Maryam Ali Facebook ad: “Read this if you're trying to be closer to Allah”

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I caught my son faking his prayer last Wednesday and I didn't say anything because I realized I've been doing the same thing for twenty years. He was in his room after Maghrib. Door half open. I was walking past to get my phone charger and I saw him. He was standing there, hands folded, mouth moving. But fast. Way too fast. Like he was trying to get through it the way he gets through his math homework when his Xbox is waiting. I stood there watching for maybe ten seconds. He did ruku. Came back up. Went into sujood. Back up. Done. The whole thing took maybe ninety seconds. There's no way he said everything he was supposed to say. I almost said something. I almost walked in and told him to slow down, do it properly, say the words the right way. But then I thought about it. What words? He doesn't know what any of them mean. I don't know what most of them mean. I've been praying five times a day since I was ten years old and if you put a gun to my head right now and asked me to explain what I say when I'm in sujood, I couldn't do it. Not really. I know "Subhana Rabbiyal A'la" means something like "Glory to my Lord, the Most High." But what does that actually mean? Why do I say it specifically when my face is on the ground? What's the connection? I've got nothing. So I walked past his room and didn't say a word. Because how do you correct your kid for rushing through something that you've been sleepwalking through for two decades? That was last week and it's been eating at me since. It's not just the prayer thing. It's everything. Three weeks ago he had a friend over. Kid named Marcus. Not Muslim. They were playing FIFA in the living room and the Adhan went off on my phone. My son got up and said "I gotta go pray real quick." Marcus asked him what prayer is. My son said "It's like, we talk to God." Marcus said "What do you say to Him?" My son paused. Looked at me across the room like he was waiting for me to jump in. I pretended I didn't hear. Because I didn't have an answer either. He told Marcus "Just like, praise and stuff" and went to his room. That's what we've reduced salah to. "Just like, praise and stuff." And the worst part is, he's not wrong. That's basically as deep as my understanding goes too. I grew up going to the masjid every Sunday. Quran classes from seven to twelve. Tajweed. Memorization. The whole thing. I can recite Surah Yaseen from memory. My pronunciation is perfect. My teacher used to hold me up as an example. And I couldn't explain a single ayah to save my life. The whole time I was learning how to say the words right, nobody ever told me what the words meant. Now I'm doing the exact same thing with my son. Sending him to the same kind of classes. Making sure his tajweed is right. Checking that he finishes his homework. Getting frustrated when he procrastinates with wudu for twenty minutes. But never once sitting down and explaining what any of it actually means. And he's starting to check out. I can see it. He used to come home from Quran class and show me what he learned. Now he comes home and goes straight to his room. Doesn't mention it. If I ask how it went, I get "fine." During Jumm'ah last month, he asked me if we could leave early. I said no. He spent the rest of the khutbah on his phone under his thobe. I took his phone away in the car. We got into an argument. He said "Why do I even have to go if I don't understand anything they're saying?" I told him it's fard. He said "What's the point of something being mandatory if it doesn't make sense?" I told him to watch his tone. But he had a point. What is the point? My cousin's kid stopped going to the masjid completely when he turned fifteen. Told his dad he didn't see the reason. My cousin tried the guilt thing, the lectures, the threats. Nothing worked. Kid's nineteen now and doesn't pray at all. My cousin doesn't talk about it anymore. That's where this goes. I'm not stupid. I can see the pattern. Kid doesn't understand what he's doing. Kid loses interest. Kid gets older and starts choosing. Kid walks away. I've been watching it happen to families around me for years and acting like it won't happen to mine. About six weeks ago, I tried to fix it myself. I downloaded one of those Quran apps with the English translation. Used it for maybe four days. The problem is it's on the same phone where I've got WhatsApp and work emails and everything else. I'd open it, see a notification, and get pulled away. Never made it through a full page without getting distracted. Then I tried YouTube. Found some scholar explaining Surah Ar-Rahman. It was good. Really good. So I watched another one. And another one. Ended up watching about twelve videos in a week and a half. But here's the thing. None of it stuck. I couldn't remember which scholar said what about which Surah. I couldn't connect any of it to what I actually say in prayer. It was like studying for an exam that doesn't exist. After two weeks I stopped. Deleted the bookmarks. Went back to doing what I always do. Pray on autopilot. Hope for the best. Feel guilty about it. I was starting to accept that maybe this is just how it is for people like me. I work at a warehouse. I'm pulling fifty-five hour weeks. I've got two kids and rent that keeps going up. I don't have time to enroll in some Arabic course or sit through hours of lectures. I figured I'd just keep doing what my dad did. Show up. Recite. Don't ask questions. Then about a month ago, a brother I know from work mentioned something in the break room. We were eating lunch. He was reading something that didn't look like a regular Quran. Smaller. Colorful. Had sections and diagrams inside. I asked him what it was. He said it was called Avelyn The Quran Journey. He said his wife got it for him after he told her he felt like a fraud every time their daughter asked him about a verse and he couldn't explain it. His words. "Felt like a fraud." That hit me because that's exactly what I feel like. He said it wasn't a translation. It was more like a study guide. Each Surah has context first. Why it was revealed. What the main point is. Then the verses in plain English that actually reads well. And reflection questions after. He said the thing that changed it for him was understanding Al Fatiha. The one we say seventeen times a day. He said when you realize that "Ihdinas siratal mustaqeem" isn't just asking Allah to show you the right path but actually asking Him to keep you on it, to guide you through it every single day because you can't do it on your own, it changes how you stand in prayer. I thought about that the whole drive home. That night I ordered it. When it came, I didn't do anything fancy. Just opened it after Isha and went to Al Fatiha. Read through the context. The breakdown. What each line actually means and why it's structured the way it is. And something shifted. Not some big spiritual awakening. Just. I understood what I was going to say the next morning in Fajr. For the first time in maybe twenty years. The next morning when I got to that verse, I paused. Just for a second. And I actually thought about what I was saying. That was it. But that was more than I'd felt in prayer in years. That Saturday, I called my son into the living room. He came in looking like he was in trouble. "Sit down," I said. I opened it to Surah Al Ikhlas. The one he's known since he was little. "Tell me what this Surah is about," I said. He shrugged. "Allah is one." "Yeah but do you know why it was revealed?" He didn't. So I read him the background. About how people came to the Prophet and asked him to describe Allah. And this was the answer. Four verses explaining everything you need to know about who Allah is and what makes Him different from anything else. We went through it together. When we finished, he looked at me and said, "So that's basically the whole argument against the Trinity in four lines?" I looked at him. "Yeah," I said. "Basically." He nodded. "That's actually cool." Then he went back to his room. He didn't become a different person. He didn't suddenly love going to the masjid. But something clicked. He understood something he'd been reciting for years without thinking about it. Last Friday during Taraweeh, he leaned over to me and whispered, "That's Surah Mulk. The one that protects you in the grave. We read about that." I just looked at him. He'd been paying attention. He'd been thinking about it on his own. That's all I wanted. I'm not going to sit here and say I've got it all figured out. I don't. There are still Surahs I don't understand. There are still prayers where my head is somewhere else. But I'm not faking it anymore. And neither is my son. If you've ever watched your kid rush through prayer and known you couldn't say anything because you do the same thing, if you've ever been put on the spot by your own child asking you what a verse means and had to change the subject, if you're starting to see your kid lose interest and you're worried about where it's heading, you're not the only one dealing with this. And it's not too late to figure it out together.

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Read this if you're trying to be closer to Allah👆

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