“But What About…?” making the Hijra real
I get it. The idea of leaving the only life you’ve ever known is terrifying. It’s easy to talk about the spiritual cost of living in the West when you’re sitting in a warm apartment with high-speed Wi-Fi.
It’s another thing entirely to pack your bags and buy a one-way ticket to a country you’ve only ever visited on holiday.
You ask, “What about my career? The money is so good here.” “Have you been to a Muslim country? The corruption, the chaos, the lack of basic services!” “My kids were born here, this is their home.” “We need to stay and do da’wah, be a good example!”
These are the “golden handcuffs” that keep us tied to a life that we know is not fulfilling our ultimate purpose.
So, let’s move past the theological ideals and get into the messy, complicated reality of what a 21st-century Hijra actually looks like.
The Myth of Western Prosperity: Rizq is from Allah
Let’s start with the biggest one: money and career. We are told that our parents and grandparents came here for economic opportunity, and we owe it to them to seize it.
We have good jobs, access to world-class education, and a standard of living that, on paper, is higher than in many of our home countries. To leave that behind seems ungrateful, even foolish.
But we’re confusing the means with the source.
Your job, your salary, your passport, these are not the source of your provision (rizq). Allah is. The Qur’an reminds us of this fundamental truth over and over:
“And there is no creature on earth but that upon Allah is its provision, and He knows its place of dwelling and its place of storage. All is in a clear register.” (Qur’an 11:6)
Allah has already written your rizq.
Whether you earn it in London or Lahore, it will come to you. The question is, at what spiritual cost are you chasing it?
In the West, that high salary comes with a high price tag: crushing taxes that fund wars against Muslim lands, a work culture that demands 60-hour weeks, leaving little time for family or faith, and a consumerist lifestyle that traps you in a cycle of earning and spending to keep up with the Joneses.
Is that really prosperity? Or is it a gilded cage?
We trade our time, our family bonds, and our spiritual peace for a bigger house and a newer car.
The great scholar Ibn al-Qayyim beautifully articulated this when he said,
“The heart is tarnished by two things: heedlessness of Allah and excessive indulgence in this dunya (worldly life).”
The Western model is a system designed to make you heedless.
Making Hijra is not a vow of poverty.
Making Hijra is an act of trust that the One who provided for you in a foreign land can and will provide for you in a land that is closer to Him.
Many who have made the move report a strange phenomenon: their expenses decrease, their needs simplify, and they find a barakah (blessing) in their wealth that they never felt before.
They trade a high salary for a high quality of life, where time with family and peace of soul are the new metrics of success.
Reclaiming Our Lands, Not Abandoning Them
“Okay, fine,” you say, “but the Ummah is a mess! You want me to leave a functioning society for a dysfunctional one?”
This is perhaps the most tragic and self-defeating argument of all. We look at the political instability, the corruption, the social problems in the Muslim world, and our first instinct is to run away from it.
We, the most educated, most skilled, most globally-aware generation of Muslims in history, see a broken home and our response is to move in with the wealthy neighbours who don’t really like us.
Imagine a large, beautiful but neglected family estate.
The roof is leaking in places, the garden is overgrown, and some of the plumbing needs work. Do the capable children of the family abandon it, choosing instead to live as permanent guests in a smaller, more modern house next door?
Or do they move back in, roll up their sleeves, and use their skills and resources to restore the estate to its former glory?
Our countries are that estate. The problems are real.
But they are our problems to solve.
Who will build the transparent institutions if not the Muslims who have seen them work in the West? Who will start the innovative tech companies if not the Muslims with engineering degrees from European universities? Who will establish the schools that teach both deen and dunya if not the Muslims who understand the need for both?
Allah places upon us a collective responsibility, a duty to be reformers. He says:
“And let there be [arising] from you a nation inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, and those will be the successful.” (Qur’an 3:104)
How can we possibly fulfill this command from a position of weakness and alienation in the West?
Our da’wah is limited to handing out pamphlets or having a polite chat with a curious coworker.
In the Muslim world, our da’wah becomes our life’s work.
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It’s in building a just business, raising righteous children, contributing to civic society, and being a living example of Islam in a community that is, at its core, already receptive to it.
Staying in the West and complaining about the state of the Ummah is like watching your house burn down from a distance and criticizing the firefighting efforts.
The Hijra is a call to run into the building with a plan, with skills, and with a burning desire to be part of the solution.
Saving Our Children from an Identity Crisis
This is the point that hits me the hardest as someone who doesn’t have kids yet but sees the struggle all around me.
We think we’re giving our children the “best of both worlds,” but are we? Or are we just giving them a permanent identity crisis?
I see my young cousins. They can recite the lyrics of the latest Taylor Swift song perfectly but stumble over Surah al-Fatiha.
They feel a pang of shame when their mom speaks Arabic in public.
They navigate the social minefield of high school, desperately trying to fit in, which often means shedding the parts of their Muslim identity that make them “different.”
We are raising a generation that is spiritually rootless. They inherit our confusion.
They see us compromise on our faith, whether it’s with the interest-based mortgage, the “white lie” to avoid a social gathering, or the muted celebration of Eid because it falls on a workday.
They learn from us that Islam is something to be managed, not something to be lived with boldness and pride.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) gave us a solemn warning:
“Each of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock.
The leader of people is a guardian and is responsible for his subjects.
A man is the guardian of his family and is responsible for them. A woman is the guardian of her husband’s home and is responsible for it…” (Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim).
Our primary flock is our children.
And we are raising them in a spiritual pasture where the grass is often poisonous. Can we truly say we are responsible shepherds when we have chosen to graze our flock in the most dangerous lands?
Imagine your children growing up where the Adhan is the background noise of their city. Where their friends are all fasting in Ramadan. Where their teachers share their values. Where their identity isn’t a question to be defended, but a celebrated fact of life.
This is not a small thing.
This is the foundation of a stable, confident Muslim. That inheritance is worth more than any Western passport or career opportunity can afford us.
Meaning of “Home”, The Ummah is our Nation
Finally, we come to the emotional core of it all:
“But this is my home. I was born here.”
I understand this feeling. The streets of my city are imprinted in my memory. I have affection for the culture, the food, the landscapes.
But affection is not the same as belonging. And a birthplace is not the same as a home.
Our concept of home has been corrupted by nationalism.
We’ve adopted the Western idea that “home” is a plot of land defined by arbitrary borders.
But Islam gives us a higher, more profound definition of home and nation. Our nation is the Ummah. Our bond is not of blood or soil, but of faith (iman).
The Prophet (PBUH) said,
“The parable of the believers in their affection, mercy, and compassion for each other is that of a body. When any limb aches, the whole body reacts with sleeplessness and fever.” (Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim).
Right now, the Ummah is aching. From Palestine to Xinjiang, from Sudan to Myanmar, parts of our body are in agony.
Living in the West, we see this pain through a screen. We feel a distant sympathy, but it doesn’t rock our world. We are too comfortable, too insulated.
When you live in the Muslim world, the pain of the Ummah becomes your own. It’s the family you can’t visit because of a border closure. It’s the neighbour whose brother is an unjust prisoner. It’s the economy that’s crippled by foreign sanctions.
You are no longer a spectator; you are a participant. You are part of the body, feeling its fever.
This is what it means to go home.
It’s not about abandoning the place you were born; it’s about returning to the nation you truly belong to.
It’s about trading a conditional citizenship for an unconditional spiritual family. It’s about finding a place where your soul, not just your body, can finally rest.
The Hijra of the 21st century is not a retreat into the past.
The Hijra the most forward-thinking, strategic, and brave decision our generation can make.
It is an investment in our future, in our children’s faith, and in the revival of our Ummah. It is the ultimate declaration that our loyalty is to Allah, that our hope is in His promise, and that our home is wherever His name is remembered and His law is honoured.
The west debate all they want. The real question is what your heart is telling you, and whether you’re finally ready to listen.
