Sin

No matter how much I scream
I can't burn this filth off of me
Stains on my records ;my left angel shakes his head at me
I'm a conquest of the devil and I've let him have the best of me
But I've got tawheed  and  I get that He's trying and testing me
And the horizon looks bleak but I'll keep praying for peace
My heart is shattered and my soul is in tatters
I've lost enough faith for faith to lose  hope in me
But I'm still alive which means I get credit for trying.
I have another chance and I've still got time
But times running out, because
Even though I'm alive now
I'm still dying.

Can I ever truly recover from failure ?
Do the demons stop haunting the damned?
Will my prayers ever return to the way the were?
Will there be a time when these questions don't matter because I've conquered the desires that reside in my mind ?
"It is not the eyes that are blind but the hearts "
What if I'm blind and I'm so lost there's nothing left to find ?
What if I'm a nafs bug -bitten, Satan -ridden ,desire -chained , humiliated display of my previous self
Is there ever a graceful return?
Is there an upward spiral to match the downward spiral that my downtrodden aspirations take too often ?
Is the straight Path straight up or are there always bumps ?
What if I've hit a roadblock ? What if I can't move any further ? What if all I do hurts my hereafter?  What if  there's no one to save me ? What if there's nothing left to save , baby?

-"Sin"

The journey of a weak slave

If there's anything I've learnt about the dunya, it's that it is easy to get lost in. You can watch 36 episodes of a TV show straight and never emerge from your room for hours and no one would notice. You could miss every prayer and inch closer to your death with every breath and lose all track of time.  You can frolick days away watching TV and staring at your phone like a robot and barely hearing the sounds of the azaan. And whatever sin is your primary failing, you can find hundreds of people to bond over it with. Whether it's alcohol or drugs or music or haraam relationships or porn, you can get all sorts of people from all walks of life to share your haram pleasures with and you can get lost in the poetry they make of your sins , the glorification of the most shameful deeds, the beautification of the foolishness that you chose to fall into.

It is easy to get lost in and I've been lost so many times.

I've learnt lessons no books in the world could teach me except one. I've done things I thought I would never have done and I have been well and truly deceived by the glitter of the world I was so sure would never have my love.

I've been lost and I've been saved as many times as I've been lost. I've been lost in the wrong people , in the wrong words, and in the deception of the fools, I have played the fool. I've fallen in with the wrong crowd, I have been the wrong crowd, I have sinned until I thought I would never recover except for the fact that I was still alive and I thought hey, I still have another chance. I'm not dead yet.

I have been tainted with the ink on my left shoulder I wish I could erase. I have been the engineer of my own destruction , the victim of the misery I suffered at my own hands, I have been mercilessly taunted by the devils living inside my head that I still yearn for what I repented and gave up , I have feared again and again that I will return to what I used to be , I will return to the person I couldn't recognise as myself anymore.

And yet.
And yet, I have been unfailingly saved everytime I forgot myself . Everytime I lost myself I have been brought back in a brutal or a gentle fashion, but I have been brought back, been made to wake the hell up, been made to change and cleanse, been purified and repentant.

Everytime I have been lost I have been found.

And even now when the demons threaten to break the last thread of resistance my soul can put up in the ultimate battle between the nafs and the rūh , I am finally sure that I will win.
Not because I am strong .
Not because my faith is strong.
Not because I have forgotten how weak and how chained to my base desires I am.
But because I know He is watching over me. I know that He loves me more than 70 mothers and I know that even if somehow  (I hope not )I do fail again, He will be there to accept me and bring me back again.

… the life of this world is only a deceiving enjoyment. (Al-Hadid 57:20)

Verily, the Promise of Allâh is true, let not then this (worldly) present life deceive you, nor let the chief deceiver (Satan) deceive you about Allâh. (Luqman 31:33)

"Say: 'O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of God: for God forgives all sins (except shirk): for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.'" (39:53)

"And it is He who accepts repentance from His servants and pardons the evil deed and knows what you do." (42:25)

Allah, the Almighty, has said:

O Son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O Son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. O Son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins as great as the earth, and were you then to face Me ascribing no partners to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it.

One muslimah's thoughts on surviving college

College. It's new. Its far. Its terrifying. Its an upheaval of everything you've ever known.  Its independence when you're still a little dependent.I've seen many friends have lows in college . And when I experienced it for myself and realised what saved me, I decided to write it down so perhaps I could reach out to someone else who was struggling.  And perhaps reread it during one of my lows .

The place was too damn far from family  and the people were different and the fitnahs were so wide and so varied and the attacks on my iman were plenty and with little gaps in between. It was initially very easy but funnily got harder as time passed , instead of the other way around.

I found solace four months later in "
None has the right to be worshiped but Allah alone, Who has no partner. His is the dominion and His is the praise and He is Able to do all things."

His is the dominion , and therefore no matter what far flung distant nowhere I live in, it's still under His dominion. It's still under His Control and I'm still watched over by Him , like the creatures in the deepest crevices of the seabed, that have never even set eyes on sunlight , but are provided for by Ar Razzaq.  Like the microorganisms that are looked after by Him , the billions of universes whose existence we aren't capable of so much as imagining , but that He looks after, like every leaf that has its due sunlight , water and air , and every seed that is ripened till it is a fruit that was written for me , I am being watched over by Someone whose love for me began before I was born and who will remember me after I die long after my blood has forgotten about me. I am being watched by Someone with whom resides All Might and All Power , Al Wahhab,   and yes I slip up and fail and fall to my knees but He is and always was Ar Rahman, Ar Raheem. And when I had to ask Him for the impossible He was Al Mujeeb,  the Responder, and yes I was 198 kilometres from home and my family and a six hour flight from the country I was born and raised in , but I was never ever alone or lost.  I was never abandoned when I felt alone and I was never forgotten when I felt depressed and I was never ever truly forsaken.

I was never worried except when I failed to put my trust in Him and I was never sad except when I forgot that He was with me.
"There is no creature on Earth except that its sustenance is upon Allah. He knows its habitation and its repository. All is in a clear Record." [Sûrah Hûd: 6]

"Not a leaf falls but that He knows it. And no grain is there within the darknesses of the earth and no moist or dry [thing] but that it is [written] in a clear record." (6:9)

"Call upon Me; I will respond to you." (40:60)