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21 " Oh Allah, open my heart to receive the light of Your guidance and all-encompassing love. My Lord, guide me to the inner truths of my own being and help me to walk the spiritual path with gratitude and humility. "
― A. Helwa , Secrets of Divine Love Journal: Insightful Reflections that Inspire Hope and Revive Faith
22 " Allah is always with us. His light never extinguishes. If we experience darkness or separation it is a function of a part of us knowingly or unknowingly closing the eyes of our hearts to the everlasting presence of His love, mercy, and truth. The Divine is the only eternal reality in and beyond existence; everything else is impermanent. All variability in our experience of Allah has to do with our state, not His. "
23 " The Qur’an is a divine map, a flashlight in the dark night, a compass that leads us back to the home we left so long ago. "
24 " REMEMBER: No matter what happens in your life, if it turns you towards Allah, it is a blessing. Whether Allah is testing you to strengthen you or holding you accountable for a sin you may have committed, the response is the same: turn to Allah and ask for His help and guidance. "
25 " Prayer, then is a means of undressing the ego of its superficiality and coming to the Divine presence with all of our neediness and humility. "
26 " Allah’s love and divine intimacy with us does not change, but our awareness of that love shifts due to the ever-changing states of our hearts and minds. "
― A. Helwa , Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam
27 " Ask Allah to open the eyes of your heart so that you are able to witness the miracles and blessed moments that are constantly unfolding around you, patiently waiting for you to notice them. The miraculous gifts of Allah are not rare, however, our inability to be receptive enough to receive them limits our ability to experience them. "
28 " When we are humbled before Allah, we taste something of His greatness. When we focus on our shortcomings, our sins, and mistakes it is easy to lose hope, but when we focus our attention on Allah’s forgiveness, mercy, and love we are able to traverse whatever challenge or obstacle is in our way. "
29 " We do not need to understand every element of our sin to let go of it. The seed doesn’t need to understand the nature of the sun’s light to be moved and transformed by it. "
30 " Tawba is not about our sins as much as it is about Allah’s forgiveness. When we seek refuge in Allah’s mercy we are turning from our human qualities towards His divine attributes. Whether we wrong ourselves or others wrong us, tawba is the vehicle that turns us from our pain, blame and disappointment back toward Allah, who is the source of all hope, mercy, and peace. "
31 " Prayer helps strip us from the false weights of the ego allowing us to be vulnerable enough to receive the blessings Allah has always been pouring upon us. "
32 " We are called to pray like rain, to pour our spirits into the soil of humility as we plant our heads in prostration upon the ground of faith. In prayer, we water the earth of our existence with the cleansing, pure water of God’s own words. "
33 " REMEMBER: Prayer is not about punishment or reward; it is about cultivating a genuine connection with God. The deep purpose of prayer is not to obtain a certain outcome; rather, it is about having an intimate conversation with your Lord. "
34 " Just as love cannot be seen or truly known, but is undeniably felt, we can experience our Lord in places our mind could never travel or comprehend. Seek out these placeless places, where the unknown resides. Reflect upon the mysteries of life, travel into spaces with no familiar ground, venture into realms where worldly compasses fail to lead you, walk into the quantum world, where laws of science seemingly fail to work, and feel the vulnerability of your ignorance. "
35 " Just as it takes a baby nine months in the belly of its mother to develop, the moon many nights to become full, and a caterpillar weeks in a cocoon to become a butterfly, through entering the womb of Ramadan and fasting the entire month, our faith transforms. "
36 " We do not pray, fast, or give charity because Allah needs it, but because our spirits need to be in the presence of the Divine light to blossom. We are seeds, we are infinite potential hidden in the garden of a body, waiting to awaken through the mercy of Allah’s light. "
37 " Words have power, which is why Imam Ali says, “Speak only when your words are more beautiful than the silence.” After all, everything in existence sprouted from the vibration of the divinely uttered word “Be! And it is” (36:82). So remember, your tongue is like a knife; it can either kill like the sword of a samurai or save like the scalpel of a surgeon. "
38 " When Allah makes us aware of a sin we committed, He is not punishing us, but rather inviting us toward His presence. In this way, the moment we are drawn to sincere repentance, we are in effect unveiling the forgiveness that Allah has already written for us to experience. Someone asked the great eighth-century mystic Rabia Al-Adawiyya, “I have sinned much; if I repent, will Allah forgive me?” She profoundly replied, “It is the opposite; if Allah forgives you, you are capable of repentance. "
39 " We are all born with spiritual wings, Islam simply reminds us how to fly. "
40 " The principles of Islam teach us to be messengers of peace—to be like water, gentle enough to wash away tears and strong enough to drown hatred. To be Muslim is to protect the weak, the orphan, the beggar, the disabled of all races and cultures. To be Muslim is not to be color-blind, but to see the differences between people and to celebrate that diversity as a product of the free will that God chose to give us. As the Qur’an says, “And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed, in that are signs for those of knowledge” (30:22) "