Shadee Elmasry – Curing Depression & Anxiety- An Islamic Approach
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Tell us something about from Sheikh Al Booty's
cures
of anxiety.
So in the book that is I think
it's well known now,
the book,
we call the translation,
depression and anxiety because they go together.
They go together. They're hand in hand. And
and every time the man mentioned in the
series, every time he mentioned
depression, he mentioned anxiety as well. And you
mentioned psychological unrest.
Mhmm.
The cure, like with depression,
is that you have to understand where anxiety
and depression and psychological unrest and whatever else
it is. Where does it reside?
Mhmm. It resides in the heart.
And your heart
is not in your hands. It's in Allah's
hands. Mhmm. So the cure
is always in every single moment to turn
to Allah.
And Allah says in it's the eye that
he quotes again and again in 13 chapter
verse 28, Allah says,
it is only by the remembrance of Allah
that the hearts
find peace and find tranquility.
So
what this boils down to is that whatever
you're anxious about,
you have to pull back from the world
itself in the sense that you cannot let
your
happiness or your sadness
be dependent on the world. Your happiness and
your sadness has to be rested in Allah.
And this is why in the book, he
gives the story of the great imam from
the from the first generations, Ibrahim in Edham,
one of the great sufis who said that
if if the kings knew the happiness that
we had, they would fight us for it.
The hallow
They would take they they would pick up
swords and fight us for it. And the
point is hourly,
you can't tell what this is. Hourly because
you see he's he's in a he's an
imposter state. He doesn't have,
a fancy house or anything,
anything that we would see as, you know,
material wealth.
But
the key here is that this person,
Ibrahim Ibrahim, Ibrahim,
with and the only I like him is
that their happiness
is centered in the Allah. Their happiness is
rooted in the Allah and the relationship with
Allah and the victor of Allah. And therefore,
it's not subject
to what's happening in the world. It's not
subject to people's praise, people's blame, people's censure,
the the visiscuities of the stock market, whatever
it is. It's rooted there with with what
law is,
and and you stay in that state.
One stays in that state by staying in
a state of dhikr, a state of remembrance
of Allah.
And
always, always, always
linking every single
instant that one is going through every single
situation one one is in, one links it
back to Allah. And this is why this
is why the messenger of Allah has given
us all these.
When you wake up in the morning, when
you go to the bathroom, when you leave
the bathroom, when you start a meal, when
you finish a meal, when you leave your
house, when you come home,
so on and so on. There's so many
duas and I've called you're supposed to say.
Why? Because you're always bringing every single that
you're doing back to Allah and remembering Allah.
And and
to take it further, because I was going
over this with some students, we do we
we just completed a course,
in the UK,
an online course called healing with the Quran,
with a good group of students,
a good, really good, high uptake.
And one of the things that we discussed
was,
a beautiful hadith. And this is this is
what we think of the the benefits of
the the benefits of there's a beautiful hadith
in the collection of of Imam Abu Nadia.
Where the messenger of Allah
he says that everyday Allah has a sadaqah.
Allah gives gives gives a sadaqah to his
slaves.
By day and by night.
But then he said,
but there's nothing like that. Means there's no
there's nothing like
Allah
is when Allah inspires his slave to remember
him.
Mhmm. That's the greatest.
So a lot of
them. When you ponder on that, you realize
that, yes, Allah commands you
in sort of Bakrafath.
Right? Bakraf 151.
Remember me and I'll remember you, but you
don't
remember Allah
unless Allah remembered
you first.
Right? Profound. Profound. Yes. And I remember when
I was going over this hadith with some
students, they said, why aren't we just ecstatic?
Why aren't we just jumping up and down
for joy? Because you realize that every single
time you do the of Allah, it's cause
Allah's putting it in you.
So where is this thing? Where, where is
the anxiety coming from?
Where is it coming from? Where what what's,
what's the reason for it? Every, every situation
you're in,
it's a law who's pushing you to remember
him. Right? It's, you know, it's this this
famous story I always put, it's well and
certainly the new mom of multi quotes many,
many times, and I was on Instagram again
a few days ago.
You know, people looking for
cures for the heart and cures for anxiety,
And they look for signs of Allah's love.
Right? So there's the famous story where where
this lady, a servant girl in Damascus where
she would,
she would pray tahajjud.
And one night, the the master of the
house, he got up and he heard her
praying, and he heard her in Dua. She
was in Dua, like making sujood and then
she was saying, oh, Allah, by your love
for me,
grant such and such and such and such
and
such
and such. And
the master of the house, he thought this
was a bit,
presumptuous.
You know? Like, where what like, who are
you to say? Like,
doesn't mean so forth. Who do you make
who are you gonna make this claim? So
he he asked her, but afterwards
and and she and she said, well, I
know that Allah loves me because he woke
me up at this hour.
I know that Allah loves me because he
made me stand in front of him. I
know the law is I know the law
loves me because he allows me to make
these.
That's why I know the law loves
me. So we have to,
to use to use the Americanism, flip the
script.
You you have to you have to flip
it around and and see,
and see Allah's love for you in the
things that you're doing. You you you again,
you boil it down. You don't do any
action. You don't do any righteous action, any
sort of vicar, any sort of prayer, any
sort of any good deed unless Allah put
that in you. Allah facilitated that for you.
And these are signs that Allah loves you.
These are signs again, it's not just the
one of many things. But one of things
we cover is wellness course. It's in the
book. This idea of,
again, common common thing about people who have
spent many years, like, away from a law,
and then they change their ways afterwards. They
change their ways and they reform themselves. And
then Chaitan tries to mess with them and
say, you know, what's the point? You were
sitting for so many years and you're off
a path for so many years and why
would the law forgive you and so on
and so forth.
But the response response to that is, well,
if a law didn't love you, he wouldn't
have changed you. SubhanAllah.
If a law didn't love you, he wouldn't
have put that in you. He wouldn't have
guided you back.
So
what is what is it for us to
do? Well, you have to repay that love
with love.
You have to repay that love with love.
You can see see all these signs that
Allah loves you or repay that love with
love.
And you do that with the vic and
and you you again, you do it with
the vicar of Allah and you obey Allah.
And and that's that's what shukr is. Like
like, gratitude is a huge part of this.
Gratitude is a huge part of this. Right?
Because Allah says,
right, if you're grateful, I will increase you.
And great in gratitude. Gratitude is not just
on the tongue.
It's not just
but it is that you use every single
blessing that Allah has given you to please
him. You took every single blessing Allah has
given you to please him. So if Allah
can get to sight, well, use that to
please Allah. Use that to look at what
law is pleased with. Use use that to
look at the Quran, to look at the
books of end,
to look at the other the righteous, to
spend time with with with the right people.
Use that. Use it for that. The same
with your ears, same with your mouth, whatever
it is, whatever blessing Allah has given you.
Use that
to please Allah. Use it for Allah is
pleased with. So all all of these things,
will
remove this anxiety because you have to remember
you have to remember that it's Allah who's
control of this.
You know, human beings, we, we, we get
a bit, we get a bit too, we
get a bit too, presumptuous about our own,
our own powers, our own need or how
important we are. Right. It's like, I remember
reading about, you know, there was, there was
some, some, Aboriginal
people, and and they had this belief. They
had they had this belief that it was
their job to guide the sun through the
sky.
Mhmm. And so they wake up in the
morning and be like,
Yeah. Yeah. It's I was like, no. It's
it's the sun's gonna move
regardless of what you do. So you you
you have to, you have to submit. You
have you have you have you have to
give in. Realize. Okay. What's what's the point
of being anxious? It's not it's not it's
not gonna do anything for you. And you
also have to tell yourself. You also have
to tell yourself that
Allah knows what's good for you. Mhmm. Right?
Allah Allah knows what's you you think you
know what's good. Right? Like like, again, sort
of walk around 2/6/2/16.
Maybe you love something that's bad for you.
Maybe you dislike something that's good for you.
And you have to realize, you have to
tell yourself that when something comes up and
maybe causes you anxiety, maybe it causes you
a problem,
it makes you feel,
this this worry or this stress. You have
to tell yourself there's a wisdom behind this.
There's a wisdom behind that. And I can't
see it now, but Allah will show me
eventually. Mhmm. You tell yourself that, and it
it it just works every time. It just
works. Seriously, it just works every time. You
just tell yourself there's a reason why this
is happening.
And then you would be like, okay, there's
something I can't see, but you will see,
you will see. And you, and you'll think
a lot afterwards. Like, oh, so that's the
reason why.