Lauren Booth – Talking to my dying father about God

			The moments that really touched me were your moments with your father, on his deathbed. Like that
chapter that will chapter was beautiful, that what I love about your memoir is, there's this action,
there's craziness, there's, you know, like almost chaos, and then there's calm.
		

			And in the middle of all of that, there's you.
		

			And it feels very clear that ALLAH SubhanA, Allah has taken you all around the world,
		

			to bring you to him. And that's how that's how I read your memoir. But that moment with you and your
father, I felt like it was like a culmination of that was a gift, I have to say that was one of the
Allah has given so many great gifts and, and you can't count them just the fact that I'm breathing
here today and healthy and no major diseases, you know, thank you, Allah, thank you chakra Allah is
a miracle in many ways. But when my dad and I hadn't spoken for two years before that, exactly, so
in that context, that, that that meeting that led to it and to get and to get a call and say come
and see him and say goodbye on his deathbed. And, you know, my ex husband saying saying beautifully,
		

			may Allah bless him for this. You're only there for one reason, you're only there for one reason,
don't make it about the past. Don't don't make it, you know, don't make like, Oh, it's lovely to see
you. One reason Tauheed just, that's it. You Allah has given you this, it's a gift. And to sit and
hold my dad's hand and you know, to recite al Fatiha and for him to say that so beautiful and you're
full of light. And for him to feel that, you know, an Irish guy, you know, a man of Irish Catholic
descent, who Oh, who had expressed you know, real suspicion and a nervousness about what he thought
Islam was, you know, the set of rules is * of women, all of these ideas, and to when it
		

			came down to it for me to hold his hand and recite sort of fattier and just say how many gods are
there Dad? And he looked at me and he said, Come on, there's only there's no god but God.
		

			Leila *, Allah. And then what about the prophets, you know, so that Solomon and Adam, they're all
prophets. And Jesus said, Listen, kid, Jesus was a prophet, we know that he's not God. And you say,
thank you on that. And then to have a dream of after he died, of him being bathed by three imams in
a big palace, was such a gift, and hamdulillah and just to be there, and to give him that love and,
and to really I, you know, in my culture in the, in the English Heritage culture, we don't talk
about death. The bit, the big unknown, the big unspoken, you know, we talk about, oh, we'll have a
big week afterwards, and we'll have a big party, we'll all drink to mate, we'll drink to your
		

			memory. We'll get drunk. And remember, it's like what even is that? And then, you know, the moment
of death being on let's play music so you can remember me? What? No, I said to my dad, and it was a
hardest thing. I've had to say. I'm here because I love you. And I'm here because you're leaving. He
said, I'm I said, yeah. Let's talk about God. That's what we should be doing.