofa I could. In the end, I collected almost exactly $8,500 dollars, which would pay for the package as well as a little left over for unincluded expenses leading up to and during Hajj.
I left with a little less than $200 in my bank account. When I came back a little more than two weeks later, I had almost exactly $3,000. One year later, I sold my car – which, had I sold it with the shoelace-ed bumper, would have gone for significantly less. But, with the repairs provided for by my Allah, I sold it for almost exactly $3,000. As the beloved Messenger of Allah (SAW) promised us, charity does not decrease wealth. (Muslim) My Allah had repaired and sold my car, blessed me with a Hajj I had not planned, and left me with the same amount I had started with that fateful day in 2017: $3,000.
But the greatest gift that my Allah bestowed upon me was showing me the movement of His hand in my life. That is the promised story of my wallet.
It was now August of 2018, and I was traveling with my sister to Hajj. I had arrived at Jeddah airport an already exhausted traveler, beaten and broken by the trials of life. I had tied my iḥrām around me and lowered my head before my Allah. I was not just taking my sister to Hajj; I was taking a heart heavy with the sorrows of a troubled life and placing it in the court of my Allah. The anguish of my childhood and adolescence were a continuous, throbbing pain; but there was one particular experience that had, at that time, afflicted me for seven years that still cut like a sharpened blade. It was that sorrow, that grief, that regret which I was taking to the door of my Allah.
I had placed most of my belongings in our luggage and only taken a few things for me to carry: my inhaler, a small pouch with a couple hundred dollars, a Qur’an, and my wallet. I had even emptied my wallet of all non-essentials and kept only a credit card, my driver’s license, insurance information, and cash. And, of course, the membership card to my masjid, ADAMS (because of course ADAMS has a membership card). I remember thinking about leaving the membership card behind, but an extra card wouldn’t hurt, and so I kept it.
We arrived in the dead of night, one group amongst a thousand. The airport was flooded by a sea of white, a moving wave of light, as the guests of Allah poured in from every direction to lay their every burden at the doorstep of the Most Merciful. The entire airport resonated with the echo of ten thousand voices, all calmy and melodiously chanting their response to the call of Allah: labbayk, Allahumma labbayk. We were a sea of pearls, a chorus of the unworthy, a testament to the generosity of our Lord.
Inside, we were arranged in rows as our entrance to the kingdom was processed, then stood for what seemed like hours awaiting our luggage, then put in lines again as we exited the airport while being checked at metal detectors and x-ray machines. Outside, large, towering barriers separated groups into distinct waiting areas, and we were being led to our designated section. We had just been processed, and so I hadn’t yet time to put away my things: my Qur’an, my inhaler, and, of course, my wallet.
My sister was worried about something – I can’t remember what – and asked me to get her something – I can’t remember what. Instead of taking a few moments to wear my belt bag and secure my belongings inside it, I handed my things to my sister and went to do whatever it is she asked of me. When I returned, I asked for my things back, and she stared at me. She had placed them on the cart which carried our luggage, and now, they were gone. Here, at the exit of what was now the world’s busiest airport, from where thousands upon thousands of pilgrims were gushing forth like a fountain, we had dropped my wallet.
I went to our group organizer, a very good friend of mine, Sajjad, and our Imam, the Executive Imam of the ADAMS Center, Imam Mohamed Magid, who has been more of a father than Imam to me. We ran back to the entrance of the airport, where we had dropped it, asked every custodian, officer, and airport administrator. We went back inside the airport, asking for a lost and found. Nothing.
The buses arrived, the group boarded, and Imam Magid and I kept looking for my wallet. Finally, it was too late. Sajjad had asked the buses to wait, but it had now progressed late into the night, and it was impossible for us to delay any longer. And so, Imam Magid and I went back to the buses, loaded our luggage, and stood in front of their open doors.
“Read Sūrat al-Ḍuḥā seven times,” he finally said to me, “and if it was meant for you, it will come back to you.”
We raised our hands together and read the one sūrah which had for seven years been my solace and refuge, been the antidote to my pain. I paused, as I always did, on the ayah, “And what comes later will be better for you than what came before.” That one phrase had animated me for years, had put hope in a solemn, defeated heart. I made dua for my wallet, said ameen, and boarded the bus.
Days later, we were sitting atop Masjid al-Harām, just behind the three brown domes at the opposite end of Ṣafā and Marwa. Imam Magid was delivering a khāṭirah, as he did every morning after Fajr. Sometimes, it would be about a virtue, like ṣabr, shukr, or tawakkul; or the story of a Prophet. That day, it was tafsīr of a sūrah – Sūrat al-Ḍuḥā. As he was about to begin, a cry came from behind me, calling out his name.
“Imam Magid!” it said. “Someone from your group is going to be very happy!”
Two men came to Imam Magid and handed him something I had never expected to see again: my Qur’an, my inhaler, and my wallet. I was overwhelmed then, and I am overwhelmed now, while writing this, by the sheer miracle that was taking place before me. My wallet had been picked up; it was picked up by another American group; that American group knew Imam Magid; and they knew it belonged to Imam Magid’s group because, when they looked through it, they found the ADAMS membership card. It was by finding that card, the one I had almost left behind, the one that masjids shouldn’t even have, that this American group led by Imams who knew Imam Magid returned my wallet to me.
To everyone around me, they had just witnessed a miracle, a Hajj story that you tell your kids, friends, and relatives at a party. For me, it was so much more. The real miracle hadn’t happened yet; the real miracle was to happen almost four years later. The two Imams had not just delivered my wallet in the most uncanny circumstances – they had also hand delivered a message from my Allah.
For years, I had made one continuous dua to my Allah and felt the sorrow and anguish of seeing it continuously unfulfilled. My heart had started to close, to harden, to crust over into a rough scab covering an open wound. I had begun to feel that my Allah disliked me, even hated me, and that He answered all dua except mine. And it was a response to these ayahs that He sent me His message:
By the forenoon, and the night when it becomes peaceful: your Lord has neither forsaken you, nor has become displeased. And what comes later will be better for you than what came before. And, truly, your Lord will give you so much that you will be pleased.
In that moment, I knew: my Allah was hearing me, had always heard me, and was always answering me. I just needed to trust him.
Four years later, I saw another miracle. It showed me why it always seemed my dua were unanswered; that my Allah had always been protecting me from my own dua; and that what comes after will surely be better than what came before. In the moment that I saw the second miracle, I remembered the first. I remembered the despair in losing my wallet, the helplessness with which I beseeched my Lord, the hopelessness of ever receiving an answer, and the sheer disbelief and elation of getting it. For everyone else, the miracle was the wallet. For me, the miracle was that the story of the wallet was a perfect microcosm of eleven painful years of my life.
I gained in losing what I could not have gained in gaining. I gained turning despair into moments alone with Allah. I gained turning helplessness into sincere dua to Allah. I gained leaving my hopelessness in the almighty hands of Allah. And, most importantly, I gained the complete and utter trust in Him – His knowledge, His wisdom, His mercy, His love. I had always worshipped Him as an obedient but distant servant. But, between those two miracles, I became His servant. And He became my Allah.
In 2017, I lost $1,200; then, in 2018, I lost my wallet. And, in the end, I gained the love of my Allah. As I stand before this road not taken, one which requires immense sacrifice for the sake of my Allah – sacrifice of the things I want most in life – I know one thing for sure: He who returned everything I lost accidently will return what I sacrifice purposefully manifold. I just need to trust Him.