Losing Faith Because of Waswasah

[ummtaalib]

Question

Assalamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh, I started practicing Islam three years ago. I started to pray five times, fasting, and last year I decided to wear hijab. I suffered of waswasah (whispers of Satan), I had a lot of evil thoughts about Allah but I could control them and they disappeared. So everything was going Ok. I decided to study Arabic at university (in Italy); because of university sometimes I used to miss my prayers, so after a while I felt guilty, and then I decided to do more dhikr. One day, while studying Arabic literature about the Qur'an and how it could have been invented, I felt like I believed it so I asked Allah to forgive me and I gave it up and started reading Qur'an.. While reading the passage where Allah describes Kafirs(non believers) in surah al Baqarah, I felt like that and I started crying asking Allah's forgiveness, but then a voice in my mind told me that now I am a kafir so I started to feel hopeless, I blamed myself a lot, then I remembered maybe it could be shaytan so I tried to relax; it didn't work. I started to question Allah a lot. I had a lot of doubts in my mind. It was scary and I felt really hopeless, and suddenly I felt like I believed not in Allah anymore. Now my doubts have almost disappeared; I continue praying but still have this feeling as I can't believe in Allah anymore, but anyway I fear hell a lot, every day I suffer from anxiety, I feel like Allah has abandoned me (I hope I am wrong).. I can't get close to him anymore. The more I try to convince myself I am a Muslim the more I am confused. Sometimes I know I believe with my brain but my heart seems dead. My question is how can I get rid of this confusion? It seems like shaytan has won. And you cannot imagine how sad and depressed I am. I wonder if I am still a Muslim or not and in the meantime I don't want to be a kafir, but any way I am confused. And I fear hell.I wonder if it was a trial for me or if Allah doesn't want to guide me anymore? How can I get free from guilt and from this tremendous confusion?

 

 

Answered by

Abd. Lateef Krauss Abdullah is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Science Study’s Community Education and Youth Studies Laboratory, Universiti Putra Malaysia

 

Thank you for writing us. When you are confronted with doubts regarding knowledge issues, you cannot merely wish them to go away. You have to ask Allah to guide you to the truth of the matter, and then (tie your camel) by going out and taking those questions you have to a scholar to get clarity about them.

 

As a Muslim your heart is attracted to truth, and thus you need to seek it, especially when issues like this arise where you have been presented with certain arguments about the Qur'an that you don't have the answers for.

 

The only way you will achieve peace on this matter is by resolving the questions in your mind via knowledge. Thus I encourage you to seek out a Muslim scholar (a real one) that can answer your questions one by one in relation to what you read in that article.

 

Shaytan is preying on the doubts that have crept into your heart from your reading of that Arabic literature questioning the authenticity of the Qur'an; however, you never had those questions answered and this doubt is lingering in your heart. Merely reading the Qur'an or doing zikr will not provide the remedy you need until you are able to have your questions answered with true knowledge.

 

You will not feel at peace until you return to a state of complete surrender to the truth of Islam, and that requires having conviction of it as the truth through knowledge. So my advice to you is to contact a scholar, sit with him/her, and have all your questions about the Qur'an that were raised by this piece you read answered. Knowledge is priceless in this deen and absolutely essential to our iman.