Reflections on Family Separation & Divine Will
By Nabintou Doumbia
I’ve been writing this story for three years now.
Daddy is my everything. I often remark how he is walking, talking, living proof of Allah’s mercy on me. While his impatient tendencies are sometimes difficult to engage with, the passion from which it stems is so beautiful to witness. Every family member with an entrepreneurial dad is a compulsive risk assessor— can you really blame us? Some days daddy's excessive optimism felt naive, while on others, I could not help but to be consumed by his tawwakul (full reliance on God). “If I attest that there is no God but Allah, and I pray to Him five times a day…how can I then have misplaced faith when He decides to test me?”
I loved when he offered reflective questions like these.
From a young age, engaging him in philosophical discourse quickly became my preferred pastime. Somehow, our mandatory family meetings would begin with my little brother’s aged-old grievance that he needed his own room, and end with a debate where daddy and I were on the same side…giving everyone else a run for their money.
In the ways we clashed—and continue to—we’ve both concluded is a result of our similarities, more so than our differences. I don’t believe in a free Africa where the French loom around sticking their nose in our business—but daddy does. Despite his persistent inclination to jump at the idea of starting these big, new projects, he moves through the world as a realist. “But France does still have a colonial hold over us, Bintou — so now what? Do we just sit around and keep blaming them for all of our problems? To which I would likely reply, “yes.”
“Ok, but know that Allah will ask us about what we did with what we had,” he would casually throw back at me.
Daddy also introduced me to Thomas Sankara—arguably the Continent’s most revolutionary leader. During our conversations, I learned overwhelmingly more about colonialism and Pan-Africanism than I did as an Africana Studies minor at university.
Despite these countless gems, the greatest lesson he has ever taught me is that faith is not an intellectual sport—no matter how much I often wanted it to be. As a 12-year-old-challenge-fanatic middle-schooler, for example, he once promised to give me $50 if I memorized and perfected Ayatul Kursi—so I did it in 4 hours. When he asked what I had learned from that exercise, I sarcastically reminded him that reflection was never part of the deal (and to please run me my money).
Little could I have known that this same page of the Qur’an would soon become my rock when daddy was detained—and eventually deported—by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
On August 3rd, 2018, for perhaps the first real time in my life, the decree of Allah was unfathomably shocking to me. Seemingly trivial details like the exact time my sister texted me the news…and what I was doing when I found out are branded into my memory. But most familiar to me is how betrayed I felt. Why would Allah test my family in this way? Just four months shy of graduating early, how could He write that my biggest supporter wouldn’t be there to cheer me on? In the middle of such a stressful law school application cycle, I couldn’t even grasp how something this traumatic wouldn’t completely destroy me. So I would not pray for strength, I fiercely decided. Instead, I bargained for ease. “Ya Allah, bring daddy back home to us and I promise to _____.”
I immediately faced the difficult truth that Allah will never be the transactional Lord that I thought of Him as at the time. That my sleepless nights spent in prayer did not add to His Praiseworthiness, nor could my anger with His decision subtract from His Authority.
Almost as if He knew that only daddy’s reminders could bring me the ease I desperately sought, I quickly found myself glued to my phone everyday, waiting for a call from a once unfamiliar number followed by an automated message that someone from “Calhoun County Jail” was trying to reach me.
“Salaamu Alayakum daddy.”
“Walaikum Salaam Warahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh”
“How are you?”
“How am I? Very very good.”
*silence*
“Bintou, we will accept whatever Allah has written for us.”
“Yeah we will, but we also have to tell Him what we want.”
“Of course, I don’t want to be in this jail either. But if Allah decides that I need to go back home, know that He is not punishing us for anything.”
While my dad’s seemingly unwavering resilience provided comfort, our phone calls didn’t magically teach me how to trust Allah. In fact, most days I’m still a struggling student to those teachings. But it did expose me to the ways in which my God-complex could no longer serve me. That if I am claiming the role of servant, it would require my full submission to the only One who is Ever-Living, All-Sustaining. It asked me to trust that because sleep cannot overtake Him, He is sufficient in looking over my family and I. That if all that is in the heavens and the earth doesn’t even flinch without His permission, systems that I’ve always feared are powerless in comparison to Him.
This November will mark three years since my dad has been removed to the Ivory Coast, and family separation inflicts a lasting pain that I hope no one has to ever experience. Admittedly, I am still working to understand Divine Will, while simultaneously acknowledging the ways I will never be able to fully grasp all of who Allah is. And in that way, even after three long years in the absence of a physical presence I deeply yearn for, I think I’m still writing this story--and might be for a very long time.
this piece is followed by Ayatul Kursi--the verse I referenced; my dad and I reunited last year, Alhamdulilah.
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ٱللَّهُ لَآ إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلْحَىُّ ٱلْقَيُّومُ ۚ لَا تَأْخُذُهُۥ سِنَةٌ وَلَا نَوْمٌ ۚ لَّهُۥ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۗ مَن ذَا ٱلَّذِى يَشْفَعُ عِندَهُۥٓ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِهِۦ ۚ يَعْلَمُ مَا بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ ۖ وَلَا يُحِيطُونَ بِشَىْءٍ مِّنْ عِلْمِهِۦٓ إِلَّا بِمَا شَآءَ ۚ وَسِعَ كُرْسِيُّهُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ ۖ وَلَا يَـُٔودُهُۥ حِفْظُهُمَا ۚ وَهُوَ ٱلْعَلِىُّ ٱلْعَظِيمُ
God: there is no god but Him, the Ever Living, the Ever Watchful. Neither slumber nor sleep overtakes Him. All that is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to Him. Who is there that can intercede with Him except by His leave? He knows what is before them and what is behind them, but they do not comprehend any of His knowledge except what He wills. His throne extends over the heavens and the earth; it does not weary Him to preserve them both. He is the Most High, the Tremendous.
