Holy Smokes

Lombok Reflections

Holy smokes!

Driving inland through southern Lombok, I passed the usual scene of village life. Cows tied under trees, children darting barefoot across gravel paths, and women in wide-brimmed hats walking with bundles of grass balanced on their heads. The colours around me shifted as the land opened up. Lush green gave way to dry fields stretching far in every direction.

At first glance, it looked desolate. Short, jagged stalks jutted from the earth, their golden hues long gone. Patches of blackened ground broke up the landscape, and thin trails of smoke rose lazily into the sky. A faint smell of ash lingered in the air. From a distance, you might think something tragic had happened. But the people here know otherwise.

This is part of the cycle.

After the harvest, the farmers burn what’s left of the stalks. It’s not neglect or carelessness. It’s preparation. The fire clears pests, returns nutrients to the soil, and readies the land for the next planting. To the untrained eye, it looks like destruction. To those who understand it, it’s renewal.

I stopped the car and stepped out, just to take it in. The quietness. The smoke. The charred soil. And as I stood there, it occurred to me, this is us, too.

How many times in life do we feel as if we’ve been stripped down to nothing? A loss. A disappointment. A relationship that ends. A door that closes no matter how many times we knock. We feel the heat of it, the sting, the smoke in our lungs. And we wonder why. Why the fire? Why now?

Sometimes we carry so much in our lives that isn’t truly serving us, ideas, attachments, habits, even people, and we don’t realise it until they’re taken. And when they are, it feels like scorched earth. But in reality, it might be Allah preparing the ground of our heart for something new to grow.

Allah ﷻ tells us clearly:

“And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give glad tidings to the patient - those who, when disaster strikes them, say, ‘Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return.’”

(Surah Al-Baqarah 2:155–156)

We don’t always see it in the moment, but those trials, as painful as they are, often come to clear the ground. To remove what needed to go. To make space for something better, something deeper.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

“No fatigue, nor disease, nor sorrow, nor sadness, nor hurt, nor distress befalls a Muslim - not even the prick of a thorn - but that Allah expiates some of his sins through it.”

(Bukhari and Muslim)

That fire in our lives is not random. It has a purpose. But like the farmer, we must do more than just survive the burning. We must return and replant.

Tawbah, sincere repentance, is like the fire that burns away what shouldn't remain. But the soil of the heart cannot be left bare. Once we turn back to Allah, we have to fill our days with Quran, with thikr, with salah, with good company. If we don’t, the weeds come back. The emptiness fills with whatever the world throws into it.

The farmer doesn’t light the fire and walk away. He prepares the ground. He waits for the rain. He sows the seeds. He trusts the process.

There’s something profoundly beautiful in that. The way the land submits without complaint, accepting both fire and rain, knowing that its role is to receive and to grow. It doesn’t resist the burning, nor does it rush the regrowth. It simply allows the process to unfold in the timing of its Creator.

Allah ﷻ says:

“Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky, and the earth becomes green? Indeed, Allah is Subtle and Acquainted.”

(Surah Al-Hajj 22:63)

Growth doesn’t happen the day after the burning. There is always a space between hardship and renewal. A space for patience, for healing, for rebuilding. And that waiting is not passive. It’s part of the test. To remain sincere. To remain hopeful. To keep planting even when the soil still smells like smoke.

The Prophet ﷺ reminded us of this perspective:

“Wondrous is the affair of the believer - for there is good for him in every matter. If he is given ease, he is grateful, and that is good for him. If he is afflicted, he is patient, and that is good for him.”

(Muslim)

So when the fire reaches your life when something is taken, when something crumbles, don’t rush to rebuild with the same materials. Pause. Breathe. Let Allah show you what He was clearing. And then replant with trust.

As I stood watching the smoke curl into the sky, I felt a quiet reassurance.

This field wasn’t ruined.

It was ready.

And perhaps, so am I, InshaAllah.

O Allah allow us to rise again after every burning.O Allah make our hearts fertile for the seeds of sincerity. O Allah may our harvest, when it finally comes, be one that lasts into the next life. Ameen.