As a co-founder of a young startup and a mother of 2, I’ve always struggled to find a balance in my work, family life and faith commitments. On some days work overwhelms me (since I’m multitasking on so many tasks), and on other days the kids are extra clingy. On most days, I find myself forfeiting my Quran readings, or -astaghfirullah- even missing my prayers. 😔 If you want to fix your day, fix your salah first. The rest will automatically be put in its place.  The 5 daily prayers are like the pillars of a house, while the house...

Finding the Qibla direction is a relatively easy affair today: qibla compasses built into prayer rugs, smartphone apps, and youtube can point us in the right direction. But do you wonder how people used to find the Qibla in the past? Behind all these glittery tools, some background is needed! (Read to the bottom to see the majestic Qibla calculating tools of the past!) From the Early Islamic Years At the very beginning at the time of our Prophet SAW, traditional non-mathematical methods were used. It was due south in al-Medina, where our Prophet SAW and his Companions were. Later...

Horror - Your Qibla Compass Isn’t Always Accurate In A Building 😱 Did you know that compasses (physical ones, as well as the ones on your phone), can point in different directions in the SAME room? I experienced this many times before while whipping out my Qibla compass app on my phone to find out the direction to pray, and to my horror, it read a different direction than what it was the day before. Worse, when I took a friend’s phone to verify, both phones sometimes pointed in different directions at the same spot!!! Faulty compass? Or could it...

I was with my friend having Iftar in Tokyo one Ramadan evening, and then came the time for Maghrib. We stood up, took some paper napkins from the table, and went out to the corridor to pray (using the paper napkins as makeshift sejadahs). Another time came, and I and my friends were out shopping, and we immediately searched for a nearby clothing shop where we could use their changing rooms to pray in. This was Maghrib as well, where the time was tight between Maghrib to Isha, so we had to make haste before we missed the prayer. Oh, those...

In this digital era, most of us hold smartphones, and we each have countless apps stored on them! Now, which application do you most frequently access when you are using your phone? For me, I always have a standard set that I ritually open at the start of each day- Instagram, WhatsApp, and of course, my Gmail! 😅 Also as a Muslim, I would have a prayer app to check prayer times, a Quran app for reading a digital copy of the Quran, and a Qibla app to check the Qibla direction whenever I am in an unfamiliar place. This...

When I first converted to Islam, one of the main things that amazed me completely was the fact that five times every single day, Muslims face toward the direction of the Kaaba to pray. This unity is not seen in any other religion other than Islam, and this cannot be reasoned out other than the staunch belief that drives our worship- the belief in the Oneness of God. However, finding the Qibla might still be a challenging task for some people especially if you are someone like me living in a non-Muslim majority country. I do not have the luxury of...

I never considered that the bottle I used to drink water with is something I'll need while using a public restroom. I had the most awkward moment of my life as a new resident of a non-muslim country. Finding a bathroom when I was travelling around London was simple, but the experience did not go as planned. You probably have already guessed it. Yes! There was no water to clean yourself.  As a Muslim, cleanliness is a significant part of our religion. Prophet Muhammad (saw) said,                            ...

“Islam began as a something strange and it will return to being strange, so blessed are the strangers” (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 145) When we look around and see something that is absolutely different from the norms of life, we find it strange, and that is what attracts us the most since it is unlike any other concept of life. What if that very strange thing is something of good? Imagine how this goodness can inspire so many people around you! As a Muslim, the lifestyle we have is different from any other person. We pray like no one else, we fast like no one...

Ever left your house forgetting to take something along? If you are like me, you'd probably spend quite a good number of minutes going through a mental checklist in your mind before you step outside the house (haha!). Even so, missing at least one item has become like a usual occurrence for me. Sometimes it's my keys, or glasses, and other times it's probably my phone or wallet.  Yet my backpack appears to be overloaded with items that I simply don't need on campus. However, ever since I started practising my deen, my checklist for my bag grew. So, beside taking...

Do you remember the first time you had to make salah outside of your home or Masjid? How did you feel? Scared? Embarrassed? For someone like me who had previously lived in a muslim-majority country, I always had the privilege to go to the mosque for prayer. When I was suddenly thrown into a non-muslim majority country like the UK and had to pray in public for the first time, I felt both scared and embarrassed. The task became even more difficult when I started to imagine other people staring at me with weird or disapproving looks while I was trying to pray outside... Flashback to a game day...

“I still remember how Mum used to sit next to my bedside reciting Dua for us every night when we were little kids. I could see the barakah in that as I was growing up year by year.” Dua is one of the most favourite acts of worship that Allah loves. Imagine the Love of Allah showering upon you at all times! Imagine how the consistency of such an act can change your life! From the time we wake up in the morning till the end of the day when we go to sleep, we engage in many activities, going...

Have you ever wondered why, despite not missing a single prayer during the day, we still can't connect with Allah during our daily Salah? This was one question I had been asking myself for years until one day, it just hit me with the realization that... We are frequently oblivious to Allah's presence during the day, forgetting about Him and engaging in activities, and when we suddenly arrive at Salah, deep remembrance of Allah (SWT) does not occur immediately. Unless or until we have constant engagement with our Creator everyday, it is hard for us to deeply connect with HIM (SWT).  The Solution? The...