As I got older and began living in real life more than I did in fiction, I naively walked the path with the same belief. I thought that having hope meant something good was coming. I wanted a happy ending for the characters in the books and I usually got it. Which is why I thought that wanting certain things for myself meant I would usually get it. My favourite Hadiths were the ones about making dua with yaqeen (certainty):

And so I expected that I could willpower my way into my happy ending. That with enough heartfelt tahajjuds, duas in the rain, and tears kept between me and Allah, I too would see the exact outcomes that I was hoping for. Hope was my middle name at that point - one of my defining traits, I was very hopeful that Allah was going to carry me to what I hoped for. I am still the same scared girl that needs to skip to the end of a book in order to enjoy it. I needed to know everything would work out in order to function; without that knowing, the anxiety was eating me alive. It felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, not knowing if I was about to fly or fall. I had Allah - He would never let me fall, right?

The first time I fell, I thought it was just a test. You brush it off, say Allah tests His strongest soldiers, and make your way back to the cliff. You are certain this time you will fly - Allah just tested you and you learned your lesson. Which is why when you fall again, you turn it inwards. What am I doing wrong? Why isn’t Allah hearing my prayers? Was I wrong to hope for big, beautiful things from Him? You shake it off - you know that the Quran promises the believers will be tested (Quran 29:2). And then it happens again, and again, and again. Shaytan loves this - he starts to tell you that you have been abandoned, and you start to believe it. Those same dreams you held on to with certainty that your Kind and Generous Lord was going to give you now become laced with salt - they taste bitter in your mouth, and you feel a pang in your heart whenever they come up. You are broken, bruised, weary and defeated - at this point you fully expect to fall again.

The girl that you were when you were first tested - the one that was defined by her hope - is a distant memory. More than anything, you miss her. You miss the version of you that believed she would fly. You start to believe you are not destined to. You tell yourself you were never entitled to anything anyways, and to be grateful for what you have. God is good and worthy of our praise and worship even if we have nothing and no one. You are mature now - very far removed from the girl that dreamed through the lens of movies and books. And you will force yourself to be content with Allah’s decree. this sounds sad, but it is not - it is the start of your liberation.

Your dreams were never the problem, but your fear was - sometimes the dreams we have are cover-ups for control issues. Needing to cling to a story that makes sense to you indicates that you do not fully trust you can handle the one Allah is writing. We dream of the perfect marriage because we cannot imagine being alone. We dream of the perfect corporate career because the idea of running our own businesses sound too daunting. We have limited ourselves, and our Limitless Lord knows this. So He brings you to the cliff, and breaks you down until all the shackles you’ve placed on your own wrists fall off on impact. And this is exactly where faith kicks in.

I find myself standing before the cliff once again. I have found myself here numerous times over the past few years - each time I have fallen flat on my face. My nervous system is still bracing for impact. It knows how this story usually ends. But my heart and soul, the ones that have learned to accept that Allah’s plan is better than mine, stands on this cliff with faint whispers of a dream. I stand on this cliff with an ounce of hope - it feels minuscule, but it may weigh more on the Meezan than the entire solar system. I now realize hope is the gift. That when you lose everything, and nothing goes according to plan, for you to stand shakily on your two feet and whisper “Maybe something good will come from this” is the gift. Just because I havent flown yet, doesnt mean I never will. Just because I dont know how the story ends, doesn’t mean it won’t absolutely amaze me.

And so as you stand at the cliff of possibility, fearful of being let down once again, I implore you to stand there while praising the Most High. Every time you have fallen, something in you still believes it is worth trying again. That is nothing short of a miracle. In the absence of the miracles you had hoped and prayed to receive, you became it.

Which is why I bring forth a different lens for this article - today we are talking about Firawn. More specifically, his command to his right hand man to build a tower - a tower which would lead him to the God of Moses.

Upon first read, his statement drips with arrogance and grandiosity. At first read, it is disgustingly unrelatable. Until I am standing in the elevators of my office place and pressing the button for the 50th floor. Within seconds, I can look out the window and see far beyond the city. It is as if the very architecture itself screams: I am above you

I walk down the hall to my desk, past the corner office of the CEO that makes millions each year. We look down at the world from the 50th floor - he is thinking about how to make more money, and I am telling myself that this is just my job. But I am also wondering how to get promoted. I am so focused on the next rung of the ladder that I lost sight of where it was heading. It was heading straight for that corner office

As young muslims, many of us have big dreams all for the sake of Allah. Wanting to be a millionaire to help give back to the Ummah, wanting to work hard when you are young so you can retire early and move to Madinah. Wanting to 10x your business so you can take time off and spend it studying the Deen. We put the khayr we want to achieve at the top of these capitalistic towers, telling ourselves that we are only climbing this ladder for the fruit at the end of it. We are climbing the tower, hoping to see the God of Moses. We tell ourselves that the ends justify the means, and that it is the cost of living in the West. There is some truth to it, and I believe that with the right intention anything is khayr

But often times, we see young muslims using this as a scapegoat for currently evaluating their relationship with Allah. We tell ourselves that once we climb to a certain point in the tower, we will feel closer to Allah. The marriage we long for will make us closer to Allah. The promotion we want will help us donate more and make us closer to Allah. The house we want to buy will have Quran playing in it all the time, making us closer to Allah. We keep on climbing through this dunya, with this notion that we will reach Allah somewhere along the way. And so the Salah gets delayed because of the critical meeting. the talking stage lasts a few months too long because “it will probably lead to marriage”. Our intentions remain pure throughout - this is not a critique of our niyyah. But it is a gentle nudge to assess our execution - Allah is not some distant destination. He tells us He is with us wherever we are. He is with us before we have the money, power, or status that we believe we need to leave a legacy in the world. And He never asked us to climb anything to find Him - He simply asked us to have taqwa, and be mindful of Him in the present moment

I often find myself very anxious - I have so many dreams, all rooted in the Islamic legacy I want to leave, that I am grinding myself to the bone for. I am in that office, putting up with that CEO, and telling myself it is all for the sake of Allah. I dream of years down the road - the success that will help me build for our Ummah. My biggest fear is never making it there. I constantly feel behind - like I should be doing more. I am sprinting up that tower, and I am running out of breath.

We can become so occupied building the life that we believe will bring us closer to Allah, that we neglect the opportunities to seek closeness to Him now. The same sentence of Firawn that felt disgustingly arrogant now feels eerily like a warning - we can also slip into the same psychological pattern, in a much more subtle way. I am running up that tower, in hopes of finding what I am looking for. but maybe the question should not be “how much more do I need to climb?” Maybe the question is different. Sometimes it is: “What if I stopped climbing for a moment, paused, and saw that Allah is already with me?”

Recently I stood in front of nearly a decade of tahajjud prayers. The duas I made in the rain, while travelling, while ill and in all the best times looked like they had finally caught up to me. I cautiously stepped into this new skin and allowed myself to finally believe that Allah had responded to the call of this undeserving caller. I started to picture my future in these accepted prayers - the dream job, with my dream man, living in my dream home. It was all coming together. Until it wasn’t.

Allah removed it all from my life. I was not only back where I had started, but I was set back even further - I now had all this grief with no place to put it. The years I spent waiting were interrupted with a glimpse of hope, only for that hope to be yanked out of my wishful hands so quickly. the whiplash of thinking your dreams are finally coming true just for it to be another test begs the question: “was I better off not hoping?”. It’s a question every ounce of my tired body wants to answer with “yes”, but my iman and ruh know thats not true. They know this because of the stories that we have of the greats before us. One of which has a whole surah dedicated to him - Yusuf AS.

There are countless articles on the plight of Yusuf AS. His story is one of many layered meanings. From it you can take away that good people still experience injustice and hardship. you can also take away that Allah restores what was once lost. But there is a particular detail in his story that is not often discussed - it was the fact that Yusuf too had all his dreams dangled in front of his face, just for it to be taken away.

Yusuf AS was wrongfully imprisoned, and spent years in jail for a crime he did not commit. In this time, he shared his dream interpretation abilities with his fellow inmates. While exemplifying the best of character, he spent this time in sabr and in dua - he continued to ask Allah for his release. When a fellow inmate was released and began to work for the king, there came a time where the king needed dream interpretation. The ex-inmate remembered Yusuf, ran back to the prison, and got the interpretation. Now this detail is so key, Allah gives us the exact phrasing in the Quran - Yusuf AS had said:

Allah could have left this detail out. We could have just known that he went to prison, stayed there a number of years, and then came out to become leader. But Allah specifically shows us a time where Yusuf AS too thought that the way out of his trial was in the palm of his hand. Allah shows us where Yusuf AS thought his duas were coming into fruition, only to watch his plan to escape wither away.

Half of the pain of our almosts is that we had done everything right - we hurt more when we make dua, when we act with taqwa, and we still get hurt. But here we see a clear example of Yusuf AS going through the same motions. He prayed, asked from Allah, demonstrated patience, and was good to the people. And still, the fates had dangled his dua of escape in front of him just for it to be taken away. As I sit here wondering why I even had to get my hopes up, I now see that the greats were tested with this exact same sharp inhale that feels like an arrow to the chest.

And so the duas that almost came into fruition right before your eyes before they returned to the Creator are the exact ones that will define your story. To watch what you are hoping for be taken away and remain content with Allah and His decree is infinitely harder than not having experienced it in the first place and having nothing to lose. It is exactly that loss that will be the reason we win one day. And when our time to win comes, it won’t be a small win. It will take us right to the throne, just as it had for Yusuf AS. Allah will give us the absolute best of what we had hoped for, infinitely better than the “almost” that broke our hearts, just because we remained faithful to Him. Perfectly poetically, the very same surah reminds us what Yusuf AS’s patience with his almost should teach us:

with love,

Z <3

And the infinite sensitivity that remains my greatest asset also remains my greatest test. The moment life proves uncertain (which happens more often than not these days), the magic stops flowing - I freeze as I await an outcome. but all of life is just hanging in the balance of today and an outcome. when one decision is made, the next is standing right behind it. I will never stop encountering the very instability that hinders my creative and soulful expression. And yet I find my heart frozen in fear so often that the magic stops flowing. The dunya impacts me so deeply that I’ll go days at a time separated from my soul. That my cold body shows up to work, to responsibilities, to tasks and does not truly live through it all - it simply moves.

The result is a dissonance that brings with it the uncomfortable truth of not feeling yourself, and the religious implications of not being present. When I stop hearing the birds because the “what ifs” in my head are too loud, I am no longer bringing my magic to the table. I am not dancing and I am not laughing and I am not stopping to smell the roses. I am instead staring at the sky, waiting to see Allah’s decree unfold. As if life was something that happened to me rather than something I live through. As if my inner world could not remain completely independent of my circumstances, the characters coming in and out of my life, and the chaos around me.

The people in my life, both in my innermost circles and from the outer orbits, have all pointed me towards my purpose. I have been told the way I view the world is unique and life changing for people. and yet, in the face of fear I take off and set aside my own unique glasses. the magical lens which Allah gifted me with is my favourite blessing He has given me - more than my drive, my discipline, and my potential. The fact that my heart feels the rivers of Jannah flowing through it on my best days, and feels Allah whispering to my soul that He has not forsaken me at my worst days, all remains my greatest joy. How dare I let the dunya scare me into keeping this to myself? How dare I let the devil convince me that Allah will abandoned me? How dare I let myself believe that having these conversations with my Lord is anything short of a miracle?

My life still hangs in front of my face. I don’t know what will become of my career, my relationships, or my health. But what I do know is no matter what, I cannot stop reflecting and I cannot stop writing. Not because I remain inspired and not because it will be consistently rewarding, but because I owe it to the world to share a small piece of the magic I have been blessed with.

We have all been blessed with our own unique magic - a way in which Allah connects with us that leaves others in awe. It is our responsibility to release it out into the world, in hopes that others on the journey find inspiration in it. That it may act as a spark that lights the flame of iman in the heart of another believer. For some it is the beautiful way in which they view the world. for others it is their unwavering strength in the face of tyranny. It may be the ability to stand before the whole world, have thousands cheering your name, and you instead place your forehead to the ground in public display of submission to your Rabb. It may be carrying your modesty in a way that inspires sisters all around you. It may be making it to rooms that have never seen a believing muslim. We all have our own unique gift that not only brings us closer to Allah, but can be shared in a way that brings others on the journey with us. and in our cowardice, selfishness, and sometimes flat out fear we withhold. This is my request, plea, and humble urge to you - no matter what you do in this life, do not keep that magic to yourself. Release it into the world and let it be a witness to all the ways Allah showed His mercy to you.

My mother’s silence says “I love you”. It says “who are you?” and “when did you stop asking me to pack your favourite cheese sticks for school?”. My mother’s silence says “I blink and you are further away from me than you were a minute ago.”

Her silence asks when we became so different. Her silence asks why I don’t let her into my inner world. Her silence asks what am I protecting her from seeing. Her silence asks if I am in pain and why I won’t allow her to help. Her silence says she is scared to hold me because she knows it’s not long before I won’t be just an arms length away. Her silence says she feels my ribs against her when I say goodbye and she can’t remember when I got so thin. Her silence says she remembers when I ran in the park with the other kids, and she still wants to put bandaids on my wounds when I fall. Her silence says she knows I left to get my bloodwork done, and she knows I will not tell her when the results come in.

Her silence says I became everything she wanted me to be and that is exactly why there is a world between us. Her silence says that my independence makes her relieved that I can stand on my own two feet in this world, but that it was never meant to take me away from her. Her silence says she is mad at me for not taking the chicken out of the freezer. Her silence says she sees a spark in my eyes that she lost decades ago. Her silence says she is terrified of seeing me lose it too. Her silence says she wish I got to meet her mother, and that she would have loved me.

Her silence says there is more sand in the bottom half of the glass than the top. Her silence says she can’t believe I am the same age she was when she met my dad. Her silence says she is scared for my naseeb. Her silence says she wants nothing but the absolute best for me in a world that is going up in flames. Her silence says she wish she could single handedly put out the fire. Her silence says she doesn’t know what to talk to me about anymore. Her silence says she doesn’t know where she fits in my life anymore. Her silence says she doesn’t know where her little girl went, and she is afraid to lose all that we shared together.

I hold that silence like it is holy. I translate it to “we will be okay” and “I will always love you” and “I want the best for you”. I know it is more nuanced than that, but I can’t dive into the space between us because I don’t know how i’ll make it to the other side. I would drown in the million things left unsaid between the two of us. I catch her long gaze, smile, and tell her I love her.

Some days she’ll say it back, and some days the silence catches her throat. Even in her silence, she remains the quietest power in my life. She will always be my hero.

“Don’t you trust Allah?” My friends ask me - they look at me like I am someone they’ve never met.

And I feel like my chest is about to burst into flames. I am shamed into silence - I don’t know how to answer any of them. Because if I start, I am not sure I will end. How could I be anything but afraid? The path behind me is disintegrating with every passing second - I see it in the way my grandmother’s hand shakes as she holds her cup of chai. I see it in the way my mother sits to read Salah when no one is watching. I see it in the way my sister makes her coffee - she does not need me to pour her a cup of juice anymore. I see it in the way my green carpet was replaced with hardwood, and how our childhood videos sit on a hard drive untouched. Knowing that plugging it in meant testifying to the fact that those times no longer exist, and those people no longer exist, and that no matter what I do I cannot bring them back. I cannot go back to the days that my neighbours rang on my doorbell and asked me to come play in the street with them. I cannot go back to the days that we’d select our nicest outfit for the field trip, laying it out the night before. I cannot go back to the summer that I learned to ride a bike - the days my father had the strength to run alongside me and catch me when I fall. There is now no one to catch me when I fall.

Because now I am 25, and the real world will not sing me a lullaby to help me fall asleep. It keeps me up at night, demanding I answer a million questions that I don’t know the answer to. Asking you what you will make of yourself, and who you will settle down with, and how you will afford a life here. Asking you how you will balance your career and your family. Asking you to contribute to an increasing artificial and digitized society while maintaining your creative dignity. My career asks me what am I going to decide. The rishta wants to know if I’m ready to give him my forever. and my health is warning me that I don’t have many more years of this lifestyle within me. And when I look in the mirror, all I see is my 5 year old self. The softness she was once applauded for is now the very thing leaving me crippled - I am absorbing a million different outcomes for all aspects of my life at once.

In my mind, I am still on that bike with training wheels. I am paralyzed at the idea of making a decision that spirals me into a life so far from what I dreamed of. I am terrified of losing myself, my spark, and the light in my eyes. I am terrified of living a life that does not feel like mine. I am terrified of becoming someone that neglects her family in the pursuit of her own passions, and I am also terrified of being someone that is reduced to a caretaker and nothing more. I am scared of being haunted by wasted potential, and I am also scared of going down the path and finding I did not have what it takes. I am terrified of giving love a shot and I am terrified of not giving love a shot. I am terrified of ending up with a man that is not for me, and I am terrified of ending up with a man that is for me and not doing justice to the divine role of a wife.

But above all, I am terrified that I am letting Allah down. That my crippling fear truly is a reflection of a bad opinion of Him, despite Him having done nothing but be there for me. I fear that He has given me so much light and in the midst of the dunya I have lost sight of it and withered. I fear that I have let Him down, having succumbed to the doubts the world has shoved down my throat. Doubts about His plan for me, my worthiness, and what the future holds for me. Not doubts in who He is, but doubts on who I am to Him.

But I don’t say any of this. When he asks me what I am so afraid of, I tell him I will do a better job managing my fear. When my friends ask if I trust Allah, I falter but I comply - I tell them I do. And I mean that - I do trust Allah. but I do not trust myself in the slightest. I do not trust myself to make these gigantic life altering decisions in the backdrop of an increasingly dystopian world using the free will my Lord gave me. I don’t trust myself because I know a million things can go wrong - how on earth do I know what I am choosing won’t take me down one of those paths? The answer is I don’t, and that is where surrender begins. I know this, I swear I know this. But that doesn’t stop the panic from settling into my bones and becoming the way I move in the world. That doesn’t stop the worries from sitting on my chest like a weight to be carried through my day. That doesn’t stop me from looking into my mind and seeing my 5 year old self, wondering when the training wheels came off.

I don’t know the answers to any of this, but I know Al Qawiyy (The Most Strong) and Al Matin (The Firm One). I know He said He has noticed my frequent glances towards the sky - silently asking Him for some relief. For some answers. For some clarity and a path forward, as the one behind me seizes to exist. And in that wait, all there is left to say is: حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ

May Allah help us all.

So naturally when I went to my masjid’s book fair and saw a book called “a thinking person’s guide to love” I knew it was speaking to me. And in 650 pages of a scholarly dissection of love, I’ve circled around the same conclusion that Allah has spelt out numerous times for me in the faith - love for anything other than the sake of Allah is bound to fail.

Prince Ghazi blends the scientific, theological, and philosophical lens with which love can be studied to produce the definitive truths about what it means to love. This spans across all domains - familial love, friendship love, love of hobbies and interests, and love for the dunya. But what stood out most to be (naturally) was the topic of falling in love. In the chapter “me and you”, Prince Ghazi dissects a question that has sat quietly in the back of my mind for most of my life - how can you tell that love is real?

To love someone for the sake of Allah, the ego has to be removed from the equation. Because as Prince Ghazi so poignantly articulated above, any love with ego in it is bound to be extinguished once the ego’s appetite has been satisfied. And all it takes is the mere reciprocation of love to fulfill the ego. The affirmation that your pursuit ended in success, and that you were successful in manifesting the images you had created in your mind about entering the life of your beloved and becoming central to it. Love based on ego dims once it is reciprocated.

But Love for the sake of Allah intensifies once it is reciprocated - because the ego was not the driving force. Love for the sake of Allah when reciprocated is not a measure of the success of your chase, but a gift from the Most Loving. And if love was sought for the sake of Allah, receiving it actually has the opposite effect than lower-base love. In lower base love, winning your beloved increases your ego. In higher-purpose love for the sake of your Lord, winning your beloved humbles your ego. If for the right reasons, with Allah at the centre, falling in love is an experience that will bring you to your knees in humility. Because it was never about you, and it will never be about you. it was about witnessing the mercy and kindness of a Lord that loved you enough to gift you one of his beloved servants, so you may never have to walk alone.

I now know that loving someone for the sake of Allah is a beautifully humbling experience. Every kind word that comes from their mouth, every gift, every loving embrace is just a million new ways Allah allows His love to reach you. And through gifting you your person, Allah is in essence just giving you another vessel to reach Him. Another door unlocked to His heavenly love.

And that is an honour that will far exceed any love story I will ever read in this dunya.

Every time I open my phone, the world seems more dystopian than it was a mere 10 minutes earlier. AI has gotten more advanced, layoffs have gotten more widespread. Another country has been bombed - usually the victims look like us. And in the backdrop of all this, I log on to my company-provided laptop and join my daily standup. And they ask me how my weekend was and I hold my tongue and say it was good when what I want to say is “do you ever watch the news?” We talk about the weather, about the newest firm AI policy, and about who flirted with who at the last team social. They give me a task to do for the day and I get it done. I’m predictable and the day is predictable and in the evening I log off and mentally prepare myself to do it again the next day.

In the midst of it all, I try to find some meaning in it. I’ll do it for the sake of Allah. In my downtime, I’ll maximize my ibadah. I’ll volunteer with the time left my employer so graciously lets me keep. I’ll donate from what I’ve earned, but it is never enough. I’ll do all the dhikr and istghfar I can to keep me from losing myself to the Sisyphean routine. It seems never ending, and like this is all there is to life.

Except then I remember the Prophet SAW was a Sheppard. Not just as a summer gig - but for a near decade. For a substantial part of his life, he too was in a routine spending the day in seemingly sisyphean tasks with no end in sight. Day in and day out, he too was stuck in a loop. Until Allah said one “Kun”, and the purpose of the wait became evident. not just to himself but to the rest of humankind for all of eternity. His purposed was immortalized in the Quran, and the testimonial of his strive became one of the marks of a muslim - only second to proclaiming the oneness of God. And all of this fills me with hope that maybe we are not delayed, and maybe we are not denied. Maybe our life does have meaning beyond serving the structures and systems that seem too big to ever break. Maybe our purpose is bigger than the positions we find ourselves in today.

Maybe we are just Sheppards for now.

ramadan always brought with it an immense amount of pressure to “feel” it. To be the one with tears streaming down their face in taraweeh, and the one that calls upon Allah with unwavering hope and fear every day of the month. I dont think ramadan is a marathon of worship. I believe ramadan is a window into what already exists within us.

With satan locked up, I feel the blows have lessened and my mind has gotten quieter. It is now clear that he used the tactics of overwhelming me to get me to shake in my faith this year. The voice that screamed Allah has abandoned me has softened into more of a curious question, poking at why I feel that way. As I learn about His names, I ask myself how a Lord who introduces Himself as these beautiful names could ever leave any of us for even the blink of an eye. The answer is simple - He does not. He was always there. But I had piled things on top of His remembrance and they hardened in my chest until they turned into false gods. the quiet longing for a partner turned into a crippling anxiety about timelines and whether it is written for me. the desire to thrive in my career for the sake of Allah turned into a competition on who will get to the next level the fastest. The hijab got looser, the boundaries got blurrier, and I lived in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction. And so Allah stopped me in my tracks, in all of these areas of my life, and forced me to look within and see what I was holding in the place of my heart that is designed to hold Him.

Minor shirk is sneaky - it does not look like a clay statue on your mantle. It looks like self worth placed in the wrong hands. It looks like devastation at an outcome unlike the one you had hoped for. It looks like fearing the wrath of a being other than Allah. And while that minor shirk is not ill-intentioned, its consequences are devastating. It rips apart your soul from your body and fills that space with confusion, fear, and distance from Allah. not because Allah moved - you see, He never abandoned you for a second. but because He is no longer the focal point of your life. And despite all this, in His infinite mercy, He stays.

Ramadan is about reminding you who you were before the dunya got to you. It’s about remembering what it is like to prioritize the worship of Allah in your day, and carry yourself in a state of commitment and obedience just for Him. It is remembering your potential, and how Allah views you. To live to see this month reflects a potential that is still there - despite whatever doubts you may hold to your worthiness. Allah is deliberate, and no one lives for a moment longer than He wills. And He willed for us to see this window of mercy. He willed for us to see glimpses of our best selves, inspiring hope in us to keep them alive beyond this month.

Coming out of a year where I felt I truly lost myself, there is something redeeming about tying your hijab tighter and feeling a warm familiarity overcome your heart. Like a whisper from Allah, inviting me to come home. The divine pull that shatters every myth that I was abandoned or forgotten, all from the small act of pining my hijab a little differently. The remembrance of a girl who was unscathed by the dunya. Like Allah Himself is telling me that she stills exists within me, and that she is knocking on the door of my heart and asking to be let back in. In the heat of my trials, the idols have been shattered. And what remains is a girl ready to accept Ramadan with arms wide open and a heart ready to receive.

In response to not being able to fast, I over-vector in every other aspect of my life. The ones that warrant the most applause - I am praised by the masjid aunties for standing each and every taraweeh until the very end. I am praised for reading the full Quran each year despite full time work. I am praised for rising in the last third of the night and speaking to my Lord. but they don’t know what I’m saying.

they dont know I am begging Him to forgive me for not fasting. I am begging Him to spare me from punishment if my assessment for sitting out the Siyam was wrong. I tell Him if He wants me to fast, make it clear to me - I will push through any amount of discomfort for Him. I tell Him I feel pathetic and weak and that I hate my body for letting me down like this.

The first year that I couldn’t fast, I was experiencing extreme inner turmoil. I felt like an absolute failure, despite Allah’s constant reminders that I was far from it. It was this year that I found those who are unable to fast experience Ramadan entirely differently - for us, Ramadan is a month of softening into Allah’s mercy above all else. The walls of my masjid held posters with support for those who cannot fast (in hindsight this was clearly divine intervention). One poster shared a series of verses from Surah Baqara:

And I read that and I weep. I weep because while Ramadan teaches the world of discipline, Allah chose for this month to teach me His mercy. He knew I had rigour, tenacity, and commitment. But I lacked the belief that Allah’s softness could find me. I felt undeserving of it. And there is no better way to meet Allah’s kindness than to have the Lord of the Worlds tell you that He does not want you to sacrifice your body for this month. That in the sea of an Ummah holding off from food and drink, He commands that you keep basking in these blessings. That you continue to eat from the food and drink from the beverages that He so lovingly provided you, while also basking in the reward of those who fast due to intention alone.

Nothing forces you to acknowledge your neediness from your Lord the way being unable to fast does. To know that if Allah stopped providing you even one meal, you would not be able to withstand it. Ramadan holds up a mirror to my face and I see the reflection of servanthood. Of pure and utter humility - how reliant on His provision I am, and how it finds me every day without fail. It nudges me to believe in the vastness of Allah’s mercy. How He is so Kind and Loving that He can accept the shambles of ibadah I have to offer Him with love and appreciation. He loves me, despite my broken efforts at making the most of this month. Despite not being able to engage in a significant portion of it, He opens different doors for me to find Him.

These doors challenge me in all the ways I specifically need to be challenged, which is what Ramadan is all about after all. In my 4 years of not fasting, I have come to accept that there is clear wisdom in this - Allah knew exactly what I needed to come closer to Him. My biggest struggle is believing I am worthy of Allah’s love, and so Allah put me in circumstances where I could not offer up anything to try and earn that love. This forced me to see that Allah’s love exists because of who Allah is, not because of who I am or what efforts I can put forward. Every single bit of khayr that comes out of our Ramadan is from Allah, for Allah. That I accept His decree, even when it looks to me like I have failed. He holds my inadequacy with love this month, and for that I come to know Him in a way that fasting could never teach me.

Do I hope to fast next year? Yes, I always do. I have asked Allah every year to give me the ability again, and every year since I stopped I have been met with “not yet”. I hope one day I may hold the date at Iftar and not feel like a fraud. Until then, I will fight the voice in my head that tells me I am a failure and listen to the voice of the Most High, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, who tells me I am no less worthy because of my illness. In Ramadan, my Lord turns my biggest weakness into my way home to Him. And in that Allah, I come to know just how Glorious He truly is.

“You are smart, capable, brilliant and belong in this room - but you dont believe it. You don’t believe in yourself, and you do not trust your gut. Your intuition is always correct, and I need you to trust yourself more.”

It felt like she threw a brick in my face. Not because I was insulted, but because I was read so accurately it was disarming. The moment she said that, the exact moment where I lost credibility with myself came to my mind. A situation that I misread and misjudged in the fall of 2024, high in the mountains of Morocco. It is now Winter 2026, and I sit with the consequences of that incident to this day. The pain, hurt, confusion and inner chaos that resulted from that decision resulted in over a year of heartbreak and anger.

An atomic bomb was dropped on my inner world and obliterated everything. I move through everything with fear now, and I have been unsuccessful in letting my guard down even in the absence of any real threat. And today it was observed by someone on the outer skirts of my life - a senior leader who talks to me for 10 minutes a day in our morning standup. In the midst of status updates and project progress discussions, she catches my hesitation. She notices my eyes dart away the moment I feel any attention on me. She hears the upward inflection of my voice as I ask a statement I wholeheartedly believe but dont have the conviction to stand by.

But I wasn’t always this way. I used to wear my heart on my sleeve with the believe that a wall of angels surrounded me at all time, protecting me from any and all harm all because my Lord loved me. I used to walk this world with the firm belief that I had a magic in me that is going to change it. When I spoke, people held space for what I had to say. Because I held space for what I had to say. And none of that is true anymore.

I lost myself, yes. But I spent the better part of the last few months finding myself again. And I believe I get closer to her every day. My struggle is not in knowing who I am. My struggle is in letting her breathe, letting her be seen and witnessed and vulnerable. Letting her leave the ivory tower of my mind and allowing her to hop the fence and run back out into the world that she believed she would conquer. I don’t feel safe. I never really did, but I always knew I could count on myself. Until that incident. Now, I cant even count on me. Because I misjudged a situation so poorly it ended up in my own demise, a true ego death that I still pick up the pieces from. Who’s to say i’m any smarter now? Who’s to say I can be trusted with my own heart? What if I make a decision that makes things even worse than they are now? I can’t take any more risks that end in pain because I cant handle any more pain. And so I sit silently - in meetings at work, when my friend’s ask me “what’s wrong”, when I am asked to share my thoughts, I say I have nothing on my mind. But that is not true. My mind is as alive as ever, but I have silenced my own self. shut down my heart and held a hand firm over my own mouth, all in the name of protection.

I’ve been patient. I have accepted the outcomes that Allah wrote for me. The pain had to happen. The hurt had to happen. The sorrow and the grief had to happen. To take me to the next level, in this life in the next, it all needed to happen. None of it is in vain, because Allah says He does not like to see us hurt. I have tasted the bitterness of sabr and let it sit on my tongue for years. But in that process, I have forgotten how to open my mouth. To ask, to hope, to share my inner world. Stifled, still, and unsure how to move forward I now realize it was not my identify that was lost - it was my trust in myself. who I am feels foolish, flawed, and feeble. She does not feel built for this world and it feels like there is something ready to hit me at every turn.

I don’t want to walk through this world thinking there is a threat around every corner. I dont want to expect the slight glimmers of good to turn into dust. I want to be the girl that had the courage to believe in a better world, for herself and for her ummah. I want to feel it is safe to open the windows of my heart and let the breeze in. I want that life invites me into a warm home after leaving me out in the cold, hands me a cup of chai and tells me the storm is over. That I can take off the coat, leave my boots at the door, and come sit by the fireplace. That my jaw can unlock and my shoulders can stop trying to graze my ears and the wrinkles under my 25 year old eyes can leave and not make a comeback till I am 50.

On the other side of sabr is a ghost town. When the ground beneath your feet stops rumbling and the disaster is done, you look around and see the rubble. the rebuilding that needs to be done. ironically, the very incident where I lost my sense of self trust was on a mountain struck by an earthquake. I stood in the rubble, and wondered what it would be like to lose it all. to stand in the pile of who you used to be, unsure of where to even start putting things back together. and how you could even return home once it is rebuilt, without the fear that a single shake can make it all come crashing down again. The irony of that moment is it felt far from my reality - I stood in this mountain in Morocco completely oblivious to the metaphoric mimicking of this scene my life was about to take. I walked around the destroyed village, to the very top of the mountain. There, I planted an olive tree. it felt silly - there were homes destroyed mere metres away and all I could offer this village was one single seed. A tree whose fruits they may not see for years, even decades, to come. And yet I planted it anyways. in that rubble, my olive tree grows.

And I think that is what the other side of sabr looks like. it looks like the olive tree growing in the rubble. It looks like the small strand of hope and tawakkul that you hold on to when you are blinded by fear. I don’t know what the road to self-trust looks like for me, but I trust my Lord will rebuild me. Until then, I will call upon Him in a state of complete and utter helplessness, knowing that none can help me out of this except the Most Merciful.

But this year, things are different. There is a drought in my heart that was once flowing with prayers. I now drag myself to the prayer mat with every ounce of strength I have in me, and by the time my mandatory prayers are done there is no part of me that wants to ask for more. I don’t think Allah is displeased with me though. I think He, in His infinite mercy, can recognize exhaustion over ingratitude. for the past year, I’d hear duas that felt empty. People would pray for my wellbeing and I’d almost laugh in their face, confident that I wouldn’t see it anytime soon. Not because I’m a pessimist - in fact, most would describe me as a radical optimist. But because in my humanness, my nervous system has shut down, When people talk to me, i’m not really there. I form no reaction, I hold no opinion. And so in that emptiness, what do I bring to the prayer mat? How do you make dua from an empty cup? I never understood it until I saw what the Prophet SAW asked for in Ta’if.

Ta’if was the final blow. It was after Our Beloved SAW lost his beloved wife, his uncle, and faced intense persecution and boycotting. He was humiliated. He was beaten, bloody and bruised. And the dua that he let out in his exasperation and grief is the only thing that echos through my heart these days:

Du‘a of Ta’if

اللَّهُمَّ إِلَيْكَ أَشْكُو ضَعْفَ قُوَّتِي، وَقِلَّةَ حِيلَتِي، وَهَوَانِي عَلَى النَّاسِ.
يَا أَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِينَ، أَنْتَ رَبُّ الْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ، وَأَنْتَ رَبِّي.
إِلَى مَنْ تَكِلُنِي؟ إِلَى بَعِيدٍ يَتَجَهَّمُنِي؟ أَمْ إِلَى عَدُوٍّ مَلَّكْتَهُ أَمْرِي؟
إِنْ لَمْ يَكُنْ بِكَ عَلَيَّ غَضَبٌ فَلَا أُبَالِي، وَلَكِنَّ عَافِيَتَكَ هِيَ أَوْسَعُ لِي.
أَعُوذُ بِنُورِ وَجْهِكَ الَّذِي أَشْرَقَتْ لَهُ الظُّلُمَاتُ، وَصَلَحَ عَلَيْهِ أَمْرُ الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ،
مِنْ أَنْ يُنْزِلَ بِي غَضَبُكَ، أَوْ يَحِلَّ عَلَيَّ سَخَطُكَ.
لَكَ الْعُتْبَى حَتَّى تَرْضَى، وَلَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِكَ.

O Allah, to You I complain of my weakness, my lack of resources, and my humiliation before people.
O Most Merciful of those who show mercy, You are the Lord of the oppressed, and You are my Lord.
To whom will You leave me? To someone far away who will treat me harshly? Or to an enemy to whom You have given power over me?
If You are not angry with me, then I do not care—but Your protection/well-being is more spacious (better) for me.
I seek refuge in the light of Your Face by which darkness is illuminated and by which the affairs of this world and the Hereafter are set right,
from Your anger descending upon me or Your displeasure falling on me.
To You belongs all praise until You are pleased, and there is no power and no strength except through You.

These are the words of the best of mankind on the brink of breaking. What brings me relief is knowing that in my pain, I did not sound that far off. I too wonder to whom Allah will leave me with. I too feel the pressure of scarcity - in resources, in strength, and in honour. In wondering why I am treated the way I am, and why Allah allows people to hurt me this way. Before I heard this dua, I thought it was because of me. Because of my own inner evil that disqualified me from the grand and sparkly duas I made all those years on that green masjid carpet. But I now see that in this pain, Allah has given me a gift. He has given me the opportunity to not just read the Prophet SAW’s story, but to feel it. To be on my knees after losing love and health and honour, and ask Allah if He’s forgotten about me. Any degree of parallel in my story with our Beloved SAW is an honour unlike anything my duas manifesting could have ever given me. And now each of my Salawats ring differently in my soul. Because I am no longer greeting the one who went through all those tests so I could believe. I am greeting the one who went through all those tests so I could make sense of mine.

My heart used to yearn for Makkah and Madina. To stand by the Rawdah and be in the presence of the one that carried the message with everything he had in him, to save me. To be at the house of the Lord that never left me, even when I left myself. But today my heart yearns for Ta’if. to see how Allah transforms a place of immense pain into a place of unparalleled beauty. The soil of Ta’if once held the Prophet SAW’s blood - now the very roses that perfume the Kaaba grow from that same soil. Ta’if is the brink of the miracle. It is the seed that is planted right before the roses bloom - submerged in darkness before breaking through into the light. The Prophet SAW was brought to the heavens on Isra and Miraj shortly after Ta’if. Ta’if is the fall before you rise. The final blow, before Allah’s promise to save the believers finds you, too. Just as it found him SAW, 1400 years ago.

Going into Ramadan, my duas are silent. My breath alone is sabr and my showing up is my Ibadah. I may not be the girl in the first row every night - I’ll be grateful to be in the masjid at all. But I am the girl who has roses growing in her heart. I am the girl who Allah will bring to rise, just as He did to Our Messenger SAW years before I came to be. this year I will enter Ramadan in Ta’if - and I will sit and breathe and wait for Allah’s deliverance.

25 lit candles stared up at me. Each one representing a year of my life. They were melting fast - It felt like watching my life slip before my eyes. Thats really all this is. This dunya is like those melting candles - fun for a moment, and then they are gone. And I think about who I am going into 25. A one candle difference on a cake represents lightyears of change in who I am as a person.

The girl blowing out 24 candles dreamt of a big life. With 25 candles staring at me, daring me to make a wish, my biggest wish was for nothing bad to happen this year. For this to be the year that I could just exist, in peace. Nothing grand, nothing phenomenal. The old me used to wish with the ferocity of passion that could burn a house down. But 25 year old me is a narrowly dodged bullet. She is a yellow light moments before it turns red, she is an elevator that nearly closed its doors only you. I have been reduced to nothing but a grateful survivor.

I believe one of the biggest tragedies of life is to walk through it without knowing how deeply loved you are. And God loves us constantly, consistently, but in different ways. Sometimes it is quiet, sometimes it is loud. But it is always there. In my 25 years of life, I spent every second of it knowing the truth of “La Illaha Illallah”. Is there any greater gift? I never had to search the corners of this earth for purpose, or question who it was that I raised my hands to in need and in ease. There was not a day that I slept without a roof over my head, nor a day where I wondered where my next meal would come from. There was no fear bigger than what my heart could hold, nor any pain that stopped it from beating. And there was not a single day that I fell without having God pull me back up to my feet again and again and again.

Truthfully, I know deep down my wish is a foolish one. The believer does not lay low. They do not let fear of disappointment stop them from holding onto high hopes in their Lord. They see the world burning at their feet and ask their Lord to extinguish the flames. They expect that in the rubble, a life better than what was lost will re-emerge. The benefit of being stripped down to nothing but a grateful survivor is you become content with what comes to you. 25 will be a year of learning how to lean into this gratitude without using it as a cop-out for dreaming, wishing, and hoping.

Going into this year, I really don’t know who I am anymore. I used to be brave, but I don’t think I am now. I stifle my dreams to prevent them from overflowing out of my chest and bleeding out on the floor like they used to. I used to be open-hearted. But I go into 25 with walls high enough to put the grandest fortresses to shame. I feel constricted, small, and dim.

But the Believer holds a good opinion of Allah, irrespective of what life has thrown at them. And because of this truth, I put aside all my inhibitions and put forth my final dua for the year: I ask that Allah gives me the bravery to hold onto the life that makes my soul come alive, even when it seems to be slipping through my fingers. I ask that Allah shatters every single one of my walls and that on the other side, I find safety and acceptance and peace. I ask that Allah gives me better than what I lost. On all fronts - with my deen, with my health, with my relationships, with my goals. I ask that Allah forgives me for the shortcomings within me, and that He replaces them with that which is pleasing to Him. I ask that He continues to use me in His mission, despite me being the farthest from deserving of it. I ask that ease hits me harder than hardship ever did. That the khayr rains on me, and that He shows me how good life can get. And then I pray that it stays. That there is no catch, no fine print, no risks left to mitigate. That I can exhale. That I can hear the birds singing again and feel like their bliss is not taunting me, reminding me of a lightheartedness that I will never know myself. I want to be the bird that sings. I want to be the bird that soars and sees everything this dunya has to offer and stays consumed in the remembrance of their Lord throughout it all.

I walk into 25 holding my breath. I do, I wish it were not the case but unfortunately here we are. But I know that the same Lord that got me through the last year will get me through this one, regardless of what it entails. In my heart that is now paralyzed with fear and pain, there is a spark of light. There is absolutely a glimmer of hope for this year, and for the future broadly. She’s tiny but she’s loud. She sits on the tip of my tongue after I say I have accepted what comes my way - she wants to shout that she knows Allah will not let her down. Even in my defeat, there is a little soldier ready to get back up again. And that is from Allah - I do not possibly have the strength to cultivate that within myself. The Lord that sustains that whisper is a Lord that has something in store for you. I hope 25 shows me just how beautiful that something can be.

At first I thought I wanted to be saved by a boy. To be on the brink of losing hope, ready to succumb to whatever mediocre prospect stood before me, just to have my duas magically manifest before my eyes and knock on my door to ask for my hand. I held onto this for a very, very long time. Until this hope fizzled out.

When I started my 9-5, the hope showed up again in a different medium. I spent any free time between traumatizing teams pings and icy corporate small talk dreaming about my way out. Imagining my passion projects miraculously making it big overnight, taking me out of this corporate nightmare.

It may sound like I am a passive person, and that I wait for life to happen to me. That can’t be farther from the truth. I like to think I do my best to take life by the hand and dance with it. But sometimes, you’d like life to ask you for the first dance. To not be in the driver seat, but still end up somewhere beautiful.

When I catch myself thinking this way, I remind myself I am not the driver, and there is no steering wheel in front of me - any thought of it is nothing more than an illusion. That Allah is at the wheel, and that at no point am I left to my own devices. That He has a plan for me, and it is one that is beautiful. But By Allah, I am so tired. And at this point, I don’t even know what it is that I am waiting for. Because there is a universal truth that I know to be true - putting your hopes in anything other than Allah is futile. And that includes hoping to be saved by any one person, place, opportunity, or change.

Accepting this makes me feel untethered - like my entire life is inconsequential, and nothing except the worship of Allah matters. As long as you can put your forehead to the ground and whisper “Subhana Rabbi Al’Alla”, what does it matter what you see when you lift your head again? Does it matter that when I look up, I see a life I don’t love? What is the line between surrendering and letting go? As I raise my hands to make dua, my desires fall flat in the space between my teeth and my tongue - I swallow my hopes back, in fear of what the silence might mean. To face that a saviour may never come is a truth that I don’t know how to reconcile with.

I remind myself of the stories of the Prophets - how the burden was never lifted, but that Allah helped them through. The sea did not disappear - but Musa made his way through it. The desert did not cool for the Prophet SAW - but He and the sahaba made Hijra nonetheless. The water did not evaporate, but Nuh stayed afloat despite its currents. Nobody came and saved them - they all pushed through the merciless terrain in front of them, by the Grace of Allah. I want to know what the Prophets dreamt of before the mission demanded their life. They inevitably lived a life way grander than anything they ever could have imaged, but I want to know - did it hurt when the future they once yearned for dissipated before their eyes, and the weight of the message was placed on them? I like to think it didn’t. That Allah gave them the peace of heart and mind to step forward knowing it looked nothing like their plan but that they trusted the Planner. And that Allah will do the same for me.

I think about the miracles I prayed for that never came. I think about what it means to truly, wholeheartedly let go of anything you ever hoped would save you and become at peace with whatever outcome unfolds in your life. To have unlimited and unaltered trust in The Most High. is it glamourized giving-up or is it gratitude? I am still not entirely sure. But one thing I am certain of is that in the absence of those miracles, I became it.

Because while I wait to be saved, I find myself doing the saving. Allah has used me in His cause, to an extent that I will never be able to wrap my head around. Every week someone from the outer rings of my life tells me I’ve inspired them to come closer to the faith. This fills me with both humility and shame. Because what they don’t know is that every night I whisper to the Ultimate Provider and the Ultimate Protector to give me the outcome I deem to be my salvation. In my foolishness, in my naivety, and in my straight-up stubbornness, He still gives me. And He gives me. And He gives me. Not what I ask for, but what I need. For the sake of my soul, and the sake of my akhira, He withholds the desires I ask for and instead cultivates the sabr, yaqeen, and tawakkul that will speak for me on the day where no saviour will come to find you.

At the end of all this, I am still just a girl. and humanly, I still do wish to be saved. I am not ashamed of that. But I am also not entitled to that. I acknowledge that what I am hoping for may very well never find me in this life. I am learning to make peace with that. I hope that my Kind Lord hears the quiet prayers of my heart, the ones I am too tired to say outloud anymore, and makes a way out for me. That He splits the sea for me, and brings me the Arc I need to get through this flood. That in His Infinite Mercy He not only makes me the miracle but gives me the miracle. That His promise is true, and that I am soon swapping stories of sacrifice and salvation with the Prophets in the best of places

insha’Allah.

at first glance, the butterflies are just beautiful. Watching the dainty rhythms with which they fly - the rises and falls with each bat of their wings - was therapeutic. it almost aligned with the beat of the human heart. They bounced around the flowers, the trees, each other, and us. In that moment, I longed to trade places with them.

In the conservatory there was an info board which shared facts about the butterflies. One fact stood out to me - the butterflies had the most beautiful and vibrant coloured wings from the top, but the bottom of their wings were shades of brown and grey and dark army green. They blended in well with the rocks and the leafs of the greenhouse they inhabited. The purpose of this stark contrast is that the colourful side attracts potential mates, whereas the dark side under the wings helps them blend in from predators, once they are landed and the wings are folded up.

while reading that info board, a verse from the Quran popped into my mind:

The design of the butterfly was not without purpose. Allah is deliberate about every single aspect of His creation. And as I was looking at these delicate butterflies, I could not help but feel my heart fill with love for our Lord. Our Allah is so loving that He baked protection into their very design. He protects them too. Creatures so small, so delicate, and so fragile did not escape His care. So why would you? A human being that He placed love and dreams and hope into? You hate that you are weak but in reality we all are. None of us are any less fragile than these butterflies because all it takes is a command from our Lord for us all to be turned to dust. the butterfly held up by it’s paper thin wings reminds me of my own self - how my own personal strength is so limited that it is a miracle that I can even fly. It is Allah that holds us both up. It is Allah that keeps us from losing our wings.

The same Lord that protects these butterflies, protects you too. When they land on a branch and their wings fold up, they are safe. In stillness, there is security. This is how Allah protects them, so they are not seen by predators due to the camouflage. Maybe your stillness serves the same purpose. maybe it is not in vain - maybe it is the salvation itself. Maybe you not being seen right now by the people or opportunities or places you want is the protection. Maybe you are the butterfly, and Allah protects you the same way.

and to think, it all started as a caterpillar. grounded, somewhat unpleasant to look at, and like it was going nowhere. like it would never fly. Like it would never get to claim the most vibrant of colours found in the natural world. Only to seemingly regress when it ends up in a cocoon. How depressed must the caterpillar be - having gone from crawling around to being stuck and bound, hidden away from everything altogether. in that cocoon, the wings form. the protection is built into this small grounded creature, in preparation for it to soar.

Allah says He will give us better than what was taken from us. and in nature we see this truth manifested in the journey of a caterpillar. Our Lord, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem, Al-Wadud, Al-Lateef, kept His promise to the caterpillars. He took away their legs and replaced it for wings. He took away the grey and gave them colour. A Lord that keeps His promises to even the most fragile, hidden, and insignificant creatures will not leave you in the cocoon of your life. If He’s taken your legs, prepare to receive wings. if you can no longer walk, prepare to fly. If life has lost its colour, prepare to see the whole symphony of colours unfold before your eyes.

When you think about it, it is hard not to fall in complete awe of your Creator. He shows us His signs in numerous ways, all so that we may understand and come to know Him. The creation of the butterfly, the caterpillar, and all the stages in between mimic our lives. Their design reflects the beauty in stillness and fragility - two things I struggle with regularly. And my Lord knew this, so He had my friend drive me 45 minutes from home and invited us to reflect on His signs. A Lord like that wants you to win. A Lord like that will bring you through your transformation. A Lord like that is protecting you, even in stillness. A Lord like that is Love.

In my 24.9 years of singlehood, I have turned to other sources for fulfilment in the absence of romantic love. I refined my professional skills. I started passion projects. I travelled the world and volunteered with people from almost every continent. I expanded my inner world so much that I struggle to hold in my heart the intensity of the life I want to live. I want to experience so much, and do so much, and become so much. My fig tree isn’t just a tree - it’s a field. Rows and rows of lives I want to live, of stuff I want to accomplish. Not for ego, not for identity, but for the sake of living with my whole, unrestricted heart and soul.

And love is high on that list. So is having children and raising them to be little warriors for our faith. Having a fulfilling family life makes up several of those figs. But it’s not all of them. So what happens when the 5’10 engineer from the WhatsApp proposal tells me he wants a woman that will eventually slow down with her ambitions and focus on motherhood? what happens when he can’t understand my passion for tasting as many figs as I can before my Lord calls me back to Him? what if he sees my heart and my intelligence and my soul as best served under the roof of our home - holding me back from sharing it with the world? He wouldn’t be wrong in wanting that - Islamically I am well aware my first responsibility would be to my spouse and children. and that is what makes me so afraid. Knowing that the very marriage that I have longed for and dreamt for my entire life might be exactly what snips my wings.

In my ideal world, my husband’s passion runs as deep as mine. He too has a field of fig trees, and we are running through it together tasting as many as we can. but the 5’10 engineers on WhatsApp haven’t spoken of their figs. they’ve spoken of obedience and motherhood and the role of a woman that erodes me of the brilliance I know exists within me. Motherhood is one of life’s most beautiful pursuits, don’t get me wrong. I have so much love for the children I know I will have one day (their names are already chosen in my notes app, and I daydream about teaching them their Lords names in the most gentlest ways). I want to be a mom. and I want to be a wife.

But what they don’t understand is that I also want to be a leader in the community. I want to be a business owner. I want to be a philanthropist. I want to be a consistent substack author (😉). I want to see the world. I want to help the community. I want to learn about the faith. I want to connect with the brightest women in the world. I want to be so much more than the love that I long for.

they say the right man will support your ambitions and dreams. I don’t doubt that for a second. My fear does not meet me in the hypotheticals. It meets me when I am face to face with a good candidate - on his deen, good looking, good money - and he tells me to move in with his family and eventually focus on the kids. I’ve seen this film before. it exists in the lives of the women that raised me. I know how that story ends and I want no part of it. But the alternative is equally as frightening. Sitting in my fig field alone, with no one to share the heavenly fruits with.

I don’t have a solution to this dilemma so I retreat back to my delusions. In my mind exists my dream man, who does not ask me to sacrifice my potential for the logistical sake of our marriage. Who does not look at me and see just the future mother of his children, but sees the partner he choses to change the world with. The dream that I easily held onto in childhood, and more difficulty clung onto in my teens and early 20s, is now slipping through my fingers as I am told for the 100th time to “be realistic”. To say yes to the decent candidate being presented. With every no I say with shaky breath, my parents say “there is no guarantee someone as good as this will come along. Are you sure?” I say I am sure but I am not sure. I am not sure at all.

I ask Allah that he exists. That all these no’s don’t lead to me sitting alone in my fig field. I feel too much responsibility to do khayr in the world to be limited, but too much love and longing for companionship to abandon my dream of marriage. The stubborn girl’s plight is that she wants it all. And I am as stubborn as they come. For better or for worse, I sit on the fence.

Allah knows best which side will win.

And so i sit here in this park, feeling peacefully hallowed out. While i still hold those hopes for the future, i don’t identify myself by them anymore because i know Allah has His own story for me. So what now of this emptiness? When you get tested beyond recognition of yourself, it may feel like you’ve lost it all. Like there is nothing left for you here. that you’ve been forgotten and forsaken, despite your best efforts to worship Allah with everything you’ve got. But as i return to the place where i felt most myself many years ago, I find that it’s never really too late to return home to yourself. Now don’t get me wrong, i’m not there just yet. But i see the traces of her in the alleys of these streets - i am still softhearted. I am still someone that values connection. I am still someone that loves our ummah enough to want to make a purpose. All the confidence i’ve lost this year was misplaced to begin with - it was never me that was going to make my dreams a reality. My confidence now lies with Allah. I don’t know who I am anymore, but Allah the All-Knowing is closer to me than my jugular vein. He knows what my soul whispers to me. And He stands between a person and their heart.

Losing yourself is just an invitation to remake yourself with God at the center this time. It breaks down the illusions and stories you told yourself about how He was your focus, when in reality that may have not been the case. Maybe i had turned my dreams, my hopes, and my plans into idols - Allah knows best. But nothing that is with Allah is truly lost. And so I am no longer mourning losing myself this year. I am reframing it - i did not lose myself, my self knowing simply returned to Allah so He can rebuild me.

And so to those that lost themselves this year, as someone who faced illness and lost friends and saw loved ones return to The Creator.  As someone who had her dreams in the palm of her hand just to have it dissolve before her eyes. As someone that spent every single night this year in tears before her Lord only to be met with the quiet space between the plea and the peace, i implore you to reframe the loss. You did not lose yourself - you are simply being redesigned by The Best of Designers. We will now learn who we are in the face of great pain. We will become the blueprint on how to overcome. We will leave legacies that may be different than what we had in mind, but that better reflect our magic.

2027 you is now a blank slate. Your story is not over. Your Lord has not forsaken you. The version of you that will emerge from this loss is one that is more wholly you, because it will be what persists when all else crumbled. What rises from the ashes is what our true essence is. And i know with my whole heart that with Allah by our side in this becoming, it will be better than anything we ever lost.

May Allah make this the year you come home to yourself, and more importantly come home to Him. The door is always open. The best part of you still exists, and is waiting for you to come home.

وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُم بِشَيْءٍ مِّنَ الْخَوْفِ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنفُسِ وَالثَّمَرَاتِ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ

We will certainly test you with a touch of fear and famine and loss of property, life, and crops. Give good news to those who patiently endure—

الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتْهُم مُّصِيبَةٌ قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

who say, when struck by a disaster, “Surely to Allah we belong and to Him we will ˹all˺ return.

أُولَٰئِكَ عَلَيْهِمْ صَلَوَاتٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ وَرَحْمَةٌ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُهْتَدُونَ

They are the ones who will receive Allah’s blessings and mercy. And it is they who are ˹rightly˺ guided.

I used to think the blow of hearing someone you love has passed was the test, and saying “Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajayoon” is the mark of passing the test.  The proof that you followed the command from the beautiful verses above. Of course the test doesn’t stop there - there’s patience at the initial blow and patience when the dust settles and you are left with the emptiness in your chest that your loved one used to fill. But putting that aside, saying the phrase “Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajayoon” was proof that in the face of great loss, you are remembering The One that is Greater. That you maintain perspective despite the ground beneath you caving. in my mind, i never associated this phrase with mercy. Until my grandmother left the dunya.

There are many ways you can describe the same tragedy. in the above, i say she died. The most literal, jagged phrasing of the reality. Technically speaking, this is exactly what happened. When my mother broke the news to me, she used the term “passed away”. It’s gentle, airy, like she blended into the night and drifted away into the clouds. It’s passive, it’s not sharp. But of the words i’ve heard used to describe her leaving the dunya, the ones that have brought the most comfort to my heart was “she has returned to Our Creator”.

The perspective that comes with this phrase is inherently calming. The implication in this sentence that her time here with me was borrowed, temporary, and never was something meant to cling onto. It was something to hold with a palm wide open, knowing our Lord can take back what is His at any moment. And that there is khayr in that decision when He does chose to, because His decree and His kindness are intertwined. Half of grief is the fear of the unknown - what will life look like without this person, when having them around is all i’ve ever known? How is their soul doing? Did they pass the trials of the grave? This sentence has eased so many of my worries because is there a safer, more loving place than with Our Creator? The One that created us and then placed love in our hearts for each other and then wrote for us beautiful memories together? The same Creator that let me experience her love is The One that called her back to Him. Surely there is no place more blissful than with Him. Rumi says that death is just our wedding day with destiny. I like to think she’s a happy bride, excited for what awaits her.

I did not get to spend much time with my grandmother in this life, and truthfully i’ve been regretful about that. On the train ride to the airport this morning, a thought crossed my mind. while in my grief i’ve been too paralyzed emotionally to make much dua, i thought to myself “this is all i get with her.” Like a quota that had run out, the remaining sand hits the bottom of the hourglass and my rizq has been consumed. Her rizq has been consumed. It had been lived and appreciated and she had experienced Allah’s mercy through each and every moment because life is just a continuum of His Rahmah.

So when my Lord commands me to say “Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajayoon”, a phrase that echoes our return being to The One that we belong to, i now know this is more than just a command or a test - it is a mercy. That He who created us knows that in the face of heartbreak and devastation, our fitrahs are only consoled by the reminder that what is with Allah is never lost. it is safe, in His loving care, until out of His infinite mercy He reunites us in a better place. A place that knows no illness or fear. No loss of life, or property, or crops.

And so while life used to claw the people and places that i loved out of my cold fist, i now hold my palm open with the blessings Allah has given me. If it comes, Alhamdullilah and if it goes, Alhamdulillah. Today it is my grandmother. I don’t know who or what it will be tomorrow. But i do know we all exist in a state of heading back to The One that loves us more than anything we hold dear ever will - and that is something to be celebrated.

وَلَلْآخِرَةُ خَيْرٌ لَّكَ مِنَ الْأُولَىٰ

And the next life is certainly far better for you than this

(93:4)

If you have resonated with this post, I’d deeply appreciate if you could say a quick prayer for my grandmother. That she met Our Lord sinless, in a state of complete righteousness, and that Allah showers His mercy onto her.

And to my Gan - I promise to be the fiercest legacy you knew i could be. See you soon <3

I was 10 years old when my parents got me my first ipod. It was one of those little ones that had a clip on the back, and was sky blue. The first song i downloaded on that ipod was Taylor Swifts “Love Story”. It seemed innocent at first - a regular girl listening to a very popular song. I loved this song because of the picture it painted - i got to live out a love story in my head through following along the lyrics. I was juliet at the top of the staircase, and romeo came back for me. After this phase, it was Troy and Gabriela’s “Breaking Free”. I was Gabriella, and in my mind i had a teenage love that would go to the ends of the earth for me. For the next 15 years, every new circumstance that i found myself in had a corresponding song i’d use to escape it for a bit. A break from reality. I did not have the tools to cope with my feelings, and so every evening for hours i’d put on my headphones, turn up the volume on my music, and turn down the volume on my real life.

In my twenties I decided I wanted to start minimizing the amount of music i listened to. The goal was to leave it altogether. After i slowly started to cut it out of my life, i realized listening to music was so much more than just a bad habit - it was my survival mechanism. And one that I didn’t know how to live without. When I stopped stepping out of my life and into my dreams every night, i was forced to face the chilling fact that i had become a stranger to myself. Even more so, I had become distant from God.

Our connection with Allah depends on a certain degree of presence. To remember Him requires presence. To be grateful to Him requires you to be situationally aware enough to acknowledge the blessings in your life. Most importantly, to make dua to Him you need to be connected enough to your own self to be able to articulate what it is you are hoping for from your Creator. But i had silenced that voice using the daydreams i’d let myself escape to. And when you pull the plug on this emotional retreat, you are left to face the music. you have to stand in the ruins of your life and you suddenly have no where to run to. The helplessness you spent years avoiding hits you all at once and you realize that you were never really here, and that’s the most devastating part of it all. Because this life was meant to be lived - it was not meant to be fled.

When you are a maladaptive daydreamer, tawakkul is infinitely harder. Because the very thing that draws us to maladaptive daydreaming in the first place is the false sense of control. In my dreams, i write my happy ending exactly how I want it. In the beautiful stories my mind escapes to, the good guys always win. The villains never succeed. True love conquers all. Everyone lives happily ever after.

But real life is not that simple. And when life makes you question if the happily ever after is coming at all, you realize this is not a dream and you are not in control. And you realize you never were in control, you were just running. Running from the moment, running from yourself, heck even running from Qadr. And as we all know, Allahs story will always prevail. His story is better - i believe it intellectually. But inside me there is an 11 year old girl that just wants her happy ending so she can stop holding her breath.

A teacher once told me that all sins originate from a place of hurt, and when we understand this only then can we begin to conceptualize Allahs mercy. I see a sinner. i see a cowardly girl who did not have the courage to face the longings and the fears and the dreams that she had. But I like to think that Allah sees the 11 year old girl that just wanted to feel some sense of safety.

But i don’t want to live in my mind anymore. the first part of trusting Allah is letting go of the stories we hold deep within our hearts - not just the ones we think were meant to happen, but the ones we felt were the only path the safety and contentment. I am safe in Allahs story for me. I know that now. And even when that story looks like everything falling apart, i don’t reach for those headphones anymore. I sit in the rubble with a cup of tea and stare up at the heavens waiting to see what my Lord does with it.

And so for the first time in my life, i will now be still. I will sit with myself. With my fears, with my pain, with my thoughts. In the footsteps of the Prophets and the Greats, who Allah isolated before He elevated them, I will retreat to the cave of my mind until I am ready to emerge without inhibitions. As gruesome as it will be, i will feel all of it. Because on the other side of this pain is the connection with my Lord that my disassociated self would always pray for but never had the courage to pursue.

This is where my journey home begins.

A tough day had brought me to my prayer mat one evening. It is a cushioned green prayer mat. It lies flat next to an artificial olive tree my parents bought me as a graduation gift, years ago. I loved this tree, as it carries heavy significance for me. It reminds me of our beloved Prophet SAW, and how he said:

Beyond this, it reminds me of the lands that are yet to face liberation from the oppressors. It reminds me of my purpose - to strive to bring our ummah back to a time where the olive oil harvest in Palestine can happen without spilled blood. It reminds me of healing - the way my heart hopes to find the antidote for the things that hurt my body in this blessed tree’s oil. Above all, it reminds me of my Lord, who valued the fruits of this tree so much He swore by it:

It is under this tree, on top of my soft prayer mat, that I find myself having the most conversations with my Lord. The happy ones and the not so happy ones. And on one of the days where I was heavy into the latter, I found myself saying out of exasperation: “Ya Rabb, why did You even create me?”

The air felt thick with irony as the words left my mouth. I paused for a moment - why was this so familiar? It wasn’t until I realized I had inadvertently replicated a scene from the Quran (minus a miracle baby) that I burst out laughing. Leaning against that tree, seeing no way out from my pain, Allah reminded me immediately that I am not the first woman to have been in that boat. In fact, one of the most inspirational and esteemed women in human history was the blueprint for this scene. And it was such an iconic moment that it was eternalized in the Quran.

Maryam (AS) was driven to the shade of the tree in the height of her pain.

But Maryam was not the only one to find herself experiencing a pivotal moment under the shade of the tree. Centuries earlier, our beloved Prophet Musa (AS) finds himself at his turning point while under a tree as well. After being exiled from his town, he fled the wrath of the community that wanted him dead. Without a home, support, and provision, he too found himself at his lowest moment leaning against a tree. It was where he made the infamous dua:

This beautiful dua, now repeated by many, proves a pattern:

Musa (AS) was driven to the shade of the tree in the height of his pain.

Just as I had found myself making my most desperate pleas to my Lord under this tree, 2 beloved servants of Allah had done the same - centuries before my soul ever knew this dunya. It made me ponder, what is it about the base of the tree that draws the most desperate souls to it? Is it the fact that the shade of the leaves acts as a metaphorical sense of protection - the feeling that you have some shelter, some semblance of safety when nothing seems to be going your way? Is it the steadiness of the trunk, making you feel as if you can finally exhale and share your burden with another living thing - to have something to lean on? Is it the fact that the trees are in constant dhikr, and you being there in your pain might remind your fitrah of the Most Compassionate? Is it the fact that the roots of the tree run deep, and map the earth the way our veins map our hearts? Is it the fact that these trees are not just a source of sustenance, but a true witness and companion for us in this life as highlighted by a beautiful Hadith:

While I will never know the true secrets behind the spiritual significance of finding yourself against a tree in your lowest moments, I believe with my whole heart that the answer reflects the many layers of Allah’s mercy. The fact that I got to experience this alone makes me grateful for the pain that drove me there in the first place - had I not felt that, I would have never felt as connected as I did in my micro-version of a shared experience with these greats. How often have we missed the mini miracles Allah gives our soul to get a taste of the greats that have walked the earth before us?

These stories are not just fables - they are a lifeline that help us make sense of our lowest moments. I will never live up to the greatness of Maryam (AS) or Musa (AS), but I do know that I can’t wait to see them in Jannah and tell them about how I too found myself under a tree;

and it was their stories that inspired me to get up again.