This is first and foremost a reminder to myself before anyone else.
Over a decade ago, I was someone who would guard their prayers like their life depended on it. So much so that, through Allah’s will, some of my friends and family began to pray.
And it was all good
until it wasn’t.
Hungry for more knowledge, I did what any teenager would do, I trowelled the internet for answers to my questions. I read through the online Q&A websites, forums and watched video after video. What started as something beautiful, slowly transformed into an illness.
The over thinking started.
Nothing big at first, so slight that you’d never recognise it as anything significant. It disguised itself as striving for Allah. I wanted to do the best I could.
Just paying that extra tiny bit of attention during wudu. I wanted to make sure I did it properly.
What if I missed a spot? Let me just wash again to be safe. I want to make sure my prayer is valid.
I’m also standing in front of Allah, I need to make sure I’m clean.
You know, that website I saw mentioned a hadith about being condemned to hell for eternity if you have drops of urine on your clothes.
I can’t afford for that to happen….are my clothes clean?
What if any drops splash onto my clothes when I flush the toilet?
What if anything gets onto my clothes when I’m out and about?
Those websites also said that my prayer wouldn’t be accepted without khushoo.
Am I focused enough? I got distracted for an entire rakah, does that count? Do I need to repeat it?
I should probably repeat it as I’m standing in front of Allah after all, it needs to be perfect. He may not accept it if I got distracted. That means the prayer is invalid. Which is the equivalent of not praying and we know what happens to people who don’t pray.
I don’t want to go to hell.
I read a hadith about a prayer not being accepting if you pass wind.
My stomach feels bad, I think I’m about to pass wind. I feel anxious. I need to keep repeating wudu or else my prayer isn’t valid. And that by extension means Allah won’t accept my prayer.
I just made wudu but I’m scared I’ll break it and have to do it again. I need to stay on guard.
I feel anxious and burdened, oh Allah help me.
Please allow me to keep my wudu so that I can get through this prayer.
And…..it just broke.
Why is this happening, I’m praying to Allah for it to not happen.
Is this a test?
I guess I’ll just need to stay up the whole night, people have told me that this effort is rewarded by Allah anyways. So perhaps this suffering will be worth it
Except it wasn’t.
It continued to spiral, the burden became so much that the same girl who guarded the prayer with her life ended up abandoning it completely.
Leaving it was slow. I didn’t wake up one day and make the decision. The whole process took years, and the prayer eroded away from my life over time.
I grieved at the loss. Deeply.
The anxiety became a burden I could no longer bear. My faith had become suffering, I needed to escape.
Over the next 14 years, I remained turned away.
I knew I had to turn back to Allah one day, but I was afraid. I would have to go through all that again.
And I would have to give up the ‘happiness’ that replaced it.
I got distracted, and over time, the world became my goal…career, travel, enjoyment, friends, searching for a partner.
Living a life in complete submission to Allah was a future goal for sure, but not yet. I looked ahead on the path I was on, the destination was covered in a haze and I couldn’t quite make out what was there. My path in life seemed to end at a blurry destination, littered with false dreams, hopes and wishful thinking along the way.
It’s something I’ll get serious about when I’m older, I told myself.
And I planned.
But Allah also planned
And Allah is the best of planners.
Just a girl striving for Allah 