The First Voice

When I was in fourth or fifth grade, there was a story in our Urdu textbook that I still remember to this day. It was a simple story about integrity, doing the right thing even when no one is watching, and remembering that Allah always knows what we are doing. Here are a few words I still remember from the story:  It was early morning. A father had just finished milking the cow. He wanted to add water to the milk so he could make more money. His young daughter was watching him. She told him, “Abu, this is not right. What if the Khalifa finds out? You will be in trouble.” The father replied, “The Khalifa is not here. No one knows, and no one is watching us.” The daughter quietly answered, “But Allah is watching us.” That little story stayed somewhere in my heart for many years. Fast-forward many years. My daughter is now 15. One day, we were sitting in the car near our home. The traffic light turned red. There were no cars coming from either direction. She looked at me and said, “Wh...

This morning, I was sitting in my backyard, having a morning cup of coffee as usual, when I looked at the palm tree in a way I had never seen it before.   I noticed something amazed me. As the leaves grow older and reach the middle of their journey, they begin to split and slowly become part of the tree itself. With time, they become part of its history. They may no longer look like the fresh, beautiful leaves at the top, but they have served their purpose. They helped the tree grow a little taller, a little stronger, and made room for new leaves to emerge above them. And, then I realized something: isn’t life much like a leaf? As we grow older, we have children who eventually take our place, just as new leaves grow where the older ones were. We make room for them to grow, while supporting them with everything we have learned along the way. As we continue to grow older, our responsibility becomes bigger than just raising our own children. Through our actions, our words, our...