WHY DOES ZAKIAH REMAIN SILENT?

WHY DOES ZAKIAH REMAIN SILENT?

I glanced at the woman named Zakiah. Strange. Very strange, indeed. Her face was so pale. Her eyes were darting wildly. I wondered what was wrong with her. She used to be so talkative, but now you could barely hear her voice. I had already reminded 25 pilgrims about many things during a simple briefing on Umra organised by POTO in May 1999. It was strange that Zakiah still continued to look so disoriented.

     "We are going to enter the departure hall in a moment, so if there's anything you don't understand, please ask me now," I said. A couple of people asked some question, and I replied to their queries as best I could.

     "Kak Zakiah, why are you so quiet? Is there anything you don't understand?" I asked when I saw that she was standing behind the other pilgrims as still as rock.

     The 50-something woman looked blankly at me, and then looked around her in confusion. Her behavior was so strange that day. In fact, I noticed that ever since we arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, she did not mix with anybody. Instead, she remained close to her husband and did her own things.

     Zakiah's sudden behavioral change piqued my interest. But I allowed the question marks to play in my mind until it was time for our flight to depart from KLIA.

     We alighted in Jeddah, and then went on to Medina. We spent three days, two nights in Medina, and visited some of the interesting places there, including the Nabawi Mosque. The next day we left for Mecca. Our destination was approximately 450 km away.

     "Abang, how are you? Okay?" I approached Muhsin.

     "Alhamdulillah, I'm ok," replied the man.

     "Kak Zakiah, how is she?" I asked again. Muhsin became silent.

     "I really don't know Man. I'm so confused. She's been so quiet the last few days. I asked her whether she was sick. She shook her head. Any problems? She shook her head again," Muhsin explained. He was also unsure why his wife was suddenly behaving that way.

     We took the pilgrims to gather in Bir Ali and subsequently to Mecca. We willed all in a state of Ihram at the time. I gave a simple briefing again upon arriving in Mecca to avoid any confusion. Then we arrived in the compound of Al-Masjid al-Haram, ready to do our tawaf. But strangely enough, Kak Zakiah was not there.

     "What's wrong now? Is she sick?" I asked.

     "I don't know. She just told me she didn't want to do it. I asked her to come but she didn't want to," replied Muhsin.

     "Hmmm... if that's the case, can you ask her to sit in the room? But you have to be careful. Make sure that she doesn't do any of the 15 things that are prohibited during the time of Ihram. You know right?" I explained to him. I started to fell uneasy.

     We carried out the tawaf, sayee, and tahalul smoothly. After completing the Umra rituals, we all returned to our rooms.

     At 11.00 am, on the third day of our stay in the Holy Land, my mobile phone suddenly rang. The call was from Muhsin.

     "Man, come quickly to our room! I really don't know what has happened to Zakiah, please Man!" Muhsin's voice was anxious, hurrying me to his room.

     What was happening? My mind started racing with so many possibilities. As I stepped into the room, Zakiah's voice should be heard loud and clear, yelling in anger at something. The woman was lying on the floor, struggling and crying, in her attempt to free herself from Muhsin's grip.

     He was trying to calm her down. Her eyes were red, and her hair, wild. Zakiah was screaming in a language that I myself found hard to understand. Her voice was strangely hoarse.

     "Go! Go! I just want her! Don't bother me!" Those were the only words coming out from Zakiah's mouth that I could make out. I started to panic and sweat profusely. I wasn't expecting something like this.

     I was sure that I would not be able to handle the situation on my own. So, I quickly rose and told Muhsin that I would be returning shortly. Not long after, I came back to the room with Ustaz Bakar, an old acquaintance of 20 years, who was also involved in the business of organising the Umra and Hajj.

     "Go! I didn't ask you to come!" I saw that the situation was becoming uncontrollable. Zakiah was crying and shrieking, and threw a pillow to chase us out of the room. I tried to calm her down and 'cool' her by reading Ayatul-Kursi in my heart.

     "Stop! Don't read anymore!" Zakiah screamed. Allah All-Mighty... as if she could hear my voice reciting the ayat even though I was saying it in my heart.

     Ustaz Abu Bakar and Muhsin tried to get Zakiah to lie down. The Ustaz then started to squeeze the woman's toe. He was reciting some verses from the Holy Quran. Zakiah howled and struggled in pain.

     From what I could gather from the 'conversation' between Ustaz Bakar and 'Zakiah', her body had been possessed. It claimed to be 50 years old, descendants of djins, and living inside the cave.

     When asked to come out, it would scream, refusing to leave Zakiah's body. The djin said that it had long wanted to disturb the woman whenever she performed her religious duties. It had entered her body since our journey from KLIA. Ustaz Bakar began to get very angry. He shouted at the djin to come out, all the while pressing on Zakiah's toe as hard as he could.

     Arrrrrgggghhhhhh! Zakiah screamed loudly before she fainted. We let her sleep for awhile. After almost an hour, she woke up. Her eyes looked around in a daze. She was surprised to see the three of us around her.

     "Where am I? Am I at home?" she asked.

     "You are in Mecca now," I told her.

     "Astaghriullah halazim. How did I get there?" she asked. According to the woman, she could only remember leaving the house and going to KLIA. The rest was a blank.

     "You really don't know what happened?" I asked her. She shook her head. "You were possessed," I informed her and told her the story from beginning to end.

     I saw tears streaming down her cheeks. Unable to contain his feelings, her husband started to cry too. We gave them some advice. I said that what had happened was probably a good lesson. Perhaps it was because of something we had done in the past.

     Zakiah appeared deep in thought as if something was playing in her mind. Then she became melancholic and wiping her tears, she said: "This is all because I like to accuse my neighbours of all sorts of things. I accused them of keeping djins and evil spirits..."

     Zakiah continued with her story and listening to her, my mind was transported back to an incident that took place a couple of weeks before our departure to Mecca. On that day, I went to her house in Puchong to give a briefing as Muhsin and Zakiah were unable to come to our office due to some important business which they had to attend to.

     As soon as the briefing was over, Zakiah immediately began badmouthing her neighbours. It seemed that one of the neighbours kept a POLONG (malevolent spirit), while another, a PELESIT (malevolent spirit). The owner of the end lot house, kept a HANTU RAYA (malevolent spirit), while the owner of the house facing the kitchen kept a TOYOL (small child spirit). In short, she was surrounded by evil neighbours, all keeping djins and evil spirits.

     "I want to see Allah return all those POLONG back to these people," she said, appearing to curse them.

     Her husband, who works as an administrative assistant, only sat on the side quietly. He did not say a word. Zakiah claimed, she was always the victim of her ill-hearted neighbours. There have been times when she had seen a dark figure outside her house, a headless figure crossing the road, white cloth floating and so many more. According to her, her neighbours enjoy parading their evil spirits in front of her house to disturb her family's well-being.

     "That's why I wanted to join this Umra programme. I thought, you never know, if my du'a is granted in Baitullah, I'd be able to return all those ghosts and spirits back to them," said Zakiah loudly.

     Alas, the opposite happened in the Holy Land. Her actions and bad intentions do not meet with Allah's blessings. This was the lesson whe was taught in Mecca.

     Zakiah truly regretted her actions and asked us to take her to Baitullah. In Tana'im, he made her niyyah to perform her Umra again. We realised her wish and took her to perform her Umra rituals, which she had yet to do. Having carried out her Umra well, her condition improved. She became more cheerful and mixed with the others like before.

     Alhamdulillah... I believe that the incident had changed her behavior towards her neighbours.

N / F : FROM 'THE BEST COLLECTION OF STORIES FROM MECCA', BY MASTIKA.