Evil Eye

    Tawakkul

    The phrase “when life throws you lemons, make lemonade” is my favorite because this comes from the philosophy of always being grateful for everything Allah swt has given us and every obstacle Allah swt has placed in our lives. Showing gratitude isn’t just about giving thanks when things go right in our lives. It’s about thanking Allah swt for every trial and treating it as the biggest blessing placed in our lives. Because that’s what trials truly are. They are blessings in disguise meant to guide us back to the love of our creator and for us to put our hands up in prayer in the middle of the night asking our lord for help. With no hardship, that cry would be nonexistent, as would our test of proving whether we have true tawwakul or not.

Tawakkul or “trusting in God's plan” is a lot more complex than what people make it to be. It’s one thing to say you trust God has your back, it’s another to believe it from the bottom of your heart. Help is promised to the believers that call upon Allah swt, but we have to think to ourselves, how are we calling? Whom are we calling? And how confident are we in His response? While diving into this topic, I’ve finally gathered enough courage to share a small piece of my life and discuss the true reason why I’ve began this journey towards searching for God’s love.

I suffered from severe depression this past year. I moved out of my parents’ home for a few months summer 2020, and with that, unfortunately also started neglecting a lot of mandatory requirements that came with my religion. It’s no surprise my mental health started taking a drastic decline that September of 2020 after I returned home. My battle with depression carried on for 7 months into April 2021. And it didn’t stop there. The depression eventually started drastically affecting my physical health. By the end of February, not only was I not in a good place mentally with multiple anxiety attacks and mental breakdowns a day, but suddenly, my body began rejecting food all together and I could not stomach anything other than certain fruits for two months straight. Between February and March, I had lost nearly 20 lbs and had become extremely insecure, ultimately affecting my mental health even more.

It was then that I turned back to prayer. I prayed and I cried. But help did not come. I asked God why I was in this situation. I was a good Muslim at heart so why me? What did I do to deserve this? Why wouldn’t he help me? Looking back now, they were all cries for help out of the entitlement I felt to go back to my “normal” healthy self. I would cry and pray and cry and pray nights on end but nothing made me happy. I yearned for some sort of feeling that would make me feel alive. I wanted to change everything about my appearance in hopes that a new me would rise in the process. Nothing. Life had become dull and repetitive with the only sense of comfort being in solitude. Depression is like a prison within your mind you have no escape from. Nothing helps. You can’t run because it follows you everywhere. The easy route is there, but are you ready for an eternity of suffering in hell because you decided to take your own life? I had eventually gotten to the stage that I despised the person looking back at me in the mirror. I hated everything about myself and was counting down the days I would finally be taken from this world. I would even pray for that day to come sooner. But the crazy part is, when it almost happened, it dawned on me that I was not ready to go. And that’s what people fail to realize. You think dying will solve your problems, but it won’t. Your worldly problems are merely surface level abrasions compared to the whole cutting board of eternity.

 March 2021, I booked a trip to Turkey to see if maybe leaving the country was what I needed to become “normal” again. One night, I was laying in my hotel room when I suddenly started getting severe heart palpitations. The last time I had something to eat was almost 24 hours prior and I couldn’t move a limb in my body. The chest pain was the worst pain I had ever experienced in my life. It went on for what felt like hours. I couldn’t even get out of bed as I had no energy and felt completely immobilized. I couldn’t breathe. I literally felt like I was getting choked and my breath was being taken from my body. In those moments I felt a wave of fear overcome me. I knew I wasn’t ready to face my creator. What did I have to show? What good did I have to stand for? I remember a flood of tears beginning to roll down my face as I made a dua to Allah swt. I told Him that I wasn’t ready. I told him that I was ashamed. I told Him that he has full control of my life and my body and he could do as he pleases because Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Illahi Raji’oon, but I begged that He not take my life in a foreign country where I was away from my mother. I knew my mom would never forgive herself for allowing me to go on a trip where my life was taken from me. I asked for her. I begged for her. I did not want that burden on my mother’s shoulders to be caused by me. I knew my time was up and that I had messed up the cards that I had been dealt with in life, but for my mother to reap the sorrow of my actions felt like the greatest act of betrayal that I could have ever inflicted upon anyone. I closed my eyes, said my shahada, and in that moment, the fajr adhaan went off.

 The beautiful thing about Turkey is that there are masjids in every corner. Before I knew it, that’s all I could hear. It was the most serene moment of my life. It was like my entire world lit up. I felt at ease. I felt bliss. I felt like I was the happiest person in the world and that Allah swt was right there with me. It seems almost impossible to put what I felt into words, but what I can say is that I had never felt tranquility like that in my life.

Sometimes Allah swt breaks us to show us that we can’t fix ourselves. We truly are incapable creations without the extended enabling hand of our creator. He breaks us so we can go back to forming a sense of reliance on him. It’s truly from His mercy that we face hardships in life. He could just allow us to deviate from His light and could judge us according to our actions when the hour arrives, but Allah swt is Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim. He calls us back to him in various forms and sometimes, when the ego is the leading factor in our lives, he humbles us through calamities.

 The events and blessings that followed are for another post, but the point I’m trying to make with this story is that we can say we believe. We can say that we have trust. I lived my entire life convincing myself I was a righteous Muslim despite my shortcomings because I had a "clean heart" and now I know that is a direct result of the ego and shaytaan’s waswaas. It's important to be righteous at heart, but following the obligations of the religion are just as important and unfortunately that's what a lot of us fail to realize. We can all ask Allah swt for help in a very surface level manner. But the moment that we truly reflect and internalize that Allah swt is always in control, no matter what the circumstance and truly turn to him with an open heart, putting full faith in whatever He has decreed for us, that is when we have internalized the true meaning of having tawakul. And that is when magical things will begin to happen. When the ego becomes the leading force in our lives, we start becoming more and more self-reliant. We start subconsciously believing that we are in charge of our fate and live our lives attempting to write our own stories, which ultimately is the underlying problem in a lot of the complications we face in our lives, big or small.

 Allah swt will never sink a ship He has been made responsible for keeping afloat. So give Him that responsibility. That’s all He asks of us. All we have to do is take that initial step and ask Him to be the one in control, in all aspects of our lives. We have to live our life with “La Hawla Wala Quwwata Illa Billah” engraved in our hearts. We have to submit. We have to allow Him to guide the heart that He created and knows better than anyone. Say Alhamdulillah in every single one of life’s situations and mean it. Genuinely be grateful because you don’t know the blessings attached to that event. Whether it’s as minuscule as being stuck in traffic on your way to work, or as tragic as losing a loved one, Allah swt knows best, so say alhamdulillah and accept what has been decreed for you. It could be through those hours lost due to traffic that you’re able to return home safely to your loved ones, and it could be that gratitude you showed during times of tribulation that open the gates of Jannah for you. Make it a habit to praise your lord and he will elevate you to spiritual ranks you’ve never even dreamed of obtaining.