I slipped. It was one tiny step and the floodgates of worry came pouring in. We are planning an event for IbadahPlug and I became curious about the details of Islamic knowledge we should seek. That led to a quick scan of my state and from my review, I was pretty disappointed. Trust Shaytan to take advantage of the opportunity and attempt to drag me into a never-ending despair.
AlhamduliLlah, I survived this one. “How”? you may ask. First of all, by the entry of Asr. Oh boy! That was a lifesaver! It made me think about how Solah has been scheduled at the perfect times for us. Then I remembered a set of Du’as for anxiety (You can find them on the Dhikr and Dua app) that one of my teachers had shared with me when I had told him I was starting IbadahPlug. The last thing was great advice from an AA Plus session on how we can change our current feelings from negative to positive, and that is how I moved from ‘near drowning in despair’ to remembering that Allah Is Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem.
All this took pretty much my entire day, by the way, but AlhamduliLlah, I left with a clear objective, to go back to my Fard ‘Ayn (personal obligatory knowledge upon every Muslim). I set a clear intention to go back to the basics and not assume that ‘I got this’, with a deep sense of urgency, knowing that I am not in control of how much time I have left on earth.
When I was in a state of worry, I had reached out to my teachers and their responses all revolved around the same thing, “you have to know your basics, there really are no shortcuts”. In fact, one of them, in explaining the importance, explained that we must seek this knowledge ‘to pass through life safely’, SubhanaLlah! That hit me. I know you may feel like we have prayer (Solah) and fasting covered, we may think we do them all the time, no big deal, right? But, do we really know how to perform them correctly?
I am sharing this because I want to encourage you to go back to the basics. It is obligatory upon us to learn our Fard ‘Ayn and then we can then build on the rest of our knowledge gaps from there, we can add on other areas including purification of the heart, marriage, relationship rules, business etc. but first, our foundation must be solid. Even if you have learnt them, I want to encourage you to do a review and see if you have been implementing correctly. A refresher course never did hurt anyone.
I freaked out because I realized I had so much work to do, but I have set that intention to go back to the basics of Islam and so can you.
May Allah guide us always.
Leaving you in Allah’s Care,
One Of Us At IbadahPlug.