Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research

Category: Reflections

  • Facing Our Fear: Reflecting on Modern Society’s Death Anxiety

    Facing Our Fear: Reflecting on Modern Society’s Death Anxiety

    Note

    Many will be touched by death in this pandemic; thus, it is important to emphasize that this piece is not intended for those grieving. Rather, it shares some reflections for those whose hearts are unburdened by immediate loss, but who feel a particular dread around death nonetheless. 

    Introduction

    Unquestionably, COVID-19 has wreaked havoc across much of the Global North. Though many long for ‘normality,’ there is much meaning to be gleaned in the throes of this pandemic. This paper will begin by reflecting on death anxiety and what that means for Muslims before considering the modern world’s relationship with death more broadly. Both individual and social reflections are necessary; ‘outer’ chaos inevitably produces ‘inner’ chaos as well. In particular, I will suggest that some of the therapeutic techniques circulating during the COVID-19 pandemic—relaxation, mental hygiene, etc—may not only overlook the fear of death but, in fact, play a role in its maintenance. I will refer to this unique fear of death as ‘death anxiety’ but this does not necessarily mean it is a diagnosable condition, and most certainly not one that can be reduced to psychological or psychiatric frameworks. I mean rather a very real—and as I’ll explain, utterly modern—dread that is embodied in anticipation of our own mortality. 

    This article thus serves as an extension to the fantastic infographic of general reminders outlined by Yaqeen Institute, by delineating why death is a particular fear we need to address in this day and age. Though death’s spectacular moral significance is frequently invoked in the Qur’an, it cannot simply be assumed that Muslims are unaffected by modern structures and technologies (including therapeutic practices) that erase, abstract, or otherwise promise to overcome fear of death altogether. What follows then is a reminder that it is ever more necessary to reflect on our own mortality and not presume that ‘being Muslim’ settles the issue. Please note that this is a short reflection piece. Given how comprehensive a subject death is, do not expect great depth here—the purpose is simply to spur some reflections.

    An age of death anxiety

    For many, proximity to death is disturbing and often traumatizing. Today, psychologists are already preparing themselves for a ‘wave of mental health issues,’ while some have rightly criticized this rhetoric for medicalizing a natural reaction to crisis.[1] As the prominent psychiatrist Irvin Yalom explains, death anxiety is overt and easily recognizable for some and for others very subtle, only to be found through introspection.[2] 

    We are increasingly given opportunities to distract ourselves from our own mortality. Modern urban life and its technologies keep us eternally distracted from existential realities. Postman called this ‘amusing ourselves to death,’ likening entertainment’s effects to those of an existential drug.[3] Our aversion to death can also be observed in its depiction in popular culture: horror and war movies have distorted, glamorized, and dehumanized death beyond recognition—making it lose all meaning. Modern Muslims are just as much products of their era as anyone else. For urban Muslims across the Western world, modernity has re-shaped our relationship with death, despite its spiritual significance in the Qur’an and Sunnah. 

    In fact, the theme of death is persistent in the Qur’an, serving to ‘ground’ the reality of our earthly presence, while acknowledging our trepidation with it. For example, Allah (swt) says, “The death that you are running from will inevitably come to you’’ (62:8). He also says, “And worship your Lord until there comes to you the certainty (death)” (15:99). So, we can already affirm an existential aversion to death; in some individuals more than others and, as I will describe later, in some eras more than others. But death constitutes our most solemn certainty in this life. These two Qur’anic themes of angst and (un)certainty will serve as ideal lenses to understand the impact ‘death’ can have on an individual.

    Clinically, it is not difficult to conceive how death anxiety translates into individual pathology. For example, death anxiety has been found to be related to anxiety disorders, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and eating disorders.[4] Some psychologists thus argue that the subject of death supports a transdiagnostic approach; i.e., the need for a paradigm that replaces ‘syndromes’ (e.g., depression, anxiety, etc) with particular features common to many—fear of death being one such feature. 

    Considering the significance of death, let’s take the example of a Muslim young adult who (for the sake of reducing complexity) is neither grieving nor experiencing any significant financial or social pressures. This young adult admits to me a vague anxiety that has spiked since the corona pandemic and, upon further discussion, we broach the subject of death. The young adult also admits feeling trapped, unable to help the community like they usually would—their ability to be ‘the helper’ is severely frustrated. How can we make sense of this anxiety and how might it relate to their community activism? Here are several reflections to be had.

    The first draws upon an understanding of anxiety which sees the ‘intolerance of uncertainty’ as central to its experience. In other words, the inability to tolerate the uncertainty of a situation—e.g., will I pass my exam?—is directly associated with confronting one’s lack of control. As a result, people who cannot tolerate uncertainty may compensate by trying to exert a higher degree of control (perfectionism) or by avoiding the situation altogether (procrastination). If all this is the case, then surely death is the ultimate symbol of uncertainty and loss of control. This Muslim young adult would then be incredibly averse to being isolated and confined against their will as is now the case due to the pandemic. 

    Incidentally, Yalom discusses exactly such a case: he describes a client who sought therapy for anxiety but who increasingly felt apprehensive when not given immediate tools to overcome his anxiety, which quickly revealed itself to be related to his thoughts about mortality.[5] Eventually, this client dropped Yalom and sought a muscle-relaxation technique instead—to relieve the symptoms. While symptoms are important, the ultimate symbol of uncertainty, death, was simply unbearable for Yalom’s patient. The space to discuss death anxiety requires both the therapist and client to engage in a certain degree of depth and if the conditions don’t allow this (institutionally, or if the client only wants to alleviate their symptoms), this is what occurs.

    Similarly, I have seen Muslims engage in self-help, which promises to help you shed your old, anxious skin and become something and someone much better—all under their own control. In psychodynamic therapy, we might explore the defense mechanisms that help an individual avoid attending to their death anxiety. Let me give an example that comes up often enough among Muslims: altruism. It is well-recognized that altruism, or acting in the service of others, is a very effective (as well as socially laudable) means of ‘forgetting about oneself.’ When someone’s ability to serve the community is thwarted—as it may be during this crisis—they begin to feel antsy sitting at home. The challenge then becomes to provide the space for the client to re-think their relationship with altruism but, more deeply, to consider how it might serve as an escape from death itself. 

    This might lead us down a road, paved most prominently in the modern age by Viktor Frankl, of providing space to consider the meaning of life and death itself.[6] As Yalom reminds us again, “although the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death saves us.”[7] Herein lies the need to centralize death as a key symbol in our approach to suffering, especially during these times. It is very possible for Muslims to develop a (largely intellectual) relationship with Allah, without a recognition of their own mortality. And if the pandemic should serve as a reminder of Allah, as articulated by my colleagues in a recent article, they might remember Allah but avoid their own deaths. This is a sign of modernity.

    The modern world and the erasure of death

    Is death anxiety a uniquely human dilemma, similar across culture and time? Most likely not. It is not clear if earlier populations—for whom death was a central symbolic feature of their lives—experienced ‘death anxiety’ the same way, and transcultural research has come back to this claim.[8] 

    Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah (rA) for example, in observing a Muslim’s fear of death, relates it to being in a “state without repentance.”[9] But then he immediately explains how this fear—associated with sin—ought to be followed by an experience of regret and, ultimately, repentance. I would argue, however, that Ibn Qayyim’s “fear of death” is not the same as the death anxiety I am speaking of here, where death serves as a particularly disturbing reality without its moral significance (“I may die a sinner”). It is the fear of fear, where fear itself is the problem.[10] Arguably such death anxiety is perhaps very particular to our times, and so its clinical understanding is baseless without briefly addressing death in the modern world.

    To begin, the modern Western world is established upon a principle: ‘history is progress.’ This principle suggests that history moves continuously towards technological, social, and moral improvements. According to Hallaq, this ideology has inculcated a common sense that celebrates the present and shuns the past—discarding centuries of traditions.[11] But the technological present has very little to say about death whatsoever.[12] This has been reflected even in Freud’s own thoughts on death, which he described as a state of “non-thinking,” reflecting his inability to give any meaning to it.[13] This has led some prominent atheist philosophers such as Alain de Botton to reflect on the need to preserve European Christian rituals in matters of death—even without God.[14] Furthermore, the technological and hyper-medicalized present also underscores a view of life as one that ought to be painless. As the process of dying is often associated with suffering, this intensifies the meaninglessness of death altogether.

    The meaninglessness of death and its impression on Muslims cannot be disassociated from European colonization either. As Pandolfo relates, speaking on the spiritual impact of French colonization of Morocco, the consequence was ‘soul choking’; “when life shrinks, death is generalized to a banality that makes it unthinkable, and the divine message is no longer heard in the heart.”[15] Furthermore, as the sociologist Bauman argues, the forces of globalization and capitalism have eroded social infrastructures across the Global North.[16] We are no longer a ‘community’ but a ‘network of individuals’—there is no moral bind that holds us responsible for one another. It is important to underline the cosmic significance of this observation. As we can see during this pandemic, there is no moral glue binding us together besides charity work (which is often almost entirely reactive) and a stubborn reliance on our governments to make the ‘right decisions’ for us all. 

    Moving forward: Reflect upon death and our community

    The Prophet ﷺ encouraged the visitation of graves, stating, “Visit graves, for it reminds one of one’s death.”[17] But even while standing by a grave it is important to distinguish between recognizing the idea of death and confronting one’s own mortality. While the former is strictly intellectual, the latter bears heavily upon our fulfilled or wasted potential on this earth. To end on a forward-looking note, it is important to emphasize that it is never too late to contemplate our own death or to discuss it with our loved ones—as difficult as this might be. If the thought of death causes you dread, then know you’re not alone. I would argue this anxiety serves an existential purpose: as you confront death and all its dimensions—its earthly finality, its uncertainty—the ill-feeling serves as an embodied signal to return back to Allah. In other words, it is only by confronting the uncertainty of death that one can truly recognize that Allah is al-Bāṭin, the Knower of the Hidden, the One in Whom certainty is sought. Anxiety can thus serve as a spiritual compass towards Allah, but only if one faces it and recognizes its meanings.

    If the thought of death remains difficult, I urge you to find someone to talk to about it, and I say this knowing full well how awkward and stigmatizing it may be for a Muslim to admit their fear of death. Surely, some might think the fear of death reflects a deficiency in faith. One might, for example, be recommended to read the Qur’an. However, it is important to raise a point of caution with such a recommendation: telling someone to ‘read the Qur’an’ may backfire, for if they remain anxious, then their relationship with the Qur’an might change for the worse. Rather, it is important to recognize the meaning of one’s anxiety—which in our discussion is death—and relate that to Allah through the Qur’an. In most cases then, it helps to seek support for the purposes of self-reflection on one’s anxiety, though the associated stigma of admitting one’s fear of death to others can be especially overwhelming. I hope, as I’ve made clear above, death anxiety is also very much a sign of our times, so if the thought of death is a cause of despair, this is not only normal, it is to be expected. In learning to reflect more upon our own death—not death as an abstract concept—we develop the greatest insights into the nature of this world. As the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Remember often the destroyer of pleasures”—by which he meant death.

    Our reflections on death must also lead us to challenge the imagined status of Western Muslims as ‘middle-class’ with large and accessible family networks and stable incomes. In reality, many Muslims across the Global North are migrants and refugees, whose families and livelihoods are not blessed and privileged with the same sense of stability and security as others. For them, the fear of death poses very immediate concerns: what will happen to their children if they die? In the UK, for example, there is a lack of Muslim foster parents and many children often just go through the system. Perhaps then death anxiety should not only be understood as a personal trial, but also as a reflection of a community whose social fabric has weakened. We need to reinvigorate a sense of communion around death. No one should have to fear death out of the very legitimate fears they have regarding what will happen with their children. Death is a communal responsibility—the personal only brings this to light.

    Notes

    [1] Denis Campell, “UK Lockdown Causing ‘Serious Mental Illness in First-Time Patients,” Guardian, May 15, 2020,  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/16/uk-lockdown-causing-serious-mental-illness-in-first-time-patients; Miranda Levy, “We Are a Sedated Society: The Rise in Antidepressants During Lockdown,” Telegraph, May 17, 2020, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/sedated-society-rise-antidepressants-lockdown/.

    [2] Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Dread of Death (London: Piatkus, 2012).

    [3] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (London: Penguin, 2006).

    [4] Lisa Iverach, Ross G. Menzies, and Rachel E. Menzies, “Death Anxiety and Its Role in Psychopathology: Reviewing the Status of a Transdiagnostic Construct,” Clinical Psychology Review 34, no. 7 (2014): 580–93, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2014.09.002.

    [5] Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy (New York: Basic Books, 1980).

    [6] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: The Classic Tribute to Hope from the Holocaust (London: Rider, 2008).

    [7] Yalom, Staring at the Sun, 30.

    [8] Pittu Laungani and William Young, eds., Death and Bereavement Across Cultures (London: Routledge, 1997).

    [9] Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, Ranks of the Divine Seekers, trans. Ovamir Anjum (Leiden: Brill, 2020), https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004413412.

    [10] Frank Furedi, Culture of Fear Revisited: Risk-Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation (London: Continuum International Publishing, 2007).

    [11] Wael Hallaq, The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

    [12] Laungani and Young, Death and Bereavement.

    [13] Raymond L. M. Lee, “Eternity Calling: Modernity and the Revival of Death and the Afterlife,” in Death Across Cultures: Death and Dying in Non-Western Cultures, ed. Helaine Selin and Robert M. Rakoff (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019), 369–84, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18826-9_22.

    [14] Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion (London: Penguin, 2013).

    [15] Stefania Pandolfo, Knot of the Soul: Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 8.

    [16] Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty  (Cambridge: Polity, 2013).

    [17] Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, no. 976.

  • Reframing Ramadan: How to Flourish While the Masjids are Closed

    Reframing Ramadan: How to Flourish While the Masjids are Closed

    Introduction

    On Friday, March 12, 2020, religious leaders and board members at masjids across the country made the excruciating decision to suspend the Friday (Jumuʿah) prayer due to the spread of COVID-19. This decision was not taken lightly but, after consultation with scholars and medical professionals, it was seen as absolutely necessary. The community had to face the reality that there would be no Jumuʿah prayer for some time. Now, nearly six weeks after the decision, Jumuʿah prayer continues to be suspended at the masjid, in addition to daily prayers, weekend schools, and Friday night programs. Additionally, there is no hanging out, drinking tea together, or youth activities. Essentially, the masjids are closed as we enter into Ramadan. Given that almost half of the Muslims in the US attend the masjid at least once a week (43%),[1] these closures have left many feeling sad and some in a state of despair. Many are wondering how communities will survive this difficult time, and it seems people have more questions than answers.

    Sadness at masjid closure: A sign of īmān

    If one feels distraught over the closure of the masjid, stop and thank Allah. On the surface, this may seem strange. Why would a Muslim thank Allah when the masjid is closed? The answer lies in analyzing the thinking behind the sadness. Missing the masjid is a great sign of īmān. It would be far more problematic if a believer was indifferent to the suspension of activities in the masjid. Not everyone experiences the feeling of missing the masjid. The fact that you miss it shows concern and that is a gift from Allah. In the famous hadith that mentions seven categories of people who will be in the shade of Allah on the Day of Judgment, one of the categories is people whose hearts are attached to the masjid.[2] The wording used in the hadith literally means “whose heart is hanging in the masjid.” Commenting on this hadith, Imam Nawawī mentions that a person in this category is not one who remains constantly in the masjid, but rather one who has a strong love for the masjid.[3] Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar also mentions the meaning of this category is to have a love for the masjid even though one may not be physically present in it.[4] Given the current situation, it is a blessing that so many Muslims fall into this category. They are unable to attend the masjid at this time, but they have a longing to return to it. Their hearts are metaphorically “hanging” in the masjid even when they are physically detached from it. Let the believer rejoice in this sign of iman and look forward to the shade of Allah on the day there will be no other shade.

    Channeling energy to other outlets

    Imam Ibn al-Qayyim is reported to have said, “Allah does not close a door on a servant with His Wisdom except that He opens two doors for him with His Mercy.”[5] It is adaptive to think about the benefits one can attain when the masjid doors are closed. One of the ways to explore other avenues is to utilize a concept called reframing. Reframing is a counseling technique that facilitates a different way of viewing a situation by changing its meaning.[6] Instead of focusing on what one cannot change, one focuses on what one can change. We identify benefits given the circumstances, instead of focusing on the negative. We view the situation through a positive lens by exploring what is stressing us. The following is a chart utilizing the concept of reframing regarding masjid closures.

    Stressful/Anxious ThoughtThings I Can Do
    I am depressed that I
    cannot pray Jumuʿah at
    the masjid.    		I will gather my family and listen to one
    of the many reminders online on Friday
    during the standard Jumuʿah time.
    Afterward, we will pray ẓuhr in
    congregation.
    I am sad that I cannot pray
    any of the daily prayers at
    the masjid.    		I will strive to pray all 5 prayers on time
    with my household members.
    I miss the weekly halaqa.I will ask my local imam or scholar to
    continue their classes online. If the
    technology is not available, I will
    initiate fundraising or technological
    expertise to allow our masjid to
    conduct online programming.
    I’m afraid the masjid will
    permanently shut down
    due to a lack of funds.    		I will continue my regular donations and
    start an online fundraising campaign to
    raise awareness of the situation.
    I don’t know when we
    will be able to go back to
    the masjids.    		When the masjids open, I will recommit
    myself to their services utilizing my
    talents.
    The pandemic has
    destroyed my
    relationship with
    the masjid.    		The pandemic has allowed me
    opportunities to accomplish good
    deeds that I did not think of previously.

    Now create a similar chart by yourself or with family members. Reframe some of the negative thoughts you may have been harboring. Reframing allows us to channel our energies to engage in productive tasks. Allah says, “And whoever has taqwá (consciousness) of Allah, He will make for him a way out and will provide for him from where he does not expect. And whoever relies upon Allah, then He is sufficient for him. Indeed, Allah will accomplish His purpose. Allah has already set for everything a decreed extent.”[7] These verses remind us to stay positive, as ultimately Allah will remove us from our difficult situation. However, this is conditional on having taqwá. Thus, it is the one who is truly aware of Allah who will find the way out and provisions that Allah has created.

    The Muslim community has certainly demonstrated the potential for spiritual growth during these difficult times. In a recent survey of American Muslims who were generally religious and did not believe the masjid should be open during the current pandemic, over 58% of people said their relationship with Allah had improved since social isolation policies went into effect.[8] Thus, it appears that many in the Muslim community have channeled their energy into productive outlets.

    What about Ramadan?

    Although many Muslims have been able to reframe their attitudes towards the closure of the masjid for Jumuʿah and daily prayers, nothing looms over the hearts of the believers more than thinking about the masjid being closed in Ramadan. When asking Muslims what they would miss the most due to social isolation a month before Ramadan, the masjid being closed for tarāwīḥ and ifṭār was what the majority of people had at the top of their lists.[9] Attendance in the masjid greatly increases during Ramadan. Many masjids host ifṭārs daily or weekly, attracting hundreds of worshippers to break fast together. In Ramadan, the masjid is on full display as a house of worship, community center, and much more. The masjid becomes the center of life for many Muslims during this month. Interestingly, despite the concern for the masjid being closed this Ramadan, in a more recent survey of Muslims administered a week before Ramadan, the majority of people expressed feeling that this year’s Ramadan would be better than last year’s.[10] The overwhelming majority (80%) said they planned to read more Qur’an this year than last year.

    It appears that many Muslims are successfully reframing Ramadan without the masjid. Although they will greatly miss the experience of ifṭār with friends and extended family and standing shoulder to shoulder with community members listening to the melodious recitation of the Qur’an in the masjid, many people are embracing new opportunities.

    As one person stated, “This will be a different Ramadan, but I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. It’s a new experience I look forward to exploring.”

    Another person commented, “This Ramadan will be a new experience because we won’t have access to the mosques, but in-shāʾ-Allah we benefit from it in ways that we can’t even expect as individuals and communities.”

    Many others commented that this Ramadan may be a special opportunity (one individual called it “a once in a lifetime opportunity”) to get intimately closer to Allah due to solitude. This form of reframing is similar to what Ibn Taymīyah mentioned to his student, Ibn al-Qayyim, when he said, “What can my enemies do to me? My paradise is in my heart wherever I go and never separated from me. If I am imprisoned, then it is seclusion for worship. If I am killed, then it is martyrdom. If they expel me from my land, then it is tourism.”[11]

    However, there were also people who were fearful and scared of the upcoming Ramadan due to being alone and separated from the masjid. Don’t push away these feelings but rather allow them to propel you forward in connecting with Allah (swt). Whether optimistic or a little anxious about Ramadan without the masjid, what can we do to make the most of the situation?

    The Prophet’s Ramadan

    No one benefited more from Ramadan than the Prophet ﷺ. ʿĀishah reported: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to strive more in worship during Ramadan than he strove in any other time of the year and he would devote himself more (in the worship of Allah) in the last ten nights of Ramadan than he did in the earlier part of the month.[12] Given the dedication of the Prophet ﷺ in Ramadan, it is hard to believe that tarāwīḥ in nightly congregation was almost non-existent during his and most of the companions’ lifetimes. The Prophet ﷺ prayed the tarāwīḥ prayer in congregation and individually at home. It is related from Zayd ibn Thābit, that, “The Prophet created a room out of date palm leaf mats in the mosque. Allah’s Messenger prayed in it for a few nights till the people gathered [to pray the tarāwīḥ prayer behind him]. Then on the fourth night, the people did not hear his voice and they thought he had slept, so some of them started humming in order that he might come out. The Prophet then said, ‘You continued doing what I saw you doing till I was afraid that this [tarāwīḥ prayer] might be enjoined on you, and if it were enjoined on you, you would not continue performing it. Therefore, O people! Perform your prayers at your homes, for the best prayer of a person is what is performed at his home, except the compulsory congregational prayer.’”[13] 

    The Prophet ﷺ continued to pray the tarāwīḥ prayer at home and the companions continued to pray individually. This continued during the caliphate of Abū Bakr and the beginning of ʿUmar’s caliphate. Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, sub-narrating on a hadith from Abū Hurayrah, said, “Allah’s Messenger ﷺ passed away and the people continued observing [the tarāwīḥ prayer individually]. It remained that way during the Caliphate of Abū Bakr and in the early days of ʿUmar’s Caliphate.”[14] 

    Though congregational tarāwīḥ was not a staple of their month of Ramadan, the Prophet ﷺ and the companions still maximized the spiritual benefit of this blessed month. The focus was more on attaining the two major objectives Allah mentioned in the Qur’an regarding fasting, namely, to attain God-consciousness (taqwá), and to experience gratitude. Allah says, “O you who have believed, decreed upon you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before you that you may become God-conscious”[15] and “The month of Ramadan [is that] in which was revealed the Qur’an, a guidance for the people and clear proofs of guidance and criterion. So whoever sights [the new moon of] the month, let him fast it; and whoever is ill or on a journey, then an equal number of other days. Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship and [wants] for you to complete the period and to glorify Allah for that [to] which He has guided you, and perhaps you will be grateful.”[16] Therefore, our focus should be on the ultimate goals of attaining God-consciousness and being thankful, regardless of the specific actions by which we achieve them.

    Recommended activities for this Ramadan

    Here are some activities that may be beneficial spiritually and in maintaining social connections.

    • Prepare together. Make a list of goals you want to accomplish as a family. Solicit everyone’s opinions. Hang the goals on the refrigerator to increase motivation before the month starts. Decorate the house together. Put up banners and decorations so everyone in the household feels this month is truly special. As a group, make it a goal to reduce or eliminate behavior such as overeating at ifṭār or watching movies several hours a day.  
    • Praying together. Many of us do not have many opportunities to pray in congregation with our family. We can now take the time to perfect our prayers together. We can dedicate time to teach our children how to call the adhān, how to properly pray, and how to make wuḍūʾ. If we are unaware of the fundamentals of worship, this is a great time to learn.
    • Making duʿā together. Spend a few minutes asking your children what they want to ask Allah. Make the morning duʿāʾs together as well as the evening duʿāʾs, and make duʿāʾs a few minutes before breaking fast.
    • Be grateful together. Sit together as a family (or independently if needed) daily and each person in the household should list three to five things they are appreciative of that day. 
    • Exercise together. Take a short walk and connect with nature while maintaining social distancing. Reflect over the beauty of Allah’s creation.
    • Eat together. Another rare opportunity is to have suḥūr and ifṭār together. Leave all phones, tablets, and other devices in another room to avoid distractions. Give time to each family member to talk about their day. If you are a family that has trouble communicating, use an activity to facilitate conversation. Make rounds and ask everyone to mention their “sunshine” (a positive thought or event) and “cloud” (a negative thought or event) for the day.  
    • Read Qur’an together. Read and reflect on what was read. Focus on verses everyone will understand like the reality of the Day of Judgment, Muslim character, and lessons from the stories of the Prophets عليهم السلام.  
    • Learn together. Watch a daily reminder from your local masjid and discuss it.  

    For those who are single, converts, or living alone, you can perform many of the above-listed activities (except prayer) together virtually. It is crucial to stay connected with family and friends so consider some ways to maximize this Ramadan in quarantine. For converts who do not have Muslim family members, reach out to friends from the masjid. Similarly, if you know of converts in your community who may not have the same support as you, make an effort to connect with them. In this process, you are also creating opportunities for others to make the most of Ramadan, which is a source of blessings and good deeds for you as well.

    1. Virtual resources are an excellent option to stay connected with family and friends:

    • Have virtual ifṭārs together
    • Take FaceTime walks together
    • Initiate Zoom duʿāʾ and Qur’an sessions together

    2. Reach out to someone to become your Ramadan goal buddy and discuss goals and hold one another accountable.

    3. Each day, set aside time to watch a short lecture with someone and reflect on it together.

    Livestreaming this Ramadan: A note of caution

    Masjids and Islamic institutes are working hard to organize virtual programs for their communities. On the slate of programs are livestreams for after-suḥūr reflections, weekly classes, and tarāwīḥ tafsīr reminders. It is truly astounding how quickly masjids have been able to put information technology systems in place to facilitate the spiritual development of their communities, especially as many of those masjids may not even have had a functional website prior to a month ago.

    There is no doubt that having access to spiritual reflections, motivational speeches, and classes this Ramadan will be a valuable service to many Muslims. However, like anything else in life, moderation is essential. Be mindful of not binge-watching anything in Ramadan, even religious content. Try not to be a passive consumer of content. Rather, make use of valuable video content to motivate yourself to be an active worshipper. Ramadan is a month to actively engage in personal worship, including extra prayers, Qur’an reading, and duʿā. Actively praying tarāwīḥ or reciting Qur’an is better than listening to someone else pray and recite online. If you struggle to recite Qur’an, or you recite slowly, do not be discouraged. The Prophet ﷺ said, “A person who recites the Qur’an and masters it by heart will be with the noble upright recording Angels (in Heaven). And a person who exerts himself to learn the Qur’an and recites it with great difficulty will have a double reward.”[17] This inspirational hadith should encourage us to be active reciters of the Qur’an in Ramadan as we pray tarāwīḥ in our homes.

    The end result: What truly matters

    During the current crisis, we may ask ourselves why this is happening.[18] Only Allah knows the answer to this question, but the better question to ask is what will be the end result for us when this crisis is over. Allah says “Corruption has appeared on land and sea because of what man’s hands have done, that He may make them taste a part of what they have done, in order that they may return.”[19] The end of this verse may be the most important lesson in the current crisis. Regardless of whether this is a punishment or a test, the ultimate goal is to return to Allah. If we do not make any changes and waste our time in frivolous deeds, then we will have failed. If we are able to better connect with family, learn something new, make more duʿāʾ, and ultimately draw closer to Allah, then we will have succeeded. May Allah make us successful.

    Notes

    [1] Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupac, “U.S. Muslims Are Religiously Observant, but Open to Multiple Interpretations of Islam,” Pew Research Center, August 28, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/28/u-s-muslims-are-religiously-observant-but-open-to-multiple-interpretations-of-islam/.

    [2] Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, bk. 10, hadith 54; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, bk. 12, hadith 117.

    [3] Nawawī, al-Minhāj fī Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (Beirut: al-Maktaba-al-Assrya, 2009).

    [4] Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-Barī fī sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (Riyadh: Dar al-Tayyibah, 2011).

    [5] Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, al-Fawāʾid (Jeddah: Majmaʿ al-Fiqh al-Islāmī, 2013).

    [6] Nancy L. Murdock, Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Case Approach, 3rd ed. (New Jersey: Pearson, 2013).

    [7] Qur’an 65:2–3.

    [8] Osman Umarji and Hassan Elwan, “Embracing Uncertainty: How to Feel Emotionally Stable in a Pandemic,” Yaqeen, March 30, 2020, https://yaqeeninstitute.org/osman-umarji/embracing-uncertainty-how-to-feel-emotionally-stable-in-a-pandemic/.

    [9] Fifty-five percent said it would be the most missed or second most-missed activity, more than socializing with friends, school, sports, and other things.

    [10] Sixty-six percent said it would be somewhat better or much better than last year’s Ramadan.

    [11] Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, Y. Slitine, and Michael Abdurrahman Fitzgerald, al-Wābil al-ṣayyib min al-kalim al-ṭayyib (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2000).

    [12] Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, bk. 9, hadith 1194.

    [13] Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, bk. 96, hadith 21.

    [14] Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, bk. 31, hadith 2.

    [15] Qur’an 2:183.

    [16] Qur’an 2:185.

    [17] Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, bk. 65, hadith 4937; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, bk. 6, hadith 290.

    [18] Osman Umarji, Hassan Elwan, and Mustafa Umar, “A Punishment or a Mercy? What We Can Learn from the Coronavirus,” Yaqeen, April 14, 2020, https://yaqeeninstitute.org/osman-umarji/a-punishment-or-a-mercy-what-we-can-learn-from-the-coronavirus/.

    [19] Qur’an 30:41.

  • Barred From That Which You Love: Lessons From the Life of Umm Salamah

    Barred From That Which You Love: Lessons From the Life of Umm Salamah

    Introduction

    In the wake of COVID-19, we’ve all had to deal with the sudden reality that we may not be able to perform acts of worship that are most beloved to us, acts of worship that we feel bring us closest to Allah. In this time it’s easy to fall into despair and wonder how we will feel that presence while being unable to perform certain acts of worship. Yes, we know Allah is All-Hearing and All-Seeing but there are times when we feel His presence more closely than others. Perhaps it is when you go to Jumuʿah and see the smiling faces of fellow believers, or when you go to the masjid for ifṭār in Ramadan and share a meal with your community, or maybe you planned to travel overseas to spend your Ramadan in a Muslim country and now the sudden pandemic of COVID-19 makes that all impossible.  

    Being unable to perform various acts of worship for reasons beyond one’s control is not a new phenomenon. And not being able to perform these devotions can be one of the greatest difficulties a believer faces—to set out to please God only to be turned away. But how do we deal with this loss while not losing its underlying reality (connection to Allah)?

    While it is natural to feel a sense of loss it is crucial to remember the true nature of worship. Ṣalāh, dhikr, Jumuʿah, fasting, etc. are all forms of worship but their significance lies in their underlying intention and the faith of the one engaging in them. Just as someone who has no belief in their heart won’t be rewarded for the outward act of fasting, a person of faith will not be punished for not performing an outward act of worship due to circumstances outside of their control. A Muslim is rewarded for their intention to worship God by not doing a particular act; for example, staying away from the masjid to avoid the larger harm of spreading illness.

    A devout servant is one who obeys God; not one who prays when God has told them not to pray (e.g., someone in the state of ritual impurity), or one who fasts when it is best not to fast (e.g., someone who is ill) nor one who gathers for Jumuʿah when it is forbidden (by both secular law and religious authorities). A Muslim is one who worships God and that form of worship can differ for different groups, individuals, and various time periods. When a menstruating woman doesn’t pray, a sick person doesn’t fast, and Muslims don’t gather in the time of a pandemic, refraining from worship is actually an act of worship and devotion to God because it involves obeying God.  

    In these times our faith is deeply tested and our conviction either secured or weakened. We must ask ourselves: are we attached to God Himself or to our ‘acts’ of devotion? Are we attached to the outward performance of worship or to its inward reality? And when we are turned away from those acts, do we turn towards or away from God?

    In this matter, we can learn a lot from Umm Salamah رضي الله عنها, a devout worshipper of God who faced many barriers in her path of devotion. In these moments she always had the choice to either deepen her conviction or to turn to despair. In choosing conviction at even the most difficult points in her life she shows us that conviction and connection are always possible even as we face obstacles. Three incidents showcase this lesson best: when she was prevented from making hijrah to Medina, when her husband died, and when the Muslims were barred from making ʿumrah after the treaty of Hudaybiyah.

    Hijrah

    Umm Salamah’s first hijrah was to Ethiopia with her husband Abū Salamah رضي الله عنه where the King, who would later convert to Islam, accepted Muslims seeking asylum from Meccan persecution. While the Muslims lived comfortably in Ethiopia, some still longed to return home. Once Ḥamzah and ʿUmar رضي الله عنهم—both powerful men in Meccan society—converted to Islam, some Muslims assumed Mecca would be more hospitable and returned home. But they were wrong.

    After facing continued persecution, a welcoming invitation from a neighboring clan, and God’s permission, the Muslims left Mecca once again—this time in larger numbers—and migrated to Medina. The ease of this journey varied greatly. Some left boldly while others were held back by their relatives. Umm Salamah, her husband, and her son were of those stopped as they attempted to leave. She says in her own words:

    When Abū Salamah decided to leave [for] Madīnah, he equipped a camel and carried me along with my son Salamah. He then led his camel out. When men of Banū Al Mughīrah (Umm Salamah’s clan) saw him, then went to him and told him, ‘There is nothing we can do to prevent you from going wherever you want; but as for this sister of ours, we cannot leave you roaming about in the land with her.’ They then seized the bridle of the camel from him and took me away from him.

    When Banū ‘Abdul-Asad (Abū Salamah’s clan) heard of that, they got angry and aimed for Salamah [her son] saying, ‘By Allah! We are not going to leave our son with her since they have snatched her away from our brother.’

    Then they took my son Salamah away from me.[1]

    Umm Salamah would cry daily, longing to be reunited with her husband, the Muslims, and the Messenger of God ﷺ. If you’ve ever intended to pray only to realize your menstruation has come, or set out to fast and then fell ill, or decided to go to the masjid for Jumuʿah but couldn’t because of a national crisis, then maybe you can understand one-tenth of what Umm Salamah faced.

    Abū Salamah had no choice but to leave his wife and son behind. She remained in Mecca, while constantly begging and reasoning with them to let her go. Finally, her pleas were accepted and she, along with her young son, set out for Medina. Along the way, a man named ʿUthmān ibn Ṭalḥah رضي الله عنه inquired about her journey. Since she was alone with a child and a long journey ahead, he decided to accompany her as protection. Umm Salamah said about ʿUthmān, “I have, by Allah, never met an Arab more generous and noble than he.”[2]

    He stayed with her until they came close to where the Muslims had settled. Abū Salamah and Umm Salamah were finally reunited and able to continue their blissful union. Abū Salamah and Umm Salamah shared a deep bond and their marriage was one of mutual love and kindness.  

    Lesson: Umm Salamah longed to be with her husband and with the Muslims in Medina but when the time came, she was prevented from doing so. This incident did not make her lose faith. Though she cried over her loss, she did not lose her conviction. God says in the Qur’an, “Whoever fears Allah and keeps his duty to Him, He will make a way for him to get out of every difficulty.”[3] When one door was closed, another soon opened. Allah changed the hearts of her family members and allowed them to let her go and she, in her conviction, left her affairs in the hands of Allah and trusted in Him to protect her and her baby while alone on her journey. She persisted in her good intention and Allah sent her help in the person of ʿUthmān, may Allah be pleased with them both. The lesson we can learn from this story is to persist in good deeds even in less than ideal circumstances.

    Abū Salamah dies

    Once when Umm Salamah and Abū Salamah sat together in their home, Umm Salamah remembered that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever is married on earth will be married in paradise.”  So she said to her husband, “Let’s make a pact not to remarry after death so we can be in paradise together.”[4] Upon hearing this Abū Salamah, in his mercy, love, and foresight, responded, “No, when I die, marry someone else.” He then directed his words to God and prayed, “After I’m gone, bless her with someone who is better and will not make her sad or do her harm.”[5]

    Abū Salamah would later die from a battle wound, leaving this earth as a martyr. On his deathbed, the Prophet ﷺ prayed over his body and closed his eyes, stating, “When the soul is taken away, the sight follows it.” As Abū Salamah’s family wept, the Prophet ﷺ advised them, “Do not supplicate for yourselves anything but good, for angels say, ‘Amīn’ to what you say. He then said: Oh Allah, forgive Abū Salamah, raise his degree among those who are rightly guided, grant him a successor in his descendants. Forgive us and him, O Lord of the Universe, and make his grave spacious, and grant him light in it.”[6]

    Umm Salamah was overcome with grief at the loss of her beloved husband, a man who she loved and suffered alongside as an early believer. They emigrated together in the first hijrah (Ethiopia) and were torn away from each other when they attempted the second. She struggled in desperation to return to him, and now they were separated once again by the permanency of death. What could overcome such a loss but turning to God? She held onto the words of the messenger of God who said to those in pain, “If any servant (of Allah) who suffers a calamity says ‘We belong to Allah and to Him shall we return; O Allah, reward me for my affliction and give me something better than it in exchange for it,’ Allah will give him reward for affliction and will give him something better than it in exchange.”[7] Umm Salamah would repeat these words continuously. She would also think of Abū Salamah’s dua and wonder, “Who could be better than Abū Salamah?”[8] Umm Salamah was known to be beautiful and intelligent as well as an exceptional poet; thus, many suitors came seeking her hand in marriage. This was also done as a way to honor her husband by taking care of his widow and orphaned children. Both ʿUmar and Abū Bakr رضي الله عنهم proposed marriage but she declined them both.

    The Prophet ﷺ then came and also proposed. This time she did not decline, but she hesitated when she considered her age, that she had children, and her jealousy (the Prophet ﷺ had other wives). But he ﷺ was not concerned with any of these factors, he put her doubts to rest, assuring her that her age was not an issue, that he would happily take care of her children, and that he would pray for her concerning her jealousy. She accepted his proposal, becoming one of the mothers of the believers.

    Lesson: Few things are worse than the loss of a loved one and it’s easy to lose hope, go into a state of depression, and wonder if life has anything left to offer.  Umm Salamah sincerely loved Abū Salamah and his loss was deeply painful for her. She sincerely believed there could be no better man than him. But instead of despair, she became more devout, holding even tighter to the rope of Allah to relieve her pain. And how did Allah reward her for her patience and love? With marriage to the best of men and the status of mother of the believers. We as believers cannot despair; no matter what we lose, we have to hope for the best and utilize our relationship with Allah to strengthen us in difficult times.

    Ḥudaybīyah

    When the Prophet ﷺ received the verse, “Surely We have given to you a clear victory,”[9] he knew he would soon be victorious over the Quraysh and that the Kaʿbah would be returned to the believers. But it did not happen immediately. After the truce of Ḥudaybīyah, in which many Muslims felt the Quraysh were favored, the believers were prevented from visiting the Kaʿbah and had to turn back. Despite this, the Prophet ﷺ commanded them to execute the ritual act of cutting their hair—but they refused. Umm Salamah was there on this trip with the Prophet ﷺ and she saw his anguish when he returned to their dwelling. When he told her what had transpired, she advised him to cut his hair first. This turned out to be wise advice; the moment of discord passed and the companions eagerly complied with the order once the Prophet ﷺ cut his hair.[10]

    Lesson: Through her trials, Umm Salamah had developed the aptitude to always find a way out of a difficult situation. She saw one door closed and decided to open another and that pathway turned out to be the superior path.

    To reiterate the main points briefly: When Umm Salamah was barred from going to Medina, she waited patiently; then when the opportunity came to leave, she trusted in Allah and left despite the difficulties. When her husband died, she mourned his loss but turned her sorrow into deeper religious devotion. And when she saw the difficulties the Prophet ﷺ faced with the companions, she did not despair but found an alternative way to accomplish the same goal.

    In this time of crisis, Umm Salamah’s example calls on us to bear with patience, to hold fast to the rope of Allah, and to persevere. And she does this while also experiencing the sadness, hurt, and pain of her difficulties. Experiencing pain and bearing it patiently are not mutually exclusive. The COVID-19 crisis is painful; for some, it has taken away opportunities and for others, it has taken away loved ones. As believers, we do not deny the pain of these events. But as we cry, mourn, and experience loss, we utilize our faith as a means to get through this crisis. Umm Salamah shows us that we are never truly barred from that which we love. Because the believer’s true love is Allah. And He will always make a path forward to draw near to Him, “…So let them hear My call and let them trust in Me, so that they may be guided.”[11]

    Notes

    [1] Muhammad A. Qutb, Women Around the Messenger, trans. ‘Abdur-Rafi’ Adewale Imam (Riyadh: International Islamic Publishing House, 2007), 110–11.

    [2] “Umm Salamah,” SunnahOnline.com, https://sunnahonline.com/library/history-of-islam/356-umm-salamah.

    [3] Qur’an 65:2–3.

    [4] Qutb, Women Around the Messenger, 116.

    [5] Qutb, Women Around the Messenger, 117.

    [6] Saḥīḥ Muslim, no. 920.

    [7] Saḥīḥ Muslim, no. 918.

    [8] Saḥīḥ Muslim, no. 919.

    [9] Qur’an 48:1.

    [10] Qutb, Women Around the Messenger, 120–21.

    [11] Qur’an 2:186.

  • We’ve Been Here Before: Plague and Pestilence in Pre-Modern Islamic History

    We’ve Been Here Before: Plague and Pestilence in Pre-Modern Islamic History

    Introduction

    In the Name of Allah the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

    On the 27th of Rajab, Muslims traditionally gathered in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus to commemorate the Miʿrāj, the Ascension of the Prophet ﷺ. Ibn Kathīr writes that on that day in the year 749 AH, during the Black Death, “People did not gather as usual because many had died from among them, and many were busy with taking care of their sick and their dead.”[1]

    This year of 1441 AH, on the 27th of Rajab, most community gatherings at masjids were once again not taking place.

    We’ve been here before, though the mortality rate is far lower this time and advances in hygiene practices, medical care, and public awareness give us much to be grateful for. Allah’s Greatness has not diminished, nor has our ummah’s resilience.

    In this short paper, I take a quick look at a few incidents of and reactions to plague and pestilence in pre-modern Islamic history.[2] The goal of this paper is not to accumulate historical census information nor to create any single comprehensive account, but rather to draw a few lessons from the experiences of Muslims before us. Everything that Muslims did in the past is not sacred, but it is profoundly human, and like us they were grappling with Islam, the will of God, and a developing tradition that we too have inherited even if their understandings and interpretations of events were not always the same as ours.

    Early perceptions of the origins of plagues

    Plague and pestilence,  ṭāʿūn and wabāʾ—though the exact understandings of the terms are more complex than those translations credit—commonly occurred throughout Islamic history.[3] Just as we grapple to understand the causes of such illnesses, Muslims of the past similarly attributed the emergence of widespread disease to medical and/or spiritual factors. In the pre-modern period, Muslims believed that an imbalance in the body’s humors caused by bad air/miasma sparked plagues and pestilence. At times, they even attributed the emergence of such diseases to pricks from evil Jinn. The science may have been wrong (or at least different from today), but ultimately many minds worked to make sense of the phenomena, even as the belief that it was contingent on the will of Allah prevailed. Finding an etiology and accepting the power of Allah are not mutually exclusive. Nor are taking precautions and trusting in Allah—at that time, taking precautions may have meant spending time in open spaces with better air; today it means isolation and following the consensus of medical professionals.

    The Prophet ﷺ described plagues as mercy and martyrdom for the believers and possible punishment for others. In a hadith now oft-quoted for its alignment with scientific advice, the Prophet ﷺ said the following with regards to plagues, “If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it; but if the plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place.”[4] When the plague struck Syria during the khilāfah of ʿUmar (RA), the companions debated the meaning of the above hadith and sought to determine how best to protect the army stationed there.[5] They collectively demonstrated the difference between caution and fear; they accepted what was happening as the decree of Allah; they were not worried about dying but did their best to prevent it.

    A few visceral ‘human’ responses to disease in late antiquity

    Just as difficult times such as ours often spur very human reactions, those who came before us, including our pious predecessors similarly demonstrated and/or witnessed very human responses to plagues. Probably the first recorded epidemic that the early community directly encountered was the sickness of Medina. Many of the muhājirs, when they emigrated to Medina, were not accustomed to the local climate and fell grievously ill. A hadith in Bukhārī, which is found in several historical accounts, states that Abū Bakr (RA) and Bilāl (RA) both contracted the disease.[6] The narration states the following:

    When Abū Bakr’s fever got worse, he would recite (this poetic verse): “Everybody is staying alive with his people, yet death is nearer to him than His laces.” And Bilāl, when his fever deserted him, would recite: “Would that I could stay overnight in a valley wherein I would be surrounded by idhkhir and jalil (kinds of good-smelling grass). Would that one day I could drink the water of the Majanna, and would that [the two mountains] Shāmah and Tafil would appear to me!”

    Their reaction was to use poetry to describe their situation or their desires. As a classical mode of expression, both in pre-Islamic Arabia and throughout Islamic history, the use of poetry to express one’s deepest emotions is hardly surprising. Aesthetic responses help us process and make meaning of our situations. Abū Bakr (RA) used his sickness to contemplate death, and we too should take this as an opportunity to remember our mortality and the grave. Bilāl (RA) missed his home, Mecca, and was not reluctant to say so. He wasn’t complaining about being in Medina but he also was not the picture of stoicism. We can be human in the face of difficulty, we can and should feel loss, grief, and nostalgia—we just have to keep turning towards Allah.

    During the same plague that hit Syria mentioned above, several companions died, including Muʿādh b. Jabal, Abū ʿUbaydah, Faḍl b. ʿAbbās, and Abū Jandal.[7] The plague ultimately claimed thousands of lives. al-Yaʿqūbī writes that prices soared and people began to hoard wealth.[8] ʿUmar RA responded by prohibiting hoarding. The grocery store shortages of today, due to all the panic buying, are not entirely unique to the present, though aggressive capitalism and individualism have undoubtedly amplified the trend. Hoarding was wrong then and it is wrong now.

    In a widespread account, an early Abbasid official visited Damascus. Damascus had been repeatedly struck by plague and pestilence in the Umayyad and pre-Islamic periods. Now, under Abbasid rule, there were no epidemics. The official saw this as a blessing of Abbasid rule and told the people to be grateful for it. One person remarked, “God is too just to give you power over us and plague at the same time!”[9]  The person meant that God in his infinite justice would never cause the people of Damascus to suffer both a plague and an implied disastrous rule by the Abbasids at the same time. This anecdote suggests that there was a decline in epidemics and tells us about real or imagined local resentment to the Abbasids in former Umayyad strongholds. But the main reason the account was so often cited, is probably because of its comic resonance. Muslim scholars loved a good literary riposte, and this certainly qualifies. As with memes today, there is some light-heartedness to be found in these situations—an indication of human resilience in the face of difficulty.

    A 14th-century discussion of plague: The treatise of Ibn al-Wardī

    Discussions of the Black Death in most historical accounts—and in much of our Western education—focus almost exclusively on Europe. Even the dating of the peak of the pandemic, 1347 to 1351, focuses on its spread in Europe. Muslims were by no means immune from the tragic plague—Stuart Borsch estimates that almost half of Egypt’s population had perished from the disease or its societal effects by the late 15th century.[10] Ibn al-Wardī experienced it firsthand in Mamluk lands and eventually died of it himself. He wrote a poetic treatise on the plague that is worth briefly examining on its own.

    He believed that the plague was a punishment from Allah but, rather than focus on that punishment, he sought refuge and hoped for a chance at moral and spiritual improvement. He remarked, “We ask God’s forgiveness for our souls’ bad inclination; the plague is surely part of His punishment. We take refuge from His wrath in His pleasure and from His chastisement in His restoring.”[11]

    When describing the causes of plague, he wrote, referencing the belief in bad air at the time, “They said: the air’s corruption kills. I said: the love of corruption kills.”[12] Whether today’s pandemic is deemed a punishment or not, Ibn al-Wardī’s statement is not wrong. We see that corruption today—greed especially—is a reason why this pandemic is not being dealt with as it should be and why so many people are endangered. The hoarding of medical materials, the lack of investment in healthcare, insistence on keeping the economy open for the sake of large corporations, price gouging—the examples of this obsession with accumulation go on and on. Corruption literally kills.

    Ibn al-Wardī, like the companions before him, accepted what was happening as the decree of Allah and even found reasons for optimism in a painful situation. He wrote, “I fear not the plague like others do. It’s just one of two ‘happy’ fates: If I die, then I rest from foes; if I live, my ears’ and eyes’ illness abates.”[13]

    Ibn al-Wardī demonstrates the crucial difference between acceptance of Allah’s decree and fatalism. By writing about the plague, by continuing to write amidst the devastation it wrought, he wasn’t succumbing to a tragic situation but recording what was happening and continuing to try to make sense of it. Acceptance does not mean a failure to act. He wrote that “When the Muslim endures misfortune, then patience is his worship.”[14] The Islamic notion of patience is not passive.

    Devout medieval reactions to sicknesses and disasters

    When the Black Death and later recurring plagues struck Cairo in the 14th and 15th centuries, the dead were so many that funeral processions looked like camel caravans.[15] Sometimes bodies were left in the street or dumped in the river. But despite the terror of the time, Muslims did their best to maintain ritual purity and continue burials. Normalcy was disrupted, but their consistency in acts of faith continued and so did the fulfillment of their obligations to each other. We cannot do jumuʿah these days but we can keep up our prayers and our fasts and discover the spiritual benefits of retreat. We can use technology to give salāms to people we haven’t spoken to in a while, and people we would otherwise see regularly. When the Black Death struck, many people thought, rightfully so, that it might be the end of the world. Yet, for the most part, they were not paralyzed by apocalyptic fear. The Prophet ﷺ said, “If the Resurrection were established upon one of you while he has in his hand a sapling, then let him plant it.”[16] Even when the world is ending, we are to persist in what good deeds we can, to finish what efforts we are able to.

    When plague and pestilence struck, pre-modern Muslims would often respond with an abundance of worship, not just an abundance of caution. In 449 AH, pestilence overcame Ahwāz. Ibn al-Jawzī describes the people’s reaction as turning back to Allah, increasing in good, and abandoning all sinful behavior stating, “All repented. And they spent in charity the majority of their wealth, they dumped their alcohol…”[17] In the face of the Black Death in Cairo, a prayer for reprieve similar to that done when calling for rain in the midst of drought was conducted on the desert outskirts of the city.[18] Extra fasts were also done. Recitations of the entire Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī commenced. Such readings, in addition to the recitation of the Qur’an, were traditional responses to pestilence and devastation more generally. The Qāḍī of Damascus had a dream in 749 AH when the plague was striking nearby Anatolia.[19] In the dream, he saw the Prophet ﷺ, who said that the people should recite Sūrat Nūḥ three thousand three hundred and sixty times and ask Allah for relief from the present situation. The sūrah, unsurprisingly, involves asking for protection and is a reminder of human survival in the face of calamity. The people conducted the recitation. They asked forgiveness for their sins and they slaughtered many animals to give meat to the poor. Regardless of whether plague is a mercy, a punishment, or neither, our reaction today should not be despair, regret, and selfish cruelty but rather devotion, repentance, and selfless charity.

    Incidents of masjid closures due to pestilence

    One of the most trying experiences for Muslims today in the present crisis involves grappling with the closure of masjids. However, this is by no means the first time masjids have closed due to illness, though the scale of current closures is unprecedented. In 395 AH, due to pestilence and plague, Qayrawān’s masjids in modern-day Tunisia were empty.[20] Qayrawān has historically been renowned as a center of learning and religiosity so this was undoubtedly a notable situation. In 448 AH, masjids in al-Andalus closed due to pestilence and famine.[21] And during the Black Death in Egypt, many masjids and shrines were shut.[22] In these incidences, the closures were probably not due to prevention like today, because their understanding of the disease was different. They likely happened because so many people were sick, so many had died, and so many were taking care of the sick. In either case, both then and now, preoccupation with the preservation of life was a valid reason for closure.

    Concluding remarks

    In his medieval chronicle focusing primarily on Egypt, Ibn Taghrībirdī (d. 874 AH) mentions over and over again the occurrence of plague in the 8th and 9th centuries. When discussing notable figures, a common refrain he uses is that the individual in question died of the plague.[23] He sometimes compares different plagues in terms of how devastating they were to the population.[24] His references to plague make for a very depressing read, but the silver lining is that his history always moves on; the plague subsides, he recognizes the existence of a curve and its peak, or another particular event draws his attention away from and past the disease. Ibn Taghrībirdī lived through recurrent instances of plague, but this is not all his history is about; it is something that happened to his subjects but was not his sole focus.

    Our current situation will pass inshāAllah someday soon. It will be a line of history, an element in a chronicle. There will be a peak and there will be a decline. May Allah protect us, there may even be a recurrence. People we know may succumb to the disease, people we know of may pass away. The world may change, but history will move on. We are going through something significant but, as with Ibn Taghrībirdī’s chronicle, it is not all that is happening and it is not all that is important—e.g., we still have the spiritual blessings of Ramadan to think about, there are still oppressed Muslims in the world we should be working for. Historical accounts teach us that we should react with caution, patience, and increased worship and care for each other. They also teach us that we have moved past this before. As Allah says in the Qur’an in Sūrah Raḥmān, verses 26-27, “All on earth perishes. And the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honor, persists.”

    Recommendations for further reading

    If you are interested in learning more about the plague and pestilence in Islamic history, al-Suyūṭī has a work listing various accounts here. Michael Dols, who I’ve cited extensively, has many works on the subject in English. Dr. Elaine van Dalen recently compiled an excellent list of English and Arabic sources here on epidemics in Islamic history. Finally, the Ottoman History Podcast produced an episode on plague in early modern and modern times that adds additional valuable information to our discussion.

    Notes

    [1] Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa-al-nihāyah (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 1988), 14:263.

    [2] I want to say briefly that the authenticity or accuracy of many early historical accounts is difficult to confirm—not that plague or sickness occurred, but that specific people actually said the statements attributed to them. We should keep in mind though that for Muslim historians, accuracy was not the only or even the most important thing they were concerned with. They made arguments about their own times through these histories, they edified, they critiqued, and they did so much more. We cannot always glean exactly what happened, but we can get an idea of how people of the historian’s time or the time they wrote about may have understood what was happening.

    [3] See Lawrence I. Conrad, “Tāūn and Wabā,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 25, no. 3 (1982): 268–307. 

    [4] Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 5728.

    [5] Michael W. Dols, “Plague in Early Islamic History,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 94, no. 3 (1974): 376–77.

    [6] Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 1889. 

    [7] Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa-al-nihāyah, 6:226.

    [8] Many thanks to Shabir Agha Abbas for this reference. Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh al-Yaʿqūbī (Beirut: Dār ṣādir, n.d.), 2:150.

    [9] Dols, “Plague in Early Islamic History,” 380.

    [10] Stuart J. Borsch, The Black Death in Egypt and England: A Comparative Study, 1st ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 15.

    [11] Ibn al-Wardī, “Account of Reports on the Pestilence (Risala an-naba’ ‘an al-waba’),” Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History: Studies in Honor of George C. Miles, ed. Dickran K. Kouymjian, trans. Michael Dols (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1974), 454.

    [12] Ibn al-Wardī, 454.

    [13] This couplet was translated and shared on social media by Kevin Blankenship. With thanks to Daanish Faruqi.

    [14] Ibn al-Wardī, 454.

    [15] Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 240, 245, ACLS Humanities E-Book.

    [16] Musnad Aḥmad, no. 12491.

    [17] Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-mulūk wa-al-umam (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyah, 1992), 16:17.

    [18] Dols, Black Death in the Middle East, 247–48.

    [19] Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhirah fī mulūk Miṣr wa-al-Qāhirah (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub), 10:203.

    [20] Ibn Idhārī, Kitāb al-bayān al-mughrib fī akhbār mulūk al-Andalus wa-al-Maghrib (Beirut: Dār al-Thiqāfah, 1983), 1:257.

    [21] al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām al-kabīr (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī , 1993), 30:25.

    [22] Dols, Black Death in the Middle East, 246.

    [23]  Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm, 15:218.

    [24]  Ibn Taghrībirdī, 15:156.

  • Is Contagion Real? Giving Context to Prophetic Wisdom

    Is Contagion Real? Giving Context to Prophetic Wisdom

    Introduction

    Could it be that God’s message that is so conscious of human welfare that it relaxes the duty to offer congregational prayers due to rain, to fast the otherwise obligatory days of Ramadan while traveling, to perform the Hajj pilgrimage in case of the insecurity of the journey, and permits shortening of prayers during travel or due to fear of attack, refuses to make an allowance in the case of a pandemic? In a pandemic in which what is at stake is not convenience but lives, and lives not only of the few who worship but of the innumerable many who may come in contact with them? Could it be that the divine message that emphatically encourages the practice of medicine and quest for cure by declaring that God has created a cure for every disease would deny the empirically established fact that germs spread disease, that contagion is real?

    Allegedly, the answer to this rhetorical question is not obvious to some because of a statement of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ denying contagion that appears in the canonical collections of hadith. Admittedly, Muslim authorities who would deny the fact of contagion today are exceedingly rare—I haven’t come across any even in the wonderland of social media. Nearly all the ulama and religious authorities accepted it well before its deadly spread became self-evident. There were exceptions, such as the large Muslim religious gatherings in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and elsewhere against the general recommendation that led to unfortunate spread. These were, by and large, exceptions to the rule. Much of this destructive behavior was underpinned not by a religious objection to contagion but disinformation, conspiracy theories, general religious and scientific ignorance, all of which feed a general attitude of carelessness. Our concern here is only with a proper understanding of the Prophetic guidance on the matter, the lingering doubts about which both prevent a proper understanding and celebration of faith and properly motivated, positive, and proactive action of the kind that could save lives and alleviate suffering.

    How could contagion be true if God’s Prophet ﷺ said otherwise? The only way for many to hold on to faith under such conditions is by alienating it from their actual life—marked as it is by modern science and technology and their presumptive reliance on natural causality. Incidentally, the modern, secular mind often welcomes this kind of charming religiosity that could not possibly challenge a naturalist, materialist understanding of the world. It is not only compatible with but even longs for an enchanted world when people, in their spare time, worshipped sacred trees or animals and sought aid from the spirits of their ancestors. The nostalgia for a bygone world of fairy tales serves as an opiate for the harsh realities of a meaningless, unjust world. Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic we confront today serve as reminders of the deeper and ubiquitous danger this alienation poses even to worldly life and ethics. The threat it poses to faith and eternal things is greater.

    To return to the dilemma at hand, how ought we respond to the words of the Prophet ﷺ that are, if soundly received and understood, the infallible foundation of faith? The million-dollar question here, as always with interpreting words spoken in a world vastly separated from our own, is: What exactly did God’s Messenger ﷺ say and mean? Did he mean to recommend or obligate a course of action—that one should treat claims or observation of spreading illness, as in the spread of diseases caused by germs as false or impious? Does believing in or taking caution according to this recommendation, let alone engaging in medical research, therefore, constitute impiety? This cannot be the case. One has only to consider the hadith report itself and the surrounding texts to conclude this much.

    Let us consider the tradition in question. The Messenger of God ﷺ declared in a sound report, on the authority of Anas b. Mālik, that

    “There is no ʿadwā and no ṭiyarah, but I like al-fa’l.” They asked, “What is al-fa’l?” He replied, “A good word.”

    The term ʿadwā has come to be rendered in English as ‘contagion’ and ṭiyarah can be rendered as omen-seeking (the details of how pagan Arabs did so, while fascinating, are not immediately relevant). Another version of the report gives a more helpful explanation of fa’l: “It is a good word that one of you may (over)hear” (Muslim #2223)—that is, one may hear something good being said and feel optimistic as a result. In modern Arabic, the related term tafā’ul has come to mean optimism.

    So, there it is. The Prophet ﷺ said that contagion is not real. Or did he? Anyone who has a modicum of expertise in hadith or Islamic jurisprudence knows never to arrive at a conclusion based on a single hadith. Hadiths are anecdotes picked out from an entire ecology of Prophetic commands, practices, policies, and actions that are singled out for authentication but must be put back into their context for understanding. This means at minimum that one must consider all (or most) of the versions of any given hadith and all the other surrounding hadiths on the subject. Hadith experts know that hadiths always exist in multiple versions and one has to collect and evaluate all of them. No small amount of damage has been done to the message of Islam and hence to humankind by the proliferation of unsound or uninvestigated hadith reports by pious, well-meaning preachers. This turns out to be true for the case at hand.

    A more complete version of the hadith given by Abu Hurayra, as recorded in al-Bukhārī (and Muslim #2220),

    There is no ʿadwā, no ṭiyarah, no hāmah, and no ṣafar, and run from the leper like you would from a lion.

    The additions are revealing of the nature of the general import of the statement: hāmah (seeking omens in birds) and ṣafar (the belief that the month of Ṣafar is a bad omen for marriages, etc.). This tradition not only adds two more practices to the forbidden list, it alters the original impression altogether. Why run from the leper if there is no possibility of infection of disease from one person to another? What does contagion have to do with fortune-telling and omens?

    Contagion is, therefore, real and the duty to act accordingly is emphasized in a far stronger and more general command, also reported both in al-Bukhārī and Muslim on the authority of Usāma b. Zayd,

    If you hear of the plague in a land, do not enter it, and if it occurs while you are there, do not leave it.

    Effectively, the Prophet’s words can be understood to mean quarantine in response to contagious diseases such as the plague (ṭāʿūn) and leprosy (judhām).

    The nature of the Prophet’s concern becomes even more clear as the anecdote unfolds in the report of Abū Hurayra in a longer version also reported in al-Bukhārī and Muslim:

    [Upon hearing that there is no ʿadwā,] a Bedouin said, “O Allah’s Messenger, What about the camels which, when in the desert run strong like deer, but when a mangy camel mixes with them they all get infected with mange?” To that Allah’s Apostle replied, “Who, then, conveyed it to the first (mangy) camel?”

    (Bukhārī #5770)

    In yet another version of the tradition, possibly of the same incident, Abu Hurayra continues that the Prophet ﷺ  added,

    Do not place the healthy camels with the sick ones.

    (Muslim #2221)

    From these reports, it becomes abundantly clear here that the Prophet ﷺ did not deny that people and camels do get infected. His original statement could only mean, then, that the cause of disease is not the transference of the spirits—sick camels do indeed infect the healthy ones, so do not yoke them together. But still, the illness ultimately starts somewhere. That ultimate source of this occurrence, like that of all things, is God, not spirits or omens.

    Perhaps the most startling evidence of the Prophet’s attitude toward contagion appears in the following report. When a man of Thaqīf afflicted with leprosy came to pledge allegiance to the Prophet ﷺ  and declare his Islam, the Prophet told him to stay away and sent a message to him saying, “We have accepted your allegiance, so now go back.” (Muslim). Guided no doubt by God, he acted unequivocally in accordance with the best guidelines of “social distancing” today!

    This leaves the puzzle of the phrase that raised the original concern: “no contagion.” To parse it further, the form lā X could mean “there is no X” as in “X is not real, so do not believe in it or act accordingly.” It could perhaps mean that “X is not real, but act as if it is.” Put differently, this grammatical form could mean do not believe that X or do not practice X, and the immediate meaning is inclusive of both. Since the Prophet ﷺ decidedly acted as if X, we seem to have a contradiction. But this contradiction cannot be real given that neither the Prophet ﷺ nor his audience, who otherwise questioned him about any incomprehensible words or perceived contradictions, sensed any. We must conclude that the negation of ʿadwā did not mean the negation of contagion in the Prophet’s or his audience’s mind. It seems, therefore, that he only negated a certain understanding of contagion.

    Recent historians have uncovered fascinating details about the social and religious imagination in pre-Islamic societies of the Near East (referred to in scholarship as Late Antiquity). It helps us conclude with confidence that ʿadwā was not an ancient version of the germ theory of infectious diseases, but a kind of superstition about how people (or animals) get sick as a result of something that can be best expressed in English as ‘transferable evil spirits.’ The Prophet ﷺ denied that superstition while acting in accordance with the general medical knowledge of the time. Rather than implying that belief in God’s total power requires abandoning caution and medicine, he stated emphatically that proper belief in God requires respecting natural causation that, no doubt, God has instituted.

    What is the significance of his denying a certain understanding of contagion while embracing its effective truth? The operative distinction here is between natural causes attributable to worldly things and supernatural causes that were attributed willy-nilly to “divine” beings, sacred forces, and spirits. This way of classifying things may sound strange to modern ears in a world where even God’s existence is disputed, but the heavens in medieval imagination—be it Christian, Jewish, or pagan—were populated by a whole slew of invisible beings, both “divine” and demonic, that intervened between God and men. The theory that illness is a result of such spirits, therefore, was not only an Arab belief, it was quite widespread. The Prophet ﷺ, it would seem, meant to reject that belief.

    But lest we read too much into it, the theory of quarantine took centuries to develop, and there is no indication that the Final Apostle of God ﷺ was sent to instruct humanity in germ theory. It is tempting to read our modern understanding into the Prophetic words for his recommendation is the perfectly reasonable course of action—even by the standards of our contemporary scientific knowledge—for the actual response to contagious diseases.

    The reductive mind that dismisses all non-sensible realities as nonsensical, however, should find no comfort in this explanation. Both the student of Islamic knowledge and the believing Muslim should rest assured that the Prophet’s rejection of these pre-Islamic beliefs and practices did not amount to a total disenchantment, or what Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has called the emergence of the “buffered self” in the modern West—a self that feels self-sufficient and subject to nothing but the natural, sensible causes. In contrast, the medieval (Taylor has in mind primarily Christian) self was porous, constantly aware of its vulnerability to innumerable invisible things: demons, spirits, saints, angels, even pagan gods, and so on. The Prophet ﷺ, in contrast, sought refuge incessantly in Allah alone—he would frequently say “O Allah do not leave me to myself (nafs) for a moment”—and denied all powers, demi-gods, demons, saints, and “supernatural” actors that, in other religious worldviews including that of the Arab pagans, littered the heavens and the earth. Jinn, devils, and angels do exist, but with their agency so truncated as to become less than that of humans, and for the purpose of worship and fulfillment of needs, irrelevant. The Islamic philosophy of self, so to speak, leaves the human self always and utterly open to God’s power—no thought can occur, nor harm nor benefit, nor happiness nor grief, nor inspiration nor motivation, without God’s leave. Natural causes, however, are different: they are real enough, and they do not pose any threat to God’s omnipotence. They are to be believed in and sought after in one’s practice.

    The Prophet ﷺ, similarly, spoke approvingly of al-fa’l, the feeling of optimism upon hearing a good word. In one tradition in al-Bukhārī, he said, “There is no truth in omens [lā ṭiyarah] and the best of it is al-fa’l,” which means that he may have considered optimism based on accidents of speech as falling in the same category of omens, but there was no harm in feeling good based on them. It did not threaten the exclusiveness of divine omnipotence, perhaps because it could be easily explained within the paradigm of exclusive divine omnipotence. When someone praises you or says something like, “I am sure you can do it,” no harm is being done in the feeling of pleasure, hope, and inspiration you may have as a result. Sports coaches’ locker room speeches, in other words, are mostly okay if not for all the swearing.

    On other occasions, the Prophet ﷺ spoke frequently (as did the Qur’an) of dreams and how they are the last remaining vestige of inspiration after the end of prophethood through which God may continue to inspire His righteous servants.

    The Prophet’s intense concern with agency and causality—namely, power attributed to beings and things other than God—is evident in another well-known incident. When his son Ibrāhīm died and he was stricken with grief and his doting Companions fell into mourning, it so happened that the sun eclipsed that day and they quite naturally associated the two things: the sun too was grieving the death of the Prophet’s son. But the Prophet ﷺ would not have it:

    The sun and the moon do not eclipse for anyone’s death or life. They are, rather, two of the signs of Allah. When you see them, offer prayers.

    (Bukhārī #3201)

    What the Prophet ﷺ rejects in the aforementioned hadiths is the supernatural causality attributed to either the false gods or things or rituals or times and places themselves. It is not the number 13, nor the black cat crossing your path, nor the bird droppings, nor the direction in which the bird flew, nor the eclipse of the sun or the moon, nor the location of the stars that have any effect on your fate.

    It could be, of course, that God will show you signs in different ways: perhaps the beauty of the bird in your window is a sign that you should take that new job offer? There is no harm in such inspiration so long as you understand the utter subjectivity of such a feeling—that God showed this to you alone. But when attached to a schema of supernatural effects and superstitious beliefs, these innocent occurrences become symbols and reminders of beings and powers other than Allah. So long as we understand the causality and are not in danger of attributing it to a false god, there is no danger that we will worship that thing as God. But if we do: if we worship natural causes effectively by pitting them against God’s power in any way, or by denying God’s power behind, and above, all natural causes, then we have fallen into another form of polytheism.

    This meaning is conveyed best by him to whom God had given the most eloquent and comprehensive expression. Answering his beloved wife, the Mother of the Believers Aisha, the Prophet ﷺ said, about the plague,

    The plague is a punishment that Allah sends on whom He wishes, yet for those among the afflicted who believe, it is a blessing. None remains patient in a land in which plague has broken out and believes that nothing will befall him except what Allah has ordained but that Allah grants him a reward similar to that of a martyr.

    (Bukhārī #5734)
  • Between Tension and Compassion: Reflections on Family Time During Covid-19

    Between Tension and Compassion: Reflections on Family Time During Covid-19

    Introduction

    Sometimes in a relationship, egos prevail over hearts and minds. When this happens, the part of us that desires to be right acts as our mouthpiece and drives our actions. Prophet Yūsuf’s brothers operated out of envy when they cast Yūsuf into the well. Instead of admiring how Allah had showered his blessings on Yūsuf, they overflowed with rage and jealousy. Families are likely to learn more about each other as we shutter indoors during this pandemic. We may learn some unsavory things that need attention and healing, but we may also learn that someone in the family has advanced or excelled in some area of their academic, professional, or personal life.  

    We live so much of our lives outside of the house that a lot can transpire in a family member’s life before others catch up. When we do catch up, our response may not always be the most reasonable. Siblings, especially, have a habit of devouring each other like wolves, as Prophet Yaʿqūb alluded to in his cryptic warning to his sons. In some cases, it is those closest to us whom we deem undeserving of their blessings. We think, perhaps, that if others knew them as we do, they would not be so quick to praise them and grant them opportunities. And yet, rarely when we are praised, given opportunities, and generally blessed by Allah do we find our own selves undeserving. There is no one in this world whose shortcomings we are more aware of than our own.

    Let us remember the principle of reciprocity: if it would pain you for someone to assess you as undeserving of your blessings, don’t inflict the same judgment on others. As well as we might know our loved ones, we do not know them as Allah knows them. It’s best to stay unassuming—trying to understand how God distributes His mercy, to whom, and why is a losing game. Allah’s provisions are vast and His wisdom in distributing them is more refined than ours. Knowing this, we should try to be understanding of Allah’s decree, hopeful in Him, and prayerful at all times.

    All bounty is in the hand of Allah. He grants it to whom He wills. And Allah is All-Encompassing, Wise. He selects for His mercy whom He wills. And Allah is the possessor of great bounty. (Qur’an 3:73-74)

    We should be wary of bungling our interactions with family members through lackluster responses. We must also mind the daily annoyances that get under our skin and eat away at the affection we have for each other. We often think someone knows that what they’re doing upsets us—they may not. We think that a certain glance of the eye, a furrow of the brow, or sigh is a subtle clue of someone’s disfavor. We surmise that a small action or lack of action is an intentional dig at us. But these are double standards. For we’ve all felt the sting that burns when someone accuses us of harmful intent though we are innocent. As Rūmī once said, “If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror ever be polished?” In Rūmī’s statement, mirror is a metaphor for the heart. He’s cautioning us that if we are constantly bothered by what’s happening around us, our hearts will struggle to be purified and pleasing to Allah. Be aware of the improbability of your assumptions about other people. It is unlikely that everything you take offense to has malintent behind it. Whenever possible, give others the benefit of the doubt and have a good opinion before indulging in negative thoughts.

    Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the worst of false tales; and do not look for the faults of others and do not spy, and do not be jealous of one another, and do not desert one another, and do not have enmity for one another. O servants of Allah, be brothers. (Bukhārī)

    Someone once said that the greatest of the liberal arts is the art of learning to live together. When you live with someone long enough, you tend to build up between yourselves habits of mutual annoyance. No amount of self-work in the world will make you adore all the habits and quirks of another person. Perhaps that’s a good thing. If you let it, it can act as a reminder that only Allah is perfect. The Prophet ﷺ cautioned us against holding others to the standard of perfection. He gave counsel that if a husband dislikes one of his wife’s characteristics, he should focus on another aspect he finds pleasing.[1] And the same advice can be given to wives. Allah wants us to be good to each other, which means that it’s imperative to improve our relationships. That might mean having a better opinion so that our hearts can soften toward each other. It may also mean that all parties agree to make small changes for the greater good of achieving tranquility in the home. Since this is a transitional time for everyone, the needs of the whole family, from the children to the adults ought to be taken into consideration.  

    Whoever does not show mercy to our young ones, or acknowledge the rights of our elders, is not one of us. (Musnad Aḥmad)

    We sometimes have the urge to turn inward, crawl into our caves and disengage so as to not make the wounds in our relationships fester. Knowing that our relationships matter, we might resort to praying for the other as a way of mending the fractures when we find it challenging to be physically together. But prayers for others ought not to become a means for the ego or Shaytan to get their portion. In other words, you might find yourself praying that the object of your frustration overturns a habit that you find bothersome. Reconsider. A prayer like this could reinforce in your mind the things about them that get under your skin and reignite all the negative feelings you harbor. Assess whether the thing you’re praying the person stops engaging in is objectively harmful like smoking, lying, abandonment of responsibilities, etc. If the action is not objectively harmful, you might consider beseeching Allah for a resolution to tension and a resurgence of compassion in the relationship, in whatever way Allah deems it best to achieve that end. Just be careful of praying that they change without recognizing that they may not be the only problem. And don’t forget to pray for the things that may be causing them harm and hardship, like a sickness, heartbreak, financial difficulty, or feeling burdened by their responsibilities.

    The merciful will be shown mercy by the Most Merciful. Be merciful to those on the earth and the One in the heavens will have mercy upon you. (Tirmidhī)

    Many of us are not accustomed to spending so much time at home. To some extent, you might even feel like a stranger in your own home. Try to treat your home as you would a guest, show your gratitude for having shelter by honoring your home in how you care for its upkeep and in how you perceive it. For those of us who have busy, bustling homes we might benefit from establishing a cleanliness minimum. Lower your expectations so as to avoid unnecessary frustration but not so low that it makes being home tougher. When it comes to how you perceive your home, try to look at it with the eye of gratitude by focusing on what you have instead of what you don’t. If you have the blessing of a bed, you might consider going to sleep a little earlier. If, through the power of our orientation, we can see beyond the mere materiality of our homes, and instead treat our homes with care and bring them to life with worship, we may breathe life into our space and feel it expand. Arabs have a proverb, “Dayyiq fī al-qalb,” which means that sometimes constriction is a product of your perception, not reality. Perhaps we can all take inventory of the aspects of being at home that make us feel constricted and see if we cannot make them more expansive, either by changing our attitude or adjusting our conditions. Appreciate your space and family by calling to mind, humorously or seriously, how things could be worse. Consider how the house could be smaller, the water could never run warm, the internet could be cut off, and a whole host of other unpalatable but possible alternatives. Then return to your situation, appreciating all that you have and how easily things could be otherwise. Don’t make your circumstances a wedge between yourself and Allah when they could be a bridge to Allah.

    Notes

    [1] The Messenger of Allah (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, “A believer must not hate a believing woman [his wife]; if he dislikes one of her characteristics he will be pleased with another characteristic.” Ṣaḥiḥ Muslim, bk. 1, hadith 275.

  • Return to the Maskan: Rediscovering the Treasure of Home

    Return to the Maskan: Rediscovering the Treasure of Home

    This reflection series was launched in April 2020 by the Yaqeen Institute in an effort to provide timely, thoughtful, and Islamically grounded perspectives by its Research Fellows surrounding the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Contributors to both the research papers and the reflection series in the Coronavirus Collection are committed to answering the tough spiritual questions raised by this pandemic, as well as providing practical solutions and resources in the hopes of bringing clarity and certainty in Allah in an otherwise uncertain time.

    Award-winning Jewish American children’s author Uri Shulevitz tells in The Treasure the tale of a poor man named Isaac who often goes to bed hungry. (Spoiler alert!) Isaac dreams of a voice instructing him to travel to the capital city and look for a treasure under the bridge by the royal palace but he dismisses it. When the voice comes to him for the third time, Isaac sets off on his journey.  Through forests and across mountains he travels until he reaches the capital city and the bridge by the royal palace. A guard questions him for lurking around day after day so Isaac tells him of his dream. Laughing, the guard reveals that he, too, once had a dream instructing him to go to Isaac’s city and seek a treasure under the stove of a man named Isaac. Isaac returns to his home, digs under his stove and finds a priceless treasure. As Shulevitz says:

    In thanksgiving, he built a house of prayer, and in one of its corners he put an inscription: Sometimes one must travel far to discover what is near.[1]

    Many families right now are currently finding themselves in unfamiliar terrain. We have become accustomed, due to mass education and the demands of a modern wage-labor economy, to spending more of our waking hours in schools and workplaces than at home with our families. Numerous resources are emerging on social media to help families adjust to spending most of their time together, often for the first time. Educators and consultants are graciously providing routine guides, home schedules, advice for working remotely and other templates to help families transition to our changed circumstances in light of the current pandemic. But one unique opportunity we ought to consider is how this new situation can allow us to discover what is near and priceless, after our far travels into the complexity of modern workplaces and schooling.

    The Prophet Muhammad, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, spent his early childhood amidst a desert education in which the natural wonders all around him (the seemingly endless desert, rock formations, clear skies, the night with its brilliant firmament of stars, etc.) imprinted Allah’s majesty upon his heart and soul. During his subsequent upbringing in Mecca’s city life, he learned moral lessons and higher truths by observing the best of teachers, his role models in his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and uncle Abū Ṭālib. So did Allah guide him to become the most respected and trustworthy man, al-Amīn, in his society, as well as ḥanīf (monotheist) in his nature.

    Shaykh Muhammad Zāhid Abū Ghuddah’s translation of his father Shaykh ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ Abū Ghuddah’s work Al-Rasūl al-Muʿallim (Prophet Muhammad: The Teacher) provides a brilliant array of examples from the Prophet’s life, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, in which he helped reshape people’s lives and hearts through a multitude of teaching methods. These include repetition, allowing time for instruction to be grasped, memorization, rhetorical questions, detailed commentary, imagery, humor, seriousness, coaching participation from those he was instructing, addressing the whole community, addressing small focus groups, formal, informal, covering every subject area of human life from family life to battle; etc. As the Prophet, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, taught the believers, we ought also to employ a wide array of methods to compassionately and intelligently teach our family members and neighbors what is good and necessary for attaining Allah’s pleasure.

    As we find ourselves forced into forms of disconnect from school and work, let us recall that it is our home dwelling, where family life resides, that Allah refers to as maskan[2] (from sakana which refers to peace and tranquility). Both our earthly homes (past and present, human and animal) and the joyous dwellings of paradise are referred to as maskan. The home and family life should comprise the seat of tranquility in a human being’s earthly journey. By contrast, most of us nowadays have come to regard work or school as our home away from home, often to the point where we feel more at home outside than we do with our own families! In that sense, and as is the habit of Allah that there is good even in what is calamitous, the present challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic is like an arduous journey of an impoverished man, through forests and across mountains, to arrive at the key to understanding the treasure that has always awaited his uncovering in the hearth of his own home.

    As we take precautions, improve our practice to face the present challenge and implement some of the helpful strategies that are circulating on social media, let us take time to unplug and wonder at the natural beauty that surrounds each of us wherever we may live. Let us worry less about teaching common core standards to our children and spend more time teaching them appropriate occasions for laughter and grief and modeling beautiful interactions among siblings, parents, etc. As we aim to preserve life, let us not shy away from teaching them what death is. Let’s begin or increase our daily Qur’an regimens as families, study the Prophet’s teaching methods (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him), read (print) books, take walks, cook together, check on neighbors, care for the wildlife in our neighborhoods, weed the small or large patches of grass (as the case may be) in our vicinity, plant trees, and study the stars. The Prophet himself, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, appreciated the maskan by serving his family, leaving everything to stand for salah at the appointed time, and playing and joking with children.[3]

    Those who are working from home ought to gift groceries to those whose jobs are not providing continued compensation for remote work (masājid can help coordinate efforts). For those whose occupations are manual, now is a great time for edification through reading. For those whose jobs are discursive and desk-bound, now is the time to break open the stagnant channels of energy by exerting the body. One thing is certain for all: if you are finding yourself forced to spend more time with your family, it’s an excellent opportunity to beautify and strengthen those primordial bonds. Of course, not every family is in the same situation in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Countless people in the underclass, working-class and health professionals of our economy are among the vulnerable groups outside providing essential services to others. May Allah preserve them. Let us also keep in our duʿāʾs those brothers and sisters whose homes, far from being places of tranquility, are places of trauma or abuse. May Allah fortify them to ask their rights of one another in his name, as is told to us in the opening verse of Surat Al-Nisāʾ.[4] Many other families don’t usually have enough time to connect with one another, share their problems and seek one another’s counsel. What better way to spend newfound time together than sharing our experiences across generational divides and working through relationship issues to arrive at caring, reciprocity, and sakīnah (tranquility). As the great scholar of the Qur’an Imam Fode Drame, may Allah preserve him, states, the purpose of education is to preserve the fiṭrah (primordial God-consciousness). May this crisis be for us, after all, a teachable moment.

    [1] Uri Shulevitz, The Treasure (New York: Square Fish, 1978).

    [2] For example, Qur’an 20:128, 27:18, 34:15, and 61:12. The form I verb sakana is also used several times to mean dwell, as in 2:35 and 7:161. The noun sakan also appears, indicating rest and reassurance, in 6:96 and 9:103.

    [3] For example, Aswad bin Yazīd narrated: “I said: ‘O ‘Aishah! What would the Prophet ﷺ do when he entered his house?’ She said: ‘He would busy himself with serving his family, then when (the time for) salāt was due he would stand (to go) for it.’ ” Jami at-Tirmidhī, vol. 4, bk. 11, hadith 2489. And also narrated by Mahmūd bin Rabi`a: “When I was a boy of five, I remember, the Prophet ﷺ took water from a bucket (used for getting water out of a well) with his mouth and threw it on my face.” Saḥīh al-Bukhārī, bk. 3, hadith 77.

    [4] Allah says in verse 1 of Sūrat An-Nisāʾ: “O mankind!  Be conscious of your Sustainer, who has created you out of one living entity, and out of it created its mate, and out of the two spread abroad a multitude of men and women. And remain conscious of God, in whose name you demand [your rights] from one another, and of these ties of kinship. Verily, God is ever watchful over you!”

    Disclaimer: The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in these papers and articles are strictly those of the authors. Furthermore, Yaqeen does not endorse any of the personal views of the authors on any platform. Our team is diverse on all fronts, allowing for constant, enriching dialogue that helps us produce high-quality research.

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