In trying to maintain my focus in salaah, I often find myself trying to picture myself standing directly in front of Allah. But given my lack of knowledge regarding what image should be conjured in my mind from such a thought, I’m left with a feeling that me, being a minuscule molecule on a dust ball in the middle of a universe that teems with magnificence well beyond our arrogant imaginations, am not able to present myself before Allah, but only to Allah; whilst Allah, in His infinite grandeur and majesty, is greater than what we can grasp of this universe while others debate what His true form is. Since this universe is part of the created, how much greater must the Creator be?

I consider the scale of creation that allows me to observe the tiniest known particles of creation, and then I consider how much unimaginably greater the scale must be between me and Allah. My nafs will always prevent me from grasping the true meekness of my existence, yet despite this, I have the promise of bliss that even the most elaborate of imaginations will fail to grasp.

I’m often reminded of the description of just the dust of Jannah the beauty of which will leave us standing and marvelling at it for 40 years. That’s just the dust. I cannot imagine myself beholding a piece of dust with such amazement that I would be entranced by it for 40 earthly years, let alone 40 heavenly ones. How futile must it be then to attempt to contemplate the beauty of Jannah or the magnificence of Allah?