To Reassure My Heart

So That My Heart May Be Reassured

The novel unfolds on a bus making a daily journey from the countryside to the city. Each passenger has a journey of their own.

Maher and Hisham explore faith and atheism, doubt and certainty, through intellectual conversations about atheist objections, claims and responses.

Karim and Waad navigate love's complexity: its innocent, pure side and its selfish, tainted side. They discuss love at first sight, the difference between love and friendship, whether friendship becomes love and whether love can return to friendship, along with the many details of relationships.

Uncle Ahmed's experience of blindness shows how love can give life new meaning. He meets Shama, whose tenderness replaces the sunlight he cannot see, becoming the eyes he lost in childhood.

Aunt Amina, facing death from cancer, takes a journey of faith in which closeness to Allah brings reassurance.

Rayhan, unable to have children, seeks fulfilment of her longing for motherhood. Her story considers how loss shapes us and how what we lack can continue to hurt.

An obscure writer explores writing itself: what it is, how it works, and how to capture ideas and turn abstract thought into tangible literature.

"O Allah, grant sound judgement, acceptance and Your pleasure."