It was just another seemingly ordinary day at work. I had been spending most of it fairly relaxed, lazing around awaiting the 20-minute bursts of pressurized action every two hours or so that make up my normal routine.

I leaned back in my chair, straining my eyes at the shift schedule for the month that lay in front of me. The frequency of my name on the calendar looked ominous. Then he appeared.

“Hey, Imran, long time no see!”

It was the bouncy, effervescent Thabo, who works on the extreme wing away from my territory. We obviously hadn’t seen each other in many months as we both went about our daily lives in the same building.

“Yes, Thabo, good to see you, man.”

“Am I allowed to shake your hand, Imran?”

I was confused. My lips didn’t move, my eyebrows asked, “Why?”

“Because with you guys you never know … you may just blow yourself up or something.”

Welcome to the world of being the 21st-century Muslim. You’re sure to have the adventure of a lifetime. Tickets are non-refundable.

A year earlier when I confronted another work colleague about the unfairness of some of his comments to me regarding Islam and him jesting about my inclination to possibly flying planes into buildings, he accused me of suffering from “persecution complex.”

Is there a dark, sinister world out there designed to uproot and destroy Muslims? Do men in suits hold clandestine meetings and devote endless energy to the annihilation of those that claim there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah?

Or are we all suffering from a severe strain of the ultra-delusional, supported in our claims only by bizarre conspiracy? The answer, my dear reader, I think, is somewhere in between.

When we begin to cast our glances back through the hourglass of history, we find glaring examples that demonstrate that whatever difficulty we may be experiencing as a collective unit has been experienced before, and often in more adverse circumstances.

The early followers of Jesus (peace and blessings be upon him), who were the Muslims of their time, were hurled into Rome’s Coliseum and fed on by wild lions as the crowd bayed for more blood. Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), the Seal of the Prophets, was ejected from Ta’if by street urchins and hooligans, who pelted the noble Messenger with stones. Rivulets of blood streamed down the Messenger’s blessed body. His response? He prayed for their guidance.

Numerous instances in history give us overwhelming evidence and confidence that this world is but a playground of trials and tribulations.

When Halagu Khan ransacked Baghdad in the 13th century, piercing the heart of the Islamic world and nearly exterminating the entire population of the city, the end-of-times visionaries were sure that the time had come. It hadn’t.

One of the fundamental reasons why we cannot allow ourselves to be consumed wholeheartedly by the idea that everyone “out there” is on a mission to get us is one of introspection. By deflecting every blemish of ours in life to outside sources, we fail in our duty as Muslims to be on the path of continuous self-examination.

`Umar ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “Take account of yourself before you are taken account of.”

With rigid self-analysis and rectification comes an inward faith that remains unmoved as the world spins in its daily vicissitudes. That strength is desperately needed when trials and tribulations arrive.

{Or do you think that you shall enter the garden (of bliss) without such (trials) as came to those who passed away before you? They encountered suffering and adversity, and were so shaken in spirit that even the Apostle and those of faith who were with him cried: “When (will come) the help of God?” Ah! Verily, the help of God is (always) near!} (Al-Baqarah 2:214)

The examination of this world is not an easy one. For the freedom fighter in Chechnya, the physical battle against the oppressive Russian hegemony is the greatest struggle. For the young French girl it is a battle of appearances, holding onto her cultural heritage and her religious obligation as her secularist schoolmaster tries to snatch her headscarf. For the young British Muslim it’s now an exhaustive psychological process of trying best to explain to the layman why the religion Islam does not in any way condone or foster terrorism.

Despondency can never be considered; it was never a trait of the Mercy to Mankind, who so beautifully remarked, “Wonderful is the affair of the believer! His affairs in their entirety are good for him: If good befalls him, he is thankful, and that is good for him. And if harm befalls him, he is patient, and that is good for him. And this (prosperous state of being) is only for the believer.”

Therapy! 

Writing this piece has been tremendously therapeutic for the author. Dear reader, you’ve helped me come to terms with some of my own demons of trying to find the congruity between my faith and the sometimes intimidating environments I find myself in.

Perhaps Thabo doesn’t really believe what he said to me in the workplace. Maybe he’s just been misinformed about us. And now, when I spin it around in my head for a while and allow the thought to settle, I think it’s my fault. My fault for not educating him about Islam. My fault for not educating myself enough about Islam to make it accessible to him and countless others that I come into contact with.

The Islam that swept across the world in a tidal wave of hope and prosperity, of justice and peace for all creation, is not the Islam that Thabo knows of.

I allow myself to daydream for a minute, and it elicits a smile.

“Hey, Imran, long time!”

“Hey, Thabo …”

“What are you still doing here?”

“Err … what do you mean?”

“Shouldn’t you be saying your prayers, you said you guys pray at sunset!”

“Yes, Thabo, I should, thanks.”

One can only dream, but now it’s up to me and us all to make those dreams a reality.