One day a book will be placed in your hand. Allah will say: read it. You will become your own auditor. There will be nothing in it that you did not write.

Imagine the scene. The Day. The book placed in your hand. You open it not knowing where to start. The book opens to a page from a Tuesday afternoon eleven years ago that you cannot remember; the book remembers. You see the word you said to your mother in irritation that she carried for the rest of her life. You see the prayer you skipped because of a phone call you cannot recall the content of. You see the charity you almost gave and then talked yourself out of. You see the smile you gave the homeless man on a day you do not remember and now realize was the act that saved you. The book is meticulous. The book is honest. The book is yours. And Allah's word to you on that Day, the gentlest and the most terrifying: read. Now turn that scene toward this evening. Tonight, write a line you will want to read on that Day. One line. Make a sajdah you would be proud to see again. Speak a sentence to a parent you would be proud to read in the book's handwriting. Forgive a person whose name you would want erased from the right column. The book is being written this hour. Yā Allāh, give us hands today that we will not be ashamed to read tomorrow. Make the ink of our deeds a mercy upon us when You place the book in our hand. Āmīn.