Hamza Majeed Khan
Jul 20, 2017 · 6 min read

‘You, Stand up!’, he heard a voice.

He looked up and found a finger pointing towards his direction and a class full of people staring at him. Reluctantly, he got up.

‘Yes, ma’am?’ he asked.

‘Tell us about the aim of your life?’ she asked back.

“Uh, my what?” he said with hesitation.

‘Your aim of life?’ she repeated.

‘My aim of life, now that’s a simple question. I can answer that easily.’, He thought and then looked at his watch impulsively, it was 10:59.

‘Uh, my aim in life is…’

He then stopped suddenly. He was confused. “What is my aim in life?” He had no idea. Seconds passed, everyone started staring at him. His mind was starting to panic. The air started to get tense while he just stood there, speechless.

‘Don’t you have any aims at all?’ teacher said, with a hint of sarcasm.

‘Give me a minute!’ he screamed, inside his head.

She then proceeded to make a joke and he heard people laughing but he was not listening to them. Instead, he was thinking. ‘It’s been a long time since someone asked me what my aim in life is.’

He remembered when he was young and people used to ask him about his future and he simply used to say ‘I’ll be an astronaut, or a doctor.’ and people adored him but now several years later when he was all grown up and the reality finally settled in, he was speechless. He was changed. He saw so many things and so many places. He was still studying, trying hard to get his degree, he had a good academic record, social and communication skills yet it did not give him any kind of satisfaction.

This was not his aim. This was not him.


‘Why am I here?’ he was thinking hard. ‘To make money and fortune?’ ‘No.’ ‘To listen to music and watch movies?’ ‘No.’ ‘To get this degree and work 20 years behind some old desk doing the same things?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then there must be some reason for my being. Let’s think about this.’

His mind started wandering. He had a feeling inside his head, that he knew he had the answer to the secret. It was buried somewhere beneath all the memories he made over the years. Therefore, he started unfolding those memories, one by one, randomly going through years of his life but he knew what he was looking for was something basic, beneath all the complicated and science stuff but he found nothing. He tried repeatedly but all he could found was useless stuff. Hopeless, he was about to give up when all the chatter around him stopped and his world started fading. Then it all turned to black.

He was not in the classroom anymore.


He found himself in a room, sitting in darkness with only one source of illumination, a rusty light bulb. ‘What memory is this? I do not remember being here. It’s just my imagination.’ he thought and started scanning the room. There was something carved on the wall of the room but he could not see it clearly. He rose up from what seemed like a chair and moved closer to the wall where he could see what’s written on the wall. He could see the word now, which read ‘Nijat’. He knew what it meant. ‘Who wrote that? It’s not a memory. Why am I in this room? Am I getting closer to finding out the mystery?’ That word triggered something inside of him. Anxiously, he started looking around when he found a crumbled piece of paper in the corner of the room, lying on the floor. He picked it up and unfolded it. Written on the crumbled page in his own handwriting was this,

‘Why did Edison made the light bulb? What made Graham Bell make a telephone? They say we humans used to live in caves but then we made things, which changed our whole lives, and the way we lived. Why did we make those things and millions of other things we use every day?’, then there was a big question mark doodled beneath it. He remembered writing it but he never figured out the answer.

Instantly, the room became more illuminated. He could see everything, which was in the room. A phone, a chair, a table and to his relief, a door. Now he knew he could leave anytime he wanted. He got up and just when he was about to exit through the door, a bolt of raw adrenaline shot through his veins.

‘I get it! I get it now’, he shouted. ‘We made them to serve us! Yes, that’s right. We made all of these things to serve us.’ He could feel he was getting closer. He was filled with anticipation.

‘I need to get out’, he said and opened the door.


He was standing in an empty hallway with rooms on either sides. It looked like it was abandoned decades ago. Inside the rooms, walls were decorated with various handmade drawings and quotes from famous people. Toys were scattered on the floor all over. There was no light, except the daylight peeking in through the windows in the rooms. It all felt very familiar yet very distant. He started walking; there was a room on the far right, which seemed to have some people in because he could see the shadows made on the hallway floor. He could hear someone speaking inside the room too.

‘Time to get some answers.’ he thought.

When he got to the room, he figured out why it all seemed so familiar. It was his own classroom from when he was little. He recognized some familiar faces, some long forgotten friends and acquaintances. He could even see his younger self, sitting there, taking notes, with bright eyes and full of motivation. All of which was lost now. It made him happy. It felt like home. He turned his attention towards the teacher, who was saying, ‘Beta, God gave us light, which helps us to find our way. At night, we have stars for navigation. Allah even gave animals specific systems by which they navigate, as birds can know beforehand the weather, whales migrate by reading the earth’s magnetic fields. Fish sense distant movements through pressure receptors that line their bodies. Bats and blind river dolphins sense by sonar. Certain marine organisms generate magnetic fields, allowing them to see in muddy waters, or in the blackness of ocean depths. Plants sense sunlight, grow towards it while their roots sense gravity, and grow into the earth. In short, God has gifted every element of his creation with guidance.’ Allah says in Quran “And I did not create the jinn and humankind except to worship Me”.
[Quran 51:56–58]

‘See? Everything you do in this life, make sure you do it for the pleasure of Allah.’ the teacher said.

‘A person can turn everyday activities into acts of worship by purifying his or her intention and sincerely seeking God’s pleasure through these activities.’ Prophet Muhammad SAW said “Greeting a person is charity. Acting justly is charity. Helping a man with his steed is charity. A good word is charity. Every step taken on the way to performing prayers is charity. Removing an obstacle from the road is charity.”

He then continued, ‘God should be worshiped in times of hardship and times of prosperity and only through his remembrance can the human being find inner peace and Salvation. This is our Nijat.’

For the first time in a very long time, he smiled. It was all so simple.

‘I know what my aim in life is.’ he said with assurance.

‘I know what I’m going t — ’

The school bell rang. It felt like something grabbed him and dragged him through multiple dimensions with the speed of light. In a split second, he was back in the classroom and everybody was still looking at him. He glanced at his watch again. It was 11:00. Lecture was over.

He looked at the teacher. ‘You really need to figure out what you’re going to do, son.’ she said while leaving the room.

He smiled and sat down. ‘Not anymore.’ he said.

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Hamza Majeed Khan

Written by

Dislikes poetry but loves poetic justice.

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