Tea Pot Incident

Warning: This post should be read with an open mind. Otherwise, one can dismiss it as it is written with an enigmatic mood.

Last Monday, a glass teapot from which we often had tea from, 'exploded' while it was left to dry near the kitchen cabinet. The teapot can be seen below with my youngest son.

At the time, the teapot has been left to dry (for sometime) in the place shown below. This shelf is embedded in the kitchen cabinet, elevated just slightly above the head level.

At the time, my other half was there nearby. As she turned her back to this drying shelf, the glass teapot 'exploded' into tiny pieces. If she had not turned, tiny glass pieces would have been blown into her face. Thank God, she did not get hurt by the 'explosion'. Tiny pieces of glass did go into our food, which was on the stove (not lit up and it was more than a metre away). We had to throw away all the food thereafter.

Why the 'explosion'? If I were to put my scientist cap on, the most likely explanation would be thermal stresses in the glass that may be just waiting its time to release the stress. Note that the teapot had no hot water in it and it was washed and left on the shelf for sometime. So in a way, there was no immediate cause that could have explained the matter.

Nevertheless, it was rather mysterious that it happened so. Alongside with other 'mysterious' events happening in our (personal) lives, I felt rather disturbed about them. Whenever such things happened (and also when I don't feel right about myself), I started to recite the long Surah Al-Baqarah as it is recommended for us to do so. The recitation itself normally takes more than two hours altogether and I often break the recitation into several parts. It can be exhausting (perhaps not being used to it).

I will not be apologetic about the matter. Indeed for muslim, we do accept the 'unseen world', which includes the realm of the beings of djinn. The only problem is that there will be a grey area between being overly superstitious and understanding it in the Qur'anic way. In the Qur'an, there is a chapter called Surah Jinn (Surah 72) and scattered in other places, the word djinn is mentioned 201 times (one can also consult https://www.qurananalysis.com/). So when it comes to the unseen world, we can only rely on what the scriptures and prophetic traditions have revealed. May Allah protect us from all forms of fitnah.