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~

"He breaks you to build you. Deprives you to give you. This pain in your heart was created to make you yearn less for this life. And to yearn more for Jannah." —Reclaim Your Heart by Yasmin Mogahed

~

That night, when Zoya trails around the room Haroun used to frequent, the gaping chasm inside her widens.

She rubs circles over her stomach absentmindedly, glancing around at the furniture. It's almost as if she can feel his presence, see his smile, the pop of his soft dimple. The light in his eyes, his hands in her hair. Stroking, stroking.

She trails over to the prayer mat a friend gifted to Haroun. Blue and gold, with a picture of Makkah on it that brought tears to his eyes. Zoya never understood his emotion over it. In fact, she seldom understood how easily he became rattled by things that brought moisture to his eyes. And simultaneously, how logically he thought of things.

She bends her knees and settles on the prayer mat, rubbing her hand along it. Leaning down to inhale the familiar smell of him. Fighting off tears.

What makes it so much harder to forget him are Zoya's memories, as well as constantly being surrounded by objects that remind her of him. Everywhere Zoya walks in her manor is torture. She feels as if she sees ghosts of him everywhere, flitting through corners, occupying the places he frequented most, appearing briefly when she is at her worst.

Zoya's lips tremble.

She has probably cried more in these past few weeks than she has cried in her entire life. Strong-willed Zoya Zameer, brought to her knees by an ache in her heart.

She looks around the room then, suddenly feeling as if she is not alone. But there is no fear in her heart. Only confusion.

Zoya turns back to the prayer mat, and a part of it particularly catches her eye. She leans down, observing the gold embossed around the Ka'bah. She looks back around the room, eyes zeroing in on what she was finding.

A picture hung on the wall in the same gold-embossed colors. With a single word written in Arabic calligraphy: Al-Muhaymin.

She remembers how Haroun had said this one word had pulled him out of the depths of his faithlessness and despair. What had it meant?

The Guardian, The Protector, The Overseer.

Thinking of it prods tears in Zoya's eyes. She presses her lips together to contain herself but to no avail. It has been too long. Everything in her has fought this growing feeling inside her for too long. This feeling of needing something more, something greater. Even her body is tired of fighting for so long. All it wants now is to give up. All it wants now is to let go.

To return home.

So Zoya bends down, feeling as if a gravitational force pulls her forehead to the ground, and a whimper escapes her.

And finally, finally, with a deep, heaving breath, Zoya opens up to her Lord.

The proud, arrogant, successful CEO Zoya Zameer. In a heap on the floor. Bowed down before her rabb.

So who is to say that humans range in their piety and spirituality based on their economic status? Zoya is made from dirt, just like the rest of humanity.

Who would ever imagine the gorgeous, haughty Zoya Zameer to lie with her head in sujood to her ultimate Creator, unbeknownst of all other things? Who would ever imagine?

And she's quite a sight to behold. With her head bent down in sujood, tears pouring out of her eyes, and all of her accomplishments and successes behind her. She doesn't care, she doesn't care.

She doesn't care that she is the Zoya Zameer, destined to be the success of the fashion industry. The Zoya Zameer with the elegant dresses and the impeccable makeup. The Zoya no one dares speak up in front of except for one person. And he is gone and who knows if he's coming back.

At this moment, she is only a slave to her Master. She is only a creation of her Lord. Like seven billion other people on earth, she is only human. She is nothing more.

Abruptly touched by her insignificance in the vast world, Zoya starts to weep. She has been put in her place. She has been put in her place by her rabb. And yet He is so forgiving, so merciful, that He still allowed her this sweet moment of time in her life where she was absolutely happy.

She deserves the loss. She knows she does. And now she finally understands.

He took from her what she loved most to force her to turn to Him. Because she has been fighting Him off for so long. She has been rebelling against herself for so long. And her Lord finally turned her heart to Him.

Zoya weeps and weeps and weeps.

The world doesn't need her. The one person she had cared about so deeply, the one person whom she had willingly loved after her father left, had also left her.

What an irony life is.

Zoya bows down, deeper into the floor. With her head touching the ground, she suddenly thinks she is nothing. If she dies at this moment, no one will need her. What has she done to make anyone need her? Nothing. All she has been successful in doing is using her tools and assets to hurt others.

She has always been arrogantly aware of her beauty and used to flaunt it in everyone's face, reveling in people's reactions to it. What a shame, what a shame.

She is not needed by anyone. Only her Creator loves her, she realizes with a loud sob. Only He listens. She cries even more as she bends down and makes the prayer that has been plaguing her heart for a while. "Lord, p-please forgive me."

And she cannot say more. She doesn't know how. How is she to ask her Lord for forgiveness for the vast scroll of horrible things she's done to others? She remembers Preeti, whom she had so mercilessly fired in front of everyone, fanning herself with her dupatta as she did. She remembers Flora, whom she was fond of and threw out just to look good in front of Haroun (which didn't work out anyway). She remembers Farhan, and how she had publicly humiliated him on live TV simply because he carried the same name as her abusive ex-husband. Farhan Malik, who she had always been merciless and ruthless with simply because of a name that was never his fault to begin with. She remembers the managers she bribed, the young girl Jadyn whom she ruthlessly ridiculed, the countless people she fired without reason, the people she brought to tears with her arrogance and fiery temper.

And the countless things she had deemed insignificant that she cannot even name or remember now.

And most of all, she is truly sorry to Haroun Suleiman. For falling in love with him — his character, his respect. For lying to him, deceiving him. For making him fall in love with her, and then breaking his heart.

Zoya Zameer raises her hands to the sky, tears streaming down her face like rivers. "God," she cries. "Allah. I have done horrible, speechless things. I don't know. Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me, please — "

And, unable to say any more, she falls to the floor again and touches her head to the ground, humbling herself. Because she is nothing. And it has taken her years and breaking a strong man's heart to make her realize that she means nothing to no one, and only God knows the state of her heart. And only He has stayed through all the turbulence in her life — she has just been too blind to see Him.

She will never be able to face anyone again after the crimes she has committed, justifying them by saying it was her broken heart from her father's lack of love and her ex-husband's abusive nature. "He made me like this," she had frequently claimed.

But what had Haroun told her? That God sovereigns, but He's given humanity free will. She has blamed God for all the bad that has happened in her life, not pausing for a single second to reflect on her own actions. And the consequences of those actions.

Haroun had told her that humans have the ability to make choices.

Just like Haroun's mother had been divorced for a woman half her age and made the choice to teach respect of women to her son from that moment forward. And he had been through a lot, too. But he had made choices that forced him to better himself, to become a better human being.

She crumples into a heap atop the prayer mat with dry tears on her face.

Zoya Zameer is balled into a circle, eyes closed on the floor of the room. Who can tell that she is the CEO one of the largest businesses in the nation?

She has finally understood her place.

. . .