Sabr (patience)

I was thrilled to be able to share the '30 Days' book with Asma Khan, founder of the acclaimed restaurant Darjeeling Express, when I was in London. Her reflection on patience and her mother's wisdom is in the book - such an important lesson for all of us, all year round.

"My friend, sadly, passed away two days ago. She didn’t have Covid; she had cancer. It was very traumatic. She was trying to hang on so she could wish her son happy birthday. She kept telling me, I have to make sure I don’t die on his birthday, but I feel I can’t go on. She was able to wish her son on his fifteenth birthday, then went into a coma. She passed away two days later.

It’s been a huge shock, because she was just larger than life—she loved to party, she loved to dance. There’s always that one person in every room; she was that person who would be laughing and shouting and getting us all into trouble. When she found out that the cancer had come back, she came straight to my restaurant carrying two wigs—a blonde and a black—and asked which one she should get. I said blonde, of course (although her hair is black), because that would make complete sense!

She loved my prawn malai curry; she asked me to bring it to the hospital before she got really bad. But then she got a blockage and had to be on a liquid diet. She wrote on Facebook that she was dreaming every day about how she could liquefy the prawn curry. Our hearts broke; it was awful, awful. But I’m going to make sure I feed her kids prawn malai curry.

It reminds me of what Ammu used to tell me about Ramadan: beta, this is about sabr (patience). Allah is teaching you patience; it’s a huge skill and this is where you practice. The fasting, the prayers, reading the Quran, all of it is important, but Ramadan is the practice of sabr—sabr when you feel like it might all get too much."

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