i was fourteen, in a classroom full of strangers.
we had just moved from canada to america. it was the tail end of eighth grade, and i remember sitting down in my first class, looking around the room, and asking myself one thing.
who am i meant to be amongst all of these people?
we had moved so much that i'd lost grip on who i was. that question followed me for years. i was consumed by loneliness, by fear, and by grief.
at eighteen, a brother we knew lost his older brother, and i went to my first janaza. at the burial there were hundreds of young men my age, the Qur'an in their hands. for the first time, i was standing among the people i felt i had to become.
that day i understood that the years i spent trying to invent an identity were the wrong search. being a servant of Allah is who i am. i never had to become someone else to be accepted.
that's where my journey began. everything here comes from it.
