Nihaad Complete Hausa Novel

From the moment she heard her father’s final words, she burst into uncontrollable tears. She looked at her mother, who was wiping the tears streaming down her face, with no sign that she would say anything. She looked at Abba; his face was dark like a storm, and she did not have the courage to say a word to him either. Her two elder brothers were in the sitting room, yet none of them spoke.

She cried bitterly, sobbing, then looked at Umma, who sat with her chin resting on her hand. With a trembling voice, she looked at her grandmother, who was shaking her leg, held her hand and said,

“For the sake of God, please tell them to be patient. This is the work of the devil. Please beg them to forgive me. I swear I don’t know who did this to me…”

Her grandmother snatched her hand away and said,

“Get away from here! You know about the devil, yet you are the devil of Nihad yourself. Before you bring shame upon us, it would have been better if we had disgraced you ourselves early. So you insist on becoming a worthless person after all the upbringing we gave you? What attracts you to the lives of wayward girls that this kind of thing happened to you?”

Her grandmother then broke down in tears and said,

“Oh God, we thank You. You give a child, but You don’t give their character. What is this you have done to us, Nihad?”

Nihad stood up, crying heavily, and left the sitting room, heading straight to her room. She knew that no matter what she said there, no one would listen to her. If even her mother refused to speak, then no one else would. After entering her room, she locked the door and fell onto the bed, crying as if her soul was about to leave her body.

Is this really happening to her?

Day passed into night before her eyes. She couldn’t even pray a single rak’ah. She was completely out of her senses. She wished all of this was nothing but a dream. She wished she would wake up and realize it was just a terrible nightmare.

At dawn, someone twisted the door handle. She lifted her swollen eyes and looked at the door but had no intention of getting up to open it. After repeated knocking and no response, they eventually left.

Around eight in the morning, while sitting on a mat, she struggled to reach for her phone. She hadn’t touched it since the day before yesterday. She hated anything that connected her to the phone, as it only deepened the wound in her heart. Even now, as she picked it up, she intended to remove and break her SIM card.

The missed calls were nearly fifty, and the messages were even more than the calls. Every single message carried the same meaning:

“Is that you on social media, Nihad?”

“Nihad, what came over you?”

“Nihad, what is happening?”

“Nihad, something is wrong somewhere, your video is all over the internet.”

She exited the inbox as hot tears streamed down her face. She opened WhatsApp—there too, it was nothing but messages and videos.

She switched off the phone, removed the SIM card and broke it as she had intended, then threw the phone onto the bed, wiping tears that refused to stop. Oh, how she wished she would wake up and realize it was just a dream. She had been wishing for that since the day before yesterday, but she never woke up, which only confirmed that everything happening was real—this was no dream at all.

There was a knock on the door. She looked at it, then slowly stood up, walked over, and opened it. It was her mother standing there. Instantly, fresh tears filled her eyes. Umma entered the room and locked the door. Nihad watched her until she sat on the edge of the bed. Nihad moved closer, knelt on the floor, and in a low voice said,

“Umma, for the sake of God, please protect my dignity. Don’t let this be done to me. I swear I could die. Talk to Abba, please.”

Umma let out a deep sigh and said,

“It’s too late, Nihad. Since Alhaji Abubakar has already made this decision, you know there is no one who can overturn it. Just keep praying. We are also here praying with you. It’s okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them, so calm your heart—everything will be alright. And whoever did this to you, we can only pray that God guides them.”

She broke down into hysterical tears and said in panic,

“I’m finished, Umma. So you can’t say anything to Abba now?”