SUFI STORIES #11 THE STORY OF ZARINA IBRAHIM – A MODERN DAY RABIA AL ADAWIYYA

This is the continuation to Sufi Stories #10. If you have not read that yet, please do so to understand this story better.

Zarina was born into a Hindu family in Singapore. I never knew her original name. From small, she never liked idols and gave all sorts of excuses not to follow her family to the temples. Otherwise she lived a normal life, got hitched to a fine gentleman, and married him.

But on her wedding day, something strange happened.

As part of the traditional Hindu wedding ritual, the couple circled the Holy Fire several times. But each time they circled the fire, she saw the Arabic word for “Allah”, which most non-Muslims living among Muslims would recognize.

After the wedding, she told her new husband that she wanted to become a Muslim! What a drama it was, and you can imagine everyone’s consternation. She was adamant about converting, which would mean the marriage had to be dissolved. Finally, the husband decided that the only way to continue being married to her was for him to convert too. So both of them “reverted” to Islam.

The concept in Islam is that all humans are born with the natural inclination (fitrah) towards believing and worshiping in the One True God (Allah) as expounded in the Qur’an, but the parents make them believe in whatever religion (or no religion) from when they are young. So non-Muslims who convert to Islam are regarded as returning to the fold, hence the term “reversion” is preferred to “conversion”, when Muslims write about it.

Unfortunately, the marriage did not last long, and they went their separate ways. I do not know if the husband returned to Hinduism.

She developed a relationship with Allah such that from being a fashionable young lady, later she was always dressed in white, just like the prayer garb that most local women wear for their ritual prayers. Thus she was always ready to meet her “Lover” at the prayer times, which she looked forward to with the eagerness of a lover waiting to meet her beau.

She came over to Malaysia to deepen her Islamic knowledge and understanding. She went to live in Kelantan where the traditional teachings of Islam were more known. While there, she started experiencing “visits” by unseen entities who encouraged her to be close to Allah.

Several men there had expressed their interest in her, but she rejected all of them because she was so much in love with Allah that she did not want to share that love with anyone else.

When I met her, she was attending a conference on the Qur’an in Kuala Lumpur, organized by the Islamic Centre. That was how she was invited to attend the meeting which I participated.

After that we kept in touch. When her story spread, she was invited by Muslim groups to share her story and to give guidance on how to be close to God. She was even invited by the Malaysian Muslim students’ organizations in England and Egypt. She was affectionately known to the students as Ummi Zarina.

Once when she was in Cairo on the invitation of the students there, there was an earthquake that flattened all the multi-storied flats in the area that she stayed, all except the one that she was staying in. Everyone was sure that it was saved because of her. There were many other miracles that happened in her life.

Another passion of hers was cooking. In fact she was among the first chefs to have a cookbook that was a hit in both Malaysia and Singapore. Her first cookbook “Zarina’s Home Cooking” and its Malay version “Dari Dapur Zarina” were published in 1990/1991. Those of you who are past 50 may remember these popular cookbooks.

Her second book was published a decade later, entitled “Zarina’s Easy Cooking”, and its Malay version was “Semudah Masakan Zarina”.

From teaching people how to love food, she evolved to teaching people how to love God. And she excelled in both!

Although we kept in touch for many years, I have lost contact with her for more than a decade now, and I do not know of her whereabouts. If anyone reading this knows how I can reach her, please do let me know. Thank you.

[Her picture below was taken before she started wearing her all-white “uniform”].

Salam/Peace to all. See you at my next SUFI STORIES post!