My Baba, My Wali-der
This book is one that I’ve been stewing with for a while. When my husband and I first got married, he relished in the thought of being my new ‘wali’, and we came upon the term ‘wali-der/wa-leader’ and used it as an inside joke. But since then, he became the real wali over our daughter, and one day I exclaimed that I was going to write a book using the term. We tried a couple failed iterations of the book, (was it to be rhyming? was it to be about a wife looking at her husband’s leadership?) and then on a whim a couple months back, I wrote it from the persepctive of a little child who sees the things (other than go to work and physically be present) that their dad does to support them I thought to center the wilayah of Imam Ali (a) with Eid e Ghadir coming up on the same weekend as father’s day, and plunged into finding an illustrator from there. The incredible and talented educator & illustrator Laila Haidar landed in my DMs and we moved crazy fast.
Right now as we are marketing, we’re also finishing up the book. Hence, the desire to write this blog post. I want to make it known that even thought this book showcases a really great dad, not everyone can be blessed with a great, or even good dad. But I wanted to show what it looks like to have one. There’s a lot of pain for a lot of people surrounding fathers. Me too. I think part of writing this book is helping me release and grieve my own father-induced pain. (Although two years of therapy also did that…) It’s so aggravating to see so many hadith when researching about how one needs to be good to their parents even if their parents aren’t good to them. It’s so incredibly harrowing to know that right now, my biggest test is silat-ur-rehm, and at times it also even feels hypocritical to write a book like this when I’m not following all the advice of the Quran and Ahlul Bayt. But hey, that’s what art is supposed to do, right? It’s supposed to be a reflection of life, and come from the depth of pain. Afterall, don’t we commemorate and celebrate our A’immah with poetry, nasheed, museebah, paintings, and gold laced domes? All as forms of art? (Okay, even my organic writing is starting to sound like ChatGPT rhythm…)
Anyway, this story does two big things - 1) celebrate good dads and 2) model a good dad (with Quran and hadith as proof of how to conduct one’s self) for today’s modern dad who may be not so good.
