Flight Mode

Lombok Reflections

Flight mode

The masjid is never the same twice. Each Jumuah feels different. A new light through the windows, a new scent of perfume, a different quiet before the khutbah begins.

I usually arrive early, before the carpets fill, to sit in stillness and let my heart settle with the recitation of the Quran. But on this particular Friday, the silence was replaced by laughter.

It was the school holidays. A handful of boys, maybe nine or ten years old, were running joyfully across the masjid carpet, their voices bright and full of life. They weren’t arguing or being rude, they were playing. When I looked closer, I realised what had captured them. Paper airplanes.

They had folded paper sheets torn from old notebooks, creased and shaped them into makeshift planes, and were taking turns to throw them high into the air. The planes drifted, turned, and sometimes crashed. Each throw brought new laughter, each fall another attempt.

SubhanAllah, I found myself watching them with a smile I didn’t expect. It was such a simple scene, yet deeply moving. For a moment, the masjid wasn’t only a place of quiet devotion, it was also a place of innocence.

Those boys weren’t disturbing its peace. They were reminding it, and us, of what it means to belong.

As I watched them, I thought of my own childhood, when life felt lighter. We played outdoors until Maghrib called us home. We made toys from paper and sticks, not from screens and wires. The world was slower then, and our hearts were content with less. Somewhere along the way, we grew up and traded imagination for anxiety, simplicity for noise. We forgot that joy doesn’t come from possessions but from presence.

Allah reminds us of this passing nature of life:

“Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting among yourselves and competition in wealth and children, like the example of rain whose [resulting] plant growth pleases the farmers; then it dries and you see it turn yellow, then it becomes [scattered] debris.”

(Surah al-Hadid 57:20)

Those boys were living that verse. Competing, laughing, boasting in play, their joy pure and fleeting. But their paper airplanes, fragile and temporary, spoke of something deeper. Each one soared for a short time before falling. Each one had a moment of flight and a moment of stillness.

Is that not our story too? We are all on brief flights, carried by the unseen winds of qadar, destined to land wherever Allah decrees.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

“Take advantage of five before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your sickness, your wealth before your poverty, your free time before your preoccupation, and your life before your death.”

(Musnad Ahmad)

Those boys, without knowing it, were embodying that Hadith. Taking advantage of their youth and free time, moments that will never return. Their carefree laughter carried a reminder for us who watch them from the weight of adulthood. We too are given our share of folds and throws in life. Every deed we do is like a paper airplane we send forward.

Some folded with care.

Some hurried.

Some crooked.

The straight ones are our deeds of sincerity, done purely for Allah’s sake. The bent and broken ones are those tainted by pride or done without presence.

The Prophet ﷺ also said:

“The most beloved of deeds to Allah are those that are done regularly, even if they are small.”

(Sahih al-Bukhari)

Each consistent good deed is another careful fold, small in effort, yet beautiful in its flight. When done sincerely, it soars farther than we imagine. When neglected, it falls before it even takes off. And every day, Allah grants us another chance to pick up the paper of our lives and try again. To fold better, to throw straighter, to send something forward for the Akhirah.

Allah says:

“And spend from what We have provided you before death approaches one of you, and he says, ‘My Lord, if only You would delay me for a brief term so I would give charity and be among the righteous.’ But Allah will never delay a soul when its time has come. And Allah is fully Aware of what you do.”

(Surah al-Munafiqun 63:10–11)

When I left the masjid that day, their laughter still echoed in my ears. I thought of how soon those boys will grow, how their paper airplanes will be replaced with ambitions, how their carefree hearts will one day carry heavier loads. And I prayed that when that time comes, they will still know where to return, to the masjid, to the peace of remembrance, to the simplicity of faith that keeps a heart young.

Because in truth, we are all like those boys. We spend our lives folding, throwing, and hoping. Some of our deeds will soar beautifully, others will stumble and fall. But what matters most is that we keep trying, with sincerity, until the day our final paper airplane takes flight . The last breath we send forward to meet our Lord.

O Allah, let our deeds be folded with sincerity and guided by light. O Allah, make our final flight one that lands in Your mercy and not in Your wrath. O Allah, protect the innocence of our children and make them grow among those who love Your house. O Allah, grant us hearts that find joy in simplicity before we return to You. Ameen