Lesson 5 of 6 · What feeds it, and what to stop adding
Two. Trying not to think about it
The second feeder is suppression. Pushing the thought away, refusing to let it in, deciding you simply will not have it.
You already know how this goes if you have ever tried not to think about something. The work of not thinking about it requires you to keep checking whether you are thinking about it, which is thinking about it.
The tradition does not ask this of you either. It asks you not to act on it and not to speak it. It never asked you to stop having it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
The tradition never asked you to stop having the thought. What is asked is that it is not acted on and not spoken.
Narrated Abu Huraira:The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Allah has forgiven my followers the evil thoughts that occur to their minds, as long as such thoughts are not put into action or uttered." And Qatada said, "If someone divorces his wife just in his mind, such an unuttered divorce has no effect.:
Sahih al-Bukhari 5269graded sound, sahihaynthe Arabic and its grading
What is asked is that it is not acted on and not spoken. A claim about what you are not being asked to do is worth seeing in both of the soundest collections.
It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) observed:Verily Allah forgave my people the evil promptings which arise within their hearts as long as they did not speak about them or did not act upon them
Sahih Muslim 127graded sound, sahihaynthe Arabic and its grading
What the research says
People told not to think about something reported it more, not less, and more again once the instruction was lifted. So the paragraph above is describing a mechanism, not complaining about your willpower.
People told not to think about something reported it more, not less, and more again once the instruction was lifted. This is why the paragraph above is a description of a mechanism rather than a complaint about your willpower.
Wegner DM, Schneider DJ, Carter SR, White TL (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5 to 13 doi