THE CRITERION'

This is a tale of two destined lovers; revealing how heavenly decreed bonds can prevail amidst worldly illusions.

Jamal fled Nur Afiya after a betrayal nearly shattered everything he held sacred. For nine long years, he wandered through foreign cities and sleepless nights, building his soul through work, prayer, and obedience to divine inspiration under the sky of a world that had made sin ordinary. Unknown to him, the devotion and chastity he's preserved since childhood was nurturing a deeper alignment in his journey, a purpose he had yet to understand.

Then the dreams began.
A woman he had never met, yet whose soul felt hauntingly familiar, visited his sleep nights after night. Compelled by these visions, he returned to Nur Afiya seeking guidance from his old shaykh, certain the dreams were a thread leading to a higher calling.

But in Nur Afiya; fate arrived before answers.
Rofiya, his former lover, reappeared with a dying child she claimed was his. A son he never knew, whose only survival depended on Jamal's blood, drawing him into a storm of duty and doubt. Jamal thought the dream that drew him back was disturbing enough, unbeknownst to him, he now stood at the edge of unravelling a long-buried family secret that would reshape everything about his journey for self discovery.

Meanwhile, under the bright skies of Marhaba, Aamina had long closed her heart to loving anyone. Wounded by a soul-deep betrayal, she turned wholly to fervent prayer, solitude, and good work. Not until a mysteriously familiar stranger began walking through her dreams stirring a deep feeling she couldn't explain. Just as her soul began to awaken, her grandmother arranged her marriage to Chief Muhammad, a man of wealth and influence, but was blind to the whispers of her soul.

Separated by distance but bound by a thread not of this world, Jamal and Aamina now face the same silent choice:
surrender to the timing of heaven,
or lose their destined union to the illusion of earth.