A sheet of paper, folded wrong, tries to find its way back to flat.Some creases don't come out. Some corners are stubborn. A short meditation on repentance, self-deception, and the one fold we don't want to give up.Quote adapted from Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.🌐 Read the piece here✉️ See Soulward in your inbox🎧 Also on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and AudibleWonder to The One | Stories, reflections, and meditations for souls finding their way back to The One. Soulward is a publication that explores Islamic faith, wonder, and the inner life through fiction, essays, and nature writing. | R. Ward

A boy forages at golden hour, reads his sundial, and follows his horse to a river, before entering an audience with the King.

A tale of presence, and what it means to arrive.

Originally published on thesoulward.com

A Muslim content creator in a Japanese coffee shop, a Quranic verse on a loop, and a question that changes how he understands every piece of content he has ever made.

Read the full post here: thesoulward.com

Some pens are restored, and some are replaced, and this fountain pen struggles to write.

This is what it dreamed the night it was restored.

A literary mind palace, forged through running with "talking books" on a Walkman, overlays the local national park.

This is a story of a quest to find the greatest audiobook.

On a night when they were just meant to take the bins out, they are taken to the middle of nowhere.

A story about stars, the One who made them, and what it means that He arranged the entire night sky with you in mind. An Islamic reflection on the signs of Allah in the cosmos.

A visit to a sensory deprivation tank becomes a rehearsal for the grave.

A meditation on death, regret, and what it means to still be alive as a Muslim.

Light, unlike darkness, is singular in the Qur’an. Using the language of astrophysics, this piece explores the soul’s velocity: The lightshift of turning back, and the darkshift of drifting away.

An Islamic exploration of spiritual light, and the heart’s journey back to Allah, wrapped in fiction.