Identity, belonging and values
Identity, belonging
and values
My family
identity background starts from my grandparents being born and raised in
Pakistan. The definition of my surname ‘Farooq’ is related to my culture and my
religion of Islam. However the name Farooq is Arabic but, can be spelt many
different ways due to the religious terms but generally have the same meaning;
“Farooq (also transliterated as Farouk, Faruqi, Farook, Faruk,
Faroeq, Faruq, or Farouq, or
Farooqi, Farooqui; Arabic: فاروق, Fārūq ) is a common Arabic given and family name.
Al-Farūq literally means "The Redeemer" or "the one who
distinguishes between right and wrong.”. The spelling of my surname differs to
the country you are born from example being, Faruk, same definition but this is
how the Turkish culture spells it, and the name Farooq is generally a Muslim
Male given name.
My background goes very far back to the
time where members of my family where classed as royalty in Pakistan, and till
this day I believe my family still is. I believe my grandparent and my general
family of today come from a small city called in Pakistan called ‘Gujranwala’ and the city of most parts is
poor but my family have a lot of houses in Pakistan.
Social media and the Internet allows me
and my family history to be researched, shared amongst many years and for
people who know more upon either my family history, religion, culture, wealth,
meanings behind our family and surname, allows everyone to research and learn
and understand more about their family by just a click of a search on different
social media websites and just anywhere generally amongst the internet.
My parents moved to Britain around 30 or
so years ago and they lived with my grandmother (we call her Narni, basically
meaning grandmother in Urdu/Punjabi). My father lived in a flat but my mother
didn’t want to leave her mother and live in a flat. She wanted to live in the
house, but my father didn’t want to get rid of the flat or leave. So they
decided to keep the flat but live separately but still visit often. My mother had 8 children, 5 boys and 3 girls
and one of my brothers; “What’s the boy
Malcolm? Wasn’t he born from a woman? “. This reference to Macbeth means
that my brother was had to be born by caesarean section (delivery of a baby through a surgical incision in the
mother's abdomen and uterus.).
However, a year before I was born (1999)
my mother’s mother (Narni), unfortunately passed away and is now resting in
heaven; inna lillahi wa inallah-e-raji'oon ("We
belong to Allah and to Him we shall return."), I never got to meet her but
I had seen her through recordings and photographs.
Tuesday 12th September 2017
4:17am, my brother; aged 28 years old, passed away after being 6 days in hospital,
due to a disease he caught one night called: Meningococcal Septicaemia. Now he resting in heaven; inna lillahi wa inallah-e-raji'oon ("We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.”).
However, in our religion (Islam) we believe in certain things, where it depends
on how someone passes away; they become something called ‘shaheed’, which means
that they are granted paradise and their sins are forgiven but it’s not only
them who are granted paradise, they’re allowed to bring 7 generations of family
with them to paradise too. There’s four different ways you become Shaheed; 1.
If you die by a falling object and you get crushed to death, 2. If you die in
battle against disbelievers, 3. If you die doing something good in island, for
example; you’re on your way to the mosque to pray and you pass away from a
heart attack. Finally, 4. If you die due to a disease… Therefore, my brother is
Shaheed, InShaAllah (if Allah wills it) and Alhumdulliah (Praise be to Allah).
Comments
Post a Comment