Question:

I understand that hijab is required, and I’ve been wearing it for some time now but I feel like putting it on might have been a mistake.  I don’t feel like it’s made me become a better Muslim, and I feel almost like I’m deceiving people because they look at me as an example even though I’m still struggling with a lot of things. Also, if I take it off, is it really something Allah will punish me for? It seems like such a petty thing. Isn’t the most important thing having a clean heart?

Answer:

Assalaamu `alaykum dear questioner,

Thank you for asking this question which opens up a number of important issues, and for entrusting us enough to share with us some of what you’re struggling with. I ask Allah (subhanahu wa ta`ala – exalted is He) that He makes the words that I write beneficial to you and others who are reading, and that He leads you to the best decisions.

I’d like to start by addressing what I believe is the least important factor in this equation, and that is ‘what other people might think.’ It should never be the case that we alter our practice of Islam or our worship for the sake of other people, or what they might think or assume. People may be quick to judge or jump to conclusions, but whatever thoughts or opinions they have are strictly their responsibility, and not something we should be overly concerned with.

You said that you’re worried that wearing hijab may be deceiving, because people see you as better than you really are. But in truth all of us are sinners, and it is only from Allah’s mercy upon us that He is as-Siteer – the One who veils our faults and our flaws, and makes us seem better than we really are in others’ eyes. One famous scholar said, “If sins had a smell no one would come near me because of the stench!” Every single one of us has deficiencies and weaknesses, has made mistakes, has taken missteps or is presently taking them. We only do the best that we can, and any good deed that Allah grants us the opportunity to perform should be considered a blessing that we take advantage of. Instead of worrying about not being good enough, we can instead consider this as an opportunity to be thankful to Allah for concealing our negatives, and pray, “O Allah, forgive me for what they do not know about me, and make me even better than what they think.”

You will be hard-pressed to find anyone on this earth who can be considered ‘worthy’ of being a representative of Islam, because everyone has one dimension or another in their faith or practice in which they are lacking. However that doesn’t mean we should stop encouraging each other by whatever means are available to us.  There is a very beautiful hadith related to this issue:

Anas relates that, “We asked the Prophet ﷺ, ‘O Messenger of Allah ﷺ, shouldn’t we refrain from calling others to goodness if we don’t practice all good things ourselves, and shouldn’t we refrain from forbidding wrong things until we ourselves have abstained from all the bad?’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘You should call others to goodness even if you don’t do all good, and you should forbid bad things even if you don’t abstain from all of them yourselves.'” (Al-Tabarani)

Remember that by wearing hijab you are not saying to others ‘I am Islam’, but simply that ‘I am a Muslim’, meaning – I am someone who is trying to follow this religion, who accepts it as truth, sees beauty in it and hopes to beautify myself with it.  I remember a quote attributed to Yusuf Islam: “Islam is not a state of being but it is a process of becoming,” – becoming more, become better, striving to reach that state of perfect submission and connection with Allah Most High, and May He help all of us achieve that, ameen.

You also said that you feel hijab has not really made you a better Muslim. A lot of times when a person first starts performing a good deed they feel an iman ‘rush’, a feeling of happiness at doing something good for the sake of Allah and energy to do more, improve themselves, etc. However, after some time, when that action starts to become just another part of a daily routine, it loses that power, and that increase in iman and excitement dissipates.

What a person needs, instead of focusing on those ‘rushes’, is a steady and constant diet of good deeds and spiritual nourishment. We cannot rely on one particular deed to ‘make’ us better Muslims. Instead, we have to take the reigns and make sure we are doing things regularly that increase us in iman, like recitation of the Qur’an, performing salah with consciousness and focus, dhikr, and so on. Wearing hijab can definitely be one of those things, but it is only one part of a whole that needs to be constructed. Just like exercise is important for good health, yet it has to be combined with eating right and many other things in order for the person to see the desired results in the end.

Also know that there is a direct relationship between a person’s actions and their inner state. We know that when someone is in a high state of iman it’s natural for him or her to start performing more good deeds. However, we may overlook the fact that the opposite is true as well – that just performing good deeds, even if one may not be ‘feeling it’, can affect us and change us. The limbs are inroads, and performing good deeds with them can soften a hardened heart, bring enlightenment to a closed mind, and give a person a feeling of rejuvenation and desire to come closer to Allah and do more positive things. I heard a scholar say that if one is feeling troubled, confused or in a low state of iman, “go quickly to action”; because good deeds can bring about that inner reawakening one may need. If we don’t see a change happening in us when we do a good deed, that doesn’t mean we should stop it but that perhaps we need to supplement it with others in order to gather the momentum needed to see results.

Thirdly, you are absolutely correct when you say that the most important thing is for us to have purified hearts. Allah (swt) emphasizes this in the Qur’an when He states that on the Day of Judgment nothing will be of benefit to the servant except “one who brings to Allah a clean, sound heart” (26:89). The question is, how does one achieve that? What purifies us and cleanses our hearts?

In our times we find that some people feel that we’ve reached a more ‘enlightened era’ in which spirituality can be derived solely from philosophy and ideas, and need not be bound by rituals and details of religion. However those who propound this notion forget that Allah did not create us as minds and souls alone – but coupled them with our physical bodies. We cannot deny the fact that we are body and soul, content and form, together, and each has its own needs and specifications for refinement. This is a sunnah of Allah in the way that we were created, and why prayer, fasting, and all our spiritual endeavors have very specific physical components. These forms house within them dimensions of meaning, but it is only from enacting them precisely that a profound spirituality can be achieved.

Purifying our hearts is the goal, but the means to reaching that goal is through the very real and specific physical prescriptions and commandments that Allah (swt) has given us. It is through His obedience and through following the teachings of our deen that we clean and polish our hearts. It is for this reason that I have to say that hijab is not something trivial. Anything that leads us to spiritual awareness, elevation, and purification – that helps us come closer to Allah – cannot be considered trivial or petty. Perhaps it is more likely that there are hidden depths within it that we do not perceive, or that we are not putting it in the proper context of its deeper purpose and meaning.

About punishment from Allah: a better way of looking at this issue is not considering the smallness or pettiness of the sin, but the greatness of the One whom we are sinning against. From His infinite wisdom, all-encompassing knowledge and vast mercy, in accordance to His Law – which is at its core about attaining benefit and warding off harm – He has instructed us to perform this action. In the Qur’an Allah says, ‘It may be that you dislike something and in it is goodness for you’ (2:216); ‘It may be that you dislike a thing but Allah brings about from it a great deal of good.’ (4:19) If someone chooses to step away from a prescribed action knowingly, we cannot deny that this is a sin, and that Allah holds us to account for our sins. However we always have hope in and pray for Allah’s mercy and kindness, as we know He can forgive all sins if He chooses.

In closing, I want to leave you with a beautiful quote from a Hadith Qudsi. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said:

“My servant draws not near to Me with anything more beloved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him.” (Bukhari)

Know, dear questioner, that if you feel far from Allah, the solution is not to stop what you are doing and find a different way, but to persevere and continue on the path you are on, even though it is hard. This will make you beloved to Allah, and one who feels the happiness of being close to Him and being shaded by His Loving Mercy and care.

May Allah enliven and enlighten our hearts and grant us closeness to Him. May He make us people who love to worship Him, and through our worship become close to Him and gain His love. May He make our hearts firm and steadfast on our deen, and grant us strength and bravery in our spiritual struggles. May He guide us to the best decisions and make easy for us the path of khayr [goodness]. Ameen ya Rabb.

WAllahu a`lam – and He alone knows best.

Wasalaamu alaykum.

By Abid Mohammed

“Daddy!” I said.

“Yes, son?” my father replied.

“Why do people only work five days a week and not seven?” I asked.

“Well, because most people need a break from all the hard work that they…”

“But why?” I asked again.

“If you’ll just let me finish, I’ll tell you wh..”

“But why?” I pressed.

“Abid!” my father exclaimed.

“But why daddy? Why? Why? WHY?!”

*SLAP* “That’s why son. Feel free to ask any more questions and I’ll be happy to explain why again.”

Somewhere in my metamorphosis from child to awkward teenager and eventually incredibly handsome young man, I stopped asking why. Like the vast majority of us, I had resigned myself to make do with the relatively more mundane words of who, what, where and when. There are a few that I have seen that do continue to ask why, but soon you realize they are merely questioning for the sake of questioning. On the other hand, questioning for the sake of learning and understanding is something that the Qur’an highlights as being an essential prerequisite for deriving benefit from it. [Qur’an 4:82] Therefore, it is with great pleasure that in this article, I decided to choose a verse from the Qur’an and see where the journey of asking why takes me.

“And ‘O Adam, dwell, you and your wife, in Paradise and eat from wherever you will but do not approach this tree, lest you be among the wrongdoers.’” [Qur’an 7:19]

Interesting, why did Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala (exalted is He) say “this tree” and not “that tree” in the verse above? Also, why is there no mention of any unique qualities concerning this tree in the verse or in the Qur’an for that matter?

Whenever I think of the location of the tree, I imagine it being far away from Adam and Eve, peace be upon them—maybe in the middle of nowhere or some obscure part of Paradise that they rarely, if ever, visited. I definitely did not imagine it to be in their immediate presence. That is exactly what the verse implies by using “this” instead of “that. In fact, it goes so far as to give the impression that tree is literally right next to Adam and Eve. 

The same goes for the description of the tree. Personally, the image that comes to my mind is one of a howling banshee tree, guarded by the Naazgul from the Lord of the Rings,  wreathed in flames, its branches twisting uncontrollably and its roots devouring all those that lie in its path. After all, this was the tree right? The tree with which Allah (swt) tested Adam and Eve, that resulted in their removal from Paradise and subsequent placement here on earth. Of all the trees, this tree should have been the most fear-inducing, awe-inspiring, blood-curdling tree that had ever been created. Yet, there is no description of the tree in the Qur’an, other than the fact that, well, it’s just a tree.

Why?

Then it hit me, in just one verse, Allah (swt) is teaching us two important lessons about the nature of the tests we will face in this world. Firstly, the majority of trials and tribulations Allah (swt) will test us with will be using the trees that are right next to us and to which we have easy access. These trees can take any form: items, people, or even situations – be they YouTube videos, pornography, the guy in your class, the girl next door, the way in which many of us behave with our friends or even the manner in which we take care of our parents at home. Secondly, these trees will not appear like fire-breathing dragons in the night sky—they will look entirely normal and perfectly harmless.

Why are these two facts important? It is a result of this combination, that we get lured into a false sense of security. As a consequence of their disarming appearance and their proximity, most of us become oblivious to the fact that these trees are tests sent by Him, for us, taking place in real time. Like the tree mentioned in the verse above, they don’t look or feel like tests, at least the kind of tests that we have in mind. And even if they did look like tests initially, because we’re exposed to them on a daily basis, eventually we become desensitized.

Incidentally, it is this same mentality that is behind the alarming statistic that we are much more likely to have a road traffic accident within a five mile radius of our home, then driving in a narrow country lane in the darkness of the night. And yet for most of us, it is these very trees that will be our undoing.

For those of us desiring the Garden, let us therefore strive to look for the trees in our lives, to stay away from anything that brings us close to them, and if in our weakness or ignorance we do go near them, let us immediately turn back to Allah (swt) as our parents did. “They said, ‘Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers,’” [Qur’an 7:23]. Or else we find ourselves asking why for all the wrong reasons on the Day of Judgment.

Question: My husband used to drink alcohol, and I am someone who prays alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah). I was very concerned and unsure of what to do, so I lied to him, and I hope that Allah forgives me. I told him: ‘I dreamt of a Shaykh, and he told me that my husband has to stop drinking, or else such and such (bad) will happen.’ When I told him in the morning, he believed me. He made ablution alhamdulillah, and started praying. I still feel uneasy because I lied to my husband, but alhamdulillah he prays now, and has not missed a single prayer ever since. I hope you can benefit me, and pray that Allah forgives me for this lie.

Answer: What [you] did is not considered lying because it’s permissible to use these types of allegories to rectify certain wrongs. This is an allegory because what you told him is, in reality, agreed upon amongst Muslims. So, you made him understand something that was not based on an actual occurrence, but its general meaning does exist.

This is considered figurative lying, and it is permissible (only) in war, in reconciling between people, and in reconciling between husbands and wives. It is also permissible if the husband wants to please his wife, as with telling her she is the most beautiful of women – even if that’s not so! This is not actual lying, but it takes the form of lying; and although it contradicts reality, it is still not considered lying because it brings about greater good. That is why Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (Exalted and All-Mighty) blessed your words, and made this blessing lead to the guidance of your husband, and made him fully convinced by what you said. You should feel content because, insha’Allah (by the will of Allah), you are not sinful.

Translated from Fatawa’l-Nisa’, p. 301.