O Stranger in the Path of Allaah...

O stranger in the Path of Allaah,
As I watch you travel through the lands,
With every mountain you climb, highway you pass
With every path upon which you walk,
And rocky tract upon which you traverse,
I see that your desire for the One you seek,
Never diminishes in the least.

O stranger in the Path of Allaah,
This honourable path, which you have sought,
Has upon it, many trials.
And for every dream shattered, every tear shed,
For the deepest of depths and the roughest of roads,
Verily for you, O stranger, is a path out of every difficulty.

O stranger in the Path of Allaah,
Your journey upon this testing path continues,
But who said that the Paradise would be easy?
You live knowing that indeed
It is surrounded by hardships and trials.
Yet with every hardship comes a guarantee,
And with every ease perhaps a worry,
That maybe by weakness,
The path became diverted.
But verily, O stranger!
Allaah never forgets the earnest slave!

O stranger in the Path of Allaah,
Failed you never are by the glory of false recognition,
By the palaces of praise and mountains of desires.
Instead seeking to be a stranger still,
In the Path of Allaah.

O stranger in the Path of Allaah!
For you Allaah has prepared an abundant reward.
Amidst Gardens of Delight.
Wherein the stranger will no longer feel strangeness.
And for the times when you were deserted in this dunyaa,
Allaah will recompense every sadness felt,
Every hour of loneliness,
Every tear shed in that strange, isolated path.

For you there will no longer be detachment,
No longer feel the pain of being shut off from this world,
When Allaah will give back what is due.
And even better.
And on that Day,
Glad tidings to the strangers!
For upon the thorny paths they did walk
A few they were
But abundant in reward.

So do not be sad, O stranger in the Path of Allaah.
For indeed the Time will come
When it will be said, ‘O people of Jannah.
Here is the reward for what you used to do.'