It’s been really windy today, so I was thinking of this dua quite a bit, especially when a large something or other would knock on the roof or the wall. (No damage, just tree bits flying around.) Got me to thinking about wind, and that it seems everyone has a wind story of one kind or another. My Mom told me once about, when she was a teenager, having to make her horse lie down in a ditch, and then having to sit on the mare’s head to hold her down, while a tornado roared over them. Needless to say Mom is still uneasy about wind, though she’ll come outside and watch the clouds with me sometimes now.
Here’s an old pic of Mom’s mare Kate. (I love the crabby mare-face.)
Another vivid story came from a gentleman I met who had been in the construction buisness all his life. He remembered seeing a tornado rip the roof off a barn and suck all the chickens out. He told me the sound those chickens made was the most unearthly, and horrible, thing he’d ever heard. He also told me that about 15 minutes after the tornado passed dead chickens rained down all over the place.
Wind is funny stuff. You hear it, and feel it, and sometimes see the damage it does, but you can’t see the wind itself. Thinking about it can get kind of creepy. There’s a silent movie starring Lillian Gish, I think the title is “The Wind”, which is about just that, the strangeness of wind, and what that strangeness can do to a person.
Reminds me of a hadith that states that Rasullala (salalahu alaihi wa salam) would go to the masjid and make salat when there was a wind storm.
chicagomuslima 