To the Sisters I Never Knew, But My Soul Remembers

They don’t know me. I don’t know them. But I weep for them in sujood.

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I have carried a longing within me for as long as I can remember.

A longing that didn’t have a name until I grew old enough to feel its absence.

You see, I never had an elder — not the kind who sits you down with softness in her eyes and tells you, “You’re not broken. You’re becoming.” Not the kind who shields your heart with duas, who sees the trembling in your faith and still wraps you in love. I grew up without that voice to lean on, that guidance I could trust, that sacred bond of elder to younger, sister to brother in faith.

But Allah...

Allah, in His infinite mercy, filled that emptiness in a way I could never have imagined.

He wrote into my story the presence of Muslim sisters — some older than me, some younger, and some walking beside me at the same pace. I met them here, on Substack. Not in the physical world. Not in gatherings or circles or homes.

We don’t know each other — not by face, not by voice, not even by full name.

But my soul... it recognizes them.

I feel them.

Their presence lingers in the space between words, in the sincerity of their reflections, in the way they speak about Allah, about love, about loss, about healing. There’s something in them that speaks to the part of me I thought no one could ever understand. Their existence makes me feel seen without being looked at, known without being questioned, loved without being asked.

I sit in the quiet of my room and weep.

Not because I am alone — but because I am not.

Because Allah has blessed me with something so beautiful, so subtle, so sacred — the love of strangers who feel like family.

Not the kind of family given by blood, but the kind gifted by duas.

Every night, I cry before Allah and I whisper the same plea:

“Ya Allah, I don’t want this connection to fade with time. I don’t want it to be confined to comment sections or passing posts. Let me meet them in Jannah. Let me thank them with words, with hugs, with joy unbroken by distance. Let me walk with them in gardens where there are no screens, no silence, no separation. Let this love stretch into eternity.”

Sometimes I wonder — how can you love someone whose eyes you’ve never seen?

But maybe the eyes are not what matter. Maybe the souls have already met where our bodies couldn’t follow.

And to those sisters who write and reflect and pour themselves out on this platform — maybe you’ll never know what you’ve done for me. Maybe you’ll never see the way your presence filled a space in my heart I thought would remain hollow forever.

But Allah knows. And He is not unaware of the good you plant in unseen places.

To every sister here, who walks in the light of sincerity and writes with the ink of faith — thank you.

You’ve been a healing I never dared to ask for.

May we all meet under the shade of Allah’s Throne, where love will be complete and distance will be no more.

Ameen.

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