Mufti Menk – How Does Islam Tackle Loneliness
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses how Islam helps with loneliness and usage of social media, which is now being used by individuals without their parents or siblings. They explain that social media is not as social as it used to be and can lead to isolation and loneliness. The speaker suggests investing more time in relationships to alleviate these symptoms.
AI: Summary ©
I've got a question here. Someone is saying,
I feel lonely and depressed and don't know
how to help myself.
How does Islam help with that?
So,
just to add on to what,
Mufti said,
when the underlying
cause
of your relationship
is not only blood,
but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as well, that
helps in a great way. Because ultimately you
know that we are together
not only because of blood, but because Allah
made us blood. And I have to look
after this person.
So and I have to keep with this
person, and I can't break my relationship. And
if it is broken, I will mend that
tie.
With regards to loneliness,
many people, many people send me messages saying,
I feel lonely. I feel like I'm within
my family,
but nobody understands me. I'm all alone. I
don't,
I don't feel like I have anyone in
my life.
And
there are 2 approaches. 1st and foremost,
repair your relationship with Allah
to remedy that loneliness. Why? Because when you
fill your heart with Allah,
then
you will not need and require and desperately
search and look for the companionships
companionship
of others. Why? Because you have the companionship
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And secondly,
look into your usage of social media
and how you are using it. Oftentimes,
we are not using it, we are abusing
it. And this is the underlying
cause in a lot of these
cases.
They are using social media
hours on end.
And what essentially you are doing now, social
media is not as social as it was
when it started.
You are now interacting
with a screen that suggests
certain content to you that you've been clicking
on, and I implore you to look at
your feeds. What do your feeds have? Do
they have your cousin, and your uncle, and
your aunt, and your friend, and your brother?
Most of the content that you are seeing
is suggested to you by an algorithm because
of what you clicked on. It has nothing
to do with social
interaction anymore.
So what you're doing is you are isolating
yourself and people around you are also isolating
themselves without realizing. You know sometimes I think
of the irony of it. You are sitting
in bed, your spouse is sitting in bed,
and instead of talking to each other, you
are sending each other reels on Instagram.
You are sending each but you're sitting next
to each other. Hey, did you check that
which I sent you?
Why why can't you put the phone down
and talk to each other, stay into her
eyes, you know.
Gaze into her eyes and smile at her.
You know sometimes we are guilty of that
which we say as well. So
we realize that it's a problem and you
need to invest more time in your relationships.
So sometimes just have
no phone time where we're gonna put phones
away, and we're just gonna talk to each
other, and we're gonna interact with each other.
And this really
helps remedy that isolation that you feel and
that loneliness that you feel. May
Allah grant us the ability
to fill our hearts with him such that
we don't feel