AMATUSABHOO SHAHID, QADIAN
Grief does not arrive the way people describe it.
It doesn’t shatter you all at once. It doesn’t announce itself with drama or warning. It comes in waves—quiet, uninvited, in the most ordinary moments you never thought to guard yourself against.
It comes when you are sitting in a group at school or enjoying with friends or colleagues, laughing at something, and someone begins talking about a loved one, in the present tense, casually, the way people talk about someone who is still there.
And something runs down your spine.
It is not exactly sadness. It is something quieter than that; something that has no word in any language; something that can only be described in the specific, private language of loss. Because you know, in that moment, that you will never be able to speak about them that way—in the present tense.
Because they aren’t there anymore.
People usually know. Of course they know. But knowing and understanding are two entirely different things. They may know the fact of your loss, but they cannot comprehend the weight of sitting among others and smiling at the right moments, while something inside you has gone completely still.
Grief is not always about the tears people can see. Sometimes it is about the ones you swallow before anyone notices.
The questions nobody warns you about
In the first few days after losing my father, everything was blurry.
I remember crying in sajdah, repeatedly, my forehead on the ground and tears falling, the same questions tearing through me over and over: Why? Why, Allah? Why him? Why now? Why us?
There are no elegant words to describe that kind of pain. It wasn’t a quiet, dignified grief. It was the kind that breaks you open; the kind that sits in your chest like something too heavy to carry, yet too precious to put down.
This is the part of grief nobody prepares you for: the questioning, the moments when faith and pain are both present, pulling in opposite directions. You find yourself on your prayer mat, angry and heartbroken, yet somehow still turning to Him, even when you do not understand why.
And this is perhaps the most important thing the Quran teaches us about grief: that we can turn to Him, even in our questioning.
Allah does not ask us to grieve without feeling. He does not ask us to suppress our emotions or pretend that we are not in pain. Even the Holy Prophetsa wept when he lost those he loved. When his son Ibrahim passed away, he said:
“The eyes shed tears and the heart grieves, and we will not say except what pleases our Lord.”[1](Bukhari)
He wept, and yet remained mindful of what pleased his Lord.
That is not weakness. That is the most honest, most human, and the most faithful response to loss. We are allowed to feel it all and still turn to Allah in the midst of it. And when we turn to Him, the Quran reminds us:
أَمَّن يُجِيبُ الْمُضطَرَّ إِذَا دَعَاهُ وَيَكْشِفُ السُّوءَ
“Who answers the distressed person when he calls upon Him, and removes the evil?”[2]
He hears those who call upon Him in desperation. He heard me in sajdah, and He will hear you too.
What does the Quran say about loss
Amid the vastness of God’s wisdom and the greater purpose of our existence, the Quran reminds us of a truth we often struggle to accept in moments of loss:
كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ
“Every soul shall taste of death.”[3]
This verse does not take the pain away. It does something greater than than.
It places the pain within something larger than ourselves. It made me realise that my father’s death was not a mistake or a random occurrence; that his parting was not unfair as I had kept telling myself it was. Death is a reality Allah has promised every soul that has ever existed—including his, mine, yours, and everyone on earth.
We are not here forever. We were never meant to be. And somehow, that helped.
The people we love are not ours to keep forever. They are amanah—a trust placed in our hands for a time. When Allah calls them back, He is not taking something from us. He is taking back what was always His.
The Quran reminds us that loss is not an exception to the human experience, but one of the trials Allah has told us we will face in this life:
وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُم بِشَيْءٍ مِّنَ الْخَوْفِ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنفُسِ وَالثَّمَرَاتِ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ
“And We will try you with something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth and lives, and fruits; but give glad tidings to the patient.”[4]
Allah does not promise us a life without loss. He promises us something better: that He sees our suffering, and that He knows what we endure. And then He assures that those who remain patient will receive something from Him that no words can fully describe.
Hence, loss is not a sign that Allah has forgotten you. It is a test—and if we hold on to Allah through it, He will not leave us to carry its weight alone.
The real meaning of sabr
People will tell you to be patient.
They will say it with kind eyes and warm hands, out of genuine compassion for you. Yet, in those early days, the word may feel hollow, like something people say because they do not know what else to say.
Because sabr, the way we have come to understand it, sounds passive. It sounds like silence, like suppressing, like pretending that pain is not there and calling that strength.
But that is not what Allah askes of us.
وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتْهُم مُّصِيبَةٌ قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ أُولَٰئِكَ عَلَيْهِمْ صَلَوَاتٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ وَرَحْمَةٌ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُهْتَدُونَ
“Give glad tidings to the patient. Who, when a misfortune overtakes them, say, ‘Surely, to Allah we belong and to Him shall we return.’ It is these on whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy, and it is these who are rightly guided.”[5]
Notice that Allah does not describe the patient as those who do not grieve. He does not say they smile through it or hold themselves together perfectly. He says they are the ones who—in the middle of the pain—return to Him.
Hence, sabr is not the absence of pain.
It is choosing Allah in the presence of it. It is crying in sajdah and still showing up for Fajr. It is questioning and still believing. It is breaking, but still trusting that the One who allowed the breaking also knows how to hold the pieces.
And for such people, Allah promises:
إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الصَّابِرِينَ
“Indeed, Allah is with the patient.”[6]
Not after patience, nor as a reward for it, but with the patient, right there in the middle of it.
He was with me in sajdah when I didn’t have words. He was with me in the school hallway, when I smiled through the pain before my friends, when something ran down my spine. He was with me in every wave of grief I didn’t think I could survive.
He will be with you too.
The shift: When grief becomes something you carry
Then, slowly—so slowly that you almost do not notice it—something shifts.
It does not happen overnight, or through one verse or one moment of clarity. It crawls towards you. That is the only way to describe it. It settles into you quietly, in the spaces between the waves: the realisation that the person is not coming back.
I know that sounds simple, obvious even. But there is a difference between knowing someone is gone and truly, deeply accepting that this is now the shape of your life; that every Eid from here on will look different; that certain chairs will always feel heavier than they should; that you will learn to live fully, but with this one quiet absence woven into everything.
And then comes the realisation: they are okay.
Not just okay, but better, and more at peace than any of us can imagine from where we are standing. Like I realised that my father was free from pain, the chemotherapy, and the exhaustion of a body that was fighting so hard to stay. Free from all of it.
The Quran offers a reminder that death is not the end of life with Allah:
وَلَا تَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ قُتِلُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَمْوَاتًا بَلْ أَحْيَاءٌ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ يُرْزَقُونَ فَرِحِينَ بِمَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِن فَضْلِهِمْ
“Think not of those, who have been killed in the cause of Allah, as dead. Nay, they are living, in the presence of their Lord, (and) are granted gifts (from Him). Jubilant because of that which Allah has given them of His bounty”[7]
For me, this offered comfort, to know that he is alive somewhere we cannot see; that he is with Allah—and Allah does not misplace the ones He keeps.
And believe me, this thought did not erase the grief. But it gave it a different shape, one I could breathe around.
Where grief finds its rest
Grief never fully leaves. I will not tell you it does, because that would be a kindness that isn’t true.
It only gets quieter. It learns to sit beside you instead of on top of you. It becomes something you carry rather than something that carries you.
But what the Quran gave me that nothing else could was a place to put my grief. Not answers or explanations that made the loss feel fair, but a place wide enough and merciful enough to hold every question, every wave, and every quiet moment of pain.
Perhaps, true contentment lies not in having all the answers but in turning to the One who knows what we are carrying.
أَلَا بِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ الْقُلُوبُ
“Verily, it is in the remembrance of Allah that hearts can find comfort.”[8]
It is not relief exactly, nor the absence of pain, but rest: the kind that comes when you finally stop trying to carry something alone and rather place it in hands far more capable than yours.
Allah held my grief when I did not know what to do with it.
So, if you are reading this in the middle of your own loss—whether it is fresh and raw or old and quiet—know that you too can turn to Him, and He will hold your grief too. You need not have it all figured out or grieve perfectly. You need not heal on anyone else’s timeline. You only have to keep returning to Him.
That is enough. That has always been enough.
وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُه
“And he who puts his trust in Allah — He is sufficient for him.”[9]
To my father
I don’t know if words reach where you are. But if they do, I hope you are at rest. I hope you are in the most beautiful of places. I hope Allah has honoured you in ways beyond what this world could ever offer.
We miss you. Every single day, in ways that are impossible to explain. But we are okay. And I think, I hope, that is what you would have wanted.
❤ أُحِبُّكَ يَا بَابَا
The author is…
END NOTES
[1] Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Janaiz (Book of Funerals), Hadith no. 1303
[2] Holy Quran 27:63
[3] Holy Quran 29:58
[4] Holy Quran 2:156
[5] Holy Quran 2:156–158
[6] Holy Quran 2:154
[7] Holy Quran 3:170–171
[8] Holy Quran 13:29
[9] Holy Quran 65:4
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