By Cii Radio Features | From Sabeelul Hayat with Mas-oodah Jappie (Part 2/6)
When Zain Bhikha speaks about his new album, his voice softens the way it does when he mentions his parents,steady, grateful, almost reverent. “There are twenty songs,” he says. “Three have been released before, but they belong here. Love & Loss brings them home.”
After thirty years of nasheed, one might expect repetition or nostalgia. Instead, Bhikha’s next release sounds like the most personal,and paradoxically, the most universal,collection of his life.
The sound of grief, gratitude and growth
The title alone hints at a double journey. Over the past two years, Zain lost both parents,his father, Professor Rashid, and his mother, Mariam Bhikha whose melodies often inspired his earliest tunes. “Losing them changed everything,” he admits. “These songs speak about that chaos and beauty we all experience with family,parents, children, spouses. It’s love, but it’s also surrender.”
He began sequencing the album only recently, listening back to recordings that span decades. The result isn’t a single season of loss,it’s a lifetime stitched together: faith after heartbreak, humour after hardship, and always, remembrance.
Among the tracks are A Million Lives (a letter to his father), My Beautiful Rose (for his mother), What My Father Would Say, and a sibling collaboration called This Is Home,a raw, playful, tear-jerking piece he describes as “making you laugh and cry at the same time.”
‘Allah Is Greater’—the first single
The first song to drop will be Allah Is Greater, and for Zain it’s the heart of the project. “When we say Allāhu Akbar, we’re not only saying ‘Allah is the Greatest,’” he explains. “We’re saying He is greater,greater than our pain, our possessions, our plans. That truth covers everything else.”
He hopes the track becomes a comfort, not just a chorus. “It’s a reminder blanket,” he smiles. “Whatever you’re going through, Allah is greater.”
The single will arrive on YouTube and all streaming platforms in the coming weeks, followed by the full twenty-song album.
A lifetime in twenty tracks
Each piece on Love & Loss carries a fragment of Bhikha’s story,childhood faith, the long discipline of consistency, and an artist’s refusal to chase fame. True to the advice Yusuf Islam once gave him, Zain has never made nasheed his livelihood. “Keeping it a hobby kept it pure,” he says. That purity threads through his sound: simple, heartfelt, unvarnished.
Expect both the intimacy of I Remember Your Smile and the grandeur of Mountains of Makkah, but through an older lens,one that has seen life’s fragility and found serenity inside it.
The announcement comes full circle:Years after he dropped off his first cassettes and CD’s at Cii Radio, Zain’s voice will once again reach the world from the same frequency that first believed in him.
Why this one matters
For a generation who grew up winding cassette tapes with pens, Love & Loss is more than an album. It’s a reunion with the voice that narrated their childhood faith,and now, their adult healing.
Bhikha’s nasheeds has always blurred the line between lullaby and dua. This time, he’s closing the circle. “I feel like I’m writing the songs my parents wanted to hear,” he says. “If someone out there finds comfort, that’s their gift,and mine.”
Release details
Love & Loss will be available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music within the next few weeks.
Follow @ZainBhikhaOfficial and @ciiradioonline for the official release date and exclusive previews.
Because sometimes, thirty years into a journey, the most powerful songs are the ones that teach us how to let go—and how to love again.
