On Friday, October 17, 2025, between ten and eleven in the morning, my office welcomed two dear, worthy, and diligent students of the Class, Bint e Shafique and Bint e Faiz. They came with questions related to the lesson, thoughtful ones, the kind that show a student is not only listening but living with what is being taught. As our conversation came to a close, Bint Shafiq quietly handed me a book. There was no formality in the gesture, only sincerity. That book was Secrets of Divine Love by A. Helwa.

When I opened the first page later, I realized this was not a casual gift. She had written verses in her own hand, choosing poetry where ordinary words might fail.

کوئی سلیقہ ہے آرزو کا ، نہ بندگی میری بندگی ہے
یہ سب تمھارا کرم ہے آقا جل جلالہ کہ بات اب تک بنی ہوئی ہے

There is no elegance in my longing, nor is my worship worthy of being called worship. All of this is Your grace, O Lord, that my life has remained held together until now.

These lines set the tone before a single chapter began. They were not decorative. They were confessional. They carried the humility that lies at the heart of sincere faith, the admission that nothing we bring is polished enough, and yet mercy still meets us where we stand.

At the very end of the book, another verse waited.

وہ کیسے لوگ تھے یارب جنہوں نے پالیا تجھے کو
ہمیں ہو گیا دشوار اک انسان کا ملنا

What kind of people were they, O Lord, who found You so completely. For us, even finding a true human being has become difficult.

Between these two verses unfolded a text that speaks to the aching spaces many believers carry quietly. Secrets of Divine Love does not speak from a pulpit. It speaks from the floor of the heart, where doubt, longing, guilt, and hope sit side by side.

A. Helwa writes for those who feel distant from God without rejecting God, for those who pray yet feel unheard, for those who believe yet feel unworthy. Her work circles one steady idea that divine love does not begin when we become better people. It begins when we stop pretending we already are.

The author’s own story forms the undercurrent of the book. Raised in a Muslim household, she stepped away from prayer during her teenage years. What followed was not rebellion but searching. She moved through sacred spaces across traditions, sitting with monks, studying Eastern philosophies, absorbing wisdom wherever she found sincerity. Her return to Islam did not arrive through fear or argument. It arrived through love, sparked by a teacher she encountered near Al-Aqsa Mosque. His words reframed God not as a distant authority but as a presence closer than breath.

Yet she hesitated before writing. The feeling of inadequacy remained. That hesitation itself became part of the message. Faith, she suggests, does not ask for readiness. It asks for openness. We are not complete vessels. We are cracked ones, and light enters through the cracks.

One of the strongest sections of the book centers on knowing who Allah is. Allah is presented not as a concept to be mastered but as a reality to be recognized through signs spread across existence. The book speaks of divine names not as theological listings but as windows. Mercy, power, gentleness, justice, tenderness, awe. These qualities do not contradict one another. They balance one another. A world with mercy alone would collapse into disorder. A world with justice alone would suffocate the soul. Human hearts survive where both meet.

A recurring reassurance runs through these pages. God’s love does not wait at the finish line. It surrounds the starting point. We do not earn it through obedience, nor lose it through failure. What sin interrupts is not love but awareness. The sun does not disappear when clouds gather. Our sight simply fails.

The book then turns the mirror toward the reader. Who are you, beneath roles, achievements, mistakes, and labels. The answer offered rests in the idea of fitra, the original goodness placed within every human being. Worth is not a reward. It is a given. That is why external success often leaves an internal emptiness untouched. The soul remembers something older than accomplishment.

The story of Adam and Hawwa is revisited with tenderness rather than blame. Their error did not exile them from love. Their repentance drew them deeper into guidance. The contrast with Shaytan is striking. One owned his weakness and sought forgiveness. The other defended his pride and blamed his Creator. Growth began with humility. Distance grew from arrogance.

From here, the Qur’an emerges not as a static text but as a living address. Revealed over years, responding to lived moments, it speaks to the reader who approaches it with presence rather than haste. The book encourages recitation that slows the body and reading that involves the heart, not the eyes alone.

The Shahadah receives similar treatment. It is described not only as a statement spoken once, but as a promise renewed daily. Declaring that nothing deserves ultimate loyalty except God demands an honest look at what quietly rules our lives. Wealth, status, fear, ego, approval. Each can become a small idol if left unchecked.

The second half of the book walks through the practices of Islam as pathways rather than obligations. Prayer becomes a return, not a burden. Charity becomes circulation, not loss. Fasting becomes clarity, not punishment. Pilgrimage becomes release, not travel. Repentance becomes intimacy, not shame.

Jihad is reclaimed as effort in its truest sense. The greater struggle takes place within the self, against arrogance, greed, and heedlessness. The lesser struggle carries ethical boundaries and moral restraint. This framing restores balance to a term often distorted by noise.

Death, Heaven, and Hell are treated with sobriety and care. Death is described as transition. Heaven and Hell appear as reflections of proximity or distance from the Divine, shaped by choices made with freedom fully intact. Love is never forced. Meaningful love never is.

What stays with the reader after closing the book is not information but atmosphere. A softened inner posture. A feeling of being addressed rather than instructed. The final chapters remind the reader again and again that the goal is not to follow Islam as a set of actions, but to become it through character.

Returning to the final verse written by my student, its weight feels heavier now.

وہ کیسے لوگ تھے یارب جنہوں نے پالیا تجھے کو
What kind of people were they, O Lord, who found You so completely.

Perhaps they were not extraordinary in skill or status. Perhaps they were simply honest enough to admit their need, humble enough to surrender their masks, and patient enough to wait without demanding proof on their own terms.

This book does not promise spiritual shortcuts. It invites sincerity. It does not erase struggle. It reframes it. For readers who feel fractured between belief and experience, this work offers not certainty, but companionship.

And perhaps that is why this book, given quietly by a student, feels less like a gift and more like a trust.