By Sometimes, we may find ourselves feeling distant from Islam. We may feel like our life is falling apart and that we’re hopeless or that our level of faith is at a low. We feel lost, we worry no prayer is being answered and then we ask ourselves: “How can I possibly get myself through this?”
I’m here to tell you that this feeling is okay.
We’re all striving to be the best we can be. I’m still learning myself and struggling. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve lost myself a few times. It’s been quite a journey, people, and here are some things that I’ve picked up and held on to along the way through it all.
1. Allah doesn’t give up on us.
This ayah was revealed to Prophet Muhammed (SAW) while he was in a bad state of mind, and negativity was building up inside of him. He, the Prophet himself, felt lost. This shows that it’s normal for us as human beings to have this feeling — it’s not wrong.
This ayah was revealed to give the Prophet hope, and it can do the same for us.
Allah (SWT) never gives up on us and this ayah is proof that he is always there to give us the Hidaya — guidance — we need to set us back onto the straight path.
2. Tawwakul.
“Tawwakul is having full trust in God — But in order to reach this level, one must hold onto hope, strive with the limbs and let go with the heart.” — Yasmin Mogahed
Sometimes the things that happen in our lives are for our best interest. We must realize that there is a reason for everything that falls upon us — every blessing, and every hardship.
A good friend told me, once you recognize that Allah (SWT) takes precedence over everything, your entire life falls into place. Subhanallah, your heart is at ease because it’s in the hands of Allah (SWT). After I recognized that, It felt like a part of me had been missing and now it had finally come back to me.
3. Patience is key.
“Seek help through patience and prayer, indeed, Allah is with the patient.” — (Quran 2:153)
Allah (SWT) doesn’t put you through anything that you can’t handle. Being patient is painful and tiring, it’s hard, but it’s always worth it in the end. Patience is bitter in taste, yet its outcomes are sweeter than honey.
Honestly, patience is giving up everything you love for the one that loves you the most — and what is more beautiful than that?
4. Keep up with prayer.
Working on your salah is the most important key to a happy life. Make dua constantly, pray Istikhara and even set alarms to keep up with the daily prayer timings.
Prayer’s purpose is to keep ourselves close to Allah (SWT). We can’t sit back and expect everything to be handed to us. It’s a two-way street, and you must maintain a relationship with Allah (SWT) and pray often.
Your soul needs prayer like your lungs need air.
5. Show gratitude.
“You can be sitting there, drinking your coffee while your life falls down around you, with a smile on you. Your world can fall apart but you can decide too see the beauty in the destruction.”
It can seem tough but stop and think about it; you woke up this morning, you’re alive and Allah (SWT) has given you another day. Allah has stayed with you through it all and has given you chances.
Every problem you’ve faced, hardship you’ve overcome, he’s put you through it all to do nothing but teach you and bring you toward good.
No matter how hard things may seem, always say Alhamdulillah — thank God. Make it a habit to say it at every ease and hardship.
“And remember when your Lord proclaimed, “If you are grateful, I will surely increase you in favor.” (Quran 14:7)
I promise, you will find peace. Give yourself time to heal.
In the future, when you feel nothing but ease and tell yourself, “I made it through it all,” it is one of the greatest feelings in the world. I don’t think anything compares to the feeling of finding yourself again.
Let’s pray we all do.
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Image: Deviant Art
This made my heart feel light. Thank you
If Allah constitute the sense, then what are we….the nonsense?
Hey, just because something doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it isn’t a valid way for other people to live their lives. What happened to the “rainbow” or does that only apply to people who accept Allah? I just read the post on your site about how to stop ISIS from defining western Muslims into a “gray zone”. Perhaps if you were to say, “Atheists and secular people are our brothers and sisters too, they have every right to their non-belief, they are not going to hell, we do not believe they should be converted, we especially do not believe in force being used against them”. I would like to see a Muslim rally for the rights of Atheists, the same way many liberal Atheists have rallied in the West to support the rights of Muslims to practice their religion.
I don’t understand the relavence. Where as I can see you’re saying questioning whether or not athiests would get support from the Muslim community or not, I don’t understand why you’re generalizing as well as assuming that there isn’t or wouldn’t be support from Muslims for your rights as an atheist. To generalize and say Muslims as a whole believe atheists or ‘non believers’ have the potential to end up in hell Or not is an entirely different issue in and of itself having to do with belief systems. I as a Muslim can say I respect that you are an atheist, but as for my thought process on who goes to heaven or hell, that’s not my burden as the only one who can judge us, again according to my belief system of choice, is God. At the end of the day, I’d stand with you or any group for their basic rights, but to each his own when it comes to thought process of the purpose of life or belief system. As a Muslim, it’s great to have support from any community, but excuse my own ignorance when I ask how are your rights being violated as an atheist? A lead presidential candidate is not only wanting to ban people entrance into the US based on religion but wants current residents in the US to be tracked again based on a specific belief system. Forget that, how about others who are not Muslim being terrorized just because people are ignorant enough to stereotype them under the same bracket (I.e., Sikhs)? I don’t see athiests being terrorized or questioned or discriminated against after an atheist decided to kill 3 people at point blank in their own home. The purpose of this reply isn’t to point fingers because in reality, I highly doubt you as a human being, let alone atheist, would stand in solidarity with that person just as I would never stand in solidarity with a terrorist group that chooses to use my belief system to justify their actions. The point I’m trying to get across is if basic rights are being violated, racial, cultural, belief system, sexual orientation, color, etc should never be the a part of the discussion.
Hi Yasmine. First of all, I think Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US is disgusting and I absolutely stand against it. However, I would do so somewhat more tentatively, knowing that if I were to go express my views in Saudi Arabia or Iran, both countries ruled by Islamic law of one form or another, I would be imprisoned or executed as has happened to many Saudis and Iranians who chose to reject Islam and follow their own belief system of atheism or Christianity. Since there are countries which implement Islamic law and that is, in fact, the nature of and definition of apostasy in Islam, there is some question as to whether such practice is compatible with the American values of free expression and freedom of religious conscience. A parallel might be the banning of Tibetan religious practice by the atheist Chinese government, or the destruction of churches by the atheist Soviets. Both of which were heavily criticized by people of all religions and by atheists in the West. As for generalizing based on someone’s belief system: Your belief system is a choice. Perhaps it’s not a choice made freely in Saudi Arabia, but in the US, the belief system you choose to subscribe to says something about who you are. People choose to be Christian, Jewish, Muslim or atheist. They convert from one to the other because they agree with what one has to say. They choose their church, temple or mosque based on what’s preached there. Evangelical Christians make a certain set of choices, and part of their belief system is to try to convert as many people as possible — something I find personally repugnant. And I blame them for it. Atheism covers a lot of territory — but then again, so does Christianity and Islam. However when you speak of an atheist murdering someone, you’re mixing apples and oranges. The question is the motivation for killing someone. I don’t know what case you’re talking about, but I do know that there has been no world-wide pattern of atheists going on murderous rampages and shooting innocent people because of their religious beliefs (or non-belief). If we saw on the news that gun-wielding atheists walked into a Jewish kindergarten and shot dozens of children while yelling “there is no God”, and then if that type of scene were being repeated by random groups of atheists all over the world, then I wouldn’t be too surprised if people were extremely suspicious of me for being an atheist and thought I was potentially dangerous. I would feel it most important to distance myself from that — and not simply by saying “that’s not what ‘we’ stand for” or “I don’t condone violence”, because how are they supposed to know or believe that? I would question how my beliefs could lead to that, and I would probably want to revise what I call myself to distance myself from it. Maybe I’d change my description to “pacifist non-believer” or something. In any case, I would want to see our people actively stopping the crazy people within our ranks from doing or saying these things. As atheism is non-religion and so just a catch-all, there’s no structure or mosque or church from which to try to stop what some atheists do. Nonetheless, I would want to see famous atheists on TV call for any and every power of government necessary to stop these people. Religions have even more leverage: For example, clerics around the world could issue fatwahs saying that people who murder in the name of Islam are not going to heaven. If I were Muslim, I would be agitating for that in my local mosque. What we are seeing is an almost daily occurrence of people yelling “Allahu Akbar” while killing people, and it is based on their belief system. It is not simply that they happen to be Muslim and kill people, they are killing because they are Muslim. Presumably they are not the same kind of Muslims as you, and their belief system is different, but they are making all the noise, that’s what they call themselves, that’s their chosen belief system, and their version of it includes killing non-believers. Moreover, the countries like Saudi Arabia which are the closest in practice to having Islamic law also kill atheists officially, such as the Palestinian blogger who’s about to be beheaded there for atheism. And I agree that puts you, as a non-violent person who believes in the same basic religion, in a very difficult situation. Rather than blame the rest of the world for drawing such a connection, though, it unfortunately means that you should re-evaluate whether your beliefs are compatible with a system — the system you chose — which also is permitting this to happen.
As for backlash — idiots setting fire to a mosque or attacking Sikhs — we as Americans don’t stand for that and those people need to be tried as criminals. There is no place for that in our culture. The burning of churches in Egypt and attacks on Copts there, the burning of churches in Pakistan and stoning of Christians there, the imprisonment and execution of people accused of non-belief in Iran or Saudi Arabia, gives some hint as to what happens when the Islamic belief system becomes a basis for state policy. That is a lot to answer for, if you simply want to share the belief that Allah is God and Mohammed is His Prophet. In that case, stand against it or stand for it, but don’t blame the rest of the world for making generalizations. People choose to believe what they choose, and belief systems create different outcomes.
One other thing: You could have called this article “Allah helps life make sense.” Or “My life without Allah makes no sense.” Instead, you named it “Life Without Allah Doesn’t Make Sense.” That is a generalized statement that is deeply disrespectful to me and my beliefs, as well as to all the other people who do not believe in gods. It is a smear on people who don’t believe what you believe, and it makes a claim that our lives are somehow senseless and presumably incorrect. If you really hold the view that all belief systems are equal and everyone has a right to practice theirs in peace, you wouldn’t make a statement that life without your god is senseless. If that’s truly your view, then it is supremacist. You think your beliefs are better than mine. I will defend your right to say that because I’m and American and I place value on free speech, even when the people who say things are wrong and even when they’re offensive to me personally. But you go further and ask to have your entire belief-system and group pardoned for the violence it perpetrates at the same time and *in the name of this supremacist belief*. I’m sure if you asked ISIS or Al Qaeda, they would agree: Life without Allah doesn’t make sense to them, either. Why should I then have sympathy for you when people react because they believe you could, like ISIS or Al Qaeda, go further and choose to impose the supposed supremacy of your own beliefs through violence? After all, if our lives make no sense, then our lives are worth less than yours, right? So why not kill us if you feel like it?
you should call 877-whyislam, if you live in the US. they will send you a book called towards understanding islam. if the very first chapter it is quite descriptive in its opinion of us atheists.
btw, atheists are persecuted in islamic countries all the time. see the recent killings of bloggers in Bangladesh.
Jazak’Allahu Khairan. Never tire of getting such reminders.
Salaam Aleykum 🙂 Thank you for your beautiful and positive article. I echo the comment below mine, this indeed made my heart feel light <3
no only does allah not make sense, his supposed prophets and ‘divine revelations’ don’t make sense.
Dear Yusra, Thanks for your post.
I’m glad your religion helps you. I do want to point out that you don’t have to believe in a religion to believe in God, trust in God or pray to God. You may find an even deeper and more direct relationship develops if you leave behind the divisive idea of separation that religions causes by their very existence. Groups within groups of people all believing they are separate from those who don’t share the same ridged views when truly we are one as a species, one soul, one life, one god there is no ‘other’ except in our mind.
There should be no middle Men between ourselves and our god. No people, humans, who interpret spiritual teachings for us from the written words of other men from a different age, however wise they are or may have been. Surely all spiritual teachings, from any source, can help us re-examine and understand our relationship to god but non should not be taken as the only truth or be followed blindly and obeyed without personal resonance and confirmation. God has bought us all to our own place and moment in life so maybe right here and right now is the perfect experience to learn from not other people or group rules.
Respect and love on the path. X