As Muslims how should we grieve for a loved one that’s passed away. My grandmother returned to Allah on the 9th and I cannot stop crying. I can barely get out of bed in the morning and can’t seem to get on with daily life. No matter how much praying, dua and telling myself she’s gone to a better place I just can’t seem to feel better. She’s all I’ve be thinking about and just wish I could be with her, I’m utterly heartbroken.
I’m so sorry about your loss. When we lose someone important in our lives, our brains have to reorganize and rebuild our sense of self anew, since how we felt about everyone and everything around us relied on the presence of that person. This process takes months or years. The way to speed it up I believe is to focus your attention on the other people in your life, to socialize more and find new things to do with your time (such as volunteering).
Assalamualaikum, what advice would you give someone who has an emotionally manipulative and narcissistic mother? I don't feel natural feelings of love towards her because it's clear to me that she doesn't like me. And when I need to help her with things it's not with a positive feeling, and that makes me sad because we are meant to honour our parents. But it is very hard when you know there is no love underneath any parental duties she is obligated to do for me.
Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,
Sorry to read that. I would say do what you know to be right towards them and don’t worry about your feelings. We can’t help how we feel toward others. But we can be dutiful and kind regardless of how we feel.
Please see the 25 articles on this page on my site for many answers to questions similar to yours: Dealing with parents in Islam
Salam! Please help me I'm very scared! My mom went to an astrologer back when she was in college and didn't know better, and she never really believed in it! But she told me what was said to her, most of which became true and we often find ourselves saying in awe so and so happened just like the palm reader said, even though we also believe that astrologers lie even if they tell the truth! She was also told of some future things like me getting married and having a house abroad… (1/2)
Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,
Sorry to read that. It looks like the second part of your question didn’t come through. Thinking of it logically, considering an astrologer’s predictions regarding 1000 customers, they may get it completely wrong with 999 customers and right with 1 customer, meaning they have a 0.1% chance of getting the predictions right. This is just how probabilities work. So I wouldn’t worry about it.
Even if you were to see 1000 people and make predictions for them, you too may have a 0.1% chance of getting things exactly right for one of them.
Is there any verses in the Al-Qur'an, or in Hadith that's saying to love yourself? Is loving yourself important?
In Islam we believe that psychologically humans are made of two parts. There is the ego (nafs), which is controlled by our brains and genetic instincts. Then there is the soul (ruh) which is where our free will comes from. Adam was a humanoid animal until God breathed His own soul/spirit into him, which gave him his humanity.
[God speaking to the angels:] When I have formed him, and breathed into him of My spirit, fall prostrate before him. (The Quran, verse 38:72)
It is not recommended to love the ego part of ourselves, because this always leads to pride, arrogance and cruelty. Loving this part means that person can be selfish and consider their selfishness something right and beautiful. Without proper spiritual grounding a person’s love for themselves becomes a sort of self-worship where their negative qualities become good qualities.
As for loving one’s own soul, because our souls are in a way extensions of God’s soul, to properly love it one would include God and all other souls in this love. This is the mystical kind of love that so many traditions speak of, and in my opinion it is the only proper way of loving oneself. You direct this love at yourself and then you realize that what you are actually loving is just a small part of a much larger whole, like loving a drop of water and realizing it is part of an ocean.
Love directed at the soul leads to humility and obedience toward God, because it helps us realize our own smallness. While love directed at the ego becomes worship of the animal part of us. Love directed at the soul elevates us because it directs us toward higher ideals (it motivates us to embody those attributes of God that are proper to embody, such as His all-encompassing love and mercy), while love directed at the ego degrades us because it makes us content to be merely our instincts and bodies.
So loving yourself is a very bad teaching when this is mistaken for loving one’s ego. It turns people into narcissists who think they are unique and special and who demand love and attention without doing anything to deserve these. The whole point of loving yourself, if by it we mean loving the soul, is to realize our non-uniqueness, to realize that we are just drops in the vast ocean of God.
Does the jewish people believe in the same god as muslim? and where does it ever written that muslim can also eat kosher food?
Jews believe in the same God as Muslims, although they associate some ideas with Him that we consider incorrect. God says in the Hebrew Bible that He is “married to Israel”, so they believe Jews are almost a separate species with a special relationship with God.
The Quran says the food of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) is halal to Muslims (verse 5:5). But since Christians do not follow Biblical laws on food, today this only applies to Jews. Jews mention God’s name before slaughtering an animal like Islam requires and consider pork and blood forbidden similar to Muslims, so anything certified kosher is halal (except alcohol).
I'm very antisocial, I get very anxious when I meet new people and I don't like having to deal with annoying people and I tend to get really upset and overthink about how people see me. I want to know if there is some ruling regarding ignoring people or not being friendly and approachable
You are not required to be more social than you want to be. As long as you are polite and dutiful toward your relatives when necessary, then you are free to avoid interacting too much people with people.
If one has bleeding wound and that ends up on his clothes, is his wudu or prayer still valid?
It is permitted to pray while bleeding. It is also permitted to pray in clothes that have your own blood on them as long as it is not blood from menstruation or childbirth. If it is from menstruation or childbirth, then praying in them is not permitted.
There is only an issue if it is someone else’s blood, in that case it is only permitted to pray in them if it is a small amount of blood (the size if a baghli dirham, which is a coin that is about three centimeters in diameter).
It was brought to my attention by a relative that I shouldn't be sleeping with my feet facing towards a quran. I have a bookshelf facing the foot of my bed. Is it a big deal?
As long as the mushaf (book of Quran) is on a shelf then there is no issue. It’s only a problem if it is at the same level as your feet.
Assalamu Alaikum! can a brother and his sister sleep on the same bed? Someone has recently told me that it's haram.
Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,
There is one hadith in Abu Dawud and the Musnad in which the Prophet PBUH says brothers and sisters should not sleep in the same bed after the age of ten:
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it (prayer) when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds (to sleep) separately. (Sunan Abi Dawud 495)
This hadith, however, is very low-quality and Imam Abu Dawud himself says the hadiths of this transmitter (Amr b. Shuayb) are not to be used as evidence for legal rulings when he transmits from his grandfather through his father (like in this hadith). So the common Muslim belief that the Prophet PBUH recommended beating 10-year-old children if they do not pray is based on very weak evidence that Islamic law rejects. The same applies to the command to have them sleep separately. But it is common sense not to let adolescent boys and girls sleep together even if they are siblings.
As a parent, you spend years tiring yourself to raise a child, only to watch them become a hostile teenager who thinks of you as something of an enemy who wants to control their lives. No matter how much you tell them that you have their best interests at heart and that you want them to be successful, they take your efforts at supporting them to grow as an annoying burden.
Yet we also see parents who seem to have great relationships with their teenagers. Their children seem eager to please them and live up to their expectations. How does one turn their own child into that kind of child?
The root of the conflict between parents and their teenagers is dishonesty. We tell them we love them and have their best interests at heart, but in reality we want them to be obedient and successful because in our minds that’s how we like to think of them. As our children, they have a function to perform, and they must perform it. We worry about what our relatives and friends will think of us if our children do not live up to our society’s expectations.
Your teenager knows that when you are worried that they don’t study hard enough, or don’t practice religion well enough, that others will look down on you as that child’s parent. You are not so much worried about the teenager as you are worried about yourself and how people will think of you. The child knows they are just a nice piece of the puzzle of your life. They should perform their function and be happy with it, otherwise they won’t fit in within the imaginary future you have in your head.
Expectations
Our expectations of our children often turn into crushing burdens on them. They know that our love for them is not unconditional. They are not worthy enough, they are not good enough, unless they study hard, or unless they practice religion properly. Our love for them is not based on anything intrinsic within the child, it is based on the face they show to the world. They know we will be happy with them and treat them well if they live up to our expectations. They start to feel like an employee who is treated nicely and lovingly by the boss when they are good at their work. They know that the boss’s good treatment and love for them has nothing to do with their own worth. It’s entirely based on their performance. They know that kind of love is worthless, because it is not for who they are, it is for how they perform.
Many parents are so caught up in the imaginary future they want to build for their children that they cannot bear to think for one second about their child not performing as expected. The child must be successful at school, must avoid drugs and alcohol, must practice Islam or Christianity perfectly, and the alternative is unthinkable. Some children who naturally have submissive and dutiful personalities go along with this and perform as expected, while others feel insulted at being just a piece of the puzzle of their parents’ lives and take pleasure in doing their own thing and ignoring their parents’ wishes, because to them this is how they assert their own independence, their own personhood and humanity.
Are children human?
One of the biggest parenting mistakes I’ve seen is when the parent expect the child to act with the self-motivation and sense of responsibility of an adult without giving them the freedom, independence and sense of control that an adult enjoys. This never works. The child will quickly learn to become two-faced. Around the parents they try to put on an adult face and pretend to be responsible and dutiful to please them, and as soon as they get away from their parents they immediately start to do whatever they like. Being away from their parents feels to them like getting a breath of fresh air. They can put down the adult mask they are forced to wear and can start to enjoy being themselves.
You cannot force a child to be responsible and dutiful like an adult without giving them the respect that you give to any adult. This is such an obvious fact that it is a wonder so many parents are unable to conceive of it. If you want your children to act like your equals, feeling invested in the plans you have for your family and for them, then you have to treat them with the respect that you give to your equals.
Islam has a very important teaching in regard to this topic. All souls are equal, whether male or female, young or old. Your child is your complete equal when it comes to their soul. So the moral way to treat them is to treat them the way you want to be treated yourself. You must give them the exact same respect that you like to get yourself. You must give them the freedom to choose their own destiny just as you like to have the freedom to choose yours. The only difference is that they do not have a fully developed brain yet and do not have your experiences. But it is entirely wrong and immoral to use this as an excuse for treating them as if they should be your slaves. If you are 35 and your child is 15, think of it as similar to your being 65 and your child 45. You may have more wisdom and development, but they are just as human as you are, with exact same rights.
You cannot maintain an unequal relationship with someone and expect them to believe that you truly love them and respect them.
Parents with angry and disobedient teenagers tend to only think of the injustice of their children treating them like that when they have done so much for them. What right does the child have to be like that when we give them food, shelter and have their best interests at heart?
And that’s the problem. We tend to think of our children as indentured servants who must do what we say to pay us back for everything we have done for them. We have done a lot of work on them and we want to see good results.
This is where a deep spiritual grounding is very helpful. As I often say, saints are not attached to results. They do good wherever they are without expecting anything in return. They do their deeds for God’s sake. They know that God will record their intentions and they leave it to Him to take care of what happens next.
The best parents have a saint’s attitude toward their children. They do their best for them without expecting results, and without expecting gratitude.
Zero-expectation parenting
Parents who are successful with their teenagers and who continue to maintain a friendly and loving relationship with them follow what I call the principle of zero-expectation parenting.
This means that you make it perfectly clear to your children, through both word and deed, that you love them and respect them for who they are regardless of what they do or how they behave.
If you are religious, you must make it perfectly clear to your child that you will love them even if they end up leaving your religion. This is extremely difficult to accept for a parent who is completely attached to results. But a person who has achieved a saint’s attitude will act like that without even thinking about it. You love your children for who they are, for their souls, you do not care what they choose to do or how they perform in life.
So if you are a Muslim and your son comes out as gay, rather than beating them or disowning them, you must make it perfectly clear that you will always love them with the same tenderness as you always have for them. This is not just my opinion, this is the Islamic way of treating relatives who are sinners. Islamically a parent’s duty to love and support their child never goes away even if the child commits major sins, as I discuss in this answer. Always remember that Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him) argued with God’s angels to save the homosexual rapists in Prophet Lot’s town. God, rather than rebuking him for arguing with God’s command, actually praises him for his love and kindness for humanity, including horrible sinners.
When Abraham's fear subsided, and the good news had reached him, he started arguing with Us concerning the people of Lot.
Abraham was gentle, kind, penitent.
(The Quran, verses 11:74-75)
That was Prophet Ibrahim’s attitude toward people who were unrelated to him. What better example can there be to follow regarding our own children?
Unfortunately Muslim parents, those who have not had a good training in the Quran and Islamic spirituality, are taken completely by surprise when their child acts un-Islamically and immediately jump to thinking about punishing the child and forcing them to be better. That’s completely the wrong way to help them become better persons. The right way is to always reassure them of your love for them and of your readiness to support them always. Once the child knows you will always have their backs, they will love you back and they will be much more likely to follow your example. Forcing a child to be a good Muslim doesn’t work. Loving your child while you act as a very good Muslim yourself will work better than anything to make them want to be good Muslims themselves. (Note that the hadith that recommends beating children who don’t pray comes through an unreliable transmitter and is therefore not strong enough to put into practice, as discussed here: Can a brother and sister sleep in the same bed?)
Almost every Muslim teenager you meet who is a very good Muslim has a good Muslim in his or her life whom he or she loves very much. It is this love more than anything else that constantly motivates them to be good Muslims.
The same applies to a child who is not interested in studying, or in getting the degree you want them to get. Rather than shaming them and forcing them to do what you want, you should instead make it perfectly clear that you will love them regardless of what they choose to do with their lives. You may wish your child to become a doctor or engineer, but they may want to become an artist instead. If you are attached to worldly results, this will be extremely upsetting to you. But if you have a saint’s attitude, then you will accept their wish with a completely open heart, knowing that God can always take care of them and make them successful regardless of what career path they choose.
Give your children the freedom to decide their own destiny for themselves. Even if they want to make a decision that you consider a very bad decision, let them make it. They will learn from their experience, and if you believe that God is all-powerful, He can always change things.
If your child does not like to study, find out the reason. Maybe they have depression or ADHD and they need to receive treatment. Some children have bipolar type II disorder. People with this disorder often drop out of school despite getting extremely high marks sometimes, because they go through periods of intense depression where they are completely unable to motivate themselves to study. Even if you force them to study they will not be able to take the material in, because the depression severely limits their ability to focus on what they are reading or retain it. Things like bipolar and other kinds of depression run in families and there is nothing to do about it except getting treatment. Many people blessed with never suffering depression think that it is just a weakness of character. The worst thing you can say to a depressed child is telling them they should be grateful and happy with all the blessings they enjoy in their lives. Depression can be caused by chemical imbalances in the brain caused by a person’s genes or by trauma and no amount of success can make it go away.
If your child wants a boyfriend or girlfriend, instead of threatening them, acknowledge their desire for romance and companionship. Make it clear why relationships outside of marriage are not a good idea. See my following articles on this issue:
If they are old enough, rather than preventing them from dating and marriage until they get older, let them find someone to marry now. Preventing them from this will only encourage them to sin behind your back. A saint knows that God can fix any bad situation, so even if they marry someone and have a terrible experience, God can always change things for the better.
So the main point is to stop being attached to results and to always reassure the child that you will love them regardless of what they choose to do. If you have difficulty in maintaining such a mindset, the best course of action is to work daily to maintain a high spiritual state through extra acts of worship. You cannot be a saint without daily work. Start reading the Quran for half an hour or an hour a day for the rest of your life, or start performing tahajjud, or do anything else that helps you maintain a close relationship with God and helps you avoid getting attached to results.
I personally find reading the Quran for an hour every day to be the most helpful thing in the world for maintaining a close relationship with God year-round. Reading the sayings of Ibn al-Qayyim and Ibn al-Jawzi are also very helpful.
Must one do ghusl right after intercourse? Is it Ok do work around and inn the house within the state of impurity, does touching things, do they become impure? Also should one do wudu if he does not want to do ghusl right away, is that mandatory? Can you go to sleep while in major state of impurity without ghusl or wudu. thanks you.
Delaying ghusl is permitted until the next prayer, since you cannot pray unless you perform ghusl after intercourse. There is no issue with touching things in the house (except for books of Quran that have the original Arabic text, touching translations is permitted). Sleeping after intercourse without ghusl and having intercourse again without ghusl are both permitted.
There is no need to make wudu after intercourse, that doesn’t change anything.
Is secularism harām? More specifically the kind of secularism espoused by the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi of Turkey. And is it harām for a Muslim to vote for such a party?
It depends on what is meant by secularism. It would be haram for a Muslim to become a “secularist”, meaning they abandon Islam and support living life according to secular principles.
Muslims should vote for whatever party is most likely to do the most good and the least evil. Personally I would be unwilling to vote for Islamists who believe that they should force Islam on the country for the greater good. If such a party is opposed by a secularist party that truly believes in justice, civil rights and religious freedom, then the secularist party may actually be the more “Islamic” choice. Just because a person or party claims to be Islamic doesn’t mean they will be better for the population than the secularist party. As Muslims we should keep in mind both the interests of Muslims and non-Muslims, and we should never support support a Muslim who dehumanizes non-Muslims and thinks their rights and freedoms should be restricted.
I am not familiar with the party you mention so I cannot comment on it. In my experience most Middle Eastern secularist parties are extremely anti-religious and would happily ban hijabs and demolish mosques if they could get away with it. So just because a party claims to respect democracy, human rights and religious freedom doesn’t mean that they really believe in these principles. We should look at the party’s leaders and their track record. A party leader who claims to respect religious freedom yet has many anti-Islam speeches, or thinks hijabs are ugly and should ideally be banished, should never be trusted to respect religious freedom.
The ideal system of governance in the modern world, as far as I know, is to have a constitution that ensures the rights and freedoms of all citizens, Muslim and non-Muslim. Then there should be an Islamic government within that that only applies to the Muslims. So Islamic laws should never be applied to non-Muslims unless they freely choose it. And Muslims should have the right to leave Islam so that Islamic law would no longer apply to them.
This is the most “Islamic” way for a Muslim population to behave: to respect their non-Muslim and irreligious neighbors and to never want to force anything on them. They should all work in good faith toward a constitutional system that ensures the rights of everyone. And then if Muslims want Islamic law, they should be allowed to have it for themselves.
As-salâmu 'alaykum. ….. ….. Most, if not all, modern scholars of Islâm seem to denounce war of every kind. And this is a good thing. Yet, many earlier scholars regularly mention the value of jihâd and martyrdom. It is easy for us Muslims, who have never experienced anything close to war, to denounce the militant Muslims in many countries whose lives have been destroyed by the heartless and tyrannical West. Can we blame them for being upset?
Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,
The issue is not at all about supporting war versus opposing it. All scholars, ancient or modern, have the same opinion, which is that Muslims do not have the right to take the law into their own hands and fight against their ruling states. So scholars support jihad/martyrdom as long as it is launched by a sovereign state in self-defense. When we oppose terrorism it is not because we oppose Muslims fighting against oppressors, it is because we oppose individuals taking the law into their own hands. Warfare, jihad and martyrdom are only legitimate when they are conducted in the context of a sovereign government acting in self-defense.
There is no support for violent revolution in Islam because revolutions cause far more destruction and death than tyrants nine times out of ten. A good modern example is Syria. No matter how oppressive the Syrian government was, the revolution caused more destruction, oppression and bloodshed in a few years than the Syrian government had committed in decades.
So it has nothing to do with whether the militants have a just cause to fight for or not. It is about keeping the peace knowing that revolutions are some of the most evil things in the world due to all the destruction and death they cause. They are much worse than tyrants, so Muslims have to choose the lesser evil, which is to remain peaceful and work to change things without violence. We are allowed to engage in political activism, we can do investigative journalism against tyrants and risk our lives to tell the truth and oppose them peacefully. What we are not allowed to do is taking the law into our own hands.
salam brother, is it haram to shop at places like salvation army thrift store? the money goes towards drug rehab centers i believe but it's a christian organization (thst helps a lot of ppl) & i was wondering if it would b haram since it might b used for preaching christianity.
Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,
There is no issue with it because it’s not your responsibility what a person does with the money once you buy something from them. The Prophet PBUH bought and borrowed things from the Jews of Medina. Buying things from Christian organizations is probably even better than buying from random people because they will likely be using the money for more principled things. And if it becomes a cause to guide people to God through Christianity, then that’s a good thing too. We should never consider converts to Christianity as competitors to Islam. We should think of them as people who went from a worse to a better state.
The same applies to people who convert to Shia Islam. We should be happy that they found God. The choice for them wasn’t between Shia and Sunni Islam, it was between being lost and being guided. Even when people convert to “Sufism lite” where they try to be spiritual without praying or abiding by Islamic law, this should be considered a blessing. They went from a worse state to a better state, and it’s God’s business if He wants to take them further.
I have one desire in my life that could lead to open many possibilities for me. Regardless of what god has in mind for me, This is what I THINK is best for me. Is it okay to ask god for this in my prayers, or should I go and say you know what’s best for me I trust you, even though I really want this in my life (moving to another country). Thank you
It’s quite alright to ask for specific things. The Prophets peace be upon them asked for specific things they desired, for example Zakariyya asked to be given a son, even though he was extremely old and his wife was infertile. God answered his prayer and gave him Yahya / John.
But you have to keep an open mind and be willing to love God even if He doesn’t answer your prayer.
If a non muslim cooks pork or anything that has alcohol using our kitchen utensils such as pan, can we muslim still use it or do we have to throw it away?
It’s sufficient to wash it thoroughly, then you can use it like any other utensil.
Assalamualaikum. I had a general question regarding what is required of us in terms of our duty to our parents. I am in a situation where I am in a certain career path basically only because my parents want me to be. I'm doing well enough in it, but I'm always stressed and tired from the work and lately I've really been feeling that this isn't the career I want for the rest of my life. If I quit though, I would definitely be upsetting my parents and going against their wishes. (1/2)
I know we should be as obedient, and kind, and dutiful to our parents as possible but in this situation, would it be a sin for me to disobey my parents by switching career paths? I’ve been feeling really lost lately. They’ve sacrificed a lot for me and I don’t want to let them down but I also don’t know if I am capable of continuing in this career. (2/2)
Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,
Islam asks us to “humor” our parents the way our parents humored us when we were children, so that even if sometimes they are unreasonable or make unnecessary demands we should try to go along with it rather than asking them to be reasonable.
But we are not required to become slaves to their demands. You are a person just like they are, and the relationship should include compromises from both sides. So you have every right to switch career paths and good parents should empathize with your wishes and put your happiness first.
If you abide by their wishes, then it will be an act of charity toward them and God can always reward you amply for that. And if you do what you want, I’m sure God will not blame you. So Islamically the choice is entirely yours. You are not required to spoil your parents by always doing what they want, just as parents are not required to spoil their children.
Assalamualaikum, "In the Quran Allah talks about hypocrites and munafiqs. Many muslim's unknowingly practice both of these transgressions. The term munafiq describes a person who is "two-faced" inasmuch as he always tries to find arn easy way out of any real commitment, be it spiritual or social, by adapting his course of action to what promises to be of practical advantage to him in the situation in which he happens to find himself." what are some examples of how everyday Muslims are munafiqs?
Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,
Any statement or deed designed to make others think of you as more pious and devout than you really are can be considered nifaq/hypocrisy. So a person who says they go to the mosque for every prayer when they do not is a munafiq. Or someone who goes to the mosque in order to be seen rather than going because they want to. Or when someone gives charity in order to gain fame rather than to please God. Whenever we pretend to be pious and devout to manipulate others, that’s nifaq. Whenever we show a level of piety in public that we lack in private, that’s nifaq.
Hello. Is it natural that we tend to have a distrust in people when we got our hearts broken over and over again because of their words or actions? I have bad experience by interacting closely and intimately with people in the past and until now, that I feel like I'd become a misanthrope at this rate. Do I have to avoid being close to people to not break my heart and be disappointed again, or do you have any insight for me to understand life and people even more?
Hello,
Sorry about your bad experiences. We have two ways of responding to life’s hardships, including heartbreak. We either accept our fate and accept that this is the way the world works, or we reject our fate and grow bitter. The right way is of course to always work to maintain the sweetness of your soul, to always be loving, kind and open regardless of how others behave. This is how saints distinguish themselves–they always treat others with love and goodness regardless of whether those persons deserve it or not. Try to treat every person with a blank slate, as if you were created today and this is the first person you have ever met.
Reading the Quran daily is a great help toward maintaining the sweetness and innocence of your soul. Personally it’s hard for me to imagine how anyone could hold onto grudges, bitterness or hatred, it feels like such a terrible burden to carry.
