IslamQA

IslamQA: Self-love in Islam: Is loving yourself an Islamic teaching?

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.

IslamQA: Do Jews believe in the same God as Muslims?

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).

IslamQA: Being Muslim and antisocial

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. 

IslamQA: The ruling on praying while bleeding or with blood on clothing

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).

IslamQA: Sleeping with feet pointing toward a book of Quran

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.

References:

IslamQA: Can a brother and sister sleep in the same bed?

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.

IslamQA: Can ghusl be delayed after intercourse?

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.

IslamQA: Is secularism haram?

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.

IslamQA: Who is right: Early Islamic scholars who praise fighting and martyrdom, or modern ones who denounce war?

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.

IslamQA: Can Muslims shop at the Salvation Army or other Christian stores?

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.

IslamQA: Can we make dua for specific things?

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. 


IslamQA: Can Muslims use utensils in which pork or alcohol were cooked or stored?

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.

Reference:

IslamQA: Should Muslims always obey their parents’wishes?

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.

IslamQA: Modern examples of Muslims being munafiqs (hypocrites)

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.

IslamQA: On distrusting people after bad experiences and heartbreak

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.

Also see my essay: The Road to Maturity: On Dealing with Life’s Unsolvable Problems

Best wishes.

IslamQA: Is it sinful to curse or swear when startled or angry?

Hello, i want to ask, is it a sin if i swear/curse when i'm angry or startled? Thank you in advance

Hello,

The Quran says:

God does not like the public uttering of bad language, unless someone was wronged. God is Hearing and Knowing. (The Quran, verse 4:148)

So speaking curses aloud is not recommended, so if you have to curse, it’s best to do it only in your head.

IslamQA: A Christian who enjoys reading the Quran

I am a catholic but I find it very comforting to read the Quran. I do it privately because in the west it can be a little problematic you know but my question is I am catholic is it bad to find god thru another religion

I am a Muslim and I listened to Alexander Scourby’s reading of the King James Version. It made me shiver and brought tears to my eyes in many places. To me the Bible and the Quran come from the same place, the Quran is just like a cleaner version of the same “drug”. So I see nothing wrong with you enjoying the Quran, it is very admirable that you are able to leap over theological differences and appreciate God’s words for what they are. I wish all Christians could do that.

The Quran says this about some Christians who read the Quran:

83. And when they hear what was revealed to the Messenger, you see their eyes overflowing with tears, as they recognize the truth in it. They say, “Our Lord, we have believed, so count us among the witnesses.”

84. “And why should we not believe in God, and in the truth that has come to us, and hope that our Lord will include us among the righteous people?”

85. God will reward them for what they say—Gardens beneath which rivers flow, where they will stay forever. Such is the reward of the righteous. (The Quran, verses 5:83-85)

Note that this doesn’t imply that they have to convert to Islam to appreciate the truth of the Quran. The Quran never says that Christians have to convert to Islam to be considered good and righteous people by God (despite what many scholars say). The Quran says to Muslims who like to think that only they will attain salvation:

123. It is not in accordance with your wishes, nor in accordance with the wishes of the People of the Scripture. Whoever works evil will pay for it, and will not find for himself, besides God, any protector or savior.

124. But whoever works righteousness, whether male or female, and is a believer—those will enter Paradise, and will not be wronged a whit. (The Quran, verses 4:123-124).

The part where it says to Muslims “[i]t is not in accordance with your wishes” couldn’t be any clearer, but unfortunately some people ignore it. There are of course many scholars, especially those of al-Azhar University, who agree with my way of thinking.

Follow-up question

Hello again! I’m the catholic girl again! I’m on mobile so i don’t know if you have a faq section but can you please suggest some scholars reading or name some authors because I really want to get more invested into religion and particularly in the Quran. Thank you for being so understanding and always being so kind and thorough with your thoughts

Hello,

You are very welcome. You may be interested in Being Muslim and The New Muslim’s Field Guide, which explain the basics of Islam. My own book An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Understanding Islam and Muslims explains in detail how Muslims really think and what Islam is about (free online versions here).

Many people have found my book The Sayings of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah very helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of the spiritual side of Islam (free online version here).

Books by Dr. Jonathan Brown (a convert to Islam) are all very good.

If you want to learn more about the Quran, many people highly recommend The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary.

Best wishes.

IslamQA: Are we patient if we complain silently to God?

If we complaint silently in hopes that God listen to our hearts, does that count as patience?

Sure. Complaining to God is what the Prophets did, peace be upon them, when they were being patient.

85. They said, “By God, you will not stop remembering Joseph, until you have ruined your health, or you have passed away.”

86. He said, “I only complain of my grief and sorrow to God, and I know from God what you do not know.” (The Quran, verses 12:85-86)

Best wishes.

Follow-up question

can we get back to the “complaining to god” conversation. if we are dealing with a frustrating situation where we are incapable of digest what’s going on, if I say in my mind “this is unfair I deserve better, when will the good things happen to me” isn’t it that ungrateful, am I not being a brat because so far god has been good to me isn’t it family-wise and health-wise. I mean he has favored me in other areas so if I complain wouldnt that be ungrateful

It depends on the tone of your conversation with God. You can state your situation to Him without blaming Him or acting as if He has wronged you. The Quran gives us a very beautiful example of the right attitude in the story of Prophet Ayyub (Biblical Job), peace be upon him:

83. And Job, when he cried out to his Lord: “Great harm has afflicted me, and you are the Most Merciful of the merciful.”

84. So We answered him, lifted his suffering, and restored his family to him, and their like with them—a mercy from Us, and a reminder for the worshipers. (The Quran, verses 21:83-84)

Instead of asking for anything, he simply states his condition and tells God He is merciful. God treats his complaint as if it is a prayer and answers it by taking away his difficulty.

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