UPROOTED: My Home

H. Jama S. Mammeri
Nov 3 · 4 min read

A few days ago, I was scrolling through social media when I passed this one post. A post that engulfed my thought process and captured my whole attention. Sort of like the state your mind enters when an epiphany occurs. But this time, it wasn’t necessarily coming to a realization of something - it was more of an acknowledgement that I was lacking something essential. To define home for myself.

A quote by a Nobel Prize winning Egyptian writer by the name of Naguib Mahfouz.



Initially, I thought I understood the meaning. So I double-tapped and kept scrolling. But the longer those words remained in my head, the more complicated and confusing it became to really comprehend the deeper meaning behind the quote. It brought me to a realization. We use the word “home” so casually. We offer it hardly any thought, almost similar to the way we choose the flavour of ice cream we’ll buy or the colour shirt we’ll wear. Home is often simply handed to us and there’s never really a space for us to actually think about what we call home and what the reason in doing so is. We hardly try to define what home is for ourselves, and arriving to that disappointing reality, is what concerned me the most.

Is home where I was born? Is it where I grew up? Or is it a person? Or the feeling of ease and contentment that Mahfouz is referring to? Is home one place? Can it be two? Can home be a thing? Or a memory? Or a hopeful longing? An imagination? Can home change ?

Personally, home is a whole bunch of things.

  • It is the land my ancestors have lived on and cultivated. Where the blood, sweat, and tears of my people are buried beneath the soil - giving life to trees that stand tall. Where the sun radiates and shines on the homes that have been nurtured by the precious pronunciations of the language I call my own. A land that contains centuries of experiences and struggles. It is the sound of women and men chanting verses of the national anthem binding them together as one, with utmost love and pride;

“ Soomaliyeey Tooso, Toosoo isku tiirsada ee”

  • Home is my family and friends – the environment where I can love and be loved.
  • Home is the many moments I experience daily – although sometimes not as long as I would have hoped .
  • Home is the uncertainty I feel about the future.
  • Home is the life-changing experiences that I have gone through (good or bad) which have moulded me into the person I am right now.

But most importantly it’s that hopeful longing to return to where my soul has come from. Where it’s meant to be. The place where we were uprooted from and are expected to return to. A place that can fill the everlasting void in my heart. My heart craves for the best of homes one could possibly imagine.

And through this journey of pondering, I realized that my faith had already laid out all the answers I was looking for. What my heart was looking for was Allah, to be with my Creator and reside in a home fashioned specifically for me by the Sustainer of this world and beyond.

I want to end with this:

Despite all the temporary homes or feelings of attachment to things we perceive as homes, the sad reality is that it all comes to an end. Ultimately, we lose all of it. So maybe this world isn’t what we make it seem. Perhaps this isn’t home. After all, our souls have travelled so many places. Maybe this is another pit-stop. A chance for us to catch our breath and prepare for our perpetual residence. Thus, I have quit trying to find a concrete home in this temporary pit-stop my soul is in. My heart is at peace knowing that although I might have a plethora of things I currently call home, my journey through life will hopefully lead me to a far greater and incomparable destination (insha Allah).

So, in our search of physical places or things to call home in this temporary dunya (worldly life) – may we not forget the ever-lasting home which we were created to strive for, a home that doesn’t need to be fought for to maintain. A home where we ‘cease to escape’. A place of blissful eternal residence, awaiting those of us who seek it.

May Allah allow us to reach this destination.

Ameen

Hiba Jama

    H. Jama S. Mammeri

    Written by

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