Worship is instigated in the heart due to the love of a thing. 

The word 'اله' ‘ilaah’ in its root verb form denotes the meaning of loving something. Our hearts incline towards worshiping ALLAH more when our hearts are filled with love for HIM. We want to be of service to HIM and do what pleases HIM because we love HIM.

I was reflecting on how love brings about obedience, worship and service to the thing that is loved and also how a heart that is full of the love of other things cannot be filled with the love of ALLAH. It’s like a container that can only contain one type of water in it. If you put juice (love of ALLAH) in a cup but then put the cup under running water and keep filling it with the love of other things eventually there will be no juice and only water in the cup. Also if the cup already has attachments or stones that are stuck to its inner surface then the juice will not be able to fill that space. I was thinking about how in these times this...

‘It wasn’t your fault, it’s not your fault and it never will be.’

I’m talking to you my dear sister, the one whose sacredness was abused as a child, the one who was sexually molested and touched due to no action of your own. I’m talking to you today and I want you to know that it wasn’t your fault.

I’ve talked to too many sisters who have at some point been sexually abused, mistreated or taken advantage of in their childhood and yet they find that no one addresses it, no one talks about it, no one mentions it and so they hide it within themselves.

Well, today if you’re one of those sisters then I want to honour you, I want to honour the pain you felt and still feel and acknowledge that it’s real, it happened, and I want to declare it openly that IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT.

Today, I want to talk about how you may be feeling and how you can very slowly begin to re-frame and help yourself.

I want you to know that no matter what...

As you grow and heal, you will become more powerful, you will learn how to fly, you will learn how to soar and you will learn how to connect more powerfully with your LORD..

And as you do that, the old caterpillar shell that was your home will begin to feel constricted, tight and trapping.

It will feel like it is blocking you from your true potential and who you want to be. You will feel your butterfly wings asking you to fly. You will know that you can fly and that you can soar.

But fear will hold you back, fear of what is outside the shell, fear of leaving your safety zone, fear of going somewhere you’ve never been before and fear of falling if you fly.

However, you have to realise that the only way for you to fly is to leave that place of safety; leave the caterpillar shell...because yes, it did once have a purpose; It protected you, it kept you safe, it allowed you to grow inside it, it allowed you to become a better you that can now fly, but you have to realise that it...

 I sat there with my two plaits, one on each side with a parting in the middle, wearing a green dress with a swirling pattern on it. I sat at my grandma's feet, pressing her legs, along with my cousins and my sisters. We all wanted one thing. We wanted to hear another one of ammaji's stories. We sweetly pleaded until she complied and this is how the story went...

It was a dark night, two people were walking down a lonely cobblestone street when they saw a third bending over frantically searching the floor - it was obvious he had lost something. He anxiously moved around, kneeling with his nose almost touching the floor searching around a lamp post.

They asked him; 'What are you looking for?'

He worriedly replied: 'I dropped my needle and it’s the last one I have.'

They decided to help him and started searching as well. After a long time of looking in the dim light of the lamppost and not finding the needle, one of them questioned; 'Where did you drop the needle?'

He...

I know it’s hard sis,

It’s so hard, it’s difficult to even bring yourself to think about it, let alone talk about it.

You see, when other people talk of their mothers in that listful loving way, like they're remembering their best moments ever lived, you don’t feel the same.

You don’t feel that love, you never felt that ‘home’ in mother that people talk about and you don’t really have that listful wishing for childhood to come back that others have.

It was hard, it was awkward, it was difficult to understand, it’s still difficult to understand.

Your heart says one thing and your mind says another.

You feel emotionally distant, you can’t relate to your mother but your mind says ‘no, that’s your mother you can’t feel like that’.

You feel bad talking about it, you feel guilty for even feeling like what your mother gave you was not enough. After all, she carried you for 9 months, she bore the pains of...

Today I want to talk about losing a person, a relationship or something we love, whether it's via death or estrangement or any other situation. It is a reminder for myself and anyone else who has experienced loss on how to use the painful situation to improve ourselves and form a stronger connection with ALLAH (swt).

I see loss as a death in itself. It may or may not be the death of the actual person or thing but it is a death of a part of your heart that was attached to that person or that thing. It creates an empty space in your heart and at the initial blow, one can feel empty and torn.

The devil may tempt us to react with anger at the decree of ALLAH, anger towards others or anger at ourselves. He may tempt us to react with hate, apathy and self-hatred. This is when we may hear a devilish voice inside telling us that 'this is what we deserve' or that 'bad things always happen to me' or that ‘I should have done this or that’ but at this point we can...

Are you feeling overwhelmed by everything you've got to do? Are you becoming anxious and stressed? Is all that stress causing you to be less productive which in turn is making you feel even more useless?

One thing that tends to happen to people who have big goals and want to achieve many things in life as well as keep everyone happy (which is impossible by the way - we can only focus on pleasing ALLAH) is that they become overwhelmed by it all and I've been there myself so many times. So I'm going to share with you some steps to get yourself out of the situation.

1) REMEMBER THAT LIFE WILL CARRY ON AND THE EARTH WILL KEEP ROTATING NO MATTER WHAT IT IS THAT NEEDS DOING.

I always ask myself, if I died in one hour would I be stressed about this situation or these tasks and more often then not, the answer is 'No' of course, unless it's my salah.

Once you've asked this question and acknowledged to yourself that what you were stressing about really isn't that...

Whether Muslim, non-Muslim or newly Muslim we have all seen the ebb and flow of abundance in our lives, and though we may not have connected this to ALLAH’S names because we may have felt that ALLAH’S names are a rather overwhelming abstract list of 99 attributes that we must study in a class on belief, I hope that in this modest piece I can share a journey with you and show you how Allah, Al-Qaabid and Al-Baasit manifested Himself in my life. I hope it enables you deeply connect to these two attributes of ALLAH, to feel their presence, submit to them and rely on them to create positive change for yourself.

In basic translation, Al-Baasit means: The expander, the releaser, the one who stretches out; and Al-Qaabid means The constrictor, the withholder, the restrainer.

The journey:

It’s only been one year but what a journey you’ve had, and what a path you’ve travelled!  Your chest feels tight and your heart feels sad, and yet within...

One of the habits I have really cultivated and held on to in my journey to self-improvement and self-discovery is journaling/writing.

Sometimes though I can’t find the right words to express what’s inside myself and so I do art instead, and once I do that I miraculously find the words for it too.

So this is a piece I did on ‘calm’ or ‘my calm’ and as I look at it, ‘calm’ speaks to me.

Calm stands alone. It doesn’t need support and it's powerful. As I was doing the page I intuitively felt that the word ‘strength’ had to go on the page too and maybe that’s because ‘calm’ is strength. Maybe our strength comes forth when we’re calm or maybe we need to be calm to be strong but strength definitely leans on calm.

The white flower is so delicate yet it stands alone so calmly. It has a dignity and strength in its calm that says ‘I’m strong, I’m scared. Don’t touch...