ONE OF THE righteous predecessors once said, “How unfortunate are the people of the world who left the world without having experienced its greatest delight.”
They asked him, “What is its greatest delight?”
He replied: “Knowing Allah, loving Him, finding comfort in His closeness, and longing to meet Him.”
We spend our lives searching for delight.
We look for it in our children’s achievements. In a peaceful marriage. In a stable home. In being appreciated. In feeling secure.
And none of these things are wrong.
But even at their best, they are shadows. The greatest delight was never meant to be found in creation. It was always meant to be found in the Creator.
Ramadhan comes not just to discipline our hunger, but to gently remind our hearts what they were created for.
And perhaps no moment captures that truth more powerfully than the Prophet ﷺ at Ta’if.
The Prophet ﷺ stood at Ta’if. Alone.
He had just been driven out. Pelted with stones until his sandals filled with blood. Behind him were the deaths of Khadijah (ra) and Abu Talib, the two people who had sheltered him most. Ahead of him was uncertainty.
And so he turned to Allah: “To You, my Lord, I complain of my weakness, lack of support, and humiliation… As long as You are not displeased with me, I do not care what I face…”
He did not say: As long as I succeed.
He did not say: As long as people stand with me.
He said: As long as You are not displeased with me.
That was the centre. Everything else, rejection, humiliation, loneliness, could be endured.
The People We Would Do Anything For
We all have an inner circle. The people we sacrifice for. The people we rearrange our lives for. The ones whose happiness quietly shapes our own.
Our spouses. Our parents. Our children. Our closest friends.
We love them, and we should. But life teaches us, often painfully:
Children disappoint. Parents leave wounds. Spouses drift. Friends change. Death comes without warning.
No human relationship is permanent. None is perfect.
And when we place something fragile at the very centre of our hearts, eventually it trembles under the weight.
Relying only on ourselves is no solution either. We know our own limitations too well.
So who belongs in that innermost place?
Only Allah.
Not because people do not matter. They do. But He is the only One who never leaves, never fails, never forgets. Every strength you have comes from Him. Every moment of peace you’ve ever felt, He placed it there.
وَهُوَ مَعَكُمْ أَيْنَ مَا كُنتُمْ
And He is with you wherever you are. (al-Hadid: 4)
When the Prophet ﷺ stood bleeding at Ta’if, that was true. When Khadijah (ra) returned to her Lord without seeing the victory of Islam, that was true. When you lie awake at night carrying quiet fears about someone you love, that is still true.
He is with you. Right now.
Those We Love Most
The people closest to us have a way of quietly rearranging our entire world. We carry them in our du’a, in our worries, in the back of our minds at every hour.
And perhaps that is why we must gently ask ourselves: Where is Allah positioned in all of this love?
Sometimes the centre shifts without us noticing.
Someone else’s success determines our peace. Their struggles shake our stability. Their choices feel like verdicts on our worth.
But the people we love were never meant to carry the weight of being our emotional anchor. They are an amanah — a trust. They have their own relationship with Allah to find, their own tests to walk through, their own wrestling with iman.
When Allah is at the centre, we love differently. We care, but do not control. We advise, but do not suffocate. We make du’a more than we panic. We hold on with open hands.
We are not here to make the people we love orbit around us. We are here to help the souls around us orbit around Allah.
And perhaps the greatest gift we can give the people we love this Ramadhan is not perfectly managed plans or relentless efforts to fix them, but the sight of someone who turns to Allah first. A person whose peace comes from Him.
