Seeking Sakina

This morning I realised something I never expected.

People often say that when a woman wears hijab, she loses her identity. That she disappears into a crowd. That she becomes invisible behind a piece of cloth.

My experience has been the complete opposite since removing it two days ago.

When I wore hijab, I was never invisible. I was immediately recognisable. Before anyone knew my name, my personality, or my character, they knew one thing about me: I was Muslim. That single visible marker often became the loudest thing about me. In the places I visited, it didn’t feel like a cloak of invisibility. It felt like a spotlight.

There were the stares. The double takes. The assumptions. Sometimes curiosity, sometimes kindness, sometimes discomfort. Whether real or imagined in any individual moment, I carried an awareness that I stood out.

Since removing my hijab, something unexpected has happened.

I’ve never felt so invisible.

And I won’t pretend I’m not enjoying it.

Not because I’m ashamed of being Muslim. I’m not. My faith hasn’t disappeared because a piece of fabric has. But for the first time in years, I can simply walk through the world without immediately becoming someone’s idea of what a Muslim woman is supposed to be.

I can be just another face in the crowd.

There’s something profoundly peaceful about that.

It has made me question how often we misunderstand visibility. Perhaps visibility isn’t always about being seen as yourself. Sometimes it’s about being seen only through one part of your identity.

I’ve realised that invisibility isn’t necessarily erasure. Sometimes it’s freedom from being instantly categorised. Freedom to be known gradually rather than assumed immediately.

This isn’t an argument against hijab, nor is it an argument for removing it. It’s simply an honest reflection on my own experience.

Sometimes the thing we believe makes someone disappear is actually the very thing that makes them impossible to overlook.

And sometimes, disappearing into the ordinary isn’t losing yourself at all.

Sometimes it’s finally having the space to simply be. To focus on what truly matters—my relationship with Allah.

I’ve realised that my faith doesn’t need to be announced before I’ve even spoken. It doesn’t need to be the first thing people see about me. Instead, it can become something quieter, more intimate, something that is lived rather than immediately perceived.

For me, that has brought a surprising sense of peace. It has lifted the feeling that I was constantly representing something bigger than myself, or that every interaction somehow reflected upon my faith. Now, my attention feels less drawn to how I’m perceived by the world and more drawn to how I am known by Allah.

Perhaps that’s the lesson I’ve been learning all along.

The opinions of strangers have become quieter.

The opinion that matters most never changed.

This morning, I was woken by the most intense thunderstorm I have ever experienced. The thunder cracked through the sky with such force that it filled my heart with fear.

That fear surprised me.

I am not someone who has always been afraid of storms. As a child, my mother would wake me up in the middle of the night so we could stand at the window and watch thunderstorms together. Later in life, I became the kind of person who would chase storms rather than run from them. Thunder and lightning fascinated me. I admired their beauty, their power, and their unpredictability.

Yet this morning was different.

For a long time now, I have been struggling with my iman. Questions have followed questions, and doubts have followed doubts. My connection to God has felt distant. I have not been waking for Fajr for a very long time. Somewhere along the way, I became caught between faith and uncertainty.

Then came the storm.

As the thunder rolled overhead and shook the world around me, I was reminded of the words:

“And the thunder glorifies His praise, and the angels out of fear of Him. And He sends the thunderbolts and strikes with them whom He wills, while they dispute concerning Allah; and He is tremendous in might.”

In that moment, the storm felt like more than weather. It felt like a reminder.

A reminder that these immense forces of nature, which seem so powerful to us, are themselves under God’s command. A reminder that creation itself points back to its Creator. A reminder that while the signs of God surround us, some of us continue to argue, question, doubt, and dispute.

I have been one of those people.

And yet, standing in the presence of that thunder, feeling a fear I had never felt before, I was reminded of something I had forgotten: awe.

Not blind certainty. Not the absence of questions. But awe.

The kind of awe that makes a person feel small beneath a sky that belongs to God.

The kind of awe that reminds you that faith is not only found in answers, but sometimes in being confronted by something greater than yourself.

I do not know where this journey will take me. I do not know which questions will be answered and which will remain. But I know that I will never forget that storm, or the feeling that accompanied it.

For a brief moment, amidst the thunder and lightning, my heart remembered.

Islam began as a call to submit to God: to pray, to act justly, to remember Him, and to live righteously.

Yet as Islam spread across continents and cultures, faith naturally became expressed through human tradition and culture. Arabs, Africans, Turks, Persians, Indians, Indonesians, Europeans — all carried Islam into their own worlds, expressing modesty, beauty, and devotion through different languages, clothes, customs, and ways of life. Over time, some cultural practices became so closely associated with religion that they began to feel inseparable from it.

But perhaps there is wisdom in remembering the difference between the essence of faith and the forms culture gives it.

A woman in Nigeria wrapping her hair in vibrant fabric, a woman in India wearing a dupatta, and a woman in the West dressing modestly in her own way may all be striving toward the same principle through different expressions.

The Qur’an speaks repeatedly about sincerity, righteousness, humility, and consciousness of God — qualities that transcend geography, tribe, and clothing.

“O mankind, We created you from a male and a female, and made you peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most conscious of God among you. Indeed, God is Knowing and Aware.” (49:13)

To return to the heart of faith may not mean abandoning culture, but learning not to confuse culture with God Himself or with His revelation.

Today I did something that felt both terrifying and freeing at the same time. I changed my profile picture to one where I am no longer wearing the hijab. Not just on one platform — across all of my social media.

And almost instantly, the messages came.

“Sister, why have you removed your hijab?”
“You’ve left the fold of Islam.”
“You’re going to Jahannam.”

All because a piece of cloth came off my head.

But let’s correct something here, because this needs to be said clearly: no human being has the right to declare another person a kafir. No one has the authority to tell somebody that their iman is low, or that they are no longer Muslim, simply because they do not look the way you expect a Muslim woman to look.

Faith is not measured by fabric.

And judgment of others says far more about the state of your own heart than it does about theirs.

My iman is actually stronger now than it has been in a very long time. It became stronger when I stopped performing religion for people and started sincerely seeking Allah for myself. It became stronger through reading the Qur’an deeply. Through questioning. Through researching. Through refusing to blindly follow things that never sat right in my soul. Through rejecting hadith that contradicted the mercy, justice, and wisdom I found in the Qur’an itself.

People throw the word “Quranist” at me like it’s an insult. But I do not see following the word of Allah as something shameful. I am without title.

I am Muslim

I choose sincerity over performance.
Connection over appearances.
Faith over fear.

And yes, there may still be days when I wear hijab. But whether I wear it or not does not define my relationship with Allah. It does not define my understanding of Islam. It does not determine the sincerity of my worship or the depth of my belief.

This also is not a call for other people to remove their hijab. Your choices should come from your own conviction, your own understanding, your own relationship with Allah — not because you saw somebody else make a different choice and followed them without reflection. Faith should never be that fragile.

And whilst my hijab is off right now, that does not mean it is off permanently or constantly. You may still see me wearing hijab some days, and other days you may see my hair. I think the point I am trying to make is that my hijab is not the sole reflection of my faith. It is one part of a deeply personal journey between myself and Allah — and should I choose to embrace it, I want that choice to come freely, sincerely, without fear, without prejudice, and without condemnation from other brothers or sisters.

What I think needs to change most within the Muslim community is this obsession with uniformity. This pressure for everyone to dress the same, think the same, interpret the same, speak the same, live the same.

But Allah did not create us as copies of one another. The Qur’an reminds us that diversity itself is among His signs:

“And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colours. Indeed in that are signs for those of knowledge.” (30:22)

We were created uniquely, intentionally, individually.

So many people are suffocating because Islam has been turned into a box with the lid nailed shut. There is no room to breathe, no room to grow, no room to ask questions, no room to seek knowledge independently.

Yet the Qur’an repeatedly warns against blindly following what our forefathers believed without understanding it for ourselves:

“And when it is said to them, ‘Follow what Allah has revealed,’ they say, ‘Rather, we will follow that upon which we found our fathers.’ Even though their fathers understood nothing, nor were they guided?” (2:170)

Seeking knowledge is an obligation. Thinking is an obligation. Reflection is an obligation.

I cannot be the kind of person who lives only to fit into a mould created by people.

So yes — my hijab came off.
Yes — I may no longer look visibly Muslim to the outside world.

But I am still Muslim.
If anything, I feel closer to Allah now than I ever did when I was trying desperately to become the version of myself that other people demanded.

And yes it may be back on sooner than I think but for now I respect where I am and expect others to also.

I have spent a long time struggling with my relationship to hijab, modesty, visibility, and faith. For a while, I thought the struggle meant my iman was weak or that I was somehow failing as a Muslim woman. But the more honestly I reflect, the more I realise my struggle is not with Allah, nor with morality, nor with wanting to expose myself or seek attention. My struggle is with carrying the emotional and psychological weight of being visibly Muslim all the time, especially while navigating identity, femininity, exhaustion, and sincerity.

As a woman in my mid-fifties who is past the menopause and no longer seeking marriage, I find myself thinking more deeply about what the Qur’an actually says, versus what culture, community pressure, or inherited tradition have added around it.

To be clear here I do not reject modesty. I still value dignity, humility, and respectful dress. I still cover my chest area and avoid clothing that feels deliberately provocative. I still wear hijab during prayer and often cover my hair in softer, looser ways. But I no longer believe that my entire faith rests upon whether every strand of my hair is covered every moment I step outside.

The Qur’an itself places its strongest emphasis on sincerity, conduct, humility, justice, compassion, prayer, remembrance of Allah, and care for others. While modesty is certainly part of Islam for both men and women, the Qur’an does not spend pages detailing exact fabrics, styles, colours, or universal dress codes for every woman in every place and every century.

One verse that has become deeply meaningful to me is Qur’an 24:60, where Allah speaks specifically about older women past childbearing age who are no longer seeking marriage. The verse says there is no blame upon them for relaxing some of their outer garments, provided they are not displaying adornment in a provocative way, though modest restraint remains better. To me, this verse reflects mercy, realism, and nuance. It acknowledges that women’s lives, bodies, circumstances, and social realities change with age. It recognises that modesty is not a rigid prison but a principle rooted in dignity and intention.

For a long time, I wore hijab in a way that felt emotionally heavy. Every day I would put it on and feel dread, resistance, or sadness. I began to realise that constantly wearing something from fear, guilt, or emotional suffocation was not bringing me closer to Allah. My faith was becoming tangled in anxiety and all-or-nothing thinking. But spiritual life is rarely that simple.

I am beginning to understand that my relationship with hijab does not have to be all or nothing. I do not need to disappear as a woman in order to remain faithful to God. I can still dress with modesty while allowing softness, beauty, femininity, breathability, and comfort into my life. I can wear looser flowing scarves, boho wraps draped around my shoulders and chest, relaxed clothing suited to heat and travel, and styles that feel emotionally sustainable rather than performative.

This is by no means an address or a call for women to remove their hijab. It is simply an acknowledgement of a personal journey, a sincere struggle, and an attempt to understand faith, modesty, and identity with honesty rather than fear.

Most importantly, I am learning that my faith is bigger than what I wear on my head.

Allah sees my sincerity, my struggle, my intention, my reflection, my prayers, my compassion, my motherhood, my exhaustion, my searching heart, and my efforts to remain truthful. I do not believe Allah is waiting to reject me because my hijab has become softer, looser, or different from before.

I am not abandoning faith. I am trying to remain spiritually honest.

And perhaps that honesty itself is part of worship.

How do we stop the dunya from becoming the only atmosphere surrounding us?

I think this is something a lot more people struggle with than we realise.

So many of us go through periods where we feel disconnected from the deen. Our iman feels low, prayer feels harder, and everything that once felt grounding suddenly starts to feel distant. And usually, the first thing we tell ourselves is that we need to do more. Read more books. Watch more lectures. Pick up the Qur’an and force ourselves through pages, hoping something clicks again.

But sometimes the issue is not that we need more information.

Sometimes we just need reorientation.

Because this dunya has a way of quietly becoming the only thing around us. Not through huge acts of neglect, but through daily life. Work, phones, routines, scrolling, stress, noise. Days start blending into each other until eventually we realise we’ve spent weeks surrounded by everything except remembrance.

And when that happens, even sincere belief can begin to feel distant.

I think this is why Ramadan affects people so deeply, even people who are physically alone. During Ramadan, the atmosphere changes. Suddenly your feeds are filled with Qur’an, prayer, reminders, people trying, people reconnecting. The whole world feels like it has turned slightly back toward Allah. Even if you’re sitting in your room by yourself, you still feel connected to something bigger than yourself.

Then Ramadan ends, and that atmosphere disappears almost overnight.

And I honestly think a lot of people blame themselves for that more than they should.

Not every spiritual low means you’re failing. Sometimes you’ve just been left trying to maintain your deen in an environment where dunya is the loudest thing in the room every single day.

That’s why I think reconnecting isn’t always about pushing harder. Sometimes it’s about gently bringing remembrance back into your surroundings again.

That could be something as simple as putting Qur’an on in the background while you’re at home. Sitting quietly after prayer for a few extra minutes. Or even turning on Islam TV at night and watching worshippers gathered in prayer at Masjid al-Haram. Not because watching a screen replaces worship, but because sometimes the heart needs to feel connected to a living atmosphere of remembrance again. Sometimes seeing people pray, hearing the adhān, or watching the Kaaba reminds you that your deen still exists beyond your own isolation and routine.

And especially for people who are isolated, reverts, or those without much Muslim community around them, that kind of connection matters more than people realise.

Islam was never meant to be lived entirely alone inside your own head.

So if you’re feeling disconnected lately, maybe don’t immediately assume you’re broken or failing spiritually. Maybe your heart is just tired of being surrounded only by dunya all the time.

Maybe it just needs to feel close to something sacred again.

There are three verses that I’ve been drawn to recently when I’ve been kind of deep diving into what depression means and what it looks like, and how it affects our deen and our everyday life.

There are moments when stress doesn’t just feel like pressure—it feels like distance. Not just from peace, but from your own sense of spiritual grounding. You don’t necessarily stop believing, but you start feeling far away from the version of yourself that used to turn easily toward God. Prayer becomes heavier. Consistency slips. And then comes the quiet fear: have I fallen too far?

In that state, the mind often becomes its own kind of prison. Depression doesn’t always announce itself loudly—it can show up as numbness, avoidance, or the sense that even small acts of worship feel out of reach. The dunya becomes overwhelming not because it is new, but because it feels unrelenting. Responsibilities stack up, emotions blur, and the heart starts to believe it has become too “tired” for devotion.

But the Qur’an repeatedly interrupts that narrative of abandonment.

“Say, ‘O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins.’” (39:53)

This is not a verse that asks for emotional strength first. It speaks directly into exhaustion. It does not say fix yourself, then return. It says do not despair. Meaning the door is not closed at the very moment you feel least worthy of approaching it. The feeling of distance is not proof of rejection.

And when you feel like you have been spiritually “left behind,” another reminder comes:

“Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor has He become displeased.” (93:3)

This speaks directly to the quiet assumption depression often creates—that silence means abandonment, that struggle means disconnection. But the verse reframes it: absence of ease is not absence of care. You are not discarded in your lowest state, even when your inner world feels unfamiliar to you.

Then there is the subtle shift that happens when you try, even slightly, to return. Not perfectly, not consistently—but honestly.

“And those who strive for Us, We will surely guide them to Our ways.” (29:69)

This verse in particular does not describe a person who has already mastered their state. It describes effort as enough of a beginning for guidance to respond. The return itself becomes meaningful, even if it is slow, even if it is fragmented. What matters is not the absence of struggle, but the direction of movement.

Falling off your deen in times of stress is not always a sign of rejection or weakness of belief. Sometimes it is a sign of overload—of a human nervous system reaching its limits. The spiritual path, in those moments, is not about forcing intensity. It is about refusing the finality of despair.

Because in Islamic framing, distance is not the end of the story. Not feeling close is not the same as being cut off. And struggling to return is not failure—it is still movement.

Even in the heaviness, the door is described as open. Even in the delay, guidance is described as responding. And even in the fear that you have drifted too far, the reminder comes again and again: what you are feeling is not the final judgment on where you stand.

The most healing thing you can do is to stop living life as if everything is an emergency.

We’ve become so used to rushing that we barely let our feet touch the ground before we’re already onto the next three things. The next task. The next responsibility. The next demand. Our days are planned, our weeks are full, and before a new school week even begins, we already know our feet are going to hit the ground running.

And somewhere in all of that… we disappear.

We rush through meals. We rush through conversations. We rush through rest. Even the quiet moments meant to care for ourselves—taking off our makeup, doing our skincare, sitting down for a breath—we treat them like boxes to tick before we collapse into bed, just to do it all over again.

But healing was never meant to be rushed.

Taking care of yourself is not something you squeeze in between responsibilities. It is part of your responsibility. It is an act of love. An act of preservation. An act of honouring the body and soul Allah entrusted to you.

And this is where salah becomes something deeper.

Allah says in the Qur’an:
“Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.” (13:28)

Salah is not just something we fit into our day—it is something that breaks our day. It interrupts the chaos. It calls us back. Whether you pray five separate prayers or combine them, these moments are رحمة. They are pauses. They are space to breathe, to ground yourself, to realign.

To step out of urgency… and into presence.

There is healing in standing still.
Healing in bowing.
Healing in placing your forehead on the الأرض and remembering you are held, sustained, and never alone.

And yet, even in healing—we rush.

We rush journaling.
We rush reflection.
We rush through understanding ourselves, as if we’re trying to “complete” our healing like another task on the list.

But you are not a task to be completed.

As mothers—especially those carrying full, heavy, beautifully demanding lives—it can feel like everything depends on how quickly and efficiently we move. The responsibility is constant. The giving is endless.

But self-care is not in competition with that responsibility.
It is what supports it.

You are allowed to write yourself into your own diary.
You are allowed to take an hour.
You are allowed to move slowly, even when life around you is fast.

So as this new week begins, and your feet hit the ground running… pause.

Not for long. Just enough.

Enough to breathe before you rush.
Enough to feel your feet before they carry you.
Enough to turn to Allah not just in obligation—but in need, in softness, in العودة.

And see how you feel… when life is no longer one long emergency,
but a series of moments you are actually present in.