Grandfather's Gone Missing. He Has Dementia
8th May 2022
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
I was about to contact my boss. I needed the day off because of an emergency. Our relative, a grandfather, had gone missing and we need to go and look for him.
It all started last Tuesday afternoon. He was at the doctor’s surgery with his wife and she was sorting out some tests for him while he waited at the reception. He has dementia and is frail. Dementia is a syndrome (a group of related symptoms) associated with an ongoing decline of brain functioning.
Due to the worsening dementia, his speaking has become more difficult so he manages just a few words. He’s also become more restless.
She returned to the reception area and he was gone. So, it’s been a roller coaster of anxiety and emotions. Where is he? Is he safe? Relatives and the police were looking for him. Night time came and he still had not been found.
The next morning, just before I messaged my boss to tell him I needed the day off to continue with the search, we got the message he’d been found in East London. Allah (swt) is so Kind.
How did he get from north London to East London (about 1 hour away)? Some kind soul found him at about 6am and took him to hospital. He’d had a fall and was bleeding. Alhamdulillah, he was safe.
Lessons from this event
I told a doctor friend what happened and he said it’s very common. Elderly patients with dementia do go missing. Dementia affects their memory and various other things.
We are reminded of the ayah
وَٱللَّهُ خَلَقَكُمْ ثُمَّ يَتَوَفَّىٰكُمْ ۚ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُرَدُّ إِلَىٰٓ أَرْذَلِ ٱلْعُمُرِ لِكَىْ لَا يَعْلَمَ بَعْدَ عِلْمٍ شَيْـًٔا ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ قَدِيرٌ
“Allah has created you, and then causes you to die. And some of you are left to reach the most feeble stage of life so that they may know nothing after having known much. Indeed, Allah is All-Knowing, Most Capable.” [An-Nahl 16:70]
How Allah can give us long lives and reduce us to knowing nothing. SubhanAllah. Some lessons
1) Do the things we can today in worshipping Allah (swt) and serving the cause of Islam.
We shouldn’t delay our fard duties, our salah, hajj or working to re-establish the Islamic way of life, the Khilafah.
Shaytan tells us we have time to change. If we live till tomorrow or to an old age, we may not have the physical or mental ability to then fulfil those duties we neglected.
2)Look after your relatives.
The Prophet (ﷺ) told us that looking after them as they become old is a means of immense reward and the pleasure of Allah (swt).
In the West where individualism is pushed strongly in society, some refuse to be ‘burdened’ by looking after their parents. One in five older people in the UK have been abused, poll finds. And we see many cases where the elderly are neglected and even cases where some elderly person died and their bodies were not discovered, in one case, their body was not discovered for three years.
3)Old age opens up new opportunities to serve Islam and be closer to Allah (swt).
My knees now hurt, I have less free time, work is busy and so on. I could claim to have many excuses at this stage in life. However, we are reminded of the life of our Beloved Prophet (ﷺ).
In his 40s, he was striving hard inviting the people of Makkah to Islam and facing many obstacles. He did not give up. In His 50s and early 60s, he was engaged in jihad on the battle field, building an ummah, leading the salat and running the Islamic state. So, what is my excuse? What is your excuse? What is our excuse for not striving hard in our worship of Allah (swt) and seeking His Jannah?
What state of health will we have next year or ten years from now? We don’t know. What we know is what we have now. That Allah has granted us another day.
May Allah (swt) enable us all to be grateful, to worship Him and to serve the cause of Islam with all our abilities. Amen
Please share the newsletter. Thanks.
Love and salams,
Taji
🧔 What have I been up to?
I started taking swimming lessons. I can swim very short distances with a lot of effort and once the water is deeper than my neck, khalas, I’m finished. So last week I started lessons with a teacher.
I can see a lot of health and other benefits of learning. Make dua it goes well.
📖 Ayah and Hadith
وَمَا كَانَ لِنَفْسٍ أَن تَمُوتَ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ ٱللَّهِ كِتَـٰبًا مُّؤَجَّلًا ۗ وَمَن يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ ٱلدُّنْيَا نُؤْتِهِۦ مِنْهَا وَمَن يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ نُؤْتِهِۦ مِنْهَا ۚ وَسَنَجْزِى ٱلشَّـٰكِرِينَ
No soul can ever die without Allah’s Will at the destined time. Those who desire worldly gain, We will let them have it, and those who desire heavenly reward, We will grant it to them. And We will reward those who are grateful. [Ali-Imran 3:145]
Quote of the Week
“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
-Malcolm x, Hajj Malik el Shabazz
❤ My Favourite Things
Podcast – The day Russia adopted the free market, an episode from Planet Money.
Jeffrey Sachs explains why he thinks "shock therapy" was so tough in Russia.
The Soviet Union was collapsing, and President Boris Yeltsin invited Jeffrey Sachs, famous American economist, to device a plan for transforming a centralised soviet economy to a capitalist economy. In this podcast Jeffrey Sachs talked about his plan, the pain people felt in Russia and the political interference when trying to implement the plan.
This podcast got me thinking of how we will one day need to implement a step by step plan to transform the capitalist economy in a Muslim country to an Islamic economy once the Islamic Khilafah state is re-established there. An Islamic economic system that implements sharia solutions legislated by Allah (swt). A process of transformation that might not be free of pain initially.
Read past newsletters at tajimustafa.com