Multan's winter morning was foggy. A light mist had settled on the streets, and from somewhere far away, the faint sound of the Fajr prayer call was floating in the air. The birds were not fully awake yet, but the sound rising from the mosque's minaret was enough to awaken hearts.
In a mud-courtyard house in the same neighborhood, Fahad was fast asleep. The sound of the prayer call reached his ears, but he turned over and hid under the quilt again. In the courtyard, his old mother was sitting on her prayer mat. Her lips were moving, and tears were welling up in her eyes.
She said softly:
“Ya Allah! Guide my son.”
The walls of the house were silent… but the prayer had gone towards the sky.
-------
As the day dawned, the noise in the street increased. Children were going to school, cart vendors were calling out, and Fahad, laughing with a few of his friends, left the house. There was carelessness in his laughter, but also an unknown emptiness inside his heart—which he himself did not understand.
Prayer had disappeared from his life.
Nights passed aimlessly.
And sins… slowly became a habit.
When his mother sometimes advised him, he would dismiss it with laughter,
“Mother! It's youth now… I will repent in old age.”
His mother would fall silent.
Some silences speak more than words.
---
Time passed, the cold passed, and the heat settled in. One afternoon, the sun was very strong. Heat was rising from the asphalt of the road. Fahad was going out of the city on a motorcycle with his friends when suddenly a crowd of people appeared ahead.
The sharp sound of brakes…
Anxiety in the air…
Silence spread on the ground.
He went closer. A body wrapped in a white sheet was lying on the side of the road. Someone said in a low voice,
“There has been an accident… just breathed his last.”
Fahad lifted the corner of the sheet with trembling hands—
And the world stopped.
It was Hamza.
His childhood friend…
Gentle-natured…
Regular in prayer…
Always smiling Hamza.
As if an old voice echoed in Fahad's ears,
“Fahad… don't displease Allah… life has no guarantee.”
Today, that same Hamza was silent.
Forever.
The sun was still shining…
People were walking…
But something inside Fahad was broken and shattered.
---
The night became unusually long.
The stars in the sky were very bright… but there was darkness in his heart.
He lay on the roof, looking at Hamza's face… then the shroud… then the soil of the grave.
For the first time, he felt intensely—
Death comes suddenly… and man is left empty-handed.
Anxiety began to fill his chest.
Sleep fled from his eyes.
---
The cold air was blowing a little before dawn. The streets were deserted. The door of the mosque was half open, as if calling someone lost.
Fahad's feet involuntarily went inside.
The coolness of the ablution water went from his hands to his heart.
There was a strange peace in the silence of the mosque—a peace he had been searching for for years.
He opened the Quran.
His gaze fell on a verse:
*"O My servants… who have transgressed against their own souls… do not despair of the mercy of Allah."*
The words pierced his heart like arrows.
His eyes filled… then began to flow.
He fell into prostration.
*"Ya Allah! I am a sinner… I had gone very far… but I am not hopeless from Your door… forgive me… bring me back…"*
His sobs echoed in the silence of the mosque.
These tears were not weakness—
These were tears of return.
This was his best migration.
---
The days began to change.
The prayer call now began to awaken him.
The recitation of the Quran began to soften his heart.
After years, peace began to descend into his mother's eyes.
One evening, it was raining. The smell of earth was dissolved in the air. A few children were sitting in the courtyard of the mosque.
Hesitantly, they said:
*"Brother! Teach us to read the Quran."*
Fahad's heart filled.
Once he himself had lost his way…
Today he was becoming a lamp for someone.
He smiled,
*"Come… let's all learn together."*
Raindrops were dripping from the roof…
And a new life was being born.
---
*A few months later…*
The moonlit night had descended into the courtyard.
There was peace in the air.
His mother was reciting the rosary, and Fahad was sitting beside her.
She asked softly:
“Son! When did you get the greatest happiness?”
Fahad looked towards the sky.
Tears were shining in his eyes.
“Mother! When I turned from sins and came towards Allah… then I understood that the best migration in life is this.”
His mother's tears shone like pearls in the moonlight.
She raised her hands.
“Ya Allah! Never deprive us of Your mercy.”
---
The story does not end…
There is a path inside every heart—
From darkness to light…
From sins to virtue…
From despair to hope.
Just a sincere repentance…
A tearful prostration…
And the servant returns.
Because
*Allah is forgiving… and one should never despair of His mercy.*