*Chapter 5 — Warning from Mentor*
The mosque courtyard was quiet in the late afternoon, the shadows stretching across the tiled floor. Children’s laughter still echoed faintly from the classrooms, but most of them had gone home. Leilani sat with her back against a pillar, knees hugged to her chest, her hijab a little loose from the day’s heat. She had come here to find silence, but instead she found Ustaz Hamid watching her with his gentle, knowing eyes. “Your heart is heavy,” he said, not as a question, but as a fact.
Leilani lowered her gaze. She had not confessed everything, not in detail. Yet somehow, Ustaz always seemed to sense what weighed her down. He didn’t pry; he simply waited, giving her space to speak—or not speak. Finally, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, she admitted, “Sometimes I feel like I’m failing Allah… even in secret.”
The Ustaz leaned back, fingers tracing the prayer beads in his hand. “Do you know what our beloved Prophetο·Ί told us?” His voice was calm, steady. “‘Beware of minor sins, for they gather upon a man until they destroy him.’”
Leilani’s chest tightened. Minor sins. Small things. A hidden message. A careless glance. A habit no one else could see. Her eyes stung. Ustaz continued softly, “Every heart has a door, Leilani. What you let in now may never leave. A small crack may seem harmless, but if left unguarded, it can widen until the whole door is open. Shaytan does not ask you to run at once—he only asks you to step.”
The words settled on her like a weight of truth. She thought of her phone, of the secrecy, of how each choice had felt small in the moment. Yet each one had brought her
closer to regret. She finally whispered, “But Ustaz, sometimes I try and fail again. I don’t want to be a
hypocrite.”
A smile touched his lips, not mocking, but full of compassion. “The hypocrite is the one who sins and does not care, who feels no guilt, who does not return to Allah. But you, Leilani—you cry, you regret, you keep asking Allah for forgiveness. That is not hypocrisy.
That is iman fighting within you. Do you not know that Allah loves those who repent over and over?” Her eyes blurred with tears. Relief, small but real, loosened the knot in her throat.
Ustaz Hamid raised a finger, as if pointing to something unseen. “Guard your heart, my daughter. Every sin leaves a black dot on it. If you rush to seek forgiveness, the heart is polished clean again. But if you delay, those dots can spread until the heart grows dark.
Do not let that happen. Keep polishing it with dhikr, salah, and tawbah. Keep the door locked to what harms you, and open it wide to what brings you close to Allah.”
Leilani nodded slowly, feeling as if a lantern had been lit in the dim corridors of her soul.
She wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t immune. But she was not lost, either. As she left the mosque that day, the words echoed in her: Every heart has a door. What you let in now may never leave.
She walked home with firmer steps, her hijab wrapped tighter, her phone resting heavier in her pocket. The battle was not over, but she had been warned—and warnings, when remembered, can become shields.
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