When Faith Came Home

A short story set in East London’s Bangladeshi Community

Written by Mujibur Rahman

Chapter 1 – The House With No God

My dad likes to tell a particular story about himself.

He tells it in the kitchen, in the living room, on Eid, when relatives come round, when they don’t, when he’s proud of something, when he’s fed up with everything. He tells it like it’s a badge and a warning at the same time.

“I came to this country with one suitcase and no God,” he says, usually after the second cup of tea. “Nothing else. Just that.”

The “one suitcase” part I can picture easily. I’ve seen old photos: him in an oversized denim jacket at Heathrow in the early 2000s, hair thicker, face thinner, standing next to some battered bag with a broken zip. Awkward smile, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to be happy yet.

The “no God” part is harder to imagine, because even when you’re not practising, He’s still kind of… there. Especially if you’re Bangladeshi. There’s Qur’an recitations in the background of taxi radios, “inshaAllah” on everyone’s tongue, masjids on every other corner.

But my dad swears he left Allah at the airport in Dhaka.

“When I passed security, I said bye-bye to the village mullahs and their Allah,” he told me once. “I said, ‘You lot stay here. I’m going somewhere I can breathe.’”

He grinned when he said it. It wasn’t just a joke. It was a small revenge.

Our flat in East London is the opposite of glamorous. Brick council block, dodgy lift that smells of weed and fried onions, neighbours who argue loudly and then borrow sugar the next day like nothing happened. We’ve lived here as long as I can remember.

Inside, it’s a mix of Bangladesh and Britain.

On one wall there’s a framed black-and-white photo of my grandparents in their village, straight-backed and serious. On another, there’s a big colour picture of the London skyline at night, with the Shard and the London Eye lit up like they’re trying too hard.

The TV is always on. BBC, Sky News, Bangla channels. Politicians arguing, cricket, soap dramas where everyone looks like they’re about to cry even when they’re happy.

In the middle of all that, there’s my dad’s sentence echoing around: one suitcase, no God.

My mum is the quiet counterweight to that.

She doesn’t debate theology or shout about religion. She doesn’t send long WhatsApp messages about who’s going to hell. She just… does her prayers. In the small room she shares with my dad. On the prayer mat rolled up behind the wardrobe. In between cooking dinner, cleaning up, and reminding us to put our plates away for the hundredth time.

If you looked at our flat quickly, you’d say it’s a Muslim home. There’s a small frame with “Bismillah” above the kitchen door. There’s a Qur’an on the top shelf, wrapped in cloth. We don’t eat pork. Eid is a big deal; Christmas is “just another day but enjoy the sales”.

If you stayed long enough, you’d notice the cracks.

Maghrib comes and goes some days with no one moving. The adhan from the mosque down the road floats in through the open window in summer, soft and distant, and my dad turns up the TV a notch without even noticing his own hand doing it.

“We’ll pray later,” he says sometimes, without looking up. Later rarely comes.

When I was small, I learned the short surahs at weekend madrasa, falling asleep against my mum’s arm on the way home. I knew how to do wudu and how to pray in theory, like I knew how to ride a bike from watching YouTube – I’d seen it, but it didn’t mean I actually did it.

As I got older, Islam became… background noise.

We fasted some days in Ramadan. We went for Eid salah sometimes, if Dad wasn’t working and Mum felt up to dragging us all out. I knew what was halal and haram in a basic way. Don’t drink, don’t eat pig, don’t sleep around, don’t throw your parents in old people’s homes like they do “over there”. Standard.

But my actual identity?

That was messier.

At school, I was just another brown kid in a sea of brown kids, Black kids, white kids, mixed kids. My name, Imran, didn’t stand out much on the register. Teachers still said it wrong sometimes, but they said everyone’s name wrong occasionally.

At home, I was “Imu” to my mum, “Oi” to my brother, and “Baba” to my dad when he was feeling soft, “Imran” when he wasn’t.

In my head, I was something like:
British enough to know all the slang and all the memes.
Bangladeshi enough to know all the aunties’ gossip rules and how to eat fish without swallowing a bone.
Muslim enough to tick that box on forms without lying.
Not enough of anything to feel solid.

My dad’s atheism wasn’t the hard, angry kind you see online. He wasn’t out here trying to convert people to “no God”. He just treated religion like an embarrassing family member he’d left behind in the village.

“If Allah wants to talk to me, He can send me email,” he’d say sometimes. “Otherwise, I’ll mind my business, He can mind His.”

He said it with that half-smile, half-defensive look of someone who’s already argued this out with himself in much harsher words.

He’d tell stories of the mosque back home like horror tales.

“The Imam used to shout from the minbar about who missed Fajr,” he’d say. “Naming names. ‘That one didn’t come, that one’s trousers too long, that one’s wife’s scarf too short.’”

He’d sip his tea, eyes slightly distant.

“I saw more gossip in the masjid courtyard than at any wedding,” he’d add. “A man drinks secretly? They don’t care. A girl’s hair slips out of her scarf? Whole village talks for a week.”

My mum would tut, half-agreeing, half-annoyed.

“Not every Imam is like that,” she’d say. “Don’t teach the kids to hate the masjid.”

“I’m not teaching them to hate,” he’d reply. “I’m teaching them to think. Big difference.”

Sometimes I’d watch them and wonder where I was supposed to stand in all this.

On one side, village Islam with its gossip and microphones and my dad’s bitter stories. On the other side, modern London atheism with TikTok atheists doing duets about how religion is stupid and outdated.

In the middle, my mum, doing wudu in the cramped bathroom while balancing a million worries in her head, quietly saying “Ya Allah” when the bills came.

And then there was me.

At school, Islamophobia was a word people used in PSHE lessons. Teachers put on serious faces and showed BBC clips and talked about “tolerance” and “respect”.

In real life, it wasn’t a word. It was a feeling.

It was the way some kids said “Allahu Akbar” as a joke whenever someone dropped something. The way people’s eyes flicked to the one hijabi girl whenever there was a bombing on the news. The way one teacher once said, “As someone from your community, what’s your view on this?” and I wanted to say, “Miss, my community is Year 10 in this classroom. Ask them.”

We had a mosque just off the main road, three minutes from our flat if you walked fast.

When I was little, it looked huge. Tall minaret, green sign, men going in with plastic bags and slippers, kids running in and out after madrasa. I used to think Allah lived there properly and only visited homes sometimes.

As I got older, the mosque changed shape in my head.

It became the place old men went to complain about the youth, where my dad avoided going because he didn’t want to bump into someone from his village who’d ask why he hadn’t grown his beard yet.

He did go for Jummah sometimes, especially on days when work wasn’t too busy. He’d come back and say things like, “Khatib talked about patience and then pushed me in the shoe rack queue, mashAllah.”

He never took me.

Not on purpose. It just kind of… never happened.

If anyone was going to pass deen down properly to us, it should’ve been him. Father to son, hand on shoulder, “Come, we’ll pray together.” Instead, most of what I knew came from half-remembered madrasa lessons and YouTube shorts.

We had a family prayer mat though.

Long, patterned, rolled up behind the wardrobe next to the hoover. It came out for Eid, funerals on TV, and the occasional random burst of religious guilt.

Sometimes I’d see my dad standing on it alone, quickly, late at night. One minute he was watching Match of the Day, the next minute the TV was on mute and he was quietly doing two rak‘ahs in the flicker of the screen.

I never said anything. Neither did he.

Those moments confused me more than anything he actually said.

If he’d truly left God at the airport, who was he bowing to in our living room?

My earliest proper memory of salah is not from the mosque, but from our hallway.

I was about seven. It was Maghrib time. The sky outside was thick orange, the kind you only get at certain times of year, when everything looks like it’s been dipped in mango juice.

Mum had laid the mat down facing the living room door. She stood at the front, head covered, lips moving quietly. She told me to stand next to her.

“Copy me,” she whispered.

I did. Sort of. I nearly fell over in ruku’. My sujood was more like a face-plant.

Dad walked past on his way to the kitchen, stopped, and watched for a second.

“Make sure he doesn’t beat you to Jannah,” he joked to my mum. “Small ones move fast.”

But he didn’t join.

Later, when I was about ten, I tried leading them once. Randomly. I’d come back from madrasa full of enthusiasm and half-correct Tajweed and told them, “Let’s pray together!”

Mum smiled and agreed straight away.

Dad rolled his eyes but came to stand behind me with my brother, more amused than serious.

“Allahu Akbar,” I said, voice cracking slightly.

I forgot a whole ayah halfway through and had to restart.

Afterwards, Dad patted my head.

“Imam sahib,” he said. “Just don’t charge us to join.”

We all laughed. Then life carried on. Football, school, Fortnite, homework. The mat went back behind the wardrobe, and the idea of family jama’ah became one of those, “We should do it more” things grown-ups say, like “We should save more money” or “We should eat more vegetables.”

Islam stayed in the background.

Not gone. Not strong.

Just… there.

A quiet app unopened on the home screen.

I didn’t know yet that a single bus journey and a side door at that same mosque would drag it to the front whether I was ready or not.

Back then, I thought my biggest problems were my maths teacher’s obsession with homework and my hair never sitting right in the mornings.

If you’d asked me who I was, I’d have said something basic like:

“I’m Imran. I’m from East London. I’m Bangladeshi. I’m Muslim.”

All true.

Just not in a way that meant anything when someone shouted “terrorist” across a crowded bus.

Chapter 2 – Terrorist On The 86 Bus

I still remember the exact smell on that bus.

Wet coats, cheap aftershave, something like stale chips and Lynx body spray fighting for dominance. The kind of smell that sticks to your uniform and follows you home.

It was a Tuesday in November. Dark by four, rain threatening but not committing. I’d stayed back for extra maths, which meant I missed the usual rush of our lot and ended up taking the 86 home later than I normally would.

The 86 is the kind of bus that never really sleeps. It drags itself from Stratford to Romford and back, stuffed with every kind of person you can imagine – office workers, school kids, uni students, aunties with too many bags, uncles who always look like they’re about to fall asleep but never do.

I got on near school, Oyster ready, hood half up. The bus was already pretty full. I tapped in and walked down the aisle, scanning for that sweet spot – not too close to the front where the buggy drama usually happens, not too far back where the air gets thick and fights start over nothing.

I found an empty seat about halfway down, by the window. Sat, put my bag on my lap, earphones in but no music playing yet. Sometimes I like the feeling of having earphones in – like a shield – even when there’s nothing coming through.

At first, it was normal.

People getting on, getting off. Someone arguing on the phone in a mix of English and something else. Two girls from another school doing Snapchat filters and laughing at their own faces.

Then they got on.

Three boys. White. Older than me, maybe Year 11 or college first years. The kind of boys who move like they own more space than the rest of us. One in a puffer jacket, one in a football top, one in a grey hoodie with the sleeves pushed up even though it was freezing.

They were loud from the moment they stepped on the bus.

“Fam, I swear down, he actually said it to her face,” Puffer Jacket was saying. “Full on, like, ‘You’re clapped’.”

Football Top laughed so hard he stamped his foot.

They tapped in and swaggered down the aisle like it was a runway. I looked away, out of habit. If you don’t look, they usually don’t see you. That’s the rule.

Except sometimes the rule doesn’t work.

They stopped a couple of rows in front of me. The bus was almost full now, so they had to split – two took the seats opposite each other, one stood holding the rail.

They were still talking, still loud, but now it was less background noise and more… pointed.

Grey Hoodie glanced back down the bus and caught my eye for a second before I looked away. Just a flicker. But enough.

He nudged Puffer Jacket.

“Oi,” he said, not even bothering to lower his voice. “Man like Taliban at the back.”

Puffer Jacket twisted round. Their eyes landed on me together.

I froze.

There’s this weird thing that happens when you feel a hundred eyes on you and none at the same time. Half the bus was staring at their phones, out the window, into space. The other half suddenly seemed to be watching this little performance like it was entertainment.

Football Top turned round too, draping his arm over the seat.

“Where’s your bomb, bruv?” he said. “You got it in your school bag?”

His voice was jokey, but his eyes were testing. Seeing how far he could push it.

My throat went dry.

I could feel my face getting hot, that burning that starts in your cheeks and crawls up to your ears. My hands tightened on my bag strap.

I told myself, Ignore them. Don’t react. Dad always says if you react, they win.

But my body didn’t feel like it belonged to me in that moment. It felt glued to the seat. My brain started buzzing with a thousand useless comebacks that all arrived too late.

Grey Hoodie lowered his voice slightly, but just enough that the whole area could still hear.

“Oi, bruv,” he said. “You going Syria or Stratford?”

Football Top burst out laughing.

“Straf-ford,” he repeated in that stupid voice people use when they’re mocking South Asian accents. “You going to see your uncle ISIS, yeah?”

Someone behind me let out a little snort. Not full laughter, but enough.

I wanted to disappear. Melt into the bus seat. Evaporate.

Instead, I did what I’d practised my whole life.

Stared out the window, pretending I couldn’t hear.

Puffer Jacket wasn’t done.

“Fam, don’t say that out loud,” he said theatrically. “You’ll get us all on a watchlist. Man’s probably live-streaming straight to Al-Qaeda.”

He said “Al-Qaeda” wrong, like “alkay-duh”, but no one cared about accuracy.

The worst bit wasn’t them. It was everyone else.

The woman across the aisle who looked at me, then quickly away, like my embarrassment was contagious.

The man near the front who shook his head slightly but didn’t say anything.

The bus driver who definitely heard but kept his eyes on the road.

Everything in me started shaking, but not on the outside. Inside. Like my organs were rattling.

My phone screen was still on the home page. My reflection looked back at me faintly: brown skin, dark hair, school blazer, tie slightly crooked. Normal.

But in their voices, I wasn’t Imran from East London anymore. I wasn’t “one of the boys” or “just a kid”. I was… that word.

Terrorist.

I’d heard it on the news a million times. I’d heard kids make jokes about it before, random “don’t blow us up, yeah” comments that I laughed off because that’s what you do.

This felt different.

It was direct. It was loud. It wasn’t disguised as “banter”. It was them pinning a label on me in public and saying, “This is what we see.”

My stop was coming up. I pressed the bell with a hand that shook more than I wanted it to.

As I stood to go past them, Football Top stuck his leg out just slightly.

Not enough to really trip me, but enough to make me stumble.

“Careful, mate,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to blow up the wrong stop.”

Puffer Jacket snorted.

I straightened up and kept walking. My ears rang.

As I stepped off the bus, I felt like every passenger was watching, even if they weren’t. The cold hit my face and I sucked in air like I’d been underwater.

I walked home too fast, almost jogging, heart still banging against my ribs.

By the time I reached our block, my hands were clammy and my head hurt.

I told myself, It’s nothing. They’re idiots. Forget it.

But my body didn’t listen.

In the lift, I saw myself properly in the scratched mirror. My blazer, my tie, my school ID badge hanging lopsided. I didn’t look like what they’d called me. But that’s the thing. I realised it didn’t matter how I looked.

It mattered how they’d decided to see me.

Mum opened the door before I even got my keys out.

“You’re late,” she said. “I was calling you.”

“Had extra maths,” I lied automatically. I wasn’t ready to unpack what had just happened.

She squinted at me.

“Are you alright?” she asked. “You look pale.”

“I’m brown, Mum,” I said. “We don’t go pale.”

She didn’t laugh.

“What happened?” she asked again, softer.

I dropped my bag in the hallway and toed my shoes off.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just tired.”

She didn’t push. Not straight away.

“Go wash and eat,” she said. “Food is ready.”

I went to the bathroom, turned on the tap and splashed water on my face. It didn’t help much. The reflection still didn’t look like me properly. Or maybe it looked too much like me and not enough like the person I wanted to be.

At dinner, I barely tasted the food.

My brother talked about some game he’d won online. Mum told us about the old aunty upstairs who had apparently started another feud with the neighbour over rubbish bags. Dad wasn’t home yet; late shift.

I picked at my rice.

“What’s wrong with your face?” my brother asked, mouth full. “You look like you failed everything.”

“Shut up,” I said.

Mum’s eyes flicked between us.

“Imran?” she said. “Something happened?”

“I said I’m fine,” I snapped.

The room went quiet for a second. Mum’s mouth tightened.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she said. “I’m not your friend in the playground.”

Guilt stabbed me.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

After dinner, I went to my room and tried to distract myself with homework. The words on the page blurred. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the boys’ voices.

Where’s your bomb, bruv?
You going Syria or Stratford?
Man like Taliban at the back.

By the time Dad came home, my head was buzzing.

I heard the front door open, the familiar shuffle of him taking his shoes off and groaning about his knees.

“Smells good,” he said. “What’s for dinner?”

“Chicken,” Mum replied. “Eat first, talk later.”

He came into my room after he’d eaten, still in his work polo shirt, smelling faintly of spices and metal from the restaurant kitchen.

“How was school?” he asked, leaning on the door frame.

“Standard,” I said.

He narrowed his eyes.

“You don’t look standard,” he said. “You look like you swallowed bad news.”

I hesitated. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, the words spilled out.

“Some boys on the bus called me terrorist,” I said.

The room felt smaller as soon as I said it.

Dad’s expression changed. He pushed off the door frame and came further in, sitting on the edge of my bed.

“Who?” he asked. “From your school?”

“No,” I said. “Older. College age maybe. White. I don’t know.”

“What did they do?” he asked.

I told him. Not every word, but enough. The “Taliban”, the “bomb”, the “Syria or Stratford” line. The leg stuck out. The laughter.

His jaw clenched.

“And what did you do?” he asked.

“I ignored them,” I said. “Looked out the window.”

He nodded once, sharply.

“Good,” he said.

“Good?” I repeated. “They called me a terrorist in front of a whole bus and your answer is ‘good’?”

He sighed.

“You didn’t fight,” he said. “You didn’t mouth off. You didn’t give them what they wanted. That’s good.”

“It didn’t feel good,” I said. “It felt… humiliating.”

He looked at me properly then. Really looked. The way someone examines a crack in a glass to see how bad it is.

“Of course it did,” he said. “They wanted you to feel small. That’s how this works.”

“So what do I do?” I asked, frustration bubbling up. “Just keep taking it? Every time someone says that, just look out the window and pretend it’s not about me?”

He rubbed his face with his hand, thinking.

“When I first came here,” he said slowly, “people called me Paki, curry-muncher, all sorts. Sometimes to my face, sometimes behind my back. I was washing dishes, serving food, doing delivery. I had no papers, no power, nothing. If I reacted every time, I would have been fighting all day.”

“I’m not you,” I said. “I’m not working in restaurant. I’m just trying to go home from school.”

“I know,” he said. “But the principle is same. You think they care about you as person? They don’t know you. They see your skin, your hair, your name. That’s all. They want reaction. If you give it, they feel big. If you don’t, they get bored.”

“That sounds like you’re saying I should let them walk all over me,” I snapped.

He shook his head.

“I’m saying choose your battles,” he replied. “If you were with your friends, if you felt safe, maybe you could say something like, ‘Grow up, man’. But you were alone. On a bus. Three of them. No one on your side. If it turned physical, who would help you?”

He had a point. That didn’t make it less painful.

“So what?” I said. “I just take it and pretend it’s not deep?”

His face softened, just a little.

“It is deep,” he said. “Of course it is. It cuts. I know that feeling. You can’t breathe properly after. You feel like… what, like you’re not…?” He gestured vaguely at my face. “Like you’re not human to them.”

I swallowed. My eyes stung unexpectedly.

“Yeah,” I said quietly.

He let out a slow breath.

“You know what I did?” he said. “I told myself, ‘Fine. You want to think I’m small? Watch. I’ll build a life so big you’ll choke on it.’ I worked, I saved, I sent money home, I made something. That was my revenge.”

“It doesn’t stop them calling me terrorist on the bus though,” I said. “Your revenge doesn’t help me there.”

He looked like he wanted to say something sharp back, then stopped himself.

“Look,” he said. “You can’t control what they say. You can only control what you build. Studies, work, money. That’s how you win in this country. Not by arguing on bus.”

I stared at him.

“So I just become successful,” I said, “and racism disappears?”

He rubbed his forehead.

“It won’t disappear,” he admitted. “This place is built on too much history. But when you have something – education, job, status – it doesn’t sting the same. You have… what do they call it? Buffer.”

I knew he was trying to help. I could see it. But something in me resisted his answer like metal resisting a magnet.

“It stung today,” I said. “A lot.”

He nodded.

“I know,” he said. “It probably will again. You have to grow thick skin.”

I wanted to scream that I was tired of growing thick skin. That thick skin still tears if you keep stabbing it.

Instead, I said nothing.

He patted my knee awkwardly.

“Don’t let them get in your head,” he said. “You’re better than them. Remember that.”

Then he got up and went to make tea, like we’d just discussed the weather.

The next day at school, it got worse in a different way.

In tutor time, we had a surprise PSHE session. The projector was already on when we came in, a BBC news article frozen on the first slide.

“Morning, everyone,” our form tutor said. “Before registration, we’re going to talk about current events.”

The headline was about an attack in another city. Some man with an Arabic name had done something violent, somewhere far from us. People had died. Politicians had said things. The usual.

I sank into my seat.

The room felt full of static. Some people looked bored. Some looked curious. A couple looked at me quickly then away, like they’d glanced at the sun.

Our tutor cleared his throat.

“Obviously,” he said, “this kind of incident is upsetting and worrying. It also affects some members of our school community more than others.”

His eyes flicked in my direction for a second. I pretended not to see.

After the video clip, he opened the floor.

“How does everyone feel about this?” he asked. “Any thoughts?”

The usual comments.

“It’s scary.”
“Why does this keep happening?”
“People will use it to be racist.”

One boy said, “Not all Muslims are like that, sir,” in that tone people use when they want teacher points.

Our tutor nodded solemnly.

“Absolutely,” he said. “We mustn’t stereotype groups.”

Then he did the thing.

“As someone from the Muslim community,” he said, looking straight at me now, “how do you feel when you see stories like this?”

The whole room turned, like someone had pulled a string.

I felt heat climb up my neck.

I hadn’t even said I was Muslim in that class. It was just… assumed. My name, my face, my parents picking me up once in shalwaar kameez when the car broke down. Of course I was.

Part of me wanted to say, “Sir, my community is this classroom. They’re all here. Ask them.”

Instead I heard myself say, “Um… it’s annoying.”

A few people snorted.

“Annoying?” he repeated.

I forced myself to continue.

“It’s scary as well,” I said. “But it’s also annoying because… every time something like this happens, people look at us like we know the guy personally. Or like we have to explain it or apologise for it.”

Our tutor nodded slowly.

“That’s a very important point,” he said, teacher voice on full. “Thank you for sharing, Imran.”

He moved on. Relief slid through me, but only halfway.

Because the truth was, the bus and the classroom weren’t separate incidents. They were part of the same thing.

On the bus, I was a terrorist. In class, I was a representative.

Either way, I was never just… me.

When I told Mum about the bus later, she didn’t say “ignore them” first.

She listened, hand on her chest, eyes getting big.

“Ya Allah,” she said. “May Allah guide them or break their tongue. Next time sit near the driver.”

“That doesn’t always help,” I said. “He heard and didn’t do anything.”

She shook her head, angry in that quiet way she has.

“These people think Muslim equals terrorist,” she muttered. “They don’t see the Muslim doctor, Muslim teacher, Muslim taxi driver taking them home when they are drunk. Only the bad ones.”

She put her hand on my head.

“Make dua for them,” she said. “Ask Allah to protect you from their evil and protect your heart from hate.”

It sounded nice. Soft. But my heart didn’t feel soft. It felt like a clenched fist.

When Dad came in and heard us talking, he repeated his advice from the night before.

“Study,” he said. “Get good grades, good job. That’s how you show them you’re better.”

I wanted something else.

I didn’t know exactly what. A way to walk into that bus without shrinking inside. A way to carry “Muslim” around without it feeling like a target painted on my back.

I went to my room and lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

On my desk, my phone buzzed with notifications. Group chats, football memes, some video of a cat falling off a table.

I ignored them.

Instead, I opened YouTube and typed in “Muslim youth dealing with Islamophobia”.

It felt cringe even writing it, but I had to start somewhere.

Most of the videos were Americans with big hand gestures and flashy titles. Some were angry rants. Some were soft-spoken speakers saying “brothers and sisters” a lot.

I clicked on one at random.

A young guy with a beard and a hoodie was talking in a hall that looked a bit like our mosque’s back room. He was saying stuff like:

“They will tell you who you are until you forget to tell yourself. Don’t let them do that. You’re not just what they fear. You’re what Allah sees.”

It was a nice line. Memorable. But one line on YouTube doesn’t change your life.

Not straight away.

I scrolled the comments and saw someone mention a “youth circle” at their local masjid where they “properly talk about this stuff”.

I thought about our mosque.

I’d always seen it as a place for old men and little kids. But maybe there was a room somewhere in there I hadn’t noticed. A side door. A conversation that wasn’t just about trousers and beards.

That night, as I lay in the dark listening to the faint adhan from the mosque drift through the gap in the window, the thought came quietly:

If my dad’s way of surviving is to pretend God is far away… maybe my way has to be the opposite.

I didn’t know exactly what that meant yet.

But I knew one thing.

Being called a terrorist on a bus hurt as much as it did because there was nothing strong inside me to push back against it. No spine behind the label.

Just thin skin and my dad’s “study and ignore” strategy.

Somewhere between our flat and that mosque around the corner, I needed to find something else.

A way to be Muslim that wasn’t just dress-up for Eid.

A way to walk onto the 86 with my back a little straighter, even when they said the word again.

Chapter 3 – The Door At The Side Of The Mosque

It didn’t start with some big spiritual moment.

No lightning bolt, no dramatic dream, no near-death experience.

It started because I was early for once.

A week after the bus thing, I’d stayed back at school again – proper extra maths this time – and finished quicker than usual. The sky was that grey-white that makes you feel like it’s 5 p.m. even when it’s barely three.

I cut through the back streets towards home, my usual route when I wanted to avoid bumping into too many people from school. It meant walking past the mosque.

From the front, it looked the same as always: green sign, Arabic lettering, men’s entrance with the glass doors, shoes piled up in the little porch area. The main door was closed; dhuhr was long done, asr not quite in yet.

I would’ve just passed like I always did, head down, not staring. But as I walked along the side street, I saw another door I’d never really noticed.

A side door, slightly open. Light spilling out. Voices.

Not the deep, old-man voices I associated with khutbahs and committee meetings.

Younger voices. Laughter. Someone saying, “Nah, you’re waffling, bro.”

I slowed down.

On the wall next to the door, there was a paper sign in a plastic sleeve:

YOUTH CIRCLE – WEDNESDAYS 4 PM
TEA, BISCUITS & REAL TALK

Real talk. I almost laughed.

I hovered near the edge of the pavement like some dodgy spy. Through the crack in the door I could see the corner of a cheap carpet and the edge of a plastic chair.

Part of me wanted to keep walking. I could hear my dad’s voice in my head: “Be careful with these groups. First they give biscuits, then they take brain.”

Another part of me thought about the bus. About my tutor’s question. About that YouTube clip where the guy talked about “not letting them define you”.

My feet made the decision before my brain did.

One step towards the door. Then another.

I peered in.

The room was smaller than I’d imagined. A kind of multi-purpose hall with a worn carpet, a stack of plastic chairs in one corner, and a whiteboard with faded marker lines that no one had bothered to clean properly.

About fifteen boys sat in a loose semi-circle on the floor. Tracksuits, school blazers, hoodies. Trainers that still had PE hall dust on them. They looked like a random cross-section of the area – Somali, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Arab, a couple I couldn’t place just by looking.

At the front was a man in his late twenties or early thirties. Beard, no hat, hoodie, joggers. Not the image of an Imam I had in my head. He had a mug in his hand and was leaning back against one of the plastic chairs like he was at a friend’s house.

He was the one who said, “You’re waffling, bro,” to a kid who was clearly in the middle of some dramatic story about a teacher.

The kid protested.

“I’m not waffling!” he said. “She actually said that to me!”

The older guy laughed.

“OK, OK,” he said. “We’ll give you benefit of the doubt. Teachers say wild things sometimes. Ask me about my RE teacher when I was in Year 9.”

The boys laughed.

I stood frozen at the doorway, half in, half out.

One of them noticed me first.

He was about my height, medium build, black hair in short waves, hoodie half-zipped. He looked familiar – probably seen him around school or the estate.

He nudged the guy next to him and nodded towards the door.

The older guy at the front followed the movement, saw me, and smiled.

“Come in, akhi,” he said. “You’re making the draught worse.”

A couple of boys chuckled. Not in a mean way. More like they’d all been that awkward newcomer at some point.

I stepped in properly, suddenly aware of my school blazer and tie. I pushed the door shut behind me and felt the outside world mute itself.

“First time?” the older guy asked.

I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice sounding smaller than I wanted it to.

He nodded back like that was the most normal thing in the world.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Imran,” I replied.

“Nice,” he said. “I’m Musa. You can sit wherever. We’re just chatting before asr. Grab a biscuit before Yasin eats all of them.”

A tall boy with a trimmed beard and a black hoodie – clearly Yasin – looked offended as everyone laughed.

“Why is it always me?” Yasin said. “You lot are actually fat-shaming me.”

“You fat-shame yourself every time you pick up four biscuits, bro,” someone called.

The jokes felt… familiar. They sounded like my friends. But the setting – the mosque, the carpet, the framed Arabic calligraphy on the wall – made it feel like something else.

I sat near the back of the semi-circle, between Yasin and a skinny kid with big glasses.

A plate of biscuits got passed around. I took one, more to have something to do with my hands than because I was hungry.

Musa clapped his hands once to bring the focus back.

“Alright,” he said. “So where were we? Before Yasin started denying crimes against biscuits?”

“Sir—” one of the boys started, then corrected himself. “I mean… Musa… you were saying about labels.”

“Yeah,” Musa said. “Labels.”

He looked around the circle.

“So,” he said. “We were talking about how people label us. ‘Brown’. ‘Muslim’. ‘Terrorist’. ‘Paki’. ‘Good immigrant’. ‘Bad immigrant’. ‘Model minority’. ‘Gang’. All of that.”

My stomach tightened at “terrorist”. It was like he’d pulled the word out of my week and dropped it in the middle of the room.

He continued.

“I asked you lot,” he said, “how many of you have been called terrorist or bomber or something like that.”

Hands went up.

Too many hands.

“Keep them up,” he said. “If it was in the last year.”

Most stayed up.

“In the last month.”

Some went down. Too many stayed.

“In the last week.”

Mine was one of the hands still in the air. I kept my face neutral.

Musa nodded slowly, eyes going round the circle. His gaze landed on me for half a second. Not in a “story of your trauma please” way. Just registering.

“See,” he said quietly. “This is the reality. You’re sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, and you’ve already been called one of the worst words in the English language more times than some people will in their entire lives.”

He paused.

“And you’re not even old enough to vote.”

A few boys made that low hum sound people make when something hits.

“So the question is,” he went on, “what do we do with that? Do we pretend it doesn’t hurt? Do we let it define us? Do we get angry and punch walls? Do we write angry tweets and then go sleep?”

He shrugged.

“Or is there another way?”

The boy with glasses next to me spoke up.

“I just ignore it,” he said. “Like, I don’t want to give them the satisfaction.”

Musa nodded.

“Sometimes that’s the best thing,” he said. “Like if you’re alone, outnumbered, nowhere near help. Your safety comes first. You ignore, you move smart. That’s wisdom, not weakness.”

Another boy, shorter, with a fade, said, “I cuss them back, init. If they say ‘terrorist’, I say ‘your mum’.”

Everyone laughed.

“You feel better after?” Musa asked.

“Yeah,” the boy said. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Musa repeated. “And sometimes?”

The boy hesitated.

“Sometimes… I feel like I became like them,” he admitted. “Like they dragged me down.”

Musa nodded.

“Exactly,” he said. “Shaytaan loves that. He doesn’t just want them to insult you. He wants you to lose yourself in the reaction.”

He looked around.

“For me,” he said, “there are three battles going on when that word gets thrown around.”

He held up three fingers.

“One: the outside battle,” he said. “The actual racism. The person saying the thing, the people laughing, the ones who say nothing.”

He folded one finger down.

“Two: the inside battle,” he continued. “The voice that starts whispering, ‘Maybe this is who I am. Maybe I am a problem. Maybe this is all they’ll ever see.’”

He folded another finger.

“And three,” he said, “the higher battle. Between what creation says you are and what your Creator says you are.”

The room went quiet.

He let it sit there a moment.

“Outside,” he went on, “they might say ‘terrorist’. Inside, your nafs might say ‘victim’. Shaitan might say ‘angry, revenge, fight everyone.’ But Allah?” He tapped his chest. “He already told you who you are.”

He looked at a boy near the front.

“Recite the ayah we talked about last week,” he said. “About being ‘the best nation’.”

The boy straightened his back and recited from Surah Aal Imran, the verse about Muslims being brought out for mankind, enjoining good and forbidding evil.

I recognised it from somewhere, but hearing it here felt… different.

“You’re ‘the best nation’,” Musa said. “Not because of your passport. Not because you’re brown. Not because you’re perfect. Because you call to good, you stand against evil, and you believe in Allah. That’s what defines you. Not some Year 11 on the 86 bus who can’t even pass English.”

A couple of boys laughed, some a little too loudly.

My chest felt tight again. In a different way this time.

Musa leaned forward slightly.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt. It does. I’ve been stopped at airports for no reason more times than I can count. I’ve had aunties clutch their bags when I walk past. I’ve been asked to ‘condemn’ things I’ve got nothing to do with.”

He smiled slightly.

“I’m just a guy who eats too much biryani and forgets where he put his keys,” he said. “But for some people, I’m international threat number one.”

The laughter broke some of the heaviness.

“You know what saved me from breaking?” he asked. “Not pretending it didn’t hurt. Not shouting at everyone.”

He held up his phone.

“This,” he said.

Someone snorted.

“TikTok saved you?” Yasin said.

“Not TikTok, you clown,” Musa said. “The adhan. Salah. Qur’an. Remembering that Allah sees me when they don’t. That He actually knows me. My intentions, my struggles, my confusion. That He named me ‘Abd’ – servant – and ‘mu’min’ – believer – not ‘terrorist’.”

He put his phone down.

“So when that word hits you,” he said, “you need something stronger inside to push back. Not ego. Not ‘You lot can’t chat to me, I’m roadman.’ Something deeper. ‘No. That’s not who I am. I’m what Allah says I am.’”

He let that sit.

Then he smiled.

“Anyway, enough TED Talk,” he said. “Asr in ten minutes. After salah, we’ll talk about what to actually do in those situations – safety, reporting, bystanders, all that.”

He clapped his hands once.

“Any questions before we go make wudu?” he asked.

No one moved for a moment.

Then Yasin nudged me.

“You alright?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I said automatically.

“You’re new,” he said. “You look like you actually listened. That’s rare around here.”

I huffed a small laugh.

“Bus stuff hit close,” I said, before I could stop myself.

He nodded like he already knew.

“Same,” he said simply.

Musa stood up.

“Asr jama’ah in five,” he said. “If you don’t have wudu, go now before the old uncles take over all the sinks.”

Everyone started to get up, shoes squeaking on the carpet.

I hesitated.

Normally, this would be the point where I’d bounce. Slide out quietly, pretend I’d just come to borrow a Qur’an or something.

Instead, I followed the group out into the wudu area.

The tiled floor smelled like wet feet and that generic soap all mosques seem to use. Boys took turns at the taps, water splashing, people joking, someone spraying too much and getting cursed in three different languages.

I did my wudu slowly, copying the others. Face, arms, head, feet. It felt both familiar and rusty, like riding a bike you hadn’t touched in a year.

We lined up in the main prayer hall.

The atmosphere changed. The chatter dropped. The row formation itself did something – shoulders touching, feet aligned. All those boys who’d been joking about FIFA and biscuits a few minutes ago were now quiet, focused.

I ended up somewhere in the middle of the row.

The Imam was an older man with a white beard, someone I’d seen around the area for years. He gave the adhan, then the iqama. The words washed over me – the same sound pattern that sometimes drifted through my bedroom window, now right here, full volume.

“Allahu Akbar.”

We prayed.

Standing, bowing, prostrating. Actions I’d technically known how to do most of my life, but rarely did with this many people around me. My forehead touched the carpet where hundreds of others had put theirs down before. For once, I didn’t feel like I was doing something weird or extra. Just something… normal.

After the salah, the Imam gave a short reminder in Urdu and English about intention and sincerity. I understood enough to get the gist. My mind was still half on Musa’s words though.

What your Creator says you are.

Back in the side room, people sat down again in the semi-circle.

Musa looked at me.

“You good, Imran?” he asked.

I nodded, embarrassed by the attention.

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks. That was… good.”

He grinned.

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he said. “We do occasionally talk sense.”

Yasin leaned over.

“You live round here, yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Five minutes that way.”

“You should come more,” he said. “Wednesdays, sometimes Saturdays. We don’t only talk about racism. Sometimes we talk about marriage and everyone gets shy.”

A couple of boys overheard and laughed.

“Don’t scare him away, man,” one said. “Let him come back at least twice before we ruin it.”

Musa reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone again.

“Before you all disappear back into dunya,” he said, “homework.”

Groans.

“Relax,” he said. “Not maths. Download a proper prayer app if you don’t already have one. The one with accurate times, not some dodgy timetable from 2003. Let it shout at you five times a day.”

He looked around at us.

“If you can keep up with Snap streaks,” he said, “you can keep up with salah.”

Yasin nudged me again.

“You got one?” he whispered.

I shook my head.

“I had one ages ago,” I said. “Deleted it. Notifications were annoying.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Of course they were,” he said. “That’s kind of the point.”

I pulled my phone out and opened the app store.

“What’s it called?” I asked.

He told me. I downloaded it.

It felt like such a small thing, pressing “install”. Almost nothing. Just another icon on a crowded screen.

But as we all filtered out of the room afterwards, shoes back on, heading into the grey East London evening, it felt like something had shifted a millimetre inside me.

Outside, the street looked the same. Cars. Chicken shop. Aunties with shopping trolleys. Some kids kicking a half-flat football near the corner.

The bus stop where the 86 passed was just down the road.

I looked at it, then at the mosque behind me.

For the first time, the mosque didn’t feel like a building my dad had run away from years ago.

It felt like a place I might be running to.

As I walked home, my new app buzzed softly in my pocket with a reminder for maghrib in an hour.

I didn’t know it yet, but that little sound was going to become the backbone of my days.

A call that had nothing to do with what boys on buses called me.

And everything to do with what the One who made me had already named me.

Chapter 4 – Faith Moving To The Front

The first time the new app went off, I nearly threw my phone.

I was lying on my bed scrolling through reels, brain half-dead, when this soft, unfamiliar chime cut through whatever American voiceover I was listening to.

I jumped, fumbled the phone, and almost dropped it on my face.

On the screen, a notification slid down:

Dhuhr – 13:08
It’s time to pray.

It looked innocent. Friendly, even. Like a polite aunt reminding you to eat.

I stared at it for a second, thumb hovering over “Clear”.

I could hear Yasin’s voice in my head from the youth circle. “If you can keep up with Snap streaks, you can keep up with salah.”

I sighed.

“Relax,” I muttered to myself. “It’s just one prayer.”

I got up, closed my bedroom door, and looked around like I was about to do something illegal.

The prayer mat was still where it had been for years, rolled up behind the wardrobe like a guilty secret. I dragged it out, dusted it with my hand, and laid it on the floor roughly in the direction I thought Makkah was.

It felt strange.

Not because I’d never prayed before. I had. Eid. Janazah. Random guilt prayers. But something about doing it because my phone pinged, on a random weekday afternoon, with no one else around, made it feel… intentional.

I did wudu in the bathroom, trying not to splash too much. My brother shouted through the door, “You doing full shower, man?” and I shouted back, “Shut up,” which probably wasn’t the most spiritually pure start.

Back in my room, I stood in front of the mat.

No one watching. No one forcing.

“Allahu Akbar.”

My voice sounded weird in the quiet.

I stumbled a bit over Al-Fatiha in the first rak‘ah, then it came back. The short surahs I’d learned at madrasa years ago were still there, dusty but intact.

When I finished two rak‘ahs and said the salaam, the room didn’t suddenly glow. Angels didn’t descend from the ceiling. The wallpaper didn’t start reciting Qur’an.

But there was a tiny space in my chest that felt… cleaner.

A bit of static had cleared.

Then my phone buzzed again.

How was your prayer?
You can mark it and track your progress.

I rolled my eyes.

“Relax,” I told the app. “One thing at a time.”

Still, I ticked the little box.

Over the next few days, the app became that annoying friend you secretly appreciate.

It buzzed for asr when I was halfway through geography homework. It buzzed for maghrib right as my favourite show started. It buzzed for isha when I was snuggled up under my duvet scrolling in the dark.

Sometimes I listened. Sometimes I didn’t.

Sometimes I’d see the notification, feel the guilt, and swipe it away with a “later”. Later usually meant “never”.

But other times, especially after the youth circle, I’d drag myself up, shut the door, and stand on the mat.

The more I did it, the less weird it felt.

After a while, Mum noticed.

“You started praying again?” she asked one evening, after hearing me mumble through isha in my room.

I froze for a second in the hallway.

“Sometimes,” I said, trying to sound casual.

She smiled in that slow way that made her eyes crinkle.

“Alhamdulillah,” she said. “Make dua for your parents as well. We need it more than you.”

I mumbled something about “inshaAllah” and escaped to my room before she could say anything that would make my throat tight.

Dad noticed too, but differently.

He didn’t comment straight away. He just started clocking when I left the table quickly, when I shut my door and the faint rhythm of Arabic filtered under it.

One evening, during a break in Match of the Day, he turned the volume down slightly.

“You’ve become namazi now?” he asked, half-joking, half-curious.

I shrugged.

“Trying to pray more, innit,” I said.

“Why?” he asked, not accusing, just asking.

The truth – “Because I need something stronger inside than YouTube and your ‘ignore them’ strategy” – felt too sharp to say out loud.

“Just feels right,” I said instead. “The imam at the youth circle said salah is like… like charging your phone. You don’t let your phone die, innit? Why let your heart die?”

Dad snorted.

“Your imam sounds like he reads too many motivational quotes,” he said.

But he didn’t tell me to stop.

Ramadan came not long after.

In our house, Ramadan had always been a bit… flexible.

Some years we’d fast most days. Some years we’d fast weekends and Eid day and call it a win. Mum always tried her best, even when her health wasn’t great. Dad fasted sometimes, sometimes not, depending on work.

This year, something in me wanted to do it properly.

Not to post about it. Not to impress anyone. Just to see if I could.

The first day was rough.

Waking up for suhoor felt like a crime. Mum shuffled around the kitchen in her dressing gown, heating leftover curry and frying eggs like this was the most normal thing in the world at 3:30 a.m.

Dad sat at the table, hair sticking up, eyes half-closed.

“You’re fasting?” I asked him, surprised.

He shrugged.

“First day,” he said. “We’ll see after that.”

We ate in tired silence, chewing like old machines warming up.

After we finished, Mum looked at me.

“Do you want to pray Fajr?” she asked.

I hesitated.

I’d been avoiding Fajr. It felt like a level for advanced players.

But something about the dark, quiet kitchen, the fact we were all awake together for once, pushed me to say, “Yeah, OK.”

We didn’t do jama’ah. Everyone was too sleepy and too used to their own routines. Dad mumbled, “Later,” and disappeared to the living room.

I prayed on the mat in the hallway. My recitation was slow, clumsy in places, but the stillness felt like a secret.

When I went back to bed, my stomach felt weirdly full and empty at the same time.

At school, Ramadan changed everything.

Half the boys in my year walked around with chapped lips and bad breath. People whispered about who was secretly eating in the toilets, who fainted in assembly, who tried to pretend they were fasting when they clearly weren’t.

Teachers did the usual “if you’re fasting, please come and tell us quietly so we can support you” speech.

My body hated the first week. Headaches. Bad moods. The app buzzing for dhuhr in the middle of a double science lesson while my stomach rattled like an empty cupboard.

But when I went to the youth circle that Wednesday, something clicked.

The room was packed. Everyone looked a bit more subdued than usual, like the hunger had moved some of their energy from jokes to something deeper.

Musa sat at the front, nursing a big water bottle he couldn’t drink from yet.

“So,” he said. “How’s everyone’s Ramadan going?”

Groans.

“Long,” someone said.

“I nearly ate my pen,” another complained.

“I keep dreaming of chips,” Yasin said, clutching his stomach.

Musa smiled.

“Good,” he said. “That means it’s working.”

Someone made a face.

“How is suffering ‘working’?” the boy with the fade demanded. “Is the goal to die before Eid?”

Musa shook his head.

“You know what’s worse than physical hunger?” he asked. “Soul hunger. That emptiness some of you feel when you’re scrolling at night for hours and still can’t put the phone down. The feeling after getting violated on the bus. The ‘what am I even doing’ feeling.”

The room got quieter.

“We spend eleven months feeding everything else,” he said. “Nafs, ego, phone addiction, people’s expectations. Ramadan comes to starve some of that so you can finally hear your ruh. Your soul.”

He tapped his chest.

“That voice inside that knows Allah,” he said. “Even if your brain is confused.”

He looked around the circle.

“Some of you,” he said, “this is the first year you’re actually trying. Properly. You download the app, you make wudu, you stand on the mat. You feel like a baby deer trying to walk.”

A couple of boys chuckled. I shifted, feeling exposed.

“It’s normal,” he said. “Don’t be ashamed. The sahabah had a first salah too. They had a first Ramadan. The important thing is: are you moving towards Allah or away?”

He paused.

“And be careful of something else,” he added. “Shaytaan is locked up, but your ego is not. Some of you, you start praying and fasting properly and suddenly you’re inspector of everyone else’s Islam.”

There were snorts and side-eyes.

“You stop listening to music,” he said, “and next day your mum plays a nasheed with a tiny bit of beat and you’re like, ‘Astaghfirullah, haram, you’re going to Jahannam.’”

Laughter broke out. My ears burned. I’d literally made a face about some of Mum’s YouTube nasheeds the night before.

“You go one extra taraweeh,” he continued, “and suddenly your Dad is ‘kafir’ because he fell asleep after Isha.”

More laughter. Some of it nervous.

“Listen,” he said. “You’re new to this. You’re like someone who just started going gym. Don’t become the guy who goes twice and then lectures everyone about protein.”

Grinning, he mimed someone flexing in front of a mirror.

“The more Allah gives you,” he said, sobering, “the more humble you should become. If your salah is making you look down on people who have less, you’re doing it wrong.”

I felt that.

Because the truth was, I’d already started to become That Guy in small ways.

When Dad turned the TV up during maghrib once, my first instinct was to think, See, this is why we’re backward. Old people don’t care about deen properly.

When my brother skipped fasting because he had PE, I’d thought, He’s weak. I’m stronger.

I hadn’t said those things out loud. But they were there, sitting in the corner of my heart, smirking.

Later that night, at home, I caught myself watching my dad’s plate.

He’d come home late, clearly exhausted, and gone straight for the food. It was almost maghrib. The app had already buzzed.

He scooped rice, poured curry, and started eating.

“It’s nearly time,” I said, pointing at the clock. “You could wait.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Are you my dietician now?” he asked.

I bristled.

“I’m just saying,” I muttered. “You complain fasting is hard, but you don’t even try to start with everyone. You just do your own thing.”

He put his fork down.

“You’ve been praying regularly for… what, two weeks?” he asked. “Suddenly you’re mufti sahib?”

The words stung more than I wanted them to.

“I’m trying, init,” I said defensively. “You always say this country is hard for us. I’m actually trying to hold on to something and you…” I trailed off, not wanting to say something I couldn’t take back.

Mum came in, wiping her hands.

“What’s going on?” she asked, sensing the static in the air.

“Nothing,” Dad said tersely. “Your son has become inspector of my imaan, that’s all.”

Mum looked at me.

“Imran,” she said quietly. “Don’t talk to your father like that.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it.

“I’m going to pray maghrib,” I said instead. “Before it goes.”

In my room, I slammed the door a little too hard.

I prayed, but my mind was half on the argument. My “Allahu Akbar” came out sharp, not soft.

After I finished, I sat on the mat, heart racing, a weird knot in my chest.

I knew Musa was right. I knew I was doing that thing he warned us about. But it was so hard not to.

I could see all the ways my dad fell short. I felt all the weight of trying to be Muslim properly in a country that saw me as a problem. I wanted him to meet me where I was.

I forgot he had walked a whole different road before I was even born.

Later, at the next youth circle, Musa somehow addressed it again without me even telling him what had happened.

“Some of you,” he said, “are already having arguments at home about your new practices. Beard, trousers, music, women on TV, all of that.”

Boys laughed awkwardly. Yasin put his hand up.

“My dad says I’m in a cult,” he said. “Every time I go mosque, he makes that joke.”

Musa nodded.

“My dad said worse when I started practising,” he said. “He thought I’d joined some extremist group because I stopped smoking weed before him.”

People laughed.

“But listen carefully,” he said. “No matter how religious you become, you don’t get to be rude. You don’t get to raise your voice. You don’t get to humiliate your parents in the name of correcting them.”

He held up his phone.

“If Allah guided you through this app, through a random lecture, through a youth circle,” he said, “that’s His mercy on you, not evidence that you’re better than them.”

He looked around slowly.

“How old are you lot?” he asked. “Fifteen? Sixteen? Seventeen? Your parents have sins older than your existence. They also have good deeds older than your existence. You don’t know which side is heavier. Be careful.”

His words lodged somewhere deep.

That night, at iftar, I tried a different approach.

We sat on the floor with dates and water. The azan from the TV played. I made dua under my breath.

Dad poured himself a big glass of Rooh Afza.

“Bismillah,” he said, waiting for the exact second.

When the time came, we all broke our fast together. The first sip of water hit my throat like mercy.

After we’d eaten a bit, I cleared my throat.

“Abbu?” I said.

“Hm?” he replied, still chewing.

“Sorry,” I said quietly. “For the other day. I was… chatting too much.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You?” he said. “Never.”

I smiled, embarrassed.

“I’m just…” I tried again. “This Ramadan, I’m trying properly. And sometimes it makes me… intense. I don’t mean to be disrespectful.”

He looked at me for a long second, then shrugged.

“You’re young,” he said. “Young people always think they discovered fire.”

He wiped his hands.

“Listen,” he added. “I see you trying. Fasting, praying, going mosque. I might make jokes, I might worry, but… it’s better than you being in park smoking weed. I’m not blind.”

The tiny compliment felt bigger than any “mashAllah” from random uncles.

“So we make a deal,” he said. “You keep praying, but no shouting at me about my religion. I keep making jokes, but I try not to crush your deen. OK?”

I nodded.

“Deal,” I said.

Mum smiled quietly to herself, pretending to focus on the samosas.

As Ramadan went on, my routine changed.

The app became my unofficial timetable. School, homework, youth circle, salah. Fajr was still a struggle, but I started catching it more often than I missed it.

Sometimes I prayed at the mosque with the boys. Standing shoulder to shoulder in taraweeh, listening to the imam recite long surahs, I felt part of something bigger than school and buses and family drama.

Other times I prayed at home, in my room, mat facing the same direction as the masjid did.

My brother watched me with a mixture of confusion and mild respect. He fasted some days, mostly for the iftar food.

“You’ve gone holy,” he said once, half accusing.

“Not holy,” I replied. “Just trying not to be completely lost.”

He shrugged.

“Same thing,” he said.

On the last Friday of Ramadan, the youth circle was packed again. People who hadn’t turned up all month suddenly remembered the masjid existed.

Musa sat cross-legged, leaning back against the wall.

“So,” he said. “What have you learned about yourselves this month?”

Silence.

Then, slowly, people started talking.

“I can actually function without food for a bit,” one boy said. “I thought I’d die.”

“I waste less time on my phone when I’m tired and hungry,” another admitted.

“I realised I pray better when I’m sad,” Yasin said. “When I’m happy, I forget.”

Musa nodded at each.

Then he looked at me.

“Imran?” he asked. “You’ve been regular. What about you?”

I hesitated, not wanting to sound dramatic.

“I realised…” I started, “that I feel more like myself when I’m praying than when I’m not.”

It sounded weird out loud, but it was true.

That feeling on the bus, of my identity being something other people slapped on me, had been strong. In salah, it flipped.

When my forehead was on the ground, the labels fell away.

Not “brown kid”. Not “potential terrorist”. Not “son of the man with no God”.

Just… a servant. Standing, bowing, prostrating in front of someone who actually knew me.

“Also,” I added, remembering, “I realised I’m capable of being judgemental without even noticing. I thought because I was trying more, I was automatically better. That’s… not it.”

A couple of boys nodded. Musa’s mouth curved.

“That’s a big lesson for one Ramadan,” he said. “Alhamdulillah. If you hold onto that, it will protect you from becoming that guy no one likes at Eid.”

People laughed.

After the circle, as we were leaving, Yasin walked next to me.

“So, are you ‘proper Muslim’ now?” he asked, bumping my shoulder.

I snorted.

“Define ‘proper’,” I said. “I still sometimes miss Fajr. I still get sharp with my dad. I still think haram thoughts when I walk past certain people.”

He laughed.

“Same,” he said. “But at least now, when I mess up, I know I messed up. Before, it was just standard.”

That night, lying in bed after a long Taraweeh that made my legs ache, I checked my prayer app.

For the first time, most of the day’s boxes were ticked.

It wasn’t perfect. There were gaps in the week. Sins in between. Bad thoughts. Bad words.

But the pattern was there.

Salah wasn’t an occasional guest anymore.

It was slowly, stubbornly, moving to the front of my life.

I knew Ramadan would end. The hunger would fade. The app would still buzz five times a day and I’d have to decide, without the special-month hype, whether I was going to answer.

I also knew Dad wasn’t suddenly going to become saintly because I had.

His “one suitcase and no God” story didn’t vanish just because I had discovered the side door of the mosque.

But now, when he told it, it sounded different in my head.

Before, it had felt like the only way to survive was to do what he did: pack Allah in a box and leave Him in another country.

Now, I knew there was another option.

I didn’t have to choose between my father’s struggle and my own need for something solid inside.

I could carry the suitcase and keep God.

Chapter 5 – Fault Lines At The Kitchen Table

Parents’ evening always feels like judgement day in a school hall.

Same folding tables, same cheap plastic chairs, same smell of coffee and nerves. Teachers lined up like stalls in a market, parents queuing with those little paper appointment slips, kids hovering awkwardly behind them trying to look like they don’t care.

Mum always dresses up slightly for these things.

Not full-on wedding outfit, but nicer scarf, perfume she saves for “outside people”, handbag with the good zip. Dad wears his “respectable” clothes – shirt, clean trousers, the shoes he keeps in the box when he’s not working.

We walked into the hall together: me, between them, like a defendant escorted by two lawyers.

“Our appointment with English is first,” Mum said, waving the little slip. “Then maths, science, then that other subject… what is it?”

“Computer science,” I said.

“Yes, that one,” she replied. “All these subjects. In my day, it was just pass or fail.”

Dad snorted.

“In my day,” he said, “there was no parents’ evening. Teacher hit you, parents hit you again.”

“Don’t give them ideas,” I muttered.

We reached the English table first. Miss Reeves looked up from her list and smiled.

“Ah, Imran,” she said. “And you must be Mum and Dad. Lovely to meet you.”

Mum smiled back shyly. Dad shook her hand in that slightly stiff way he does with white women in professional settings, like he’s not sure how much pressure is acceptable.

“Everything OK?” he asked.

Miss Reeves nodded enthusiastically.

“More than OK,” she said. “Imran’s doing very well. He writes with a lot of insight and maturity. His essays are thoughtful. He actually reads the books.”

She said that last bit like it was a rare disease.

Mum beamed.

“Alhamdulillah,” she said. “He always likes reading.”

Dad glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

“I told him,” he said to Miss Reeves, “English is important in this country. You can be doctor, engineer, whatever, but if you can’t talk, they walk over you.”

Miss Reeves nodded.

“Well, he’s certainly learning to articulate himself,” she said. “Has he thought about what he wants to do after GCSEs? He could definitely consider A-level English. And beyond that, he has the potential for a good university.”

She said “good” in that loaded way that means “Russell Group” without actually saying it.

My stomach did a small somersault.

Dad’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

“We’ll see,” he said. “First let him pass GCSE.”

Miss Reeves smiled politely, wrote something on my sheet, and wished us luck.

Maths, science, computer science – it was all kind of similar.

“He’s capable, he just needs to revise consistently.”
“He asks good questions.”
“He could aim higher with the right focus.”

Computer Science Sir, who always looked like he’d just had three coffees too many, went further.

“With these grades,” he said, tapping my mock results, “if he carries on like this, he could be looking at some of the top universities in the country. They’re keen on STEM.”

He glanced at my parents.

“It’s important not to limit his choices too early,” he added.

I felt the air around my dad tighten.

On the way home, it was just the three of us again in the cold evening. My brother had stayed with a neighbour because he’d rather eat plain rice than sit through parents’ evening.

Mum was still buzzing.

“See?” she said, voice bright. “All your teachers are saying good things. You can do medicine, law, anything.”

“Why is it always medicine or law?” I said, half-joking. “You know there are other jobs, right?”

“Those two never go out of fashion,” Dad replied. “People always need doctor and lawyer. You want to be YouTuber? Go ahead. When they shut down app, you’ll be on the street.”

“I don’t want to be a YouTuber,” I said. “Relax.”

We crossed the main road, lights changing, cars impatient.

“What do you want to be then?” Dad asked.

I hesitated.

“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “Something with computers. Something where I don’t hate my life every morning.”

Dad huffed.

“No one likes their life every morning,” he said. “You go work, you pay bills, you come home. That’s life.”

Mum frowned at him.

“Don’t scare him,” she said. “He’s already worried about everything.”

“I’m not scared,” I protested. “Just… I want more than just surviving.”

Dad looked at me sideways.

“More how?” he asked.

We reached our block. The lift, miracle of miracles, was actually working.

“In school,” I said, as we waited, “they’re always talking about ‘reach your potential’ and ‘aim high’. Miss Reeves said I could apply to good unis if I keep working. Computer Science Sir was saying the same.”

The lift pinged. We stepped in.

Dad pressed our floor and folded his arms.

“Plenty of good universities in London,” he said.

I swallowed.

“What if I want to go outside London?” I asked quietly.

The lift doors closed. The metal box felt suddenly too small.

“Why?” he shot back. “What’s wrong with London?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just… I don’t know. It might be good to get away. New place. New people. Experience.”

“Experience what?” he said. “Drugs? Clubs? Girlfriend in every city?”

“Abbu,” I said, exasperated. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean?” he demanded. “Everything you need is here. Family, mosque, community. You want to run away from all that?”

“It’s not running away,” I replied. “It’s just… growing. People go to uni away from home all the time.”

“People,” he said sharply. “Which people? White people? They send their kids out at eighteen, nineteen, and then dump their parents in care home. That’s their culture. Ours is different.”

Mum watched the floor numbers go up like they were more interesting than the argument.

“We’re not talking about care homes,” I said. “We’re talking about three years of studying.”

“And in those three years,” he snapped, “you think you’ll become more Bangladeshi? More Muslim? Or less?”

The lift doors opened.

We walked down the corridor in silence, his question hanging between us like damp.

At home, after Mum had put the kettle on and taken her scarf off with that sigh of relief she always does, we sat at the kitchen table.

Results sheet in the middle. Three mugs of tea around it. The good, the bad, the tension.

Dad tapped the paper.

“They say you have potential,” he said. “Good. Alhamdulillah. But these teachers don’t know what this country can do to brown boys who go too far away from home.”

“That’s a bit dramatic,” I said.

He shot me a look.

“You think I’m dramatic?” he said. “You think I’m just scared for no reason?”

I shrugged, annoyed and confused at the same time.

“It feels like you don’t want me to succeed properly,” I said. “Like you’re scared of me doing better than you.”

Mum gasped quietly.

“Imran…” she started.

Dad’s face changed.

“I don’t want you to do better than me?” he repeated. “That’s what you think?”

“I don’t know,” I said, words spilling faster than my brain. “Sometimes it feels like when people talk about top unis, top jobs, you just… shut it down. ‘London is enough. Local is enough. Why go there, why do this.’ Maybe you’re scared. Maybe you don’t trust me.”

“Of course I’m scared,” he said, voice rising. “You think I enjoy being like this? You think I like being the bad guy every time you want to go somewhere?”

He rubbed his forehead.

“This country…” he began, then stopped, searching for words. “You see it in one way. School, buses, TikTok. I see it in another. Back kitchens, late nights, drunk men saying anything they want because they know you can’t hit them.”

I frowned.

“What’s that got to do with uni?” I asked.

“Everything,” he said. “You have no idea how easy it is to lose yourself here.”

Mum placed a hand on his arm.

“Calm down,” she murmured. “He is listening.”

He exhaled sharply, then spoke more quietly.

“Listen,” he said. “When I came here, I had nothing. No papers, no English properly, no family. I worked in a restaurant where the boss shouted and the customers looked at me like furniture. Every day, I saw boys come and go.”

He stared somewhere past me, into a memory.

“Some came from back home religious,” he said. “Praying five times, fasting, everything. After two years in this country, they’d stopped. Pub after shift, girlfriend in the next road, no salah, no Qur’an. Finished.”

He held up a finger.

“Others came running from religion,” he said. “Tired of mullahs, tired of gossip. They enjoyed freedom too much. First it was ‘I don’t pray, but I still believe’. Then it was ‘I believe, but I don’t practise’. Then it was ‘religion is all nonsense’. Finished.”

He swallowed.

“I watched,” he said. “I told myself, ‘I won’t be hypocrite. I’ll choose. No half-half.’ So I said, ‘No God. No religion. Just work, money, survive.’ That was my shield.”

He pointed at his chest.

“You think this ‘no God’ story is just bravado?” he asked. “It was survival. If I started thinking about Allah properly while washing dishes twelve hours a day, seeing all the injustice, all the haram, all the racism… I would either go mad or become extremist. So I shut it off.”

His honesty took the wind out of me a little.

“But that was your choice,” I said, softer. “That was your shield. Mine is different.”

He leaned back, folding his arms.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

I took a breath.

“That day on the bus,” I said. “When those boys called me terrorist. When the teacher in class asked me to speak for ‘my community’ like I’m your PR manager. I felt… empty. Small. Like they could say anything about me and it would stick because there was nothing inside pushing back.”

He watched me.

“Then at the youth circle,” I continued, “the ustadh was talking about labels. About what people call us and what Allah calls us. For the first time, I felt… seen. Like there was a version of me that wasn’t just in their hands.”

I put my hand on my chest, copying Musa without meaning to.

“When I pray,” I said, “when my head is on the ground, I don’t feel like ‘terrorist’ or ‘other’ or ‘representative’ or even ‘brown British kid’. I feel… like a servant. Like someone who belongs to something bigger. It’s the only time I feel properly… enough.”

The kitchen hummed with the fridge, the faint buzz of the light.

“So for you,” I said, “pushing Allah away was how you coped. For me, pulling Him closer is how I cope. Uni away from home, ISoc, prayer room… that doesn’t scare me the way it scares you. It feels like… safety. Distance from nonsense. Space to breathe.”

Dad rubbed his temple, processing.

“And how do I know,” he said quietly, “that ISoc and prayer room won’t turn you into someone who hates us?”

The question hung there, raw.

“What?” I asked.

He looked tired suddenly.

“I’ve seen it,” he said. “Boys go uni, join certain groups, come back for holiday and start telling their parents, ‘You’re not proper Muslim. Your way is culture, not Islam. Your nikah is invalid, your food is haram, your clothes are wrong.’ They talk like they discovered God last week and found out their parents are all kuffar.”

His voice shook slightly.

“I didn’t break my back in this country,” he said, “for my own son to come home one day and look at me like I’m enemy of his deen.”

I swallowed hard.

“I don’t want to be that,” I said. “Wallahi, I don’t.”

“But you already started,” he shot back. “Ramadan, you looked at my plate like I was criminal. Salah time, you huff when I don’t jump up. You hear music and your face changes. You think I don’t notice?”

I had no answer. Because he was right.

Mum, who had been silent, spoke up then.

“You both are right and wrong,” she said simply.

We turned to her, surprised.

“Abbu is right,” she said, “that this country can swallow our children. I have seen it too. Girls who were shy back home come here and forget everything. Boys who were good become lost. Freedom is like fire. Good for cooking, bad for burning.”

She looked at me.

“And you,” she said, “are right that you need Allah more than ever here. I see what you go through. Bus, school, TV, phones. So many things telling you you’re not enough. Only Allah can make your heart strong enough to walk with head up.”

She sighed.

“But both of you,” she added, “are talking like enemies, not family.”

Dad frowned.

“How?” he asked.

“You,” she said to him, “speak of religion like poison. Every time you joke, every time you tell your ‘no God’ story, you put doubt in his heart. He needs hope, not just fear. You’re scared of village mullahs, I know. But our son’s Islam is not the same as theirs.”

Then she turned to me.

“And you,” she said, “speak of your father like he is obstacle, not soldier. You see his mistakes clearly but you don’t see his sacrifices clearly. You want him to understand your heart, but you don’t try to understand his wounds.”

Her words hurt because they were true.

She took a breath.

“This house is not big enough for two different wars,” she said. “Pick one. Either you fight each other, or you fight shaytaan together. You can’t do both.”

Silence.

The hum of the fridge got louder.

Dad’s shoulders dropped slightly.

“I don’t hate Islam,” he said, more to himself than to us. “I hate what was done to me with its name.”

I looked at him properly. At the lines near his mouth, the tiredness in his eyes, the way his hands always seemed to carry invisible weight.

“And I don’t hate what you went through,” I said. “I just… I don’t want your fear to become my religion.”

We locked eyes.

For a second, I imagined a physical crack running down the middle of the table – his side, my side. Two different strategies for surviving the same world.

He broke eye contact first.

“European universities,” he muttered. “We’re not even talking about that. Forget other countries. For now, we talk about outside-London versus inside-London. One step at a time.”

It was so him to reduce a whole emotional blow-up to geography.

“OK,” I said. “One step at a time.”

He raised a hand.

“But understand,” he said, “if you go far and come back with this extremist attitude, if you use deen to attack your own family, I will drag you home myself.”

“Allow it,” I said, half-smiling. “I’m not trying to join some cult.”

“Everyone in cult says that,” he replied.

Mum rolled her eyes.

“Enough,” she said. “Tea is getting cold.”

We drank in an uneasy peace.

Later, in my room, I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, the conversation replaying in my head.

My dad’s fear. My need. Mum’s plea.

At the next youth circle, I told Musa a filtered version of the kitchen-table argument. Not every word, just enough.

He listened, nodding slowly.

“Your dad is not your enemy,” he said. “He’s just from another battlefield.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He fought village Islam,” Musa said. “You’re fighting Western Islamophobia. Different fronts, same war: how to be Muslim and still breathe.”

He leaned forward.

“Your job,” he added, “is not to prove him wrong. It’s to show him a version of deen that heals what hurt him. Slowly. With good character. Not lectures.”

I thought of Dad’s “no God” story. Of him half-joking, half-bitter. Of his eyes when he said he’d watched boys lose themselves here.

“What if I mess it up?” I asked quietly. “What if I become exactly what he’s scared of?”

Musa smiled sadly.

“You might,” he said. “If you stop checking yourself. If you let your ego ride your religiosity. That’s why Allah keeps telling us in Qur’an to be humble, to lower the wing to our parents, to speak gently, even when they’re wrong.”

He shrugged.

“And what if he becomes exactly what you’re scared of?” he added. “A man who can’t see any good in deen, who mocks anything religious you do?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Then both of you lose,” he said. “Shaytaan claps.”

The image made my stomach twist.

“So what do I do?” I asked.

“Two things,” Musa said. “Make sincere dua for him. And let your deen show more in how you treat him than in how you talk at him.”

I nodded slowly.

Easier on a carpet at the masjid than at a kitchen table with cold tea and hot tempers.

Back home that night, the flat felt smaller than usual.

Dad was watching TV, football highlights, pretending the earlier conversation didn’t still vibrate in the air. Mum was in the bedroom folding clothes. My brother was yelling at his screen as usual.

I went to my room and opened the prayer app.

Maghrib time had just come in.

I made wudu, laid the mat down, and stood.

“Allahu Akbar.”

In sujood, my forehead pressed to the same cheap carpet, I whispered a dua that felt like dragging something heavy uphill.

Ya Allah, You know his story. You know mine. You saw him in that kitchen in Brick Lane, washing dishes until his hands cracked. You saw me on that bus feeling like nothing. Fix between us what we can’t fix with our words. Give him a deen that doesn’t choke him. Give me a deen that doesn’t make me arrogant. Make us fight shaytaan together, not each other.

When I finished, I opened my bedroom door and heard the familiar commentary from the TV.

I stepped into the living room.

Dad glanced at me.

“You finished praying?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Maghrib.”

He nodded once.

“Good,” he said. “Just don’t forget your homework too. Allah likes worship and good grades.”

It was such a him thing to say. Half joke, half serious.

I smiled.

“I won’t,” I said. “And… Abbu?”

“Hm?” he replied, eyes on the screen.

“I’m not trying to leave you behind,” I said quietly. “If I go… I want you to be part of it. Not… watching from far feeling like you lost.”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

Then, without looking away from the TV, he said:

“We’ll see. First get the grades. Then we argue again.”

It wasn’t a full peace treaty.

Just a ceasefire.

The fault line at the kitchen table was still there.

But now, at least, I could see it.

And knowing where the crack is, Musa said once, is the first step to building a bridge over it.

Chapter 6 – Bin Bags And Bridges

The flyer appeared on our fridge like magic.

One day there were the usual takeaway menus, a dentist reminder, and my brother’s ancient “Star of the Week” certificate. The next day, a bright A4 sheet was stuck dead centre with a fridge magnet that said “World’s Okayest Mum”.

COMMUNITY CLEAN-UP DAY
SATURDAY – 10 AM – LOCAL PARK
Organised by: Masjid Noor Youth Group
Bin bags, gloves and snacks provided
“Whoever removes something harmful from the road, Allah writes a reward for them.”

At the bottom was the little mosque logo and Musa’s name in smaller text.

I was pouring cereal when I noticed it.

“Oh yeah,” my brother said through a mouthful of toast, “some guy dropped that off yesterday. I forgot to tell you.”

Mum shuffled over in her slippers, adjusted the flyer so it was perfectly straight.

“This is good,” she said, reading. “Better than boys hanging around the park making trouble.”

My brother smirked.

“That is literally what they’ll be doing,” he said. “Hanging around the park. Just with bin bags.”

Mum ignored him.

“You’re going, Imran,” she declared.

“I was already thinking about it,” I said. “Musa mentioned it at the youth circle.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“That’s the ustadh?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s kind of his thing.”

She nodded approvingly.

“Tell them I said may Allah reward them,” she said. “Cleaning is half of faith.”

Dad walked in then, buttoning his work shirt.

“What’s this?” he asked, squinting at the flyer.

“Park clean-up,” Mum said. “Masjid doing it. Imran is going.”

Dad read it, lips moving slightly over the English.

“Hmm,” he said.

I could almost see the clash inside him. Mosque (trigger) + community service (approval) = confusion.

“You lot going to clean the park?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I said. “Why, you want to come?” I said it as a joke, almost.

He surprised me.

He didn’t say no straight away.

“Saturday?” he said, thinking. “I’m off in the morning.”

Mum looked at him like he’d just said he was considering Hajj.

“You should go,” she said quickly. “Fresh air is good. You sit in restaurant all week breathing oil.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I breathe money,” he corrected. “But…”

He looked back at the flyer.

“What exactly are they doing?” he asked, scepticism creeping in. “Is it really cleaning or is it just ‘take picture for social media and go home’?”

“Come and see,” I said. “If it’s dodgy, you can leave.”

He hesitated.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, which in Dad language usually means “no”.

But that sentence stayed in my head all week.

Saturday morning arrived colder than it had any right to be.

I pulled on my tracksuit, old trainers, and a hoodie that had seen better days. As I came into the kitchen, Mum was already packing snacks into a plastic bag.

“You’ll get food there,” she said, “but this is in case. These masjid boys think two biscuits is enough for whole day.”

She handed me a bottle of water and some cling-film-wrapped sandwiches.

“JazakAllah,” I said, trying not to sound twelve.

Dad appeared, zipping up his coat.

“You’re actually coming?” I blurted, surprised.

He frowned.

“What, you think my legs are broken?” he said. “I said I’d think about it. I thought. I’m coming.”

He looked almost… shy about it.

My brother yawned dramatically.

“You two enjoy picking up other people’s rubbish,” he said. “I’ll be doing important work at home.”

“Sleeping?” Mum said.

“Exactly,” he replied.

We set off together.

The park was only a ten-minute walk from our flat – grass, a few trees, small playground, an area near the back where people left cans and takeaways like offerings to the gods of laziness.

As we got closer, I saw a cluster of high-vis vests near the entrance, a folding table with a banner that said:

MASJID NOOR – NEIGHBOURS, NOT STRANGERS

There were boxes of gloves, stacks of black bin bags, a flask that could probably heat an entire village’s tea, and a plate of biscuits already under attack.

Musa stood near the table in a hi-vis, hoodie, and joggers, clipboard in hand like someone had made him official.

Yasin was there too, hood up, fiddling with his gloves as if they were handcuffs.

“Assalamu alaikum,” I called as we walked up.

“Wa alaikum salam, akhi,” Musa replied, grinning. “You made it.”

His eyes flicked to my dad.

“And you must be Abbu,” he added, walking over and extending his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

My stomach dropped for a second.

“Good things, I hope,” Dad said, shaking his hand.

“Only the worst,” Musa joked. “Imran said you’re strict, grumpy, and secretly very soft.”

I nearly choked.

“I did not say that last bit,” I protested.

Dad chuckled, the tension easing a little.

“Depends who you ask,” he said. “I’m only soft for Chelsea. Everyone else I am tough.”

Musa laughed.

“Well, welcome anyway,” he said. “We’re just about to start. Grab a vest, some gloves. We’ll split into teams.”

As we put on our hi-vis, I noticed something.

It wasn’t just boys from the youth circle.

There were older uncles, a couple of aunties in long coats and gloves, little kids running around refusing to wear their vests properly, and – surprisingly – a few non-Muslim locals too. An older white lady with a dog. A Black guy with his kid. A white dad in a beanie hat looking slightly confused but willing.

The whole thing felt less like “Muslims fixing their image” and more like… a street doing something decent together.

Musa clapped his hands.

“Alright, everyone,” he called. “Bismillah. Thank you for coming.”

He gave a short speech. Not a khutbah, just a quick explanation.

“We’re not here to show off,” he said. “We’re here because the Prophet ﷺ told us removing harm from the path is charity. Broken glass, cans, rubbish – it’s all harm. Our neighbours walk here. Our kids play here. If we say we’re people of ihsan – excellence – our actions should show it.”

He gestured around.

“Some of the locals already think the mosque is just parking problems and loud speakers,” he said, half-smiling. “Let’s give them something else to talk about today, inshaAllah.”

We split into groups.

I ended up in a team with Yasin, some other guys from the circle, my dad, and the older white lady with the dog, who introduced herself as Margaret.

“I walk here every morning,” she said. “Got tired of the mess. When I saw the flyer at the library, I thought, ‘About time someone did something.’”

She looked at Musa.

“Didn’t expect it to be the mosque, mind you,” she admitted.

Musa smiled.

“We’re full of surprises, Margaret,” he said.

We started at one end of the park and worked our way round.

Bin bags rustled. Litter grabbers clicked. Gloves squeaked against damp cans.

It was weirdly satisfying.

Every time my grabber closed around an empty crisp packet or a bottle half-buried in a bush, it felt like winning some tiny, low-budget video game.

Yasin walked next to me.

“Bet you never thought deen would involve this much touching of other people’s chicken boxes,” he said.

“Honestly,” I said, “if I’d known, I might’ve stayed Jahil.”

He laughed.

“You see Musa?” he said quietly, nodding ahead.

Musa was walking with my dad and Margaret, talking and picking at the same time. I couldn’t hear everything, but I caught bits.

“…yeah, I was born here, but my parents are from Pakistan…”
“…restaurant work is no joke, uncle, respect…”
“…the media doesn’t show this, does it, Margaret?”

My dad seemed… relaxed. He gestured with his grabber as he spoke, like he was explaining some kitchen disaster story. Margaret nodded, laughing at something he said.

I’d never seen him talk this long to a non-Bangladeshi stranger before, unless you counted shouting “table three, your food is ready” over restaurant noise.

We got to the worst bit of the park: the corner near the back where people clearly came at night to drink and forget they were human.

Broken glass glittered in the grass. Empty cans, plastic bags, even a single shoe that made no sense on its own.

“Careful with the glass,” Musa called. “Use the grabbers. We don’t need extra visitors in A&E today.”

We fell into a rhythm.

Pick up. Bag. Move. Pick up. Bag. Move.

At one point, a group of teenage girls walked past, eyeing us curiously.

“Wow,” one of them said. “The mosque lot are out.”

Her friend snorted.

“Trying to get into heaven by picking up Red Bull cans,” she said.

Maybe a year ago, that would’ve annoyed me. Today, it just made me smile.

“Better than leaving them,” I said, not confrontational, just matter-of-fact.

She shrugged and kept walking.

As we worked, my dad started dropping little comments.

“See this,” he said once, holding up a can with his grabber. “These are the same people who complain when we park near their house on Jummah. They leave this, we pick it up. Who is civilised now?”

He said it with that half-joke, half-bitterness tone.

Musa responded calmly.

“Today is not about who’s better,” he said. “It’s about who does khidmah. Who serves. We’re not cleaning just their rubbish. Our kids use this park too.”

Dad snorted.

“Always Imam answer,” he said. “Fine. We serve.”

But he kept working.

After about an hour, we paused for a break near the benches.

Someone had brought a big flask of tea, paper cups, and – of course – biscuits. People stood in little clusters, sipping, steam rising in the cold air.

Musa came over with two cups.

“Tea?” he offered my dad.

Dad took one.

“JazakAllah,” he said.

He blew on it, then looked at Musa over the rim.

“So, you’re the famous ustadh,” he said. “The one stealing my son’s brain.”

I nearly choked on my biscuit.

Musa laughed.

“Not stealing,” he said. “Just trying to add some Qur’an to the hard drive.”

Dad smirked.

“And what are you uploading exactly?” he asked. “Sometimes I hear things from his mouth and I think, ‘This is not from YouTube. This is from somewhere else.’”

Musa sat down on the bench, gesturing for us to sit too.

I sat on the other side of Dad, feeling like I’d accidentally set up a job interview.

“I’m not here to turn them into angels,” Musa said. “That’s above my pay grade. I’m just trying to give them tools. Salah, Qur’an, some knowledge, a safe place to talk.”

Dad raised an eyebrow.

“Safe place to talk about what?” he asked.

“About this country, for one,” Musa said. “What it does to their heads. Being called terrorist on buses. Teachers asking them to explain global politics. Parents not always understanding. Social media messing with their brains.”

Dad’s eyes flicked to me briefly.

“He told you about the bus?” he asked.

“Not details,” Musa said. “Just enough to know it hurt.”

Dad sighed.

“When that happened,” he said quietly, “I told him to ignore it. Study, work, be better. That’s how I dealt with that kind of thing.”

Musa nodded.

“That’s a valid coping mechanism,” he said. “It worked enough to get you here.”

He gestured around.

“But for their generation,” he added, “it’s not always enough. They can’t just ‘keep their head down’ forever. They’re in school, online, everywhere. The attack is not just from one direction. It’s constant.”

He looked at me.

“They need something strong inside,” he said. “Not just qualifications. Identity. Deen that makes sense to them here.”

Dad swallowed some tea.

“And what if that deen turns them against us?” he asked. “I’ve seen it. Boys go uni, join some group, come back and tell their parents, ‘Your way is wrong. You’re not real Muslim.’ They use Qur’an as weapon.”

Musa went quiet for a moment.

“Uncle,” he said slowly, “I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t happen. It does. I’ve seen it too. Young brothers who learn a little and then come home with a big mouth and small wisdom.”

He glanced at me.

“I tell them off for it all the time,” he added. “I tell them, ‘Your parents changed your nappies. You learned ‘Alhamdulillah’ from their tongues. Don’t come home from one term of uni thinking you’re above them.’”

Dad’s jaw loosened just a bit.

“But,” Musa continued, “there’s another danger too. Parents whose bad experiences with deen back home make them push their kids away from it here.”

He looked at Dad gently.

“You had your story with religion,” he said. “Village mullahs, gossip, control. You decided, ‘No God.’ That was your way of surviving.”

Dad’s eyes sharpened.

“Did he tell you that line?” he asked, half-annoyed, half-proud.

I blushed.

“A couple of times,” I admitted.

Musa smiled.

“It’s a good line,” he said. “Very cinematic. But I don’t believe it.”

Dad frowned.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I don’t believe you really came here with no God,” Musa said. “I think you came here with a lot of pain attached to God’s name. So you packed Him in the suitcase too and tried to leave Him at Heathrow.”

Dad was quiet.

“In my experience,” Musa went on, “people don’t stop believing in Allah because of Allah. They stop because of His so-called ‘representatives’. Bad Imams. Bad uncles. Bad experiences.”

He shrugged.

“Allah didn’t hurt you,” he said. “People did. But He gets the blame.”

Dad stared into his tea.

“When you put it like that,” he muttered, “it sounds less clever.”

Musa chuckled.

“It was clever at the time,” he said. “It protected you from going to extremes. But now you have a son growing up here. His battle is different to yours.”

He turned slightly towards Dad.

“You were running from religion that choked you,” he said. “He’s running from a world that tries to erase him. You ran away from a masjid where people judged your trousers. He’s running towards a masjid where he finally feels like a whole person.”

Dad glanced at me, then back at Musa.

“You really think that’s what he’s doing?” he asked.

Musa didn’t answer me directly.

“Ask him,” he said.

Dad looked at me.

“Is that true?” he asked. “You feel more… yourself there?”

I swallowed.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Sometimes it’s the only place I feel like I’m not being watched as a problem. I’m just… Muslim. Imran. Not terrorist. Not representative. Just… me.”

He held my gaze for a second, then looked away.

“So you’re not joining some terrorist WhatsApp group?” he said, trying to make it into a joke.

I rolled my eyes.

“Relax,” I said. “We spend more time talking about exams and marriage than anything else.”

Musa laughed.

“True,” he said. “These lot are more scared of failing maths than MI5.”

“Good,” Dad muttered.

Musa sipped his tea.

“Look,” he said, “I understand your fear, uncle. Western universities. ISoc. Media. Extremists. It’s a lot. You look at it all and think, ‘If I keep him close, I can protect him.’ That’s love, even if it comes out rough.”

Dad’s shoulders softened slightly.

“But your son,” Musa added, “needs some space too. Not to escape you. To grow. To test his faith in the real world. The question is not ‘Will he change?’ He will. The question is, ‘Will you be part of that change, or will you stand on the side shouting at it?’”

Dad let out a long breath.

“I don’t want to lose him,” he said quietly. “Not to dunya, not to some group, not to… anything.”

I felt something pinch behind my eyes.

“You’re not going to lose me,” I said. “Unless you push so hard I have to run just to breathe.”

It came out sharper than I intended.

Dad winced.

Musa put his cup down.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s slow this down before you start quoting Bollywood at each other.”

We both snorted.

“Here’s what I suggest,” Musa continued. “Small steps. He proves, over time, that his deen makes him more humble, more respectful, more responsible. Not more angry, more arrogant. You prove, over time, that you can separate your fear of your past from his present. You don’t mock his salah or his beard or his app. You ask questions instead of making jokes.”

He looked at both of us.

“You both make dua for each other,” he said. “In secret. Without ego. Allah will do the real work.”

Dad watched him.

“You talk like counselor,” he said. “You get paid for this?”

“Only in tea and biscuits,” Musa replied. “But the pension plan is decent.”

We laughed.

Margaret wandered over then, dog in tow.

“You lot are very serious,” she said. “It’s only rubbish.”

“Rubbish can be deep, Margaret,” Musa said. “We’re talking about the rubbish between generations.”

She chuckled.

“Well,” she said, “if you lot keep doing things like this, maybe people will stop listening to the rubbish on TV about you, eh?”

She gave Dad a friendly nod.

“Good to see you out here,” she added. “Some of the other men round here wouldn’t be caught dead picking up cans.”

Dad smiled a little, like the compliment embarrassed him.

“Rubbish is easier than people sometimes,” he said.

She laughed and walked off to join another group.

We sat in a small, comfortable silence.

Then Dad cleared his throat.

“This ustadh of yours,” he said to me, “he’s not bad.”

“Careful,” Musa said. “Too much praise and I’ll start charging consultation fees.”

Dad smirked.

“You leave my son’s wallet alone,” he said. “He has no money anyway.”

We finished the clean-up around midday.

The park looked… lighter. Not perfect. Not magically transformed into Hyde Park. But noticeably better. The grimy corner was clear of bottles and glass. The paths looked less like landfill.

People started to drift off in twos and threes, saying salam, see you at the mosque, see you on the bus, see you at the shop.

As we walked home, bin bags and gloves left behind, my dad was quieter than usual.

Tired-quiet, not angry-quiet.

“That was alright, actually,” he said eventually.

“Yeah,” I said. “Felt good.”

He nodded.

“Back home,” he said, “if the masjid organised something like this, half the village would say they’re showing off. Other half would complain they didn’t get free food.”

“What do they say here?” I asked.

He snorted.

“Here?” he said. “Half the people will still complain. But at least the park is clean.”

We walked a few more steps.

“That ustadh,” he added. “He said something… that stayed with me.”

“Which bit?” I asked.

“About me not really leaving God,” he said. “Just leaving people who misused His name.”

He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together like he was testing a thought.

“I never thought of it like that,” he admitted. “For me, it was all one thing. Allah, mullah, village, shame. Package deal.”

“And now?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“Now…” he said slowly, “I’m thinking maybe Allah was not the problem. Just bad representatives.”

He glanced at me.

“If your Islam,” he said, “is more like today – cleaning parks, helping people, being normal – and less like those angry men on TV… I can live with that.”

Relief and gratitude and something like pride tangled in my chest.

“That’s what I want too,” I said. “To be normal Muslim. Not terrorist, not extremist, not just cultural. Just… someone who believes and tries.”

He nodded once.

“Good,” he said. “Because if you start shouting at people in the street with megaphone, I’ll break it.”

We both laughed.

Back at the flat, Mum greeted us like we’d returned from war.

“How was it?” she asked, taking our jackets. “You cleaned the whole world?”

“Only the park,” Dad said. “World is above our pay grade.”

She sniffed.

“You smell like outside,” she declared. “Go wash. Then eat.”

As I washed my hands, I caught Dad’s reflection in the bathroom mirror behind me. He looked tired but… lighter. Like some old knot in his shoulders had loosened a little.

Later, after lunch, I got a WhatsApp from Musa.

JazakAllah khair for coming today.
Your dad is jokes.
May Allah put barakah in between you two.

I typed back:

Ameen
Thanks for talking to him
He listens to you more than he admits

He sent a laughing emoji and a short audio of someone saying “Fathers are just big boys with bills”.

That evening, as maghrib time crept in, my phone buzzed with the now-familiar notification.

Maghrib – 18:43
It’s time to pray.

I got up without thinking too much about it.

In the living room, Dad was on the sofa, remote in hand.

“I’m going to pray,” I said. “You want to join?”

He hesitated for a half-second longer than usual.

Then he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Why not.”

We didn’t do jama’ah that time. Not yet. He prayed his two rak‘ahs quietly after I’d finished mine, facing the same direction, on the same mat.

But as we both stood, bowed, and pressed our foreheads into the same patch of fibre, I felt something.

A subtle, slow thing.

Like one more plank being laid between us.

Bin bags and bridges.

Rubbish cleared, space made.

Not just in the park.
In our house.
In his heart.
In mine.

Chapter 7 – The Prayer In The Living Room

It happened on a random Tuesday, which is exactly the kind of day big things actually happen.

No Eid. No Jummah. No special guest at the masjid. Just a tired evening in our small East London flat: curry smell in the hallway, the TV mumbling away, my little brother yelling at strangers through his headset.

I was at the dining table, pretending to revise, highlighter in my hand, mind somewhere else. My phone buzzed.

Isha – 21:13

I stared at the notification for a moment.

If I prayed now, I could come back, do a bit more work, then sleep with a clear head. If I pushed it, I knew how it would go—some rushed, half-dead salah right before midnight, whispered more out of guilt than love.

I closed my book.

“You going mosque?” Mum called from the kitchen over the sound of the extractor fan.

“Nah,” I said. “I’ll pray here.”

She poked her head round the doorway, scarf slipping a little.

“Alhamdulillah,” she said. “Just don’t say ‘I’ll do it later’. Later is shaytaan’s favourite time.”

I walked into the living room.

Dad was sprawled on the sofa, one leg on the coffee table, scrolling his phone. The TV was on low volume—news, some talking heads arguing about something they’d be arguing about again tomorrow. An empty mug sat on the carpet, leaving a faint ring.

“I’m going to pray Isha,” I said, hovering by the doorway.

He didn’t look up straight away.

“In your room?” he asked, thumb still moving.

Normally, yeah. My room was my default salah spot: door shut, mat on the floor, my mistakes between me and Allah.

But after the park clean-up, after the bench conversation, after Musa telling us not to let shaytaan turn father and son into rivals, something in me felt done with praying like I was smuggling faith into the flat.

“Nah,” I said slowly. “Here. In the living room.”

That made him look up.

“Here?” he repeated, one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s space. We can all pray jama’ah. If you want.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, my heart thumped harder. It felt like I’d just thrown a rope across a gap and was waiting to see if he’d grab the other end.

Mum stepped out of the kitchen, drying her hands on the edge of her scarf.

“In the living room?” she said, already smiling. “MashAllah. We haven’t prayed together here properly in years.”

My little brother appeared from his room, headset around his neck.

“What’s happening?” he asked, like we were plotting a crime.

“We’re praying Isha,” I said. “Jama’ah.”

He went straight for the usual line.

“I’ll pray later,” he said.

Mum’s eyes narrowed.

“Later when?” she asked. “When you’re in your grave? Come now. Game can pause, salah doesn’t.”

He groaned but shuffled into the room, dragging his feet like they were made of concrete.

Dad glanced from the TV to me and back again.

“Alright,” he said at last, picking up the remote. “Let’s pray.”

He pressed mute.

The sudden quiet was thick. You could hear the fridge humming, a car passing outside, footsteps from upstairs. Ordinary sounds, suddenly louder.

Mum went to the corner by the bookshelf and pulled out our long, slightly faded prayer mat. She unrolled it in front of the TV, smoothing it with her foot the way she always did, like she was ironing out tiny wrinkles in the world.

I stood at the front, facing the direction we’d worked out years ago with a compass app and Dad’s guesswork about “where Makkah roughly is”.

“OK,” I said, trying to sound calm. “I’ll lead. Abbu, you and Adam stand directly behind me. Mum, you stand behind them.”

Dad nodded and stepped up first, taking his place in the first row of followers, a half-step behind my right shoulder. My brother shuffled next to him, shoulders aligning.

Mum moved behind them, one clear step back, forming her own row at the back. Even at home, the basic structure mattered. It felt right.

For a moment, we just stood there.

Then Dad cleared his throat.

“Wait,” he said. “Before you start.”

I turned my head slightly.

“What?” I asked. “You want to lead instead?”

He shook his head.

“You lead,” he said. “Your Qur’an is better than mine now. But…” He hesitated for a second, like he was stepping onto ice. “I’ll give the iqama.”

For a heartbeat, I forgot to breathe.

The man who used to say he came here with “no God” was volunteering to call the iqama in our tiny living room.

“OK,” I said quietly. “Bismillah.”

Dad straightened his back, eyes flicking once at the muted TV as if to confirm it wouldn’t suddenly interrupt. Then he raised his voice just enough to fill the room.

“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar…
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar…”

Hearing the words from him, here, was different to hearing them crackling out of a masjid speaker. His tajweed wasn’t textbook; his accent slid between Sylheti and East London. But it was his voice. In our home.

“Ashhadu an la ilaha illallah…
Ashhadu an la ilaha illallah…

Ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah…
Ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah…”

The phrases poured into the old walls like fresh paint.

“Hayya ‘ala-s-salah…
Hayya ‘ala-s-salah…

Hayya ‘ala-l-falah…
Hayya ‘ala-l-falah…”

Come to prayer. Come to success. Right here, between the second-hand sofa and the TV that had seen too much bad news.

Then the line that made my chest tighten:

“Qad qamatis-salah, qad qamatis-salah…
Qad qamatis-salah, qad qamatis-salah…”

The prayer is established. The prayer is established.

And he didn’t stop there. He finished the call properly, the way I’d heard at the masjid a hundred times:

“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar…
La ilaha illallah.”

Silence settled after the last “la ilaha illallah”, a deep kind of quiet that felt almost physical.

Dad took a small step back into his spot in the first row.

“Now you can start, Imam sahib,” he said, a tiny smile hiding at the corner of his mouth.

I took a breath that felt bigger than my chest.

I raised my hands to my ears.

“Allahu Akbar.”

As I folded my arms over my chest, I heard the soft shuffling behind me as everyone else settled into position. For a moment, I was hyper-aware of everything: the feel of the carpet under my toes, the weight of their expectation, the steady beat of my own heart.

I recited Al-Fatiha. Words I’d known since I could barely reach the sink for wudu, now carrying more weight than ever.

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil-‘aalameen – All praise is for Allah, Lord of all the worlds. The village world my dad left, the London world I was trying to survive, the hidden world in Mum’s duas.

Maliki yawmid-deen – Owner of the Day of Judgement. The only One whose opinion about me really matters.

Iyyaka na‘budu wa iyyaka nasta‘een – You alone we worship and You alone we ask for help. Not schools, not unis, not passports, not other people’s approval.

Ihdinas-siratal-mustaqeem – Guide us to the straight path. Us. This slightly dysfunctional, deeply connected, four-person jama’ah.

I chose a short surah after Fatiha—nothing fancy, nothing that would turn into a mid-recitation panic.

In ruku’, back bent, hands on knees, I heard Dad’s movement next to my brother—slower than ours, joints creaking a bit, but there. Mum went down a fraction of a second after them in her own row at the back, her place clear and steady.

In sujood, forehead pressed into the worn pattern of the mat, that feeling I sometimes get in prayer—the mix of being absolutely tiny and absolutely safe—was stronger than usual. All the usual noise in my head faded: bus insults, uni choices, teachers’ comments, Dad’s old stories, my own sharp replies.

It shrank down to one simple truth:

We are all on our faces in front of the same Lord. Same direction, same floor, same need.

We completed two rak‘ahs. In tashahhud, my voice was calmer, more sure.

Then:

“Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah” to the right.
“Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah” to the left.

The room stayed still for a second, like even the furniture was holding its breath.

The TV was frozen on some politician caught mid-blink. It looked stupid now—silent drama in a corner while something real had just happened on the floor.

We didn’t jump up. We just stayed sitting.

Mum sighed, the kind of sigh that empties out heaviness.

“Alhamdulillah,” she said. “My heart feels… softer.”

My brother rolled his shoulders.

“Your recitation’s improved,” he said grudgingly. “Still long though.”

“It was two rak‘ahs, relax,” I said. “You act like I read the whole Qur’an.”

Dad had stretched his legs out now, leaning back on his hands, looking at the mat like it was something he hadn’t really seen in years.

“You alright?” I asked him.

He blinked, came back from wherever he’d gone.

“Yeah,” he said. “Forgot how it feels when the iqama is in your own house. Not coming from a speaker two streets away.”

There was something almost shy in his face when he said it.

Mum got up, dusting off her hands even though there was nothing on them.

“I’ll make tea,” she said, pleased with life. “No one move until I come back. You’ll mess up my cushions.”

She disappeared into the kitchen. I heard the cupboard doors open, the kettle switch click.

Dad shifted round to face me properly, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together.

“So,” he said. “About university.”

The word dropped into the room like a stone into calm water.

“What about it?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“You can apply,” he said. “Properly. Not only to places that have our postcode.”

I stared at him.

“You mean… outside London as well?” I said.

He nodded.

“If your grades are good,” he said, “and you get good offers, I won’t say ‘no’ just because the train takes more than one hour.”

Hope flared up in my chest so fast I had to look down at the mat to steady myself.

“What changed?” I asked. “Last time we talked about this, you made it sound like anything past Zone 3 was haram.”

He gave a small, tired smile.

“I’m still suspicious of anything past Zone 3,” he said. “But…”

He glanced at the prayer mat, then at me.

“…but I see you different now,” he finished.

He took a breath.

“When you first started getting serious about deen,” he said, “I was scared. I thought, ‘He’ll become like those men back home. Always judging, always talking haram-haram, making old people cry.’ Then, when you talked about uni, I added another fear on top. Religious plus far from home? In my head, it was disaster.”

He rubbed his hands, the way he does when he’s honest and uncomfortable.

“I watched you,” he went on. “Bus incident. Teachers asking stupid questions. Friends going left and right. You didn’t explode. You didn’t collapse. You went back to Allah. You went mosque, you asked questions, you prayed more. Your deen wasn’t just clothes and slogans. It… held you.”

He tapped his chest lightly.

“So maybe,” he said, “if you go far, this”—another tap—“will hold you there too. Better than me trying to hold you here with fear.”

The lump in my throat surprised me.

“JazakAllah khair,” I said quietly. “For trusting that.”

He nodded once.

“But,” he said, raising a finger, “it comes with conditions.”

“Of course,” I said. “Everything in this house is subscription service.”

He smirked.

“First,” he said, “you don’t forget who you are. Not just Muslim. Not just Bangladeshi. Not just British. All of it together. You don’t go there and rebrand yourself as ‘Immy from nowhere’ just to make things easier.”

“I’ve survived ‘Immy’ and ‘Ryan’,” I said. “I’m keeping Imran.”

“Good,” he said. “Second, you don’t use your religion like a stick to beat us with. Me, your mum, your brother. We’re not sahabah. We’re just… tired people trying. I drink sometimes. I miss salah. Your mum watches too much drama. That doesn’t give you permission to sit on a high horse and talk down to us.”

His words hit straight because they weren’t theoretical. They were aimed at a voice in my own head I’d been trying to shut up.

“I don’t want to be that guy,” I said. “Wallahi, I don’t. Sometimes I catch myself thinking things and feel sick straight away.”

“Good,” he said. “Hold on to that sickness. It means your heart is still alive.”

He dropped his hand.

“Third,” he added, “you keep connection. You don’t disappear just because you have new friends and a prayer room. Call us. Tell us what’s going on. Don’t let us imagine the worst because you’re silent.”

“I’ll call,” I said. “You’ll get sick of my voice.”

“Never,” he said. “Just don’t call during Match of the Day.”

He paused, then looked at me more directly.

“You want conditions from me?” he asked.

I blinked.

“From you?” I said.

He shrugged.

“Contract has two sides,” he said. “Otherwise it’s just dictatorship.”

I thought for a second.

“Yeah,” I said. “There is one.”

He nodded.

“Tell me,” he said.

“You stop using ‘freedom’ as a way to insult my deen,” I said. “If I say I’m going masjid, don’t make jokes like I’ve joined extremists. If I say I don’t want loud music, don’t act like I hate happiness. You don’t have to become like me. Just… don’t make me feel stupid for trying to be closer to Allah.”

He looked down at his fingers, then at the muted TV, then back at me.

“I’ll try,” he said. “I joke because… I’m scared. Scared of going back to the version of Islam I knew. Scared of people with microphones using Allah’s name to control everything. But I see your Islam is not that. I need to stop punishing your deen for what other people did with theirs.”

He let out a slow breath.

“I won’t mock your ustadh,” he said. “I won’t roll my eyes every time you mention halaqa. I won’t talk like religion is only for old ladies and funerals. If I see something dodgy, I’ll talk to you. Not at you.”

Relief moved through me like warm water.

“Deal,” I said. “And if I ever start acting like some junior mufti, you can throw a slipper at my head.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he said, smiling.

We stuck our hands out almost at the same time and shook on it.

In that moment, our handshake felt more serious than any signature I’d ever put on a school form.

Mum came back in, balancing a tray with four mismatched mugs.

“Oi, what’s this?” she said. “Business deal?”

“Peace agreement,” Dad said. “Between East London branch and University branch.”

“Alhamdulillah,” she said. “Finally. My duas working.”

My brother grabbed a mug and flopped on the sofa.

“If you two stop arguing,” he said, “I’m going to have to find new background noise for my games.”

“Listen to Qur’an,” Mum suggested.

He made a face. “One step at a time, Mum.”

We drank our tea. Talk drifted to normal things: my brother’s homework he’d “definitely done”, aunty so-and-so’s daughter getting married, Dad’s annoying manager who thought curry cooked itself.

Underneath it all, the room felt… different. Not perfect. Just less sharp.

Later that night, in my room, I opened my laptop and started looking properly at university websites. Before, every campus photo had felt like a secret I was hiding from my dad. Now, it felt like something I might actually send him a screenshot of.

My phone buzzed.

Message from Dad.

Send me that prayer app
The one that shouts at you

I smiled.

It doesn’t shout, it reminds 😂
Here’s the link

I sent it.

A minute later:

Fajr 04:03
This is oppression

I laughed quietly.

Start with Dhuhr or Asr
Build slowly
Small steps

Tiny pause.

I’ll try one prayer a day for now
No promises

That’s more than zero, I typed.
Allah loves small but consistent

Another message:

Don’t give khutbah on WhatsApp

Too late, I replied.

I put my phone down, made wudu, and prayed two more rak‘ahs on my own. In sujood, my dua came out simple, unpolished.

Ya Allah, thank You for tonight. For Abbu’s iqama in our living room. For letting him stand behind me instead of in front of me blocking the way. Keep his heart soft, keep my heart humble. Make my deen a rope between us, not a knife.

When I went to the kitchen for water, the flat was mostly dark. My brother’s room glowed under the door. The TV was off. A thin line of light showed under my parents’ door, then clicked out.

As I walked past, I heard a faint sound from inside—the short, gentle tone of the prayer app I’d just sent him. Not loud. Just there.

I pictured him lying on his side, glasses slipping down his nose, looking at the screen as it reminded him of a prayer he might not have made in years at that time.

The man who said he’d landed in this country with one suitcase and no God now had a silent mu’adhin in his pocket and had just given iqama with his own mouth in our living room.

We were still different. We still didn’t agree on music, trousers, or whether certain uncles were wise or just loud. There would be more clashes, more WhatsApps, more late-night talks.

But now, when I thought of that fault line between us, I didn’t just see a crack in the kitchen floor.

I saw a mat in the living room.
His voice calling, “Qad qamatis-salah… Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, la ilaha illallah.”
My voice answering with “Allahu Akbar” at the front.

And all of us, for once, facing the same direction.

Chapter 8 – Suitcases And Spines

Results day smelled of cheap toner, sweat and someone’s too-strong body spray.

They gave us our envelopes in the sports hall, rows of plastic chairs where we usually did exams. Now everyone was in their own private movie—some laughing too loudly, some acting like they didn’t care, some already practising their “it is what it is” faces.

I took my envelope to the edge of the hall, away from the cameras and the clumps of people filming TikToks.

My hands shook a bit as I opened it. The paper felt flimsy for something that was supposed to decide my life.

The grades stared back up at me.

English: A*
Maths: A
Science: A
Other subjects: solid, nothing embarrassing.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

First thought: Alhamdulillah.

Second thought, annoyingly: What is Dad going to say?

Before I could spiral, Miss Reeves appeared beside me like she had some teacher radar.

“Well?” she asked.

I handed her the sheet.

Her face lit up as she scanned it.

“Imran, this is excellent,” she said. “Really well done.”

“JazakAllah,” I said automatically, then corrected myself. “Thank you, miss.”

She smiled.

“So,” she said, “this keeps all your options open. Have you decided which universities you’re firming?”

“Still thinking,” I said. “But… I’m going to apply properly. Not just the closest ones.”

Her eyes twinkled.

“Good,” she said. “You don’t have to stay small to make other people comfortable.”

The line landed harder than she probably meant it to.

If she knew how many kitchen-table arguments that sentence summarised, she’d put it on a poster.

At home, Mum had turned the living room into Event Venue.

There were samosas, crisps, chicken wings, sliced apples no one would touch until the fried stuff was finished, bottles of fizzy drink sweating on the table. She was pacing between the kitchen and living room like she was hosting an exam board.

Dad sat at the table pretending to scroll his phone, but he kept glancing at the door every thirty seconds.

I walked in with the envelope folded in my hand.

Mum’s eyes locked onto it like a heat-seeking missile.

“Well?” she demanded.

I handed it over.

She read it, lips moving as she traced each line. Her face changed in stages—nervous, then surprised, then that proud-soft expression that makes your chest feel too full.

“MashAllah,” she breathed. “MashAllah, mashAllah, mashAllah.”

She shoved it at Dad.

“Look,” she said. “Your son.”

Dad took it, read slower than she had, then gave a small nod.

“Not bad,” he said.

Mum smacked his arm.

“Say you’re proud,” she ordered. “Don’t be stingy with words.”

Dad looked at me.

“I am proud,” he said. “But if I say it too loud, your head will explode.”

My brother appeared in the doorway.

“Too late,” he said. “His head’s already massive.”

We spent a few minutes doing the usual family ritual—Mum offering food, my brother trying to steal extra wings, Dad pretending not to be emotional.

Later, when the noise had settled and my brother had gone back to his room, it was just me and Dad at the table.

My results sheet lay between us like a peace offering.

“So,” he said. “Sixth form finished. Next chapter.”

“Yeah,” I said. “A-levels are done now too. Applications sent. Offers in.”

We already knew the offers. We’d opened them together over the past months. One from the local uni. One from somewhere just outside London. One from a place up north neither of us could pronounce properly. And one from a “good” uni two hours away that Miss Reeves had called a reach but told me to aim for anyway.

“You decided?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I want to firm the one two hours away. It’s got a good course, decent ISoc, nice campus. Prayer room near the main building. I checked.”

He nodded slowly.

“Accommodation?” he asked.

“I applied for a room in one of the quieter halls,” I said. “Shared kitchen, own room. Not the wild party block.”

His eyes narrowed.

“How do you know which one is the party block?” he asked.

“Internet,” I said. “And I asked some brothers from the masjid who study there.”

He nodded again.

“And our conditions?” he asked.

I knew what he meant. The three rules we’d made in the living room that night after Isha, when he’d given iqama and offered uni with terms.

“I remember,” I said. “One, I don’t erase who I am to fit in. No fake names, no fake backgrounds. Two, I don’t weaponise deen against you lot. No using Islam as a stick to beat you with. Three, I keep in touch. Calls, messages, not disappearing.”

He watched my face carefully.

“And your condition?” he said quietly.

“You don’t mock my deen,” I said. “If I’m going masjid or avoiding certain things, you don’t treat it like I’ve joined a cult. You talk to me, not over me.”

He nodded.

“I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “We stick to it. On both sides.”

For once, the future didn’t feel like an argument waiting to happen. It felt like a long road we’d decided to walk on the same map, even if our paces were different.

Packing for uni made our flat look like a discount warehouse.

Boxes appeared in the hallway. Bags. Random kitchen stuff Mum insisted I needed—three different spoons “for guests”, because apparently first-year students host formal dinners now.

Dad started a notebook titled “Things for Imran Uni” like it was a project at work.

“Duvet,” he muttered, writing. “Pillow. Two bedsheets minimum. Proper plates, not plastic. Small rice cooker so you don’t starve.”

“I can buy stuff there,” I said. “I’m not moving to Mars.”

He looked offended.

“You think I will send my son to uni with just toothbrush and vibes?” he said. “I came here with one suitcase. I don’t want that for you.”

The “one suitcase” line didn’t hit the same anymore.

But he still said it. Habit.

The difference now was what came after.

“Back then,” he said one evening, as we wrestled with a flat-pack clothes rail in the living room, “one suitcase and ‘no God’ felt like freedom.”

He screwed a bolt in, then paused.

“Now,” he added, “when I think of you going with no God, it feels like sending you naked into fire.”

He didn’t look up when he said it.

I tightened a screw on my side.

“So what are we sending instead?” I asked quietly.

He finally looked at me.

“Two suitcases,” he said. “Some pots. Too many socks. And the name of Allah in your heart.”

He said it without flinching.

Later that week, we went to the uni for an open day—just me and him.

We took the train, then a bus, then followed the crowd of lost-looking people clutching campus maps.

He walked beside me, slightly stiff in his “respectable” clothes, eyes taking in everything: the glass buildings, the groups of students, the posters for societies.

We met other families. Some kids walked ten paces ahead of their parents, already mentally moved out. Some parents clung to their children like the campus was full of traps.

Me and Dad walked side by side, the distance between us measured in years and arguments, but not in silence anymore.

At the information talk, some lecturer spoke about modules and assessments. My mind wandered to the question I’d googled three times already: “Is there a mosque near [uni name]?”

Over lunch in the student cafe, Dad stabbed his fork into some overpriced chips.

“Place looks alright,” he said. “A bit too many people with blue hair, but they won’t be in your course.”

I chuckled.

“We’ll see,” I said. “Never know who wants to code.”

“Where’s the masjid?” he asked.

“There’s a big mosque fifteen minutes’ walk away,” I said. “And a multi-faith prayer room on campus. Both.”

He nodded.

“Show me,” he said.

We went to the multi-faith room first.

Plain carpet. Shoe racks. A bookshelf with Qur’ans, Bibles, some other texts. A sign with prayer times pinned on the wall. Quiet.

He stepped in and looked around, hands in his pockets.

“Simple,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s enough.”

He nodded, thoughtful.

“At your age,” he said, looking at the qibla sticker, “if I had this next to my college, maybe my story would be different.”

“Still time for your story to change,” I said before I could stop myself.

He gave me a look.

“Don’t start,” he warned. “One miracle at a time.”

We both smiled.

On the way back, we passed a stall where some current ISoc members were handing out flyers.

“ASSALAMU ALAIKUM – JOIN ISOC” the banner said, big green letters.

A tall brother with glasses smiled at us.

“Assalamu alaikum,” he said. “New students?”

I nodded.

“InshaAllah,” I said. “Starting this year.”

“Alhamdulillah,” he said. “Write your name, we’ll add you to the group chat. We have regular prayers, circles, socials. Helps a lot, especially in first year.”

Dad watched him like he was inspecting a potential son-in-law.

“You lot only talk about deen,” Dad asked, “or you talk about exams too?”

The brother smiled.

“Both,” he said. “We talk about everything. The whole package. Dunya and akhirah.”

Dad nodded slowly.

“Good answer,” he said.

As moving day got closer, the flat felt smaller.

Mum cycled between emotional and practical.

One minute: “Don’t forget to take Vitamin D, they say the area is cloudy.”

Next minute: crying quietly in the kitchen while labelling my containers.

My brother pretended excitement about “more space” but kept hovering around my room like he was inventorying what he wanted to steal.

“Can I have your monitor?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Selfish,” he muttered.

The night before we left, we had dinner together properly. No TV, no phones, just plates and conversation.

Mum kept looking at me like she was trying to memorise my face.

“You’ll be back in a few weeks,” I kept saying.

“I know,” she replied. “But still.”

After dinner, the living room felt heavier than usual.

Prayer time came. My app buzzed. Dad’s app buzzed too. He pulled out his phone, grimaced at the early Fajr time it was reminding him about, then put it back.

“Let’s pray Isha,” I said.

“In the living room?” Mum asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” I said. “Jama’ah. One last time before I go.”

We did it like we had that first time, only smoother now because it wasn’t new.

Mat unrolled. Rows formed. Me in front. Dad and my brother behind me. Mum in the row at the back.

Dad gave the iqama again, this time without hesitation:

“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar…”
Through to:
“Qad qamatis-salah, qad qamatis-salah…
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, la ilaha illallah.”

We prayed. My recitation was steady; my heart was not.

In sujood, I tried not to think, just to ask.

Ya Allah, You’re the Lord of these walls and the ones I’m going to. Be with me there the way You’ve been with me here.

Afterwards, we sat on the floor for a bit, leaning against the sofa like we used to when I was small and life felt simpler.

“You know,” Dad said suddenly, staring at the blank TV, “if someone told me twenty years ago that I’d be giving iqama in London behind my own son… I would’ve laughed.”

“What did you think you’d be doing?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“Surviving,” he said. “That was big dream already.”

“You did more than that,” Mum said quietly from behind him.

He gave a tiny nod.

Moving day was cold and too bright.

We loaded the car like we were moving house rather than one boy into a student room.

Suitcase. Bag. Another bag that wasn’t a bag, just a collection of “might be useful” items tied together. Rice cooker. Pots. Duvet. Pillow. A folded prayer mat on top.

Mum fussed over everything and everyone.

“Did you pack your medicines?”

“Yes.”

“Your Qur’an?”

“Yes.”

“Your extra charger?”

“YES, Mum.”

She grabbed my face with both hands.

“Call me when you get there,” she said. “Then call me again when you unpack. Then call me before you sleep.”

“Leave some time for lectures,” I said.

My brother tried to sound chill.

“Uni’s overrated,” he said. “I’ll just become a streamer and make more money than you.”

“InshaAllah,” I said. “You can pay my rent then.”

He punched my arm, not too hard.

“Don’t come back weird,” he said. “Like with a new accent or something.”

“If I come back saying ‘rah’ too much, you have permission to slap me,” I said.

Dad did the practical checks—windows, stove, lights—like we were going away for months.

In the car, the silence was crumbly. Bits of conversation fell off every now and then, but most of the drive was just road and music turned down low.

About halfway there, Dad reduced the volume further.

“Last chance,” he said. “We can still turn around. Tell them uni closed down.”

“Tempting,” I said. “But no.”

He snorted.

“Stubborn,” he said. “Got that from your mum.”

Mum made a noise in the back.

We reached the campus, fought with the car park machine, hauled my stuff up to a small, basic room that smelled of fresh paint and other people’s nerves.

Single bed. Desk. Wardrobe. A window looking over some trees and a strip of sky.

Mum made my bed like I was five. Dad tried to decide where the rice cooker should live. My brother filmed a room tour on his phone “for the mandem”.

Eventually, there was nothing left to unpack.

Mum’s eyes shone suspiciously.

“I’m not crying,” she announced, wiping them. “There is just something in my eye.”

“Both eyes?” Dad said.

She ignored him and hugged me so tight my ribs protested.

“Pray your salah,” she whispered. “Even when you’re tired. Especially then. And if you get sad, talk to Allah first. Then call me.”

“I will,” I said, trying not to get choked up too.

My brother stuck out his fist.

“Safe, bro,” he said. “Don’t become some boring religious robot, yeah.”

“I’ll come back Version 2.0,” I said. “Less bugs.”

He smirked.

“That sounds worse,” he said.

Dad was last.

He looked around the small room again, then at me.

“You remember our contract,” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “All three conditions and the bonus one.”

He nodded.

“Good,” he said. “If I see you on TV shouting at people with a placard, I’m driving here and dragging you home by your ears.”

“If you see me on TV, at least be proud,” I said.

“Depends what channel,” he shot back.

We walked them back to the car park.

Mum cried properly this time. My brother tried to look away. Dad fiddled with his keys more than necessary.

He opened the car door, then stopped and looked at me.

“Text me your timetable,” he said. “So I know when not to call and annoy you.”

“You can annoy me anytime,” I said.

He gave the half-smile I’d seen all my life.

“That’s my job,” he said.

They got in. The car pulled away. I watched until it turned the corner and disappeared.

For a second, the urge to run after it hit me—six years old again, chasing something I couldn’t name.

I took a breath instead.

My phone buzzed.

We are on the motorway
Your mum already crying again
Make dua for our patience

I smiled through the weird tight feeling in my chest.

Already did
Make dua for me too

Always, came back.
Allahu ma‘ak – Allah is with you.

That evening was Freshers’ Fair.

The main hall was chaos—societies shouting, free pizza, leaflets flying everywhere.

“JOIN THE DEBATE TEAM!”
“ROWING CLUB – FREE TRIAL!”
“ANIME SOC!”
“BASKETBALL!”

And then, in the middle of it all, a banner I was already half-expecting to see:

ISLAMIC SOCIETY – ISOC
“Pray. Chill. Grow.”

A couple of brothers and sisters were manning the stall. One of the brothers waved me over when he clocked my brown face and slightly lost expression.

“Assalamu alaikum,” he said.

“Wa alaikum salam,” I replied.

“First year?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Computer science.”

“Nice,” he said. “I’m in second year. Name’s Hamza. You local or from far?”

“London,” I said. “Two hours away.”

He nodded.

“Close enough to go home for samosas,” he said. “Far enough to breathe.”

He passed me a pen.

“Write your name and number,” he said. “We’ll add you to the brothers’ group. We have daily jama’ah in the multi-faith room, weekly circles, social stuff. Football, food. Helps, trust me.”

I wrote “Imran” on the list and my number. It felt like signing onto something invisible.

On the way out of the hall, a group of lads walked past the ISoc stall making some half-baked joke about “Shariah law taking over the student union”. It stung, but not like before.

There was something inside now that pushed back.

Not ego. Not, “I’ll show you.”

Just… a quiet, heavy sense of who I was.

Later, in my new room, the silence pressed in. The walls were thinner than home; I could hear someone laughing in the corridor, another person playing music through tinny speakers.

I unpacked my last bag. Books on the desk. Clothes in the cupboard. The prayer mat at the foot of my bed.

I opened the curtain. Outside, the sky was a deep blue, just after sunset.

My phone buzzed.

Maghrib – 19:24
It’s time to pray.

It hit me then—the same sound that used to bounce around my little bedroom in East London, now echoing in this strange room miles away.

I could have prayed there, in the corner.

No one would know if I skipped it. No one would check.

Instead, I grabbed my mat and followed the corridor, down the stairs, across the quad, towards the building I knew housed the multi-faith room.

On the way, my phone pinged with a new WhatsApp notification.

ISOC BROTHERS 2025
Hamza: Maghrib in 10 mins in the prayer room inshaAllah. New brothers, come through, don’t be shy. We don’t bite.

I smiled and walked faster.

In the prayer room, a few guys were already there, laying out mats.

“Assalamu alaikum,” Hamza said when he saw me. “Imran, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Nice,” he replied. “You want to lead or shall I?”

My first instinct was to say no. New place, new people—leading felt too big.

“You lead,” I said. “I’ll follow. For now.”

We lined up.

“Allahu Akbar,” he said, starting the iqama.

He recited the full thing, every line, finishing with “Qad qamatis-salah” then:

“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, la ilaha illallah.”

I thought of my living room. Dad’s voice saying the same words. Mum in the back row. My brother trying not to complain.

We prayed.

My forehead pressed into unfamiliar carpet, surrounded by strangers who wouldn’t be strangers for long.

Afterwards, as I sat for a few minutes in the corner, my back against the wall, my phone buzzed.

A message from Dad.

Did Maghrib in the staff room today

Not wudu in toilet and run away like before
Just proper mat on the floor

Baby steps

My throat tightened.

Allahu Akbar, I wrote back.
I’m proud of you, Abbu.

His reply came quick.

Don’t get gassed

I’m still beginner

You just remember your side of the deal
No haram police
No disappearing

InshaAllah, I replied.

My side, your side, same Lord.

There was a long pause. Then:

Go sleep

You have class tomorrow

Allah will still be there in the morning

I put my phone away and looked around the quiet room.

Different town. Different building. Same qibla.

My life wasn’t suddenly sorted. There would be lectures I didn’t understand, people who got on my nerves, nights I felt lonely, days my iman dipped. There would be trips home where old arguments tried to resurrect themselves. There would be mistakes. Lots of them.

But the fault line between me and my dad didn’t feel like a crack I was going to fall into anymore.

It felt like something we’d learned to walk across.

Him, with his one-suitcase story and staff-room Maghribs.

Me, with my prayer app and uni prayer room.

Two generations. Two different battles. One spine.

Not the kind made of arrogance or stubbornness.

The kind you build slowly, prayer by prayer, iqama by iqama, until when people throw their words at you—terrorist, outsider, too Muslim, not Muslim enough—you can stand straight without hating them or yourself.

That night, in my narrow bed, I fell asleep with my mat rolled at the foot like a promise.

Wherever I went, whatever lecture theatre, bus, office or country I ended up in next, I knew this much:

I didn’t have to pick between my father’s fear and my own faith.
I could carry his story in one hand and my salah in the other.

Two suitcases.
One Lord.

And a back that bends only for Him.

---

Disclaimer

This story, published on mujiburrahman.com is a purely fictional work. All characters, places, communities, and events described are products of imagination or used in a fictional context. Any resemblance to actual individuals or real-world events is entirely coincidental. The purpose of this content is storytelling and entertainment only and should not be taken as factual or representative of any real person or community.