The girl who loved history and chose the future.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu,

If you'd like to hear this chapter read aloud in my voice, the audio is just below. You can listen while you read, or set the letter down
and simply listen. Either way, I hope it finds you well.

Welcome back to From the Nest.

These letters, ‘Chapters of Rising’, are arriving slowly, one Sunday at a time. And slowly is the right pace. Some things need a week to settle before the next one can begin.

Last week, we talked about rooms that don't choose you. About the girl who showed up anyway, and what it cost her, and what it eventually taught her. JazakAllah khayr for the replies that came. Several of you wrote to say, “I’ve been in that room.” I know you have. So have I. So have most of us, quietly.

This week, we go somewhere different. A little lighter, but not less important.

This week, I want to talk about a decision.

I loved history.

I mean loved it the way some people love a home they can't explain, a feeling of recognition, of belonging, of roots. Ancient civilisations. Forgotten empires. The years, the events, the patterns that repeat themselves across centuries, if you know how to look. I could remember dates and dynasties the way other people remember names and phone numbers back in the day. History felt like nostalgia for a world I had never lived in, but somehow still knew.

So naturally, when I was eighteen and choosing what to study in graduation, I chose computer science.

People thought I had lost my mind.

And maybe in the conventional sense, I had. History was where I thrived. But there was something I had begun to feel quite persistently, like a thought that won't let you sleep, and I needed to try to put it into words, because this feeling became the foundation of everything I have built since.

I believed in something.

I believed that Muslims should not only consume the digital era, but they should also build it.

Here is where I want to be careful, because this belief was not born from ambition. It was not a career strategy. It was not me looking at a job market and calculating my odds.

It was niyyah - the intention.
And I want to sit with this word for a moment, because it deserves more than a passing mention.

This hadith, the first in Sahih al-Bukhari, is considered one of the foundational pillars of Islamic knowledge. Imam al-Shafi'i said it constitutes a third of the entire knowledge of the deen.

What it tells us is precise and profound: your reward is measured by your intention. The same action, done by two people, carries entirely different weight in the sight of Allah depending on what each person intended by it. Niyyah is not just a formality before worship; it is the orientation of your heart when you take a step. It is the why behind the what.

I did not fully understand this at eighteen. But I was trying to live it.

The adjustment was hard. I will not pretend otherwise. Mathematics and I had a complicated relationship; I was good at it and, at the same time, resistant to it, the way you can be good at something that doesn't feel like yours yet. In my first year, despite being strong at maths, I failed in geometry😭. I had to sit with that. Take the studies seriously again😶 . Pick myself back up.

But I never stopped. And I never lost the thread of why I was there.

That’s why ‘that niyyah’ held me when the subject itself didn't.

There is something important in this that I want you to carry with you. Because I have met so many women who are extraordinarily capable, deeply motivated, and still somehow struggling to stay consistent. They start things and leave them. They have goals but lose momentum. They push hard for a few weeks and then collapse back to where they began.

And often, not always, but often, the missing piece is not discipline.

It is direction. The absence of a why that is deep enough to hold them when the how gets hard.
A niyyah that hasn't been named clearly, hasn't been placed before Allah, hasn't been returned to when things get difficult.

I finished my graduation. Then I went further. I joined my master's program, and this time, I made another deliberate choice. I chose to specialise in cybersecurity and digital forensics.

Again, not because it was the obvious path. Because I believed something.

I believed that the Muslim community, my community, was digitally vulnerable in ways nobody was talking about. I believed that protecting data, protecting identity, protecting the information we carry in our hands and share across our screens, is not just a technical matter. It is an ethical one. It is, as I would later come to understand, an amanah. A trust we owe ourselves, our families, and each other.

I didn't have the word for it yet. But the intention was already there. Already shaping my choices. Already pointing me somewhere specific.

This is what I want you to understand about niyyah: it is not always loud or fully formed when you begin. Sometimes it is quiet. A pull. A persistent sense that something matters, even when you can't yet articulate why. And when you name it, when you hold it consciously before Allah, it becomes something more than motivation. It becomes a source of barakah in the effort itself, whatever the outcome turns out to be.

I published three research papers. I presented my work at international conferences. My mentors told me, gently and sincerely, that in two years of my master's, I had done what most people do in two and a half years of a PhD.

On paper, this looked like proof. Proof that the intention had borne fruit.

And I am grateful. Deeply, sincerely, alhamdulillah grateful.

But here is what I also understand now, which I couldn't fully see then: the rightness of a choice rooted in sincere niyyah is not confirmed by its outcomes. It was right when I made it, because the intention was honest, God-conscious, and placed before anything else. The fruit that came was a gift, not a validation. Alhamdulillah was the correct response even before the papers were published. Even before the conferences. Even after failing in geometry in my first year of graduation, I had to rebuild.

Because, and this is what this hadith teaches us, quietly and deeply, what Allah sees first is the heart. What He weighs first is the intention. The person who moves toward something for His sake, with sincerity, has already received something from Allah that the outcome alone cannot give.

That is a different way of living. And it takes time to learn.

I'm sharing this with you today not as a success story. I want to be clear about that.

Because what comes after these accomplishments, which comes next Sunday, is harder and necessary. The crash is part of this story, too, and I will not skip it.

I'm sharing this today because I want to plant something. A question. A small seed to sit with before next Sunday arrives.

Because what this journey has been slowly teaching me, and what I am still learning, is that niyyah is not a one-time declaration. It is a practice. A daily return. A moment, before the schedule, before the to-do list, before the first task of the day, where you pause and hold your why before Allah.

That returning, that small, consistent act of intention-setting, is not preparation for your day. It may be the most important thing in it.

You will hear more about this later. I promise.

A small gift before you go; the reflection, the action, and something to carry with you are yours this week as a gift card. Download it below.

And one more thing: Is there a room you've been trying to earn that was never yours to earn? You don't have to say much; you can reply via email or comment below with what you want to say.

Until next Sunday,

Aiman Hafeez

The Rising Nest · A sanctuary for growth, protection, and clarity.