I Faced Death-This is What Saved Me

A battle for my soul!

Photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash

Dear friend,

I want to take you back with me to the 22nd of December.

It was a still, quiet night. The world outside was asleep, but inside, my heart was awake in a way I had never felt before. That morning before the crack of dawn, I prostrated before Allah during tahajjud, and something was different. My heart felt at peace, my focus on serving Allah, and my du’as poured out as if they had been waiting for this very moment. When sunrise arrived, I felt a sense of joy, and settled in at my desk in anticipation of having an amazing day.

I made myself a warm cup of coffee, its rich aroma filling the room, and reached for a New York-style bagel—crisp on the outside, soft and chewy inside, smothered in a thin layer of salted butter. I sat down, savoring the simple joy of that morning, my fingers resting on my keyboard, ready to send out my newsletter.

And then—pain.

Not an ache. Not discomfort. No, this was something else entirely. A sudden, searing pain that tore through my body, leaving me breathless, stunned. I gasped, doubling over, gripping the edge of the table as if it could anchor me. The pain was relentless, stabbing through me like fire, tightening around my insides like an iron grip that refused to let go.

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

The next 36 hours would be the most excruciating of my life.

The first doctor came to my home and went. He examined me, his brow furrowed, his words laced with rehearsed reassurance: “It’s a gallstone, you’ll be fine.” But I wasn’t fine. The pain didn’t stop. It only deepened, sharpened. The second doctor was called several hours later, repeating the same diagnosis and soon she left, having injected me with morphine, and I curled up, fighting back the fear creeping into my bones.

And then, a thought whispered in the back of my mind. A quiet, haunting realization.

Am I dying?

I don’t remember if I said it out loud. The pain blurred everything, bending time into something unrecognizable. But later, the surgeon confirmed what my body already knew: Had the surgery been even an hour later, I might not have made it. We know, of course, that only Allah determines the time of death. But my body… my body had already begun walking that path.

And then, in that moment of unbearable weakness, he came.

The cursed one.

Shaitan’s voice slithered into my thoughts, wrapping around my pain, feeding off my suffering:

“Curse God and die.”

I recognized the words instantly. They echoed from the biblical story of Job—where shaitan challenged his faith through suffering. But I am a Muslim. I don’t believe in that version of the story. I believe in the Qur’anic truth of Prophet Ayyub عليه السلام, who endured immense suffering and never cursed his Lord. So I sought refuge in Allah. I held onto Him as if my very soul depended on it—because it did.

And then, as my du’as turned into certainty—“Ya Allah, I know You will save me, I know You will cure me!”—shaitan came again. This time, he tried another path.

“Commit shirk, and you will be better.”

I answered without hesitation, from a place deep inside me that I hadn’t even realized was so firm:

“I believe in Tawheed. I believe in Allah.”

And in that moment, something became clear to me in a way it never had before.

We read about shaitan. We memorize the verses about his whispering (Surah an Nas). We hear the warnings. But do we feel it?

At that moment, I felt his enmity. I felt the battle between truth and deception playing out, not in the abstract, but in the depths of my heart.

And here’s what I want you to understand—this wasn’t strength I suddenly summoned in that moment. No, this was years of effort. Every Qur’an class, every du’a, every attempt to purify my heart, every verse I recited, every time I sought Allah’s pleasure—it all came together in that moment to shield me, by the Permission of Allah.

And that is what we need to understand.

Shaitan does not come only in moments of ease, filling our hearts with distractions and whispers of dunya. He comes when we are at our weakest, when we are gasping for breath, when the world tilts on its axis and we don’t know if we will make it to the next moment. And if we have not been preparing—if we have not been strengthening our hearts—what will happen then?

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

Dear friend, we must prepare.

We must be constantly purifying our hearts. Constantly making du’a, just like the Prophet ﷺ did. His ﷺ most frequent dua was:

“O Turner of hearts, keep my heart firm upon Your religion.”

We must ask for a good death every single day.

And above all, we must recognize shaitan for what he is. Because how can you fight an enemy if you don’t even acknowledge that he is there?

And now, I want to ask you something.

If you were tested today, at your weakest, at your most vulnerable, what would you have to hold onto?

What have you built inside yourself that will withstand the whispers?

What would your heart say back?

May Allah protect us, strengthen us, and grant us steadfastness until the very end, ameen.

With love,

Nour Cauveren