Ziyad Motala, Professor of Law, Howard Law School

A Troubling Spectacle

A troubling spectacle continues during the nightly prayers of Ramadhan. In Islam’s holiest mosques, supplications lavish praise upon the Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, and seek divine favour for the strength and victory of the Saudi state and its security forces. Millions of Muslims around the world instinctively respond with “Aameen.” They believe they are participating in devotion. In reality, many are unknowingly affirming prayers that sanctify the ambitions of the Saudi state and its ruler at a moment when that state stands aligned with powers devastating Muslim lands.

The Meaning and Purpose of the Qunoot

Each evening in the month of Ramadan, millions of Muslims stand in prayer during the final phase of the nightly prayer, known as the Witr. In that moment, the imam recites what is called the Qunoot. The word simply means supplication. The imam raises his hands and implores God for mercy, forgiveness, and protection for the community. The congregation responds with a soft but collective “Aameen,” affirming the prayer and making its contents their own. It is a moment meant to embody humility before the Divine. In principle, it is among the most moving practices in the Muslim devotional life. It reminds believers that all authority, all power, and all protection ultimately belong to God alone.

When Supplication Becomes Political Theatre

But segments of the Qunoot have become political theatre. Certain court clerics have transformed the Qunoot into a peculiar spectacle of political flattery. Their supplications have included prayers not only for the Muslim ummah, but for the well-being of the Saudi state and the personal success and triumph of the Saudi rulers. More striking still is the language in which these prayers have been framed. The ruler has been addressed with honorifics such as “Al Amin,” a title intimately associated with the Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H. himself.

Words shape the moral imagination of believers. In the Islamic tradition, the Prophet was known as Al Amin, the trustworthy, a designation earned through a life of moral credibility long before prophethood was proclaimed. To attach that title to a modern prince presiding over a state of debauchery, spectacle, repression, and geopolitical intrigue where Muslims are being massacred is grotesque clerical flattery bordering on parody. And when millions of Muslims dutifully respond with “Aameen,” they are unknowingly affirming not just devotion but the spectacle itself. They are giving their assent to this sycophancy offered in the language of prayer.

What are Worshippers Affirming?

The supplications have continued with appeals that God strengthen the rulers, grant them victory, empower the Saudi security forces, and preserve the Saudi state from every evil. The congregation of over two million responds with “Aameen.” For countless worshippers, the Arabic phrases are not fully understood. They are participating in an act of devotion and assume that the words being recited reflect the moral spirit of the tradition.

What exactly, then, are Muslims affirming when they say “Aameen”? The modern Saudi state is not an Islamic state. It is a nation state whose ruling order did not arise from Islamic legitimacy but was forged under British patronage and sustained by Western, particularly United States, power. This state claims custodianship of Islam’s holiest places while aligning itself closely with the strategic priorities of the United States and Israel, powers actively engaged in war against Muslims. At the same time, the world watches the devastation of Gaza and the steady seizure of Palestinian land, realities unfolding alongside the strategic partnership linking Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Israel.

Contradictions in Policy and Practice

One hears supplications for the protection of Muslim lands and the strengthening of the faith, while the political alliances of the state reciting those prayers sit comfortably beside the very forces that are devastating Muslim societies. The dissonance is difficult to ignore. Saudi Arabia’s recent trajectory only sharpens the paradox. The kingdom presents itself as the guardian of Islamic orthodoxy, yet it has simultaneously cultivated a political order increasingly defined by grotesque spectacle, wealth, and strategic alignment with Western power. Its rulers preside over a social transformation built around lewd entertainment and luxury while imprisoning scholars whose religious authority might challenge the state. Clerics who dissent disappear into prisons, while clerics who praise the ruler appear on the pulpits of the two holy mosques.

Beyond its borders, the kingdom’s political footprint is equally troubling. Its war in Yemen produced one of the most severe humanitarian catastrophes of the modern era. Its interventions in the politics of Egypt and elsewhere have strengthened authoritarian rule across the Arab world. It has historically encouraged a regional confrontation with Iran, whose consequences now threaten to engulf the entire Middle East. Against this background, the Qunoot sounds less like supplication and more like state messaging delivered through sacred ritual.

Power, Image, and Religious Authority

There is another irony. Mohammed bin Salman is frequently presented, by admirers and critics alike, as though he were a central figure representing the Islamic world. He is not. He is the ruler of a modern nation state that bears the name of his own family. The very designation “Saudi Arabia” is a historical anomaly. The Prophet Muhammad, may Allah give him peace and blessings, did not name Arabia after himself. Nor did the Rightly Guided Caliphs transform the lands of Islam into dynastic brands. Their authority rested on moral example and communal legitimacy. The modern Saudi state rests on oil wealth, security alliances, and the imposition of a ruling family whose name defines the country itself. To call the Saudi ruler “Al Amin” is theological absurdity.

The Weight of Saying “Aameen”

Yet through the symbolism of Mecca and Medina, the Saudi state possesses a unique capacity to project its voice into the devotional life of Muslims everywhere. When the imam in the Grand Mosque raises his hands in supplication, believers instinctively respond “Aameen.” But prayer is not passive. To say “Aameen” is to affirm the words that have been spoken. Muslims, therefore, confront a quiet but profound question. When the Qunoot asks God to grant victory to illegitimate rulers whose policies align them with all kinds of debauchery and vice, the bombardment of Gaza, the dispossession of Palestinians, and the escalation of war against Iran, should believers reflexively echo that prayer?

There is an even more basic issue. Muslims should not be saying “Aameen” to supplications that ask God to strengthen the nation state of Saudi Arabia or its ruler. Saudi Arabia is not an Islamic state. It is a nation state organised around a ruling family and structured primarily to protect the interests of its political and economic elite. The global Muslim community does not owe devotional affirmation to the success of such a state.

Lessons From Islamic Tradition

Islamic history contains many examples of scholars who refused to sanctify temporal power. Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal endured imprisonment rather than submitting to doctrines imposed by the Abbasid state. Jurists across centuries insisted that religion must restrain rulers rather than ornament their authority. Those precedents were not acts of rebellion. They were acts of fidelity.

Preserving the Integrity of Worship

The Qunoot is meant to remind believers of their dependence on God. It is not meant to consecrate the ambitions of princes. When the language of supplication becomes indistinguishable from the language of court praise, the prayer itself loses its moral clarity. Ramadhan is a season of spiritual awakening. It is also a season of moral reflection. The lesson for Muslims is simple but urgent. Devotion must never become a vehicle for the sanctification of power.

And before saying “Aameen,” a believer should always know what they are agreeing to. For in matters of faith, an unthinking “Aameen” can become the quietest form of political consent.

This article is an opinion piece and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of MuslimMatters.

Related:

Freedom Of Speech And Protest In Islam: The Distorted Saudi View

What Shaykh Muhammad Al Shareef Taught Us About Making Dua

The post When The Qunoot Becomes Politics: Religious Theater in Saudi Arabia appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Reform party leader criticised for making comments after event held in London’s Trafalgar Square this week

Muslim leaders have condemned Nigel Farage’s call to ban public prayer by Muslims in the UK as bigoted and warned of a “growing tide of hate” after the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, questioned whether the events fitted “within the norms of British culture”.

Farage was speaking at the launch of Reform UK’s manifesto for the forthcoming Scottish parliament elections when he made the remarks.

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For two years, I felt like a robot, devoid of feeling. But our collective effort to ensure we could pray together again during Ramadan has made me human again.

At the launch of the Conservative local elections campaign on Thursday, Peter Walker asked Kemi Badenoch about her shadow justice secretary’s claim that Muslims praying in Trafalgar square was an ‘act of domination’. Her answer did not clarify the party’s position. Peter discusses with Lexy Topping the problems this kind of culture war may bring the Conservatives. Plus, are Sadiq Khan’s comments on the EU and Angela Rayner’s return to the spotlight a new headache for Keir Starmer?

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Nigel Farage echoed Nick Timothy’s comments after he said public prayer for Ramadan was an ‘act of domination’

• Starmer claims Tories have ‘problem with Muslims’ after Timothy tweet

Cleverly is trying to show a video, but it is not working. So he just invites Kemi Badenoch to start her speech.

The Conservatives are launching their local elections campaign. There is a live feed here.

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Conservative leader says debate not about freedom of religion, but its expression in shared public space

• UK politics live – latest updates

Kemi Badenoch has backed her shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, after he claimed that Islamic prayers taking place in public are intimidating and un-British, with Labour saying the Conservatives had embraced the “gutter” politics of prejudice.

The row began after Timothy posted images on social media of prayer at a Ramadan event in London’s Trafalgar Square, saying mass prayer in public places was “an act of domination” and “straight from the Islamist playbook”.

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We don’t want the world to give us tents and give Israel missiles.

Bundestag bigwig Marcus Faber is now lobbying for Elbit Systems.

This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim families are navigating.

The Answer — What 30 Nights With the Quran Built in Muslim Teenagers

Thirty nights ago, a series began with a question.

Who are you — really — when all the masks are removed? 

Tonight that question receives its answer. And this final guide is for the Muslim parent who wants to understand what their teenager received across this Ramadan — and what your role is now that the series has ended.

What the series built — a parent’s summary 

Across 30 nights, the series addressed the central identity crisis of Muslim teenagers in the West through four consecutive weeks of honest, Quranic, psychologically grounded content.

Week 1 — Identity and Belonging — gave teenagers a theological framework for their dual-world experience. The message: you are not a defective Muslim because you navigate multiple worlds. You are a khalifah placed in a specific context for a specific purpose. Your background, your language, your experience of being between worlds — these are your context, not your disqualification.

Week 2 — Relationships and Boundaries — addressed the relational questions that Islamic content rarely approaches directly: friendships with non-Muslims, attraction, toxic relationships, forgiveness, loneliness. The message: your relationships are not separate from your Islam. They are where Islam is lived most concretely.

Week 3 — Doubt, Faith, and Mental Health — went somewhere that most Islamic youth content refuses to go: depression, grief, shame, addiction, and the feeling that struggling means you are failing at Islam. The message: your struggles are not disqualifications. Every prophet this series introduced struggled. Not despite their prophethood — alongside it. Their humanity serves as a powerful example for us, and how they overcame their struggles gives us the role model and the hope.

Week 4 — Purpose, Legacy, and the Long Game — built a comprehensive framework for a purposeful Muslim life: khalifah as the direction, ummah as the community, ikhlas as the motivation, legacy as the time horizon, taqwa as the foundation, becoming as the process. The message: you are building something right now. Plant it. Carry the bowl. The shade is already needed.

And Night 30 said: all of that together is the answer to who you are.

That is what your teenager received. The question now is what you do with it.

The seven declarations — what your teenager now knows

Tonight’s video gave teenagers seven specific answers to the identity question. As a parent, knowing what those seven answers are — and reinforcing them at home — is among the most important things you can do in the days following Ramadan.

1. They are a khalifah — placed here deliberately, with full knowledge of their weakness, for a purpose only they can fulfill in their specific context.
2. They are part of a chain — the product of fourteen centuries of ordinary Muslims who held so that the deen could reach them. And they are responsible for passing it on.
3. They are a person in the middle of their becoming — the confusion and not-yet are not evidence of failure. They are what becoming feels like from the inside.
4. They are someone whose trembling is seen — Allah knows not just what they do, but what they had to overcome to do it. The private struggle, the effort that nobody witnessed — He saw it.
5. They are not just themselves — they are part of a single body brought forth for all of humanity, with a responsibility to the people around them that goes beyond their own community.
6. They are someone carrying a bowl of milk — taqwa as the active, daily practice of protecting their book of deeds, carrying it carefully through everything the world places in their path.
7. They are someone planting trees — right now, in this season, in ways they cannot yet fully see.

These seven declarations are the answer to the Night 1 question. Help your teenager hold them. Ask them which one landed hardest. Name the one you see most clearly in them. Build it into the language of your home.

What the series revealed about your teenager’s interior

Across 30 nights, this series received responses from its audience that reveal something Muslim parents need to understand about what their teenagers are carrying.

The emails and comments that came back were not primarily about theological questions or Islamic rulings. They were about the interior life — the doubt that felt shameful to name, the depression that was being hidden because it seemed like a failure of faith, the shame around specific struggles that had never been told to anyone, the loneliness of feeling like the only one navigating what they were navigating.

Your teenager is carrying more than you know. Not because they are hiding it from you specifically — but because the Islamic content they have access to has not, until very recently, given them a language for those interior experiences. A language that is both Islamically grounded and honest about human struggle.

This series gave them that language. The question is whether you can receive it.

The parent who responds to their teenager’s newly found language — who hears “I related to the Night 15 episode on doubt” or “the Night 20 episode was about me” — with openness rather than alarm, with curiosity rather than correction, with Khadijah’s response rather than a lecture — is the parent whose teenager will keep talking.

Be that parent. The series opened a door. Your response determines whether your teenager walks through it toward you.

The Surat al-‘Asr framework — what Night 30 is asking your family to do

The series opened on Night 1 with Surat al-‘Asr — the framework that knowledge must be acted upon and invited to. It closes on Night 30 with the same instruction.

Tonight’s video makes two specific requests of its viewers:

1. Move the series from the watched category to the lived category. The content has no power as content alone. It becomes real when it becomes the life being lived.
2. Tell someone. Find the person in your life who is asking the same questions and was too afraid to say so. Share it — not as a caption, but as a conversation.

For Muslim parents, both of these requests have direct applications.

The lived category for your family means: the seven declarations are not just things your teenager heard. They are things your family believes and practices and names regularly. The khalifah framework is how you talk about purpose. The chain is how you talk about inheritance. The bowl is how you talk about taqwa. The vocabulary of the series becomes the vocabulary of your home.

The telling someone means: this series is not finished with your family. Think of the family in your community whose teenager needs what this series gave yours. The parent who is struggling to have these conversations and doesn’t know where to start. Share the playlist. Share a specific episode. Let the series do the opening that you might not be able to do alone.

That is how chains extend. One ordinary link at a time.

On FamCinema and what it means for your family

Tonight’s video introduces FamCinema — the media project Dr. Ali has been building alongside this series — and announces the premiere of the Hijrah animated series this Friday as a Eid gift.

For Muslim parents, FamCinema represents something worth paying attention to beyond the entertainment value of a specific series.

It is a demonstration of the tree-planting principle applied to culture. The recognition that Muslim families need media that reflects their values — not as a concession or a sanitized alternative, but as genuinely good entertainment that doesn’t require families to navigate content that conflicts with what they believe. That is a real need. And it is being addressed by someone planting a tree knowing that the shade will take years to grow.

Watch the Hijrah series with your family this Eid. Give your teenager the experience of Muslim-produced media that is funny and human and made for people like them. And if it resonates — tell someone. That is how the tree grows.

The FamCinema channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@FamCinemaOfficial

Final discussion questions for families

For teens:

1. Which of the seven “who you are” declarations from Night 30 lands hardest for you right now? Why that one?
2. What is the one thing from these 30 nights that you are going to actually do differently — not think about, do?
3. Who is the one person in your life you want to share this series with? What is stopping you from doing it today?

For parents:

1. What did you learn about your teenager across this Ramadan — from watching the series, from the conversations it produced, from what they shared or didn’t share — that you didn’t know before?
2. Which of the seven declarations do you most want your teenager to carry into the rest of their life? Have you told them that?
3. What is your family planting together — starting this Eid — that someone after you will sit under?

For discussion together:

1. Read Surat al-‘Asr together. What does “acted upon and invited to” look like for our family in the weeks after Ramadan?
2. Which week of the series was most relevant to where our family actually is right now? What would it look like to go deeper on that week together?
3. Make a du’a together tonight — for the series, for everyone who received it, and for what you are building together as a family. Let it be among the closing supplications of your Ramadan.

Eid Mubarak

This series was built for you — for the Muslim family navigating something genuinely difficult, in a context that doesn’t make it easy, with questions that deserve honest answers.

May He put barakah in it that outlasts all of us. May He make it a sadaqah jariyah that keeps giving shade to people who never knew the name of the person who planted it. May Allah accept it among our acts of worship in this noble month and make it a means of releasing us from the Hellfire …

And may He make your teenager — exactly as they are, in the middle of their becoming — exactly what He placed them here to be. Ameen.

Eid Mubarak. Was-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.

Related:

Running Away From Who We Are | Night 29 with the Qur’an

30 Nights with the Qur’an: A Ramadan Series for Muslim Teens

The post Coming Full Circle: Who Are You Now? | Night 30 with the Qur’an appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Nick Timothy said an event attended by the mayor of London that included prayers was an ‘act of domination’

Polanski says the government should be doing more to improve home insulation, and on the drive towards renewable energy.

And he says the government should commit to ensuring energy bills do not rise above the April-June price cap.

The government should guarantee right now that it will not allow energy bills to rise beyond the April-June price cap – instead setting aside approximately £8.4bn to prevent a rise of up to £300 per household that could be coming down the track.

No, it’s not cheap. But the alternative is unacceptable: if the price cap rises, we will see interest rate rises. Mortgage rates up. Bond yields up. And inflation up – and we will be back into the doom loop that has done untold damage to our economy and caused misery for households across the UK for years now.

There are ways to pay. Instead of scrapping the windfall tax on energy companies, as this government is planning to do, we should be strengthening it instead. We need a real, loophole-free windfall tax with no exemptions for reinvesting in fossil fuels. A robust tax that claws back every single pound of reckless profiteering from this crisis and repurposes it immediately to protect every home in the country. And while taxing extreme wealth in the ways we need to will take time to implement, there are levers the government could pull right now – like equalising capital gains tax with income tax and reforming the base, to raise £12bn.

It’s time for the government to act decisively, eliminate the uncertainty that is plaguing people and the markets and insulate us from some of the worst economic effects of Trump’s war.

This was not a war of self-defence, there was no imminent threat. Negotiations were ongoing. It was, as the BBC’s international editor said, a war of choice.

People across the Middle East are terrified of what Trump and Netanyanhu’s war will mean for them and their loved ones. And the repercussions are echoing across the world as instability spreads and oil prices spike.

People are already struggling so hard just to make ends meet. People feel like they’re running every day just to stay in the same place. The idea that yet again – for the second time in just a few years – that we are going to have to deal with another enormous spike in the cost of the basics is unacceptable.

It’s unacceptable because we didn’t need to be here. It’s unforgivable that just four years after we last saw an energy price shock, that one triggered by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, far too little has been done to protect this country, its people, and its economy – from the impact of yet another energy price shock.

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This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim families are navigating.

What the Prophet Yunus Teaches Muslim Parents About Purpose, Escape, and the Shore That Waits

There is a specific kind of parental fear that is different from all the others.

It is not the fear of your teenager making a dangerous choice. It is not the fear of them drifting from the deen or losing their identity. It is the quieter, harder fear of watching your teenager run from something you can see is theirs — a gift, a direction, a version of themselves that is clearly there — and feeling unable to stop the running.

Tonight’s post is for the parent navigating that fear. And this guide is for helping you understand both what your teenager received in tonight’s video — and what the running might actually be for.

The reframe that changes everything

Tonight’s video makes a theological move that most Islamic education about Yunus never makes — and that Muslim parents most need to understand.

Yunus ﷺ was not weak. He was not faithless. He was not spiritually immature. He was grieving — with a grief so intense it overcame him — for people he loved so much, that their indifference to the message was unbearable.

The Quran addresses this idea directly in Surah al-Kahf: “Perhaps you will grieve yourself to death over their denial.” [18:6] — spoken to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, but describing a prophetic pattern that runs through the entire history of the prophets. The prophets struggled because they cared too much to accept the people’s indifference without being broken by it.

What this means for your teenager is significant: if they are running from something — from their deen, from a practice, from a version of themselves they know they’re supposed to be — the running is not necessarily evidence of weak faith. It may be evidence of caring so much about something that the gap between where they are and where they want to be became temporarily unbearable.

That reframe changes how you respond. Not with alarm or judgment. With the question Khadijah’s model suggests: who are you already, right now, that I can name and affirm? What is the caring that is underneath the running?

What the Nineveh detail teaches parents

 Tonight’s video includes a detail about the Yunus story that is rarely taught — and that parents need to hear.

While Yunus was running, while he was in the whale’s belly, while everything looked like failure from the inside — his absence from Nineveh was producing exactly the response his presence had been building toward for years. The people noticed he was gone. They recognized what his absence meant. And they turned in repentance — before he came back.

The mission he thought was failing was actually working from the outside, in ways he couldn’t see from the inside.

For parents watching their teenager apparently go backwards — abandoning practices, drifting from the community, running from commitments — this detail carries specific and important comfort.

The years of Islamic education, the values instilled in childhood, the character built through family tradition, the seeds planted across a lifetime of ordinary faithfulness — these do not disappear during the running. They are working, from the inside, in ways you cannot see from the outside. The Nineveh principle: the mission looked like failure from Yunus’s perspective. It was all preparation from Allah’s perspective.

This does not mean parental passivity — you remain present, available, a Khadijah ready to wrap them in a cloak when they return. But it means that the running is not the erasure of everything that came before it. The soil that was cultivated during the years of investment does not simply disappear.

Trust the process. We put in the effort. The results belong to Allah.

The Saudi Arabia story — what it means for parents

Tonight’s extended edition email tells a story that deserves attention from Muslim parents specifically: Dr. Ali’s escape to Saudi Arabia in 2011.

He went to escape many things, but one was medicine — burned out by years of caring for patients whose relationship with the medical staff was primarily aggression and abuse, asking himself repeatedly whether his years of training had been for this. He went intending early retirement. He went running.

What he found at the destination of his running:

• Patients who made du’a for his parents and his children. An experience of medicine that justified everything he had put into it.
• The opportunity to become a personal physician for Sheikh Jafar Idris.
• A close and enduring friendship with Sheikh Jafar’s son — a scholar and builder who has been among the most important relationships of his life.
• Access to a jama’ah of people building something real, rather than the expat community he might otherwise have belonged to.

He went running from his purpose and found, at the destination of his running, the fullest expression of his purpose he had ever experienced.

This is not a recommendation for running. The running itself was the wrong direction — he acknowledges this clearly. But it is a testimony about what Allah does with running when a servant turns back: He meets them at the shore with provision already prepared.

For Muslim parents watching their teenager run — this story matters. Not because it validates the running. Because it testifies to the fact that Allah is present at every destination, including the ones our children reach by going in the wrong direction.

The jama’ah that was waiting

One detail from Dr. Ali’s Saudi story deserves specific attention for parents: the jama’ah.

Through Yusuf Idris, Dr. Ali found access to a community of people building something real — scholars, educators, people seriously engaged in Islamic work — that he had wanted to belong to but hadn’t found before. His running to Saudi Arabia, which was intended as retreat, became the door through which he entered the community he had been looking for.

For Muslim parents, this raises an important question about your teenager’s running: what community are they looking for that they haven’t found? What jama’ah are they hungering for that the available options haven’t satisfied?

Sometimes teenage drift from the Muslim community is not rejection of the community concept. It is dissatisfaction with the specific communities available — communities that don’t feel alive, don’t feel relevant, don’t feel like places where real building is happening.

The response to that hunger is not to insist they make do with what exists. It is to help them find — or help build — the jama’ah that is actually worth belonging to. The hand of Allah is with the jama’ah. Help your teenager find one that makes that promise feel real.

The Quality of Yusuf Idris — a note for parents

Dr. Ali describes Yusuf Idris as someone who “consistently makes the people around him feel like more than they know themselves to be.” Not through flattery — through encouragement pointed at something real. Every conversation leaves you feeling that you have more to offer than you had recognized, that the direction you are heading is worth continuing.

That quality — the ability to see in someone what they cannot yet see in themselves and to name it with genuine encouragement — is the Khadijah quality. It is what she did for the trembling prophet. It is what Yusuf Idris does for the people around him. And it is what Muslim parents can do for their teenagers.

You have watched your teenager for years. You know their gifts, their character, their capacity, their resilience. You can see, from the longer view you have, the shape of what they are becoming before they can see it themselves.

Name it. Say it to them — specifically, not generally. Not “you will do great things,” but the specific thing you see: the quality you have watched develop, the gift that keeps appearing, the character trait that has been consistent since childhood.

That naming — received from a parent who has been watching carefully — is one of the most important things a teenager can carry into the rest of their becoming.

The Tasbih for Parents

 Tonight’s video closes with the tasbih of Yunus ﷺ as a practice for teenagers. I want to suggest it as a practice for parents as well.

La ilaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu mina al-dhalimeen.

There is nothing worthy of worship except You. How perfect are You above all that they associate with You. I have been of the wrongdoers.

As a parent, this tasbih has a specific application: it is the prayer of the person who has been running from something — including the running that parenting itself sometimes involves. The ways we have failed to be fully present. The Khadijah responses we didn’t give when our teenager needed them. The moments we responded with alarm or judgment rather than with the wrapping in a cloak that the situation required.

Make this du’a tonight. As a turning back to Allah. The turning is always possible. The response is always available. And the shore — with provision already prepared — is waiting.

Discussion questions for families

 For teens:

1. Have you ever run from something that turned out to be exactly what you were meant for? What did you find at the destination of that running?
2. Is there something you are currently running from — a practice, a commitment, a version of yourself you know you are supposed to be? What would naming it out loud feel like?
3. Is there a Yusuf Idris in your life — someone who makes you feel like more than you know yourself to be? What do they see in you that you struggle to see yourself?

For parents:

1. What do you see in your teenager that they cannot yet see in themselves? Have you said it to them — specifically, recently, in a way they could receive?
2. Is your teenager’s running from purpose driven by indifference — or by the kind of grief that comes from caring too much? How does that distinction change your response?
3. What jama’ah is your teenager looking for that they haven’t found? How can you help them find or build it?

For discussion together:

1. Read Surat al-Anbiya [21:87-88] together. What does wa kadhalika nunjil mu’mineen — “and thus do We save the believers” — mean for your family right now?
2. Is there something our family has been running from — a commitment, a practice, a direction — that we need to name and return to together?
3. What would it look like for our family to say the tasbih of Yunus together tonight — genuinely, not as a recitation but as an acknowledgment?

The Bottom Line

Your teenager may be running right now. From their purpose, their practice, a version of themselves they haven’t yet grown into.

The Yunus story — told tonight in its full depth — is not a warning about the consequences of running. It is a testimony about what Allah does with the turning. He meets His servants at the shore. With shade already prepared. With provision already growing. Sometimes with a friendship they didn’t know they were going to find.

Be present. Be a Khadijah. Name what you see. And trust that the purpose — still there, still waiting, still theirs — will receive them when they return.

Wa kadhalika nunjil mu’mineen.

Continue the Journey

This is Night 29 of Dr. Ali’s 30-part Ramadan series, “30 Nights with the Quran: Stories for the Seeking Soul.”

Tomorrow, insha Allah: Night 30 — The Full Circle. We return to the question that opened Night 1 — and answer it differently.

For daily extended reflections with journaling prompts, personal stories, and deeper resources, join Dr. Ali’s email community: https://30nightswithquran.beehiiv.com/

Related:

Building From the Ground Up: Week 4 Recap | Night 28 with the Qur’an

30 Nights with the Qur’an: A Ramadan Series for Muslim Teens

The post Running Away From Who We Are | Night 29 with the Qur’an appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

The Israeli military seems bent on revenge against al-Dura family.

Young men are living unexpected lives, taking on outsized responsibilities as heads of households. 

This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim families are navigating.

Week 4 Reflection — A building inspection for families

What are you building — and is it built on the right foundation, for the right Master, with the right community, and in the right direction?

That is what Week 4 of “30 Nights with the Quran” was about. And this recap is for the parent who wants to understand what their teenager received — and what it means for how you build alongside them.

The Single Argument Week 4 was Making

Each night of Week 4 addressed a different dimension of the same fundamental question. Understanding how the six nights fit together helps parents see what their teenager has been receiving — not as a series of disconnected topics, but as a single, coherent argument about how to build a life of purpose and for Allah.

Night 22 on purpose, established the direction: you are a khalifah, placed here deliberately, building toward something larger than accumulation or recognition.

Night 23 on ummah, established the community, the jama’ah: you are not building alone, you are building as part of a single body brought forth for all of humanity.

Night 24 on ikhlas, established the motivation: the building is for Allah alone, and the health of the intention is what determines whether it will stand.

Night 25 on legacy, established the time horizon: you are planting trees whose shade you will not sit in, and the planting begins now regardless of how early it feels.

Night 26 on taqwa, established the foundation: without the active, deliberate protection of your book of deeds underneath everything else, the building will eventually collapse from within.

Night 27 on becoming, established the process: the building is not supposed to be finished in this life, and the trembling is not the end of the story.

Six nights. One building. Your teenager has been receiving the blueprints.

What the Building Inspection Reveals for Families

The email tonight invites subscribers to do a building inspection — five honest questions corresponding to the five building blocks of Week 4. For parents, a version of that inspection applies directly:

Foundation — Is taqwa operating in your home? Not as a word that gets used in Islamic contexts. As a daily practice. Is the protection of your book of deeds — and your children’s books of deeds — an operating principle in how your family makes decisions?

When no one is watching, when the servant is not visibly present, when the bowl is in your hands in the ordinary moments of daily life — what does taqwa look like in your household?

Direction — What is your family building toward? The culture offers a very compelling answer: accumulation. Academic achievement, financial security, social standing, worldly success. These are not inherently wrong. But they are insufficient as the primary direction of a family’s building. What is the khalifah metric in your home? What does success look like when the only audience that matters is Allah?

Community — Is your family genuinely embedded in a jama’ah? Not attending a masjid occasionally. Genuinely present in a Muslim community — known, accountable, invested in the wellbeing of the people around you and available to them in return. Your teenager is watching how seriously you take the ummah. And the body they see you belonging to is the body they will either join or distance themselves from.

Intention — What does your family’s ikhlas look like? Are your children watching you do good things privately, without documentation or announcement? Are they absorbing a model of virtue that doesn’t require an audience — or are they learning that the deed undocumented is the deed that didn’t quite happen? The ikhlas you model in front of them is the ikhlas they will carry into their own lives.

Time horizon — What is your family planting? Not in general terms — specifically. What is the tree your family is growing together that someone after you will sit under? The investment in Islamic education, the community institution being built, the character being formed in your children — these are trees. Are you tending them with the awareness that their shade is already needed?

The becoming framework — for parents of teenagers in transition

Night 27’s content on the Prophet ﷺ — the shivering man in the cloak who was told arise before he felt ready — has specific and important implications for parents of teenagers who are visibly in the middle of their becoming.

The developmental reality of the teenage years is that almost no teenager can see the shape of what they are becoming from the inside. The confusion, the not-yet, the gap between who they are and who they sense they are supposed to be — these are not signs of failure. They are the interior experience of a becoming that is already in progress.

What Week 4 Asked of Muslim Parents

Each night of Week 4 contained an implicit challenge to parents alongside the explicit content for teenagers. Taken together, those challenges form a clear picture of what Week 4 is asking of you.

Night 22 asked: do you know what your teenager thinks they are here for? Have you ever asked them directly — and if so, have you listened to the answer?

Night 23 asked: is your teenager embedded in a real Muslim community — not as a concept, but as a lived experience? Have they felt the body respond to them?

Night 24 asked: are you modeling ikhlas — the private deed, the secret sadaqah, the worship that no one knows about — in front of your children? Or are they absorbing a model of virtue that requires an audience?

Night 25 asked: have you told your teenager what you are building that will outlast you? Do they know what sadaqah jariyah looks like in your family’s actual life?

Night 26 asked: are you giving your teenager both wings — fear and hope — or have you sanitized fear out of their relationship with Allah in an attempt to make the deen more appealing?

Night 27 asked: are you being a Khadijah for your teenager — holding first, then naming who they already are — or are you asking them to perform a composure and certainty they don’t yet have?

These are not comfortable questions. They are the right ones.

Discussion questions for families — Week 4 reflection

For teens:

1. Which night of Week 4 landed hardest — and what did it reveal about what you are building?
2. If you could name one specific thing you are planting right now whose shade someone else will sit in — what would it be?
3. What is the thing you are supposed to be doing that you have been running from? What would it take to stop running?

For parents:

1. Which of the five building inspection questions reveals the most vulnerability in your family’s building? What is the most honest answer to that question?
2. Have you named, specifically and recently, what you see in your teenager’s character — who they already are, not who you hope they will become?
3. What are you planting together as a family that will outlast you? Can your teenager name it?

For discussion together:

1. Read Surat al-Hashr 59:18 together: “Let every soul look to what it has sent forth for tomorrow.” What has our family sent forth? What do we want to send forth in the two nights that remain?
2. What is the one thing each of us is carrying forward from Week 4 — not our favorite lesson, but the one thing we are going to actually do differently?
3. Make du’a together tonight — specifically, for the building. For the foundation. For the direction. For the Master it is for. Ask Allah to accept it.

The Bottom Line

Week 4 built something in your teenager. Six nights of honest engagement with questions about purpose, community, intention, legacy, foundation, and becoming — in the spiritual intensity of Ramadan — do not leave a person unchanged.

Your job as a parent is to tend what was planted. To ask the questions that keep the building inspection honest. To be present for the becoming that is happening right now, in this season, whether or not you can see its shape yet.

Two nights remain. The series is almost complete, alhamdulillah.

But the building — insha Allah — is just getting started.

Continue the Journey

This is Night 28 of Dr. Ali’s 30-part Ramadan series, “30 Nights with the Quran: Stories for the Seeking Soul.”

Tomorrow, insha Allah: Night 29 — The Prophet Who Ran: Returning to Purpose After Running From It

For daily extended reflections with journaling prompts, personal stories, and deeper resources, join Dr. Ali’s email community: https://30nightswithquran.beehiiv.com/

Related:

The Muslim You Are Becoming | Night 27 with the Qur’an

30 Nights with the Qur’an: A Ramadan Series for Muslim Teens

The post Building From the Ground Up: Week 4 Recap | Night 28 with the Qur’an appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Like many women in their early forties, I’m experiencing some perimenopausal symptoms. The most obvious change in my menstrual cycle has been a clockwork return of my menses after fifteen days of purity. This is my first Ramadan where I’ve had my period at the start and at the end of Ramadan. A younger version of me would have been extremely annoyed with this turn of events. The current version of me is practising surrender. On a practical level, this means that I am spending less time in prayer, fasting, reading Qur’an and going to the masjid, and more time resting, making dua, listening to Qur’an, and helping my children with their acts of worship.

Last Ten Nights

What helps is remembering that Allah is All-Knowing and All-Merciful, and He has willed for me to be in a state of menstruation at the beginning and end of Ramadan. One of my teachers said that this Divinely-ordained pause from prayer and fasting gives women like me the opportunity to long for these acts of worship, and increases our gratitude when we return to them. Even though it isn’t easy for me to pay back my fasts outside of Ramadan, I can trust in Allah rewarding me for doing so. Orienting everything back to Allah , instead of my own self, has been very helpful.

Different Acts of Worship

I may not be able to pray, fast, or perform i’tikaf in the masjid during these last few nights of Ramadan, but there is still so much I can do. I can still make heartfelt du’a, give in charity, feed fasting people, listen to Qur’an, teach my children the value of patience, and so on. I can remind myself too that the mercy of Allah is vast, and He is the one who can accept our acts of worship and multiply the reward, no matter how much we fall short. Shifting my mindset into one of abundance, instead of scarcity, has made all the difference. InshaAllah, even menstruating women can catch the blessings of Laylatul Qadr.

Teaching Moment

My children were shocked to hear that just as they will be rewarded for fasting, I am also rewarded for refraining from fasting during menstruation. It was a struggle for me to keep a straight face when my tween daughter exclaimed, “What? You get rewarded for doing nothing?”

I explained that Allah is Most Generous, and He rewards us all for performing our obligations – which, in the state of menstruation, means refraining from prayer and fasting. This is not including all the countless other acts of service, words of affirmation, comforting back rubs that mothers do every day, let alone putting restless children and babies back to sleep at night. None of this is lost on Allah , even if our children might not be immediately cognizant of what we sacrifice. 

Abu Yahya Suhaib bin Sinan (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that:

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “How wonderful is the case of a believer; there is good for him in everything and this applies only to a believer. If prosperity attends him, he expresses gratitude to Allah and that is good for him; and if adversity befalls him, he endures it patiently, and that is better for him”. [Sahih Muslim]

Seasons of Life

What helps is surrendering to the qadr of Allah in this new season of my life. Resisting the reality of my more frequent menstruation will only add to my unhappiness and discomfort. I can reframe this as part of Allah’s Plan for me to slow me down and prioritise my self-care after the last intense decade of raising three small children close in age. Menstruation is something that women go through for almost four decades of our lives – at least half of our time on this dunya! – and it helps to accept the ups and downs of each stage.

Health Awareness

As part of our Ramadan practice, perimenopausal women can schedule a check-up with our gynaecologists to check the level of our hormones. We can continue lifting heavy weights so we can build our strength in midlife and beyond. We can prioritize going on walks regularly to keep our bodies limber and strong to help us age well.

My husband and I make du’a that we can continue to prostrate to Allah till the end of our lives, and investing in our physical health is part of that.

Menopause

When I speak to my mother or older friends who have gone through menopause, they offer a valuable perspective. Their advice is to be patient with the stage I am in, because the season of menopause brings its own challenges. With their decrease in estrogen, they also struggle with menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and a higher risk of cardiovascular issues and bone breakage.

These are serious matters which, for now at least, I don’t have to worry about. Because they no longer menstruate, they are able to fast and pray every day – which can feel tiring after four decades of being able to take breaks. Uninterrupted prayer and fasts are something I long for when I’m in the thick of paying back my fasts, yet again. 

Conclusion

Perimenopause is a season of life that can bring about more frequent menstruation in Ramadan. It helps to remember that even in a state of menstruation, women can catch the blessings of Laylatul Qadr. Even if our acts of worship differ during menstruation, the One we worship remains constant. Modelling this acceptance will inshaAllah help our daughters when it’s their turn, especially when we look after ourselves and honour the season of menstruation we are in. What gives me lasting comfort is always turning back to Allah and focusing on what pleases Him, instead of fighting the reality of the season I’m in.

Related:

– The Menstruating Woman’s Guide To The Last 10 Nights Of Ramadan

– A Woman’s Guide to Spirituality in Ramadan during Menstruation and Postnatal Bleeding

 

The post I Got My Menses Twice This Ramadan: Practicing Surrender And Maintaining Constant Worship appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Roqayah Chamseddine on Hizballah’s resistance. Jon Elmer on Iranian attacks on US bases. Ali Abunimah on the US failing to defend Arab allies.

The pilgrim offers Zahra four simple words that unravel a secret she has carried for years.

Previous Chapters: Part 1  | Part 2

* *  *

A Spark

Ismail reached his hand across the table. Momy looked at it for a moment, then extended his own. They clasped hands.

As I watched, Momy – a perpetual slouch – sat up straight. His eyes widened, as if he had just awakened from this banal existence into a world that spread out before him like an endless meadow, more beautiful than anything he had imagined. He looked younger and older all at once.

His mother reached toward him, but I calmed her with a gesture. “It’s just a handshake.”

Ismail released Momy’s hand. Zahra went to her son and touched his shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

Momy shrugged. “Sure. Why not? Can I have another piece of cake?”

“But what was the gift?” She looked at Ismail. “What was that?”

“A spark,” Ismail replied.

Zahra looked at me. I knew something significant had transpired, but I also knew that – just like my own experience – it was personal, and should not be questioned. Imitating my nephew, I shrugged as well. “I want more cake too.”

Zahra snorted, then served the cake and refilled our tea cups.

Ismail added a spoonful of sugar. Stirring the sugar, he looked sideways at Zahra. “Do you want your gift?”

She stiffened. “I’m not going to shake your hand.”

Ismail nodded. “Of course.”

“Alright.” Her lips were tight. “Get it over with.”

Ismail rose. “Let’s sit on the sofa.”

Four Words

Hesitantly, Zahra led the way to the living room. They sat on opposite ends of the sofa, not quite facing each other. Ismail’s back was straight, his expression serious.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.

Zahra blinked rapidly. “What? What did you say?”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Her jaw tightened. “You’d better watch yourself.” Her eyes were fixed on the Persian rug. “In fact, you should get your things and leave.”

“Once,” Ismail said, “in the county jail in Little Rock, I was attacked while I was in salat. No warning. They knocked me down, kicked me and stomped on my neck. My arm was broken, I lost two teeth, and I was paralyzed from the neck down. The doctors at the state hospital told me I might not walk again. I entrusted my future to Allah. I prayed with my mouth only. A month after the attack, I moved a finger. A month after that, I walked out of that place. An experience like that is dehumanizing. You wonder if you could have done something to prevent it. You feel rage at the perpetrators.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said softly, but Ismail did not look at me. His gaze remained on the floor somewhere between himself and Zahra.

“We are all wounded in this life,” Ismail went on. “Our Prophet, sal-Allahu alayhi wa-sallam, was in sajdah in front of the Ka’bah when one of the Quraysh dumped the waste and entrails of a camel on his back. Yet the Prophet did not raise his head until his young daughter Fatimah came and cleaned the filth from his back. Was he diminished by that? Never. He was the most elevated man to ever live. He was the Beloved of Allah.”

Zahra stood. “I have no idea what you’re prattling on about,” She looked ready to run.

I did not understand what was happening. It seemed that Ismail was talking about something other than what his words described. Something that only he and Zahra understood.

Sincere and Pure

“As fresh as the first winter snowfall.”

“You,” Ismail said to Zahra, “hold no blame. You are as fresh as the first winter snowfall, clean and crisp on the fields. You are all that is sweet, sincere, and pure. Everything that was once possible for you is possible still, by the will of Allah.”

Zahra had covered her face with her hands, and stood very still.

“I will leave you now,” Ismail said, and stood.

I went to my sister and touched her shoulder. “Zahra?”

She turned to me and threw her arms around me, hid her face in my chest, and began to sob. “He hurt me,” she wailed. “He had no right.”

“Who?” I said gently. “Ismail? Or… Waleed? Your husband?”

She shook her head and wailed, “No!” For a long time she said nothing more. She sobbed until my shirt was wet with her tears and mucus. Finally, her sobs slowed. “It was Dr. Zakarian,” she said, barely audibly.

I frowned. “Who’s that?”

“One of the doctors,” she whispered, “at the hospital where I used to work.”

“What did he do?”

She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Don’t make me say it.”

“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say.

She went on as if I had not spoken. “I was working nights. It was late. Almost nobody on the floor. I was in the supply room getting IV kits, or syringes, I don’t remember. He came in behind me.”

She swallowed, then looked away. “He shut the door and locked it.”

My breath caught in my chest.

“I told him to stop fooling around. I thought he was joking.”

Zahra broke away from my embrace, went to the sofa, and sat with her arms around her knees. For just a second, I wondered where Ismail had gone – maybe to the bathroom? – but my attention was focused on my sister.

“I said no,” Zahra continued, staring at the floor. “I told him no. I tried to fight. He…” She bent forward, hugging herself. “He was too strong.”

Momy made a small sound, like he had been punched in the stomach.

“Afterward, I had to finish the shift,” she whispered. “Do you understand? I had to wash my face and go back out there and act normal. And then I had to keep seeing him. Every day.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She glared at me. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her eyes puffy. “I was ashamed,” she said. “I never reported it. I worked closely with Dr. Zakarian. I thought, maybe I led him on without meaning to. Maybe if I wore hijab it wouldn’t have happened.”

I swallowed hard. “It wasn’t your fault. Just like Ismail said.”

Only then did I notice that Ismail’s pack and boots were gone. I recalled his last words: “I will leave you now.” I hadn’t been paying attention.

Something to Take

I turned to Momy. “Sit with your mom.” Without hesitation, Momy went to his mother and put an arm around her shoulders. I hurried to the front door, yanked it open, and dashed out, not even bothering to put on my shoes.

It was drizzling outside. The wind reached through my clothing with icy fingers and raised goosebumps on my arms. I ran to the sidewalk, looked one way, then the other – and there was Ismail, kefiyyeh wrapped tightly around his neck, pack on his back, already a block away. I called out and ran to catch up, my bare feet slapping the sidewalk and splashing in puddles.

He turned to face me. His lean face was beaded with rain.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

He took my cheeks in his hands and kissed me on the forehead, then pulled back. “I thank you,” he said. “Allah reward you for the food and company. It was an honor to meet you.”

I raised my hands questioningly. “Where will you go? You’re not even wearing a coat.”

“Many places. But eventually to my homeland of Al-Quds, then to Makkah, then to the masjid of our Beloved Prophet, sal-Allahu alayhi wa salam, to bring him greetings from a distant people and a broken land.”

I studied his oddly light-colored eyes. His rangy body and easy strength were youthful, but his eyes were ageless.

“You said you would take something.”

He smiled. “I already have.” He held out his hand. I shook it, then the man called Ismail turned and walked away.

A Bushel of Lemons

The faint sounds of talking and laughter woke me up. It was late morning, and the pale sun eased in through the living room window onto the sofa where I slept. I threw off the heavy blanket and sat up. I was thinking about my idea for the Malcolm X youth conference. After breakfast, I would write an email to a few colleagues.

“That’s enough!” It was Zahra’s voice, outside. “Come down now before you fall and break your neck.”

La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah. She wasn’t fighting with the neighbors again, was she? Dressed in red flannel pajamas, I hurried to the door, slipping my feet into a pair of Arabic sandals.

Outside, I was amazed to find Momy on a tall ladder, picking the lemons from the tree. He wore a heavy jacket and gardening gloves to protect himself from the thorns. Zahra stood at the bottom of the ladder, surrounded by bags full of lemons. I walked over to her.

“Look at this!” she said, grinning. She pointed to the bags. “We have half a bushel already.”

The sight of Zahra grinning left me speechless. Finally, I said, “Isn’t a bushel two thousand pounds?”

She shook her head. “You’d better stick to teaching history.”

I gestured to Momy. “I’ve never seen him do actual work before.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Momy called down.

“Yeah, be quiet Amir,” Zahra said. “Don’t jinx it.”

Egyptian Lemonade

“Zahra.” I tugged at her sleeve. “I was thinking about something.”

“Me too,” she said. “But you go first.”

“The thing is, I knew all the kids at the masjid back then, when we were young. And I don’t remember anyone named Ismail.”

Zahra put a hand on my shoulder – an odd gesture from her – and regarded me solemnly. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But don’t you want to know -”

“No,” she interrupted. “I don’t.”

I took a breath, let it out. “Okay. What were you going to say?”

“You have money saved, right?”

“Yeah, some.”

“I want you to extend the house.”

Egyptian lemonade

I frowned. “What for?”

“For you. I don’t want you to have to sleep on the sofa anymore. I want you to build a master bedroom and bathroom for yourself, and for… whoever. For the future.”

“I’m not taking Samina back.”

Zahra smiled. “There are other women in the world.”

“I need another bag!” Momy called.

I reached up and took the full bag he had collected – it bulged with fat, glistening lemons – then handed him one of the empty bags on the ground.

Momy resumed plucking lemons. The citrus scent was sweet and tantalizing in my nose. My father had planted this tree, and it was taller than the house. The lemons shone in the morning sun, each one a miracle and a gift. I would make lemonade for tonight’s iftar, I decided. Egyptian-style lemonade with sugar, mint, and milk. Zahra and Momy would love it.

THE END

 

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

 

Related:

A Wish And A Cosmic Bird: A Play

Searching for Signs of Spring: A Short Story

 

The post The Pilgrim [Part 3]: Not Your Fault – A Ramadan Story appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Innocent people are being frozen out of basic banking services – and it all traces back to reforms rushed through after 9/11

By Oliver Bullough. Read by Elis James

Continue reading...

This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim families are navigating.

There is a parenting instinct that is almost universal — and almost always counterproductive.

When our teenagers are in the middle of something difficult — uncertain, confused, trembling in the way that adolescence produces — we want to tell them what they will become. We want to offer them the vision. We want to say: you are going to be great, you are going to figure this out, you are going to arrive somewhere good.

Khadijah did not do that.

Tonight’s episode tells the story of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in the night of the first revelation — trembling, running down the mountain, saying “I fear for myself” — and what the people around him did in response. This guide is for the Muslim parent who wants to understand what their teenager received tonight and how to be a Khadijah rather than an anxious commentator on their teenager’s becoming.

The “nobody” framing — why it matters for your teenager

The episode opens with a deliberate reframe: the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was, by any worldly measure, a nobody before the revelation. Orphan. Shepherd. Employee. Known for his honesty, but not his power. Not at the table where Quraysh made decisions.

That framing is not meant to be disrespectful in the least — it is the most important thing a Muslim teenager in the West can hear about the Prophet ﷺ. Because most Muslim teenagers feel, at some level, like a nobody. Not at the table. Not among the elite. Belonging fully to no single world. Known perhaps for their character — their honesty, their reliability — but not for their significance.

The Prophet ﷺ was that person. And what he became from that starting point is the most dramatic becoming in human history.

Your teenager needs to know that the nobody is exactly who Allah tends to choose. Not because being a nobody is required — but because the becoming Allah orchestrates does not depend on where you started. It depends on what you do with qum.

The Jibril interpretation — a gift for parents

One of the most significant moments in tonight’s video is an interpretation of the first revelation that most Islamic education never addresses: why did Jibril squeeze the Prophet ﷺ?

The answer offered tonight — that Jibril already knew Muhammad ﷺ, already loved him, and the squeeze was an embrace of reassurance from someone who could see what was coming to someone who couldn’t — is not just theologically resonant. It is practically useful for parents.

Because you are, in a very real sense, in Jibril’s position relative to your teenager.

You can see things about your teenager’s becoming that they cannot yet see. You have watched them for years. You have observed their gifts, their character, their resilience, their capacity. You have a longer view than they do — and from that longer view, you can often see the shape of what they are becoming before they can.

The question is what you do with that knowledge.

Jibril squeezed him. He didn’t explain. He didn’t give a lecture on what was coming. He held him. And then he delivered what needed to be delivered — the words of revelation, the commission, the qum — and trusted the becoming to unfold.

Your teenager doesn’t need you to explain their becoming to them. They need you to hold them while they tremble. And then trust the process — and Allah — to unfold what comes next.

The Khadijah model — the most important parenting framework in the episode

Khadijah’s response to the trembling Prophet ﷺ is the most practically useful thing in tonight’s episode for Muslim parents — and it deserves careful attention.

She did two things.

First, she held him. Physically, practically, without immediately trying to fix or explain or offer perspective. She wrapped him in a cloak and let him tremble until he could speak.

Second, when he spoke and told her what had happened — she told him who he already was. Not what he would become. Who he already was: the one who maintains ties of kinship, speaks truthfully, helps the poor, serves guests, assists those in calamity.

She looked at the trembling man and declared – a person with your character will not be abandoned.

That is the Khadijah model for parenting a teenager in the middle of their becoming: Hold first. Don’t rush to fix, explain, or offer vision. Just be present while the trembling happens.

Then name what you see. Not the future — the present. Not what they will become — who they already are. The character that is already there. The gifts that are already visible. The qualities that will carry them through what is coming, even though neither of you can fully see what that is yet.

That combination — physical presence and accurate naming of existing character — is what steadied the greatest human being who ever lived at his most vulnerable moment. It will steady your teenager too.

The fatra and what it teaches parents about their teenager’s silent seasons

Tonight’s email goes deeper on the fatra — the pause in revelation after the initial experience — and its implications for the becoming framework. For parents, the fatra has a specific application worth naming.

Your teenager will have fatra seasons. Periods where the clarity they seemed to have disappears. Where the enthusiasm for their deen that was present last Ramadan is gone. Where they go quiet, withdraw, seem to be waiting for something they can’t name.

The parental instinct in those seasons is to intervene — to diagnose, to fix, to fill the silence with questions and advice and encouragement.

The fatra suggests a different response: trust the silence. Not passively — remain present, remain available, remain the person they can come to when they are ready to speak. But don’t mistake the silence for abandonment or failure. The fatra was the space in which the Prophet ﷺ was being prepared for what the mission would require.

Your teenager’s silent seasons may be doing the same work. The qum comes after the fatra. And it comes in Allah’s timing, not yours.

Sheikh Jafar Idris and the chain your family is part of

Tonight’s video tells the story of Sheikh Jafar Idris — a Sudanese student whose gifts were recognized by Sheikh bin Baz, who sent him to America, where he influenced a generation of du’aat including Muhammad al-Shareef, whose story we told in Night 25.

For Muslim parents, the chain illustration has a direct application: your family is somewhere in a chain right now. You received something — faith, knowledge, character, a way of raising children — from someone who received it from someone else. And you are passing something on to your teenager, whether you are intentional about it or not.

The question worth asking explicitly in your home: what are we passing on? What is the link in the chain that runs through our family? What will our children carry forward into their own families and communities?

That question — asked seriously and discussed honestly — is itself an act of becoming. The family that knows what it is passing on, passes it on more deliberately. The family that has never asked the question passes on whatever happened to be present, intentionally or not.

Ask the question. Name what you want the chain to carry. And then live it visibly enough that your teenager can see it and receive it.

Warning signs that the becoming has stalled

Normal adolescent uncertainty — confusion, not-yet, feeling behind — is part of the becoming and not cause for alarm. The following indicate something more serious:

Complete withdrawal from Islamic practice combined with withdrawal from family relationships — the teenager who is not just in a fatra, but has actively turned away from both their deen and their primary relationships simultaneously.

Becoming without direction — restless energy and constant change without any underlying orientation toward Allah or genuine values. This is not becoming — it is drift. The difference is that becoming, however uncertain it feels, has a compass. Drift has no compass at all.

Paralysis mistaken for waiting — the teenager who has been “waiting to feel ready” for so long that the waiting has become permanent. This requires gentle confrontation: the qum is not conditional on feeling ready. The command came to a trembling, uncertain man.

Isolation during trembling — the teenager who is in a difficult season and has no Khadijah, no one to wrap them in a cloak and name who they already are. If your teenager is trembling alone, that is the most urgent thing to address — not the trembling itself, but the aloneness.

Discussion questions for families

For teens:

1. Did tonight change how you see the Prophet ﷺ at the moment of the first revelation? What surprised you most about his response?
2. Who has been a Jibril in your life — someone who showed up at a moment of trembling and held you? Who has been a Khadijah — someone who named who you already are?
3. Is there a fatra in your life right now — a period of silence or waiting where the clarity you thought you had seems to have withdrawn? What would it mean to trust that the qum is coming?

For parents:

1. Are you more often a Khadijah — naming who your teenager already is — or more often offering visions of what they will become? Which does your teenager need more right now?
2. What is the link in the chain that runs through your family? What are you passing on — and is it what you intend to pass on?
3. Is your teenager currently trembling alone — or do they have people around them who will wrap them in a cloak and sit with them until they can speak?

For discussion together:

1. Read al-Muddaththir 74:1-7 together. What does qum fa-andhir — arise and warn — mean for your family right now? What is your family’s version of that command?
2. Who in your family’s history was a Sheikh Jafar Idris — someone whose becoming shaped your family’s chain? Name them. Make du’a for them.
3. What is one thing your family can do together this week that is an act of arising — a qum in some area where you have been waiting?

The bottom line

Your teenager is in the middle of their becoming right now. The trembling is real. The uncertainty is real. The feeling of not-yet is real.

None of it is the end of the story.

Be their Khadijah. Hold them. Name who they already are. Trust the fatra. And remember not to wait before you arise – qum — because we will never feel ready, and we will always be developing.

The trembling is not the end of the story. For the Prophet ﷺ, it was the beginning.

Continue the Journey

This is Night 27 of Dr. Ali’s 30-part Ramadan series, “30 Nights with the Quran: Stories for the Seeking Soul.”

Tomorrow, insha Allah: Night 28 — Week 4 Recap

For daily extended reflections with journaling prompts, personal stories, and deeper resources, join Dr. Ali’s email community: https://30nightswithquran.beehiiv.com/

Related:

Taqwa: The Foundation | Night 26 with the Qur’an

30 Nights with the Qur’an: A Ramadan Series for Muslim Teens

The post The Muslim You Are Becoming | Night 27 with the Qur’an appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Today, as the world observes the final days of the holy month of Ramadan, the skies over parts of the Middle East are filled not with the calm of night prayers, but with the sound of drones and fighter aircraft.

Missiles streak across the darkness while families below search for safety. For millions of civilians -from Gaza to Lebanon to Iran- war is no longer distant news. It is the terrifying reality of daily life. War does not only destroy cities, but long before buildings collapse, the human mind begins to fracture under the constant weight of fear, uncertainty, and grief. Across several Muslim lands today, ordinary people wake each morning under the shadow of conflict, unsure whether the next hour will bring safety or devastation.

For civilians, war is not an event. It becomes a condition of life.

Physical and Psychological Suffering

In Gaza, families have endured years of bombardment and siege. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, hospitals overwhelmed, and children buried beneath the debris of homes that once sheltered them. To say that Gaza has faced continuous devastation for years is not an exaggeration—it is the painful reality of a population that has lived under repeated waves of destruction. Now the violence has expanded beyond Gaza. Iran, too, has faced intense military attacks by the joint operation of Israel and America, with airstrikes reported to have killed large numbers of civilians, including children. Such developments have further deepened the atmosphere of fear across the region. When powerful military forces engage in conflict with devastating weapons, it is often ordinary people who suffer the heaviest consequences. Yet, behind the geopolitical narratives lies a deeper story: the psychological suffering of the people.

Palestinians gather for iftar, the fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza City on February 22, 2026 .Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo.

When bombs fall repeatedly, fear becomes normalized. Children learn to distinguish the sound of drones before they recognize the sound of birds. Mothers sleep lightly, listening for explosions instead of lullabies. Fathers carry the silent anxiety of protecting their families in circumstances beyond their control. Now imagine enduring this during Ramadan; the month meant for mercy, reflection, and spiritual peace. Even in war-torn homes and refugee camps, people still fast. They gather what little food they have for iftar. They raise their hands in prayer under skies filled with the sound of warplanes. In such moments, faith becomes more than ritual. It becomes psychological survival.

The Qur’an acknowledges that believers will face trials:

“And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient.” [Surah Al-Baqarah 2:155]

For people living in war zones, these words are not theoretical—they are a lived reality.

Wanted: Guardians of the Ummah

Another reality that weighs heavily on the minds of many Muslims today is the question of leadership. Deep within the hearts of every  Muslim today burns a quiet but powerful longing: the wish to witness leadership that reflects the courage, justice, and moral accountability once embodied by figures like Umar ibn al-Khattab . Islamic history remembers leaders like him not merely as rulers but as guardians of justice and protectors of the vulnerable. He was known for his deep sense of accountability, famously fearing that he would be questioned before Allah even if a mule stumbled on a neglected road under his rule.

As ordinary people watch the suffering of fellow Muslims across the world, they often feel a fire of frustration and grief, wondering what it would mean to have leaders who place the dignity, protection, and unity of the Ummah above political interests and personal gain. It is this longing for principled leadership that continues to echo in the minds of muslims, reminding them that true leadership in Islam was never merely about power—it was about responsibility before Allah and service to humanity.

As conflict spreads across the Middle East, this painful thought continues to surface in conversations across the Muslim world. One striking reality during these crises has been the unity among ordinary Muslims. Sunni and Shia communities alike mourn the victims, pray for the oppressed, and express solidarity with those suffering. In moments of tragedy, the pain of the Ummah transcends sectarian boundaries.

Faith: Outliving Wars

But despite the bombs, despite the fear, and despite the uncertainty, the people continue to endure. They fast even when food is scarce. They pray even when mosques are damaged.

They hold onto faith even when surrounded by ruins. The Qur’an reminds believers:

“Do not think that Allah is unaware of what the oppressors do. He only delays them until a Day when eyes will stare in horror.” [Surah Ibrahim 14:42]

In the end, the story of war is often written in numbers—casualties, airstrikes, and destroyed buildings. But the true story lies in the unseen battles within human hearts. It is the mother who calms her frightened child while explosions echo outside. It is the father who stands in prayer despite the uncertainty of tomorrow. It is the believer who continues to fast in Ramadan even when surrounded by rubble. These quiet acts of faith reveal a truth that no bomb can erase: power may dominate the skies, but faith continues to live in the hearts of the oppressed. And as history has shown time and again, it is often this faith—patient, resilient, and unbroken—that ultimately outlives the wars themselves.

 

Related:

– Iranian Leader Khamenei Slain As War Brings Mayhem To The Gulf

– We Are Not Numbers x MuslimMatters – Ramadan While Under Attack In Gaza

The post The Weight Of Fear And The Will To Survive: Fasting In Times Of War appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.