I turned 40 years old today and wondered how I felt as this is a landmark age in all cultures. We know that, generally, the Prophets and Messengers, it would seem, receive revelation from this age onwards. We know that most cultures consider the age of 40 as a time when one becomes wise and, as they say, life begins at 40. It is also my 15th wedding anniversary as I got married on my 25th birthday.

So, I thought if I felt any different today? I suppose there is a realisation that time is running out and that the life that has passed you wished you had spent more constructively, but alhamdulillah I have very little regrets. I have had 15 wonderful years of marriage to my wife Nazia and three lovely children, my parents have always been a supportive and inspirational to me and my siblings loving. I have really wonderful cousins, relatives and friends of who I can say are people that one feels honoured and proud to know, alhamdulillah.

I still play 5-a-side football with guys much younger and fitter than me and I can keep up with them, alhamdulillah that I still have my health (for the time being). What my Lord has bestowed upon me I cannot enumerate as it is so much that he has given me from His bounty, alhamdulillah.

I am grateful to God in linking me to amazing individuals over the years such as our ulama and mashaykh and I am grateful that He has used me as a means to help propagate their work, keep their company and take whatever little I have taken from them over the years knowing full well that as an individual I am not worthy in even carrying their shoes or breath the same air as them.

There is no doubt that 40 is as much a psychological milestone as it is  a physiological milestone, and it is a maqam you reach where you stop, take a breath and take stock of your life and look forward to whatever of the years to come that Allah has granted you, who knows if it will be a few or many and what trials lay ahead? Give thanks for what has passed and pray for what is to come!