Awakening to faith is not a one-time event, but a continuously unfolding reality. The journey of faith is not a race, but a marathon of love that each person walks at a different pace.

It is not our prayer and worship of God that makes God love us; rather, it’s God’s unconditional love for us that results in our worship. We do not pray for the love of God, but from the love of God. God’s power inspires and allows us to pray, and it’s that same divine power that we are calling to in prayer. As Rumi says, “I am a mountain. You call, I echo.

Just as a stone that is dropped anywhere in a lake creates ripples that reach across the entire body of water, when one of us is suffering, that pain ripples through all of existence. As Rumi said, “The differences are just illusion and vanity. Sunlight looks slightly different on this wall than it does on that wall and a lot different on this other one but it is still one light.

We are all born with spiritual wings, Islam simply reminds us how to fly.

As long as your heart is beating, you have a purpose. God is intentional, so He does not keep anyone on Earth that doesn’t have to be here; if we are blessed with more life, it is because someone in the world needs us. If we are alive, it means that what we were sent to this Earth to create has not yet been accomplished.

In Arabic, the word fitna, meaning “hardship,” stems from the word fatanah, which means “to test gold, burn with fire.” Just as gold is heated to extract valuable elements from the useless surrounding material, it is through the fire of our trials that our golden essence is unearthed.

The eternal destination of others has no effect on how Muslims are called to treat the creation of God. Our love, respect, and honor toward others should not be contingent on someone’s faith or belief system, but on our faith. Since we believe every single person was created by God and is continuously sustained by Him, the life of every human being is infinitely priceless, regardless of what they believe or seek in this life and the next.

Some linguists say that the word Allah is based on the word waliha, which translates to a love that is so passionate and ecstatic that it completely transcends the senses. This implies that to know God we have to surrender our minds, everything we are, and everything we know in exchange for love, because self-surrender to divine love is the only path to God.

Mystics throughout time have said that they believe in God like they believe in light, not because they can see light, but because through it they see everything else.