Stranger in the World

What is in the best interests of a child?

To be raised by a drug-addict mother and her abusive boyfriend away from her father, brothers and sisters, in an area where she constitutes a tiny minority among a oppressive majority? Or to live in the native land of her father with him and her brothers and sisters, where she is not regarded as a foreigner, a terrorist or the Other, where she is free to practice her faith and her beliefs?

Anyone reading the Times today (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2541433,00.html) would have chosen option 1. For the primary reason that Misbah (for that is her name, not Molly) chose to study Islam, attend a madrassah and abide by the school uniform.

Many are bewildered at her decision and would argue that it is strange. Indeed the Prophet (pbuh) said that "Islam began as something strange, and it shall return to being something strange, so give glad tidings to the strangers."

Glad Tidings indeed to Misbah Rana