The Tissue Seller

There is a familiar scene in Bahrain’s Souq of a woman sitting on the sidewalk who sells tissue boxes. I call her the Tissue Seller. She sits at the same spot almost daily waiting for her “rizk”. I am assuming that she sits cross-legged although I can’t quite see. She somehow isolates herself from the outside world with her abaya which looks like a shiny black tent around her and is surrounded with colorful tissue boxes… quite picturesque really… Never have I once seen her beg or even extend the palm of her hand to a passer-by. She continues to sit there with the dignity of a Muslim who seems to know that it is Allah who will decide her bread winnings for the day. I often wonder what is home for her and who it is that waits for her return when night falls. I know, however, that tomorrow she will probably be back and those of us who happen to pass by that particular corner of Bahrain’s souq will see her once again…

During my trip to Istanbul, I spent many hours walking up and down one of my favorite streets in this world… Istiklal Avenue… a road bustling with life… colorful people set against an eclectic mélange of traditional coffee shops and modern fast-food outlets. You find yourself completely blending into the crowds the moment you step into it. But if you look close enough, you’ll see that the picture is not all that bright… as you walk down this street, you are bound to be approached by a beggar of some sort competing for some of your pocket change.

In the midst of all this, I was completely taken by surprise when I saw her in the middle of the street… yes, the tissue seller. This time, however, she was Turkish. She wore a white blouse tucked into a faded beige flared skirt. She wore a bright flowery scarf on her head tied into a tight knot at the bottom of her reddish chin. I could clearly see the many wrinkles on her face and her hunched back from years of battling with osteoporosis. She appeared to be an elderly woman who had aged before her time. She, unlike the tissue seller of Bahrain, didn’t sit on the ground but on a yellow plastic stool. She held in her hands not tissue boxes but pocket tissue packets. She was simply staring obliviously ahead… not really looking at anything… as it seemed like she was too familiar with her surroundings for anything to be of real interest to her. She had probably lived through these scenes a million times before.

She, strangely enough, just like the tissue seller in Bahrain’s souq, had never extended her hand to anyone except probably to collect money when she had sold a packet or two. Subhan Allah, I couldn’t help but think that she too knew that it is Allah alone who is ultimately responsible of what she takes home at the end of her day… Nor could I help wonder where she would be heading when it starts to get dark or whether she would be leaving this lively street to a home where she lived all by herself…

I began to think about how people all over the world may be living parallel lives without even realizing it… the setting and the details may be a little different but the essence of their parables quite identical… In this case, it was the dignity of these two tissue sellers who had the same profession and the same realization that it is Allah, alone, who is in complete control of their "rizk" at the end of their days?… Subhan Allah, is this message as clear to the rest of us???

أَوَلَمْ يَعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَبْسُطُ الرِّزْقَ لِمَن يَشَاءُ وَيَقْدِرُ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يُؤْمِنُونَ"}

“Do they not know that Allâh enlarges the provision for whom He wills, and straitens it (for whom He wills). Verily, in this are signs for the folk who believe!” (Verse 52, Surah Az-Zumar)