If you need help now someone to contact, by country
Inshirahone small thing, well grounded

When the doubt is anxiety, not a questionStep 1 of 8

Before you read on

If your doubt is a question you went looking for, and a good answer satisfies you and you move on, this is the wrong course and lesson one says so plainly. This one is about doubt that behaves like anxiety. Two things go outside a course and go quickly. Any thought of ending your life, or a settled belief that you are damned and it is already decided, needs somebody today rather than a lesson. And doubt that arrived suddenly and out of character, or that comes alongside hearing voices or fixed unusual beliefs, needs a medical assessment before anything else.

Lesson 1 of 6 · The thought that arrives uninvited

You did not go and fetch it

It arrives. That is the first thing to be clear about, because everything else follows from it.

It does not arrive when you are reading philosophy or arguing with somebody online. It arrives in sujood. It arrives at two in the morning. It arrives at the exact moment you were feeling closest to something, which is the detail that convinces people there is something wrong with them.

And it is repugnant to you. That is not incidental either. You are not entertaining it, you are recoiling from it, and then you are spending the next four hours dealing with the fact that it happened at all.

Both of those features are in the material. Companions brought this to the Prophet, peace be upon him, saying they found in themselves something they could not bring themselves to repeat, and in another report a man says one of them would rather be reduced to charcoal than say it out loud.

Qur’an and Sunnah

Both features are in the material. Here is the first. Companions brought this saying they found in themselves something they could not bring themselves to repeat.

It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that some people from amongst the Companions of the Apostle (ﷺ) came to him and said:Verily we perceive in our minds that which every one of us considers it too grave to express. He (the Holy Prophet) said: Do you really perceive it? They said: Yes. Upon this he remarked: That is the faith manifest

Sahih Muslim 132graded sound, sahihaynthe Arabic and its grading

And the second. A man says one of them would rather be reduced to charcoal than say it out loud, which is what the recoiling looks like.

Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas: A man came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and said: Messenger of Allah! one of us has thoughts of such nature that he would rather be reduced to charcoal than speak about them. He said: Allah is Most Great, Allah is Most Great, Allah is Most Great. Praise be to Allah Who has reduced the guile of the devil to evil prompting. Ibn Qudamah said "reduced his matter" instead of "reduced his guile". Ibn Qudamah said "reduced his matter" instead of "reduced his guile

Sunan Abi Dawud 5112graded sound, albanithe Arabic and its grading

The thought that arrives uninvited · Inshirah