By Ayesha Binte Islam

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The night was peaceful. There were no clouds in the sky.  A pleasant zephyr swept across the small part of the city where they used to live.

The ten year old girl was just heading for sleep, when she felt the urge to peek out of the window at the sky. It was a bizarre attraction. She herself had no idea why she was having such a strange sensation.

She slowly opened the curtain to expose a narrow portion of the outer environment.

Something made her feel like the blood in her veins was freezing. It was quite different from what one would feel when scared. Rather, it was something one would feel out of wonder, out of amazement.

Countless stars were scattered all across the sky. Some were big, some were small. It was very unusual to view something like that from a city where there were so many seemingly sky-touching buildings, lighting in places like roads and people’s homes, and fumes from the exhausts of vehicles.

‘Mother, look!’ she exclaimed with joy. She had no words to explain what she was seeing and experiencing.

Her mother hurried to her from the next room. She pointed to the sky while her mother huddled close to her.

‘How Glorious is Allah!’ her mother uttered in amazement.

At that moment, their eyes caught something else as well.

A twinkling star, which was exceptionally brighter than the others, was moving! It followed a straight path across the sky to go some distance to the little girl’s right.

Then, it stopped.

Afterwards, it retraced its path back to its starting position. It did that with what looked like a motion across a single geometric plane—no strayings, no trippings. However, it was the same sort of motion which it had exhibited before. Its movement was what appeared to be faultless to the eyes. It kept repeating its to and fro motion.

‘What is that, mother?’ the young girl asked her mother, her voice reflecting more astonishment.

Her mother shrugged.

‘I have never seen anything like this before,’ was all she could answer. From the looks on her face after witnessing the mild starlight that was entering the room from the outside, her daughter could make out that the abrupt surprise had made her run out of words as well.

Nothing is impossible. Indeed Allah can Do anything He wills.

At that time, something surprised the mother and her daughter once again.

There was a second star too. It was displaying the same sort of movement as the first one. The way in which it was different from the former, was that it began its motion from the place where the first star stopped.

The duo of stars kept continuing their movement across the sky.

The astounding sight had now sent a shiver down the girl’s spine. It was not disturbing. It was not irritating. It was heart-warming. Could anyone ever wonder that shivers could be heart-warming?

‘What’s going on?’ her father entered the room, and made his way towards them.

‘Father, look!’ she gestured her pointer at the fair of the stationary and moving stars which were all back-guarded by the vast black background.

Her father speechlessly kept looking at those for some time. Then, he quickly went to the small wooden door on the other side of the room, unlatched it, and went into the verandah.

The girl understood that he did that in order to get a better view.

‘They are airplanes,’ came his voice, which was audible enough for them.

‘Airplanes? Will airplanes be moving to and fro across the sky? Then again, two airplanes, like two watchguards?’ The girl felt puzzled.

No reply came from her father. She could get it that he too could not find any answers to her questions. He just stared at the sky by grasping two grills on either side of him.

She looked back to the heavens. It was so beautifully adorned. It was so mesmerizing to a pair of tired eyes.

They watched the stars to their hearts’ content. A good amount of time had slipped away while they were enjoying the show.

‘Now it is time we go to sleep,’ her mother said when they were done watching.

The girl hustled to get herself comfortable with her head on the pillow.

The small gap was still there in the curtains. A single still-looking star which was quite large in size, seemed to gaze at her from its station much high above.

She reached out enough to get hold of one of the curtains, and tried her best to tug it to cover the gap; but she could not get it done.

It was a rare spectacle. Moreover, it was magnificent. She decided to let the gap stay as it was, and fell asleep soundly.

The family woke up in a few hours. It was still night-time. They got up to have Sehri, as it was the month of Ramadan.

The girl flung open a good portion of the curtains, and with a thudding heart, casted a look at the sky. She expected to be dazzled by a large group of stars, however…

All sorts of stars had vanished. What was left was plain, black void.

The night of the Shab-e-Qadr was fading away, and the time for Fajr was nearing.

‘That’s probably why they’re gone now,’ she thought to herself.

She trotted to her mother, who was placing a food item on the dining table.

‘There are no stars in the sky now,’ she informed her.

Her mother just gave a smile.