We have forgotten the rights we have upon each other.

This is something I have discussed so much with friends and family; giving salaam to one another is something that is found strange nowadays, if I give salaam to a stranger, my friend walking next to me asks if I know them.

Why do we have to know them?

Our souls know each other.

We worship the same creator.

We pray to the same direction.

Allah SW says in the Quran:

وَإِذَا حُيِّيتُم بِتَحِيَّةٖ فَحَيُّواْ بِأَحۡسَنَ مِنۡهَآ أَوۡ رُدُّوهَآۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيۡءٍ حَسِيبًا ٨٦

Translation

But [even in battle] when you [believers] are offered a greeting, respond with a better one, or at least return it: God keeps account of everything.

Even in battle!!!!

There is a responsibility upon you to give salaam to your muslim brothers or your muslim sisters.

In Islamic tradition, the greeting of salaam is not just a polite formality; it is a sacred invocation, a mutual pact of safety, and one of the core rights Muslims owe to one another.

The prophet ﷺ emphasises this right in a Hadith that he says:

“The rights of a Muslim upon a Muslim are five: returning the greeting of Salam, visiting the sick, following funeral processions, accepting invitations, and responding to the one who sneezes [by saying: Yarhamukallah].”

Now as much as I want to address all these, which are also neglected in the west, my focus today is the greeting of salaam.

Muslims nowadays we frequently cross paths in mosques, markets, public spaces, we just pass one another, we avoid eye contact or withholding the greeting simply because we don’t know each other.

When I came to England for the first time, I used to live around people who were not muslim, I went to school with non- Muslims and I felt very isolated, and lonely, like I lost my sense of belonging.

It was until we moved to an area which had a Muslim population, and I started living among Muslims, and young Amal was so excited, finally, I’m going to have Muslim friends at school, I’m going to have Muslim neighbours that we are going to live like sisters. Im finally going to feel like I belong, like I’m not alone in this strange country.

Unfortunately that was not the case, when we saw Muslims around, they didn’t even look at us, and I would say salaam to my fellow Muslims and they would just look at me and like I spoke in a foreign language. I found it so strange, then my father told me that it’s not normalised for muslims to say salaam to each other here in England.

As a little girl, I was so shocked and so upset, coming from a country where we gave salaam to each other everywhere, I felt like something was stripped away from me. That sisterhood and brotherhood was non-existent.

What makes me so frustrated is that I also stopped saying salaam to my Muslim sisters at one point, I thought what’s the point? If I’m going to get weird looks, and they won’t even return my salaam.

I thought “okay fine!” If it’s not normalised then I’ll just stick with what’s normal.

It was normal to go on a walk in the morning and say “Morning!!!!” ☀️☀️☀️☀️

As I grew up, I would come across people who would do what’s not normal, they would say salaam to me across the street, and I almost would not believe it. The joy inside of me was unexplainable.

That’s when I realised something, no matter where you are, it doesn’t matter if something is strange to do, if it’s right and you are upon truth then do it, even if you get weird looks, even if people make fun of you, so what???

We should never allow the norms of the society we live in around us make us abandon the things that connect us to our faith.

And perhaps this is why I’m so fond of the fact that we are one big community and when I see a muslim, I feel this connection with them and I want the best for them, so It really gets to me when I pass my muslim sister and we just say nothing to each other.

The beauty of this ummah is that we were never meant to walk through life as isolated people. The Prophet saw gave us a beautiful image of our unity when he said:

“The believer to another believer is like a solid building, each part strengthening the other, and he clasped his fingers to illustrate that bond”

When I see a fellow muslim sister, I do not see a stranger, I see an important part of the same structure. Offering salaam is the most simple, most immediate reaffirmation that we stand together, we uphold one another, and wish nothing but peace upon each other’s lives.

Again how tragic is it, then, that we often just walk past one another in heavy silence, burying that connection beneath the differences that we have.

The Prophet ﷺ taught us that love between believers is not a luxury, it’s something that’s simply attainable.

He says ﷺ:

“By Him in Whose Hand my soul is! You will not enter Jannah until you believe, and you shall not believe until you love one another. May I inform you of something, if you do, you love each other. Promote greeting amongst you (by saying As-salamu 'alaikum to one another)"

So my humble message to you is simple: the next time you see your Muslims sisters or brothers, whether it’s across the street, in a waiting room, or in the long hallway heading to work or class, do not wait for them to make the first move. If they hesitate then step forward and break the silence yourself.

Be the one who claims the honour of initiating peace.

This is where we start.

And to the reader who’s reading this, let me be the first to say:

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

(May peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you all)

Why don’t I ask you a question and really think about what I’m about to ask you. When you hear aiming high, what are your first thoughts?

Are you thinking about a successful career, maybe more money, a beautiful home.

These things are all great and you should aim to have such things however, let’s not limit ourselves to just these.

I was in my thoughts yesterday afternoon and i was thinking about what having a good character meant, and i mean following the footsteps of the Prophet SAW, this is something that is classed as a high goal infront of Allah سبحانه وتعالى yet it’s barely ever in our list of dreams.

You don’t need to blend in. you need to stand out, and not for the sake of being different but because you want to do something noble, something that you are going to stand firm on because you know you have the mighty and the majestic on your side.

Aiming high is you realising that you have a lord that says:

قُلْ يَـٰعِبَادِ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱتَّقُوا۟ رَبَّكُمْ ۚ لِلَّذِينَ أَحْسَنُوا۟ فِى هَـٰذِهِ ٱلدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةٌۭ ۗ وَأَرْضُ ٱللَّهِ وَٰسِعَةٌ ۗ إِنَّمَا يُوَفَّى ٱلصَّـٰبِرُونَ أَجْرَهُم بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍۢ

Say ˹O Prophet, that Allah says˺, “O My servants who believe! Be mindful of your Lord. Those who do good in this world will have a good reward. And Allah’s earth is spacious. Only those who endure patiently will be given their reward without limit.”

Allah’s earth is spacious. Spacious for your big dreams, for your big goals, for all the things you contemplate on doing but never starting.

Listen, reality is I’m scared too, we are all scared of failure, we are scared to disappoint ourselves, scared because we have our family and friends that are watching, and we are afraid to be mocked, but you know one thing I have realised, throughout history, the people who carried great responsibilities were rarely met with applause at the beginning, a lot of times, they were met with rejection, doubt and even ridicule.

We have become aimless.

“The issue is not that we aim high and miss, the issue is that we aim at nothing and we hit that target with amazing accuracy and receive nothing in the end. Aim high as a Muslim, you have every reason to aim high, when you know that this life is not the end and death is just the beginning”

The prophet SAW said:

Allah سبحانه وتعالى loves it when you aim high, when you are ambitious, and when you have goals that of noble matters. Forget what she said, or what he said, and whatever your nafs is telling you can’t do and remember that you have a lord that’s the most high, so why do we have such low esteem and such hopelessness in ourselves?

Allow me to tell you about a man that is very well known for his intelligence. Thomas Edison is known as an inventor and a genious of his time. Long before that, as a small child, he came home from school and gave a paper to his mother. he told his mom that his teacher gave him to give it to his mother, and only she is to read it.

The mother’s eyes filled with tears as she read the letter out loud to her child.

“Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have good enough teachers to train him. Please teach him yourself.”

Many years later, Thomas Edison’s mother passed away, he became one of the greatest inventors of the century. One day he was going through her mom’s things and he found the folded letter that his old teacher wrote years ago to his mother. He opened, the message written on the letter said…

“Your son is mentally deficient. We cannot let him attend our school anymore. He is expelled.”

Thomas edison became emotional reading it and then wrote in his diary:

“Thomas A. Edison was an addled child. By a hero mother, became the genius of the century.”

This story is not about Thomas Edison; it’s about the mother. She refused to be hopeless, she refused mediocrity, and most importantly, she refused to let someone else’s judgement become the ceiling of his potential.

Aiming high perhaps begins with refusing to let other people’s expectations determine what you believe is possible.

My last message to you from this article is don’t just aim high, aim higher.

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Then one thing came back to me. This world is not our home. We are only passing through it. So why was I gripping onto things that were never mine to keep?

Nothing we have is actually ours. It’s borrowed. Our health, our money, our people, all of it is on loan. And everything we do with what we’ve been given is either building our akhirah or wrecking it. That’s why tests hit so hard. When something is taken, be it health, wealth, a relationship, or status, it can feel like the end of the world, because deep down we believed it was ours to keep.

When someone dies, we say إنا لله وإنا اليه راجعون, “Surely to Allah we belong and to Him we will all return.” But somewhere along the way this became a phrase, said the way people say “rest in peace,” without really sitting in what it means. We only bring it out when someone passes, but it was never meant to live in that one moment. It was meant to live in us.

Because this ayah isn’t just for death. It’s for every kind of loss. The job that fell apart. The friendship that faded. The health that changed overnight. All of it was His before it was ours, so when it leaves, it isn’t being stolen from us. It’s simply returning to where it always belonged.

And that’s where the real comfort is. If nothing was never fully mine, then losing it isn’t a punishment, it’s just the nature of borrowed things going back to their Owner. That one shift in how I see it changes everything about how a test feels.

I still think about my mum’s relative. I still think about my own mum, and if I’m honest, the fear hasn’t fully gone. But now, when it rises, I try to sit with it instead of pushing it away. I ask myself, if this thing I’m terrified of losing was never really mine, what am I meant to be doing with it while I still have it?

The Prophet ﷺ once told a companion, “Be in this world as though you were a stranger, or a traveller passing through.” A traveller doesn’t build a mansion at the rest stop. He doesn’t decorate it or plant roots there. He takes what he needs, he’s grateful for the shade, and then he keeps walking, because he knows this was never the destination.

That’s what this dunya really is. Not a home. A bridge. And a bridge was never built for anyone to sit on. You cross it, you don’t unpack your bags on it, you don’t grieve when you have to leave it, because it was only ever there to carry you somewhere else.

So next time I say إنا لله وإنا اليه راجعون, I don’t want it to be a sentence I repeat out of habit. I want it to be the truth of a traveller who knows this bridge was never home, and who is only ever walking towards the One he’s returning to.