EPIC Masjid, Imam Nadeem Bashir, How to deal with stress and anxiety. Part 1/2

Introduction: The Completeness of Islam

الحمد لله، ونشهد أن محمداً عبده ورسوله، أما بعد

Respected brothers and sisters in Islam, this deen of Islam that Allah has given all of us is truly a blessing of Allah. Allah in his deen not only gave us the Quran — a Quran and a book that which we live by — but in order for us to understand the book, and in order to demonstrate the teachings of the book, Allah sent Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ took every teaching of the Quran, dissected each one, explained to us how each one is supposed to be implemented, how each one is supposed to be practiced. And when there are challenges in your life, how do you deal with your challenges? Every single situation in our life, Allah and the Prophet ﷺ have taught us how to deal with circumstances — how to deal with either good or happy occasions, or difficult or stressful moments in our life.

This deen of Islam is a complete deen. And when we come across the life of Rasulullah ﷺ, we learn so much from the life of the Prophet ﷺ.

The Rise of Stress, Depression, and Anxiety

Since that time till now, as you can see, this entire world has progressed in so many different ways. You look at the technology today — we are witnessing technology that we have never witnessed five years ago. The iPhone 5 just came out yesterday, and everyone's going crazy about it. Technology is increasing, getting more and more advanced. One phone company comes out with one phone, the other company comes out with another phone with a new feature in it. One car is better than the car of the previous year. Why? Because the technology gets better and better.

But as the world is progressing, the one thing that we have seen within our Muslim communities, and overall within people around the entire globe, is that as the world has progressed and increased, so too has the difficult moments — stress, depression, anxiety — all of these have increased as the world has gone on. People that you see today, the way they are depressed and stressed out in their life, and how much anxiety is present in their life — people long ago were never experiencing or never witnessed that much anxiety, depression, and stress.

So when we look at the Quran, we realize that the Quran talks about this also. The hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ and the life of the Prophet ﷺ shed light on this matter also. And so when we look at our lives today as they are, we realize that stress, depression, and anxiety are caused by so many different things. There are so many things that factor into these three things.

Sometimes it is family. Sometimes it is relatives. Sometimes it is work — that a person is not getting things to work out well at work. Sometimes it is the stress and anxiety and depression of wealth and finances. When we see the economy, the way it is so unstable, the very first thing that comes to our mind is that we are worried, and we are in a state of anxiety about what is going to happen to our job. If we hear at our job that the boss is about to lay off, or the company is about to lay off a thousand employees, we know what state of anxiety we'd be going through. Sometimes we're going through this for different reasons. Teenagers in our community and society have their own reasons for stress, depression, and anxiety — whether it is because of school, whether they are being bullied, whether they are not able to fit into a group they are trying over and over again to fit into, not being part of a clique or a group. So there are so many different types of stress, depression, and anxiety.

Defining Anxiety, Stress, and Depression

Before we get into that, I just want to explain briefly the definition of these three things.

Anxiety is something that comes to a person out of worry. As I give the example about finances — a person hears that his company is about to lay off so many people, and he falls into a state of anxiety.

Stress is something that pushes a person. If there's a change that comes in a person's life — let's give a practical example: imagine there is a husband and wife, both are working, and let's say the husband or the wife loses their job. A drastic change has come into their life. They were earning this much amount of money, and now they're earning only this much amount of money. Because of this change, they fall into a state under the terminology of stress. But at the same time, stress is also one of those things that pushes a person forward. For example, when we come to the month of April, knowing that in mid-April we have to submit our taxes to the government, the days before that a person is in a state of stress — because he knows he has to pay this, and he has to submit those papers to the government, and that stress pushes a person to do what he needs to do.

But what if a person falls into the state of depression? Then a person is lacking motivation, lacking interest. There is nothing they want to do. They realize there is a problem in place, but how to face the problem, to solve the problem, to work around the situation and circumstances — there is a lack of interest, a lack of motivation. So what happens is that these people who are in the state of depression continue to fall into that state over and over again.

What the Quran Says About Human Capacity

When we look at the Quran, first of all, let's see what Allah says about the situation of the human being. The first thing is that Allah says in the Quran:

There is a limit within a person. Every single person's limit is different from one another. A person's iman is different from one another. A person's limit of tolerance and forbearance is also very, very different from one another. So what happens is that there are people in the society and community where sometimes one person's problem is greater than another person's problem, or sometimes our problem may not be as great as someone else's. But we begin to complain: why is Allah putting this stress on me? Why is this anxiety on me? Why am I in a state of depression? Why is Allah putting all this on my shoulders?

Keeping in mind that Allah says: لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا — this is your limit. Allah is taking you to your limit. Whatever problems we are going through, whatever emotional circumstances we are going through, they are not beyond our capacity. That is why Allah has put us in those situations. So whenever we are going through emotional ups and downs, keep in mind that we have the capacity — the capacity for that much tolerance in our life. That's why Allah is making us go through that.

Life Is Not a Walk in the Park

In the same way, there is another ayah I want to share from the Quran. Allah tells us: do not ever imagine that life is just like a walk in the park. A person will be challenged. Every single person will be challenged according to their capacity. Allah says in the Quran:

Allah tells us that whenever you claim that you are a true believer, Allah will throw challenges your way. Ibrahim عليه السلام — when he said that he was a true believer of Allah, Allah tested him in different ways, in ways that we cannot even imagine. The greatest test of Ibrahim عليه السلام was sacrificing his own son. Allah had another plan in mind, but he also told Ibrahim عليه السلام to leave his family in a place where there was no cultivation, no signs, no means, no resources of life — to leave your family in a place like that was a challenge for Ibrahim عليه السلام. Keeping in mind that Allah will not test us that way. Why? Because our iman is not like the iman of Ibrahim عليه السلام. Every person is tested and challenged differently.

In the Quran, Allah uses a nun mushaddah at the end of the verb, and when a nun mushaddah comes at the end of a verb in the Arabic language, it means that most absolutely this will happen. Allah says: We will test you, We will challenge you, We will test your iman. Sometimes Allah will test your fear and your hunger and the loss of wealth. Sometimes Allah will test us by taking someone away from our family — a loved one, whether it is our children, our spouse, our parents, a very close friend. Allah will test us in different ways.

But then what does Allah say at the end of the ayah? He says: give that title — the title of sâbirîn (the patient ones) — to those who are patient. They don't become depressed automatically. They don't fall into a state of stress or anxiety automatically right away. They are patient. They are focused on Allah. Allah says give that title to them. This is what the Quran says.

The Life of the Prophet ﷺ: A Life of Challenges

When you look at the life of Rasulullah ﷺ, what do we find? The entire life of the Prophet ﷺ was a challenge. Before the Prophet ﷺ was born, Allah took his father away. At the age of six, Allah took the mother of the Prophet ﷺ away. In his young age, his grandfather, who loved Muhammad ﷺ so dearly and so passionately, was also taken away. Time after time, again and again, there were obstacles and challenges in the life of Rasulullah ﷺ.

It is not that the Prophet ﷺ was well off. Do you know how big the house of Rasulullah ﷺ was — where he used to live with Aisha? Let me give you an example. The house of Rasulullah ﷺ was the size of today's modern-day walk-in closets. You know where we hang our clothes — the walk-in closet — and this is something we always look for when buying a house: how big is the closet, is it inside the bathroom or not? That is how big the house of Rasulullah ﷺ was. Imagine that. Someone tells us today, "Your kids sleep in the walk-in closet." What are you talking about? Imagine — that was the house of Rasulullah ﷺ. That was the size of his house. He was not very well off. Challenges after challenges.

He accepts prophethood — Allah gives him prophethood — and again and again, challenges after challenges. Then one year comes and Allah takes away Khadijah رضي الله عنها. The Year of Grief and Sorrow. But what did the Prophet ﷺ do? He did not sit down in his own home, depressed, stressed out, and full of anxiety. He went and did something about it.

When you look at the Prophet ﷺ while he was a young kid, he was a yateem — an orphan — no money, nothing. So when you look at the life of the Prophet ﷺ, there is absolutely no one who went through the amount of difficulties that he did. Brothers and sisters, if all of our anxiety and stress and depression and our problems and our challenges were to be put together, it will not match the challenges and the problems and the issues the Prophet ﷺ faced.

Imagine — he says لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّه, all people say لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّه, and in front of him, two of his daughters who were married to the two sons of Abu Lahab come and divorce both daughters of the Prophet ﷺ. Imagine a father bearing that. For those of you who are fathers and have daughters — for those of us who have daughters and have probably been through that — it is not something that is very easy to tolerate. When you know that your daughter has been divorced, it is something that hurts. Imagine the Prophet ﷺ: he says لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّه, and two of his daughters are being divorced because of this.

Temporary Relief vs. the Islamic Approach

So what does the Prophet ﷺ do? What do we learn from the Quran? When we do fall into the state of stress, anxiety, and depression, how are we supposed to act? What do we do?

There are two things to keep in mind. First of all, there is something called temporary relief — or the modern-day approach. That is when a person falls into the state of depression, stress, and anxiety, they go to the psychologist, the counselor, the doctor. And you know what they do? They give them a pill — Cymbalta, or some other medication for depression. They take this one pill and everything will supposedly go away. Or what happens is people go on drugs. What happens with our teenagers when they fall into the state of depression — in many cases they are watching pornography, or they lash out at others, begin to oppress others. A person deals with something difficult and goes home and takes it out on his kids and his wife. That is absolutely wrong.

So many people feel like the best way to solve the problem is to leave home. So what happens is that Allah says in the Quran that the place of home is the place where you will find peace, security, and tranquility — that is a place where all your problems will be relieved. But instead, when we go home we don't want to deal with our spouse, we don't want to deal with our children. "I just want to leave. I'm looking forward to the weekend so I can just get out of here." That is temporary relief. That is not the way.

Problems will always occur in our life. Challenges will always be there. But subhanAllah, there is one way of dealing with it — the modern and temporary approach — and then there is what Islam teaches us: how to deal with your problems. Islam teaches us that your problems are going to come, but how to deal with them, that is what Islam teaches us.

The Hadith on True Richness

The Prophet ﷺ, he is with Abu Dharr رضي الله عنه, and he says: do you define, in your opinion, that abundance of wealth is the definition of ghina — richness? And Abu Dharr says: absolutely. And then: do you see that a shortness of wealth is the definition of poverty? And he said: absolutely. And then the Prophet ﷺ gave his own definition of richness and poverty. He said:

Indeed, richness is the richness of the heart — meaning that a person is satisfied and content with the decree of Allah. That is the definition of richness and a person being wealthy according to Rasulullah ﷺ. But on the other hand, a person who always complains, who is never content, who is never satisfied — that person, according to the Prophet ﷺ, is in a state of poverty.

Now keeping in mind: when we see this, we learn one thing — problems are always going to occur in our life. And what we are told to do is to keep Allah in our heart. Now this is one of the biggest misunderstandings that we have: when we say to ourselves, "If I have Allah in my heart, why am I going through problems?" The answer is that a person who is connected with Allah and a person who is not connected with Allah will both face challenges. But the difference is that a person who is not connected with Allah, when he falls into the state of depression, anxiety, and stress, he will go towards those temporary means. But on the other hand, a person whose heart is connected with Allah will go to the permanent means — the permanent resources — the resources we learn from the Prophet ﷺ.

Islamic Solutions to Stress and Anxiety

1. Keep Your Connection with Allah

The very first thing is to keep my connection with Allah — through the Quran, through Salat. These may seem spiritual, but they are very, very important. Allah says in the Quran:

You will find the contentment of the heart, the peace of heart, in the dhikr and in the remembrance of Allah.

2. Discuss Your Problem with Someone You Trust

The second thing to always do, whenever we fall into this state — and we see the Sahaba did this also — is to discuss your problem with someone you trust. Find someone you can confide in and explain to them your situation. There is nothing wrong in doing that. It is absolutely important that we express what is in our heart.

First, identify the problem. Because today, a lot of times when the problem is there, when you ask the person what the problem is, they say, "I don't know what the problem is, but there is a problem." First, identify the problem. Once the problem has been identified, talk about it to someone else — it can be an imam, it can be a counselor, it can be someone you completely trust.

At the same time, if there is something going on in families, there is nothing wrong in getting attorneys or other professional help involved. This is something I've seen a lot within our communities — if there's a problem between a husband and wife, and the husband is violating the rights of the wife and continues to do so because of his ego, thinking "I am the man, I can do whatever I want" — for them I have one thing to say: always remember that Allah is watching you.

This happens within married couples. This happens with exes. When people are divorced, the ex-husband continues to completely destroy and undermine his ex-wife. He thinks it is fine. Whatever his ex-wife does, he does everything to work against it. And it happens vice versa as well. But in a situation like that, when any of your rights are being violated, there is nothing wrong in getting law enforcement involved. There is nothing wrong in getting attorneys involved.

Also, after you have talked about it, addressed it, and still there is no way out — there is nothing wrong in talking to someone who is in a position of authority. There is nothing wrong in doing that.

3. Beware of Sin as a Source of Distress

The last thing I want to mention before I wrap up the first part of the khutbah is: why does stress, anxiety, and depression also come upon us? It's because we continue to sin. We continue to sin, we continue to sin, we continue to sin. We don't realize it. But when we commit sins — it might be something from the heart, it might be something from the mind, it may be something we are doing that we're not even aware of — but the Kiraman Katibin are aware about it. They write down every single thing. And who is more aware of our actions, our thoughts, and our ideas than the Kiraman Katibin? It is Allah. And I talked about this two weeks ago — when a person sins, Allah will hold them accountable for it.

May Allah give all of us the ability to deal with stress and anxiety. May Allah give us the ability. Alhamdulillah.

Addressing the Current Events: The Prophet ﷺ and Responding to Disrespect

I really want to continue what I was talking about throughout the entire khutbah, but at the same time it is hard for me not to address the current situation that we are going through. I got a phone call this morning — a brother called me and said, "Have you been watching the news?" I said no. He said, "Well, you should see what's going on overseas."

We all know exactly what happened in Libya. We all know. It's tragic. It is not right. I would say it is not right for any person to lose their life. This person went from America as ambassador, he did nothing wrong, and someone took his life. But here's what I want to say: at the same time, today you will see that across the world, Muslims are being worked up, getting frustrated, because there was apparently a movie regarding Rasulullah ﷺ that was released. First of all, they are still trying to track down exactly where the video is — but even before the video is even confirmed, just because there is something verbally going down, all the Muslims — not all the Muslims, a few ignorant Muslims — are getting worked up, getting frustrated. And what are they doing? They're going and protesting in the streets.

Now I want to talk about Rasulullah ﷺ. Keeping in mind: when you look at the life of the Prophet ﷺ during his own time, the Quraysh, the kuffar, and everyone who were living around the Prophet ﷺ who were non-Muslims — they always were after the Prophet ﷺ. They continued to disrespect the Prophet ﷺ. We all know this — the history, the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ is evident with so many different examples. And they reached the ultimate peak and pinnacle of disrespect to the Prophet ﷺ. At the same time, what did the Prophet ﷺ do in return? How did the Prophet ﷺ react? Not a single time — not a single time — did the Prophet ﷺ ever tell his Sahaba, "I want you to go and, the way they are acting ignorantly with me, I want you to go and act ignorantly with them also." Not a single time. People disrespected the Prophet ﷺ, and what did the Prophet ﷺ do? He continued to forgive. He continued to ignore.

Today we are living in a time where people are going to continue to disrespect Rasulullah ﷺ. Allah says in the Quran, in Surah al-Inshirah, that Allah will elevate the status and the dhikr of Muhammad ﷺ. Leave that to Allah.

When Allah says that He will protect the legacy of the Prophet ﷺ, when He will take care of the dignity and the respect of the Prophet ﷺ — why are we intervening? Why are we trying to get in the middle of something that is the responsibility of Allah?

Yes, the least that we can do is, instead of making du'a that Allah destroys them, make du'a that Allah guides them. Because if their talents are used right now to disrespect the Prophet ﷺ — imagine if they were Muslims, how much benefit Islam could gain through their talents. This is exactly what the Prophet ﷺ did with Umar رضي الله عنه. Allah knew there was so much talent within Umar رضي الله عنه. When the Prophet ﷺ made du'a to Allah, he made du'a for Umar رضي الله عنه, because he knew that if a person like Umar, with his personality, were to accept Islam, there is so much benefit to Islam. And we see this — even non-Muslim historians say that the golden era of Islam was the ten years of Umar رضي الله عنه as Khalifah. The hikmah and the knowledge of Umar رضي الله عنه is unparalleled and cannot be compared.

So what happens is that when you see the Prophet ﷺ — not a single time did he go and protest. Not a single time did the Prophet ﷺ go and retaliate. In fact, when the Muslims were being oppressed, he told them: leave. Go to Abyssinia for a while and stay there until things calm down here.

So what happens is that today, when Muslims get worked up — and I say people are going to always disrespect the Prophet ﷺ — if we push one person down, another person will stand up to disrespect the Prophet ﷺ. There are two things to understand here. First is that we as Muslims — and the reason I'm saying this is because if we meet anyone at work or anywhere, we need to explain it this way — because what is happening is that because of a few ignorant Muslims, the entire Muslim world is suffering consequences. We see that something has happened overseas and here in America we're trying to tell people that this is not what Islam is. ISNA and ISDB have released statements that this is not what Islam is, there is no place in Islam to take the life of someone else.

So when we are approached, we need to explain Islam the same exact way: because of a few ignorant Muslims, that is not what Islam says. We need to explain to people that when the Prophet ﷺ, even while he was being oppressed, never retaliated — while being disrespected, he never retaliated. Not only that, but when he went to Madinah, he actually taught the Muslims how to live with people of different religions. He taught us this.

So keeping in mind, this is what happens with us Muslims — we get so worked up, so frustrated, when people release cartoons about the Prophet ﷺ. Leave that to Allah. Let Allah do His job. You remember Abdul Muttalib when he said to Abraha, when he was coming to Mecca: "You give me my camels, because I am the owner of the camels. But the one who is in charge of the Baytullah, the Ka'bah — that is His house. He will protect it." He will protect it. We as Muslims need to be smarter about this. We cannot just go and express our frustration and behave the way we are nowadays behaving. And we need to explain this the same exact way — that even when...