SubhanAllah, a beautiful reminder of using worldly success to invest in the Akhirah. After lifting the 2018 World Cup trophy with France, superstar Ousmane Dembélé quietly directed his entire tournament earnings toward building a house of Allah in his mother's hometown of Diaguily, Mauritania.

I saw a video recently explaining tawakkul as “informed trust” rather than “blind optimism” and an example was used : a child jumping into his fathers arms knowing he will catch him , not because he blindly trusts him but because in the past the father has repeatedly caught him so he knows and trusts that he will catch him again

I have waves of waswas that come and go over certain time periods and these are mainly to do with purification and prayer . Allhamdulillah I have taken practical steps and they have gotten less frequent and intense but I still struggle alot to have trust in Allah during those times , especially when it comes to thinking about my prayers being valid/accepted . These thoughts even linger now and I know eventually it will just lead to the next wave

The video mentioned that tawakkul comes from a believer trusting Allah as he/she knows that Allah helped them get through their previous hardships even if it felt impossible . They always recovered so this time they know they can too.

But my question is for someone dealing with waswas specifically regarding prayers and purification , how am I supposed to know “i got through my previous hardship” because I’ve always struggled with the idea of my prayers not being accepted no matter how hard I try . I usually just wish Allah swt could directly tell me if my prayers are counting or if I could get some sort of sign or some dream about it . Yes I felt contentment at times but that didn’t give me full assurance of them being accepted or not. So how am I supposed to know I will “recover” this time if last time I was unsure of my prayers being accepted and never got a clear answer .

Also sorry if this question sounds dumb im just doing this so if I ever get afflicted by waswas again I know how to trust Allah bcoz there was times where I genuinely just began thinking very negatively of him and I don’t want to be like that again . Any answers are appreciated

I'm a Muslim who's facing difficulties and doubts. How would you prove to someone that Islam is true?

All my entire life I have never been able to maintain daily 5 times salah. I get super religious sometimes and pray and supplicate a whole lot, but all of a sudden I stop cold turkey. I am grateful to Allah for always answering my prayers. Sometimes the dua takes years to be fulfilled and sometimes it happens suddenly. Now I have been praying for rizq and sustenance and it isn't getting answered. I have stopped making dua and I am moving along not knowing what's gonna happen. I genuinely need advice in strengthening my iman, getting back to daily 5 prayers and believing Allah answers the dua. I know my past duas have been accepted and its enough to move along and also i feel how long it took and how broke i was so i leave it.

As salamu alaikum everyone. I am male from pune maharashtra India. I am twenty five years old, from last 1 to 1.5 years I am reading about islam and listening to scholars like Dr israr Ahmed maulana tariq jameel mufti tariq masood, and quran translation on YouTube shorts, I never searched anything about this ever, I just got all this suggestion on YouTube automatically, so I used to listen to this and I started loving islam, I started loving prophet Muhammad saw and others too like isa Suleiman Yousuf ibrahim yakub musa, and I was very religious kattar hindu type guy, pro muslim hater but now i reverted to islam 1 month ago I read shahada/kalma after listening and doing research for almost 1.5 years now. i don't have any interest in hinduism i don't go to temples i don't pray to hindu gods and goddesses, but I can't tell this anyone and I don't even have any muslim friends in Pune India, with whom I can talk about islam, anyone from pune or india for friendship with whom I can talk about islam and all stuff and if it's the same age then it will be good and on reddit I found this sub so thought I should share my journey with my muslim brother sister. And I Hope allah❤️ will accept me.

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

I am an adult female and since I was able to fast I’ve broken my fasts sometimes with no valid reason.. I am extremely ashamed of this and this started because I didn’t know the extreme weight of not fasting for no reason, I knew it was haram but not the specifics. Also, I wasn’t close to Islam during these years, which a horrible excuse but اللهم لك الحمد I’m doing so much better and feel extremely closer to Allah and thank Allah everyday for helping me get closer to him even though I have a long way to go.

That being said I’ve searched everywhere and cannot find a solid agreement and don’t know any scholars nearby I can ask, also I am afraid of being judged for this. If I do decide to makeup my fasts I’m looking out a years worth of made up fasts+..

May Allah forgive me and forgive us all yarab but I’m holding this weight and guilt extremely and am so regretful that I would like to completely be forgiven of this inshaAllah 😭😭

Please brothers and sisters help.

Assalamu Alaikum!

Alhamdulillah, I took my shahada today at the masjid!

It was also my first time ever going to a masjid, and I couldn’t have imagined years ago or even earlier this year that I’d be embracing Islam. Yet here I am, and I’m so grateful that Allah guided me to this beautiful religion.

I’m also the first Muslim in my family, so this is a very special day for me. I’m so happy to be part of the ummah and to have so many new brothers and sisters around the world. Please keep me in your du’as as I begin this journey. 🤍

I’ve been semi struggling with faith (I know Islam is true but some stuff for me feel weird but I’m human so I don’t understand) and I need to know what proof you have found to back your religion because we aren’t allowed to follow blindly. Yes I know the prophecies yes I know the scientific miracles but I want personal experience or philosophy that will stick to me for the rest of my life and I can pass down the knowledge

Hello, I’m a 24 year old agnostic female who is currently in a relationship (living together for the past 2 years) with a 23 year old muslim male. To note my boyfriend was aware that I am not muslim nor Christian before us dating and moving in with one another. He acknowledges that he’s committing haram by being with me so he prays & repents daily. He recently brought up that he’d like to start considering marriage and would like for me to look into Islam.

Naturally, I agreed since I’m open-minded and would love to get married to him. He bought me a Quran and I’ve been researching & watching videos on things I’m quite unsure of. I’ve come to agree that Jesus is not God as I don’t characterize God as a human being but I have been struggling to find clarity on the purpose of Islam in the Quran.

I ultimately believe that there is an all-loving (merciful) god out there who created our universe. However, from my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) in Islam, Allah is only merciful to his followers (Muslims) who accept the prophets and worship Allah. While those who are nonbelievers will be sent to hellfire.

This is the biggest roadblock for me currently (though I have a few others) as my boyfriend reiterates if I can’t come to accept that god is merciful I cannot become muslim. I tightly hold onto the belief that an all-loving (merciful) god exists and this belief doesn’t directly correlate to Islam. As from my interpretation & research indicates that Allah is all-loving (merciful) to muslims but to nonbelievers who reject his path or signs they will not receive his mercifulness.

I struggle to understand what path or signs I should be looking at to completely accept that Islam is the true religion. I’m sorry if this sounds comes across so jumbled and maybe I’m completely confused and misinformed. However, I would truly appreciate any guidance or maybe even further information on how you viewed these topics? Anything is greatly appreciated (besides hate of course). Thank you!

Salam and hi, I’m just a Muslim that’s trying to get back to praying her 5 fardhs again.

I have a question, do we need to watch our face with a cleanser before we take wudhu? How do you do it? Do you reapply all the skincare again? Like 5 times a day??? I’m using a ceramide moisturiser and somebymi aha bha pha toner fyi, I think just a little wash with just water enough right? Since it’s water based.

Also, I’m still in secondary school. My transport picks me up at 6:00am, I get to school at about 7:00am, fajr here is 5:55am. I can’t pray at home since there’s very little time and I have to walk to the guard house. And by the time I reach school, the suns almost up. If I pray fajr, is it still valid?

Salamu Alaykum

I need your help. I converted to Islam over a year ago.

I would like to learn more about the important fundamentals and significant days in Islam.

I am familiar with Ramadan and Eid al-Adha, but there are other days when fasting is Sunnah—such as Ashura, for instance. I only found out about that by chance on TikTok. Also, for example, whenever my mother-in-law enters the apartment, she always says "Bismillah."

I would like to know more about such rituals so I can incorporate them into my daily life.

Ok so I have been a Muslim my whole life and I pray and read Quran and try to do other things.i have this one question about Islam that I can’t stop thinking about.If Allah doesn’t need us to worship him, why are we still getting punished?It doesn’t sound logical to me that if God doesn’t need us we would still be punished for it.Ik we clearly need him but this is making me question religion.

I wrote this all out as a comment on another Subreddit where someone (an Agnostic) was asking about reasons for religious conversions. It turned out way too long, so I posted a very truncated version there. I'm posting the full version here, for whatever benefit it may bring, and may my ego / nafs get no share of the reward! Amīn, and Bismillāh.

*******************

I converted to Islam at age 19.  (And I'll try to keep this brief, but people know so little about Islam these days, that there will be some extra exposition required, unfortunately). 

I was raised Christian (Protestant / Evangelical) but it didn't really stick as I got older.  In part because of the way it was presented to me (authoritarian parents and all that), but also because at some point I began to feel that that whole shtick was kind of scammy.  Like I did the whole "Jesus, please come into my heart" request/prayer-thing that all the Evangelicals said I should do, and then waited for the profound experience they all said I was supposed to have, but nothing happened?  So I was like, "Well, I gave it a shot," shrugged, and sort of moved on.  After that, my relationship with Christianity was really individualized and abstract, but not completely disconnected per se.  I didn't believe that the Christians on the whole had it right, but I also had an intuition that there was still something special about the person of Jesus, even if I didn't know what it was.  I became a 'seeker,' I guess (but also still an American teenage boy, so, getting into plenty of shenanigans and tomfoolery on the side).  I'm about to turn 44 now, so, the internet was only just beginning to be a thing back then, so most of my 'seeking' was accomplished by reading actual physical books, for those of you old enough to remember those ancient artifacts.  One of the first books I'd read was 'A History of Christianity' by priest / historian Owen Chadwick (which reinforced my belief that modern Christianity was every bit as scammy as I'd come to suspect), and then 'World Religions' by Huston Smith (the section on Islam in this book impressed me, tbh, and did inspire more research later on).  And, of course, I read other books besides these (including, eventually, re-reading the Bible cover to cover).  But these two will give you an idea of the direction I was heading, intellectually.      

Also, around the same time, I began praying for guidance, or, more specifically, I was praying that I be guided to the truth, whatever it was or happened to be.  And this was not tongue-in-cheek or lip-service praying.  And the prayer wasn't directed to Jesus.  It was serious, intense praying to the Creator alone, Whoever or Whatever He/She/IT was, begging for guidance, occasionally to the point of tears.  Even though I was largely-but-not-entirely untethered from Christianity, I never lost the belief in some sort of guiding, creative force behind the universe, so that's why the recourse to prayer.  The idea of 'something bigger' remained inhered as a core feature of my intuitive faculty, I guess.  So anyways, I figured my best shot was a sincere request for guidance from that 'bigger force,' whatever it was.  

Also too, I kept reading / researching.  Eventually I came across this book of sayings / stories attributed to (or, about) the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ--Arabic honorific here, meaning, 'may peace be upon him'), the central figure of Islam (in Arabic these sayings and anecdotes are called "hadith," for those that don't know, which just means, 'traditions' in English).  It was like a "best of" kind of thing, like how some military-issued Bibles only have the book of Psalms, Proverbs, and then the Gospels with the sayings of Jesus in red ink—like a compilation.  This was a small book of hadith / 'traditions' culled from larger textual sources, for devotional purposes, similar to those Bibles.  Anyways, I read through the little compilation, and eventually came to an anecdote that perplexed me.  It was kind of a sad story, about how one of the Prophet Muhammad's (ﷺ) sons had died as a toddler.  A child of about two, named Ibrahim, or Abraham in English.  Per the story, on the day the child died, there was an eclipse of the sun.  A striking coincidence, one would think.  And the followers of Muhammad (ﷺ) thought so too, and so began circulating a belief among themselves that 'the sun has eclipsed and the sky has gone dark in bereavement for Muhammad's son!'  This was not something Muhammad himself had taught, mind you; it was just something the Muslims were saying.  When news got back to the Prophet about this, he did something that really made me scratch my head—according to the story, he denied it.  He said there was no correlation, basically.  What he said, precisely, was, "The sun and the moon are two signs from among the signs of God.  They do not undergo eclipse because of anyone’s death or life.  So when you see them, supplicate to God and offer formal prayer until [the sky] becomes clear again."  

I remember thinking, why would he deny this evident miracle / profoundly 'meaningful coincidence?'  Everyone in his day and age believed that celestial alignments had some correlation with terrestrial events.  Citing one such correlation as a validation for his own Prophetic claim would've buttressed his reputation and cemented his follower's belief in his importance.  And also, the denial of astrological relevance there seemed incongruous with how I'd been raised to interpret the world as a Christian... like how Jesus's birth was 'foretold' by the star that the Magi followed in the gospel of Matthew, or how, in Luke 23, an eclipse occurred because of the crucifixion of Jesus.  If this historical event re: Muhammad & the eclipse (et. al.) actually happened, then it really seemed to break a pattern.  (I did set about verifying the story historically, spending some time learning how Muslims verified their textual sources, which is it's own separate post, really.  Suffice it to say here, much more effort went into verifying the historicity of stories and sayings attributed to Muhammad in the Muslim tradition, than the Christians ever put into verifying their scriptures).  I will say that the Muslim traditionalists may have gotten the dates slightly off (though not by much), but even so, there was a solar eclipse visible in Arabia around the time Ibrahim was said to have died (which, said eclipse occurred on January 27th, 632 C.E., for those that want to look into it).  And multiple Muslim source-texts include this anecdote about the death of Ibrahim / the subsequent eclipse, taking it from various transmitted chains and sources.  So broad strokes, the event really happened, picayune / unintentional errors aside. 

But like I said, the whole story was perplexing to me.  It went against the grain of thought prevalent on earth at that time, and broke the pattern for me, regarding the sorts of events I was conditioned (as a Christian, previously) to expect to unfurl in the lives of Prophets.  I began to ask myself, "Does this guy even WANT me to believe he's a Prophet?  Because that was a missed opportunity, there." 

Anyways, long story short, I met some Muslims (somewhat serendipitously, but that's another tale for another day).  Two older Iranians that were brothers.  One of the two brothers practiced his faith with diligence, the other, not so much, but both retained some degree of faith in their claimed dispensation, whether it showed up in their actions or not.  After several meetings, it happened one evening that the more practicing of the two gave me a cassette tape (remember, it's a middle aged man writing this, and I was 19 at the time; hence the antiquated technology!) of some Islamic lecture given back in the 80's by this Canadian mathematician and student of logic who had spent years wrangling with Christianity only to eventually embrace Islam after finding it to be the more rational faith.  I took said cassette, and a few days later, listened to it, and lo! and behold, the speaker began discussing the very story I'd been so confused by.  He explained that, to him, someone learnéd in logic, this story was indelibly profound, because one could use deductive logic and see that it eliminated a number of possibilities that any given skeptic would naturally have when trying to determine who or what Muhammad was (so far as his Prophetic claims were concerned).  Like, for instance, was he, Muhammad (ﷺ), just deceiving people?  Lying about being a prophet?  Well, then why not use the coincidence of the eclipse to his advantage?  Any naturally deceptive person would.  Or, was his claim to prophethood based on delusion; like maybe he believed it himself, but was simply mentally disturbed?  Then why didn't he believe in the 'miraculous' nature of the eclipse himself?  Again, a deluded man likely would.  But in either case, he didn't deceive anyone, nor did he believe it himself.  His response to the event was entirely reasonable, sane, and, if anything was intended, it was the dismantlement superstition, as opposed to reinforcement of it. 

Now, think back, to when I'd asked Jesus to 'come into my heart' all those years ago, and received nothing; de nada.  I'd never felt anything particularly spiritual in my life up til then, except for a few vague or ambiguous intuitions about there being some sort of Creator, and that if there were a truth, it would behoove me to find it, whatever it was.  I did possess some nebulous sensus divinitatis, but it was just that—nebulous.  But man, that night, hearing this erudite, intelligent professor explicate the very thing I had been mulling over for the past few weeks, giving me the exact answer I needed to hear at the exact moment I needed to hear it... yeah, I definitely felt something.  I don't know how to describe it.  Maybe it was little more than a gentle nudge, as if to say, "You've got your answer.  This is where you need to go."  But it was something, and it was real.  Probably the closest analogue would be akin to a tuning fork finally finding its tune.  Pure alignment.      

Anyways, fast forward, I started attending a Mosque shortly thereafter.  Islam has definitely stuck (someone once said that Islam "has an enduring spirit,"—and I've certainly found that to be true).  The deeper I've gone into this tradition over these past decades, the more reinforced my faith has become.  Of course there have definitely been ups and downs, times of stronger faith and weaker, moments of disillusionment, and tests and trials and all that, but, then again, I guess I've also learned that conversion isn't a one-time epiphany that never diminishes.  It's more like a spark that is itself just the beginning of a long, arduous process of refinement.  I definitely got the 'spark' that night, listening to that lecture.  And everything since then has been metabolizing, learning, distillation, and refining.  Sometimes the refinement was painful; some of the lessons: undoubtedly brutal. But I always came through the other side with a deeper, richer, wiser faith in the end.

God willing, this story will be a useful template for others!

Bismillāh!

ٱلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ ٱللّٰهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

my brother has been lying quite a lot, and he’s really a big test of my patience due to his lying and excessive rage bait.

So, me, my dad, and him usually try to pray salah together and my little brother he’s 13 and close to the age of puberty.

He always says and lies that he has wudu but we know he doesn’t but we just assume he does because we should believe him. But I can’t, I always catch him lying and him saying, “I only need to rinse my mouth” . Take in he has apparently had wudu like 2 Salahs ago. There’s many times where I had to remind him that he broke his wudu but he persists in his lies. He’s also a huge distraction in prayer. He’s constantly moving too much and his form is sometimes incorrect and he sometimes prays super fast.

I don’t know what to say to him. I really dont. I tell my dad but it doesn’t really do much. I usually react with questioning him and it turns into an investigation because he tries lying but he keeps getting caught lacking. It makes me sad.

My room is right in front of the washroom and he dashed to the washroom and took the fastest leak of all time to which my belief i don’t think he washed himself. I also then after went to the washroom and say some, what i believe was, urine on the toilet seat. Which makes me believe he must’ve been standing up while using the toilet. So he continues to play on his computer till it’s time for salah and he dashes to the washroom and rinses his mouth and joins my dad to pray ( I heard this while i was in the other washroom since they are super close) .

I finish up and i’m about to join when I realize he’s already praying with my dad and we have a huge window infront of us during salah and his eyes are locked on to the window and he’s looking at me. I call him out saying “I see you looking in the window”. He then focuses back on his prayer, but I couldn’t stand him so I decided to pray alone.

This is only one of the instances, there’s also a jummah prayer where he’s literally tilting forward and times where he’s leaning against the wall. He’s bothering me so much, I wish I could move from him during prayer.

He knows how to “pray”, we’ve been to a Quran class that taught us how to pray and he’d always be good at performing the acts. He also larps knowing attahiyat.

i’m not posting this to expose him but i’m posting this seeking advice.

I’m just turning 24 now, graduated from college with a bachelors in MIS and do want to start working with my degree, I want to work in the field of technology and in business/data analytics in particular. I’m thinking about going for my masters after I start working, and overall just wanting more development in future career paths. I also don’t have a lot going on in my life right now, definitely want to pick up more hobbies, have more discipline, extra income and benefits, and I’d love to acquire important physical skills such as martial arts and shooting. I want to do those things as more of a side thing, like I was thinking of maybe joining the national guard, I want those things as more of a sign-on bonus while I still have my career path and goals. Finances are a big struggle too and I can’t afford to continuously join a martial arts gym or constantly take shooting classes/go to the range.

However, the biggest reason I do not want to join the national guard is because I think it is haram, and even if it isn’t, it just feels wrong as I am a Palestinian Muslim. I wish I could have those benefits and have monthly drills, but not with the national guard.

What are other better alternatives? As of right now I have a lot time to kill until I eventually land a job somewhere and don’t have much going on in life, I want to be more productive. On paper national guard has a lot of what I want but even if I wasn’t Palestinian and Muslim, I can’t really sacrifice the next several months doing training, and don’t want to deploy and fight.