Mohammad Elshinawy – Facing Depression As a Muslim
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of understanding the meaning behind depression and the challenges of existence. They also discuss the importance of positive and negative views of one's life and how negative views can lead to behavior patterns. The speakers emphasize the need for balance between consumption and productivity, finding a filter and reference point, and teaching and finding a purpose for individuals. They also touch on the history of Islam and the importance of language in explaining one's actions and community support. The segment ends with a brief advertisement for a podcast and a call to action for viewers.AI: Transcript ©
In today's world, there's not a lot of
things that perpetuate happiness and that we see
on the news or we see anywhere in
society, and it's mostly, you know, perpetuates depression.
So to touch on that topic, we have
Sheikh Ashinaoui here that will explain to us
how we can cope with that Islamically and
how we can work with it in our
day to day lives. Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi.
Alaykum Salam.
So Sheikh, can you share your insights on
how spirituality
within Islamic teachings,
intersects with mental health specifically in understanding depression?
Bismillah. We begin the name of Allah. All
praise and glory be to Allah. And may
His finest peace and blessings be upon His
messenger, Muhammad,
and his family and his companions and all
those who adhere to his guidance.
There's really so much here because
Islam did not bring to the world a
proposition
of
just put up with it.
Life's horrible,
that the path
to paradise,
is all about, you know, torture and
and doom and gloom. No, the Quran is
very clear.
And Surataha, Allah Azzawajal says, We did not
send this Quran down upon you to be
miserable. In fact, the very opposite. The end
of Surataha says,
whomever turns away from my guidance,
then they will have a narrow constricted life.
What that means and what that looks like
and how lack of religiosity can give you
a constricted life, we could be getting ahead
of ourselves. We can talk about that in
a second if you like, but the idea
is
without this deen, you are bound to a
constricted life means this deen came to liberate
you from a light of constriction, a light
of
depression, a life of suppression
and that's extremely important.
Elsewhere in the Quran, Allah Azzawajal says, whomever
of
you works righteous deeds, be they a male
or a female, while they are a believer,
once again, belief and religion,
then we will surely give him or her
a goodly life and then we will reward
them the ultimate reward. So goodly life is
something
before
on route to the ultimate reward. So Islam
came to give us the best of both
worlds. I came across some of your lectures.
It was actually about this topic, and you
touched upon some societal factors that contribute to
the rise in the depression. And can you
just elaborate on what some of those societal
factors are
and how do they relate to the challenge
of depression?
Yeah. This is an issue of worldviews, and
worldviews
are underserved.
What is your worldview? It makes a huge
difference.
You know, like religion in general, I keep
saying religion, religion is seen as some coincidental
factor nowadays like personality type. I happen to
coincidentally be the spiritual type or not.
As opposed to, here's the counter, the alternative
that I am
As opposed to, here's the counter, the alternative
that I am suggesting for everyone to reconsider,
that anything and everything is dependent on your
creed
because your creed is actually the lens through
which you understand life, understand the world.
So let's put that into a little bit
less of abstract
terms. Why are people suffering? It's because they
see the world as the buy all end
all. If this world is the buy all
end all, this world stinks.
Right?
Like, that means every moment lost in suffering,
I can never retrieve. There's no higher purpose.
There's no wisdom.
I I can't sort of channel that into
any sort of positivity, into any sort of
optimism.
Like, if this world is the by all
end all, that means I'm
inevitably on a decline, inevitably on a, like
a
a decrease.
My time is shrinking. My health is shrinking.
My beauty is fading.
Right? Everything is on its way down because
life is dwindling. Like, what are you? But
but a number of days, every time another
day is over, a part of you is
gone forever. That's a horrible thing to think
about.
Sadly, people live that way when it's not
even true.
You know, there's
like an emerging field, and I'm sort of
act like I know more than I actually
do. There's an emerging trend or a sort
of field in in psychological research
called existential
psychotherapy.
So it seeks to offer a therapeutic solution
for people's psychology, psychotherapy,
based on the notion of existential beliefs. Like,
how do I understand existence?
Right? And
many people don't understand existence. They don't know.
They're at odds. They have this inner conflict
with the givens of existence. And so how
can I make sense of something? How can
I cope with something that I can't comprehend?
I'm disoriented.
Like, being oriented, world view,
is so important. Like, imagine yourself,
like, you wake up 1 morning in a
forest.
The first
thing that you're gonna want to resolve and
you won't be able to shake off is
this disorientation. Like what the, how did I,
where to from here? Like, you won't even
care about food and drink. Think about the
the importance of orientation.
Even food and drink which are our most
seen to be our most fundamental
needs, physical needs,
are gonna be seen as like a luxury.
I don't care about food, what food, and
drink. I gotta figure out how I got
here. I gotta figure out why I'm here.
I gotta figure out how to get out
of this jungle. Right? So the givens of
existence are huge.
And the Quran came to liberate us from
being in the dark. When Allah Azzawajal says,
These are insights from your Lord, these revelations
we give you, that means without them, you
got the blinders on. You have no lenses.
Like, you have nothing.
And so
and, you know,
of all the givens, the most important of
those givens, the most important
orientation is orientation on purpose. Right?
Not just orientation like what's right and what's
wrong, how should I behave. Before that, what's
the point of it all? Because if you
don't have the point, you can never actually
assess anything else. Right? Like,
this was a good move or this was
a bad move in the basketball game. How?
Because basketball has a purpose. These and these
guys are supposed to, like, put the ball
in that hoop and otherwise stealing is unethical.
Right? Like, unless you figure out the purpose,
the name of the game, you can never
size up sort of the practice, the behavior,
the protocols.
And so forget ethical morality for no. Just
purpose.
You know? There was a humongous doctor Zohair
Ab Rahman has a study
that he references in the beginning,
of his paper on the importance of spirituality
in Islam. I forget the exact title now,
but it can be Googled at Yaqeen Institute.
And he mentioned this is an enormous study
by tens of thousands of people, you know,
like
dozens of countries, so 140,000 people,
were studied across cultures, cross cross civilizations,
across socioeconomic class. It's a very interesting finding
on the power of purpose
and the the importance of you seeing life
as meaningful worldview. Right?
They basically gauged
and found that the people in wealthier countries
report higher happiness, and they mean, like, materialistic
happiness. Like, I have more access.
A nicer restaurant, nicer vacation, nicer ride, whatever
it's gonna be.
Right?
But in that sense, higher but at the
same time, they report
higher depression rates and sort of higher propensity
likelihood for suicide. So it's like how does
that even work? That's the whole idea, that
even more so than comfort, even more so
than pleasure, you need purpose
because they found that the countries that had
the highest mental health crises, the highest suicidal
ideations and trends and stuff were not the
countries that were poorer, like less comfort. They
were the countries that reported
less
of seeing life as meaningful,
seeing life as purposeful. So that's the number
one way to get, like, anchored
and escape the the hysteria of what does
my existence mean. Let me be a broken
record here and bring it back to worldview
since I'm saying it's underserved, so I'm gonna
serve it today as best I can. Like,
the problem of evil.
Life is seen entirely as evil. Why?
That's a huge problem. You're not seeing the
world through the lens
that Allah guided you to, the correct lens,
seeing the world as entirely a reflection of
His names and His attributes, if you would
see His your life with the world as
a reflection of His names and His attributes,
it would be primarily
reflecting compassion,
primarily
reflecting mercy,
primarily reflecting justice, primarily reflecting
reflecting wisdom. Right? So for instance, think of
the atrocities in genocide
that, you know, should be on our mind
and all of the oppression nowadays in in
so many different parts of the world, not
just Palestine. There's there's Sudan and Turkmenistan
and even the poverty of 1 third of
this planet and so on and so forth,
while the rich get richer and the poor
get poor.
If I my worldview is Allah is matchless
in his mercy
and flawless in his justice and perfect in
his wisdom, Then I see that tyrant and
I say,
that
tyrant
is a reflection of God's wisdom,
Not that we accept tyranny or like tyranny
or supposed to be okay with or silent
about tyranny,
but God is amazing.
He gives tyrants sometimes
a grace period.
Right?
Just enough rope to choke themselves with.
And in the process,
he chooses
those he wishes to honor with the highest
rank of martyrdom. Right?
And then he pulls the rope back and
snatches them in a way that only the
almighty can. It's a completely different perspective. Right?
But that is the perspective of the believer.
You know,
even the idea of I'm short changed.
You know, in psychology they call it a
deficit mindset. You have this cognitive lens that's
just negative. Why did it become so negative?
Because you have not gotten into the attitude
of being positive, which the Quran accustoms you
to. You know, when Allah Azzawajal says,
the human being is ever a denier, that
means not all. That means with the default,
the predominant,
you know, posture of the human being is
that I'm always sort of denying God's favors,
which alerts you to the fact that, oh,
wait a minute. Like, am I part of
the majority? Because the majority is like this.
So, like, how do I make myself an
exception? Like, is there?
And so al Hassan al Basri when he
read this ayah, the human being ordinarily, usually,
is ever a denier of his Lord. He
gives a beautiful explanation. He says, You uddun
masaiba walaia uddunniam.
All he does is count his misfortunes.
Like a spoiled, entitled, bratty, right,
counts as misfortunes and never counts as favors.
And so
and then you even think of the framework.
The Quran doesn't just give you a reminder
on every single page of God's favors that
you take for granted. That's resetting your lens,
right? But even the practices of Islam. You
know, they say the attitude of gratitude.
We say that salah is gratitude.
We've given you so much.
So now pray to your Lord. Right?
If you're not going to be stopping
for gratitude 5 times a day, you're never
gonna develop the attitude of gratitude. You're gonna
probably just put some annual placeholder called Thanksgiving,
and then it's not gonna work. And that's
why we all shop after Thanksgiving on Black
Friday and Tech Tuesday or Cyber Monday or
whatever else we call it in the, you
know, the consumer,
riddled world.
So
that's the idea. The idea is, like, worldview,
purpose, seeing reflection of Allah's jed, and then
seeing yourself also. What an awesome master. What
a miserable slave. Like, I need to fix
this up and it's for my own good.
God doesn't get anything out of this. I
get out of it. So it
improves. And even this notion of, like, I'm
being punished perpetually and I need to be
punished. No. You don't. Allah can forgive you
without punishing you. Sometimes we have even, like,
a a negative self image, not just the
image of the world and what I'm getting,
but even, like, I don't deserve to get.
That's another problem that makes people feel very
unfulfilled and emotionally depressed,
and that's a problem. Like, what Allah needs
to punish you? No. Allah benefits from punishing
you? No.
Allah can't forgive you for free? Yes, he
can.
Even in Sahih Muslim, the Hadith of Al
Abba is a very beautiful Hadith.
Al Abba radiAllahu an, the prophet alaihi salatu
wa sallam
visited him
or a man,
I don't recall, but it's his life Muslim,
highly authentic hadith,
and
he saw that he was sick and very
sick, and he had a hunch sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam that maybe this was like self
inflicted or something.
And so he
said to him, did you make a particular
dua supplication to God about a little something?
He said, yes.
I would make du'a to Allah and say,
oh, Allah, whatever.
You're going to punish me within the hereafter?
He's saying, I know I deserve it. Alright.
Give it to me in this world. Like,
I don't want any punishment in the hereafter
because the hereafter, the stakes are much higher.
And so the prophet, alayhi, sata, wasalam, said
to him,
like, you cannot bear it in this world
or the next. Like, why ask God to
punish you? He said to him, why didn't
you just say,
Oh, Allah, give us the good of this
life and give us the next good of
the next life,
and protect us from the torment of the
fire. There's actually another, and I'll stop here,
though, but,
interesting incident
about,
Simnun, a scholar whose name is Simnun.
And he said,
oh Allah,
I love you so much so punish me
now and you will see how much I
love you. Like, I I'll accept anything from
you.
So
Allah did something very simple. Like, he he
basically
caused them to have bladder stones essentially. Like,
he couldn't urinate.
And so he went to the scholars and
consulted them. Like, I'm gonna die here. What
am I gonna immediately, he went complaining.
And
one of them gave him excellent advice. He
said go to the little kids in the
Quran circles.
Because, you know, children are sinless,
plus they're studying Quran so, like, there's a
compounded virtue there. And so he used to
go around to the circles and say, udlu'liam
mikum sumnoon kathab. Make dua for your uncle,
sumnoon the liar. I claimed I'd be able
to. You're not gonna be able to. So,
like, don't ask him for it. Don't expect
it. Don't think it's needed. That's a worldview.
Right, that Allah
loves to forgive.
So
how do you suggest that someone can
balance the pursuit of happiness with positivity
while acknowledging, you know, and accepting sadness, grief,
stuff like that of this world, you know,
because
it will happen. You will become sad. You
will grieve somebody, but how do can you
balance happiness with that as well?
You know, it is reported that one of
the Salaf, one of the early Muslims,
a righteous woman,
she was seen smiling after she cut her
finger.
She cut her finger like that.
Or she may have cut it off entirely.
And they said to her, how can you
sort of, like, manage the pain?
So it is reported that she said,
that the sweetness of the reward
caused me to forget. It's sedated for me.
Like, sedatives?
It's sedated for me the bitterness
of it being cut. The prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam said, There is no Muslim that goes
through nasab, which is fatigue, walah wasab, nor
sickness,
walaham, nor any anxiety concerns about the future,
walahazan, nor any sadness or grief, meaning about
the past,
except that Allah
cleanses them of their
misdeeds by that,
even the prick of the thorn. You stub
your toe, you bang your finger, sort of
you chip your nail, whatever it's gonna be
except that Allah will expiate of your sins
with it. The hadith ends by saying
and,
like, afflictions,
you know, will continue
adhering to the servant, like they're inseparable from
you, until you walk on this earth
without a sin to atoll.
You could be sinless the way angels are
sinless,
simply by the things that you didn't even
initiate getting forgiven for. Allah sent them your
way to make sure you get rid of
them. And that's not reward, that's just forgiveness.
Then if you anticipate the reward
because you need to be having intentions to
be rewarded,
then there's reward. So you're actually getting all
of this
potentially within a single incident.
So is there other instances like like this?
Like because I I I already knew something
like that where it's like if you're injured
or something like that you you have your
sins forgiven but is there any type of
other instance where
maybe it's not being injured or maybe it's
not grieving that you can also gain reward
without even knowing or being forgiven without even
knowing?
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean,
the
scholars like Ibn Qayyam Rahimahullah,
he counts,
and don't test me on this,
11 stations of forgiveness, like different ways Allah
ensures your forgiveness in this world and then
different ways Allah ensures your forgiveness
when you're beneath the earth in your grave
and then different ways you could be given
a pass of forgiveness in the next world.
Like 11th day, like,
the odds are stacked in our favor in
incredible ways. I'll accept someone bent on self
to
that makes you depressed and something like that.
Is is that correct? So
virtue is always found between 2 extremes. Right?
Like, shaitan, the devil is always confusing humanity.
And, you know, like, bravery is in the
middle of being a coward and being, like,
just reckless, like, senselessly,
like, bold. Right? Everything.
Generosity is sort of the perfect golden middle
sweet spot between being stingy and being wasteful
with wealth and so on and so forth.
Likewise, when it comes when it comes to
the understanding of this issue, Islam teaches us
the middle path. The middle path, as we
already said, is that without this deen, without
correct authentic religion, without a true meaningful relationship
with Allah, your creator,
you're going to be in shambles for sure.
So in that sense, your greatest asset
towards mental, psychological,
behavior, all the health,
your greatest asset is your deen, is your
religious commitment.
However,
that doesn't mean that if you're going through
some sort of struggle, be it physical like
a health issue or emotional like a depression
sometimes,
it necessarily means there's an absence in your
faith. Right? So some people go to one
extreme and say religion has nothing to do
with it. Right? It's like my chemical imbalance
or whatever whatever whatever. Right? And the other
extreme is going to be
that it's all about your faith and only
about your faith and that's not true because
who had the faith of the prophets?
Who had the faith of Ya'qub alayhis salam?
Ya'qub alayhis salam, when he lost his son
Yusuf for decades over decades,
he wept so much he lost his eyes,
He lost his eyesight.
And so are we gonna say it was
the weakness of Ya'qub's faith that he spent
decades in sadness? No. This is sort of
parental instinct and prophetic compassion came together in
Yaqub alayhi wasalam and so it made this
pain exceptionally difficult. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, when the smallest cues
in society,
whether it was the necklace of his daughter
that she inherited from her mom or whether
it was a friend
or a sister of that mom, anything that
reminded him of Khadija radiAllahu Anha would stir
stir that pain in him again, SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
When,
you know,
the one who
assassinated
and
mutilated his uncle Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib became
Muslim years later, it was difficult on him
salallahu alaihi wa sallam. I forgive you. I'll
not hold it against you, but
like, can you help me forget? Right?
And that is why out of consideration for
the feelings of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
that they don't die, they don't evaporate. He
is human Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He is not
Allah Azhajal himself, right, who as if it
never, I love you the same as before
and even more. He's human and
the pain, the sadness, some of it was
still there.
Washi, the assassin,
became Muslim
and would always try to maximize his time
outside of Medina. Any battle campaign, any sort
of expedition, he would be the 1st to
enlist
out of love and consideration for the prophet,
salaam, and the prior wound, the emotional wound,
because it was still there. That's the idea.
And so
keep in mind that your faith can be
so strong that Allah destines on you an
emotional wound to be lasting for years because
you know, to the degree of your religious
commitment is the degree of your trial. Right?
Allah
does not see someone
walking towards him on the path, on the
straight path, and then trip them up. No.
He'll only give you a strong enough test
when you're at a level
that you can handle the test. And so
the stronger your religious commitment, the hadith says,
the stronger your test will be. And there's
no reason for us to conceptually limit that
to a financial test or like a physical
test, like some sort of health
condition. It can be an emotional one as
well like it was with Yaqub alayhi salaam.
And also, let me add one more thing.
Forgive me. The prophet salaam actually
prescribed
a chemical
remedy
for an emotional wound. So, like, why am
I wording it this way? The notion of
antidepressants
as
like a a crutch, a temporary fix to
work you through, you know, the sort of
the you being inundated with too much right
now. Yes. Sadness can come from an chemical
imbalance.
He indirectly
legitimized that idea because he said to the
people in the Haythra Aisha, al Bukhari al
Muslim, alaykum bitalbina. I prescribe for you talbina.
Talbina is basically like
like oatmeal, oatmeal with honey. Just like you
you boil some barley or oats or something
like this. Right? Porridge.
It's carbs.
Carbs have sugar. Right? Sugar
gives you dopamine rushes. Right? It's pleasurable. Right?
It's the happy hormone.
So he says, you know, I prescribe for
you
because it it brings the heart together, it
collects the heart,
and does away with some of the sadness.
So it's something edible.
I'm not saying that everyone is, like, should
be taking everything, and I'm not saying that
some physicians,
don't overprescribe,
and I'm not saying you have to rush
this route. But notice that he's not saying
if you're sad,
go back to God. He's saying try
including this as part of the holistic remedy,
and Allah knows best. Allah knows best.
So
as we see that what's happening today on
the news and everything like that with Palestine,
how can Muslims of today deal with the
despair caused by what's happening there
to our brothers and sisters, and what can
we do to stay strong for
them?
That is also a balancing act because
to move past the pain, like to ignore
it and just move on with life, is
criminal.
It really is criminal.
But
unintentionally unintentionally,
you can be as ineffective
as unhelpful
if you are
too consumed
with the bad news.
Right?
Like when the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
came back to the family of Ja'far, ibn
Abi Talib, his cousin,
who was brutally killed at Mutta,
he gave them time to grieve and then
he went up to them and said,
don't cry over Ja'far anymore. He gave them
a few days until they don't cry anymore,
Right? Meaning let's let's move
with it. Not past it, but move with
it. We're gonna have to sort of restore
our functionality,
restore our productivity,
make sure more Muslims don't have to go
through this. That's the whole idea. Right?
And so you will be equally ineffective
if you're so consumed with the bad news
that you're emotionally paralyzed
as the person that is so checked out
of the news
that they're
irrelevant,
right?
And so that balancing act is a balancing
act of consumption.
You're consuming less. It's not the first thing
you just look at the morning, last thing
you look at at night, and all this
other stuff. No. You should be as involved,
as privy
as you can be productive.
Right?
And I, subhanallah, I remember as a child
because, you know, this Ummah has been going
through a period of weakness for
for a while.
And I remember as a child seeing, you
know, Palestine, seeing Gaza. This is the 5th
war on Gaza. People a lot of people
are just waking up now, which is amazing
and wonderful, but this is the 5th war
on Gaza in the last 20 years. And
then before that, there's Iraq and Afghanistan or
like in parallel some of these wars. And
then before that was Bosnia. Right?
So
I remember as a child,
we had cable TV and Al Jazeera network
and it replaced the same horrific image at
the head of every hour. Like the news
cycle was hourly because it's a satellite channel.
And so
I just realized, oh my god. How many
times have I seen this?
This, like, traumatic sight, truly traumatic sight.
And so you the amount you consume
needs a filter.
Okay? Everyone's gotta figure out their own valve,
their own balance, their own threshold.
You know? Some of the greatest activists have
communicated in the last 6, 7 months their
regret
about being so consumed thinking it's doing the
right thing when it was actually slowing me
down from doing far better things for the
cause itself, not for, like, something else,
not moving on to bigger and better things.
No.
And
at the same time, so slowing some of
this down,
like being privy to what your valve, you
know, should be adjusted to, but also bringing
in bringing in the Qur'anic world view. You
need doses of
the filter, the lens, the reference point.
The problem of evil is not something you
have to deal with on your own. And
it's not something also that
is supposed to be easy to deal with.
Where do I get that reassurance from? From
the Quran.
The angel said, oh, God, you're gonna put
on Earth those that are gonna spill blood
on Earth? He said, I know what you
don't know.
Musa alayhi sallam comes, so atarkaf, we read,
Why are you doing this? Why are you
puncturing the ship? Why are you killing that
kid? Why do you sort of not take
payment from that? Those people were so stingy
with us. They were horrible.
And so how even the prophets even the
prophets.
Right? So how do you give yourself
stamina?
It is by seeing this as well. You
know, subhanAllah, with the story of Musa, alayhis
salaam, in particular,
some of the scholars point out that Allah
gave him
scenarios
of the age old problem of evil that
should have been easiest for him. These are
not 3 random examples. He said, why'd you
puncture the ship? You're gonna kill them all.
Even though he knew he wasn't supposed to
object, but he just his sense of justice
got him to speak up, and he didn't
notice
that he also was thrown in a basket
and was supposed to drown. He didn't.
See the one to 1 there. Right? And
then it goes on and kills the kid,
but, actually, it was more than there was
more to the story that was behind the
scenes, right, in the grander scheme of things.
And he couldn't help it. He spoke up.
He objected. He protested. It's to Al Khadir.
How could you do that? And he didn't
remember that he too was accused of killing
someone but there was more to the story.
Right? And then the third one is how
can you not accept payment after restoring that
wall for the orphans, the 2 orphans,
and he did not notice that he himself,
when he went to Madyan and he was
desperate, he gave water to 2 women and
didn't accept payment.
So, yeah, this is like you think of
Allah is showing you that even if you
were a prophet
and had personal parallels to the story, you
will not see it so just understand that
this is your test. Understand you don't have
to figure it out because you're not really
trusting Allah also if you figure it out.
Oh, it's making sense to me. Okay. No.
Trusting means I'm going in blind.
I'm not allowed to have the exam answers
in the middle of the exam.
That's or else where is the wisdom in
that? So there's a wisdom on why evil
exists
and that wisdom
must be kept from us,
at least the details,
even if we've been given,
due to our impatience, some general wisdoms of
why evil's gotta exist. Right? And so that
all of that helps you sustain
where you need to be, the balance of
compassion and sort of commitment to the cause.
And at the same time,
stay productive. Stay productive, you know, not despair.
Abu Razeen and I'll end here. Abu Razeen
radiAllahu anhu he narrates that the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam said,
Allah laughs from
the
despairing of His servants while His change, him
bringing about change, meaning for the better, is
so close at hand. So he said, yeah,
Rasool Allah, our Lord laughs.
He said yes.
So he got it. He got the message.
And we're not supposed to pry into, like,
what the laughing is about. It's about why
we're being told he laughs. So he left
the part you can't understand because God is
beyond our imagination. He transcends
and he got the whole idea of
why are you telling me he laughs so
that I become optimistic.
I don't despair. And so he said in
conclusion,
yes, he laughs. So Aburazin responded, we will
never lose hope in a Lord that laughs.
How do you believe communities, including
I mean, religious communities, of course, can better
support individuals, you know, that are navigating through
that depression? How can we teach people that
it's not about,
you know, paying attention to what the societal
factors are and whatnot like that? And how
can we teach them what you told me?
How it's like you just you have
to find a purpose. How how can we
teach them that? But in a in a
way that they will understand us, you know.
Because some some of the young people now
are are gonna be, like, yeah. Okay. I
have to find a purpose, but how how
do I do that?
Step 1, you to commit shit needs to
start a podcast.
Step 2, I mean, there's nothing more powerful
than walking the talk, right? You know, that
whole idea of actions speak louder than words,
or as someone sort of put a spin
on it, they said, I can't hear you.
Your actions are too loud.
And so modeling like, I know a brother
from the US army
who became Muslim
because the the Afghani man, this was in
the war in Afghanistan,
on the ground over there who, most likely
against his will, was forced into being
was forced into being like
a guide for the terrain, a terrain guide
and a translator to the locals. Right?
This US army soldier contacts me
to tell me to send a box of
Quran translations to his girlfriend
in some state here in the US to
give it out to all his friends and
neighbors because, like, he's becoming Muslim. And I
was like, what in the world? You went
over there to do it. Like, someone explained
this to me. He said just watching this
guy,
the tranquility he has, the inner peace he
enjoys.
And I'm just like, why are you so
calm? We're here to kill you people, destroy
your country. We've invaded your nation. He said,
I'm only responsible for what's in my hands.
I'm not responsible for what he didn't give
me control over.
He said, watching him pray and seeing his
serenity, and it just I knew he had
something different. And so showing people. So number
1, talking about it. I wasn't fully joking
about the podcast issue, but, like, talking about
this. Right? People notice what they're missing.
They actually can notice it far more than
you may think. We take things for granted
as Muslims a lot of times. Right? So
talking about it, conveying, conveying, conveying.
And then modeling it for people is and
then also for the fellow Muslims, it's not
like we're talking to to non Muslims. The
Muslims benefit from this all the time. And
also the social component is important.
Being a misfit in society, being a scattered
1% talking to the Muslims,
the age of materialism also will never fulfill
the spirit, and
so we have to be there for each
other now more than ever. We don't know,
as, you know, our teachers say, when someone
walks through the door what they're going through,
it's probably something they're going through that's bringing
them through the door to begin with. Right?
Because people come back to God when they're
when they're stuck or when they recognize just
how stuck they are. And when Allah
says, Allah is the one who supported you
with His
victory
and with the believers. That's profound
because Allah's victory is always enough.
So why single out the believers as if,
like, no, they're not completing each other. He's
saying that of the ways he gave you
victory that he singles out just for your
attention is through the believers.
Not that, you know, the believers aren't replaceable,
but about this is what I chose to
be the mechanism through which I make the
the moral fortitude and the emotional stability
of the believers
for each other. They are each other's dua.
They are the acceptance of each other's prayers.
They are each other's rocks.
May we be that and help anchor the
Muslims and non Muslims that are looking for
for it. And
forgive us, for the times we fall short.
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