As-salaamu alaikum,
Tonight’s video ended with something I want to reflect on a little longer:
The trembling is not the end of the story.
I want to go deeper tonight on what that actually means. Because the becoming framework is not just an encouraging idea. It is grounded in how Allah has always worked with His servants. And understanding that changes everything about how you see the season this moment of your life.
The Jibril relationship — what it tells us about how Allah prepares His servants
I want to extend the Jibril interpretation from tonight’s video — because I think there is more in it than the video had time to develop.
Jibril (alayhis salam) is described in the Quran as al-Ruh al-Amin — the trustworthy spirit. He is the one through whom every revelation to every prophet was transmitted. He knew Ibrahim ﷺ. He knew Musa ﷺ. He knew Isa ﷺ. He had been present at every major turning point in prophetic history.
And now he was standing in a cave above Makkah, looking at a man he already knew and already loved — a man who had no idea who he was about to become.
Think about what Jibril carried into that cave. Not just the first words of revelation. The full knowledge of what this man’s life would produce. The hijrah. Badr. The opening of Makkah. The farewell sermon. The transformation of Arabia. The civilization that would follow. All of it already known to Jibril — and none of it yet known to the trembling man in front of him.
And he squeezed him.
Not because the squeeze was required to transmit revelation. Because the man was scared. Because the man he loved was trembling and needed to be comforted.
That image — Jibril holding the Prophet ﷺ in the first moment of the mission — tells us something important about how Allah works with His servants in the middle of their becoming. He does not send them into their mission alone. He sends alongside them whatever they need — sometimes an angel, sometimes a Khadijah, sometimes a Waraqah, sometimes a Sheikh bin Baz who sees something in a Sudanese student that others haven’t noticed yet.
The people and the moments of reassurance that arrive in your becoming are not coincidences. They are the equivalent of Jibril’s embrace. They are Allah sending what you need at the moment you need it, before you can see what’s coming, because He already saw it.
The fatra — the pause that nearly broke him
I also want to go deeper on a moment the video briefly mentioned, but didn’t fully develop — the fatra, the pause in revelation after the initial experience.
After the first revelation, there was a period of silence. The narrations differ on its length — some say days, some say months — but they agree on its effect: it was agonizing. The Prophet ﷺ had been given something extraordinary and then it stopped. He waited. He went back to the mountain. He looked for what had been there and found silence.
The narrations describe him, during this period, going to the tops of mountains and feeling the urge to throw himself off — not from despair exactly, but from the unbearability of waiting. Of having been given something and then having it withdrawn. Of not knowing if it would return.
And then al-Muddaththir. Ya ayyuhal muddaththir. Qum fa-andhir.
The command to arise came after the period of not-arising. The mission was given after the period of waiting. The clarity came after the period of silence and confusion and not-yet.
I want you to hear that clearly: the fatra was not a malfunction. It was part of the becoming. The waiting was not evidence that the mission had been cancelled. It was the space in which the man was being prepared for what the mission would require.
Your periods of silence — the times when nothing seems to be moving, when the clarity you thought you had seems to have withdrawn, when you are waiting on the mountain and hearing nothing — are not evidence that you have been abandoned.
They are the fatra. And the fatra ends with qum.
The chain that Sheikh Jafar Idris extended — and what it means for you
I mentioned in the video that among the people Sheikh Jafar Idris influenced was Muhammad al-Shareef — whose story we told in Night 25. I want to reflect on that connection for a moment because it illustrates something important about becoming and chains.
Sheikh bin Baz saw something in a Sudanese student. He invested in him and sent him to America. That Sudanese student taught and influenced a generation of early American du’aat — including a young man who would go on to found Al-Maghrib Institute. Al-Maghrib influenced tens of thousands — including people who are now raising children, teaching students, serving communities, building things whose full fruit will not be visible for another generation.
That is one chain. From one scholar’s recognition of one student’s gifts — a chain of influence that is still moving, still growing, still producing shade that people are sitting in without knowing where it came from.
You are somewhere in a chain like that right now. You received something — knowledge, character, faith, a way of seeing the world — from someone who received it from someone else. And you are, whether you know it or not, already passing something on. To the people around you who are watching how you navigate your becoming. To the younger siblings and cousins and friends who are looking at your choices and absorbing something from them. To the community you are part of and the culture you are contributing to.
The chain doesn’t wait for you to finish becoming before it runs through you. It runs through you now. In the middle of the trembling.
The becoming vs. arriving distinction
I want to give you the Islamic framework for why the becoming never fully arrives in this life — because I think understanding it theologically changes how you relate to your own incompleteness.
Allah says in Surat al-Inshirah:
“So when you have finished, then strive in worship. And to your Lord direct your longing.” [94:7-8]
The structure of this ayah is important: when you finish one thing — stand up for the next. There is no ayah in the Quran that says: when you finish, rest. When you have arrived, stop. The Quranic rhythm is always: when this is done, turn toward what is next. Always another arising. Always another turning toward Allah.
The Prophet ﷺ received revelation for 23 years. His last surah — widely considered to be al-Nasr — ends not with triumph, but with instruction: fa sabbih bihamdi rabbika wastaghfir. Glorify your Lord and seek His forgiveness. At the height of everything — after Makkah had been opened, after Arabia had been united, after the mission was visibly complete — the instruction was: keep turning. Keep becoming. Keep seeking forgiveness.
He never arrived. Not in the sense of being done. And that was not a failure — it was the design. The design of a life oriented toward Allah is that it never stops orienting. The compass keeps pointing. The becoming keeps moving. And the incompleteness you feel is not a problem to be solved — it is the feeling of a life that is still pointed in the right direction.
What Khadijah’s words tell us about how to support someone in their becoming
I want to draw out something from Khadijah’s response — because I think it contains the most practical guidance in the episode for how to be present with someone who is in the middle of their becoming.
She did not tell him what he would become. She did not offer him a vision of his future greatness. She did not say: you will be the Prophet of Allah, the seal of the messengers, the one whose ummah will span the globe.
She told him who he already was. She named his existing character — the ties of kinship, the truthfulness, the generosity to guests, the support of those in calamity — and said: a man with this character will not be abandoned.
That is the right thing to say to someone in the middle of their becoming. Not: here is what you will achieve. But: here is who you already are. And who you already are is enough for what is coming.
If you have someone in your life who is trembling right now — who is scared, who is uncertain, who is in the middle of something they cannot see the end of — Khadijah’s words are your model. Don’t tell them what they will become. Tell them who they already are. Name what you see in them. The character that is already there. The gifts that are already visible. The becoming that is already present in the person, waiting to be recognized.
That is what she did. And it was enough to help him arise.
Tonight’s journaling prompts
Prompt 1: The fatra. Is there an area of your life right now that feels like the fatra — a period of waiting, of silence, of the clarity you thought you had seeming to have withdrawn? Name it. And then sit with the possibility that the fatra is not evidence of abandonment, but preparation for qum (arising).
Prompt 2: The Jibril embrace. Who has been a Jibril in your life — someone who showed up at a moment of trembling and held you, someone who saw what was coming when you couldn’t? Name them. Make du’a for them tonight.
Prompt 3: The Khadijah question. Who in your life is currently trembling — in the middle of a becoming they can’t yet see clearly? What would it look like to be their Khadijah — to name who they already are rather than what they might become?
Prompt 4: The chain. Trace the chain of how something important reached you — a piece of knowledge, a quality of character, a way of seeing the world. How far back can you trace it? And who are you currently passing it to, whether you know it or not?
Prompt 5: The Inshirah rhythm. What have you recently finished — or are close to finishing — that the Inshirah rhythm is inviting you to arise from into the next thing? What is the next standing up? What is the next turning toward Allah?
Resources
Surat al-Muddaththir 74:1-7 — read the full opening with tafsir. Ibn Kathir’s commentary on the command qum fa-andhir addresses the context of the fatra and what the command meant for a man who had been waiting in anguish. It is worth reading in full
Surat al-Inshirah 94:1-8 — the full surah as a framework for the becoming rhythm. Every ayah is worth sitting with slowly. The expansion of the chest, the removal of the burden, the elevation of the mention — all of it is addressed to a man still becoming
The Sealed Nectar (Al-Raheeq al-Makhtum) by Safi-ur-Rahman Mubarakpuri — one of the most accessible full seerahs in English. Read the chapters on the early revelation and the fatra with tonight’s framework in mind. The human texture of those chapters changes when you understand the becoming framework
Sheikh Jafar Idris — search for his lectures online. A number of his talks are still available and the quality of his scholarship and his gentleness as a teacher are immediately apparent. Listening to him is itself an experience of the chain still moving
One more thing
Jibril squeezed him and said — in whatever language angels speak to the hearts of those they love — it’s going to be ok. I know this is scary. This is the first day of the rest of your life.
Muhammad ﷺ didn’t believe it yet. He ran down the mountain trembling. He asked his wife to wrap him in a cloak. He said I fear for myself.
And then he arose. And then he warned. And then he spent 23 years becoming the person Jibril already knew he would be.
You are somewhere in that story right now. The trembling is real. The not-yet is real. The confusion and the uncertainty and the feeling of not having arrived — all of it is real.
And none of it is the end of the story.
Qum. You don’t have to have arrived. You just have to arise.
My inbox is open. Just reply.
May Allah make us of those who keep arising, keep warning, keep turning toward Him — until we return to Him having become what He always knew we would be. Ameen.
— Dr. Ali