Between the Ocean and the Vein

Last night I sat beneath a sky full of stars, and something in me went quiet. Not empty, quiet. The kind of quiet where you finally hear what's been trying to reach you for a while. I want to share where that quiet led me.

I've always prayed outward, reaching toward God as something beyond me, transcendent, separate from the limits of space, the way tawhid (توحيد, the oneness of God) describes Him. That reaching outward was never wrong, and it hasn't stopped. But I've also, quietly, been trying to communicate and reach out to God (Allah) inside myself, in stillness, in the parts of me that words don't usually reach. Last night those two didn't compete with each other. They opened wider, together, and something that had been slightly blurred came into focus.

We always look outside, asking for God, for guidance, for help, for answers. Last night I found myself asking something new. Do I need to look inside as well? I already had been, quietly, for some time. But something shifted, and rather than only looking outward, I turned more fully inward too.

I cannot comprehend, not even a small part of it, God's wisdom. It is written in Surah Luqman: "And if all the trees on earth were pens, and the ocean were ink, with seven more oceans added to it, the words of God would not be exhausted. Truly God is Almighty, All Wise." (Quran 31:27) My own knowledge is not enough, not even close, to write down what little I know of that wisdom.

And then there is the verse I kept returning to. In Surah Qaf: "We created man, and We know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than his jugular vein." (Quran 50:16) It is not that God is only inside us. He is everywhere, present, but He is also intimately aware of the heart. He knows our intentions. Sometimes we act out of fear, anxiety, stress, or trauma, or we act entirely without meaning to. I believe intent is what matters most. What was the intent behind the act. This is what God seems to be telling us, that He is aware of what we carry inside, of what we conceal and what we reveal. And this is where forgiveness enters. It is easy to judge people, to make pronouncements, to cross into judgment when we look at others. We should try our best to refrain from that.

So I return to the core of it: we must be caring, loving, and understanding, as much as we possibly can. That does not mean excusing someone's hurtful or harmful behavior. It means that, with the grace of being loving and kind, we release what is not serving us, while remaining open to the possibility that a person or situation can change at any moment. Never close the door completely. Never shut the window for good.

This truth is not unique to the Quran. It runs clearly through the Torah (Tawrah تَوْرَاة), the Old Testament, and the Quran, and it is affirmed in the authentic hadiths, the sayings of the Prophet recorded by his companions. The core message beneath all of it is the same. Be a good person. Be kind. Believe in one God. Be good to other human beings. Be gentle with trees, with animals, with the environment. Choose peace over corruption. Forgive. Love one another, which means loving your neighbor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the one in need.

Unlike the Jewish and Christian tradition of speaking of one bound book called the Bible, the Quran does not use a single term to group these revelations together. Instead, it names each one separately. Instead, it names each revelation distinctly: the Torah (Tawrah تَوْرَاة, revealed to Moses), the Psalms (Zabur زَبُور, given to David), and the Gospel (Injil إِنْجِيل, given to Jesus). There is also a broader term, Suhuf (صُحُف, meaning scrolls or pages), used for earlier revelations such as those given to Abraham. The Quran affirms each as a genuine word from the same God, while noting that human hands sometimes altered what was received. As it states in Surah Al Baqarah: "Say, we believe in God and what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the tribes, and what was given to Moses and Jesus and what was given to the prophets from their Lord. We do not make any distinction between them." (Quran 2:136) In Surah Al Isra: "And to David We gave the Zabur." (Quran 17:55) And in Surah Imran: "He it is Who sent down to thee the Book in truth, confirming that which went before it, and He sent down the Torah and the Gospel."

There is a verse in Surah Al Ma'idah that has stayed with me on this. It says: "Be just, that is nearer to God consciousness." (Quran 5:8) Justice, in other words, is not simply a legal duty. It is an act of worship, a way of staying close to God.This same conviction runs through the earlier scriptures. In the Torah, in Deuteronomy, it is written: "Justice, justice shall you pursue." (Deuteronomy 16:20) And in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus rebukes those who perform religious duties while neglecting what matters most, saying they have "neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness." (Matthew 23:23)

Across every one of these books, justice is never treated as separate from faith. It is one of the clearest ways faith becomes visible in how we treat each other.

The Quran stands as the final book, the seal of all revelation, and it teaches that every messenger of God is equal, none above another, each entrusted with a divine and simple message meant for all of humankind.

The Quran is the divine word revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, through the archangel Gabriel (Jibril جِبْرِيل in Arabic), delivered in Arabic. Much of it speaks through metaphor, allegory, and idiom. Much of it was revealed within a time and a culture nearly fifteen hundred years removed from our own, and it must be understood within that context rather than pulled out of it. But beneath the metaphor, the core truth remains constant across every book. To find it, we must look deeply inside ourselves. The more we look, the more we find.

It matters to make time for this in silence, away from distraction and noise, in genuine reflection, though I know that kind of stillness is not a luxury everyone has. Even so, silence can be found almost anywhere. A park. A car parked for fifteen minutes. Simply breathing deeply and looking inward. That is how we connect with our Creator, with the divine message, and begin to see more clearly. We must listen to the echoes within our hearts, for they are guiding us. But we must also be careful not to mistake that guidance for feelings or thoughts shaped by our own past wounds. Muslims pray five times a day for that purpose to remind ourselves of Divine presence and reflect in silence.

And I hope that today, whatever day it may be, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, those who lead congregations from the pulpit speak of this. Love, kindness, and compassion, and by extension, justice, equality, and peace, while rejecting demagoguery, hatred, bigotry, and division. To wear the garment of leadership and stand before a congregation is to accept a clear and divine obligation. And if a leader falls short of it, the congregation carries its own responsibility in turn, to remind that person, with honesty, that they carry a moral, ethical, spiritual, and divine duty to speak truth rather than retreat into fear or bias.

Which brings me to my final thought. We are all accountable to one another. If we truly love someone, we owe them truth, for their good, for their happiness, for their joy. We must show love plainly. I have lived through enough to know that the only way forward is kindness, love, and understanding. If we truly care about a cause whether in electing a politician or an issue affecting our community then we speak the truth and hold him/her and it accountable. That is what is real. Metaphor is not the destination. It is the teacher, showing us how to take what is written and carry it into the life we actually live.