For a long time, I thought of names as something we are given. Something chosen before we are old enough to understand it.

Now I think differently.

Sometimes a name is something we grow into.

The name Aryana Darya feels like that to me.

This past year has been one of the most intense periods of self-discovery I have ever experienced. The last six months, especially, have changed me in ways I did not expect. I began by asking questions about identity, family history, and belonging. What I found was something much deeper.

I thought I was searching for who I was.

Instead, I was searching for where I fit.

The answer surprised me.

The more I searched, the more I realised that I do not need to fit anywhere except on the path Allah has written for me. I do not need to be seen, accepted, or understood by everyone around me. I do not need to justify myself to anyone except Allah سبحانه وتعالى. Everything I do, say, and wear should ultimately be for Him.

That realisation changed the way I see the world.

The noise of outside opinion has become something I move away from rather than towards. The need to explain myself has slowly begun to disappear. What remains is a quieter question: am I living truthfully, and am I living in a way that pleases Allah?

It is from that place that this name emerged.

Aryana reminds me of a part of my family history. It carries a connection to Persian culture and to people whose lives helped shape the story that eventually became mine. Though I was born in the UK, my story did not begin there. It began in the lives of people I never met, in places I have never been, and in histories I have come to know mostly through genealogy and historical discoveries.

Then there is Darya.

Darya means sea.

I have been drawn to the sea for as long as I can remember.

As a child, there was always something about it that felt different from anywhere else. As I grew older, it became the place I returned to in times of stress, uncertainty, and heartache. There were moments when I would drive for hours just to sit beside it for thirty minutes.

The sea never asked questions. It never demanded explanations.

I could sit on the shore and pour my thoughts, my grief, and my tears into the salt air and the salt water. Somehow, I always came back feeling lighter than when I arrived. Not because my problems had disappeared, but because something about the sea helped me carry them differently.

It has always been one of the great healing places in my life, and I feel fortunate to have grown up with it.

As I got older, that connection only deepened. I became a surfer. Now my children surf too. The sea has become a thread running through generations of my life, just as it runs through this name.

Even now, I feel most myself when I am near it. On it, beneath it, or simply sitting beside it. The sea has been a constant companion throughout my life, and in many ways, it has taught me as much about stillness, resilience, and surrender as any book ever could.

For me, Darya is more than a word. Among the women who came before me, there is a thread that leads back to the Caspian. I know only fragments of that story, gathered through records, research, and the traces left behind, but those fragments matter to me. When I think about it, I imagine the sea that formed part of their world—the water they saw, the air they breathed, and the lives they lived long before I was born.

Choosing Darya feels like carrying a small piece of that story with me.

As a writer, I find comfort in that.

Writing often feels like standing at the edge of the sea. There is always more beyond the horizon than I can see. Every story begins with curiosity. Every page is a step into the unknown.

I have always admired people who were brave enough to begin again. People who changed their names, crossed borders, rebuilt their lives, or simply refused to remain the person they were yesterday. Not because they wanted attention, but because they were growing.

To me, that is one of the greatest forms of freedom.

A name is not just something given. Sometimes it is something earned through experience. Sometimes it takes years to discover the words that feel like home.

That is why this name feels right.

Aryana gives me a connection to the past.

Darya gives me depth.

One reminds me that my life is part of a longer story. The other reminds me to keep exploring.

Together they hold two things I never want to lose: a sense of where my story began and a sense of wonder about where it might lead.

When I say the name aloud, it feels less like a new identity and more like a recognition of something that was already there.

Aryana Darya.

The land and the sea.

Memory and imagination.

The story I inherited, and the story I am still writing.

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.

Today, I took the children to the beach. The tide was slowly going out, leaving just enough room to sit and breathe. The air smelled of salt and seaweed, the sun warmed my shoulders, and the waves whispered over the pebbles. Sitting there, I felt relief wash over me—the tension and worry from the last eight weeks drifting away, carried by the ocean.

The children laughed, threw stones, and waded into the cold water, fully immersed in the joy of the moment. Watching them was like watching myself—they share the same deep connection to the ocean that I do. The beach became a reflection of humanity: each of us unique, all imperfect, yet together forming the shore. The ocean reflected Allah’s attributes—His peace, His mercy, His presence—bringing calm and lightness of heart. “My mercy encompasses all things.” In the waves, in the pebbles, in the children’s joy, I felt that mercy flow through creation, comforting and restoring.

As we left, the children hugged me and thanked me, and I realised that even without knowing it, Allah had touched them as well, bringing them peace. Today reminded me that sometimes, the deepest relief comes simply from stepping into the present, seeing the world through His creation, and letting everything else slip away with the tide.

Love is a human offering given freely.

It does not always arrive in obvious ways, and it is not limited to romance. More often, it exists in the quiet decisions people make every day—to check in, to listen, to notice, to stay a little longer than necessary. These acts seem small, but they carry something deeper: the choice to care.

To offer love is to give something of yourself that cannot be measured or guaranteed in return. Your attention. Your patience. Your presence. And still, people give it—without certainty, without assurance. That is what makes it an offering.

In Islam, love is not only a feeling but something lived through action. The Prophet Muhammad taught, “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” This kind of love is not passive—it asks you to extend الخير, the good you hope for, beyond yourself.

The Qur’an describes love as something placed between people in the form of affection and mercy: “And We placed between you affection and mercy” (Qur’an 30:21). Not intensity, not constant emotion—but mawaddah and rahmah: a steady willingness to care, to be gentle, to remain.

This is why love often goes unnoticed. It does not always feel extraordinary. It feels like someone remembering you. Like being asked how you are and knowing the answer matters. Like being seen in a moment you did not ask to be seen in.

Even outside of faith, this understanding repeats itself. As bell hooks puts it, “The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth” is love. And Rumi reminds us, “Where there is love, there is life,” because love is what gives meaning to our presence with one another.

To be fully seen and still cared for can feel miraculous, as Elizabeth Gilbert observes: “To be fully seen by somebody then, and to be loved anyhow, this is a human offering that can border on the miraculous.” But maybe what feels miraculous is actually something deeply human—something we are quietly offering each other all the time.

Love is a human offering given freely.

Not because it is easy.

Not because it is always returned.

But because, even in our imperfection, we are still capable of giving it.