The Three (+2+1) Musketeers

Today, the three musketeers met up for a (super long) lunch at a relatively new Italian restaurant in the East. It has been a few months since we hang out together - and in those months, there were new additions to our family of musketeers. Today, the missus and the baby-son came along too :)

I am truly blessed to have the privilege of their friendship and companionship. We have spent so many moments together sharing and discussing our views about life and things generally. It is intellectually and spiritually stimulating being around the musketeers.

Earlier in the year, one of the musketeer was posted to another Ministry - and for a moment left the remaining two feeling rather lost, but we adjusted. Within the next few weeks, it will be my turn to be going away to the US and that remaining musketeer is already feeling 'lost'. But if anything is to go by, I am confident that the strength of our friendship and shared experiences will bind us together still - for a long time to come. Meeting and parting are incidents in the journey of Life, but for those who hold on, these are just a matter of time, space and distance.

During lunch in Ramadhan last year, the musketeers used to gather in my room at the office to perform congregational prayers, memorize the Qur'an or discuss issues together. Those were extraordinary moments. Another magical incident occured during our congregational prayers today. I recited the iqamah, the other led the prayer whilst the third read the doa. At the closing doa, a special recitation was made for me - which evoked our emotions and touched me deeply. And for that moment, I was 'transported' to the time when I was performing the Umrah with one of the musketeers about 3 years ago. A similar gush of emotions overflowed while we were praying our last maghrib prayer before we depart the next day and left the Masjidil Haram. And just as it occurred on that beautiful day, we hugged each other after that prayer in front of the Ka'abah, but today in Singapore, we faced the Ka'abah - as if testifying before it of our bond.

There was nothing left for me to do but to perform the prostration of gratefulness when I reached home.

Thank you dear God, thank you dear Beloved, and thank you dear musketeers.

I will carry fond thoughts of you both wherever I will be in the next few years - it will be my humility-check in times of success and it will serve as my inspiration when I am down. I will enliven the pact we made: that we must excel and be a model in what we individually do best, and with that, we must contribute for the betterment of the community and the world.

And as though symbolic, both musketeers bought me a much-needed digital camera so I can take pictures of the many journeys that lay before me. I know it was based on my request, but just as pictures capture each unique moments in life, our journeys together were earlier captured and stored in my heart.

You are my Abu Bakr and 'Umar.