umbrella of darkness

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By now you should notice that I like to pretend that I have readers on this blog 😂 #delusional. Oh well. What can I say. This blog, however quiet it is, is my happy place.

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I’m getting sidetracked. Seriously, I have an attention span of a goldfish! Oh. I want to tell you about an event that I attended last Saturday. The event was organised by the Al Maghrib Institute. It was a talk by Yasmin Mogahed entitled “Umbrella of Darkness — Healing through Emptiness”.

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“So often we experience things in life, and yet never see the connections between them. When we are given hardship, or feel pain, we often fail to consider that the experience may be the direct cause or result of another action or experience. Time of difficulty test our faith, our fortitude and our strength. During these times, the level of our Imaan becomes manifest.”

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Art from Google.

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I read the description of the talk a little over a month ago, and I bought two tickets right after. Then, I sort of forced my sister to attend the talk with me 😂. I read it from Yasmin’s Instagram account that the she will be addressing depression as well and naturally I was sold as soon as I read that.

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These are some of the wisdom that resonate with me on a deep level and I thought I’ll share it with you guys!

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“What does Islam says about depression and anxiety? It isn’t just about you have low imaan. It isn’t because you’re weak. There are a lot of factors that anxiety and depression — biological, environmental, nutritional issues, etc.”

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“Allah is not trying to hurt or deprived us. Allah is the Most Generous. He is more merciful to us than our mothers. He only gives and gives and gives. If Allah does not give us what we want, He’s protecting us from things that could harm us. He always has our best interest in mind.”

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“Anytime Allah gives a hardship to a believer, it’s actually for their own good. Allah mentioned in the Quran that the reason might be to purify us so we don’t have to be purify in the hereafter (Jahannam). Another reason is to raise our ranks. Some people’s worship is not enough to reach to the level that Allah wants them to be, so Allah send them trials — this is itself a mercy. Another reason is to bring people back to Allah. Allah knows we have the tendency to forget Him when we’re given ease and comfort. He made us, afterall. A lot of people need to be shaken to come back to Him. Another reason Allah gives us difficulty is to humble us. We often can become arrogant, and take Allah’s gifts for granted — may it be wealth, health, imaan, family, etc.”

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“Always have a good opinion of Allah.”

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“Tawakkul and continue to do our part. Take mental illness as example, we make doa to Allah to grant us health and at the same time we meet the professionals to address our conditions. We are not weak for needing external help — we’re doing our part.”

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Honestly, these are just snippets of what she taught us during the event. I made extensive notes on my phone during the event (yes, I was the one who frantically trying to type down every single word that she said 😜). If you want to have a look at the notes I’ve typed, just comment down below and give me your email address, I’ll send the notes to you. 😊

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The event went on for five hours with some breaks in between. I was absolutely knackered by the end of the day since I’ve been typing the notes continuously as Yasmin was talking. It was a great event. It showed me a new perspective of seeing life problems. Anddd.. The thing I respect most about her is she acknowledged that mental illness is a real thing and she taught us how to deal with it and how to grieve when we’re going through it. Not some kind of “Oh you don’t pray enough, therefore you have this mental illness as punishment. 🙄” kind of thing.

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Ughhh. There’s sooo many things to say about the talk but I don’t want to bore you. So please, if you want to see my notes, just hit me up in the comment below okay?

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