this is a great book to heal and increase your faith and connection with God.

Unless you have a good understanding of Tawheed, especially tawheed al asma wa al sifaat and Roohullah, and a good tolerance for typical, good-feels overloaded, self-help style writing, skip this book.

While there are a few good things in this book, they're not worth it if you don't have a strong base in tawheed and can stay untouched by the misguiding content.

I don't recommend this book.

1. She went so far as to say “there is nothing real in existence but God”, and declaring “the nonexistence of everything in creation”. -_-

2. You know when you explain a joke and it loses all of its colours? Well, the same goes with quotations. And stories. The author continuously pushes her opinion across every single topic and then weakly connects them with verses and quotes to justify them.

3. She explains her point in three to five long paragraphs before relating it to a quote, going off topic several times midway, and then jumping back again, that by the time the reader reaches the actual quote, it has lost all of its impact.

4. The introduction is drastically different from the rest of the book, for instance, she wrote how she tried to make the book inclusive by quoting mystics, verses from the Quran, Bible and other well-known figures. Instead of choosing closer to the original translation of the writings of Rumi and the many poetic lines on islam (which would've done some long-needed justice by bringing to light the actual, islamic side of Rumi, ignored by the popular translators), she chose the most cringeworthy, obvious , bland, and unpoetic quotes to add, that sound like they came from the mouth of a modern-day self-help guru.

5. She writes about putting aside sunni shia and sufi differences, and then proceeds to leave the names unmentioned of all companions she quoted besides Imam Ali (R.A) and Fatima (R.A). There’s an unrealistic story of Imam Ali being shot by an arrow taken from a shia source. Apparently, nobody could remove it because it caused him “excruciating pain” and somebody suggested they do that while he was praying. Do you see nothing wrong with this story? Even if he managed to pray with an arrow stuck in his leg (which is unlikely), and they removed it, he would’ve bled and broken his wudu.

6. She stretches out a point far too much. This book could've been half the size had she not added the unnecessary repetitions. It felt like she had to meet a word limit.

7. Her choice of words is poor in many places.

8. She calls humans a reflection of God, over a hundred times.
Reflection is a very strong word and should not be used so carelessly when talking about Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. We are not and never could be His reflection. A reflection is a very close image of the original. And we are nowhere near to God. I know she meant it in terms of His attributes, but her choice of words in several places says otherwise. She uses such sentences at the beginning of a paragraph and then continues to say something completely different from it. What is so hard about saying we are merely a glimpse of His power? Our Creator is nothing like His creation. That's part of tawheed. So why does she continuously imply that we reflect God Himself, not just His attributes (نعوذ بالله ) through such sentences?

9. She also talks about “resisting divine union with God”. Seriously? What this implies is that our souls will become extinguished in God???? Ugh.

10. Love and fear of Allah always go hand-in-hand. But this book just ignores the whole aspect of fear and turns faith into a lovey-dovey field of toxic positivity.

11. Imagine if someone read this book and then found out about shariah law. Wouldn't that person be super confused because there are some strict rules in shariah regarding sins, and this idea is completely opposite to what the book is trying to present. This is what happens when you leave fear out of the equation, when you remove the concept of accountability and elaborate rewards only.

12. It is human to err but those errors have consequences and we have to take responsibility for them in this dunya too, the author completely ignores this whole concept and constantly shuns love in your face as if the other side of the coin is not worth explaining. How will you explain public hanging and stoning to someone who thinks islam is only about love shove and forgiveness? As far as I can see, the author simply can't explain shariah because it doesn't align with her narrative of love.

13. Another harm of leaving out fear is the creation of a liberal mindset, people who believe shariah is too harsh and needs to be reformed نعوذ بالله because apparently we all make mistakes and are supposed to preach love only.

14. There are certain kuffaar that Allah has cursed, certain nations He destroyed, certain people we are told to hate, how will a reader of this book understand that?

15. This book seemed to have "only God can judge me" vibes, which is another liberal concept made to satisfy people’s desire to sin openly. We are told to advise one another and speak up against evil and wrong. But this book only preaches acceptance.

16. Apparently, she constantly downplays the importance of actions in defining our worth, and pushes aside the practical form of love. Just love God y'all. And instead of using sunnahs as examples and exercises, she used journaling and some weird and ridiculous mystic activities similar to meditation. Some of them were helpful, others were beyond stupid.

17. She talked about gratitude without mentioning the dhikr of AlhamduLLILAH, death without mentioning a word about the torment of the grave. But somehow, the bid’ah practice of chanting the 99 names of Allah made it in the book.

18. Take a shot (of water - unless you’re fasting) everytime this author talks about fitrah and explains what it is like she hasn’t done that ten times already, and talks about going back to “who you already are” and how you don’t actually improve, you just unveil. Ridiculous.

19. I saved the worst for last.
She added a fabricated hadith. And what reference did she cite for it? A book by Yale University. Yeap. She quoted a 'hadith' from a non-hadith book.

And she also mentioned a popular fabricated story about a woman who used to throw trash on our Prophet ﷺ when there are so many authentic stories she could’ve chosen.

And whatever this is: “when we follow the Prophet ﷺ, we are not following a mortal man, but we are being led by the light of God.” Sounds like a Christian concept to me.

20. Another Christian concept that she pushes quite often is the spirit of God. “The Spirit of God descends to our universe”. No. When Allah talks about His spirit, He means His as in a possession not an attribute. It’s very important to differentiate this because it can easily mislead people into believing God blew His spirit in Adam (A.S.) as in a part of Him! Astagfirullah. Allah is separate from His creation, He is not and never had described Himself as a spirit.

21. There are so many poorly presented stories of mystics that have absolutely no value to add besides rubbing in the same point. They’re full of misguiding ideas. Mentioning how these mystics somehow directly contacted Allah or how breaking a fast instead of breaking a heart is completely fine, is against the teachings of islam.

22. Oh and she just has to say every story is humorous when it clearly isn’t. She’s also super obsessed with mirrors.

23. It makes me uncomfortable that she used the term 'followers' for the COMPANIONS of the Prophet ﷺ . How can you reduce the stature of some of the greatest supporters of Rasool Allah ﷺ to mere followers? They were more than just his followers. They were his most loyal friends, and family. Why not call them sahabas as they are referred to by every.single.scholar. And where's the honorific after their names?

24. I don't like reading stretchy explanations about watered-down, poorly translated quotes from mystics unless they're going to help me pass an exam.

25. The flowery language was nauseating.

Stay away from this book. It's not worth it. ( )

"ঐশ্বরিক ভালবাসার গোপনীয়তা হল আধ্যাত্মিক নিরাময়কারী সহচর যা আপনি জানেন না যে আপনার প্রয়োজন। এমনভাবে লেখা যাতে আপনি অনুভব করেন যে ঈশ্বর আপনার সাথে সরাসরি কথা বলছেন, আপনি উত্থিত এবং নবায়ন বোধ করবেন। প্রতিটি অধ্যায় অন্তর্দৃষ্টি, দোয়া এবং পূর্ণ। একটি মহান নির্বাচন"

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