Once you begin to realize that Allah is Al-Kafī, the Sufficient One, something slowly begins to shift in the way you look at the events of your life. The things that once felt confusing or painful begin to settle differently in your heart. And gradually, as time passes, you start to recognize another reality alongside His sufficiency: that He is also Al-Ḥakeem, the Most Wise.
You begin to understand why certain doors closed when they did, why some attachments had to be loosened, and why certain matters in your life were delayed altogether. The wisdom behind these moments is not always visible when they first happen. Often it becomes clear only much later, through conversations, reflections, or moments when Allah allows you to look back at your life from a slightly different place.
I remember having a conversation about the same Surah Al-Baqarah with a friend who is married with children. As we spoke about its blessings, lessons, and the ways in which Allah shapes us through our circumstances, she shared parts of her own journey navigating attachment within marriage and motherhood.
At one point, she paused and said to me, almost thoughtfully, “Aren’t you just glad that Allah taught you detachment before marriage? Trust me, the hurt and pain of refinement can be double, maybe even triple, once you’re married and have children.”
As she spoke about the challenges she had faced along the way, she eventually asked me a question that stayed with me: “Do you now understand why the delay?”
I nodded in agreement. Indeed, Allah does not withhold except for our own good, for a wisdom we may only come to recognize later. Sometimes it is also a form of mercy that we do not immediately comprehend.
Her question led me to reflect on the man who was about to tie the knot with me, who suddenly had to put everything aside to become a caregiver to his adoptive mother after she was diagnosed with cancer. At the time, it did not strike me as wisdom, nor did I see the mercy behind it. I did not fully understand why things had unfolded the way they did.
It was only recently, during another conversation with my family about attachment and emotional reliance, that something began to make sense to me in a way it had not before.
I began to think about the role of a caregiver and what that responsibility truly entails. Caring for a parent who is battling illness is the ultimate act of love. It requires sacrifice on every level; emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially. Life shifts entirely, and work, social life, personal routines, and even the possibility of marriage often fade into the background as the focus becomes caring for someone who is suffering. (May Allah grant them immediate relief, ease, complete healing, ʿāfiyah, and comfort, yā Rabb.)
And I found myself wondering what that situation would have looked like within a marriage at a time when I had not yet fully learned how to be alone, when my emotional world was still so deeply intertwined with the people around me. I also know myself well enough to recognize how deeply the suffering of those I love affects me. Witnessing illness, especially in someone’s parent, is not something the heart observes from a distance; it becomes something you carry with them.
The more I reflected on this, the more I began to understand that however well-intentioned I might have been, the emotional weight of such a reality would likely have affected me more deeply than I realized at the time. I would not have been the person I had imagined myself to be, not with the level of attachment I carried then and the way I often centered others before nurturing my own relationship with Allah.
And it was in that realization that something about Allah’s wisdom became clearer to me.
Allah had always known that.
He is Al-ʿAleem, the All-Knowing, fully aware not only of our intentions and compassion, but also of our limits, our emotional capacities, and the tests we are truly able to carry. And in His wisdom as Al-Ḥakeem, He arranged matters in a way that ultimately protected me from a situation I was not yet ready to face.
This is because He is also Al-Laṭīf, the Subtle and Most Gentle, the One who moves the pieces of our lives with a kind of mercy that is often too delicate for us to recognize while we are living through it.
And as I reflected on my own readiness, I could not help but sense that perhaps every person, in their own way, is navigating lessons only they can fully understand. Sometimes what we see as obstacles or delays are opportunities for growth that the heart cannot yet grasp. Perhaps he, too, was being guided through lessons of patience, resilience, and reliance on Allah in ways that were uniquely his own. Allah knows best.
Recently, I came across a story about a couple who had been praying for a child for nearly seven years. Eventually, Allah Subḥānahu wa Taʿālā granted them a beautiful child who, subḥānallāh, was born with a rare disease. As any parents would, they began searching tirelessly for treatment and possible options that might help their child. During that search, they came across a newly established clinical trial specifically for this rare condition. Their child was accepted into the program, and the treatment was fully funded.
Now, subḥānallāh, the way one looks at such a story makes all the difference. Someone might ask: Why did Allah delay them for so many years, only to grant them a child who would face such a trial?
But the person who shared the story reflected on it differently. Allah already knew their child would be born with this rare condition. And so perhaps, from His mercy and wisdom, He delayed their conceiving until the time when that clinical trial had been established, allowing the child’s birth to coincide with the very opportunity that could provide treatment and support.
Had the child been born years earlier, the circumstances might have been very different. The parents might have faced far greater distress, searching endlessly for options that simply did not exist yet. What once appeared to be a delay may, in reality, have been mercy unfolding in a way only Allah could arrange. And even if we do not understand why the child has the rare disease, we have to trust that Allah knows best. That there is kheyr even in the heaviest of tests.
Most times, we do not realize these things because we shut down, distracted by the noise of our own lives. We do not pause to reflect, to contemplate Allah’s names, and to ponder His verses.
Yet when we do allow ourselves even a quiet moment of reflection, the heart begins to soften toward trust.
And so, I close this reflection with a simple, heartfelt duʿā’, asking Allah for the best of all our affairs:
اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَسْأَلُكَ مِنَ الْخَيْرِ كُلِّهِ، عَاجِلِهِ وَآجِلِهِ، مَا عَلِمْتُ مِنْهُ وَمَا لَمْ أَعْلَمْ، وَأَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الشَّرِّ كُلِّهِ، عَاجِلِهِ وَآجِلِهِ، مَا عَلِمْتُ مِنْهُ وَمَا لَمْ أَعْلَمْ، وَأَسْأَلُكَ أَنْ تَجْعَلَ كُلَّ قَضَاءٍ قَضَيْتَهُ لِي خَيْرًا
Transliteration:
Allahumma innī as’aluka minal khayri kullihi, ʿājilihi wa ājilihi, mā ʿalimtu minhu wa mā lam aʿlam, wa aʿūdhu bika minash-sharri kullihi, ʿājilihi wa ājilihi, mā ʿalimtu minhu wa mā lam aʿlam, wa as’aluka an tajʿala kulla qaḍā’in qaḍaytahu lī khayran.
Meaning:
“O Allah, I ask You for all good, immediate and delayed, what I know of it and what I do not know. I seek refuge in You from all evil, immediate and delayed, what I know of it and what I do not know. And I ask You to make every decree You have written for us a source of goodness.”
And perhaps, with time and reflection, we too will come to recognize that what once felt like delay or deprivation was simply Allah arranging our lives with a wisdom far greater than our own.
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I know at this point, my Ramadhan series feels like an extension of Sheikh Omar Suleiman’s 😀 This was not planned, but Subhanallah, Allah willed it so. And without a doubt, Sheikh remains a huge influence in my life and my writings too! May Allah preserve him and reward him immensely for his great efforts and for being a source of guidance and reflection for us, ameen.
