When I was a young girl, I was tested. Tested so much, and for so long, that somewhere along the way, I lost the noor in my eyes. I lost the effortless smile that once belonged to my face. I grew up before I had the right to grow up.

Sometimes I look at girls my age laughing over little things, being childish, making mistakes without carrying the weight of the entire world on their shoulders—and strangely, it feels unfamiliar to me. Almost awkward. I don't know how to be that carefree girl anymore. I don't know how to live without thinking ten steps ahead, without expecting something to go wrong, without preparing my heart for another test.

And sometimes, in the quietest moments, I wonder: Why me?

I know I cannot question Allah's wisdom. I know there are things He understands that I never will. I know perhaps every pain had a purpose, every loss carried a lesson, every difficult night was known to Him even when no one else knew what was happening inside me.

But I am still human.

And sometimes a human heart simply wants to ask, Why did my childhood have to be so different? Why couldn't I have been protected the way a child is supposed to be protected? Why did I have to learn certain things before I even knew what childhood meant?

The hardest part is not even what happened.

It is what it left behind.

The regrets became enormous. The memories became heavier. And after carrying them for years, I began to believe that perhaps I don't deserve anything beautiful anymore. Perhaps happiness belongs to people who were never broken this badly. Perhaps I have already used up my share of good things.

And just when I finally gather enough courage to move forward, another thought comes quietly:

What if it all happens again?

What if the next test is bigger?

What if Allah tests me with something I cannot survive?

What if I finally allow myself to hope, only to lose everything again?

I hate that fear. I hate that even after surviving so much, my heart still expects life to hurt me.

Maybe that is why I love babies so much.

Because when I look at them, I see the little girl I once was.

A child who should have been protected.

A child who should have been allowed to be foolish, loud, messy, playful, dependent, and innocent.

A child who should have been told, “Don't worry. I am here.”

Maybe I love babies because I want to give them what I once desperately needed.

I want to protect them from the things children should never have to understand. I want to hold them when they are afraid. I want to let them cry without making them feel weak. I want to make their little worlds feel safe.

Because when I was their age, there was a part of me that was desperately waiting for someone to do exactly that for me.

And perhaps that is why I feel so deeply for little children.

I am not simply loving them.

I am loving the childhood I never got to have.

Maybe the little girl inside me is still waiting.

Not for someone to rewrite the past.

Just for someone to finally tell her:

“You should never have had to be this strong. You were a child. You deserved to be protected. And none of what happened to you made you undeserving of love, softness, or beautiful things.”

Maybe I don't need to become that carefree little girl again.

Maybe I only need to stop punishing her for surviving.

There are some duas that never come true.

At least, that is what we tell ourselves.

We make them with trembling hands.

We whisper them in Tahajjud.

We repeat them after salah.

We carry them into the quietest hours of the night, when the entire world is asleep and it feels as though there is only us and Allah.

We make them on Fridays.

Before breaking our fast.

After rain.

In the last third of the night.

On the nights we believe might be Laylat-ul-Qadr.

We make them when our hearts are soft enough to break.

And then—

nothing happens.

The door doesn't open.

The person doesn't return.

The opportunity disappears.

The university rejects you.

The dream remains a dream.

And for a while, you don't understand Allah.

You wonder:

“Ya Allah, I asked You so sincerely. Why didn't You give me this?”

I had one such dua.

It was a university.

Not simply a university, but a place I had built an entire little world around in my imagination.

A university in Karachi.

A place I had dreamed of going to.

I imagined myself there.

I imagined the journey.

I imagined leaving home.

I imagined the distance.

I imagined the train.

I imagined watching Pakistan pass outside the window while travelling hundreds of kilometres toward a life I had already begun living inside my head.

And perhaps the strangest part was that I didn't even do what was necessary to reach it.

I didn't study the way I should have.

I didn't prepare the way I could have.

Somewhere inside me, there was this almost childish confidence:

Allah will make it happen.

I thought I could somehow pray my way through the preparation I had refused to do.

And then the test came.

And, unsurprisingly, I failed.

The first thought that came to me was painfully simple:

“Of course you failed. You didn't prepare.”

There was no mystery in it.

No complicated explanation.

I knew exactly what I had done wrong.

But then another thought came.

But I prayed.

I had prayed so much.

I had asked Allah for it in Tahajjud.

I had asked Him on nights when my heart felt especially close to Him.

I had asked Him in those sacred moments when I thought my dua could not possibly fall unanswered.

I had carried that university into my sujood.

So how could I understand that the answer was no?

How could something I had asked Allah for with so much desperation simply disappear?

For a while, I was angry.

Not angry at Allah in the way people might imagine.

Just confused.

Deeply confused.

I kept thinking:

“What is the purpose of making dua if the thing I begged for can still be taken away?”

And then life showed me something I couldn't have understood from a prayer mat.

One day, I was returning from my aunt's house.

We decided to travel by train.

And suddenly, I was going to experience the very thing I had romanticised for so long.

The train journey.

The distance.

The travelling.

The feeling of leaving one place and arriving somewhere far away.

I had imagined this so many times.

I thought:

This is what it will feel like when I finally go to that university.

But when the train actually started moving, reality was nothing like the picture I had created in my mind.

I couldn't find a proper place to sit.

I had to stand.

The journey was exhausting.

The environment was uncomfortable.

The smell was overwhelming.

And what made it worse was the way some people looked at me.

Those eyes.

Those uncomfortable, lustful stares.

The kind of attention that makes you want to disappear into yourself.

I stood there, exhausted and disappointed, thinking:

“So this is the journey I was so excited about?”

And something inside me became quiet.

Because suddenly I understood.

I had been asking Allah to give me a destination without understanding the road that came with it.

I had been praying for the university.

But Allah knew the journey.

I had been dreaming about the train.

But Allah knew what the train would feel like.

I had been imagining the freedom.

But Allah knew the vulnerabilities.

I had been imagining myself arriving.

But Allah had already seen everything I would have had to endure along the way.

And perhaps—

just perhaps—

the answer had never been:

“No.”

Perhaps it had been:

“My beloved servant, not this way.”

And that thought broke something inside me.

Not in sadness.

In gratitude.

Because suddenly, my unanswered dua looked different.

Maybe Allah wasn't withholding something from me.

Maybe He was protecting me from something I was too innocent to recognize.

I had thought I was being denied.

Perhaps I was being protected.

I had thought Allah didn't give me what I wanted.

Perhaps Allah loved me too much to give it to me in the way I wanted.

And isn't that such a strange kind of love?

The kind that sometimes says no.

The kind that closes doors you keep begging to enter.

The kind that lets your heart ache today because He knows what might have destroyed it tomorrow.

We often talk about Allah's mercy when He gives.

We say:

“Allah blessed me.”

“Allah answered my dua.”

“Allah gave me what I wanted.”

But perhaps one of the most beautiful forms of Allah's mercy is what He doesn't give us.

The relationship He doesn't let happen.

The job He doesn't let us get.

The person He removes.

The city He doesn't let us reach.

The dream He quietly takes out of our hands.

The door that refuses to open no matter how many times we knock.

Maybe sometimes the closed door is the blessing.

Maybe sometimes the rejection letter is protection.

Maybe sometimes failure is Allah redirecting us before we walk too far down the wrong road.

And maybe some duas are not answered because Allah has a better understanding of what we are actually asking for.

We ask for a university.

Allah sees the entire life attached to it.

We ask for a person.

Allah sees the marriage.

The heartbreak.

The children.

The years.

The consequences.

We ask for money.

Allah sees what money might do to our hearts.

We ask for success.

Allah sees whether our iman can survive it.

We ask for a door.

Allah sees what is behind it.

We see the door.

Allah sees the entire house.

And perhaps that is why we have to learn to trust Him.

Because our knowledge is so painfully small.

We know today.

Allah knows tomorrow.

We know what we want.

Allah knows what we need.

We know what makes us happy for an afternoon.

Allah knows what will keep our souls safe for eternity.

And perhaps this is where tawakkul becomes real.

Not when Allah gives you exactly what you asked for.

But when He doesn't—

and you still say:

“Alhamdulillah.”

Not because it doesn't hurt.

It does.

Not because you suddenly stop wanting it.

You might not.

Not because disappointment disappears.

It doesn't.

But because somewhere underneath the disappointment, there is a deeper certainty:

Allah knows something I don't.

And that is enough.

I think about that train sometimes.

The train I once imagined as the beginning of my dream.

The same kind of journey that, when experienced in reality, made me realise how different imagination can be from life.

Perhaps Allah was allowing me to experience a tiny glimpse of what I had been asking for.

Not to mock my dream.

But to teach me something.

To let me see, even for a few hours, that sometimes the thing we romanticise from a distance looks completely different when we actually live it.

And suddenly, I didn't feel that my dua had been wasted.

Maybe every “Ya Allah, let me go there” was heard.

Maybe every tear was counted.

Maybe every Tahajjud was accepted.

Just not in the form I expected.

Because dua is not a transaction.

It is not:

I asked, therefore I must receive.

Dua is a conversation between a servant and the One who knows the servant better than the servant knows herself.

Sometimes the answer is:

Yes.

Sometimes:

Not yet.

Sometimes:

I have something better.

And sometimes, perhaps, the answer is:

“I love you too much to give you this.”

That last answer may be the hardest to understand.

Because protection doesn't always feel like protection while you're being protected.

A child doesn't understand why their mother won't let them touch fire.

They only know that they wanted to touch it.

Perhaps we are like that with Allah.

We cry over the things He keeps away from us because we cannot see the fire behind them.

And Allah can.

Maybe there are things I cried over that I will one day thank Allah for losing.

Maybe there are doors I begged Him to open that I will one day be grateful remained closed.

Maybe there are versions of my life I desperately wanted that would have taken me further away from Him.

And maybe the greatest mercy was that I never got to meet that version of myself.

So now, when a dua doesn't come true, I am trying to change the question.

Instead of asking:

“Why didn't Allah give me this?”

I want to ask:

“What was Allah protecting me from?”

Instead of:

“Why did I fail?”

Perhaps:

“Where is Allah redirecting me?”

Instead of:

“Why did this door close?”

Perhaps:

“What does Allah see behind this door that I cannot?”

I don't know where my next university will be.

I don't know what city I will live in.

I don't know what journeys are waiting for me.

I don't know which dreams will survive and which ones Allah will gently remove from my hands.

But I know this:

I don't want to spend my life believing that every closed door is a punishment.

Some doors close because Allah is saving us from the room behind them.

Some journeys end before they begin because Allah has seen the road.

Some dreams die because Allah is protecting the dreamer.

And some duas remain unanswered in this dunya because perhaps their answer was never meant to belong to this world.

Maybe some things Allah will give us later.

Maybe some He will replace.

Maybe some He will transform.

And maybe some He will leave unanswered here—

only to make us realise, in the Hereafter, that what we thought was an unanswered prayer was actually one of the greatest acts of mercy we ever received.

So if you have a dua that hasn't happened yet, don't be ashamed of still wanting it.

Cry.

Ask again.

Make dua again.

Pray Tahajjud again.

Tell Allah exactly what your heart wants.

But then, when you finish asking, leave a little space for these words:

“Ya Allah, if this is good for me, bring it close. And if it is not, take it away from me with mercy—and give me the strength to love what You choose for me.”

Because perhaps the deepest form of faith is not believing that Allah will give us everything we ask for.

It is believing that whatever Allah chooses for us is safer than whatever we could have chosen for ourselves.

And perhaps one day, when I look back at the university I never attended, I won't call it a failed dream.

I'll call it a prayer that Allah answered differently.

A prayer that taught me something no acceptance letter could have taught me.

That Allah's “no” can carry love.

That His closed doors can carry mercy.

That His redirections can carry protection.

And that sometimes—

the most beautiful answer to a dua is not getting what you begged for.

It is discovering, years later, why Allah refused to give it to you.

Maybe that is the kind of love we spend our whole lives learning.

The love of a Lord who sees the storm before we see the clouds.

The love of a Lord who knows the road before we take the first step.

The love of a Lord who sometimes breaks our plans—

only because He is protecting our souls from breaking.

And perhaps, one day, we will stand before Him and finally understand every unanswered prayer.

Every closed door.

Every rejection.

Every “no.”

Every dream that slipped through our fingers.

And perhaps we will look at all of it and whisper:

“Ya Allah… now I understand.”

Until then, we trust.

We pray.

We surrender.

And we keep walking.

Because sometimes Allah doesn't take you where you wanted to go.

He takes you somewhere your soul was always meant to be.

There is a question we ask almost every day.

“How are you?”

“How have you been?”

“Are you okay?”

“How are your days going?”

And almost every time, we answer with the same familiar words:

“Good, Alhamdulillah.”

Sometimes we mean it.

Sometimes we don't.

Sometimes “Alhamdulillah” is gratitude.

Sometimes it is survival.

And sometimes it is simply the only answer we have the strength to give.

But I wonder why does no one ever ask the deeper question?

What is the weather inside your soul?

Not how your day is going.

Not how your studies are going.

Not whether you ate, slept, worked, smiled, or replied to everyone's messages.

I mean the weather.

Is there sunshine inside you?

Is there a storm?

Is it raining quietly?

Is there a winter that has lasted for years?

Are there clouds gathering somewhere nobody can see?

Because a person can walk beneath a perfectly blue sky while carrying thunder inside their chest.

And perhaps that is one of the strangest things about being human: we learn how to look fine long before we learn how to actually be fine.

We become experts at saying, “I'm okay.”

We learn how to laugh at the right moment.

We learn how to answer messages.

We learn how to sit among people without letting anyone notice that something inside us is collapsing.

We learn how to keep functioning even when our souls are exhausted.

And perhaps that is why the deepest question you can ask someone is not, “How are you?”

It is:

“Tell me, what is the weather inside your soul?”

I think the answer to that question would be far more complicated than we imagine.

Perhaps someone you consider arrogant has a soul softer than rain.

Perhaps someone you call rude has spent years building walls around a heart that was once too easily wounded.

Perhaps the person who never cries is carrying oceans behind their eyes.

Perhaps the person who seems impossibly strong is holding themselves together with the smallest thread.

We are so quick to judge the weather outside a person without ever asking what season they have survived inside.

We see someone's anger and never ask what hurt came before it.

We see someone's silence and never wonder what became too painful to say.

We see someone's distance and never ask who made closeness frightening for them.

We see someone's strength and assume they don't need tenderness.

But sometimes strength is simply what broken people learn to wear when they have no choice.

I know something about fragile souls.

I have one.

Perhaps it is still fragile.

Perhaps it is already broken.

I don't know.

Maybe it has been broken into so many pieces that I have stopped noticing the sound of it breaking.

There are things that once would have made me cry for hours, and now I can speak about them calmly.

Not because they stopped hurting.

Perhaps because I became too familiar with the pain.

My aunt told me yesterday, “Zahra, your soul has become so weak. You're only twenty.”

And I remember thinking:

I know.

I know.

But how does someone protect their soul?

How do you protect something so invisible, so delicate, so easily influenced by everything around you?

We know how to protect our bodies.

We lock our doors.

We avoid dangerous roads.

We protect our possessions.

We put passwords on our phones.

But how often do we ask ourselves what we are allowing into our souls?

What are we feeding them?

What are we making them consume?

What are we normalising?

What are we chasing?

What are we worshipping without realising it?

I once told my aunt about how some people seem to sell their souls for fame, attention, validation, or worldly success.

She looked at me and said something that stayed with me.

She said, in essence:

“

And what are you giving your soul every day? Are you filling it with the dhikr of Allah, or are you filling it with everything except Him?”

That question felt different.

Because perhaps we don't always lose our souls dramatically.

Perhaps we lose them quietly.

A little bit at a time.

A little more attachment to the dunya.

A little less remembrance of Allah.

A little more comparison.

A little less gratitude.

A little more chasing people's approval.

A little less caring about Allah's approval.

A little more haram disguised as harmless entertainment.

A little less time spent with the Qur'an.

A little more noise.

A little less silence.

Until one day, we look at ourselves and wonder:

Why am I surrounded by everything I once wanted, yet I still feel empty?

Perhaps because the soul was never designed to be satisfied by the dunya alone.

The soul knows something we often forget.

It knows where it came from.

And perhaps, somewhere deep within us, it remembers where it is going.

Jannah.

Eternity.

Allah.

Maybe that is why worldly things can never completely satisfy it.

You can give the body everything and still leave the soul starving.

You can have beautiful clothes, money, followers, admiration, achievements, relationships, photographs, applause and still lie awake at night wondering why there is a hollow place inside you that nothing seems capable of reaching.

Because perhaps that hollow place was never meant for the dunya.

Perhaps it was created for Allah.

My aunt told me something else that I cannot stop thinking about.

She said that the soul has a connection with the afterlife.

And perhaps that is why it hurts when we compromise ourselves for things that were never meant to last.

Perhaps when we settle for the temporary, something eternal inside us protests.

When we chase what is forbidden, perhaps the soul shudders because it knows that what we are chasing cannot give us the peace we are actually looking for.

When we become obsessed with being loved by people, perhaps the soul quietly asks:

“What happened to being loved by the One who created you?”

When we chase happiness at any cost, perhaps we forget that happiness is not always the destination.

Peace is.

And there is a difference.

Happiness can be loud.

Peace is often quiet.

Happiness can come from a beautiful day, a message from someone you love, a successful achievement, a dream coming true.

But peace?

Peace is being able to close your eyes at night and know that you are returning to Allah.

Peace is knowing that you don't have to control everything because Allah does.

Peace is crying in sujood and feeling that your tears have somewhere to go.

Peace is waking up after a terrible night and still whispering, “Alhamdulillah.”

Peace is losing something you desperately wanted and believing that Allah knows why.

Peace is being disappointed by people without becoming disappointed in Allah.

Peace is when your life is falling apart around you, but something inside you still says:

“Allah is here.”

Maybe that is what our souls have been asking for all along.

Not endless happiness.

Not constant excitement.

Not a perfect life.

Peace.

And perhaps this is why the dunya can be so dangerous when we mistake it for home.

We start decorating a place we were only passing through.

We become heartbroken over things we were never promised.

We chase people who were never written for us.

We mourn doors Allah closed because we were too busy looking at the door to notice the One who closed it.

We exhaust ourselves trying to build a permanent life in a temporary world.

And somewhere along the way, the soul becomes tired.

It starts whispering:

Enough.

Come back.

Remember why you are here.

You were not created only to survive this world.

You were created to return.

Perhaps protecting the soul begins with listening to that whisper.

With making room for dhikr.

With returning to the Qur'an.

With choosing what enters our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds.

With learning that not everything beautiful is good for us.

With understanding that not everything we desire deserves to be pursued.

With walking away from things that make our hearts darker, even when everyone around us calls them normal.

With choosing Allah even when the dunya offers us something shinier.

And perhaps protecting the soul also means being gentle with it.

We are sometimes so cruel to ourselves.

We punish ourselves for being tired.

We call ourselves weak for crying.

We become ashamed of our wounds.

We compare our healing to someone else's.

But maybe a fragile soul doesn't need punishment.

Maybe it needs care.

Maybe it needs prayer.

Maybe it needs forgiveness.

Maybe it needs rest.

Maybe it needs someone to sit beside it without asking it to explain why it hurts.

Maybe it needs to hear:

“You don't have to be strong all the time.”

And perhaps we should become that person for someone else.

The next time someone tells you, “I'm fine,” don't always assume you know what fine means.

Maybe ask again.

Gently.

“Really?”

Or perhaps, one day, ask them something no one else has asked:

“What is the weather inside your soul today?”

And then listen.

Don't fix them immediately.

Don't compare their pain with yours.

Don't tell them someone else has it worse.

Don't turn their vulnerability into a lesson before they have finished speaking.

Just listen.

Because sometimes people don't need an answer.

They need somewhere safe for the storm to fall.

And perhaps, if we are brave enough to ask that question, we should also be brave enough to answer it ourselves.

So, what is the weather inside my soul?

I think today it is raining.

Not the kind of rain that destroys everything.

The quiet kind.

The kind that falls at night when nobody is watching.

There are still clouds.

There are still wounds.

There are still pieces of me I don't completely understand.

But somewhere behind those clouds, I know there is a sky.

And somewhere behind this fragile heart, I know there is an Allah who has never stopped knowing me.

Maybe my soul is broken.

Maybe it is tired.

Maybe it is carrying more than it should.

But it is still here.

Still breathing.

Still turning toward Allah.

Still hoping.

And perhaps that is enough for today.

Maybe healing does not always look like becoming the person we were before.

Maybe sometimes healing means becoming someone who knows how to return to Allah with every broken piece.

Maybe the soul doesn't need to become untouched.

Maybe it only needs to become connected again.

Connected to its Creator.

Connected to purpose.

Connected to the truth that this world was never supposed to be the final destination.

So if you ever ask me how I am, I might still say:

“I'm good. Alhamdulillah.”

But if you ever ask me something deeper

“What is the weather inside your soul?”

I might finally tell you the truth.

There is a storm.

There is rain.

There are broken pieces.

There are seasons I haven't survived completely yet.

But there is also hope.

There is also dhikr.

There is also sujood.

There is also Allah.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful weather a soul can have.

Not a life without storms

but a heart that knows where to go when the storm arrives.

~Zahra arif khan🪶

Message me

like you have nowhere else to be.

I want your arms around me

when the world becomes too heavy,

your fingers resting gently against my ribs

as you pull me closer

not because you want to possess me,

but because you can feel

how badly I need somewhere to belong.

I want you to breathe with me

when I forget how.

Slowly.

Patiently.

Until my lungs remember

that they are allowed to fill again.

I want you to know the difference

between my silence and my peace,

between the smile I give everyone

and the one that only appears

when I finally feel safe.

When I become vulnerable,

don't give me easy answers.

Sit with me.

Dive into the conversation

until we reach the things

I was too afraid to say aloud

the fears beneath the fears,

the wounds beneath the words.

I want you to ask,

“What happened?”

and actually wait for the answer.

I want a love

that notices the smallest tremor in my voice,

that remembers the things I forget I ever said,

that doesn't make me ashamed

of needing comfort.

And when I finally fall apart,

I don't want you to fix me.

Just gather me.

Let me rest my head against your chest

until your heartbeat becomes something familiar,

something steady enough

for mine to follow.

I want to be loved

in the quietest possible way

not loudly,

not perfectly,

but so deeply

that even on the days

when I cannot find my way back to myself,

your presence feels like a light left on,

waiting for me.

I think we have a strange habit of making everything much more complicated than it actually is.

A little inconvenience happens..and we start making fake scenarious in our mind..we are given a little task and we keep on delaying it and assuming that its a huge mountain…so todayyy i visited my village..and one of the women asked me..zahra. my daughter…she doesnt pray..she is 6 years old..i dont know how to introduce her to Allah..how to train her..make her foundation and basics strong.

We want our children to pray, read the Qur’an, exercise, speak gently, respect people, have discipline, have good manners, take care of themselves and grow into decent human beings.

What do we do if we want our children to grow up doing beautiful things? Read the Qur’an, pray, exercise, speak gently, respect people, take care of themselves, have discipline, have manners…? Apparently, we can stop giving TED Talks to our children and start looking at our own lives. Because today I witnessed the CUTEST live demonstration of a child psychology in my village. It was Zuhr prayer, and I was sitting there reciting the Qur’an. I have this personal habit where I keep a glass of water beside me while reciting and then drink it afterward. (Don’t ask me for the scientific explanation because honestly, I don’t have one. It’s simply something I do and it has become meaningful to me.) So I’m sitting there peacefully with my Qur’an and my little glass of water… and i finished and was about to get up ..when i saw the same girl..whose mother talked to me earlier came and sat beside me..she was analyzing very carefully.. and suddenly..a thought came in my mind …what do i do..how do i introduce her to Allah..what are the words..how do i make her pray..so after some minutes she stands up.and go outisde the room. She brings a completely random bowl of water. Then she picks up an Islamic Studies book, sits down EXACTLY like I was sitting, opens it, starts reading and goes, “Bismillah… Bismillah… Bismillah…” Then she starts reciting over the water and drinking it. I JUST SAT THERE. 💀 Like, child, NOBODY gave you an assignment. Nobody said, “Now go imitate her.” You literally watched me doing something and decided, “Ah yes. Apparently this is the family procedure.” And honestly, that tiny moment explained so much about children. We spend so much time telling children what to do: “Pray.” “Read Qur’an.” “Be respectful.” “Don’t shout.” “Exercise.” “Stop using your phone.” “Have good manners.” And then five minutes later we’re shouting at them while holding OUR OWN PHONE in our hand. 😭 (Parents, respectfully… the child is taking notes. YOU are the curriculum.) Children don’t just listen to what we say. They study what we repeatedly do. If you shout, they learn shouting. If you insult, they learn insults. If you constantly complain, they learn complaining. If you are gentle, they learn gentleness. If you apologize when you are wrong, they learn humility. If they see you praying, they learn that prayer is something people actually DO, not merely something adults tell children to do. If they see you picking up the Qur’an with love, they learn that the Qur’an is not just a book sitting on a shelf waiting for Ramadan. And if they see you treating people with dignity, they learn what dignity looks like. Children are basically tiny surveillance cameras with absolutely ZERO privacy settings. They notice EVERYTHING. Your tone. Your habits. Your reactions. The way you speak to your mother. The way you speak about your father. The way you treat people. The way you react when you’re angry. The way you talk about yourself. The things you do when nobody is “watching.” And then one day you hear your own words coming out of their mouths and suddenly you’re like, “WHO TAUGHT YOU THAT?!” Ma’am. Sir. Respectfully. YOU DID. And honestly, this applies far beyond children too. People often wonder why their relationships keep becoming a certain way while forgetting that we teach people how to interact with us through what we repeatedly tolerate, accept, encourage and demonstrate. (Yes, I know. We started with a tiny child and somehow ended up in relationship psychology. Please stay seated. 😂) If a woman constantly abandons herself for everyone, she may unintentionally teach people that her needs come last. If she respects herself, communicates clearly, protects her boundaries and knows her worth, she teaches people that this is how she expects to be treated. If she loves herself without arrogance, she creates a different standard for the love she accepts. If she constantly excuses disrespect, people may learn that disrespect comes without consequences. If she values herself, her time, her priorities and her dignity, the people around her eventually understand that those things matter. (Not because she is playing games. Not because she is trying to “control a man.” Please. We are adults. It’s because healthy relationships are built through mutual standards, not silent self-abandonment.) And the same principle applies to men. A man who respects himself, respects his partner, communicates honestly and treats people with kindness teaches others what kind of relationship he is willing to build. We are constantly teaching people how to treat us—not only through what we SAY, but through what we repeatedly SHOW. And that little girl today reminded me of something incredibly simple: sometimes the best way to teach someone is to stop explaining and start living. Because she didn’t hear my lecture about the importance of Qur’an. She saw me reading it. She didn’t hear me explain my little water habit. She saw me doing it. She didn’t need a motivational speech. She just copied what she saw. And honestly? That tiny girl sitting there with her random bowl of water, repeatedly saying “Bismillah,” trying to recreate something she had watched me do… that was one of the sweetest reminders I’ve had in a long time. 🥹🤍 Children are watching. Your younger siblings are watching. Your nieces and nephews are watching. Your friends are watching. Sometimes even the people you think aren’t paying attention are quietly learning from you. So if you want to change the world around you, perhaps start with the person in the mirror. (Read the Qur’an because you love it. Pray because you need Allah. Speak gently because gentleness is beautiful. Exercise because your body deserves care. Respect yourself because you were never meant to live without dignity.) And maybe one day, without you even realizing it, some tiny human will bring a random bowl of water, sit beside you, open a book and start copying you. And you’ll realize: “Oh. So THAT’S what they were learning from me.” 🥹🤍 (Children don’t always remember our lectures. They remember our example.) And honestly, that is both the most beautiful responsibility… and the most terrifying reality check.

~ZAHRA ARIF KHAN🌸

There is a particular kind of loneliness that does not begin when you have nobody. It begins when you have people everywhere and still cannot find the one place inside another human being where your soul can put its head down and sleep. That night, Zahra lay beneath the blanket, staring at the ceiling. Her phone was beside her. The room was quiet. Everyone she loved was somewhere in the same house. And yet something inside her was screaming as though she had been abandoned in the middle of an ocean. Heart: Zahra… Mind: Don't. Heart: I haven't even said anything. Mind: I know what you're going to say. Heart: I'm lonely. Mind: There it is. That disgusting little sentence again. I'm lonely. As though you're the only person on earth who has ever felt it. As though the entire world owes you a person just because you are tired of your own company. Heart: I didn't say anyone owes me anything. Mind: Then stop crying. Heart: I can't. Mind: Of course you can't. You never can. You turn everything into an emotion. A memory becomes a wound. A wound becomes a tragedy. A little sadness becomes an existential crisis. Someone doesn't text you and suddenly you're questioning your entire worth. Someone doesn't choose you and suddenly you behave as though the universe has personally declared you unlovable. Heart: That's not what happens. Mind: Oh, really? Then explain yourself. Why do you want someone so badly? Why? You have people. You have parents. You have friends. You have a roof. You have food. You have opportunities. You have a future. You have things millions of people would beg Allah for. And still still you lie here crying because you want someone to hold your hand. How pathetic. The Heart went quiet. Not because the words were true. Because they hurt. Heart: I know I have people. Mind: Then act grateful. Heart: I am grateful. Mind: You don't sound grateful. Heart: Because gratitude isn't anesthesia. The Mind laughed. A cold, ugly laugh. Mind: Oh, how poetic. Gratitude isn't anesthesia. What next? “My soul is thirsty?” “My inner child is wounded?” Please. Stop dressing your selfishness in beautiful words. You just want a man. Say it. You want a man. You want someone beside you. You want someone's attention. You want someone's arms. You want someone to look at you like you're precious. You want someone to choose you. You want someone to desire you. You want someone to come home to. You want someone to ask, “Did you eat?” You want someone to notice when your voice changes. You want someone to pull you closer when you become quiet. You want to be wanted. There. I said it. Now what? Heart: Maybe I do. Mind: Disgusting. Heart: Why? Mind: Because you should have more control than this. You are nineteen. You have a life to build. You have ambitions. You have things to accomplish. And you're sitting here behaving as though the greatest tragedy that could happen to a woman is not having a husband. Heart: I never said that. Mind: You don't have to. I can hear it in the way you ache. Every time you see a couple. Every time you read a love story. Every time you see a woman being cared for. Every time you watch someone receive the tenderness you've secretly wanted. You pretend you're happy for them. And then you come back here and cry. You call it yearning. I call it envy. Heart: No. Mind: Yes. Heart: No. I don't want what they have because I resent them. I want what they have because seeing it reminds me of something I have never had. There is a difference. When I see someone being loved gently, something inside me doesn't say, “Why her?” It says, “Will anyone ever love me like that?” And then I hate myself for asking. Because I know I should not compare. I know Allah gives everyone differently. I know love is not a competition. But I am human. Sometimes another person's happiness touches the exact place where my own grief lives. And it hurts. Mind: You are making excuses. Heart: I'm trying to explain. Mind: I don't need your explanation. Heart: But I need you to understand. Mind: Why? Heart: Because you're the only voice I hear when everyone goes to sleep. The Mind became silent. Then it said: Mind: You are too dependent on people. Heart: I am dependent on Allah. Mind: Then why are you begging for people? Heart: Because Allah created people to need one another. Because human beings are not stones. Because even the strongest person eventually wants somewhere to rest. Because sometimes the soul does not want a solution. It wants a witness. Someone who sees the grief and doesn't immediately tell you how to fix it. Someone who doesn't say, “Be grateful.” Someone who doesn't say, “Others have it worse.” Someone who simply says, “I know. This hurts.” That's all. That's all I want. Mind: You want to be babied. Heart: Maybe sometimes I do. Maybe I have spent so long being the understanding one that I am exhausted from understanding. Maybe I am tired of always knowing why people couldn't give me what I needed. Maybe I don't want explanations anymore. Maybe sometimes I want someone to notice that I am hurting before I have to turn my pain into a PowerPoint presentation. Mind: You are so dramatic. Heart: I know. Mind: You are exhausting. Heart: I know. Mind: You feel everything too deeply. Heart: I know. Mind: You get attached too easily. Heart: I know. Mind: You romanticize everything. Heart: I know. Mind: You make people into homes. And then when they leave, you act surprised that you're homeless. The Heart flinched. Heart: That one was cruel. Mind: But true. Heart: Maybe. Maybe I do make people into homes. Because I have spent so much of my life feeling emotionally homeless. Do you understand what that does to a person? When someone finally listens…you remember. When someone finally handles you gentlyyou remember. ?-When someone finally makes you feel safe…your entire nervous system memorizes it. Not because you're weak. Because deprivation makes small kindnesses enormous. When someone has been starving, a piece of bread is not just bread. It is an event. And perhaps that is what happened to me. I became hungry for tenderness. So hungry that sometimes a little kindness feels like an entire future. Mind: Exactly. That's why you are dangerous to yourself. You will mistake crumbs for a feast. Heart: I know. That's what scares me. I don't want just anyone. I don't want attention. I don't want someone simply because he is a man. I want someone whose presence does not make me abandon myself. I want someone who doesn't exploit the fact that I feel deeply. I want someone who understands that my softness is not permission to hurt me. I want someone who can hold my vulnerability without collecting it as ammunition. I want someone who can see me cry and never remember my tears as evidence against me during an argument. I want someone whose love doesn't become a courtroom. Mind: And you think such a person exists? Heart: I don't know. Mind: Then stop dreaming. Heart: I don't know how. Mind: Learn. Heart: I've tried. Mind: Try harder. Heart: I have. The Heart's voice began to shake. Heart: Do you think I enjoy this? Do you think I enjoy waking up and feeling like there is an empty chair beside me? Do you think I enjoy wondering what it would feel like to be someone's first call? Do you think I enjoy imagining stupid little things? Someone bringing me tea. Someone remembering how I take it. Someone noticing that I am unusually quiet. Someone fixing my blanket when I fall asleep. Someone listening to me talk about something ridiculous for twenty minutes because they know it matters to me. Someone looking at me after a difficult day and saying, “Come here.” Do you think I want extravagance? I want ordinary love. That's the humiliating part. I don't want roses falling from the sky. I want someone to remember. I want someone to stay. I want someone to make staying feel ordinary. Mind: You are making a husband into a cure. Heart: No. I'm making companionship into companionship. You are the one turning it into a cure because you are terrified of admitting that I have a legitimate human need. Mind: Need? You need a man? Heart: No. I need connection. There is a difference. I can survive without a husband. I know that. I can build a career. I can study. I can make money. I can travel. I can become independent. I can accomplish everything you keep shouting at me to accomplish. But none of those things answer the question, “Who holds me when I am tired of holding myself?” And maybe nobody does. Maybe Allah will teach me to hold myself. Maybe Allah will send someone. Maybe He will send someone years from now. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. I don't know. But uncertainty doesn't make the longing disappear. Mind: Then kill the longing. Heart: I've tried. Mind: Try harder. Heart: I buried it. It came back. I distracted myself. It came back. I studied. It came back. I prayed. It came back. I laughed with people. It came back after they left. I told myself I was young. It said, “I know.” I told myself to be patient. It said, “I am trying.” I told myself Allah has better plans. It said, “I know.” I told myself there are people who have it worse. It said, “I know.” But knowing did not make me less lonely. And that is what you don't understand. Mind: What don't I understand? Heart: That knowing and feeling are two different languages. My mind knows I am blessed. My heart can still hurt. My mind knows I should be patient. My heart can still yearn. My mind knows I don't need a man to complete me. My heart can still wish for companionship. My mind knows my life has purpose. My heart can still whisper, “I wish someone would sit beside me while I fulfill it.” Mind: You are weak. Heart: Perhaps. But perhaps weakness is not the correct word. Perhaps I am simply tired. Mind: Everyone is tired. Heart: Then why do we speak to ourselves with such hatred when we are? The Mind had no answer. So it attacked again. Mind: You want to make your mother smile, don't you? Heart: Yes. Mind: Then stop this nonsense. Study. Work. Become successful. Make your father proud. Give your mother the life she deserves. Be useful. Be impressive. Be disciplined. Be someone. Heart: I want to make them proud. But do you know what frightens me? That one day I will become everything everyone wanted me to become…and still feel like nobody ever asked what my heart wanted. Mind: Your heart wants impossible things. Heart: My heart wants tenderness. Mind: Your heart wants to be chosen. Heart: Yes. Mind: Your heart wants someone to stay. Heart: Yes. Mind: Your heart wants to be someone's home. The Heart became very quiet. Heart: Yes. Because I know what it feels like to be temporary in people's lives. I know what it feels like to wonder whether someone would notice if I disappeared from their daily routine. I know what it feels like to be loved conditionally. I know what it feels like to be tolerated instead of cherished. I know what it feels like to keep adjusting yourself so people don't leave. And maybe that's why I yearn so violently. Not because I am desperate for romance. Because somewhere inside me is a little girl who still wants to know what it feels like to be kept. Not pursued. Not obsessed over. Not possessed. Kept. Chosen deliberately. Chosen on ordinary Tuesdays. Chosen when I'm sick. Chosen when I'm difficult. Chosen when I am not beautiful. Chosen when I'm angry. Chosen when I am boring. Chosen when I have nothing impressive to offer. Chosen without having to audition for it. Mind: You are asking another human being to heal what other humans did to you. Heart: No. I'm asking Allah not to let what humans did to me become the definition of what love is. The Mind finally stopped. And the Heart whispered: Heart: I don't want to be rescued. I just don't want to spend the rest of my life pretending I never wanted to be held. I don't want to be ashamed of wanting a home. I don't want to call myself disgusting because my body and soul were created with the capacity to desire closeness. I don't want every ache to become evidence that I am immoral. I don't want to hate myself for being a woman who wants love. I want to be able to say, “Ya Allah, I am lonely,” without immediately following it with, “but I am grateful, so forgive me for saying it.” I want to be allowed to hurt. I want to be allowed to yearn. I want to be allowed to admit, “I wish someone were here.” Without turning that wish into shame. The room was silent. Then the Mind spoke again, but its voice had lost some of its cruelty. Mind: And if Allah doesn't send anyone? The Heart breathed slowly. Heart: Then I will cry. And then I will pray. And then I will get up. And then I will live. But until then…please stop treating my longing like an enemy. It is not asking to destroy my future. It is only asking not to die unheard. The Mind looked at the Heart. The Heart looked back. Neither won. Perhaps they were never supposed to. Perhaps healing was not the victory of the mind over the heart. Perhaps healing was the day they finally stopped trying to murder each other. And somewhere beneath the ribs, where the ache had lived for years, Zahra whispered: “Ya Allah…if what I am yearning for is written for me, bring it without making me lose myself searching for it. And if it is not yet time, then give my heart something else to hold. Give me sabr that does not feel like punishment. Give me solitude that does not feel like abandonment. Give me a life so full of Your nearness that I never mistake loneliness for Your absence. And when You finally write someone into my story if You do let him be gentle. Not perfect. Just gentle. Let him understand that there are parts of me that learned to flinch before they learned to trust. Let him never use my softness against me. Let him never make me regret opening the door. And if You decide that I must walk alone for longer…then Ya Allah, sit beside me. Because I think that is what I have been asking for all along. Not merely someone. Someone safe. Someone who stays. Someone before whom my soul does not have to remain standing. And if that someone is not a human being yet written into my destiny…then let it be You, until my heart learns that being held by Your mercy is not the same thing as being abandoned by the world.”

Mind: You are nothing. Do you understand that? The day someone gets what he wants from your body, he might forget your name. Men can be like that. And this person you keep yearning for? What if he touches you, satisfies his desire, and then wakes up one morning as though you were never the prayer you spent years making? What if you give someone the most vulnerable parts of yourself and he simply…moves on? Heart: I know. I know all of that. But I have prayed. I have prayed to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. I have cried to Him about this. Mind: Yes. Everyone prays. Everyone prays when they want something badly enough. But what if this is your test? What if Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala has written that the love you keep begging for will be your reward in Jannah, not here? What if you spend your entire life waiting for someone who was never meant to come? Heart: But Allah will not break my heart. He has never broken my heart. Mind: You know what your problem is, Sara? You keep believing you deserve tenderness simply because you can feel it. What if you don't deserve anything? What if nobody ever chooses you? What if there is nothing waiting for you? Heart: I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe I am asking for something I was never meant to have. Maybe I am foolish. Maybe I am too hopeful. But… I want to feel loved. Mind: Loved? What do you even mean by loved? What does that word mean to you anymore? You have spent your whole life running behind this one thing—being chosen, being understood, being someone's home—and you still aren't tired? Heart: I am tired. That's the worst part. I am so tired. I just don't know how to stop wanting what my soul has been whispering about for years. Mind: Then stop whispering. Heart: I don't know how. Mind: Learn. Heart: I'm trying. Mind: Try harder. Heart: I have. I swear to Allah, I have. But some nights, I don't want another lesson. I don't want another test. I just want to believe that somewhere in this world, there is a love Allah has written for me that will not make me regret having a heart.

Mind: Enough, Zahra. Stop humiliating yourself. You have begged enough. Prayed enough. Dreamed enough. Maybe no one is coming. Maybe there is no great love waiting behind some unseen door. Maybe you were simply born with a heart too hungry for a world that does not feed hungry hearts. So stop asking. Stop hoping. Stop imagining someone's hands will ever be gentle with you. The Heart tried to answer, but the words dissolved somewhere between its throat and its wounds. Heart: But… I only wanted to be loved. Mind: And perhaps that is precisely what you will never have. The sentence fell like a blade. The Heart did not scream. It simply stopped fighting. One by one, its little hopes folded themselves into silence the imagined voice, the warm hand, the ordinary evenings, the person who would stay, the home it had built out of prayers. Everything died quietly, without ceremony, like flowers pressed between the pages of a book no one ever opened again. The Heart bled where nobody could see it. Zahra turned toward the wall, pulled the blanket beneath her chin, and closed her eyes. A tear slipped down her temple into her hair. She did not wipe it away. Perhaps this was what dying looked like not the body ceasing to breathe, but a small, tender part of you finally becoming too exhausted to hope. And that night, Zahra fell asleep with her heart still beating, but with something inside it lying very still.

~ZAHRA ARIF KHAN🌸

Perhaps the emptiness inside you is not a void. Perhaps it is a homesickness for Allah.

There comes a strange season in a person's life when nothing is necessarily wrong, and yet nothing feels right. You wake up beneath the same ceiling, walk through the same rooms, answer the same people, perform the same responsibilities, and somehow feel as though you are watching your own life from a distance. You are present, but you are not really there. You laugh, but the laughter does not reach the deepest chambers of your heart. You achieve something you prayed for and, after the excitement disappears, you find yourself staring at the ceiling again, wondering why the thing you thought would save you could not even stay long enough to make you feel whole

. You begin to wonder whether something is wrong with you. Why does the heart become tired even when the body has barely moved? Why does a person become homesick for a place they have never been? Why can you be surrounded by people and still feel unbearably alone? Why can you have a hundred reasons to be grateful and still wake up with an unnamed heaviness sitting upon your chest? Perhaps because there are wounds that no worldly possession can touch. Perhaps because the human heart was created with a door in it that only Allah can enter.

And when that door remains closed for too long, everything else begins to feel strangely insufficient. We spend years trying to furnish an emptiness that was never asking for furniture. We fill our phones, our rooms, our schedules, our friendships, our bank accounts, our achievements, our photographs, our futures and then wonder why the silence still sounds the same when the night comes. We keep adding things to a heart that is not asking for more things. It is asking for its Lord. Allah tells us, “Surely, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find comfort.” (Qur'an 13:28). There is something devastatingly beautiful about this verse because Allah does not promise that the heart will find its deepest rest in getting everything it wants. He does not say the heart will become tranquil when you finally become beautiful enough, successful enough, loved enough, rich enough, married enough, admired enough, or accomplished enough. The heart finds its itmi'nan in Him. ❤️

And perhaps this is the secret we spend half our lives learning and the other half relearning: the world can entertain the heart, distract the heart, stimulate the heart, flatter the heart, even temporarily comfort the heart but it cannot become the home of the heart. Because the heart belongs to Allah. And sometimes Allah allows you to become exhausted by everything else precisely so that you finally stop asking everything else to be what only He can be

.

There are moments when life becomes so confusing that you no longer know which road to take

. Every direction seems uncertain. The plans you made begin collapsing one after another. The future becomes a fog. You start asking, What is the point? Where am I going? What am I even supposed to do with this life? And I want you to remember something before despair convinces you that your story has already been written in disappointment: Allah can change a life in a moment. The same Allah who opened the sea for Musa عليه السلام does not need a thousand years to open a door for you. The same Allah who brought Zakariyya عليه السلام a child when worldly circumstances appeared impossible does not require circumstances to make sense before answering you. The same Allah who brought Yusuf عليه السلام from the darkness of a well to the honour of a position he could never have imagined does not need you to understand the route by which He will take you to your destination. You are looking at the road. Allah is looking at the entire map. You are looking at the locked door. Allah knows what is behind it. You are looking at the delay. Allah knows what the delay is protecting you from. You are looking at the absence. Allah knows what is being prepared in the unseen. So never confuse delay with denial, and never confuse silence with abandonment. A closed door is not proof that Allah has forgotten your address. Sometimes Allah closes a door because you were about to walk into a room that would have destroyed you. Sometimes He removes something because you were beginning to worship it without realizing it. Sometimes He lets you lose what you loved because He knows that if you kept it, you would eventually lose Him. And there is another uncomfortable reality that we must be brave enough to discuss: the unseen exists. The Qur'an teaches us to seek refuge from the evil of envy, and the Prophet ﷺ taught us authentic forms of protection and ruqyah. But faith does not mean turning every unanswered dua, every illness, every failure, every bad day, every financial problem, and every closed door into evidence of evil eye or supernatural harm. We must learn the balance between spiritual awareness and spiritual paranoia. Protect yourself, yes. Read your adhkar. Recite Qur'an. Make ruqyah. Seek refuge in Allah. But do not become so terrified of the eyes of people that you forget the protection of the One who created those eyes. Do not become obsessed with wondering who envied you while neglecting to ask what is happening inside your own heart. Because perhaps the most frightening eye is sometimes the eye that looks at another person's blessing and silently wishes, I wish they did not have it. We are very comfortable speaking about the envy of others, but much less comfortable admitting that envy sometimes visits us too. You see someone's marriage and something inside you aches. Someone gets accepted into the university you wanted and your smile becomes slightly heavier. Someone becomes beautiful in the way you always wished to be. Someone's father is proud of them. Someone receives the opportunity you spent years praying for. And suddenly you are forced to meet a version of yourself you did not know existed. A version capable of looking at another person's blessing and feeling pain because it was not yours. Do not romanticize that feeling. Do not feed it. But do not despair because you discovered it either. The heart is a battlefield, and purification is a lifelong war. Say, Ya Allah, purify me from hasad. Bless them, and bless me with what is good for me. Make me content with Your decree. Because someone else's rizq does not mean Allah has run out of yours. Their wedding did not cancel yours. Their acceptance did not reject you. Their beauty did not steal yours. Their success did not make Allah less capable of blessing you. Allah's خزائن do not become smaller because someone else received something beautiful. The ocean does not become less of an ocean because one person filled a cup from it. So stop looking at another person's chapter as evidence that Allah has forgotten to write yours. You do not know what Allah is doing with your life simply because you cannot see it. And perhaps you have also learned a painful lesson about privacy: not every blessing needs an audience. Not every plan needs to be announced. Not every dream needs to be carried into every room. Some blessings are safer when they remain between you and Allah until they become reality. Not because every human being is secretly waiting for your downfall, but because the heart is fragile and the dunya is full of eyes, opinions, comparisons, and unnecessary noise. Sometimes silence is not fear. Sometimes silence is wisdom. And if your heart has become empty, do not wait until you feel religious enough to return to Allah. Return while you are numb. Return while your prayers feel heavy. Return while your iman is weak. Return while you are ashamed. Return while you are still carrying the sins you promised yourself you would never repeat. Return while you are disappointed in yourself. Return while you cannot even formulate a beautiful dua. Allah does not ask you to return as a perfect servant. He asks you to return. Perhaps your entire spiritual journey will be nothing more glamorous than falling and returning, falling and returning, falling and returning—until one day you realize that the greatest evidence of Allah's mercy was not that you never fell, but that He kept giving you the desire to get back up. Shaytan does not always need to make you love your sins. Sometimes he only needs to make you ashamed of returning. He whispers, Look at what you have done. How can you stand before Allah after this? And you must answer him: Because there is nowhere else to go. I am not returning because I am worthy of His mercy. I am returning because He is Ar-Rahman. I am not returning because I am pure. I am returning because He is the One who purifies. I am not returning because I have never betrayed my own promises. I am returning because He has never stopped opening the door of repentance. Allah says, “Do not despair of the mercy of Allah.” (Qur'an 39:53). There are few things more beautiful than the fact that Allah did not tell the sinner, You are too far away. He told them not to despair. So if you want to rebuild your life, do not begin with a hundred impossible promises. Begin quietly. Wake before Fajr if you are able. Let there be a portion of the night that belongs only to you and Allah. Pray two rak'ahs. Sit there when the world is asleep. Tell Allah what you cannot tell anyone else. Tell Him about the fear you hide beneath your confidence. Tell Him about the dream you are embarrassed to admit you still want. Tell Him about the person you cannot forgive. Tell Him about the sin you keep returning to. Tell Him that you are tired. Tell Him that you are confused. Tell Him that you do not know what you are doing anymore. There is no performance required in front of Allah. You do not need sophisticated vocabulary. A broken Ya Rabb can contain more truth than a thousand polished sentences. Then pray Fajr. Stay for a while after the prayer. Make istighfar. Send salawat upon the Prophet ﷺ. Read Qur'an. Let the first voice your soul hears in the morning be the remembrance of its Creator rather than the endless demands of the world. And when the sun rises, pray Duha if you are able. Then go into the world and do what you are supposed to do. Study. Work. Apply. Build. Heal. Exercise. Learn. Try again. Make the phone call. Send the application. Ask for forgiveness. Ask for help. See the doctor when you need medical care. Seek professional support when life becomes too heavy to carry alone. Islam never taught us that tawakkul means abandoning the means. The Prophet ﷺ taught us the principle beautifully: tie your camel and trust Allah. Tie the camel. Then trust Allah. Make the effort with your hands and surrender the outcome with your heart. Pray Dhuhr. Continue your day. Give sadaqah. It does not have to be extravagant. Perhaps it is twenty rupees. Perhaps it is food. Perhaps it is water. Perhaps it is helping someone carry something. Perhaps it is kindness to someone who cannot repay you. Do not despise small goodness simply because it cannot be photographed. Some of the deeds that matter most will never be witnessed by another human being. And then, when the day begins to disappear, return to Allah again. Pray Maghrib. Read Qur'an. Make your evening adhkar. Pray Isha. And then let the world become quiet. Sleep with the intention that you will wake again. Set the alarm. Because sometimes your spiritual revival begins with something as ordinary as deciding that you will no longer allow your sleep to consume every opportunity to stand before your Lord. And throughout all of this, make Astaghfirullah a language your tongue knows instinctively. Not as a magical formula. Not as a transaction where you count words and demand outcomes. But as an admission of dependence. Astaghfirullah means: Ya Allah, I have wronged myself. Ya Allah, I have forgotten. Ya Allah, I have become distracted. Ya Allah, I have chased things that were never worthy of my heart. Ya Allah, I have been ungrateful. Ya Allah, I have allowed the dunya to become louder than You. Forgive me. Bring me back. And perhaps the deepest form of istighfar is not merely asking Allah to remove the consequences of your sins, but asking Him to remove the version of you that keeps returning to them. There is a difference between wanting forgiveness and wanting transformation. We often ask Allah to forgive the same sin while secretly making no intention to leave the road that leads back to it. We want the mercy of Allah without the discomfort of changing ourselves. But real repentance rearranges a person. It changes what they tolerate. It changes what they chase. It changes what they call success. It changes what they are willing to lose for Allah. And perhaps this is where the emptiness begins to disappear—not because suddenly everything in your life becomes beautiful, but because you finally understand what your life is for. Your purpose was never to collect enough worldly things that you could finally stop being afraid. Your purpose was never to become so admired that nobody could reject you. Your purpose was never to become so successful that you could finally prove your worth. You were created to worship Allah. And worship is not merely prayer beads and prayer mats. Worship is honesty when lying would benefit you. Worship is patience when you have every excuse to become cruel. Worship is lowering your gaze when nobody would know. Worship is earning halal when haram would be easier. Worship is forgiving when revenge feels sweeter. Worship is getting up for Fajr when your body begs you to stay asleep. Worship is studying because you have been entrusted with an ability. Worship is serving your parents. Worship is feeding someone. Worship is controlling your tongue. Worship is refusing to become the person your pain wants you to become. And perhaps one of the darkest truths of growing closer to Allah is this: sometimes Allah will not remove the test immediately because He is using the test to remove something from you. Pride. Attachment. Arrogance. Dependence on people. Obsession with control. The need to be understood. The need to be chosen. The need to know exactly what tomorrow contains. We ask Allah to change our circumstances while He is trying to change our hearts. We say, Ya Allah, remove this hardship, while perhaps Allah is saying through the hardship, Let Me remove what this hardship revealed about you. And when you understand this, suffering begins to look different. It does not become pleasant. Pain is still pain. Loss is still loss. A broken heart still hurts. But suddenly the darkness is no longer meaningless. You begin to see that perhaps there are lessons hidden inside the wounds that could never have been learned in comfort. Perhaps the thing you called a delay was training. Perhaps the person you called a loss was protection. Perhaps the rejection you cried over was redirection. Perhaps the door you begged Allah to open would have led you away from Him. And perhaps the emptiness itself was mercy—a terrifying mercy, but mercy nonetheless—because it made you realize that the world could never be enough. So if you are standing in the ruins of a life you thought would look completely different by now, do not assume Allah has abandoned you. Yusuf عليه السلام had a well before he had a palace. Musa عليه السلام had a sea before he saw it part. Maryam عليها السلام had labour pains beneath a palm tree before Allah brought provision from where she could not have expected it. The story is never only the moment you are currently living. You are reading one page and calling it the whole book. Allah knows every page. And yes, He can change everything in a moment. He can bring the opportunity. He can open the door. He can send the person. He can solve the problem. He can restore what you thought was permanently lost. He can make the impossible possible. But until that moment comes, let Him change you in the waiting. Let the waiting make you softer, not bitter. Let disappointment make you wiser, not cruel. Let rejection make you more dependent on Allah, not more desperate for human approval. Let unanswered duas deepen your relationship with the One to whom you are making them. Let your loneliness become a place where you meet Allah instead of a place where you hate yourself. Let your failures teach you humility. Let your blessings teach you gratitude. Let your sins teach you repentance. Let your wounds teach you mercy. Let the things you cannot control teach you surrender. Because perhaps the greatest miracle Allah can give you is not always the thing you begged Him for. Sometimes it is the heart you become while waiting for it. Sometimes the blessing is not that Allah gives you the world. Sometimes the blessing is that He gives you the world without allowing the world to possess you. So tie your camel. Make the effort. Guard your salah. Read Qur'an. Make ruqyah and authentic adhkar. Give sadaqah. Make istighfar until your tongue becomes familiar with returning. Send salawat. Protect your heart from envy. Ask Allah to purify you from the envy you find within yourself. Keep your blessings private when wisdom calls for privacy. Do not live in fear of people's eyes. Live beneath the protection of Allah. Take worldly means. Seek knowledge. Seek treatment when necessary. Seek counsel. Work for what you want. And then, after you have done everything within your ability, place the outcome where it has always belonged: with Allah.

Because you may not know what tomorrow holds, but Allah does. You may not know how the story ends, but Allah does. You may not know which door will open, but Allah does. And perhaps one morning you will wake up and realize that the thing you thought would take ten years happened in ten minutes. The opportunity arrived. The phone rang. The email came. The door opened. The answer appeared. And you will sit there stunned by how quickly Allah changed what you had spent years believing was impossible. And when that happens, do not say, I was lucky. Say, Alhamdulillah. Do not say, I finally fixed my life. Say, Allah carried me here.

Do not become so fascinated by the miracle that you forget the Miracle-Giver. Because the most dangerous moment is not always when you have nothing. Sometimes it is when you finally have everything you wanted and forget Who gave it to you. So if your heart is empty tonight, perhaps do not rush to fill it with another person, another achievement, another purchase, another distraction, another dream. Sit with the emptiness for a moment. Listen to what it is trying to tell you. Maybe it is not saying, Give me more. Maybe it is whispering, Take me back. Maybe your soul is not starving for the world. Maybe it is starving for its Creator. And perhaps the entire journey back to Allah begins with one small, trembling sentence whispered into the darkness when nobody else can hear you: “Ya Allah, I have spent so long trying to find my way without You. I do not know how to come back, but I am coming anyway. Take me back.” And maybe that is where the emptiness finally begins to close not because the world suddenly became kind, not because every prayer was immediately answered, not because every wound disappeared overnight, but because you finally remembered where your heart belongen d. To Allah. Always to Allah.

Sometimes the mercy of Allah finds you in the exact place where you thought you were least worthy of being found. Sometimes He finds you in the room where you are crying over the person you used to be. Sometimes He finds you beneath the weight of a mistake you wish you could erase. Sometimes He finds you when your iman feels so weak that even saying “Ya Rabb” feels like lifting something impossibly heavy with trembling hands. And sometimes, when you are convinced that you have wandered too far, Allah quietly reminds you that you were never outside His knowledge for even a moment.

“

I was crying. Not the beautiful kind of crying that happens after a long dua in tahajjud, when your forehead is against the prayer mat and your heart finally says everything it has been carrying. No. This was the ugly crying. The kind where your chest hurts and your eyes burn and you keep wiping your face because you are angry that someone else's words managed to enter a place inside you that was already bruised. Someone had been taunting me. And not gently. Not jokingly. He kept bringing up something I had done once, something I genuinely regretted. Once, I wrote a line from a smut novel on a page. And wallahi, it was bad. I am not going to romanticize it. I am not going to pretend it was some innocent little mistake that meant nothing to me. It was something I looked back at and thought, “Ya Allah, why did I even write that?” There are things we do in our lives that, when we remember them later, make us want to crawl out of our own skin. Not because we are necessarily the same person anymore, but because we have grown enough to recognize what was wrong with the person we were then. And perhaps that is one of the strangest signs of growth: you become ashamed of things you once thought were normal. You become uncomfortable with things you once entertained. You look at an old version of yourself and think, “I don't want to be her anymore.” And that should have been the end of it. I had already regretted it. I had already felt ashamed. I had already asked Allah for forgiveness. But apparently, someone else had decided that my mistake was going to become my permanent identity. So he taunted me. Again. And again. And again. Until eventually, I broke. I cried because I was angry. I cried because I was embarrassed. I cried because I hated being reminded of something I had already repented from. And somewhere beneath all of that anger was a quieter fear: “What if this is who I really am?” That question hurts differently. Because sometimes the worst punishment isn't someone else's insult. It's when their words become so loud that you begin repeating them to yourself. You begin seeing yourself through their eyes. You begin thinking, “Maybe I am disgusting. Maybe I am hypocritical. Maybe I don't deserve to talk about Allah. Maybe I don't deserve to pray after everything I've done. Maybe I am too inconsistent. Maybe my iman is too weak. Maybe Allah is tired of me.” And then I opened Pinterest. I wasn't looking for anything profound. I wasn't searching for a sign. I wasn't sitting there with my Qur'an open, waiting for some miraculous sentence. I was just scrolling. And the very first image I saw stopped me. I stared at it. And wallahi, my heart just broke.

Because suddenly, I remembered something I had been forgetting: Allah had not stopped caring about me. Not because I had been perfect. Not because my prayers had been perfectly consistent. Not because my iman had been soaring. Not because I had never sinned. Not because I had somehow earned His attention. But because He is Allah. And His mercy is not as fragile as my iman. There are days when your faith feels like a dying candle. You know those days. You pray, but your heart isn't there. You make dua, but you feel nothing. You open the Qur'an and read the words, but your mind wanders. You miss a prayer. Then another. And suddenly you are embarrassed to stand before Allah because you have been avoiding Him. You tell yourself, “I'll start tomorrow.” Tomorrow becomes Monday. Monday becomes next week. Next week becomes Ramadan. Ramadan ends. And somehow months have passed while you keep waiting to become the person who is worthy of returning. But listen to me, gently, as though I were speaking to the smallest and most frightened part of your heart: you don't return to Allah because you have become worthy. You return because you need Him. You don't wait until your heart is clean to wash it. You wash it because it is dirty. You don't wait until you become spiritually strong before you pray. You pray because you are weak. You don't wait until you stop sinning before you turn toward Allah. You turn toward Allah because you cannot fight your sins alone. And perhaps one of Shaytan's most effective tricks is convincing you that you must become better before you are allowed to come home. As though the prayer mat is a reward for the righteous. As though the Qur'an belongs only to people who never fall. As though dua is reserved for people who have their lives together. No. The prayer mat is precisely where the broken person belongs. The Qur'an is not a trophy for the perfect; it is guidance for the lost. And Allah does not tell the sinner, “Become flawless, then come.” He tells His servants who have transgressed against themselves, “Do not despair of the mercy of Allah” (Qur'an 39:53). Look at the tenderness of that verse. Allah does not say, “O people who never sinned.” He addresses those who have transgressed against themselves. The people who know they messed up. The people who carry regret. The people who have things in their past that make their hearts sink. And then He tells them not to despair. As if Allah knows that sometimes the greatest danger after sin is not the sin itself, but believing that the door home has disappeared. I had been inconsistent with my prayers. I have to say that honestly. My iman had been low. There were moments when I felt spiritually empty. There were days when I knew I should pray and still struggled to get myself up. And sometimes that shame itself became another reason to stay away. Because guilt can become strange. Healthy guilt says, “I did something wrong. Let me return.” Destructive shame says, “I am wrong. There is no point in returning.” One leads you to Allah. The other makes you hide from Him. And I think we sometimes confuse the two. We think feeling horrible about ourselves is proof of piety. It isn't. Allah does not ask you to hate yourself into righteousness. He asks you to return to Him. He loves those who repent. The Qur'an says, “Indeed, Allah loves those who are constantly repentant” (2:222). Do you understand what that means? Your repentance does not make you someone Allah merely tolerates. Repentance is beloved to Him. The moment you turn back sincerely is not a moment in which you become an embarrassment before Allah. It is a moment in which you are doing something He loves. So if your regret brings you closer to Allah, let it soften you. If your regret makes you believe you are permanently ruined, challenge it. Because Allah did not ask you to spend your entire life staring at your past. He asked you to turn back. And turning back is an action. A beautiful one. Maybe Allah's mercy is most beautiful when you know you don't deserve it. Think about it. If you were perfect, you wouldn't be astonished by mercy. If you never fell, you wouldn't understand what it means to be lifted. If you never sinned, you wouldn't know the sweetness of repentance. But when you know exactly what you have done, when you know your own weaknesses, your private failures, your embarrassing moments, your inconsistent worship, your distracted heart, your ugly thoughts, your moments of disobedience, and then Allah still opens the door, what do you call that? Mercy. Not because the sin becomes good. It doesn't. Not because we should become comfortable with disobedience. We shouldn't. But because Allah is greater than the worst version of you. Your sin is not bigger than His forgiveness. Your inconsistency is not bigger than His invitation. Your weakness is not bigger than His power. Your past is not bigger than His mercy. Allah Himself says, “Do not despair of the mercy of Allah” (39:53). So don't turn your regret into a grave and bury yourself inside it. Repentance is supposed to be a doorway, not a prison. And Abu Jahl can keep talking. I say this with a little smile now. Because there will always be someone who remembers the version of you that Allah has already allowed you to outgrow. Someone will dig through your past and hold it over your head. Someone will take a mistake you made at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and turn it into evidence that you are permanently that person. Someone will weaponize your regret. But people don't get to decide who you are after repentance. They don't get to become the judge of a chapter Allah has already allowed you to close. And perhaps the most powerful response isn't to convince them. It is to stop explaining yourself. You know what you did. Allah knows what you did. You regretted it. You asked Him for forgiveness. Now keep walking. You don't owe everyone a courtroom defense of your entire life. Especially not someone who has made a hobby out of humiliating you. There is a difference between accountability and humiliation. Accountability says, “That was wrong. Don't do it again.” Humiliation says, “You did something wrong, therefore you are worthless.” The first can reform a person. The second can destroy them. And I refuse to let someone else's cruelty become the theology through which I understand Allah. Because Allah does not speak to you the way Abu Jahl does. This is the part I wish we understood. Sometimes someone hurts us so badly that we unconsciously begin imagining Allah speaking to us in their voice. “How could you? Again? After everything? You call yourself religious? Look at you. You don't deserve forgiveness.” But that isn't the voice of divine mercy. The Qur'an says that Allah knows what the soul whispers and that He is “closer to him than his jugular vein” (Qur'an 50:16). He knows the thought you were too ashamed to say aloud. He knows the wound beneath the sin. He knows the loneliness beneath the mistake. He knows the battle nobody else saw. He knows what happened before you ever found the courage to tell Him. And still He tells His servants not to despair. There is an entire relationship waiting for you on the other side of your shame. And perhaps that is why repentance is so beautiful. Because it isn't merely, “I am sorry for what I did.” It is, “Ya Allah, I am coming back to You despite what I did.” Do you know what broke my heart the most? It wasn't the taunting. It was realizing that I had spent so much time thinking Allah must be disappointed in me that I had forgotten how desperately I wanted to return to Him. I had been looking at my own failures so intensely that I stopped looking at His mercy. I was counting my missed prayers. He was opening the door. I was counting my sins. He was giving me another morning. I was remembering the person I used to be. He was giving me the opportunity to become someone new. I was thinking, “I'm not good enough for Allah.” And perhaps the answer was never, “Yes, you are.” Perhaps the answer was, “You don't have to be perfect. Just come.” Just come. With your messy heart. Come with your guilt. Come with your unfinished repentance. Come with your trembling hands. Come with your weak iman. Come after missing prayers. Come after crying. Come after failing. Come after falling. Come while still struggling. Just don't convince yourself that you have to stay away until you're perfect. Your iman will have seasons. There will be days when you wake up for Fajr before the alarm. There will be days when Qur'an feels like oxygen. There will be nights when dua pours out of you so naturally that you don't even notice the time. And then there will be days when even getting up feels difficult. There will be days when your heart feels alive. And there will be days when it feels like a locked room. That doesn't mean you stop being a servant of Allah. It means you are human. The goal isn't to feel spiritually euphoric every second of your life. The goal is to keep returning. Again. And again. And again. Perhaps consistency isn't never falling. Perhaps consistency is becoming someone who knows the road home. And maybe that Pinterest image was not a miracle in the dramatic sense. Maybe it was just an algorithm. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe Pinterest simply showed me an image. But I know what it did to my heart. And sometimes I think we become too obsessed with proving whether something was technically a sign that we forget to notice what it taught us. It reminded me. That was enough. It reminded me that Allah's mercy had not disappeared just because my iman had weakened. It reminded me that one ugly chapter does not erase an entire story. It reminded me that regret can be evidence that your heart isn't dead. A dead heart doesn't care. A heart that says, “Ya Allah, I wish I hadn't done that,” is still turning. Even if slowly. Even if painfully. Even if imperfectly. Maybe you are closer to Allah than you think. Maybe the fact that you are crying over your distance from Him is itself evidence that you still desire closeness. Maybe the fact that missing salah bothers you means you haven't stopped caring about salah. Maybe the fact that you feel guilty means you still know where home is. Maybe the fact that you are ashamed of your old self means Allah has already changed something inside you. And maybe, just maybe, the door you think has been closed is the door He is waiting for you to knock on. So knock. Even weakly. Knock. Don't make a permanent identity out of a temporary weakness. You are not the girl who once wrote something inappropriate. You are not the girl who missed prayers. You are not the girl whose iman became weak. You are not the girl who failed. You are not the girl who disappointed someone. You are a servant of Allah who is still becoming. And becoming is messy. There will be mistakes. There will be repentance. There will be setbacks. There will be mornings when you pray beautifully and evenings when you struggle. There will be days when you feel incredibly close to Allah and days when you wonder where your heart went. Keep returning. That is the story. Not perfection. Return. And if you have sinned, repent. Then stop punishing yourself after Allah has given you a path forward. This does not mean taking sin lightly. It means taking repentance seriously. If you did something wrong, admit it. Leave it. Ask Allah to forgive you. Try not to return to it. Repair whatever needs repairing. And then live. Become better. Learn. Grow. Pray. Laugh. Read. Make tea. Look at the sky. Wear the clothes you stopped wearing. Take the pictures you stopped taking. Become alive again. You do not honor Allah by permanently hating yourself. You honor Him by becoming better because you love Him. And tonight, I don't want to ask Allah for a perfect version of myself. I want to ask Him for a heart that keeps returning. For a heart that is ashamed of sin without becoming hopeless. For a heart that loves Him even when it doesn't feel spiritual. For a heart that gets up after falling. For a heart that doesn't let people become the judge of its relationship with Allah. For a heart that remembers that Allah is not waiting for me to become perfect. Allah is waiting for me to come back. And perhaps that is the most beautiful thing about being a believer. You can lose your way ten thousand times, and the road to Allah is still there. You can spend months feeling distant, and His door is still open. You can come carrying a mountain of regret, and mercy is still greater. You can whisper, “Ya Rabb, I don't even know how to come back,” and then take one step. Just one. Pray one salah. Open one page of Qur'an. Say Astaghfirullah once and mean it. Put your forehead on the ground. Cry if you need to. And tell Him the truth: “Ya Allah, I have been far away. But I don't want to stay far away.” Maybe that is enough for tonight. Maybe tomorrow you'll do better. And if tomorrow you stumble again, come back again. Because your relationship with Allah is not a performance for people. It is not a competition. It is not a spotless résumé. It is a lifetime of returning to the One who knew you before you knew yourself. And if today your iman is barely breathing, don't bury it. Hold it. Protect it. Take it back to Allah. If all you can manage tonight is one trembling “Ya Rabb,” then let that trembling word be the beginning. If all you can manage is one sajdah, then let that sajdah be your way home. If all you can manage is tears, then let Allah receive those tears before you find the words. You do not need eloquence to speak to the One who already knows what your soul whispers. You do not need a beautiful dua when your heart can only say, “Help me.” You do not need to explain your wounds to the One who was there when they were made. And perhaps this is what a traumatized heart needs to hear most: you are allowed to stop running. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to come home. You are allowed to be held by the mercy of Allah without first proving that you deserve to be held. The Qur'an tells us, “Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor has He detested you” (Qur'an 93:3). So breathe, little heart. Breathe. Allah has not abandoned you because you are struggling. Allah has not forgotten you because you cried. Allah has not closed His door because you fell. Allah knows the childlike part of you that is frightened of being punished forever. Allah knows the part of you that wants to hide because you are ashamed. Allah knows the part of you that still wants to be good. And perhaps mercy is not Allah saying, “You were never broken.” Perhaps mercy is Allah saying, “You were broken, and I can still make you whole.” You are not your worst night. You are not your most shameful sentence. You are not the mistake someone keeps throwing at you. You are not the prayer you missed. You are not the season in which your iman became weak. You are not the person you were before you knew better. You are a soul still being written. You are a servant still returning. You are a heart still capable of saying Ya Allah. And as long as you can still say Ya Allah, don't tell yourself the story that you are too far gone. Come back. Come back crying. Come back embarrassed. Come back exhausted. Come back with your hands shaking. Come back with no beautiful words. Come back with only a whisper. Come back because Allah's mercy is not waiting on the other side of your perfection. It is waiting on the other side of your return. And wallahi, I would rather spend the rest of my life walking slowly toward Allah than spend one more day believing that I am too broken to return. So if tonight you are crying, let yourself cry. But don't cry as someone abandoned. Cry as someone being called home. Don't put your forehead on the ground because you are worthless. Put it there because you have finally remembered where your worth belongs. Don't whisper “Astaghfirullah” because you think Allah hates you. Whisper it because He is Al-Ghafoor. Don't raise your hands because you have earned the right to ask. Raise them because He is the One who taught you to call upon Him. And when your heart tells you, “You are too far,” answer it gently: “Allah is nearer than I imagined.” When your past tells you, “You are still her,” answer it: “Allah has allowed me to become someone new.” When shame says, “Hide,” answer it: “My Lord told me not to despair.” When your iman whispers, “I am barely alive,” answer it: “Then I will carry you back to Allah until you can walk again.” And maybe that is what I needed to remember tonight. That while I was crying because someone was reminding me of who I used to be, Allah was quietly reminding me that I don't have to remain her. That while someone was holding my past over my head, Allah was teaching me to lift my head toward Him. That while I was counting every reason to feel ashamed, Allah was reminding me of a thousand reasons to hope. And wallahi, perhaps the most beautiful thing is not that I never fell. Perhaps it is that I fell, and Allah taught me the direction of home. I was crying because someone reminded me of my past. Allah reminded me of my future. I was looking at the version of myself I hated. Allah was looking at the servant I could still become. I thought I had lost my way. Perhaps I had simply forgotten to look up. So look up, beloved heart. Look up. Your Lord has not left you. Your Lord has not forgotten you. Your Lord knows. Your Lord sees. Your Lord hears. Your Lord is near. And the road home is still there. Walk it slowly. Crawl if you must. Cry as you go. Stop when you need to breathe. But keep turning toward Him. Because sometimes the weakest whisper of “Ya Rabb” is enough to begin an entire journey home. And perhaps tonight, that is all you need to say: “Ya Allah, I have been far away, but I don't want to stay far away.” Then let the tears fall. Let the heart soften. Let the shame loosen its grip. Let the past remain where it belongs. And come home.

Love, when it is not anchored to Allah, has the power to become an obsession. The Qur'an does not hide this reality. Instead, it presents it with remarkable honesty. Allah says:

"And she, in whose house he was, sought to seduce him. She bolted the doors and said, 'Come to me.' He replied, 'I seek refuge in Allah. Surely my master has treated me well. Indeed, the wrongdoers never succeed.'" (Surah Yusuf 12:23)

Pause at this moment. A house with every door locked. No witnesses. No escape. A woman consumed by her desire. A young man far from his family, sold into slavery, carrying no worldly power. From every human perspective, Yusuf (AS) was vulnerable. Yet the first words that left his lips were not words of fear they were words of faith: "I seek refuge in Allah." Before he protected his reputation, he protected his relationship with his Lord. That is the difference between love that is driven by the nafs and love that is guided by taqwa. One demands, while the other surrenders. One says, "I must have what my heart desires." The other says, "I will only take what Allah has made lawful for me."

When Yusuf (AS) fled, she ran after him, and in desperation she tore his shirt from behind. But when the door opened and her husband stood before them, the truth was not the first thing she chose. Fear overcame honesty. To protect herself, she immediately shifted the blame onto Yusuf (AS). Allah says:

"She said, 'What should be the punishment of one who intended evil for your wife except imprisonment or a painful punishment?'" (Surah Yusuf 12:25)

How familiar this scene is throughout history. Sometimes the innocent stand accused while the guilty hide behind convincing words. Yet Allah is Al-Haqq the Absolute Truth. Human beings may succeed in deceiving one another for a while, but no one can deceive Allah. Before Yusuf (AS) defended himself, Allah had already begun defending him. A witness from her own household testified that if the shirt was torn from the front, she was telling the truth, but if it was torn from the back, Yusuf (AS) was truthful. When they saw the shirt torn from behind, the evidence spoke louder than any accusation. Yusuf (AS) did not need to manipulate the truth, because Allah Himself became the Protector of his honour.

This is one of the greatest lessons hidden within this passage. When a believer chooses obedience over temptation, they may still be misunderstood, falsely accused, or even made to suffer. But the One who witnessed their sincerity is the One who ultimately unveils the truth. Allah does not abandon those who choose Him over their desires. Even when every door appears to be locked, He is already opening another that no human eye can yet see.

Now there is another perspective.

Among the most beautiful lessons drawn from the story of Zuleikha is not the story of lov it is the story of guidance. At first, her heart was consumed by a love that was misplaced. It was a love that pushed her towards obsession, deception, and eventually the imprisonment of an innocent man. She desired Yusuf (عليه السلام) so intensely that she was willing to sacrifice truth for the sake of her own longing. Yet Allah, the One who turns hearts, had written a different ending for her story. Time passed. Years passed. Yusuf (عليه السلام) endured prison with patience,

while Allah elevated his rank through every trial. Meanwhile, something far greater was happening within the heart of the woman who had once been responsible for his suffering. Allah guided her. The same heart that had once been attached to a creation slowly became attached to the Creator. Instead of running after Yusuf (عليه السلام), she turned towards Allah. Instead of demanding love from a human being, she begged for the mercy of the Lord of all worlds. Instead of justifying her mistakes, she admitted her sins. This is the true miracle of guidance: it changes not only a person's actions but also the direction of their heart.

The beauty of this perspective is that Allah did not simply forgive her He honored her repentance. According to traditional narrations found in some Islamic historical works, after sincerely repenting, Allah restored what she had lost. It is said that her beauty returned, her youth was renewed, and eventually she was blessed with marriage to Yusuf (عليه السلام). Whether every detail of these narrations is historically established or not, the lesson they convey is profoundly moving. When a servant leaves something for the sake of Allah, Allah is capable of returning it in a way far more beautiful than they could ever imagine. Zuleikha's greatest achievement was not that she attained Yusuf (عليه السلام); it was that she attained Allah first. Had she continued chasing Yusuf while remaining distant from her Lord, she would have remained empty no matter what she possessed. But when she sought Allah's forgiveness before seeking anything else, her entire destiny changed. Allah, whose treasures never diminish, granted her dignity after humiliation, peace after regret, hope after despair, and according to these narrations, even the very person she once desired. It is as though Allah was teaching humanity that when your priorities are corrected, your life is corrected.

This perspective speaks to every believer today. We often spend years chasing people, opportunities, relationships, dreams, and worldly ambitions, believing that our happiness lies within them. We exhaust ourselves knocking on the doors of creation while forgetting the Owner of every door. Yet the story of Zuleikha reminds us that the moment a heart sincerely returns to Allah, everything changes. Perhaps Allah grants what we asked for. Perhaps He grants something even better. Perhaps He replaces what we lost with something that brings us closer to Jannah. But one thing is certain: no one who sincerely repents to Allah leaves His mercy empty-handed. Allah is Al-Ghafūr, the Most Forgiving, and Al-Wahhāb, the Ever-Bestowing. He does not merely erase sins; He heals broken hearts, restores honor, opens impossible doors, and gives beyond imagination. The greatest transformation in Zuleikha's story was not the restoration of youth or the fulfillment of a worldly wish it was the transformation of a heart that finally understood that the One worthy of ultimate love was never Yusuf (عليه السلام), but Allah سبحانه وتعالى. And once she found Allah, everything else that was good followed by His permission.

There is a verse in the Qur'an that has always stopped me in my tracks. Not because it lacks hope, but because it is painfully human. When Allah tells us about Maryam (AS), He tells us about a moment so heavy that she cried:

"Oh, I wish I had died before this and had been forgotten, completely forgotten." (Qur'an 19:23)

Think about that for a moment. This was not an ordinary woman. This was Maryam (AS), one of the greatest women to ever walk this earth. The woman chosen above all women. The woman whose name is mentioned in the Qur'an more than any other woman. The woman whose honor Allah Himself defended. Yet before the miracle came, before Isa (AS) was placed in her arms, before history remembered her with love, she stood alone under a palm tree, exhausted, frightened, physically weak, emotionally shattered, and completely overwhelmed. She wasn't questioning Allah. She wasn't losing her faith. She was simply expressing the unbearable weight of a trial that seemed impossible to carry. Allah did not condemn her for those words. Instead, He comforted her. He provided water beneath her feet. Dates above her head. And reassurance for her trembling heart. That is the mercy of Allah. He knew what His servant was carrying before she even finished crying.

I have read this verse so many times, but today... it felt different.

Today, I went to my gynecologist.

She looked at my reports for a few seconds, then looked back at me with concern.

"Zahra," she said, "what are you doing to yourself?"

I smiled awkwardly because I genuinely didn't know the answer.

She continued, "This isn't just weight gain. Your body is inflamed. Your cortisol levels are telling the story. Your nervous system is overwhelmed. Your body isn't responding because you're constantly living in stress."

I sat there confused.

"But I'm not even stressed," I replied.

At least... I thought I wasn't.

Then she asked me something that has been echoing in my head ever since.

"You think you're not stressed because you've become used to surviving in survival mode."

That sentence broke something inside me.

Because she's right.

I don't panic over one big catastrophe.

I panic over tiny things.

A delayed message.

An unanswered email.

A future that hasn't happened yet.

An exam.

A responsibility.

A single mistake.

A single conversation.

A single possibility.

My brain can create a hundred disasters before breakfast.

And somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that this was normal.

Apparently, my body disagrees.

She explained how cortisol doesn't just affect your mind. It affects your hormones. Your metabolism. Your inflammation. Your sleep. Your menstrual cycle. Your energy. Your ability to heal. She told me that my nervous system is waving a white flag.

"You need to stop worrying about everything," she said. "Because your body cannot carry this anymore."

I wish it were that simple.

People often say, "Just don't overthink."

If only they knew.

Overthinking doesn't ask for permission.

Anxiety doesn't knock before entering.

Sometimes your mind is quiet while your body is screaming.

Sometimes you've become so familiar with stress that peace feels unfamiliar.

Sometimes surviving becomes your personality.

And that's terrifying.

Lately, every door feels closed.

Every plan feels uncertain.

Every prayer feels like it's hanging between the heavens and the earth.

I know Allah has blessed me beyond measure.

I know there are people carrying trials far heavier than mine.

I know that every hardship has wisdom.

I know all of that.

But knowing something and emotionally surviving it are two different battles.

Today, for the first time, I understood that verse of Maryam (AS) in a way I never had before.

Not because my pain compares to hers.

It never could.

But because overwhelming pain has a language that doesn't discriminate.

Even the strongest hearts can become exhausted.

Even the most faithful souls can whisper, "I don't know if I can do this anymore."

And Allah recorded those words forever.

Not to shame her.

But to remind us that He already knows what a breaking heart sounds like.

Maybe that's why this verse gives me comfort instead of fear.

Because if Allah preserved the tears of Maryam (AS) in the Qur'an, then perhaps He also sees mine.

Perhaps He sees yours too.

Maybe healing doesn't begin when life becomes easier.

Maybe it begins when we stop pretending we're okay.

Maybe it begins when we admit that we're tired.

Maybe it begins with saying, "Ya Allah, I cannot carry this without You."

Today, my doctor diagnosed my body.

But Allah had already diagnosed my heart long before anyone else noticed.

So maybe this is my reminder.

Not to become stronger.

Not to work harder.

Not to force myself to keep going.

But to return.

To breathe.

To trust.

To place every fear, every unanswered question, every closed door, every anxious thought into the hands of the One who comforted Maryam (AS) beneath that lonely palm tree.

Because if He could create a river beneath dry الأرض...

If He could make a dead palm tree feed a grieving woman...

If He could turn her greatest trial into one of the greatest miracles in history...

Then surely He can find a way through the things I cannot.

And maybe, just maybe, this isn't the end of the story.

Maybe this is only the verse before the miracle.

Ya rab i am so tired.my soul is begging to be taken away.i want to die ya rab.zahra cant take anymore.

He will provide for me. Just as He made a way for Maryam (AS), just as He saved Ibrahim (AS) from the fire, just as He brought Yusuf (AS) out of the well and out of prison, He will make a way for me too. He is my Allah. I don't need to compare my story to anyone else's because I know the One I am calling upon. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows how exhausted I am. He knows how heavy my heart has become. He knows there are days when I feel like I have nothing left to give and that I don't want to keep living like this anymore. He knows every tear I have cried in silence, every fear I have buried, and every prayer I have whispered when no one else could hear me. He knows I cannot carry this burden on my own, and that is exactly why I know He will not leave Zahra alone. He is Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem. The One who never abandons His servants. I don't know when the doors will open, but I know they will, because Allah never leaves a heart that relies upon Him without His mercy. He will make a way for me, even if I cannot see it yet.

«"Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves." (Surah Ar-Ra'd 13:11).»

Notice that Allah did not begin with changing your circumstances. He began with changing what is within you. Because the heart is where every journey begins.

Sometimes we unknowingly carry beliefs that imprison us. We say, "My life has always been difficult." "Nothing ever works out for me." "People like me never get opportunities." "Provision is hard." "Success belongs to everyone else." We repeat these thoughts so often that they quietly settle inside the heart until they begin to feel like truth. Then we raise our hands in du'a, asking Allah to open doors, while deep inside we have already convinced ourselves that those doors will never open.

Allah's mercy is far greater than our imagination. He can create a path where there was no path. He can send provision from where no one expected it. He can heal what every doctor declared impossible. He can unite what seemed forever broken. He can replace years of grief with moments of joy that make you forget how long you cried. But when a heart has become attached to hopelessness, it starts expecting darkness even after dawn has arrived. It mistakes delays for abandonment and tests for rejection. It forgets that Allah is writing a story whose ending it has not yet seen.

This is why Allah teaches us to have a good opinion of Him. Not because every day will be easy, but because every decree comes from the Most Merciful. Your Lord is not looking for reasons to deprive you. He is looking for reasons to bring you closer. Every unanswered du'a is not necessarily a closed door; sometimes it is Allah protecting you from what would have shattered you. Sometimes it is preparation. Sometimes it is purification. Sometimes it is simply because the gift is beautiful enough that it deserves the perfect time.

Look at Prophet Musa (عليه السلام). He stood before an ocean with Pharaoh's army behind him. Everyone around him saw the end. They said, "We have been overtaken." Fear surrounded them from every direction. But Musa (عليه السلام) did not let fear define his heart. He simply said:

«"No! Indeed, my Lord is with me; He will guide me." (Surah Ash-Shu'ara 26:62).»

He did not know the sea would split. He did not know how Allah would save him. He simply knew Who his Lord was. And sometimes that is all a believer needs not the knowledge of how, but certainty in Who.

Perhaps that is what your heart has been searching for all along. Not another explanation. Not another plan. But certainty that Allah has not forgotten you.

The pain you feel is real. The waiting is real. The nights when you cried until sleep overcame you were real. Allah saw every one of them. Not a single tear escaped His knowledge. Not a single sigh went unheard. The One who placed mercy in the heart of a mother has infinitely more mercy for you than any creation could ever possess.

So stop speaking to your heart as if it has already lost. Stop telling yourself that your future is already written in failure. Stop believing that your past has the authority to decide your tomorrow. Your past does not write your qadr. Allah does.

Every morning you wake up is another invitation from Allah to hope again. Another invitation to trust again. Another invitation to make du'a with the certainty that the One who hears you is never incapable of answering you.

Maybe Allah is not delaying because He wants to punish you. Maybe He is delaying because He is preparing something your present self is not yet ready to carry. Maybe He is strengthening your heart before placing the blessing in your hands so that when it arrives, you will recognize that it came only from Him.

So if today your heart is tired, don't let it become hopeless. If your eyes are filled with tears, let those tears become du'a. If your path feels uncertain, remember that the One guiding you can see the destination while you can only see the next step.

Your Lord has never once abandoned His servants. Not Yusuf (عليه السلام) in the well. Not Yunus (عليه السلام) in the darkness of the whale. Not Musa (عليه السلام) before the sea. And He will not abandon you either.

You are not waiting because Allah has forgotten you.

You are waiting because Allah is still writing a story that only He can see.

And when the page finally turns, you will realize that every delay, every tear, every unanswered question, and every silent night was leading you exactly where His mercy intended all along.

Message me

The frightening thing about swallowed words is that they never stay as words. They become seeds.

Every insult you believed. Every "you're too much." Every "you're not enough." Every "no one will ever love you." Every "you're difficult." Every "you're ugly." Every "you're a burden." Every sentence spoken by someone who was hurting, angry, insecure, or careless becomes a tiny seed beneath the soil of your heart. And seeds are patient. They do not demand attention immediately. They wait. They wait for fear. They wait for loneliness. They wait for rejection. Then, quietly, they begin to grow.

One day, someone genuinely loves you, but the roots whisper, "They'll leave." You achieve something beautiful, but the roots whisper, "It was luck. You're still not good enough." You laugh until your stomach hurts, and suddenly an old sentence from years ago appears out of nowhere, wrapping itself around your joy like ivy around a tree. You wonder why happiness feels so difficult to hold. It is because something has been feeding on it for years.

Not every garden inside us grows flowers.

Some people have spent years unknowingly watering weeds planted by other people's mouths. They carry forests that they never chose to plant. Forests of shame. Forests of self-doubt. Forests of guilt. Thick vines ..brutal thick vines that have the ability to choke you hard..that wrap themselves around confidence until confidence can barely breathe. Thorny branches that scratch every beautiful thing that tries to enter their lives. These are not natural parts of who they are. They are parasites. They survive by convincing you that they belong there.

Think about how many memories are attached to words rather than events. Sometimes you cannot even remember what happened, but you remember exactly what someone called you. Isn't that strange? A sentence spoken in ten seconds can echo inside someone for ten years. Human beings heal from broken bones more quickly than they heal from words they believed.

But here is the truth that changed me: a seed can only become a tree if it is allowed to stay in the soil.

You are allowed to dig.

You are allowed to look at an old belief and ask, "Who planted this?" Was it a parent who was carrying wounds they never healed? A teacher who confused criticism with guidance? A friend who projected their own insecurity? A stranger who knew nothing about your story? Why should someone else's pain be allowed to become the architect of your identity?

You are not responsible for every seed that was thrown into your life. But you are responsible for deciding which ones deserve water.

Healing is not pretending the words never hurt. Healing is standing in the middle of your own garden with dirty hands and saying, "This doesn't belong here anymore." It is pulling out the roots one by one, even when they have wrapped themselves around your heart. It is replacing every lie with something gentler, something truer. It is refusing to let another person's temporary opinion become your permanent identity.

The next time someone throws cruel words in your direction, remember that you still have those few precious moments. Those few seconds are sacred. They are the doorway between freedom and captivity. Let the words fall to the ground instead of planting them inside yourself. Not every sentence deserves a home in your soul.

Because the words you swallow will grow roots.

So be careful what you allow to live inside you.

And if you have already swallowed too many, know this: gardens can be restored. Dead branches can be cut away. Weeds can be pulled out. New seeds can be planted.the thick vines can be cut apart…their nector will spread on your body ..and it qill taks time to clean yourself but what matters is this that in the end .you will be healed.Your heart was never created to be a graveyard for other people's cruelty. It was created to be a place where mercy, hope, love, and truth could bloom.

Message me

. Suppose you are in a shopping mall, and your father comes to pick you up. While driving home, he suddenly takes a road you have never seen before. You become confused and ask him, "Where are we going?" He calmly replies, "This is another route. Don't worry, we will reach home." At that moment, you do not panic. You do not call the police. You do not assume that you have been taken somewhere dangerous. Instead, you sit peacefully because you trust your father. You know that even if you do not recognize the road, he does. You know that he is not trying to harm you. You know that he will never abandon you in the middle of nowhere or leave you in a ditch. The unfamiliar road does not frighten you because the person leading you is someone you trust.

Now think about our lives. There are moments when everything changes unexpectedly. The path ahead becomes unfamiliar. Doors close, plans fail, prayers seem delayed, and nothing makes sense. We begin to panic because we cannot see where life is taking us. We become anxious because we cannot understand Allah's plan. Yet, if we can trust a human being simply because he knows the road better than us, then why do we hesitate to trust the One who created every road that exists? Allah ﷻ knows every destination, every delay, every turn, every hardship, and every blessing before we even take our first step. We only see the road beneath our feet, but Allah sees the entire journey from beginning to end.

Allah says that He knows while we do not know. Our knowledge is limited, but His knowledge is perfect. There are paths that seem difficult today but lead to unimaginable goodness tomorrow. There are roads that appear easy but would have destroyed us had Allah allowed us to continue on them. Because of His infinite mercy and wisdom, Allah sometimes changes our direction even when we cannot understand why. The problem is not that Allah's plan is unclear. The problem is that our trust becomes weak whenever life stops following our own plans.

Ask yourself this question: Why is it easier for us to trust our father than to trust our Creator? Do we really think that Allah, the Most Merciful, would abandon us? Do we think that the One who created us, provided for us, protected us countless times without us even realizing it, and answered prayers we had forgotten about, would suddenly leave us helpless? Never. Allah is far more merciful to His servants than anyone else could ever be. Every decision He makes for us carries wisdom, even when we are unable to see it immediately.

This is why having a good opinion of Allah is one of the greatest acts of faith. When you expect goodness from Allah, you continue making dua with hope. You continue worshipping Him with sincerity. You continue walking forward even when the road is unfamiliar because you know that the One guiding you never makes mistakes. Your circumstances may confuse you, but Allah's wisdom never fails. Your vision may be limited, but His knowledge has no limits.

The Prophet ﷺ taught us that Allah says: "I am as My servant thinks of Me." If we expect mercy from Allah, we will find His mercy. If we expect guidance, we will find His guidance. If we expect relief after hardship, we will find relief at the time Allah knows is best. This does not mean life will always be easy. Rather, it means that whatever Allah chooses for us is ultimately better than what we would have chosen for ourselves if we had His knowledge.

So whenever life takes you down a road you do not recognize, remember the example of the child sitting beside his father. The child does not know the way, but he knows the one who does. Likewise, we may not know where Allah is taking us, but we know Who Allah is. He is Al-Hakeem, the Most Wise. He is Ar-Rahman, the Most Merciful. He is Al-Lateef, the Most Gentle. He is Al-Wakeel, the Best Disposer of affairs. If we truly know Him through His names and attributes, then our hearts will remain at peace even when our eyes cannot see the destination.

The greatest comfort is not knowing the entire path. The greatest comfort is knowing the One who is leading you. Place your trust in Allah, have a beautiful opinion of Him, and remember that every road He chooses for you is leading you exactly where you need to be.

Let us consider another example.

Imagine that you visit a doctor for a medical examination. After reviewing your reports, the doctor tells you that you have cancer. Naturally, the first emotion you feel is fear. You panic because the diagnosis is serious. However, after those initial moments, you do not begin questioning the doctor about every single detail of medicine. You do not say, "First explain to me exactly what cancer is. Explain every stage of the disease. Tell me every medicine that exists. Show me every surgical instrument. Teach me everything you learned during your years of medical school, residency, and experience. Only then will I allow you to treat me."

Why don't we do that?

Because we know our own limitations. We understand that even if the doctor tried to explain everything, it would be impossible for us to grasp years of knowledge in just a few minutes. At most, he can give us a brief explanation that helps us understand enough to move forward. The rest requires trust in his knowledge and expertise.

Then why do we behave differently with Allah سبحانه وتعالى?

When life takes an unexpected turn, we immediately begin asking, "Ya Allah, explain everything to me. Tell me exactly why this is happening. Show me every detail of Your plan. Let me know what will happen next, and only then will I be able to trust You."

But how can our limited minds ever comprehend the complete wisdom of the One whose knowledge has no limits? If years of medical knowledge cannot be explained to us in a few minutes, then how can we expect Allah's infinite wisdom behind every event, every delay, every hardship, and every blessing to be fully explained to us while we are still living through the test?

The reality is that we are servants, not the Planner. Allah knows what we do not know. Our responsibility is not to understand every detail of His decree. Our responsibility is to trust the One who decrees it.

There is another reality about the human mind. Allah created our brains in such a way that, when faced with uncertainty, they often imagine the worst possible outcome. It is a natural response to protect us from danger. When we cannot see what lies ahead, our minds begin creating fearful possibilities. We start assuming that everything will go wrong, even though none of those fears may ever become reality.

That is why our thoughts should not become stronger than our faith. The whispers of fear come from our limited understanding, but certainty comes from trusting Allah. Whenever your mind begins imagining the worst-case scenario, remind yourself that your imagination is limited, but Allah's mercy, wisdom, and knowledge are limitless.

Now let us take this example one step further.

Imagine that, after your diagnosis, you begin researching the doctor who is going to perform your surgery. During your research, you discover that the doctor does not have much medical knowledge. He lacks experience, and there is a possibility that he may not perform the surgery properly. The moment you learn this, your fear increases. You immediately begin searching for the most qualified doctor you can find because your life is too precious to place in the hands of someone whose knowledge is limited.

Now imagine another situation. Someone tells you that although the doctor may be skilled, his intentions are not sincere. They tell you that he is only interested in the money he will earn from your surgery and that he does not genuinely care about your well-being. Once again, your heart fills with fear. You immediately start looking for another doctor someone who is not only highly knowledgeable but also someone you can trust completely.

Why do we react this way?

Because whenever our life is in someone's hands, two things become extremely important: their knowledge and their intentions. We want the person treating us to have complete expertise, and we want them to genuinely want what is best for us.

Now ask yourself this question.

Who possesses complete and perfect knowledge?

Allah سبحانه وتعالى.

There is no one whose knowledge is greater than His. He knows what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. He knows every consequence, every hidden blessing, every unseen danger, and every outcome before it even exists. Nothing escapes His knowledge.

Now ask yourself another question.

Do you think Allah's intentions towards you are anything but mercy and goodness? Do you think the One who created you wants to harm you? Do you think the One who has provided for you since the day you were born, who has protected you countless times without you even realizing it, and who is more merciful to you than anyone else could ever be, intends evil for you?

How can we even allow such a thought to enter our hearts?

If Allah possesses perfect knowledge, and if Allah's mercy and wisdom are perfect, then why do we panic the moment something unexpected happens in our lives? Why do we immediately assume that what is happening must be bad for us? Why do we doubt the decree of the One whose knowledge is infinite and whose mercy has no limits?

No one can know you better than the One who created you. No one can care for you more than the One who fashioned your heart. No one can love you more than Allah سبحانه وتعالى. So when life does not go according to your plan, remember that it is still going according to the plan of the One whose knowledge is perfect and whose mercy never fails. If you trust Allah's knowledge, then trust His intentions as well, because every decree of Allah carries wisdom, even when you are unable to see it.

As we come to the end of this reflection, remember one thing above all else: always expect good from Allah سبحانه وتعالى. Keep a beautiful opinion of Him. Fill your heart with ḥusn al-ẓann—having a good opinion of your Lord. No matter how confusing your circumstances become, never allow your opinion of Allah to become negative. The road may be unfamiliar, the test may be painful, and the answers may be delayed, but the One who is writing your story is the Most Wise and the Most Merciful.

No one in this world truly belongs to you in the way Allah does. When life suddenly falls apart, do not let your first instinct be to run to people, hoping they will carry a burden that only Allah can carry. Turn first to the One who created you. Your parents did not create you; they were only the means through which Allah brought you into this world. Your siblings, your friends, and the people you love may care for you, but they are human beings with limitations, responsibilities, and lives of their own. Their love, no matter how sincere, has limits.

But Allah's love is unlike any love you will ever experience. He knows every tear before it falls, every fear before you speak it, every prayer before your lips move, and every pain that your heart hides from the world. He does not love you because of what you can offer Him. He loves you because He is your Rabb. His mercy is constant, His wisdom is perfect, and His care for you never ceases.

So when life takes a turn you never expected, do not panic. Do not think that Allah has abandoned you. Remember the child who trusted his father even on an unfamiliar road. Remember the patient who trusted the knowledgeable doctor even without understanding every detail. If we can place our trust in people whose knowledge is limited and whose intentions are imperfect, then how much greater should our trust be in Allah سبحانه وتعالى, whose knowledge is absolute and whose mercy is beyond measure?

Have ḥusn al-ẓann of Allah in every situation. Believe that whatever He chooses for you carries wisdom, even if you cannot yet understand it. Believe that every delay has a purpose, every hardship has meaning, and every decree is written by the One who loves you more than anyone ever could. The greatest peace in life is not found in knowing what tomorrow holds; it is found in knowing Who holds tomorrow. Put your trust in Allah, think well of Him, and never let your heart forget that the One who created you will never abandon you.

Allah سبحانه وتعالى reminds us of a reality that our hearts often forget. In the Qur'an, He says: "Perhaps you dislike a thing while it is good for you, and perhaps you love a thing while it is bad for you. Allah knows, and you do not know." (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:216). This single verse is enough to change the way we look at every difficulty in our lives. We judge our circumstances based on what we can see today, while Allah decrees them based on what He knows about our entire future. We cry over doors that close, not knowing that they were protecting us from a room that would have destroyed our peace. We chase things that our hearts desperately want, unaware that they may carry harm we cannot yet imagine. At the same time, we resist hardships, delays, and disappointments because they hurt in the present, while Allah has placed within them blessings that may reveal themselves months or even years later. Our vision is limited to the present moment, but Allah's knowledge encompasses the past, the present, and the future. That is why faith is not about understanding every decree; it is about trusting the One who made it. Every time life unfolds differently from what you had hoped, remind yourself of this verse. If Allah withheld something, it was not because He forgot you. If He delayed something, it was not because He ignored your prayers. And if He changed your path, it was not because He wanted to harm you. It was because Allah knows, and you do not know.

~Zahra 💌🌸

If your Rabb keeps testing you, perhaps it is because He knows something about your future that you do not. The burden is not always a punishment. Sometimes it is training. Sometimes it is protection. Sometimes it is the silent evidence that Allah is preparing your shoulders to carry a destiny your present self cannot yet imagine.

Every prophet was entrusted with an extraordinary mission. But before the gift came, there was almost always a season of uncertainty. Before the honour came, there was loneliness. Before certainty came, there were questions. Before revelation came, there was waiting.

The world often celebrates the destination. Allah tells us the story of the journey.

Look at Musa (AS).

He was not standing in front of crowds delivering sermons. He was not leading a nation. He was simply tending sheep in Madyan. Day after day. Quietly. Repeatedly. The life of a shepherd is slow. It teaches patience. It teaches responsibility. It teaches how to care for those who cannot always care for themselves. Musa (AS) probably did not know that every single day in those lonely valleys was preparing him to lead an entire nation through a desert.

Then one ordinary night became the most extraordinary night of his life.

He saw a fire.

He walked towards it expecting warmth.

Instead, he found revelation.

Allah spoke to him.

Imagine that moment. He left as a shepherd. He returned as a prophet.

Everything changed within moments, but Allah had been preparing him for years.

Now look at Yusuf (AS).

His story did not begin in a palace.

It began in a well.

A child betrayed by his own brothers.

Sold into slavery.

Separated from his father.

Wrongfully imprisoned.

Years passed while nothing seemed to make sense.

If Yusuf (AS) had judged Allah's plan from the bottom of the well, he might have thought everything was over.

If he had judged it from prison, he might have believed he had been forgotten.

But Allah was writing a story that Yusuf himself could not yet read.

The prison became the doorway to the palace.

The tears became the road to authority.

The betrayal became the means through which an entire nation would survive famine.

The well was never the end.

It was only the beginning.

Think about Ibrahim (AS).

He searched for truth while surrounded by people drowning in falsehood.

He stood alone against an entire society.

He was thrown into fire.

He left his homeland.

He was commanded to leave his wife and infant son in a barren valley where there was no visible provision.

Nothing about his journey looked easy.

Yet today, billions remember him every single day.

Every pilgrimage carries his legacy.

Every sacrifice reminds us of his submission.

The fire that was meant to destroy him became coolness and peace because Allah had already written the ending.

Look at Maryam (AS).

She worshipped Allah in solitude.

Then came accusations she never deserved.

She experienced childbirth completely alone beneath a date palm.

Can you imagine the fear?

The uncertainty?

The loneliness?

Yet Allah did not abandon her.

He provided water.

He provided food.

He defended her honour through the words of a newborn child.

The place that looked like complete isolation became the place where one of the greatest miracles in human history unfolded.

Look at Zakariyya (AS).

He waited for years.

Decades passed.

His hair turned white.

His body became weak.

His wife remained unable to have children.

Human calculations said it was impossible.

But Allah does not operate according to human calculations.

When Allah decreed it, Yahya (AS) was born.

Not because time was favourable.

Not because biology agreed.

Simply because Allah said, "Be."

Look at Yahya (AS).

His life was not long.

But greatness is never measured by years.

It is measured by sincerity.

He remained firm upon truth despite opposition.

His story reminds us that honour in the sight of Allah is not about living comfortably.

It is about remaining faithful.

Look at Sulayman (AS).

People often remember the kingdom.

The wind.

The jinn.

The birds.

The unimaginable authority.

But they forget that power itself is also a test.

Allah entrusted him with what most people could never imagine possessing.

Yet Sulayman (AS) constantly attributed every blessing back to Allah.

He understood that gifts without gratitude become trials.

Look at Muhammad ﷺ.

Before revelation, he spent long periods alone in the Cave of Hira.

He was searching.

Reflecting.

Detached from the corruption around him.

Then Jibreel came.

Even after revelation, his life did not suddenly become easy.

He was mocked.

Rejected.

Boycotted.

Stoned until his blessed feet bled.

He buried children.

Lost beloved companions.

Faced hunger so severe that stones were tied to his stomach.

Yet he never doubted the One who sent him.

Allah was building not merely a messenger, but the greatest example humanity would ever know.

Notice the pattern.

Allah does not usually reveal the entire story in the first chapter.

He lets His servants walk through pages they do not yet understand.

We panic because we only see one paragraph.

Allah sees the entire book.

We cry over one delayed prayer.

Allah is arranging decades.

We fear closed doors.

Allah is constructing completely different roads.

Sometimes the season that feels most confusing is actually the season where Allah is working most intensely behind the curtain.

Seeds are buried before they become trees.

Pearls are hidden before they become treasures.

Diamonds endure unimaginable pressure before anyone calls them precious.

The believer is no different.

Perhaps the loneliness is teaching you to depend only upon Allah.

Perhaps the delay is protecting you from accepting less than what He has written.

Perhaps the unanswered questions are creating space for a faith that no longer depends on seeing every answer.

We often ask, "Why is this happening to me?"

Maybe a better question is, "What is Allah preparing me for?"

Because every prophet experienced a chapter where nothing appeared logical.

Nuh (AS) built an ark where there was no sea.

Musa (AS) walked towards a fire without knowing revelation awaited him.

Yusuf (AS) entered prison without knowing leadership was approaching.

Ibrahim (AS) entered the fire without knowing it would become coolness.

Maryam (AS) sat beneath a lonely tree without knowing history was about to change.

Muhammad ﷺ climbed a mountain seeking solitude without knowing the final revelation for humanity was about to descend.

None of them knew the ending while living the middle.

Neither do we.

That is what faith is.

Faith is not seeing the destination.

Faith is continuing to walk when only Allah knows where the road leads.

If your Rabb continues to test you, do not rush to believe that He has forgotten you.

The One who prepared Musa in the desert.

The One who protected Yusuf in the prison.

The One who cooled the fire for Ibrahim.

The One who comforted Maryam beneath the date palm.

The One who honoured Muhammad ﷺ after years of hardship.

He has not changed.

His wisdom has not changed.

His mercy has not changed.

Only our vision is limited.

One day, perhaps years from now, you may stand in a place you never imagined reaching.

You may look back at the nights you cried, the prayers you thought were unanswered, the losses that broke you, the waiting that exhausted you, and suddenly every scattered piece will fit together.

You will realise that Allah was never delaying your life.

He was designing it.

He was never absent.

He was writing.

He was never silent.

He was preparing.

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson hidden inside the stories of the prophets.

Allah rarely explains everything while you are walking.He simply asks you to trust Him enough to keep walking.And every single prophet who trusted Him eventually discovered that behind every hardship, beyond every uncertainty, after every impossible season, there was always a door that only Allah could open.Perhaps yours is closer than you think.

Zahra❤️

❤️

If your relationship with Allah is not strong, no relationship in this world will ever be strong enough to heal what only He can heal. If your connection with your Creator is distant, no amount of love from another person will completely satisfy the heart. We often expect people to fill a void that was never created for them to fill. We search for completeness in marriage, friendships, attention, or affection, yet the heart continues to feel restless because its greatest need has been overlooked. The reality is that every human relationship is limited, but Allah's mercy, love, and companionship are limitless. A spouse may comfort you, but they cannot give your soul tranquility. A friend may listen to your pain, but they cannot remove the burden from your heart. Only Allah can grant the peace that remains when everything else changes. The healthier your relationship with Allah becomes, the healthier every other relationship in your life becomes, because you stop expecting people to be your source of happiness and begin seeing them as blessings from the One who is. When Allah occupies the greatest place in your heart, no absence destroys you, no rejection defines you, and no human being becomes the center of your existence. The emptiness within the soul was never created to be filled by people; it was created to be filled by the remembrance, love, and closeness of Allah alone.

Allah سبحانه وتعالى knows what your heart longs for. He knows every du'a you whisper after every prayer, every tear that falls in sujood, and every silent wish you have never spoken to another soul. If you have asked Him for something and it has not yet arrived, it does not necessarily mean that He has refused you; it may simply mean that its appointed time has not yet come. Allah is Al-Hakeem, the Most Wise. He sees what you cannot see and knows what you do not know. If the desire still remains in your heart, continue making du'a for it. Continue asking with hope, patience, and certainty that Allah hears every supplication. But do not pause your entire life while waiting for one blessing to arrive. Do not stop growing, learning, working, serving others, or pursuing what is beneficial because you are waiting for marriage, a job, or any other dream. Waiting should never become an excuse for abandoning the life that Allah has already placed in your hands. There are people who become so consumed by what they are waiting for that they stop living altogether. Imagine a woman who has a fulfilling career, earns an honest living, benefits others, and is building her future. Then, because of social pressure or the belief that marriage is just around the corner, she gives up everything, thinking, "I will probably get married soon, so there is no point in continuing." Months pass, then years pass. Marriage has not yet come, her savings begin to disappear, her confidence weakens, and the purpose she once found in her daily life slowly fades. The sadness she hoped marriage would cure only becomes heavier because she stopped investing in the life Allah had already blessed her with. This is why Islam teaches us to rely upon Allah while continuing to strive. Trust Allah completely, but keep walking. Make du'a, but also keep building yourself. Hope for tomorrow, but do not neglect today. Live with the certainty that whatever Allah has written for you can never miss you, and whatever He has not written for you can never reach you, no matter how desperately you chase it. If marriage has been decreed for you, it will arrive at the most suitable time, with the wisdom and mercy that only Allah can arrange. Until then, continue becoming the person Allah wants you to be. Fill your days with beneficial work, seek knowledge, strengthen your relationship with your Creator, care for your family, and make your life meaningful. Do not spend your years anxiously searching every person you meet, wondering whether they are the one meant for you. Your responsibility is not to force destiny; your responsibility is to trust the One who writes it. When you place your affairs in Allah's hands, you no longer live in fear of missing what was never meant to miss you. You begin to understand that your life is not on hold while you wait for one blessing. Every day is itself a blessing, every opportunity is a trust from Allah, and every delay carries a wisdom that will become clear when the time is right.

A beautiful Qur'anic verse that perfectly reflects the idea of trusting Allah's timing is:

وَعَسَىٰ أَن تَكْرَهُوا شَيْـًٔا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ ۖ وَعَسَىٰ أَن تُحِبُّوا شَيْـًٔا وَهُوَ شَرٌّ لَّكُمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

"Perhaps you dislike something while it is good for you, and perhaps you love something while it is bad for you. Allah knows, while you do not know."

— Surah Al-Baqarah (2:216)

Another verse that beautifully captures Allah's perfect planning is:

إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا ﴿٥﴾ إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا ﴿٦﴾

"Indeed, with hardship comes ease. Indeed, with hardship comes ease."

— Surah Ash-Sharh (94:5–6)

And if you specifically want a verse about Allah's decree and timing:

وَكَانَ أَمْرُ اللَّهِ قَدَرًا مَّقْدُورًا

"And the command of Allah is a decree determined."

People think breaking a heart is a small thing. "It was just a joke." "They are too sensitive." "I was only being honest." No. Sometimes a single sentence follows a person for years. Sometimes you forget what you said within five minutes, while the other person remembers it for five years. The tongue has no bones, yet it has broken more hearts than swords ever have. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should speak good or remain silent." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim). Silence has never broken a heart. Careless words have.

And the scariest thought of all is this. What if the person whose heart you are breaking is loved by Allah? What if they wake up for Tahajjud while you are asleep? What if they cry in sujood and mention your name, not asking for revenge at first, but asking Allah to heal what you broke? What if they have no one except Allah? Do you really want to stand before the Lord of the worlds while carrying the pain of one of His beloved servants?

Allah Himself warns us in a hadith qudsi: "Whoever shows enmity to a close friend (wali) of Mine, I declare war upon him." (Sahih al-Bukhari). We don't know who the awliya of Allah are. They don't walk around with signs above their heads. They could be the quiet girl everyone ignores. The old man praying in the last row. The cleaner in the masjid. The child who whispers du'as before sleeping. The person whose heart you mocked because they cried too easily.

Sometimes we are so careful with expensive things. We wrap glass because it can break. We carry phones with protective cases. We drive slowly because the car is valuable. But then we throw words at people as if hearts are made of steel. They are not. Hearts bruise. Hearts bleed. Hearts remember.

Wallahi, I don't forget people.

I forget what happened two days ago. I forget where I kept my phone. I forget what I walked into the room for. But the person who once said one sentence that hurt me? I remember. Sometimes while taking a shower. Sometimes before sleeping. Sometimes in the middle of making tea. Sometimes years later, a random memory walks into my mind without even knocking, and I remember exactly how those words felt. I survived them, Alhamdulillah. I smiled again. I laughed again. Life moved on. But the scar remained.

And there were nights when I cried to Allah because of words people had already forgotten. There were moments when frustration became so heavy that all I could say was, "Ya Rabb, You saw it. Ya Rabb, take my revenge." I know forgiveness is beloved to Allah. I know I should forgive. I ask Allah to soften my heart until I do. But that is exactly why I am writing this. Because maybe someone reading this will think twice before becoming the reason another servant raises their hands in pain.

Do people really not think? Do they not wonder that the heart they are hurting might be loved by Allah? That person may look ordinary to you, but perhaps every night they stand before Allah with tears in Tahajjud. Perhaps Allah has answered countless du'as because of them. Perhaps the angels know their name while people do not.

The Prophet ﷺ never measured people by status. He measured them by taqwa. Allah says, "Indeed, the most honorable of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you." (Qur'an 49:13). And righteousness is hidden. We cannot see it.

So be careful with hearts. Be careful with sarcasm that humiliates. Be careful with jokes that embarrass. Be careful with messages you send in anger. Be careful with silence that intentionally hurts. Be careful with arrogance disguised as confidence. One sentence can become someone's lifelong insecurity. One act of kindness can become someone's reason to keep believing in people.

The world will keep telling you to protect your ego. Islam teaches us to protect hearts.

Because one day we will all stand before Allah with empty hands. Our followers will not matter. Our careers will not matter. Our appearances will not matter. But perhaps one of the first questions waiting for us will be about a heart we treated carelessly.

May Allah make us people whose words heal instead of wound, whose presence comforts instead of frightens, and whose tongues remember that every servant they meet belongs to Allah before they belong to this world. Ameen.

The nafs is like a powerful force within a person. If it is controlled through faith, knowledge, patience, and remembrance of Allah, it can become a source of strength. The same human emotions that can lead someone toward selfishness can also become compassion, love, courage, and sacrifice when they are purified. A person does not become righteous by having no desires; they become righteous by learning how to place their desires under the guidance of Allah.

Shaytan, however, is different. Shaytan is not a part of our natural human creation that can be purified. His mission is not growth, correction, or healing. His goal is deception, distance from Allah, and the destruction of the relationship between the servant and their Creator. Shaytan does not simply invite a person toward a mistake; he tries to make the mistake appear beautiful, then makes a person feel hopeless after committing it. He attacks before the sin by creating temptation and attacks after the sin by creating despair.

The nafs may say, "I want this because I desire it." But Shaytan says, "Follow this desire, and forget the One who created you." The nafs can be educated; Shaytan must be resisted. The nafs can be softened through worship; Shaytan can only be rejected through seeking Allah's protection.

Perhaps one of the deepest struggles of the human being is learning whether they are fighting their own untrained desires or falling into the traps of an enemy who wants them to lose hope. Sometimes the believer thinks they are fighting Shaytan, but they are actually fighting an undisciplined nafs that needs patience and purification. And sometimes a person blames their nafs while ignoring the fact that Shaytan is trying to turn a small weakness into a lifelong distance from Allah.

The journey of spirituality is not about becoming someone without a nafs; it is about becoming someone whose nafs has surrendered to Allah. The greatest victory is not that a person never feels temptation, anger, sadness, or desire. The greatest victory is that these feelings no longer control them. The heart becomes the leader, guided by revelation, instead of becoming a prisoner of every passing impulse.

The nafs is a creation of Allah that can be transformed. Shaytan is an enemy that must be opposed. Knowing the difference changes the way we see ourselves: we stop hating ourselves for being human, and we start working toward becoming purified servants of Allah.

Perhaps one of the most hidden mysteries of the human journey is that Allah placed within us a battlefield where the greatest victories are not visible to the eyes. A person may conquer mountains, build nations, and be admired by thousands, yet still be defeated by a whisper inside their own heart. And another person may appear ordinary to the world, but every day they are winning battles that no one will ever know about.

The nafs is not merely a collection of desires; it is a mirror that reveals what the heart is attached to. It exposes the places where a person still seeks something other than Allah for complete satisfaction. Every temptation is not only a test of action; it is a question asked to the soul: "Who is truly in control of your heart?"

Perhaps this is why purification of the soul is such a profound journey. Allah does not only want to change what our hands do; He wants to transform the hidden kingdom within us. A person's greatest transformation happens in a place no camera can capture and no human can measure the secret space between the heart and its Creator.

Shaytan tries to make a person look outward forever: to chase approval, compare themselves with others, and forget the reality of their own soul. But Allah invites the servant inward: to recognize their weaknesses, return with humility, and discover that the heart was never created to be filled by the world. It was created to know the One who created it.

The deepest spiritual awakening happens when a person realizes that the struggle within them is not proof of failure; it is proof that there is a soul fighting to return. The same heart that feels the pain of distance from Allah is the heart that has been given the ability to seek closeness.

Maybe the greatest victory is not when the darkness disappears completely, but when the heart learns where to turn every time darkness appears.

Because the journey to Allah is not the journey of a perfect human being becoming worthy of His mercy. It is the journey of a weak human being discovering that Allah’s mercy was waiting for them all along.

The human being is not merely a body moving through the world; within them exists an unseen kingdom a place where desires, thoughts, intentions, faith, and whispers meet. This inner world is the world of the nafs, the qalb, and the fitrah. Understanding this hidden world is one of the deepest journeys a person can undertake, because the greatest battles of life are often not fought outside of us, but within us.

The fitrah is the pure natural disposition that Allah placed within every human being a natural inclination toward recognizing truth, seeking goodness, and turning toward the Creator. It is like a hidden compass placed inside the soul. However, as a person walks through life, experiences, desires, attachments, and distractions can cover this clarity. The purpose of spiritual growth is not to create a new soul, but to uncover and return to the purity that Allah already placed within it.

The qalb (heart) is the center of spiritual awareness. It is not only the physical organ, but the inner heart that understands, reflects, loves, fears, and turns toward Allah. The Qur'an speaks about hearts that become alive through remembrance and hearts that become hardened through neglect. The qalb is constantly changing; it can rise through faith and remembrance, or become clouded by heedlessness. This is why believers constantly ask Allah for a heart that remains guided.

Within this journey exists the nafs, the part of human nature that contains desires, emotions, impulses, and tendencies. The nafs itself is not evil; it is a creation of Allah that requires guidance and purification. It can either become a means of elevation or a means of destruction depending on whether it follows the guidance of Allah or becomes controlled by uncontrolled desires.

The first state is Nafs al-Ammārah the soul that commands toward evil. Allah mentions it in the Qur'an when describing the soul that pushes a person toward wrong desires. In this state, a person becomes a prisoner of impulses. They do not ask, "Is this pleasing to Allah?" but rather, "Do I want this?" The desire becomes the ruler, and the heart becomes weak. Yet even this state is not a permanent identity; it is a condition that can be changed through repentance, discipline, and returning to Allah.

Then comes Nafs al-Lawwāmah the self-reproaching soul. This is the soul that has awakened. It struggles, it makes mistakes, but it feels regret and turns back. It is the soul of a person who is no longer comfortable with disobedience. The pain they feel after a mistake is not a sign of failure; it is a sign that the heart is still alive. A dead heart does not feel the distance from Allah.

Through continuous mujahadat al-nafs the struggle against the lower desires of the self the soul begins to rise. This struggle is not about destroying human nature; it is about training it. It is choosing prayer when laziness calls, patience when anger rises, forgiveness when revenge feels easier, and obedience when temptation appears. Every small victory over the nafs polishes the heart.

The highest state mentioned is Nafs al-Muṭma’innah the tranquil soul. This is the soul that has found peace through surrendering to Allah. It does not mean a person never struggles, feels sadness, or faces difficulties. Rather, it means that beneath every storm there is certainty: Allah is enough. The heart no longer searches for ultimate peace in the creation because it has discovered peace with the Creator.

The journey of the soul is therefore a journey of returning. The nafs must be purified, the qalb must be awakened, and the fitrah must be protected. The goal is not to become someone who has no desires, but someone whose desires are guided by love for Allah. The greatest victory is not when a person never faces temptation; it is when the heart becomes so attached to Allah that temptation no longer has the power to rule it.

In the end, the human being is a traveler between two directions: the pull of the lower self and the call of the purified soul. Every choice either covers the light of the fitrah or allows it to shine. And the greatest journey of a lifetime is the journey from a soul that is controlled by its desires to a soul that finds its deepest peace in the remembrance of Allah.

There is a timeless lesson hidden in these verses. We often ask Allah for something while imagining the exact form in which the answer should arrive. Yet Allah, in His infinite wisdom, may answer our du'a in a way far beyond our imagination. The wife of Imran entrusted her child to Allah, and Allah chose Maryam (peace be upon her), who would become one of the greatest women ever created and the mother of Prophet Isa (peace be upon him). Allah's decree was not different because her expectation was wrong; it was greater because His wisdom is greater than human understanding.

Perhaps this is the lesson we all need to remember: never judge Allah's blessings by your own expectations. What appears unexpected today may become the very means through which Allah brings immense goodness tomorrow. Our responsibility is sincerity, trust, and patience. The outcome belongs to Allah, whose plans are always more perfect, more merciful, and more far-reaching than anything we could have imagined.

How often do we ask Allah for something, and when it does not happen the way we hoped, our hearts become heavy with disappointment? We begin to wonder, "Ya Allah, this is not what I wanted." Yet the believer reminds himself that our knowledge is limited, while Allah's knowledge is perfect. We see only the present moment, but Allah sees the beginning, the end, and everything in between. Sometimes what we desperately desire would have harmed our faith, our future, or our hearts, and sometimes the very thing we fear or dislike becomes the means through which Allah brings us closer to Him and fills our lives with blessings we could never have anticipated. This is why Allah reminds us in the Qur'an:

"But perhaps you dislike a thing while it is good for you, and perhaps you love a thing while it is bad for you. And Allah knows, while you do not know." (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:216)

The believer, therefore, does not measure Allah's mercy by whether every du'a is answered exactly as requested. Rather, they trust that every decree of Allah carries a wisdom, even if that wisdom remains hidden for years. Our duty is to ask with sincerity, to strive with excellence, and then to place our hearts in complete trust with the One who knows what we do not.

Sometimes the greatest test of faith is not when Allah gives us what we ask for, but when He chooses something different from what we imagined. A heart that truly knows Allah does not only say, "Ya Allah, give me what I want," but also says, "Ya Allah, choose for me what is best, even if my limited heart does not understand it today."

We are human beings who see only a single page of our story, while Allah knows the entire book. We become attached to what our eyes can see, but Allah sees the hidden consequences, the unseen dangers, and the blessings waiting behind what we cannot understand.

Sometimes Allah removes something because it was protecting us. Sometimes He delays something because He is preparing us. Sometimes He changes the direction because He is leading us toward something far better than what we were chasing.

The greatest peace comes when a person stops fighting Allah's plan and starts trusting Allah's wisdom.

"A believer's heart finds peace not because life always goes according to their wishes, but because they know every decision of Allah comes from a wisdom greater than their own understanding."

What Allah writes for you will never miss you, and what He keeps away from you was never meant to become a part of your journey. The One who created your heart knows exactly what it needs even before you ask.

When she is a child Allah places her under the shade of a father whose presence becomes her first home whose voice becomes her first comfort and whose protection becomes her first experience of being cared for.

A father is often the first reminder to a daughter that the world is not a place where she has to fight every battle alone.

Then she grows and Allah opens another chapter of her life.

A husband enters her journey not as a replacement for the love she received before but as another mercy written for her.

He becomes a companion in her loneliness a support in her struggles and a witness to the chapters of her life that no one else will see.

The love of a husband is another way Allah teaches a woman that her heart was created to be cared for as much as it was created to care.

Then time moves forward and Allah writes another beautiful form of love for her.

The love of a child.

A son who once needed her hands to hold him becomes someone whose heart carries the memory of her sacrifices.

The child who once found comfort in her arms grows up to become a source of comfort for her.

This is the beauty of Allah’s design.

A woman walks through different seasons of life and in every season Allah sends her a different form of love.

But the greatest protection Allah gives a woman is not only through the people He places around her.

It is through the honor He places within her soul.

Allah created within her a heart that can hold oceans of emotions and still continue to love.

He created within her a softness that is not weakness but a hidden strength that only those with wisdom can understand.

The world often measures strength by how loudly someone can fight.

But Allah created a different kind of strength in a woman.

The strength to forgive when she has been hurt.The strength to remain gentle when life has been harsh.The strength to carry invisible burdens while still becoming a source of peace for others.Allah knows the tears she hides behind her smile.Allah knows the prayers she whispers when no one is listening.Allah knows the sacrifices she makes that the world may never notice.And perhaps this is one of the greatest signs of His mercy.That Allah surrounds her with love in different forms throughout different stages of her life so she remembers that she was never created to walk this world without care.But above every human love is the love of Allah.Because fathers grow old.Husbands change with time.Children grow and create their own worlds.But Allah’s love does not weaken with time.His protection does not disappear with distance.His mercy does not leave when people leave.A woman’s greatest honor is not that humans will always protect her.Her greatest honor is that Allah always sees her.The world may forget her silent sacrifices but Allah counts every tear every prayer every moment of patience and every act of love that she gave without expecting anything in return.A woman’s story is not only written through the people she loves.It is written through the countless ways Allah reminds her that she belongs to Him.And when she understands this truth she realizes something that changes everything.She was never alone.She was always walking beneath the care of the One who loved her before anyone knew her.A woman’s journey is not measured only by the forms of love she receives in this dunya. Sometimes a woman may be blessed with a loving father but not a loving husband. Sometimes she may have a husband but not experience the blessing of children. Sometimes she may lose the people she thought would always be her shelter. But the absence of one blessing does not mean the absence of Allah’s mercy. Allah does not measure a woman’s honor by the number of people standing beside her. He measures her by the patience she carries, the faith she preserves, and the heart that continues turning towards Him despite what it has lost. There are women whose stories are filled with missing chapters in this world, but Allah has written for them chapters of beauty in the next. The love that was incomplete here will not remain incomplete forever. The comfort that was delayed here is not forgotten there. The tears that fell silently in this dunya are known by the One who never misses a single tear. And perhaps a woman who was deprived of some forms of human love is being prepared for a love that has no ending. A love where there is no fear of losing. A love where there is no goodbye. A love where the heart finally receives everything it was created to seek. Because Allah is not only the Creator of blessings. He is the One who replaces every emptiness with something greater when His servant returns to Him. So if a woman does not receive every form of love in this world her story is not incomplete. Her story is simply being written by the One who knows the ending. Her matter is with Allah. And when Allah takes charge of a heart He does not abandon it. He prepares for it what no eye has seen no ear has heard and no heart can imagine.Allah’s love for women is written throughout history in the stories of the women He honored.

Allah was the One who saw the wife of ibrahim.(as) when she was left in a barren valley with her infant son. When there was no water, no people, and no visible way forward, Allah taught her the beauty of patience and trust. Her running between Safa and Marwah was not forgotten. Her struggle became a part of worship that millions of believers perform until the end of time.

Allah was the One who protected Maryam when the world questioned her. When people judged what they could not understand, Allah revealed her innocence and raised her status. He showed that a woman’s dignity is not dependent on people’s opinions but on the truth known by Allah.

Allah was the One who defended Aisha when she was hurt by false accusations. When the world was filled with rumors and she had no human words that could remove the pain, Allah Himself revealed verses from the Quran declaring her innocence and protecting her honor until the Day of Judgment. Her dignity was not defended by people’s approval but by the words of Allah.

Allah was the One who honored Khadijah رضي الله عنها, the woman who believed in the Prophet ﷺ when others rejected him. When the world turned away, she became his comfort. When he carried the weight of revelation, she became his peace. Her loyalty and love were so beloved that Allah sent her greetings through Jibreel عليه السلام and promised her a house in Paradise.

Allah was the One who honored Fatimah رضي الله عنها, the beloved daughter of the Prophet ﷺ, whose life carried patience, simplicity, and immense love. She showed that honor is not found in worldly luxury but in faith, character, and closeness to Allah.

Allah was the One who honored Asiya رضي الله عنها, the wife of Pharaoh, a woman who lived surrounded by oppression but whose heart belonged completely to Allah. She chose faith over comfort and asked Allah for a house near Him in Paradise. Her palace was not in this world; her true home was with Allah.

Allah was the One who honored Rabia al Basri رحمه الله, a woman whose love for Allah became so deep that she devoted her heart entirely to Him. She showed generations that a woman’s greatest identity is not defined by the world but by her relationship with her Creator.

These women were not honored because their lives were free from hardship. They were honored because through their hardships they remained connected to Allah.

Allah saw Hajrar s tears. Allah defended Aisha’s honor. Allah accepted Khadijah’s sacrifices. Allah heard Maryam’s pain. Allah witnessed Asiya’s courage.

The stories of righteous women are reminders that Allah does not overlook a woman’s struggle.

When the world does not understand her, Allah understands.

When people forget her sacrifices, Allah records them.

When every door closes, Allah remains the One door that never closes.

A woman’s greatest honor is that her story is written by Allah Himself.

Surah Nuh (71:10–12)

Arabic:

﴿فَقُلْتُ اسْتَغْفِرُوا رَبَّكُمْ إِنَّهُ كَانَ غَفَّارًا ۝ يُرْسِلِ السَّمَاءَ عَلَيْكُم مِّدْرَارًا ۝ وَيُمْدِدْكُم بِأَمْوَالٍ وَبَنِينَ وَيَجْعَل لَّكُمْ جَنَّاتٍ وَيَجْعَل لَّكُمْ أَنْهَارًا﴾

Translation:

"So I said, 'Ask forgiveness of your Lord. Indeed, He is ever a Perpetual Forgiver. He will send [rain from] the sky upon you in abundance, and provide you with wealth and children, and give you gardens and give you rivers.'"

(Surah Nuh 71:10–12)

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells Prophet Nuh عليه السلام to call his people towards istighfar not only as a way of seeking forgiveness, but as a way of returning to the source of every blessing. At that time, the people of Nuh عليه السلام were facing hardships, and among their greatest needs was rain. Their lands needed water, their lives needed stability, and their communities needed prosperity. So Allah showed them that the solution was not only in worldly efforts; it was in repairing their relationship with their Creator.

Allah says that if they turned back to Him and sought forgiveness, He would send upon them abundant rain, provide them with wealth, bless them with children, and grant them gardens and rivers. This teaches us something incredibly deep: Allah knows the needs of His servants before they even ask, and sometimes the doors of blessings remain closed because the heart needs to return to Him first.

The beauty of this ayah is that Allah did not say, "Seek forgiveness and I will only remove your sins." He connected istighfar with expansion in life. The same Allah who forgives what is hidden in your heart is the One who controls the rain that falls from the sky, the wealth that enters your hands, and the blessings that come into your family.

Istighfar is not just about looking back at your mistakes; it is about opening the future with Allah's mercy. The people of Nuh عليه السلام needed rain, and Allah was teaching them that the One who controls the clouds is also the One who controls every other missing thing in their lives.

Astaghfirullah is not merely a phrase of repentance; it is a shield placed between a servant and the harms that can reach them. When a person constantly turns back to Allah and says, “Astaghfirullah,” they are asking Allah for His protection, His covering, and His mercy. Just as a shield protects a person from what they cannot see coming, istighfar becomes a spiritual protection from the consequences of sins, the darkness of the heart, and the difficulties that may arise because of our distance from Allah.

The beauty of Astaghfirullah is that it does not only remove what has already happened; it also protects what is yet to come. Allah’s forgiveness covers our weaknesses, guards our souls, and surrounds us with His care. A person who keeps their tongue alive with istighfar is constantly returning to the One who has the power to protect them from every harm.

If you are searching for miracles, begin with Astaghfirullah. If you feel trapped in a difficult phase of life, begin with Astaghfirullah. If you are facing problems that seem impossible, doors that seem closed, worries that feel too heavy, return to Astaghfirullah.

Because istighfar is not just a phrase for the tongue; it is a pathway back to Allah. It is a reminder that the One who created the problem is also the One who can create the solution. The world may show you countless reasons why something cannot happen, but Allah can open a door from places you never imagined.

There is a beautiful lesson found in the story of the people of Nuh عليه السلام. When they were struggling and needed relief, Prophet Nuh عليه السلام guided them towards seeking forgiveness from Allah. He did not simply tell them to search for worldly solutions; he directed them towards the One who controls every solution.

This is the power of Astaghfirullah. It does not mean we stop taking action; it means we take our steps while turning our hearts towards the One who holds the outcome. Sometimes the miracle you are waiting for is connected to the moment you sincerely return to Allah and say: “Ya Allah, forgive me, help me, and open what I cannot open by myself.”

Astaghfirullah is a small phrase upon the tongue, but it carries the weight of a journey back to Allah. It is the whisper of a heart that knows it is imperfect, yet knows that its Lord is endlessly Merciful. Within these few words are humility, repentance, hope, gratitude, protection, and love for Allah. When a servant says Astaghfirullah sincerely, they are not only asking for forgiveness; they are asking Allah to cleanse their heart, remove the darkness that has gathered within it, cover their weaknesses, and bring them closer to Him. Istighfar softens a heart that has become hard, brings peace to a soul that feels restless, and reminds a person that their mistakes are never greater than Allah’s mercy. It is a doorway for blessings, a means of seeking Allah’s protection, and a way of returning to the One who never closes His door upon His servants. In moments of happiness, Astaghfirullah keeps the heart humble; in moments of hardship, it keeps the heart hopeful. It teaches us that we are never truly lost when we know the way back to Allah. A life filled with Astaghfirullah is a life constantly connected to forgiveness, mercy, and the endless generosity of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.