دار محمد Daar Muhammed

It is a wonderful experience to transform from being an object into becoming a human being. It is a wonderful feeling to reach a point where you have little to lose, and to walk free of the invisible and indescribable net that once held you down with such tyrannical force. Recently, as I concluded a deeni course with other sisters, we sat in a small circle with coffee, chatting. One of the sisters turned to me and said, أحبّك في الله. Following the Sunnah when you love your fellow Muslim, she expressed her love for the sake of Allah. I stopped her immediately and gave the proper response because such pure, clear love is not something one hears every day. It made me so happy. It brought many things back into my mind, and I still think about that moment for all it brought back. It reminded me of how I now receive love and how differently I feel about the joyful gifts Allah gives.

Today’s post is about that journey; the journey from being an object to becoming a human being. It is a journey very familiar to anyone who has faced dhulm from their own: from those intimate relationships that were supposed to be your safety nets, the ones you clung to when the outside world seemed frightening and rough.

Only later do you realize that those nets were scarier than the world outside.

Only later do you realize that those nets were scarier than the world outside.

Your existence was fodder. Agency was unheard of. Individuality unheard of. And you picked yourself up from there, usually submissively, believing that this was simply the way life was. Escalations, ridicule, mockery — they hurt, but you held on to your own objectification because it was the only model of being you knew. Your young mind couldn’t imagine any other way. This was the only way shown to you.

You saw everything. You also heard of many things, just around you, never for you. But that was fine until it was not. Eventually, something breaks through.

Insan (the human being) is a wonderful creation built in the best form. An Insan with even a little knowledge of the Book of Allah becomes phenomenal. I still find it ironic how some dysfunctional families send their less-desired children to madrasahs, not realizing that this very path becomes the key to freedom and hikmah; the opening Allah grants to see through any dysfunction.

The fitra Allah instilled in you from the beginning, together with the gifts of your nervous system and firasa (instinct) as a believer, are powerful. They work for you, not against you. And they work to protect you, strengthen you, and return you to well-being.

Every abused Insan has a personalised journey. While the broad experience of objectification is similar across stories, the finer details, especially the destination, differ greatly. These depend on one’s iman, trust, and hope in Allah, and the strength with which one engages each phase of release and realization.

To become human again is essentially what the Prophet ﷺ brought from the heavens: to become Insan Kamil, as one is meant to be: free, honourable, and pure. Purified from the dirt that veils the heart from the Glory of Allah and from the qualities that obstruct the fulfilment of Kamalul Ubudiyyah, the fullness of worship.

The incompetence created through childhood dehumanisation is not natural; it is a form of slavery that diverts a person away from complete submission to Allah and redirects that fear, respect, and obedience toward another human being. The verse وإيّاي فارهبون : “And fear Me alone”, cuts straight through this. So, the journey from being an object to becoming a whole human being is one to savour and rejoice in. It teaches you what a human being truly is, what normal looks like, and how to gradually adopt it into your life.

There are frightening moments when you release yourself from passivity — when you go from being driven by others’ whims to being a person with agency and choice. Yet, it is an incredible experience of a slow step-by-step journey guided by the Almighty, enveloped in His Mercy and basking in the chance to see, feel, and be a whole and a wholesome human being. Freedom, agency, choice, and self-respect may feel new, strange, and even painful, but eventually, they become beautiful, like a child learning to walk. You learn to walk and speak. To try and win. Or try and not win. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you finally get to try.

To execute ideas. To feel your own presence. To be a whole human being with a full human experience: autonomy and freedom, creativity and joy, effort, rest, and Rahmah (Mercy from above).