Silent Lessons

When a Forgotten Book Found Me

There are moments in life when you feel as if the universe is quietly nudging you toward something you had ignored for too long. For me, that nudge came in the shape of a thin, dust-covered book sitting silently on my family’s bookshelf—Ya Khuda by Qudratullah Shahab.

I had walked past it for years. Its plain cover never called out to me, its heavy title sounded too serious, too old-fashioned. I told myself, “One day, maybe when I’m older, I’ll read it.” And like so many promises we make to ourselves, I forgot about it.

But books, I’ve learned, have a strange way of waiting.

A Life in Limbo

It was in Islamabad that the book finally found me again. I was restless, struggling with money, torn between dreams of working abroad and the heavy reality of not knowing where to begin. Life felt like a waiting room with no doors, only clocks ticking too loudly.

Every day was a mix of longing and frustration. I missed my family, I missed certainty, and I missed the comfort of believing that my future was clear.

Then one quiet night, searching for something—anything—that could lift the weight inside me, my eyes landed on that forgotten book. Ya Khuda.

The First Page Felt Like a Mirror

I opened it halfheartedly, expecting old-fashioned moral lessons. Instead, the words hit me like lightning. Shahab Sahib was not just writing; he was confessing, questioning, struggling—just like me.

“Faith,” he seemed to say between the lines, “is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to move forward despite it.”

I paused. My heart beat faster. It was as if the book had been waiting for this exact night, this exact version of me, to reveal its voice.

When Words Become Companions

As I read further, something shifted. The loneliness in my room didn’t feel as sharp anymore. Shahab Sahib’s reflections on human weakness, divine wisdom, and the hidden patterns of destiny made me realize that my confusion wasn’t unique—it was human.

“Some books are not meant to entertain you,” I wrote in my journal that night. “They are meant to heal you.”

That healing didn’t come in answers, but in questions. Questions that echoed my own:

• Why do we suffer?
• Why does patience feel endless?
• How do we balance between effort and surrender?

Instead of preaching, Ya Khuda whispered back: You are not alone in asking these things.

A Conversation Across Time

I began to see the book less as literature and more as conversation. A dialogue across decades, between a man who had wrestled with faith in his time and me wrestling with it in mine.

At one point, I underlined a sentence that I still carry with me:

“Life is not about control—it is about trust. The pen has never been in your hand, only the courage to keep turning the page.”

That one line felt like a seed planted inside me. I realized that my struggle with money, my longing to travel, my fear of not being “enough” were not proof of failure—they were chapters. And chapters, by their nature, always lead somewhere.

A Different Kind of Patience

The Arabic word Sabr—patience—had always sounded passive to me. Wait. Endure. Be quiet. But through Shahab Sahib’s words, I discovered another meaning.

“Patience is not silence,” I wrote again. “It is the quiet strength of believing that Allah has not forgotten you.”

That sentence became my anchor. I began waking up with a different kind of hope—not that life would suddenly become easy, but that it was still unfolding with purpose I couldn’t yet see.

The Book’s New Place

Today, Ya Khuda no longer sits in a dusty corner. It has a special place on my shelf, visible, waiting for me whenever the weight returns. I know I will not read it just once; it is the kind of book that grows as you grow, offering new reflections every time.

And now I understand something powerful:

“Some books are not chosen by us. They choose us when we are finally ready to listen.”

Final Reflection

When I think back to that restless night in Islamabad, I don’t just remember opening a book. I remember opening a door. A door into patience, into trust, into a faith that doesn’t erase struggle but makes it meaningful.

And maybe that’s what Ya Khuda is truly about—not the answers it gives, but the way it reminds you that you are never forgotten, never abandoned, and never too late to begin again.

So if there is a forgotten book on your shelf, don’t dismiss it. Don’t assume it belongs to another time, another age. Pick it up. Turn the page. Who knows? It may be the very book that has been waiting for you all along.