Not Fragile—Sacred

When I first read: 

الله لا ينسى أن يعلمك. يريد أن يكون قلبك مستعدًا لفهم ما كان يُريكه لك طوال الوقت.

“Allah does not forget to teach you. He wants your heart to be ready to understand what He has been showing you all along”

I didn’t cry, and I didn’t smile either. I just sat with it. Something in my chest felt tight. Like I had been holding my breath without realising it, and suddenly I was being invited to exhale. It wasn’t a dramatic moment. Just a quiet one. But sometimes those are the moments that stay.

As a Muslim, my Eman—my faith—is constantly shifting. Some days it feels close and grounding, like something I can rest in. Other days, it feels far away, buried under busyness, doubt, fear, or just the exhaustion of trying to exist in places that are not built for you. And truthfully, writing this, sharing this, is hard. It is difficult to admit that your Eman (faith) can feel unsteady. That your relationship with God can sometimes feel like you are whispering into a distance and hoping something echoes back. That even when you want to be close, your heart doesn’t always cooperate.

There is a quiet loneliness in being visibly Muslim in spaces that are secular by default and spiritual only when convenient. You grow tired of asking for prayer breaks, declining invites, and explaining your boundaries. The weight builds slowly at a glance, the pause before your name. 

Do I belong here?

To be cracked is not to be broken, but to be opened. Slowly. With care. With purpose.

Before UTS, I studied at the University of Wollongong. On paper, everything seemed fine. But something vital was missing, and I didn’t yet have the language to explain it.

Ramadan came quickly, my first as a university student. Fasting wasn’t hard because of hunger, but because of the silence. The absence. The feeling of being unseen.

Each day, I sat alone on the train, clutching a date and a water bottle, breaking my fast as the train rattled on. I missed Dhuhr, Asr, and Maghrib. I missed the warmth and togetherness I had always linked to Ramadan. There was no one to pray with, no one to say, “I've felt that too”. The isolation was quiet and hard to name—a heaviness that followed me from station to station.

That was the first break. I was in a place I could not grow.

Later, during a visit to a friend at UNSW, she invited me to a sisters’ Halaqah. I almost didn’t go. I didn’t feel Muslim enough. But I went. We sat in a circle listening. It didn’t change everything, but it healed something. For one night, I didn’t feel alone. That memory became proof that a space like that could exist. Just not at UOW.

I found out the UOW MSA had not been active since 2019. I thought about starting it up again, but I did not have the tools or the guidance. I was only in my first year. I was already holding too much.

When 7 October came, a line had been crossed. Not just in the world, but inside me.

I watched my peers shrink into silence. I saw student journalists question whether they could mention the word Palestine without consequences. I saw people afraid to grieve openly. The people who were loudest about inclusion fell painfully quiet. 

So I left.

I didn’t want to explain myself anymore. I didn’t want to compromise on my values, or filter my language so people would feel comfortable. I needed to leave a place that required me to fracture who I was just to exist.

I applied to UTS with one requirement. I didn’t care about prestige, programs, or the commute. I just needed to know if it had an MSA—a space where I wouldn’t carry my Islam alone.

Most of my classes as a communications student are in Building Three. Photography. Audio. Journalism. We learn how to tell stories there—but it’s not where my story at UTS began.

It began on Level Five, in the prayer room.

I paused at the door. For so long, I had prayed in stairwells and empty rooms, quickly and quietly, just to avoid questions.

But this room was different. It welcomed my worship. For someone used to hiding, that meant everything.

I stepped in, laid down my mat, entered sujood, and cried. Not from sadness, but because I finally felt safe.

That was when I knew I made the right choice. A quiet moment. A return.

Ramadan that year wasn’t easier, but it was different. I wasn’t alone.

I broke fast with others, prayed with sisters, and shared food and dua. For the first time in a while, I could focus on my connection with Allah.

It wasn’t perfect. I still struggled, but I was trying. And trying was enough.

At UTS, I didn’t have to shrink my faith. I could be fully Muslim.

But even in supportive spaces, the work of protecting your faith continues. Assumptions and quiet expectations still linger. 

Being part of a magazine that I am so deeply proud to contribute to, has shown me how difficult it is to hold both your identity and your responsibility in creative spaces. I came in with a mission: to humanise Islam. To platform stories that reflected my community. To write with conviction, not compromise.

But somewhere along the way, I started making trade-offs. I started softening the edges of my voice. Not always by force. Sometimes just by fatigue. Sometimes out of fear of being labelled biased. Sometimes because I didn’t want to be seen as reactive, or emotional, or too much. So I let neutrality take the place of justice. I let the idea of professionalism slowly dilute my purpose.

And I felt myself drift. Slowly, quietly, and in ways that others didn’t notice. But I did.

That’s the hardest part of all of this. You can finally find your voice, and still struggle to use it.

I think faith is like an egg.

Not because it is fragile, but because it holds something sacred inside. Something that is protected. Something that must be nurtured. Sometimes, we go through things that make us feel like we are breaking. But maybe that cracking is necessary. Maybe it’s not destruction—maybe it’s preparation. 

Maybe it’s what allows us to become.

Your “egg” might look different from mine. It might be your first prayer after a long time. It might be sitting in a Halaqah quietly, listening. It might be deleting something that made you feel far from yourself. It might be setting a boundary. It might be whispering “Ya Allah, help me” at 3am.

Whatever it is—it counts. It matters. And it’s enough.

بالإيمان الصادق، ستنمو لتصبح الشخص الذي خُلقت لتكون.

Because with sincere faith, you will grow into the person you were always meant to be.

You don’t need to have it all together to be worthy. You don’t need to speak loudly to be heard by Allah. You don’t need to be perfect to be loved. You just need to protect your yolk. To hold your sujood close. To remember that even in the moments where you feel spiritually lost, your Creator is not far.

You are not behind. You are not failing. You are becoming.

He never forgets to teach you.

Not even for a moment.