And I have prepared you for Myself

Reflections on Surah Ta Ha verse 41

Last week, I was speaking at a wonderful event organised by the Creative Muslim Club in the Netherlands. I had some time before the event so I opened up my Qur’an app. Sometimes, I find myself having a verse or two inexplicably repeating itself in my head. I treat these occurrences as invitations; callings from the verses to go read them.

On this day I’d had the opening verses of Surah Ta Ha repeating in my mind since the moment I had awoken, so in this pause in the day, I went directly to this Surah and began to read. It was when I got to verse 41 that I was moved to putting down my phone to really think on the choice of Allah’s Words:

And I have prepared you for Myself

وَٱصۡطَنَعۡتُكَ لِنَفۡسِ

If every break I have experienced is a brick in the path to Allah, every heartache a cleansing to be drawn closer to Allah, every loss a lightening of my load to reach Allah faster, every loneliness in fact a private audience with Allah, then how blessed am I by them. Don’t get me wrong, neither Musa (عَلَيْهِمُ السَّلَامُ) nor I, nor you for that matter, are to bear suffering in silence; Musa’s suffering was in the path of a greater cause, a struggle to uplift a destitute people and against an oppressive tyrant. But the hardships survived to be able to be the person who could fulfil this mission and who could endure its trials required spiritual, psychological and physical training.

I’m no poet, but I found myself unable to let go of the meanings of these words and the story that led up to them. I put pen to paper and out flowed the following:

“And I have prepared you for Myself.”
Waṣṭanaʿtuka linafsī

Allah tells you

You were not abandoned
when the river carried you,
when the palace raised you,
when exile claimed you.
Every turn, every wound:
I was forging you.

I hollowed you
to fill you.
I broke you
to rebuild you.
Not for them.
Not for the world.
But for Me.

You wondered why it hurt
why silence followed your cries,
why the path twisted and turned,
why you were hidden so long.
But the fire you saw on the mountain
could only be lit 
when your heart was made ready.

I prepared you,
not for greatness in their eyes,
but for closeness in Mine.
Not for a throne,
but for a Trust.

So walk now,
with your staff and your scars
For I am with you.
Always.
And you are Mine.

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