We had already left school. We were already building a life outside the path we had been told to follow. By the time Covid-19 arrived and lockdown came in March 2020 — when the world was forced suddenly indoors and the word unprecedented became the sound of every broadcast — home education was not new to us. The world was only just beginning to experience something we had already been living for a long time.
Isolation. Uncertainty. The shrinking of life.
And I found myself wondering something very simple. What vibration do I want us to live inside? Not what curriculum. Not what outcomes. Not what beliefs. What atmosphere? What quality of relationship? What kind of home?
I didn’t set out to teach religion. I set out to find ways of being in awe and worship that connected us to heart and soul.
Together, my son — then nine — and I learned four short prayers: Surah Al-Fatiha from Islam, a Mul Mantar from the Sikh tradition, the Gayatri Mantra from Hinduism, and the Lord’s Prayer from Christianity.
I chose these because they reflected his heritage. His father is Hindu, carrying the Singh surname. My own faith sits within Islam. And England — the place we call home — carries its own spiritual story too.
I drew from this richness deliberately. Not as a crisis measure. Not as a temporary accommodation. As a theological position.
Every prayer I chose was pointing at the same reality. The names differed. The languages differed. The ritual forms differed. But underneath every one of them was the same cry — the soul reaching toward its source.
My son carries Hindu blood and Muslim faith and English soil in his bones. To honour only one stream of that inheritance would be to tell him that part of what he is made of is sacred and part is not. I refuse that.
The Sufi tradition I work within has always understood that the ocean is larger than any single river’s name for it. Hazrat Inayat Khan taught that the soul which has found its way to God has found its way home — regardless of which door it came through.
I am not confused about my own faith. I am clear about my son’s inheritance. Both can be true simultaneously.
As more is written about DNA, inheritance, and even trauma being passed down, I’ve come to appreciate how deeply ancestry matters in spiritual evolution. Gratitude for those who came before us creates continuity.
I feel my ancestors — from Pakistan, from India, from the lands of Persia where the Sufi tradition first flowered and then travelled — through the mountains, through the trade routes, through the hearts of poets and saints — until it reached the soil of the subcontinent and took root there too.
And I feel the ancestors of this English earth. The hands that worked this land through autumn harvests long before anyone named what they were doing. The tradition of gathering and gratitude that runs through every culture that has ever watched the seasons turn.
When I make pumpkin pie each autumn I feel all of them. Pakistani hands. Indian hands. Persian hands. English hands. Generations layered into a single act. Wholesome. Loving. Full of awe.
We approached the prayers in that same spirit — as sound, as rhythm, as language. We played with pronunciation. We noticed how each prayer felt in the body. In the mornings we recited them until one flowed into the next, until effort dissolved and what remained was vibration rather than words.
There was no expectation of belief. No pressure to remember. No hierarchy of truth.
Life eventually became busy again. Disruption returned. The routines fell away.
And then something unexpected happened. Whenever my son became anxious, he would start reciting one of the prayers. At first it was loud. Unselfconscious. It did not matter who was around. He would hold onto the words as though they were a rope. A rhythm. Something solid beneath his feet.
He didn’t announce it. He didn’t explain it. He simply began using it when he needed steadiness — when anxiety rose, when something felt too much.
The others faded. He forgot them. And that was fine.
I had to work on myself to stay out of the way. Not to push. Not to favour one prayer over another. Not to turn something living into a lesson.
For a child like mine — who experiences demand as a threat to his very self — this wasn’t optional. It was the whole thing.
He chose.
And that choice, made freely, without anyone watching or waiting or hoping — that was the beginning. Not of doctrine. Of relationship.
Most parents who push their faith onto their children aren’t doing it out of cruelty. They’re doing what was done to them. What was done to the people before them. They were raised in fear — and fear is the water we all swim in. It’s the soup nobody chose but everyone inherited.
We teach children to be afraid of God. Afraid of getting it wrong. Afraid of what happens if they don’t comply. And then we wonder why so many of them leave — or stay, but only on the surface.
Nobody is teaching fearlessness. Nobody is showing children what it looks like to move toward the sacred because it is beautiful — not because something bad will happen if you don’t.
That’s what I wanted for my son. Not a faith built on fear. A faith built on the experience of being safe.
The Sufi tends the ground. The Punk refuses to poison it. Together they make something rare — a child who reaches toward the sacred as safe ground to lay roots.
Over the years the prayer seemed to disappear from view. At least on the surface. It was no longer recited aloud in the same way. No longer visible to everyone around him. And yet I realised it had not disappeared at all. It had gone underground. Taken root. It had become part of his inner landscape.
Today I see traces of it in unexpected places. In the journal he keeps by his bed. Sometimes there is a drawing. Sometimes a symbol from a game he loves. Sometimes a list of things he is grateful for. Sometimes a note to Allah.
Always his choice. Always his own relationship.
This matters because fascination is powerful. When my son becomes interested in something, he does not dip his toe into it. He enters it completely. Many neurodivergent people do. We do not simply learn about things. We live inside them.
This can become a tremendous source of learning, joy, identity, creativity, and connection. It can also make us vulnerable.
Because if a young person is searching for belonging, meaning, certainty, or purpose, they may attach themselves to whatever offers those things most convincingly. I know this because I have seen it in my own family. I have watched people become consumed by rigid ideas they believed would bring them closer to God. From the outside it looked like devotion. From the inside it was often something more complicated.
A search for certainty. A search for belonging. A search for answers. A search for a place to stand.
It taught me that faith without relationship can become dangerous. Not because devotion is dangerous. Because certainty can sometimes masquerade as devotion. Especially when a person is longing for meaning and connection.
This is one reason I care so deeply about stewardship.
Stewardship implies care without ownership. It means tending the ground, not forcing the seed. Not transmission, but invitation. Not certainty, but openness. Not projection, but presence. Not deciding what another person’s relationship with Allah should become. Simply tending the space where it has room to grow. Then trusting it to find its own roots.
This is why I am not in a hurry. A faith that grows from safe ground will find its own way toward practice — in its own time, in its own form. The outward rituals are not the beginning of the path. They are what the path grows toward.
There is a reason Hajj comes last. Not because it matters least — but because it means most when a soul arrives there having already made the inner journey. It cannot be rushed into. It cannot be performed into meaning. It is not a badge. It is not proof of closeness to God. It is what closeness to God eventually looks like from the outside — after a lifetime of tending the ground within.
Plant the roots in safety. The rest will come.
Turn to look at the world. This one is for every person who loves their child but cannot see the toxic soup they are both swimming in. And for the professionals who make it, enforce it, and call it normal.
Zawiya Discussion
The Wide Lens — Somatic, Intersectional & Systemic
Western parenting culture and mainstream religious education share a common assumption: that belief can be installed. That if truth is explained clearly enough, repeated often enough, or enforced firmly enough, faith will follow. Attachment theory and neurodivergent-affirming research tell us something different. Coercion damages the nervous system. It destroys the trust that authentic connection requires. For a child with a PDA profile, demand-heavy approaches to faith are not simply ineffective — they are experienced as an existential threat. The child who cannot be forced into compliance is not broken. They are showing us something important about the nature of genuine relationship. Faith that cannot survive without control was never really faith. It was performance.
There is also a darker edge to this. Neurodivergent minds that search intensely for meaning, certainty, and belonging are vulnerable to ideological capture — to rigid systems that offer the comfort of absolute answers. This is not a failure of intelligence. It is a feature of depth. The same intensity that makes a neurodivergent person capable of profound spiritual connection can, without the protection of relationship and safety, lead them toward systems that cause harm. Stewardship is not passive. It is a fierce, active protection of the conditions in which genuine faith can grow.
The Devotional Lens
Every tradition that has thought carefully about what it means to love someone well has arrived at the same understanding — that genuine care requires releasing the need to control the outcome. In Islamic tradition this understanding has a name: Amanah — sacred trust — which reminds us that we do not own the souls in our care. The Prophetic teaching of Rifq, gentleness, tells us that wherever gentleness enters something, it beautifies it. By honouring a child’s full heritage — Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity — and allowing him to choose freely, the practice described here mirrors this gentleness at its most radical. The prayer that became a somatic anchor was not planted by instruction. It was offered as an experience, held lightly, and allowed to take root in its own time and in its own way.
This is what it looks like when faith is treated as a living thing rather than a doctrine to be transferred. The Christian tradition calls it grace. The Sufi tradition calls it baraka — blessing that flows where it is not forced.
To tend the ground without owning the seed. To trust the Divine already in relationship with every soul in your care. That is not passive. That is the most beautiful form of love there is.
Questions
Are you trying to control the faith of those you love, or are you simply tending the soil where their relationship with the Divine can grow?
Where in your own spiritual life have you been searching for certainty when what you actually needed was relationship?
What would it look like to trust that the Divine is already in relationship with every soul in your care — independent of your performance as their guardian, teacher, or guide?