From the Journal of Faris Khan — On Knives, Intention, and the Hand That Moves Before It Is Seen
I did not choose knives because I loved them. I chose them because they are honest.
A knife does not ask for distance. It does not promise safety. It does not pretend to be impersonal. When you throw one, you commit your will fully. If it misses, that failure belongs to you alone. I respected that long before I understood what my hands were doing.
It took time to realize the knives were listening.
At first, it felt like coincidence—throws landing truer than they should, blades correcting themselves mid-flight as if the air were advising them. I told myself it was experience, breath control, practice under pressure. That explanation comforted me. Skill can be trained. Gifts cannot.
But there were moments I could not dismiss. A knife curving around cover I had not seen. Another halting just short of a killing blow when my resolve wavered. Once, a blade struck a weapon from a man’s hand when I had aimed for his throat. I did not command that restraint. My body did.
This frightened me more than failure would have.
I asked no one for a long time. Power that announces itself invites theft or worship, and both are corrosive. Still, doubt accumulates. Eventually, I spoke to a small gathering of clerics and Sufis—men and women who had learned to listen for meaning without demanding spectacle. I did not describe the knives. I described the hesitation.
One of them quoted quietly:
“And you did not throw when you threw, but God threw.”
That verse has been abused by men who wanted credit without accountability. They reminded me of the rest: intention precedes action, and action without discipline is chaos disguised as fate.
They told me this: some abilities are not rewards. They are responsibilities revealed late, when the soul has learned restraint first. Movement guided without touch is not dominance over the world—it is alignment with consequence. The knife moves because the hand knows when not to strike.
I asked if I should stop.
An old Sufi smiled and said, “Do you stop breathing because air exists?”
The gift does not absolve me. It tightens the standard. Every throw must be justified before it leaves my fingers. If I am angry, the blade wanders. If I am afraid, it hesitates. Only when my intent is clean does it obey fully.
That is not power. That is accountability given shape.
The Qur’an says, “God loves those who act with excellence.” Excellence is not precision alone. It is knowing when precision would be a sin.
I still use knives. I still prefer them to guns, spells, or machines. They require presence. They refuse abstraction. And when they move beyond my reach, they remind me that no action—however guided—is ever separate from the one who chose it.
If the day comes when I begin to enjoy the throw, I will stop.
Until then, I accept what was placed in my hands—not as permission, but as test.