بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum
Dear Friends
I pray that you are well.
Things don't go on our timetable. You wait and be angry or you wait and be patient. Either way you have to wait. You either make yourself miserable by being angry or you make yourself strong by being patient while you wait. The amount of work is the same.
After I was cheated by a taxi driver a few weeks ago, I shy away from taking taxis. I take buses instead especially if I am not in a hurry and actually there is nothing to hurry except to hurry to get out of the intense heat. May Allah saves us from the Fire.
The other day I was going to take a bus to go to downtown Cairo to renew our visas. So many buses passed by, unfortunately we were not fast enough to read the bus numbers in Arabic to stop the buses! Rather than risking not getting our visas the same day and getting ourselves soaked with sweat in the intense heat, I decided to take a taxi. I'd make sure that the taxi driver agreed on the fare in advance to avoid being cheated again. But every taxi would not take us for the fare I offered, which was actually the going fare, and I wouldn't pay more, not because I could not afford the extra few dollars but I did not want to support greedy people or people who take advantage of people. So I passed one taxi after another.
There was this taxi that suddenly stopped in front of us. I walked over to the taxi and asked him if he would take us to Cairo for the same fare I told all the other taxis. He said yes, inshaAllah, and so we got in the taxi. Soon I realized he was one of the earlier taxis that I had stopped a few minutes ago. I said "SubhanAllah" and couldn't help it but laugh. He noticed that I realized who he was and smiled. He had Qur'an playing during the entire trip. MashaAllah. I gathered he was quite religious. You can tell also because he didn't smoke, his taxi was clean and smell good, as my sons noticed.
We had our visas done in record speed! MashaAllah, la hawla wala quwwata illa billah.
May Allah guide us. Ameen. Please don't forget us in your night prayers Jazakallahu khairan.
And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam
