What is Your Pen Writing?
- Hajar Abdul-Rahim
- Jan 19
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 14
Pens. Lots of them. My grandfather, Jiddo Jamil, loved to collect pen and to receive and give them as gifts. Whenever I took him to the bank, he always made it a point to test the pen, slowly knitting each letter of his name in cursive. Jamil. He would write. It means Beautiful. If he liked it, he complimented the person at the window. "Pen good," he said with a thumbs up. Sometimes they gave it to him. When that happened, later, he would retire to his room, reach for his journal, and write a reflection. In Arabic.
Jiddo Jamil was the Head of Education in Aleppo, Syria for many years. He always had a book in hand and another by his side. He loved politics. Watched debates. Read the newspaper. He read the books banned in Syria in our Florida home. He was diplomatic. He always wore a suit and tie, even if it was just to walk to the end of our Florida driveway, get the mail, and go back inside. He took care of his health, walking everywhere in Aleppo and in Panama City, Florida: my dad's office, Wal-Mart, the bank, the mall -- always with his pen and a small notebook tucked in the hidden compartment of his suit jacket.
"How are you so healthy and strong?" people asked. "For 50 years, I never missed praying salat al duha, the prayer of charity for my health."
But he lived in fear, fear of the Assad regime and fear of the moukhabarat, especially when his son, my father, became wanted and, only through a miracle, escaped in 1979 through the help of strangers, including a Lebanese priest. He loved his country; he was a proud Syrian. When he visited America, he always gave us saboon ghaar, Aleppo's specialty olive oil soap, and said, "This is the product of Sooriya, your country."
The red clouds of the bloodthirsty regime was no secret to him even though he hung a portrait of Hafez al-Assad right in the middle of his living room, where the moukhabarat could see when they performed their routine "visits."
He once gave a pen to a man he secretly knew was a moukhabarat. The secret police were known to write down names of people who then disappeared. When the man asked, “What do I do with this?” My grandfather responded, “Don’t write names. Instead, write the Quranic verse: نون والقلم وما يسطرون —Nun. By the pen and what everyone writes” (Quran 68:1-2).
He never talked about the Assad regime's crimes and evil, even though members of his family were tortured or killed. Or deprived of returning home, like his son. His pen would never write it.
I'm 39, one of 38 grandchildren, and I too inherited Jiddo Jamil's love of pens. I test them at the bank. I compliment the secretary if I like the way it writes. Sometimes they give it to me. When they do, I retire to my room, pull out my journal, and write a reflection. In English.
Words are powerful. They can move people; they can paralyze people. Words can breathe life in weakness; words can inflict sickness in health. But the best words are good words. Good words resemble good trees with strong roots where branches lift to the sky (Quran 14:24). Ugly words resemble sick trees with rotten and unstable roots (Quran 14:25). It begins with the pen. What is your pen writing? Because the words that will flow out are the same words that are inside of you. Is your inside dark or is it light? Are your roots rotten or are they healthy? These are the questions we ask; these are the answers our pens will write.
My grandfather died four days before I gave birth to my twin daughters at the age of 93. I wrote a reflection on this -- how when God takes a soul, He gifts those left behind with new life. In my case, He gifted two. I hope to pass down the inheritance of the pen and the power of the beautiful word to my five children the way my Jiddo Jamil passed it down to me.
Today, Syria is free, a dream no one believed could be possible. I wish Jiddo were alive to witness this miracle after the gut-wrenching fear he swallowed daily. I wish I could give him a pen, engraved with his name, watch him retreat to his room, then emerge to read aloud the beautiful passages for a free Syria, just like the meaning of his name, that his pen could now write.
My aunt Amal telling Jiddo that his dream of a free Syria has happened, and that Yahia, his son, can finally return home after 46 years. December 8, 2024.
