We didn’t inherit a faith. We inherited a Mystery.

Shireen Qudosi
13 min readApr 17, 2023

The game’s afoot. Faith as a puzzle worth solving.

Excerpt from The Song of the Human Heart: Dawn of the Dark Feminine in Islam. Available on Amazon.

The first revelation in Islam was in the cave, the eve of Islam’s holiest night called Laylat al-Qadr (Arabic for the Night of Power, sometimes called the Night of Destiny).What did Prophet Muhammad feel when he first received revelations from the angel Gabriel in the cave in Mount Hira (Jewel) also called The Jabal an-Nour (Mountain of Light or Hill of Illumination), near Mecca?

In the Quran, Laylat al-Qadr is one night that is said to hold more power than a thousand months. Laylat al-Qadr is the third sign of the non-linearity of time folding a thousand nights into one, the first being the non-linearity of the Quran’s unfolding, and the second is the story of Hijrah where God is moving us beyond human time.

The power of God is found in the dark, through the Dark, in the womb of the cave, in the Night, through the ether brought by solitude or dreams, or dreams in meditation as they may have come to Prophet Muhammad. What called to him from 2000 feet away, into the heart of a mountain that was to be illuminated with song, with spirit?

Everything in Islam is pointing to the Dark. There is an entire world out there that even in the brightness of day, is hidden and unseen as if it were in the dark to human consciousness. It must have been…

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Shireen Qudosi
Shireen Qudosi

Written by Shireen Qudosi

I write on faith, identity, and belonging, focusing closely on the sacred feminine and cultivating intimacy with the profane.