Quran Gallery Blog
Essays written from the printed page
Long-form writing on the Quran, prayer, the pilgrimage and the inner life. Every claim is traced to a named edition, volume and page, and the page opens beside the text.
278 essays28 collections7 languagesevery citation opens the printed page
Collections
Read in order
The essays are filed in series: a pilgrimage walked step by step, the prayer from the first takbir to the salam, a month of fasting from its eve to its end. Start at part one.
- Part 1 → 18 A Journey Through Hajj 18 essays
- Part 1 → 9 A Journey Through Umrah 9 essays
- Part 1 → 8 Prepare for Hajj 8 essays
- Part 1 → 7 Delve Deep: The Goals of Hajj 7 essays
- Part 1 → 7 The Virtues & Etiquettes of Dua 7 essays
- Part 1 → 5 Strengthening Iman Through Dua 5 essays
- Part 1 → 5 Umrah 5 essays
- Part 1 → 4 Fasting 4 essays
- Part 1 → 3 Taste the Sweetness of Dua 3 essays
- Part 1 → 2 Madinah 2 essays
- 17 essays Journey Through Salah
- 11 essays Ruqyah
- 10 essays Before Salah
- 9 essays Pre Ramadan
- 9 essays During Salah
- 8 essays Iman in Ramadan
- 8 essays Palestine: A Quranic Lens
- 5 essays The Hereafter
- 5 essays Morning & Evening
- 5 essays Tasbih
- 4 essays Names of Allah
- 4 essays Istighfar
- 4 essays Etiquettes
- 4 essays Reflecting on the Ayat of Hajj
- 3 essays Virtues of Al-Aqsa
- 2 essays Muharram
- 2 essays Post-Ramadan
- 2 essays Post Hajj
Jumada al-Ula
From the shelves
Tasbih Allāhu Akbar: The Phrase That Resizes Everything Else Akbar is a comparative, and Arabic grammar expects a comparative to finish the sentence — greater than what? Allāhu Akbar never says. This is a look at where the Sunnah plants that unfinished sentence, and what happens to a person's sense of proportion when it gets said at the exact moment fear, anger or awe insist something else is the biggest thing in the room. Articles The Qur'an Is Dhikr: What Follows When You Take That Seriously Allah names the Qur'an "the Remembrance" inside the Qur'an itself — not a believer's compliment, but the book's own description of what it is. Four hadith trace what that claim costs and pays: a reward counted by the letter, a degree of attention nothing else receives, and a rank fixed at the last verse a person recites. Articles The Ease It Buys: What Khushūʿ Actually Does for Your Ṣalāh Khushūʿ is not a mood you either have or lack in ṣalāh — it is what turns ṣalāh from a weight you carry into something you reach for, and its effects do not stay on the prayer mat. Articles Growing in the Love of Allah: What Draws the Heart Near, and What It Yields Loving Allah is not a feeling you either have or don't — it is grown by specific acts and known by specific fruit. Six things that build it, and three things it produces in the heart that has it. A Journey Through Umrah· Part 6 of 9 Circling the House: How Ṭawāf Is Performed and What It Asks of the Heart Ṭawāf looks simple from the outside — seven walks around a cube of stone. Here is how it is actually performed, what is said during it, and why circling the House is one of the most direct ways to draw near to Allah. The Virtues & Etiquettes of Dua· Part 6 of 7 Those Whose Duʿāʾ Is Answered: What Their Hearts Have in Common Scripture names a short list of people whose duʿāʾ is reported answered — the wronged, the traveller, the parent, the fasting person, and others. Read together, they describe one heart, not a ranking of people. Journey Through Salah Two Standings: What the Qiyām of the Prayer Is Preparing You For Standing is the one part of the prayer a healthy person may not skip, and it is the part that looks least like an act of worship. What the sources actually attach to the qiyām — the gaze, the hands, its length — and why classical scholars called it the first of two standings before Allah. Ruqyah Four Texts, Not Folklore: What Revelation Actually Prescribes Against Magic and the Jinn Magic and the jinn attract more speculation than almost any other topic in circulation online. Here is what the Qur'an and four resolvable hadith actually prescribe against them — and what we are leaving out because it does not resolve to a source we can show you. Before Salah Ask Allah for Khushūʿ, Then Refuse to Give Up Khushūʿ is not a technique a worshipper perfects alone; it is something the Prophet himself asked Allah for, in words the collections preserve. Four of his supplications, one hard hadith about consistency, and the discipline of refusing to quit when the heart goes quiet again. During Salah The Rehearsal for Death: How Remembering the End Restores Khushuʿ in Prayer and Beyond Khushuʿ has a condition the Qur'an names outright: certainty that you will meet your Lord. Here is how remembering death — inside ṣalāh and out of it — builds that certainty rather than just borrowing a mood for it. Palestine: A Quranic Lens Not by Numbers: The Qur'anic Conditions of Victory The Qur'an ties victory to a condition, not a count. Read through the two verses that state the rule and the two battles — Badr and Ḥunayn — where the Qur'an itself shows what the rule looks like from both directions. Articles The Two Kinds of Dhikr: General Remembrance and the Prescribed Adhkar Dhikr is not one thing said one way. It splits along two independent lines — how free its form is, and which part of a person is actually doing the remembering — and knowing both is what turns a habit of repeating words into remembrance that reaches the heart. Articles The Prayer That Isn't Accepted: Why the Qur'an and Sunnah Insist on Khushu Sūrat al-Muʾminūn opens its list of the successful with khushūʿ in prayer, not with a count of rakʿāt — and a report in the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī Shaybah says a person can pray for sixty years and have none of it accepted. What the Qur'an and Sunnah say about the gap between a prayer that is merely valid and one that is actually accepted. Articles Who Is Allah: The Description He Gave of Himself Before you can fear Him, hope in Him, or love Him, you have to know who He is — and the Qur'an answers that question directly, in His own words, in al-Ikhlāṣ, Āyat al-Kursī, and the closing verses of Sūrat al-Ḥashr. A Journey Through Umrah· Part 7 of 9 Between Safa and Marwah: What Hajar's Search Still Asks of You The sa'y between Safa and Marwah retells a mother's search for water in an empty valley. Here is Hajar's story, how the rite is performed today, and what her trust and effort still ask of anyone who walks it. The Virtues & Etiquettes of Dua· Part 7 of 7 When a Duʿāʾ Feels Unanswered: What Actually Stands in the Way An unanswered duʿāʾ is not a verdict — the Prophet himself asked for refuge from one. What the Qurʾān and hadith actually name as the things that get in the way, from unlawful earnings to a heart that isn't present. Journey Through Salah The Silence After the Takbīr, and the Words That Fill It A companion standing behind the Prophet noticed a short silence between the opening takbīr and the recitation, and asked what filled it. The answer is not one duʿāʾ but several — each traced here to the page it comes from, including the one everybody knows and almost everybody miscites. Ruqyah The Prophet's Own Ruqyah: How He Used the Qur'an's Last Three Surahs for Protection When the Prophet fell ill, when he lay down to sleep, and every morning and evening in between, he reached for the same three surahs. Here is the actual practice, traced to the printed page of every hadith that records it. Before Salah Act Upon the Etiquettes of the Masjid: What Prepares You Before You Say Allāhu Akbar The masjid visit starts before you leave the house, and the adhān asks more than silence from you. Seven prophetic etiquettes and the words that actually answer the call — each traced to a printed page you can open. During Salah You Are Talking to Allah, and He Is Answering: The Awareness That Deepens Khushuʿ Ṣalāh is described in hadith as a private conversation, not a recitation performed toward an empty direction — one Allah answers, phrase by phrase. Holding that in mind while you pray is one of the most direct paths to khushūʿ. Palestine: A Quranic Lens One Body, One Ache: The Bond That Makes Another Believer's Pain Your Own "Why should I care?" is a fair question, and the Qur'an and the Prophet's own words answer it plainly — not with a slogan, but with a bond that makes a stranger's suffering something you were never meant to watch from outside. Articles All Creation Glorifies Allah: You Are the One Creature Free to Decline The Qur'an describes a universe already engaged in unceasing tasbīḥ — heavens, thunder, birds, even a mouthful of food. Human beings are the one creature that can choose not to join in. Articles Until the Ground Was Wet: The Prophet's Ṣalāh and His Khushūʿ Five resolved reports of how the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) actually prayed — a chest that sounded like a mill turning, feet that swelled from standing, and a night that ended with the ground wet beneath his face. A Journey Through Umrah· Part 8 of 9 The Last Act of Surrender: Why ʿUmrah Ends by Shaving the Head ʿUmrah does not end with a prayer or a du'a — it ends with a razor. A look at why the rite of ḥalq closes the pilgrim's state of consecration, and why the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed differently for those who shaved than for those who merely trimmed.
