There was only one thing I kept asking Allah for after I accepted Islam . my mother’s guidance.

Every Ramadan, my duas were the same. Tears. Sujood. Begging Allah for her heart to open. I didn’t want anything from this dunya more than I wanted Jannah for my mother.

But hidayah… it’s not something we control. Allah gives it to the one who reflects, the one who truly searches.

For years, I spoke to her gently. I explained. I cried. I never forced her. And one day she asked me the most innocent question:

“If I stop praying to images… how do I imagine Allah? How do I feel Him if I cannot picture Him?”

That was the moment I knew. The question wasn’t rejection it was reflection. It was a hear

I currently live in Spain, and, while most people here don't really practice Catholicism anymore, the national calendar still features observances for Catholic saints' feast days. As a former Catholic, most of the saints' names are familiar to me. And today (June 24) is the feast day of St. John the Baptist, (better) known to Muslims as Yahya ibn Zakariyya alayhi salam, cousin to 'Isa ibn Maryam alayhi salam. Christians hear all kinds of tales about Yahya alayhi salam, some charming and moving, some appalling. The source? What passes today for the Injil in the 'New Testament' of the Christian Bibles. I won't recount these stories here. If you're strong in your deen and you're curious, yo

When I think of what love is to me, I don't think first of spoken words. Instead, three images come to me, and they are all silent: * My mother waiting for me at the airport, smiling. * My aunt's mom, 'Granny Rebar,' arms outstretched from where she sat in her little twin bed, to which she was mostly confined in old age. * My cat Mini in my bedroom window, watching just about every workday as I drove my car into the carport in the evening. There are so many words in the world, and so many of them are lies. I'm a revert who grew up Catholic, and in that deen, words and ritual are omnipresent, most of them grounded not-so-firmly in shirk. The twisting and manipulation of the Tawrah, on

It’s been a little over three years since I took my shahada, and I’m still a beginner with the Arabic language. Allah SWT has given me openings, more so in the last few months, and I now enjoy collecting vocabulary words and doing deep dives on tajwid. Alhamdulillah. But that wasn’t always so. When I was brand new to Islam, I brought many of my kafr ways with me right into my new life. First and foremost among them was the concept that I was somehow 'smart' and 'special,' and intellectual pursuits had always been a tried and true way for me to 'prove' that to myself. I now know that any ability I had was part of my rizq from Allah SWT and I could no more have chosen it than I did my eye c

One of our reflection prompts this week (Week One of Qur'an in a Year) is 'How do we believe in Allah SWT without seeing Him?'

As a recent revert (March 2022) who was coming from a position of near-atheism, I worried greatly for a while about how it would ever be possible to truly believe in God. But little by slow, Allah SWT, the Gentle and All-Aware, has manifested His presence and care in my life, time and time again.

There are so many examples. I'll write here about two of them. God wiling:

Help during Hajj ****** I made Hajj last year, Alhamdulil