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Lesson 6 of 6 · When grief has become something else

What to say, and to whom

Two routes, and they are not in competition.

The clinical one. Ask your doctor for a referral, and say the three things that get you to the right place: how long it has been, what has stopped working, and whether you are getting intrusive memories. Take somebody with you. Write the three things down beforehand, because the appointment is short.

If anybody has suggested that asking for help is a failure of sabr, the tradition's own instruction runs the other way. Ordinary people asked whether they should treat their ill, and the answer came back as an imperative: servants of Allah, use remedies. And that Allah has not created a disease without also creating its treatment. Neither of those says anything about a particular treatment, and neither leaves room for the idea that going to get one is a concession. Consulting a psychiatrist is held permissible on islamqa in fatwas 380763 and 3759, and the second of those recommends it.

If your faith matters to how you want this handled, say so at the first meeting. Good practice is to work alongside somebody religiously knowledgeable rather than around them, so that nothing genuinely required in the religion gets treated as a symptom.

The other route is other parents who have had the same loss. It is the thing bereaved parents themselves most consistently report as helping, and there are established organisations for pregnancy loss, stillbirth and infertility in most countries. This platform can point at them. It is not a substitute for the clinical route where the markers above fit.

Qur’an and Sunnah

If anybody has suggested that asking for help is a failure of sabr, the tradition's own instruction runs the other way. Ordinary people asked, and the answer came back as an imperative.

Usamah bin Sharik said:"Some Bedouins asked: 'O Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) shall we treat (our ill)?' He said: 'Yes, O worshipers of Allah! Use remedies. For indeed Allah did not make a disease but He made a cure for it' - or - 'a remedy. Except for one disease.' They said: 'O Messenger of Allah (s.a.w)! What is it?' He said: 'Old age

Jami' at-Tirmidhi 2038graded sound, albanithe Arabic and its grading

And that no disease was created without its treatment. Neither of these leaves room for the idea that going to get help is a concession.

Narrated Abu Huraira:The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its treatment

Sahih al-Bukhari 5678graded sound, sahihaynthe Arabic and its grading