The Long Dark Night of the Soul
In the quiet hours before dawn, I found myself sitting in meditation, face-to-face with the most unspoken truth of my spiritual life. What began as stillness turned into a conversation — with myself, with my Lord, and, through these words, with you.
This is not polished theology or pious instruction; it is the raw tracing of a soul’s long detour, the parallel track I have walked alongside the Muslim Ummah, haunted by a God I thought I knew but never truly met.
What follows is the unedited record of that exploration — the fears, the confessions, the moments of clarity — and the breaking of an image I have carried for a lifetime.
It is, in every sense, the long dark night of my soul.
The Parallel God
There has always been another god running beside me —
not Allah, the Lord of the heavens and the earth,
not Ar-Rahman, who clothes the barren tree in spring,
not Ar-Raheem, who answers the one who calls in distress.
This shadow-god wears a robe of judgment,
a ledger clutched under His arm,
my name is written on every page in red.
I see Him in my mind’s eye,
Rubbing his hands together as He turns the pages of the Loh Mahfuz,
finding every law I have broken,
every prayer I have left unsaid,
Every act of defiance I once excused with clever words.
In my imagination, His mercy is thin,
His patience is brittle.
He waits not with open arms,
but beside a locked gate,
ready to slam it shut on the corner of hell
I am certain is already mine.
And in my arrogance, I have claimed to know His thoughts —
as if my dust-born heart could read the mind of the One
who created dust itself.
But this god is not Allah.
He is a shape I have carved in my mind
from the wood of fear and the nails of shame.
He is the echo of human voices
that spoke more of fire than of forgiveness,
more of wrath than of rain.
He is the face I painted in the sky
so I would not have to face the ground.
Now I see him for what he is:
an idol of the mind,
a shadow on the wall of my own cave.
The day I step onto the sejadah
and bow my head to the woven earth,
it will be to Allah alone —
over the shattered remains of the false god
who kept me company all these years.
Epilogue
If this night has taught me anything, it is that the longest distance I have ever traveled is the space between my mind’s idea of God and the reality of Allah’s mercy.
The “parallel God” who shadowed my steps for decades was never waiting to welcome me — only to keep me away.
The Lord of the Worlds has always been nearer than my jugular vein, patient beyond my comprehension, and more merciful than I dare to believe.
When my forehead finally touches the sejadah, it will not be in the shadow of fear, but in the light of recognition — that He was never my adversary, only my refuge.
The night is long, but the dawn always comes.
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