There was a time when I was lost.

From lively nights in cafés and clubs, surrounded by so-called friends, to long hours spent in noisy apartments — I lived for the thrill, for the party. I was a man chasing shadows, far from purpose, far from peace.

 

But everything changed after July 1st, 2013.

An email arrived, accusing me of “heated conversations” at work — a lie, as a court would later confirm in 2020.

Yet that lie crushed me. It locked me inside myself.

From the cheerful Majid I once was, I became the Majid who hid in a basement, broken and silent.

 

My father saw it all.

He saw me slipping.

And instead of turning away, he turned toward me.

He encouraged me to go to Pakistan, to study the faith I had long ignored.

He believed I could change. He believed I could become more than I was.

That journey — to a da’wah school — opened a door.

I started to feel light again. Energy returned. A sense of direction.

 

When I came back to Belgium, that light began to fade.

Memories returned. The smell of the bus station. The same backpack. The old route to work. All of it brought me back to 1/7/2013.

I returned to my basement. But this time, I started to draw.

Again and again, I lost myself in 3D sketches, until one day… I designed the Noble Bench — a bench not made for rest, but for meaning.

 

My father never gave up.

He pushed me to return to Pakistan — not once, but three times. Each stay lasted four months.

Each time, I felt alive. But I missed my family. And strangely… I missed my basement.

 

In 2021, after years of mental struggle, and finally realizing the email that destroyed me was based on lies — I began to wander through Europe.

I became a traveller. Like in Pakistan, I found comfort in simplicity, in movement, in faith.

 

But at the heart of all this, still stands my father —

The man who saw beyond my mistakes.

The one who never gave up.

The one who believed I could find peace.

 

El Aissati Majid