📕 Love from A to Z

Where stories often cross paths with our beliefs and cultural identities, “Love from A to Z” by S.K. Ali emerges as a heartfelt ode to young love, faith, and the resilience of the human spirit. As you traverse the lives of Adam and Zayneb, 2 characters crafted with depth, vulnerability, and a shared heritage, we are invited into a narrative that does more than just tell a love story; it opens a window to the soul of a generation navigating the waters of identity, justice, and the universal search for understanding. This book is a mirror reflecting the trials and triumphs of being young and Muslim in a world that’s learning to embrace diversity in all its forms. As you embark on this journey from A to Z, lets unravel the marvels and oddities of love.

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About the book

Author:	S.K. Ali
Year of release:	2019
Genre:	Romance, Contemporary, Fiction, YoungAdult, Muslims
Pages:	348
Average WPM:	355
Date Started/Finished:	14 to 20-September-2022
Time took:	3.22 Hours

How I Discovered It

I saw it on Booktok (TikTok).

Who Should Read It?

whoever likes Islamic romance, I guess?

Top Quotes

Why did I just feel an instant urge to push send on that text? I’m not impulsive. I’m Adam. I consider, ponder, reflect, and only then do I make a move—in any aspect of my life.

Kavi frowned. “You like him because you feel sorry for him? Sorry, I don’t want to dump on you, but I’m not feeling this. Falling for someone is not a social justice cause.”

One of the reasons Ayaan said she loves being Muslim is because it makes her feel like a natural feminist. “Like, hello? Our queen Khadija didn’t wait for the man she had her eye on to ask her, to get on his knees. Nope. Instead, she said, I like you, oh employee of mine. Will you marry me? And then, after they hitched, she just kept her job as his boss. Mad respect.” She was talking about the prophet Muhammad. How he was proposed to by his boss, Khadija.

“Does it say something in Arabic?” “Yeah. It’s a verse from the Qur’an. About the sky. I copied it from one of the pictures in Dad’s office.” Do they not look at the sky above them, how we have built it and adorned it, and there are no rifts in it?

Summary + Notes

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Adam: Thursday, March 7 Marvel: Smiles

The Doha airport was so quiet that the whir of luggage wheels formed a hum that accompanied those of us who disembarked. It followed us to the visa counter and then to the luggage carousel.

Adam: Sunday, March 10 Marvel: Photos

• Why did I just feel an instant urge to push send on that text? I’m not impulsive. I’m Adam. I consider, ponder, reflect, and only then do I make a move—in any aspect of my life.
  • (Literally me)

Zayneb: Tuesday, March 12 Oddity: Impulsiveness

There’s also another kind of hate from people, mostly from women who are into white feminism, who think they’re helping Muslim women by finding this way of dressing oppressive. They act like if they quote unquote free us from our religious teachings, which they believe they’ve become quote unquote smart enough to figure out are oppressive, that then they’re saving us.

Adam: Wednesday, March 13 Oddity: Secrets

• “What about when we’re twenty and twenty-eight? Or sixty-one and sixty-nine? An old lady, an old man? I still can’t make them?” Mom looked away for a moment but not before I saw the edge of her mouth quiver and then turn down.
  • Context: His mom was going to pass away and he says this to her when she makes his fav breakfast(?).

Adam: Thursday, March 14 Oddity: Justified Ends

Oh yeah, Adam, way to go. Full steam ahead, instead of pushing pause.I didn’t dare glance up to see what effect my textual diarrhea was having on her. It must be the medication, my extreme impulsiveness. A side effect. Or maybe the remains of the euphoria from this morning.

Zayneb: Friday, March 15 Marvel: Turns

“But wait. You said you don’t believe in dating. How does this work?”

“It doesn’t, actually. Work, I mean.” I lay back in bed and lifted the phone high above me so Kavi 
could see the pitiful state I was in. “This has been me for most of today. Lying here, tossing and 
turning.”

“Inflamed by passion? Tormented by desire? Horny?”

“Ew, but yeah, kind of.” I didn’t admit to her how much that was true. “See, that’s why Islam tells us 
horny ones to lower our gaze around people, not look at them like you’re eating them with your eyes.”

“Zayneb, did you eat him with your eyes?” Kavi giggled. “Because you look like you’ve got a 
stomachache from overeating.”

“Astaghfirullah. That’s been me all day, saying astaghfirullah.” I groaned. “And the worst thing is 
that he’s Muslim, too.”

Kavi frowned. “You like him because you feel sorry for him? Sorry, I don’t want to dump on you, but I’m not feeling this. Falling for someone is not a social justice cause.”

Adam: Sunday, March 17 Marvel: Zayneb At The Perfect Place

We were meant to meet.

I believe that there’s a connection between the things that happen to us, beyond ourselves. 
Like Dad taught me to believe.

And I’ve believed this way for 7 years.

Zayneb and I were meant to cross paths. I want to get to know her, keep her showing up in my life.

This was the script I used to replace the thoughts I didn’t want inside anymore.

I want to keep her showing up in my life was in my head as I entered the darkened exhibit hall and 
saw the back of that blue hijab, under a spotlight, in front of a display.

She turned, face full of life, eyes dancing with excitement, and I thought, Yeah, she’s a marvel 
meant to be in my life.

Zayneb: Sunday, March 17 Marvel: Adam…And His Soul

One of the reasons Ayaan said she loves being Muslim is because it makes her feel like a natural feminist. “Like, hello? Our queen Khadija didn’t wait for the man she had her eye on to ask her, to get on his knees. Nope. Instead, she said, I like you, oh employee of mine. Will you marry me? And then, after they hitched, she just kept her job as his boss. Mad respect.” She was talking about the prophet Muhammad. How he was proposed to by his boss, Khadija.

Zayneb: Sunday, March 17 Oddity: Adam

Because it hurt that, with the way things were in the world, my grandmother’s life and her hands, her love, didn’t count as much. It hurt that some lives were worth less.

Adam: Monday, March 18 Oddity: Getting The Truth Out

Maybe what drew me to Zayneb was the same thing that made me stay away from her. She wasn’t like a steady heartbeat. She had a heart that moved and rose and fell as things affected her.

Zayneb: Monday, March 18 Oddity: Kind Ignorance

“I’m going to say something really radical now. That you have to promise you 
won’t tell your mom came from me.”
I paused, a roll on its way into my own mouth. “I promise.”
“If everyone listened to their parents who feared the consequences of fighting 
for justice, this world would be a more awful place than it is now.”
“It’s already an awful place.”
“Imagine if it were even worse? If Nelson Mandela had feared the consequences 
of fighting against apartheid? If Malcolm X and Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King had?”
“If their parents had held them back?”
“No, if they’d listened to their parents, or anyone else for that matter, holding them 
back.” Auntie Nandy turned to face me fully.

You cut me
Now I sit, sharpening my blade
One day I will loom, a shadow no more
Silence your hate, leave it shredded
Strewn around your feet
The only sign I’ve roared my pain:
You
Cut
Down.
I sent this poem to Kavi too, with the subject line I’ve started writing poetry.

Adam: Thursday, March 21 Marvel: Connections

“Um, this is where I admit, for me, it was your looks.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.” “Only?” “At first I mean. Then when you said salaam, I was like, This guy is super cute AND Muslim? Then it was your layers. Calm, cool, slightly sad layers. You were mysterious, and I wanted to peel you away like an onion.” “So you like sad onions.” “Yeah, they make me cry, instead of angry.” “Is this supposed to make me feel good?” I asked, laughing, but weirded out. Sad onion?

Zayneb: Thursday, March 21 Oddity: Heart Pain

• “Also, can I call you at any hour of the day? If I get a sudden gut feeling that I need to check on the onion in my life?”

• But yeah, you can call me whenever, H2O.

• But then there was an even longer arc here—with Al-Qazwini, the author of the original Marvels and Oddities, how he wrote something so long ago, trying to figure out the world he lived in.

Adam: Friday, March 22 Marvel: Dad

“Does it say something in Arabic?” “Yeah. It’s a verse from the Qur’an. About the sky. I copied it from one of the pictures in Dad’s office.” Do they not look at the sky above them, how we have built it and adorned it, and there are no rifts in it?

Epilogue

THE WORLD IS A MYSTERIOUS place. On the one hand, its size can be measured and recorded and 
verified. Its marvels and oddities captured in complex, empirical detail.

On the other hand, its size is relative to our mind’s perception of it. Its marvels and oddities 
only extending to how far our vision goes.

For some of us, this means the world is small, including only those we see as belonging to it. 
People related to us, people who look like us, dress like us, think like us.

For others, it’s medium-size and includes those we connect to through some similarity, some trait 
that pings familiarity within, which then allows us to overlook the differences between us and them.

And then there are those who see the world as huge, as the actual size it measurably is.

Huge enough to include vast differences, people with nothing in common with one another except a 
beating heart and a feeling soul, these two—heart, soul—being the strongest connection between us all.

Acknowledgments

Love from A to Z Top Ten Countdown

1. “Stand by Me”
2. “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”
3. “Let It Go”
4. “I Like It”
5. “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”
6. “Aap Jaisa Koi”
7. “Leaves from the Vine (Little Soldier Boy)”
8. “Wild World”
9. “I Will Survive”