The Stranger

A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to 
our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this
enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The
stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the 
world a few months later.

As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. In my young
mind, each member had a special niche. My brother, Yusuf, five years
my senior, was my example. Samya, my younger sister, gave me an opportunity to
play 'big brother' and develop the art of teasing. My parents were complementary
instructors-- Mom taught me to love Allah, and Dad taught me to how to
obey Him.    But the  stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the 
most fascinating tales.  Adventures, mysteries and comedies were daily
conversations. He could hold our whole family spell-bound for hours 
each evening. If I wanted to know about politics, history, or science, he 
knew it.

He knew about the past and seemed to understood the present. The 
pictures he could draw were so life like that I would often laugh or cry as I
watched. He was like a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, Yusuf and me to
our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the
movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several famous people.

The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn' t seem to mind-but 
sometimes Mom would quietly get up-- while the rest of us were enthralled with 
one of his stories of faraway places-- go to her room, read the Qur'aan.

I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You 
see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this 
stranger never felt obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not 
allowed in our house-- not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime
visitor, however, used occasional four letter words that burned my ears and 
made Dad squirm.. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted.  My 
dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home - not even for 
cooking. 

But the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us to 
other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often.

He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. 
He talked freely (probably too much too freely) about sex. His comments 
were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.

I know now that my early concepts of the man-woman relationship were
influenced by the stranger.

As I look back, I believe it was Allah's Mercy that the stranger did
not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my 
parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. More than thirty 
years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on 
Morningside Drive.

He is not nearly so intriguing to my Dad as he was in those early 
years. But if I were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see
him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk 
and watch him draw his pictures.

His name you ask?



We called him TV.

-Anonymous