✦ I Could Always Speak — But Not That Truth

How the Divine Names Awakened My Real Voice

"I had certainty, but I was trapped by a system that silenced true speech. It wasn’t until I lived the Divine Names that my real voice was awakened and freed."

People may think I’ve always known how to speak.

And it’s true — I could speak.
I could post.
I could write.
I could raise my voice for the downtrodden and global injustice, defend Palestine, stand up for causes that needed amplifying, speak for the voiceless and defend myself in situations of obvious and institutional oppression (such as the publishing company Greenpalm as documented in this blog).

But what I couldn’t do was this:

❌ Speak from the raw, sacred center of my own truth
❌ Defend myself without looking over my shoulder
❌ Say what I really felt when it went against power, authority, or accepted norms
❌ Break from what was “safe” or “sanctioned” and speak from what was real

Even when I greeted with As-salāmu ʿalaykum, I let clerics correct me —
not out of true learning, but out of fear that my voice, even in salam, wasn’t enough.
Only to later hear them repeat my exact phrasing, recorrected.

I absorbed others' tones.
See, what they possessed was not certainty — which I did have.
What they had was submission to a system.

When I look at the voiceless now, I see that sometimes they are not truly voiceless — but their energy is not their own when they speak in front of men.
Sometimes, women who are intelligent and educated by the system do speak — but I can still hear the timidity in a room filled mostly with men and only a few women.
We believe we are speaking up, but there is a veil we have grown so accustomed to that it muffles our true voice.

In platforms like Islamic Pulse, I let their voices live in mine —
not because I didn’t have one,
but because I wasn’t sure mine had permission to exist.

I waited to be sure.
I waited to be right.
I waited to not “rock the boat.”
And in the waiting, there was pain.

Yes — my patience eventually bore fruit.
Yes — Allah did unfold clarity, and He honored the restraint.

But that doesn’t erase the ache of those years.
The contortion of my expressions.
The strange feeling of watching myself perform someone else’s convictions.

---

✦ The Real Turning Point
It didn’t come through debates.
Or louder protests.
Or even gaining knowledge through books.

It came when Allah (swt) turned me toward His Names.

Not to memorize them.
But to inscribe them.
To live them.
To let them echo through every part of me — until they reshaped how I saw, felt, and spoke.

You cannot defend your soul until you know Who created it.
And you cannot speak from your core until your voice is rooted in His Names.

The Asma’ul Husna are not just attributes — they are keys.
They unlock the buried voice, the silenced self, the Divine trust that you’ve been carrying but never fully opened.

This is not advanced knowledge.
It is ancient.

It is as old as Nabi Adam (as), who was taught the Names.
As old as Nabi Idris (as), who wrote them.

We’ve forgotten them.
But they remember us.

And when you start calling them — really calling them —
you stop asking who gave you permission to speak.

Because the only One who could — already did.

Journal Reflection Prompt

• When have you felt silenced by systems or expectations despite having your own certainty?

• What does your authentic voice sound like beneath borrowed tones?

• How might connecting deeply with the Divine Names help you break free and speak your true self?