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Rohaam Khan, Reading, UK
In the space between probability and miracle lies a territory few are willing to discuss publicly. Scientists call it statistical anomaly. Rationalists call it luck or coincidence. Believers call it divine intervention. I call it the day I watched the impossible unfold before my eyes. I’m going to take you back in time to 2022, where something truly extraordinary happened. Let me walk you through it.
In 2022, I was doing my post-COVID GCSEs (end-of-school exams for secondary school students in the UK), a strange time in the world, especially for exams. It was time for my computer science exam. Previously, I had just been scraping a Grade 4, as clearly, I was no good at the subject, except for where God had mercy (Grade 9 is the highest, being equivalent to an A*, and so a Grade 4 would be equivalent to a Grade E). I needed at least a 4 to pass the subject, and my computer science grades hovered persistently at the border of failure. I was as if sitting on the fence, and the wind could push me to either side. All other doors were closed. According to every metric and prediction algorithm, my trajectory was fixed. When I had exhausted every possible solution and failure seemed inevitable, I turned to prayer.
As is the practice of Muslims, whenever we are presented with a difficulty, we bow down before God Almighty, who is the One who we know has the power to take us out of any situation, despite our many shortcomings and weaknesses. If there is no exit, we know He will make an exit – no matter what. Going further than that, I, being an Ahmadi Muslim (Muslims who have accepted Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as), the Promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi) wrote a letter to the Fifth Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad (aba) for prayers for my exams, which find special favour with God.
I still studied as hard as possible – faith isn’t about abandoning effort but about finding peace in knowing that when our limited abilities end, we aren’t alone in our struggles. I knew deep down that God has me covered, like He always has.
Fast forward to the nights before the exam. I looked online for some practice papers to prepare for the exam, and began filling them in, marking them with the mark scheme as usual, to the point where I felt that it was sufficient. That was all the preparations done on my end, and perhaps the same was the case in the Heavens.
Now it’s the day of the exam. I sat there in the hall, and I prayed one last time before being told to open my paper. After reciting Bismillah (Invoking the name of Allah), Surah al-Fatihah (the first chapter of the Holy Qur’an) and Durood (Invoking salutations upon the Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa)), which are great sources of blessing before starting any task, I opened the paper.
I call God Almighty as a witness, who is a witness over all things, that five seconds did not even pass when I realised that the exact questions I had practised the night before stared back at me, as if someone had known precisely what I needed in my hour of need. At that point, before even starting, I had praised God Almighty profusely, and I was in complete awe. The rest is history – naturally, the paper was a breeze as I knew almost all the answers.
This was a manifest miracle which other students can testify to. I had told them what happened afterwards, and they were in utter disbelief. What happened defies statistical explanation – something my fellow students acknowledged even as they searched for rational explanations their worldview could accommodate, saying, ‘You just got lucky, it was just a coincidence’ or that I simply cheated. If supplicating to God Almighty and as a result, He opens doors for me is cheating, then by God, I am a cheater! But it doesn’t end here.
Since it was the post-COVID period, the exams we had were not ‘full’ exams – meaning that a mark would be determined based on performance throughout the year and also considering the mock exams. This exam was one of those mock exams. This meant that although I may have breezed through my mock exam by God’s Grace, there was still a good chance that my previous terrible scores would come back and bite me and lower my mark. So, what was to happen? Let’s go to exam results day.
I go to school to pick up my letter containing my results with my friend. I open the letter, and before I set my eyes on computer science, I begin looking at my other subjects, and I am praising God Almighty for having blessed me with more than I could ever expect, and much more than what I am worthy of. But then my eyes hit my computer science score, my eyes could not believe what they saw. Instead of Grade 4 (or maybe now 5 at least, I thought), I got a Grade 8 (equivalent to Grade A), which is almost double and was one of my highest scoring subjects! My friend was once again in utter disbelief – I tried my best to explain this phenomenon to him, but until you experience these things for yourself, when you know for sure that there is no other explanation, only then will a person understand.
This experience with my computer science exam wasn’t isolated. From GCSEs to A-Levels (exams taken in UK Colleges) to University 4 years later, similar patterns have emerged following prayer – each defying probable outcomes based on my previous performance.
I understand why some cling to explanations like ‘coincidence’ or ‘luck’ – they’re safer than confronting the possibility that reality might be more responsive to our consciousness than we’ve been taught to believe. Once might be a coincidence. Twice could be luck. But when you’re repeatedly brought through impossible situations after sincere prayer – when doors open that shouldn’t open, when help arrives from directions you couldn’t anticipate – at what point does scepticism require more faith than belief?
The Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa) beautifully expressed:
‘Verily, Allah is Conscientious and Generous. He would be shy, when a man raises his hands to Him, to turn them away empty and disappointed.’ [1]
My story is just one small example, yet it reflects something I’ve found to be consistently true: genuine seeking rarely goes unanswered. Not always in the ways we expect, but often in ways that leave us wondering about the nature of reality itself. If you feel trapped with no way out, remember that it’s this realisation which is precisely when we discover that we’re not as alone in this universe as we thought.
Whether you see divine intervention or a remarkable coincidence in my experience, perhaps we can agree on this: in a universe full of mystery, there must be more than meets the eye.
About the Author: Rohaam Khan is a 20-year-old from the United Kingdom, studying LLB Law at the University of Reading.
ENDNOTES
[1] Jami’ al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3556.
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