The Returnee

"I tried to tear her out of my heart the way a man tears an arrow from flesh."

"And?"

"The shaft broke off."

A brief silence.
Then he slowly closed his eyes.

"But the arrowhead remained inside me."

⸻⸻

In the year 619 after Hijrah (1221 CE), Asim ibn Salim returns from Khurasan with war still living in his eyes.

Years of bloodshed have turned him into a feared warrior, a man shaped by steel, loss, and battlefields soaked in death. But no matter how far he rides from Khurasan, the war follows him home. He sleeps beside his sword, wakes to screams no one else can hear, and wonders whether men like him are ever truly meant to know peace again.

Hafsa bint Talha is haunted by a different kind of wound.

After the loss of her father and a night that leaves her world fractured, she retreats into silence, Quran, and Persian poetry, clinging to faith while fear slowly consumes the parts of her once untouched by sorrow.

Then, one night, their paths collide.

When Asim saves her from a man in the streets of Aleppo, neither of them realizes that the encounter will leave a mark far deeper than either expected.

ℹ️ An Islamic love story: free from explicit content, swearing, and vulgar language.