I remember leaving my country, family, and job to fulfill the sunnah of marriage by wedding this girl in California. Unlucky there, I was able to leave my country, family, and job a second time years later to fulfill the sunnah of marriage and, then, parenting by joining my wife and children in Illinois. (I had hoped to be closer to my spiritual guide, who lived in Illinois at the time.) A week or so into this new life, I was chewing gum during an interview for a job on Michigan Avenue for which I was late. The minutiae related to the years leading up to that inopportune afternoon where I was trying to fake a managerial confidence (the previous VP wanted bosses who were more “arrogant”) are extensive. Years later, the stress of children, and leaving my home country, as well as my previous employment were seen for what they were: the most subversive stress that a man can endure outside of outright physical pain. The streets are different. The customs are all slightly off. You get lost easily. And you are dependent on others; plus, if you have a family to support the freakish weirdness of their innocent pestering is all that would be necessary to put a guy over the edge.
The stresses of emigrating to a new land are very real.
But do it for Allah and perhaps you will be met with unexpected blessings.
A few years later in Illinois, our third child was born on my birthday.
Anas said: The first one to emigrate with his family to the Abyssinians was ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘May Allah accompany the two of them. ‘Uthman is the first to emigrate with his family for the sake of Allah since Lut.’