Inner Anchorage

Tribute, Testament and TRUE Labour of LOVE...
Both the best investment I have made on a book and the best 3 hours or so I have spent reading one and savoring it, in recent memory...Subhan Allah, Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar! To say it is heart-warming - though true - would be an understatement. It just defies your usual expectations of conventions within a genre - either as a biography, an eloquent narrative, or a motivational book. It is all these but also somehow more - It is Real! In more than one sense of that word. It is reflective, introspective, sagely but not preachy and you know the Author is so in awe of her Subject and subject; it just comes through, with all sincerity and her vulnerabilities, the simple, unabashed and endearing love and admiration of a daughter for her father and Guide - in more than one sense of that word too. I can go on to analyse but it will not avail the book with the true praise it deserves. Because it is a true and Real meditation on life and its cornerstone- Faith. Suffice to say, I loved it so much that it made me laugh out loud,- at obvious but such endearing subtleties of wit, realities and idiosyncrasies- cry, and ,with tear-brimmed eyes, exclaim, "Alhamdulillah", both softly and out loud at many junctures and draw many connections with the Author's references to Sheik Shahidullah Faridi - whose wisdom I have been touched by through a book, "Inner Aspects of Faith" recently passed on to me by one who I can only describe as a True Blessing from Allah... In Sha Allah. What more can one say of the success of a Bio-narrative if it makes you feel you know the subject so well - to the point that you feel you have both met him and want to meet him! Set your expectations to not 'high' and not 'low' but to "Real" and '"Feel" and then read the book- I have a strong feeling you will not be disappointed; in fact I'll wager that a good number of daughters and fathers (and all others as well) will feel truly humbled And Inspired! In Sha Allah. Alhamdulillah...Captain Mukri... You are truly deserving of that oft-used refrain of Whitman - "Oh Captain, my Captain..." More deserving of it - in the humbled, loving and worshiping eyes of a devoted daughter,- than Whitman's Ode to Lincoln!. Shukur Alhamdulillah. Ameen Ya Rabbal Alameen!