How To Truly Have Tawakkul — Trusting Allah Through Every Test

Taking the Plunge: The Foundation of Tawakkul

We do not believe Allah is competent to take charge of our affairs. We do not believe that Allah is enough for us. When you reach that moment in which you can trust Allah and you can resign your affairs to Him and you are relaxed about the outcome, you will find yourself confident to do things you never did before.

Why? You'll find yourself taking risks, calculated risks that you never took before. Why? Because you trust — I have to just take the plunge and Allah will guide me to the pearls in the sea. Many of us, we want to from afar look at the sea, theorize about the beauty of the pearls, talk about the pearls with our friends and imagine somehow that they will manifest itself.

But it is only he who is ready to take the plunge, dive in, take the risk, hold your breath and make an attempt. It is only they who will get the pearls in the end. Imam Al-Shafi'i makes this point when he says:

He says if you think that you want to reach high places but you want to snore at night, you're never going to get there. Don't you see that in order to get pearls people have to dive deep into the sea? It takes tawakkul in order to take such risks.

How Do We Achieve True Tawakkul?

How do we actually achieve this trait of trusting Allah with our affairs and how do we rise in the ranks?

Step One: Wakil Glasses

The first step is you need what we call wakil glasses. What are wakil glasses? Every incident that happens in your life, the way you look at it and the way you interpret it — this alone can change your life completely. How you describe what's happening to you and how you understand it and how you frame it is half of the journey of the soul.

Something bad happens to you — your mother passes away, your father passes away, you lose your wealth in an investment, you go through a divorce, you go through a challenge at work, somebody's taken you to court for something you never did, you're going through some challenge in life. The first thing to do is when you look at this, to remember: Allah is my wakil.

The one who sent this to me is my agent, my trustee, the one I have trusted all of my affairs to. He is the one who's put me in this situation. Who is going to take me out? The one who put me in can take me out. If He willed it for me, it is the best thing for me. This is the first way to frame the situation.

The second thing: I am not anxious or in a rush or in haste to get out — especially if my hands are tied. Because I know the one who put me in here, al-wakil, put me here for a wisdom. And it is just a matter of time when his wisdom dictates for me to be let out. I will not be here one second longer than He wants me to be, nor one second less than He wants me to be.

And this is the attitude of Yusuf (peace be upon him) in prison. He is not in prison of his own accord. He's there out of his control. Ibrahim (peace be upon him) didn't choose to be in the fire. Yunus (peace be upon him) didn't choose to enter the whale. Often times you end up in situations in life you never chose — but Allah chose for you.

When we are in situations out of our control we have to be sure, absolutely certain, that there is a silver lining, that there is a plan, there is an exit, there is a better outcome — because al-wakil sent it to me. Why would I worry? I trust Him more than I trust my own parents, my own children. Why would I worry? If my mother chose to send me to prison she was 100% saving me from something worse.

And so if you look at and perceive the situation in this way, it's not possible — it's not possible for you to be extremely stressed out or suicidal or extremely anxious. Why? You're reminding yourself: I trusted myself and my affairs and my day-to-day situation to the best agent, the best trustee. Why should I worry?

Recognising the Illusion of Control

We have to realize our control is fake — it's an illusion. Human beings think that they can do genetic engineering, they can control animals, they can control the taste, the size, the color of the chicken that we eat on our plates. Everything we feel that we have under our control somehow, some way, we can manipulate it.

One of the important parts of tawakkul is realizing the powerlessness of human beings and how sometimes Allah does things with no asbab — in a completely miraculous way. Allah makes things happen. In your experience of life you may have experienced such things. Something happened — a job came to you, you never asked for it. A proposal came to you, you never looked for it. And you realize from these situations: I could do a million things and get nothing, or I could even sit down on my seat and Allah can bring me something I never asked for.

Allah can provide with or without the means and the methods and the tools. And when you are feeling despair and anxiety and worry, you have to remember these situations when Allah gave you something you never asked for.

Step Two: Remembering When Allah Provided Without You Seeking

Maryam (peace be upon her) — when Allah tells her she is about to have a child, what's her reaction? Does anybody know? She questions Allah. She's shocked. She asked the angels: how is it possible for me to have a boy when a man has not touched me? That's how Allah is. He does what He wants.

We've kind of forgot at some point on the journey that it's not us going through the reproductive means that produce the child. Allah creates the child directly. You're just going through the process but Allah creates directly. It's nothing to do with you. It's to do only directly with His intervention.

When Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and his wife are congratulated with a child — what's the reaction of Ibrahim's wife? She was amazed. How is it possible for me to have a child? How can you be amazed at Allah's command? Because just like Maryam (peace be upon her), just like the wife of Ibrahim (peace be upon him), we get used to the idea that it's my CV that brings the job, and it's this reproductive process that brings the children, and it's these steps that bring a child — and we are shocked at the idea it can come with no steps.

And this is the second way to increase your tawakkul: to remember the stories of people, and the stories in your own life, when things happened without you trying, without you seeking, without you going out of your way — Allah brought it to you. Think about in your own life: what are the things you were given, you were provided for, without looking, without asking?

If you think about those things every time something goes wrong in your life — every time you're stuck in a process, I'm trying to look for a wife, I can't find a wife, I'm looking for a job, I'm stuck — and you feel anxious about it, remember: Allah has provided for you with nothing. This is why in the Quran, Allah says:

How can I not leave my affairs to Allah when He showed me how to get here in the first place without me trying? He showed me how to get here — surely I can trust Him for the remainder of the journey.

The Lesson of the Birds

One of the interesting statements of the Prophet (peace be upon him) when it comes to trusting Allah is that he says if you want to learn how to trust Allah, you have to go and watch the birds. Seriously — you have to go watch the birds. Weather is good, go find somewhere, go bird watching, watch a documentary about birds.

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2344; also reported in Sunan Ibn Majah and Musnad Ahmad — graded Sahih)

He said: if you were to trust Allah properly, He would have provided for you like He provides for the birds. They leave in the early morning with an empty stomach and they return in the evening with a full stomach. The birds live day to day with no guarantee: I have food for tomorrow. They don't have savings. Have you seen a refrigerator in a bird's nest? Anybody seen a freezer? No? A bank account? They have no clue what's happening tomorrow.

Us — with our insurance policies and our bank accounts and refrigerators — we're still anxious about next week. These guys have no clue what's happening in three hours' time. They leave in the morning, empty stomach, with only one conviction: the one who provided for me yesterday will provide for me today.

There's another important point there: they leave in the early morning. Yes — those who wake up at 12pm hoping for the futuhaat of Allah and the miracles of Allah to descend. The birds work hard. The animal kingdom in general — you see very hard workers, from the bees to the ants to the birds. They don't stop moving. They exhaust themselves, and then Allah provides for them in a way that they never could imagine.

If you wake up at 4 or 5am, there's nothing in the world you can't obtain if you trust Allah in the process. Everything the Prophet (peace be upon him) ever sought in his life, he woke up early for it — whether it was knowledge, or closeness to Allah, or even military victory. He would always start in the early morning. That's the secret of his tawakkul. He would start before everybody starts, and then he would say: O Allah, I've done my job now — it's Your turn to show me the outcome.

Exhausting the Means — Then Letting Go

Ibn al-Qayyim heavily criticizes some of the ideas of the mutasawwifah — the Sufis of his age — who used to say: if you want to reach a stage of trusting Allah, you have to sit back and kind of leave things be. And he said: no, that's not how you get help from Allah. You have to work hard.

If anybody were to get help from Allah for free, it would have been the Prophet (peace be upon him). Then why is it that before a battle he is lining up his soldiers and arming them and strategizing and sending scouts and gathering intelligence and placing them and working out this whole strategy? Why? He could just leave it — Allah will help him. No — he knows: it is obligatory on me to take the means for me to earn the help of Allah.

So we have to exhaust ourselves in the means. So many people fall short in this regard. And then the second part: once you take the means, you have to divorce your mind and spirit and soul from the idea that this thing can bring me any good or remove from me any harm. This is one of the most difficult steps in tawakkul — you submit an application and you say to yourself: my CV can do nothing if Allah wants otherwise. I leave it to Allah. Because you invested so much into it.

You're going through the marriage process — signed up to four mobile apps and three websites and called all of your aunties and uncles and all the WhatsApp groups — and still: I can't find. Are you trusting the groups and the websites, or are you trusting the One who created them?

One time, one of my teachers told me — he said: you know when you leave the house and you say بِسْمِ اللَّهِ and you lock the door of your house — are you trusting the lock? Are you relying on the lock to protect the house? Because you know, your whole house could be on fire and just the door and the lock could be left standing. Because sometimes we get obsessed with the tools. We get over-invested in the people. We get over-invested in the process.

And then Allah shocks us. The lock doesn't work one day, someone burgles the house. The friend that you trusted — they take your money and run away. And it's Allah sending you a message: anytime you put too much hope and too much trust and reliance on a person or a tool, I'm going to disappoint you — to make you realize there is only One who will never disappoint you, which is Allah.

Contentment: The Fruit of Tawakkul

The Prophet (peace be upon him) says: you want to be the richest of people? Be content with whatever Allah gave you.

One of the beautiful ways he expressed this is in a hadith where he says to Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both):

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 2763; also reported in Sunan Abu Dawud — graded Sahih)

Remember, young boy: what hit you was never meant to miss you. What missed you was never meant to strike you.

And the Prophet (peace be upon him) would train his companions so much on this idea of rida — of contentment. But contentment doesn't mean that a person should be passive, not interested, not active, not trying. No — contentment is: you tried your best, you exhausted yourself, you want ihsan — the best of the best in everything that you do. And yet, whatever Allah gives me, I'm happy.