"I Miss Allah" - by Mohammad Zafar

It happens certain days in certain moments. I can never tell why but spontaneously the feeling comes and I tell myself "I miss Allah". Whether I’m content in life, having a bad day or going through a miserable period, the feeling is there.

I have both missed remembering Him and also just Him. In this previous Ramadan I sat content with everything in my life yet also feeling empty–like everything was still not enough. I had been remembering Allah more in the month than I probably had in the previous six months combined. Why did I still miss Him? Was it due to the sins I worked so hard to attain? Maybe it was because I was not remembering Him the way I should? Or perhaps I was doing everything right but the feeling was natural?

Those days in childhood when it seemed like every child, in extended family dinners or school, teased and bullied me; those days when I came home from a miserable day at school wanting someone to speak to and found no one; those nights I spent awake feeling empty and lonely then finally crying myself to sleep–strangely enough those were the times I missed Allah less. A broken heart of mine found it easier to connect to Him. I wanted to sit beside Him–not even talk to Him but just hear what He was saying and doing. I just wanted His presence. I always felt I was born elsewhere and stripped away from my home–wherever that place was, I left my heart there a long time ago.

While browsing the net one day I came across an article with the title “I miss Allah”. So it's not just me, others feel it too! Amazingly enough it was written by a teacher I had in Islamic school nearly a decade earlier.

I thought how can she miss Allah? I used to look up to her as a good Muslim and even felt guilty when seeing her make Dua after Dhuhr prayers.

As I read what she wrote, I began to see what she really missed was remembering Allah. But she did not say "I miss making remembrance of Allah", she said, as I am saying: “I miss Allah”.

To me the word "miss" has always implied when two beings, with mutual love, were together in each other’s company and then departed away. The period eventually grew too long between them and a yearning became the result.

Remembering Allah only suffices a temporary relief; the everlasting relief still awaits. For a mother whose child moves away, be it even temporary, would hearing her child's voice on the phone fill her void? Would her child, too, be content only with the mother's voice?

It would provide relief, yes…but only enough to carry on. What they both would want is to sit with each other, to embrace one another, to hear each other’s voices up close and personal and never depart from each other again. What they would want is the reunion of their love for nothing else could suffice.

And that is how I have felt my whole life. I felt I was with Allah at one time and then snatched away (like a child away from his mother). Ever since then I have been on my path to find Him again.

O Allah, I really, really miss You. And lately even remembering You has not sufficed. I just miss You! My teacher too. The one reading this misses You.

But I'm we glad we do, because the reunion will be even that much better.