Don’t forget to recite Sūrat Al-Kahf on Friday. When you make du'as for yourself, include your family, and those who are suffering. Keep the Ummah in your supplications, especially pray for the oppressed and refugees who are starving. May Allāh accept from us all. Ameen.
Make duas for everyone
Some people have strong patience when it comes to doing what is good for them, but their patience is weak with regard to restraint from harmful actions, so we may find that a person has enough patience to perform acts of worship (Salah, Sawm, Hajj) but have no patience in controlling himself and refraining from following his whims and desires, and in this way he may commit haram deeds. Conversely, some people may have strong patience in abstaining from forbiden deeds, but their patience in obeying commandments and performing ‘Ibadah is too weak. Some people have no patience in either case. And needles to say, the best people are those who posses both types of patience.
So a man may have plenty patience when it comes to standing all night in prayer, and enduring whatever conditions of heat or cold may prevalent, but have no patience at all when it comes to lowering his gaze and refraining from looking at women. Another may have no problem in controlling his gaze, but he lacks the patience which would make him enjoin the good and forbid the evil, and he is so weak and helpless that he cannot strive against the Kuffar and Mushrikum. Most people will be lacking in patience in any one case, and a few lack in it all cases.
Book: Patience and Gratitude
Keep making dua with the same passion you had at the start. Don’t let a delayed answer bring you down. Allah will not turn you away empty handed.
“Sadness is a part of what makes us human. No living soul is unfamiliar with it.”
You might often come across a conversation pertaining to things like “sadness is shaytan’s doing” or that “a believer never gets sad” or even that “sadness is an indication of weak or incomplete faith”. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could be further from the truth. Statements like these only escalate the process of drowning for individuals who suffer from depression, anxiety or hopelessness.
It is of the utmost importance that people know the difference between sadness and depression; sadness is a typical human emotion and depression is a much more damaging and longer lasting condition of hopelessness, despair, and dejection.
Sadness is a part of what makes us human. No living soul is unfamiliar with it; even our Prophets faced multiple episodes of sadness. For example, Yaqub عليه السلام wept until he lost his vision and even our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ experienced bouts of sadness upon the loss of his wife and uncle. Hence, sadness is not a sign of weakness in any form. To experience sadness is to be human. Having strong faith, or Imaan, does not render a believer to be an exception to the emotion of sadness.
Imaan does, however, equip us with the tools to combat depression and hopelessness. There is nothing wrong with accepting and acknowledging your grief. The strength of a believer is not that he remains strong by dwelling in denial or drowning in numbness, it is that he never loses hope despite all the pain and grief. That in essence is what true faith is.
If you feel yourself being chained down by your trials, or you feel stuck in your depressive thoughts and endless bouts of hopelessness, here are a few truths that can help you through your darkest days and rekindle that light at the end of that tunnel, inshaAllah.
No soul is burdened with more than it can bear
Don’t ever forget that Allāh will never burden you with something that is beyond your capacity to deal with. Even on days when you feel as if you cannot take it anymore, know that you can survive it- for Allāh knows us better than we know ourselves and whatever trial you’re facing in your life, know that He also gives you the strength to handle that trial.
With hardship comes ease
Allāh promises His believer that “For indeed, with hardship [will be] ease” (Qu'ran 94:5). Trust His word. Even if the suffering feels endless and you feel yourself getting exhausted from the weight of it all, do not lose hope- for there is ease and something even better waiting for you right around the corner. Nothing remains forever, not even hardships. And those believers who hold on to hope and faith in Allāh and adopt patience amidst their difficult times are then rewarded in ways human beings cannot even imagine. So remember, this too, shall pass.
Allāh is in control, you are not
Depression is majorly defined by a sense of hopelessness- in yourself and in the world around you. It is rooted in a sense of sheer helplessness where you feel like nothing is in your control. But that is the truth; nothing IS in your control. It is in Allāh’s control. Take a moment, embrace your lack of control over your circumstances, and know that the one in control is the best of planners and loves you more than you can imagine. Surrender your attempts to control your life, leave it up to Allāh, and trust His plan for you. Sometimes, the human mind is unable to understand Allāh’s ultimate wisdom behind every single thing that happens to us. However, by accepting that Allāh is in control and welcoming His plans for us ultimately leads to the enrichment of our mind, body and soul.
Do the best you can and leave the rest to Allāh
Remind yourself that human responsibility is restricted within certain boundaries. All Allāh asks of us is that we fulfill our duties and do the best we can in our circumstances and leave the outcomes to Allāh. We can only control our actions and duties, not the outcomes. Even Allāh’s prophets did not have control over their outcomes. A believer is rewarded based on the effort, not the result. Do not dwell on what is beyond your control and embrace Allāh’s magnificence. Do not make yourself anxious over the unknown outcomes. Play your role the best you can and leave the rest to Him.
Be grateful for the blessings Allāh has bestowed you with
During the hard times, we tend to forget the blessings we have around us and instead, we focus more on the things that are going wrong for us. It is human nature. We tend to get lost in circumstantial sources of grief and pain and forget to notice our source of blessings. Whenever you feel yourself being sucked into a dark phase of hopelessness and depression- remind yourself that you have a lot to be grateful for at the same time- whether it is a loving family, supportive friends, food in your belly every night before you sleep, a roof over your head and countless other things. Remind yourself that you are better off than so many other people who do not share our fortune in these domains. Keep a “count your blessings” journal if you want, where you can jot down a couple of things you are grateful for on a daily basis. It really does help in looking at the bright side of things.
Dua for when you feel depressed and hopeless
The Holy Prophet ﷺ is known to have said:
“Whoever was afflicted with grief and distress and says (see the following Du'a), Allāh, the Exalted and Ever-Majestic, will remove his grief and will change his sorrow into happiness.” It was said, “O Messenger of Allāh! (Do) we have to learn these words?” He said, “Yes, whoever hears them should learn them:
“O Allāh, I am your slave, the son of your slave. My forelock is in Your Hand. Your judgment of me is inescapable. Your trial of me is just. I am invoking You by all the names that You call Yourself, that You have taught to anyone in Your creation, that You have mentioned in Your Book, or that You have kept unknown. Let the Qur’an be delight of my heart, the light of my chest, the remover of my sadness and the pacifier of my worries”.
The Prophet also recommended the following Du'a for a believer feeling grief and hopeless:
“O Allāh, I hope for Your mercy. Do not leave me to myself even for the blinking of an eye. Correct all of my affairs for me. There is none worthy of worship but You.”
Combating depression and anxiety is not an easy ordeal but Islam gives us hope for healing ourselves and dictates a path leading to its cure. Everything is possible for the Almighty- including the healing of His creation. He helps those who ask it of Him. Put your trust in Him and His plans, and you will feel a certain sense of contentment and comfort, knowing that the best planner is in control of your life and your circumstances.
I honestly think that men can’t love the way women do, women almost always love more in every realtionship. They just love deeply. A mother loves her child more, so do sisters and so does a wife. They just love fully.
You are here for a reason, you do matter and the world wouldn’t be the same without you here. ❤
JazakAllah Khair for this ♡
Instead of making jokes about that “Muslims” who considere themselves LGTBQ, make sincere du'a for them and advise them to repent sincerely from heart, to turn to Allāh, and regret what they have done. May Allāh forgive their sins and help them to get rid of their disease, Ameen.
Accept that not everyone is going to appreciate you. That your personality won’t mesh with everyone. Accept that you are not defined by someone else’s opinion of you. And accept yourself for your strengths and weaknesses.
Just a reminder that Vincent van Gogh did not eat yellow paint to make himself feel happy, he ate paint, and drank different chemicals because he was suicidal and this is why he was not allowed in his studio while having breakdowns. He also did not paint starry night and his other great works because he was depressed, he painted most of them while he was in recovery and demonstrated his hopefulness and love of the world through this. Most of his great works were painted from his room at a hospital. Van Gogh’s depression should not be glorified. His hope and effort toward a better life, as well as his recovery from depression should be glorified.
Do not let anyone make you feel like you’re unlovable; you may be difficult to love, you may have baggage, but you are not unloveable.
The people who break you are not the ones who are going to put you back together.
find someone who knows you’re sad just by the change of tone in your voice
be with someone who loves the feature that you hate the most
fall inlove with someone who looks at you and knows they don’t want anyone else
R'J
A mistake we make as an ummah these days is correlating someone’s faith with their level of coverage and general outward appearance. We assume one group follows the religion deeply and the opposite one doesn’t. Here’s what I mean:
You know what I’ve also met? Covered Muslim women (to varying degrees) who do the same thing. And this is not limited to women. We have:
The failure is not in physical appearance; that’s remediable and a journey. The issue is internal. We give passes to folks who cover and demonize those who don’t. We deem brothers with kufis are better catches than the ones in jeans as if that says enough about character. We think sisters wearing skirts/dresses is the epitome of success and ignore their cursing, smoking, etc.
We cannot measure Faith, not ours and definitely not that of others. I’m not advocating for “full acceptance of everything, no questions asked.” That’s not an action plan. We should approach sisters and brothers who engage in the above acts and any other situation out there. And should we belong to any of those categories ourselves, we should feel blessed if we have a person in our life to reach out to us about it. But we cannot build pedestals of outer layers.
One thing I think is useful to conceptualize when thinking about the severity of depression is figuring out what counts as a ‘task’ to your brain
for example, healthy people outlining the tasks they need to do that day might be something like
- class - work - homework
if a healthy person is having a low energy day, maybe it becomes
- make breakfast - go to class - class - go to work - work - come home from work - work on an essay - do 2 readings
a depressed person, on a high energy day will probably see that same day as
- make breakfast - eat breakfast - take meds - shower - get dressed - walk to bus - take bus … etc
a depressed person, on a low energy day will see that same day as
- wake up - get out of bed - walk to bathroom - use bathroom - stand back up - walk to kitchen - open fridge - take out juice - set on counter - go to cabinet - reach up arm - take down glass - unscrew lid of juice carton - pour juice - drink the juice - finish the juice …etc
the sort of chronic exhaustion manifests in how each ‘task’ takes a certain amount of energy and when you have depression, what begins to take that amount of energy- and thus, cognitively count as a ‘task’- are smaller and smaller subdivisions of what other people consider tasks.
And the more ‘tasks’ you do, the less energy you have, and the smaller the subdivisions must be to take equivalent amounts of energy. And the longer that “to do” list of tasks is, the more exhausting and overwhelming and hopeless it feels, which creates a feedback loop of dysfunction.
So say our depressed person on a low energy day gets all the way to finishing their glass of juice. They’ve actually gotten through a lot of tasks! They’ve tried really hard.
But to a healthy person, even on a low energy day, that probably looks like not having done anything- not having gotten through any tasks. And when our depressed person is surrounded by healthy people, they will likely internalize that they haven’t done anything, and further that they can’t complete any tasks no matter how hard they try. And that feeds worthlessness and suicidal ideation
That, I think, is why it’s so important to encourage your depressed and chronically low-energy friends when they accomplish tasks, even if they’re operating at a level of subdivision that you don’t recognize. It is an accomplishment to get water and actually drink it for some folks. It is an accomplishment to get to class or to work.
And acknowledging how hard someone is trying and how much energy they’re putting towards accomplishing those tasks can make a huge difference in whether they feel worthless and hopeless or whether they feel like it’s worth it to keep doing what they can.
