https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Xexq81N1Ujc

Islam & Mental Health | Q&A with Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi | East London Mosque

what do you say to those who believe that seeking counseling for mental health issues is a sign of low Iman?

Allow me to be very Frank amongst all of you, we study Islamic law and Sharia and Hadith and Quran and tafsir which is
what we're supposed to study and madrasa. We don't study psychiatry, we don't study therapy. So understand the Imam
has a role, the Sheikh has a role, the doctor has a role, the therapist has a role. As the president said, give everyone the
role and write that is due unto them. So, it is possible for a person to have strong Iman and still undergo aspects of
depression for beyond their control. As I give you two simple examples. There are three things that should help
everybody. It's never going to harm you. I call them the three F's. when it comes to counseling, when it comes to therapy,
faith, family, and friends. these are the three F's of counseling, if you do them and you still are struggling then seek out
professional help but try first and foremost see if it's possible for you to Grapple with it and no doubt more Iman is never
going to harm you and for many people having a strong relationship with a religion does help them overcome stress,
does have to overcome anxiety for many people and having a loving family and having a strong friendship based and
speaking with them and engaging with them but not everybody, not everybody. Sometimes you need to go beyond this,
and simply if somebody like me were to continue to say this, forgive me for that slip up. I did it once if I were to say on
the mimba “oh if you have anxiety and stress this means you have low Iman”.

I've actually made a person's situation worse he's already struggling with self-depression he's already struggling with his
own. Now, the Sheikh comes and says “oh not only are you depressed, you don't even have Iman”. Subhanallah, I was
young and foolish may Allah forgive me. I, I didn't understand. I have a responsibility when I speak outside of my area to
do my research and ever since then I actually say very publicly that I made a mistake.

Iman is not going to solve every issue. Yes, it will solve a lot of them, no doubt. I'm not gonna say that's true and yes
Iman will always help but sometimes it is beyond just a simple Faith. Sometimes it is something that has happened to
you that as I said, needs to be.

I have met people like this in my own Community I know them that they have had some trauma in the past or another
person was having suicidal thoughts goes to the doctor turns out he literally has a hormonal imbalance, literally. And he
has to take some medication that makes the hormone imbalance normal and all of a sudden he's normal and when he
was going through those Suicidal Thoughts his friends and others saying, “oh Iman, Iman”. It has nothing to do with faith.
at that stage, it was his hormone imbalance. you have to go and get tested by professionals so we need to remove the
stigma. we need to remove the stigma that unfortunately a lot of us have with mental health. Again, I grew up in the 80s.
many of us who grew up in the 80s, we felt mental health was a bit of a sham. we felt that only if you're Looney to look
crazy right only if you're something that you're not normal. You have to go to a psychiatrist, we are now discovering that
this is a very new field and let's leave it to The Experts of that field. Okay, as you Brits say, it's not everybody's cup of tea.
Okay, so let's leave it to the experts. It’s their cup of tea. Nobody should be discouraged from going to seek help.

You know, I'm coming to you from America. I don't know about the situation in England. I don't know in Dallas last year
we had six janazas of young men and women who committed suicide in our masjids six hour com extended all of the
massage it in Dallas. In one city, young bright future ahead of them. I don't know why this is happening. I don't
understand. I gave a khutba but listen as now I'm an elder, now you guys have so many things we didn't have to us. it
looks like the youngsters are literally have their iPads, their iPhones. They have the internet, they have so many perks,
why would you possibly be depressed. But the number two cause of young men and women's death in America is
suicide. Overall, not Muslims. Overall, number two cause is taking your own life.
I had a young man in my own office. This is me speaking to him last year, during the covid crisis. He's crying. he's 18-19
years old and he goes, and I had a long discussion with one of the things he said. It really resonated with me, goes were
“if its not for the fact that I know my mother loves me and if I did what I want to do, she would be hurt, I would commit
suicide right now”. This is a Muslim young man telling me this. I'm not qualified to deal with this type of mental issue, I
didn't train like this in Medina. that's not what they're supposed to be trained. I immediately put him in touch with a
specialist and a counselor but he's coming to me because I'm the Sheikh figure, he trusts me and I said okay, no problem.
we're gonna deal with this together and later on, alhamdulillah, a few months later he came to me, alhamdulillah things
are much better. Now, on a track of normalty. what not he needed to unpack, whatever it was. He needed to have a
professional therapist and he said to me “I'm reading Quran, I'm praying tahajjud but these thoughts are still coming”.
This is the one that had the chemical imbalance. By the way, subhanallah. Now you tell me the chemical imbalance was
the one that is causing him to contemplate suicide and the poor guy is being told “it's your Iman, your Iman” and he's
saying “I'm trying, I'm praying tahajjud, I'm reading Quran”. He was told his Iman is weak and now he feels even worse. I
didn't say this momentum, not me somebody else. Right, he's coming to me. I said “no, your Iman is not weak. you're
trying, alhamdulillah. But no problem, seek help in therapy. So please brothers and sisters, remove the stigma for mental
health. It's a new world we're living in and we're discovering that mental disease is just like a physical disease. you know
there is no Stigma we have for physical disease, right. somebody has cancer, we encourage them go to the best doctor
but for some weird reason if somebody has a mental issue, we think there's nothing. “oh it's just in your mind” maybe it
is but first, find out. I'll be the first to say, maybe it is something imaginary, but first find out and make sure and verify
that it is something that can be treated with faith, family, and friends. If not then therapy and counseling will help and
we should embrace this inshallah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh6byqHUe7Y

Special Q&A: Mental Health & Depression | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi

today's q a will be a a special one and it will deal with the tragic incident that took place here in dallas yesterday was
discovered for those of you that are not aware this is an incident that is uh shaking our entire uh city of dallas where a
very uh sad tragedy occurred of a murder-suicide uh an entire family of uh six individuals they were killed by two of their
own family members uh who were suffering from years of depression and uh suicide and one of them left a note in
which he explained and he uh it was his final if you like note to the world and it's a very troubling note and this
community has understandably um rattled all of us it has shaken us all to the core and there has been a lot of
speculation and a lot of questions and the community is looking for uh looking for some type of explanation some type
of answers so today insha'allah we're going to just discuss some of the things not specific to this particular case only
rather to extrapolate from this so that inshallah we can prevent any such thing to the best of our ability from ever
happening again so we begin by asking allah's help us a very very sensitive topic and uh i am cognizant of the fact that
the wounds are still fresh this was only discovered uh yesterday and it's a very uh senseless tragedy in nadil indeed these
are times when faith brings us solace and comfort in and all of us shall return to allah we send our sincerest condolences
to the family and to the friends of all sikhs who were deceased our duas our prayers we ask allah to give those that are
alive amongst their family and friends sabar and we also make dua for all those who have passed away at some level
they are all victims it's not our role to judge their fate in the hereafter here i refer to those who perpetrated the actual
crimes it's not our role to assign to them any blame or not that is in the courts of allah in the hereafter not to justify or to
minimize but rather this is a plea to act sensibly in the aftermath of a horrible of a horrific tragedy that is uh something
that is so senseless i mean our hearts yearn for each and every uh person you know that has lost his or her life uh three
children two adults one grandparent six family members all of them their their lives came to a a tragic end and this is not
the time nor is there anything to be gained by passing judgments on specific individuals the goal really is to discuss topics
that are relevant to all of us based upon this one incident yes but relevant to much broader communities and so that in
sha allah we can try our best to minimize perhaps even to prevent any such incident or tragedy from ever happening
again so we're going to elaborate and extract some of the the points that have come to to my mind and i ask allah for
hidayah and ask allah as well for forgiveness if i uh overlook certain things or if certain things come out incorrectly it's a
very sensitive topic and frankly no matter what one says justice cannot be done and no matter which words one uses
you're going to have people who are not satisfied on either side and this is not so my goal is not really to uh my goal is
really to make sure that we try our best that this type of tragedy is spotted to the greatest extent possible and prevent it
that's really what it's all about but i want to begin by moving a little bit theological that it's at times like these when
belief in qadhar brings about a sense of solace belief in kadar helps us grapple because you know we try to rationalize
why is this happening and what is the wisdom and in the end of the day even if we don't understand the wisdom we do
understand that no one can escape the qatar of allah subhana wa ta'ala we are all bound by what is decreed and at some
level even if we do not understand we must accept and in that acceptance there is an element of consolation and there
is an element of relegating the affairs to allah subhanahu wa you'll see nothing is going to happen to us except what allah
has decreed for us he is our protector he is our protector so in allah let those who put their trust put their trust so
nothing will happen except what allah has decreed and allah says in the quran in particular about death in particular
about death in the battle of some of the hypocrites criticized the muslims and they said oh if you had only done such and
such nobody would have died if you had only listened to us they wouldn't have died and allah revealed in the quran that
those whose debts had been predestined those whose debts had been paid pre-decreed by allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
even if they had stayed at home they would have gone out of their houses and they would have met their debts at the
time and the place and the manner that allah had decreed for them no soul can die except with the ethan of allah it is in
a book that is khalas it is done it is now inscribed in the book no one controls the destiny of their own death allah
azzawajal has decreed it and allah says in the quran when their time of death comes they can neither move it forward
nor push it back they cannot change it they can't even push it an hour or bring it back an hour our debts are
predetermined and pre-decreed by allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala the time of our death the manner of our death and even
the location of our death as allah says in the quran that no soul knows in which land even they will pass away and
subhanallah the tragedy the the grandmother who lost her life she was actually visiting her daughter uh she didn't even
live in dallas she was just visiting for a period of time and she was going to return to uh her family elsewhere and allah's
other was that she would meet her death here so we ask allah that all of the you know the parents and the grandparents
and the and the child uh we ask that they are granted the death of a of a shaheed so we begin by reminding ourselves of
qadhar why because in qadhar we find comfort for the past and i have said multiple times other is used belief in
predestination is used to find comfort in past events we do not use other to justify the future we use to comfort
ourselves for anything that has already happened and we say to ourselves nothing we could have done can change the
past it was allah we benefit we learn this is not a justification it is a consolation that what happened happened i couldn't
have changed it but we still learn and we try to make sure that we don't uh fall into the same if there are any mistakes
and if there are any wisdoms to learn from we try to learn from them so that they are not repeated in the uh in the
future now obviously the big elephant in the room uh in this entire incident and of course it is for this particular reason
that uh i i wanted to discuss this issue in some detail is the issue of mental health the issue of depression the issue of
especially teenage depression and the issue of of suicide you see the problem is dear muslims is that we the muslim
community we have a serious problem within our own ranks and especially our specific cultures whether they're arab or
indian bengali whatever they might be they are almost universal in our particular cultures and that is that mental health
is not really viewed as a real problem many people think it is imaginary they don't believe it actually exists a lot of people
also think that it is just a spiritual problem it's a religious problem that if they only had iman then they wouldn't be you
know sick they wouldn't be ill and this is i think one of the biggest tragedies that we need to and that is why i am
stopping my regular q a and i'm dedicating this entire uh lecture today this entire q a uh to this one issue not because i
want to bring attention to that one issue it's very sad it's a tragedy you know we ask allah's forgiveness for all but
because we want to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again and we're using this to shed light on a very very
awkward topic and that is the very real existence of mental illnesses within our own ranks and the fact that there is an
almost sinister cover-up by almost sinister cover-up what i mean is that there's a refusal to acknowledge that there's
something called mental depression there's a refusal to acknowledge that people are struggling with mental issues
people have suicidal thoughts they are embarrassed themselves to come out and tell people and when they tell their
family and friends they are rejected rebuffed they are told to to to man up or or take deal with it i did worse when i was
in your age and i had to deal with this and that and i didn't go through depression and what happens is this compounds
and again i'm not speaking about that one incident please nobody read in i don't know that family and i don't know all
the details we're only no snippets but what we do know very clearly is that both of those children were diagnosed with
depression both of those were clinically on medication both of those they attempted to get help and it is clear that they
didn't get the type of health that is that is needed both of those had attempted suicide multiple times multiple times
they had attempted uh suicide and that's something that we need to to to have a very very frank discussion about my
dear brothers and sisters mental health is a real issue mental problems that people face are just as real just as tangible as
physical problems and you know again it's time for all of us to acknowledge our own mistakes and i have said this before
that i myself was guilty of this misconception of this incorrect perception and i'll be honest with you and i'm not passing
the buck on to anybody else but it is true that many clergy many respected ulama they don't understand clinical
depression they don't understand psychiatry and so they say statements based upon misunderstandings of verses
misunderstandings of a hadith and those statements are then propagated within the scholarly class and unfortunately
they are then transferred to the public and this results in a backlash it results in the problem exacerbating or worsening
what do i mean here i mean here the notion that mental depression is a spiritual issue right this is something that i
myself was taught and i heard with my own two ears respected ulama say to me while i was studying overseas in the
blessed city of madinah in the city of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam multiple times in different phrases with
different languages in khutbas in lectures the notion was said to us by multiple people that if you are a good believer if
your iman is strong if you have faith in allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then you cannot be depressed we were taught this and
we were even quoted verses of the quran whoever turns away from my remembrance allah says he shall live a miserable
life and so we were told and this is an incorrect misunderstanding as i will explain to you we were taught and this is very
common amongst a lot of not all but a lot of the you know the people who um study the islamic sciences many of them
they preach this that mental illness is a spiritual disease of iman and if you had iman if you had faith in allah azzawajal
you wouldn't be depressed and i will confess to you that when i returned back to this country uh seven six 16 17 years
ago that i too said this in a lecture or two of mine and i thank allah that there was a psychiatrist in the audience who uh i
knew from my days back in university when i was at university of houston and she had gone on and done psychiatry and
she was now a licensed therapist and counselor and whatnot and she you know very gracefully pulled me aside and said
you know uh uh you know i knew her from back in the college day so i trusted her and she said to me you need to study
this you cannot say this anymore because i said quite explicitly that if you have iman in allah you cannot be depressed i
said this on stage you ask allah's forgiveness you know and i did not know any better and i parroted what i was taught
like i was a good student should do but a good student should also be a critical thinker but the point is that at that time i
did not know any better and i started reading and studying more and of course uh it is very clear that mental issues that
depression that suicidal thoughts are not always based upon a lack of spirituality it's not always the case and here is
where again we need to be very explicit here and i speak as somebody you know trained in medina amongst the islamic
sciences that dear muslims religious clergy are indeed the inheritors of the prophets respect them and give them their
rights but at the same time do not extrapolate their knowledge to areas that they are not specialists in go to ulama for
halal and haram go to ulama for the taste of the quran go to ulama for the seer of the prophet but are not resorted to for
financial advice are not resorted to for the equations of engineering and of uh figuring out architecture are not resorted
to for medicine unless they're trained in medicine similarly you do not go to ulama for psychiatrical issues you don't go to
ulama for teens that are thinking about suicide you need to go to trained therapists now i'm not saying don't go to urum
at all i'm saying go to them for the spiritual reasons fine but don't go to them for the clinical reasons for the therapy for
the counseling that is needed it is a separate science of mankind altogether we are not taught when we go through our
training we are not taught how to cancel how to counsel uh drug addicts we are not taught what to say when somebody
comes in and and is thinking of suicide that's not in our training now you can say it should be and i say well that's a good
idea and maybe one day insha'allah seminaries will start doing that but the way that it stands right now that the famous
seminaries of the world they deal with the classical sciences they don't deal with the human side of psychiatry they don't
deal with the pastoral side and you know the fact of the matter is that many uh seminaries of other faith traditions uh
they do emphasize uh this pastoral element they emphasize counseling and therapy to a certain degree they train their
counselors or their ministers uh who are going to be in partic in particular positions of power and authority they train
them to recognize you know when there's depression and when there's you know dangerous signs of suicide and
whatnot and that's that's very good uh we need to do something equivalent in our communities as of yet that is not
done and somebody who has extensive training from al-azhar from medina from islamabad from malaysia in and of itself
the trainings that we receive in madras says and in the classical islamic seminaries do not involve psychiatry at all they
don't involve therapy and counseling whatsoever now i know some people have returned back and they've done degrees
alhamdulillah excellent otherwise if a sheikh has not done a degree or has not spent time in therapy in counseling then
the default is you don't go to that person for that which is needed in terms of therapy in terms of counseling you
wouldn't come to me for medical advice i'm not a medical uh doctor so why would you go to a sheikh uh to deal with an
issue of of mental health when the sheikh has not been trained to deal with mental health now the the
misunderstanding arises from the fact that there is something called spiritual happiness and spiritual emptiness there's
no question about that and the quran describes spiritual happiness as happening when you believe in allah and you
worship allah and you know what we all know this we feel good when we're religious we feel bad when we're not
religious we feel good when we give charity when we pray when we quran we feel an internal happiness likewise or i
should say the flip side is that we feel an emptiness when we're away from allah when we commit a sin and that is a
spiritual sadness a spiritual emptiness and so the verses of the quran the hadith that talk about this subject they talk
about spiritual happiness and sadness spiritual fulfillment and emptiness however mental happiness and mental
problems they are not the same as spiritual happiness and and spiritual problems there's an overlap i.e you know
somebody who's mentally sane and spiritually happy alhamdulillah that's the overlap you want to be in however it's like
two men you know diagonal circles they are overlapping with the middle area but there's also separates on each side
and what this means is the following you can be spiritually fulfilled and yet mentally unhappy this is the key point the
two circles are not completely overlapping you can be spiritually doing your stuff believing in allah praying regularly
doing checking all the boxes but there is a mental illness there is a mental struggle that is outside of the sphere outside
of the circle of the spiritual struggle and therefore no matter what you keep on putting in the spiritual box it's not going
to solve that which is happening in the mental illness side and that's something that our ulama and our psychiatrist need
to understand both of these boxes need to be filled up no question about it it's good to have iman in allah azzawajal and
it's good to be you know mentally balanced and what not but the two are somewhat independent of one another and
that is why we need to understand that there are areas of specialties and expertise and you go to the experts of each uh
field depression mental illness this is a diagnosable medical issue you can't just snap out of it you know our elders say to
us that hey i dealt with worse you know when i came to this land i had to struggle with three jobs and i had to walk 10
miles to get to my bottle of water and this and that what you have it easy so we have to understand you know dear
parents and dear dear elders we have to understand such language and such shutting down of these types of of of of uh
uh of these types of pleas for help what it does is it makes the situation worse you cannot just snap out of a spiritual
illness you cannot just make yourself feel that oh i'm gonna be fine if i just uh uh rethink my my things if i understand
how difficult life was for you then it's gonna be easier for me and you cannot just pray and make dua and it will
miraculously go away unless allah wills it as a miracle i mean let me ask you if somebody had cancer if somebody had
cancer would you just say just pray and make dua and that's it or would you say let's go to the doctor let's get you know
radiation therapy let's get all of the chemotherapy done and along with that make dua to allah what would you say so
once we understand that mental illness is just as much of a diagnosable problem as a physical illness and ailment then
we should understand that we should not shut people off we should not just tell them to you know deal with it and grow
up and snap out of it and make dua it does not work that way we have to be empathetic not just sympathetic genuine
empathy we need to open up about this sensitive topic and understand that there's nothing to be ashamed of it's
nothing to be embarrassed about and you know if you uh read the note from the from this brother the long note that he
wrote he mentions multiple times feeling let down he mentions that no one helped him that all the people that he
turned to eventually abandoned him except for his uh family and i'm not blaming anybody i'm not saying this it's
something we need to think about the future let's not concentrate on the past in this particular incident it's not to to to
you know castigate it's to learn and to make sure that we try our best to not repeat those mistakes again as for those
struggling with depression those struggling with these types of thoughts really all of us need to recognize the signs and
symptoms all of us need to recognize and monitor in our family and friends what is going on what is very very terrifying is
that the closest family members and the friends of this particular family even though they knew that something was
wrong none of them none of them were in any way fashion or form prepared for this reality none of them knew it was
this bad none of them and this means we need to educate ourselves to recognize these symptoms and signs apparently
this young man had given such symptoms and signs multiple times having done things that would have sent warning
bells off in the immediate uh you know uh circle but again we're not trained to to monitor them and so again i'm not an
expert i'm just going to list for you certain things that are found in the national websites of this country and other
countries about what to what to monitor for and i encourage all of you in all communities to have workshops to raise
public awareness to talk about symptoms to talk about issues pertaining to uh depression and mental health but of the
uh symptoms that indicate that someone is struggling with depression is to constantly be thinking about uh the the
meaning of life the uselessness of life that there's no point uh living and again if you look at this brother's manifesto if
anybody reads it it is full of references to just there's no point there's no point doing this right the point of feeling
helpless the point of feeling futile what's the purpose of it all you're struggling to get meaning out of life this is a warning
sign also constantly thinking of death not so that we are productive look we are told in our sharia to remember death but
the purpose is that we remember death not to be morbid but to say let me live my best life right so we use that as a
motivational factor however if a person thinks of death as a demotivational factor if they think of death and then they're
just sitting and lounging all this what's the point i'm gonna die that's not the point that you're supposed to be thinking of
death about we're supposed to think of death to motivate us into action not to motivate us into doing nothing and also
not just to think of death but to start thinking of causing one's own death this is really when the warning signs become
complete red alert this is like stage 10 of the emergency if a person is constantly thinking about how one should take
one's own life reading articles about this maybe even googling or something of this nature then that person has gone
beyond the yellow zone this is now extremely dangerous zone and to feel that one's life just isn't worth living and again if
you read this brother's letter this is a constant theme of the entire letter he just didn't see the point of it all he seemed
he kept on saying what's the point you know life is just useless uh he didn't find happiness in anything that he had and
uh also other symptoms are given uh extreme change of eating or drinking habits not wanting to be with the friends you
used to to be with uh change in sleep and and mood all of these things are given as symptoms that are just should send
some warning bells off anybody who has such symptoms or you see them in your family and friends you know you
should talk uh you know to them to approach them see what can be done about this and of course it needs to be said
here that faith can give help and again to be very explicit here so that nobody misunderstands me remember i said that
the area of faith and the area of psychiatry they are two different circles that have an overlap in the middle okay they're
two separate circles and there is an overlap in the middle but there's also unique things about each one and so faith can
be helpful but it is not always a cure to all problems of depression there's no doubt that stronger iman helps but
sometimes iman is independent of the root cause of the problem and sometimes the problem has nothing to do with
iman let me just put it to another way having stronger iman is never going to be a problem is it right having stronger
iman is not going to be a negative so it's never going to be detrimental it's always good to have a better relationship with
allah and so for some people that relationship with allah will motivate them and over allow them to overcome their
depression and their suicidal thoughts for others it will require more than just iman it will require therapy and you know
there's another aspect that we we we do have to talk about but not in detail in today's lectures and that is the issue of
those that are battling with mental trauma those that are battling with issues that have affected them maybe when they
were children something happened to them and they haven't come to terms with it maybe they had a very difficult
childhood maybe some type of physical or worse type of trauma in their childhood and you know now that they're young
adults or whatnot so that is an unlocked if you like box in their lives and no matter how much imam or faith you have
that's not going to to to deal with the core of the problem here and that's why you need trained counselors you need
therapists to unpack and unravel that that that knotted box if you like that trauma from the from the you know the
childhood that might have taken place you need somebody that is trained and that that's where therapy comes in and of
course as well sometimes it's not even just psyc psychological sometimes it is medical there might actually be a chemical
imbalance as well so we uh you know we move on to this point and say that we need to learn the symptoms of
depression we need to monitor them in ourselves and in other people and we need to try our best to basically be there
for them and yes as we say from a religious perspective we bring up religion but we understand that religion is a tool it's
not the end all and be all when it comes to this this this topic it is a useful tool and we should use it we should not shy
away from using it we should remind our young brothers and sister we should remind our communities that indeed allah
is rahman and allah is and allah azzawajal has said in the quran don't kill yourselves allah is rahim towards you notice in
the verse that prohibits suicide allah mentions his compassionate nature allah says don't kill yourselves i am
compassionate i am merciful towards you so allah is reminding you that no one loves you more than allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala we remind our young brothers and sisters who are struggling who are going through these thoughts that allah says
in the quran that the future is going to be better for you than the past what's going to happen is better for you than what
has happened you don't know but there is a light at the end of that tunnel tomorrow is going to be a better day and
that's a quranic reality and we also need to say unequivocally every one of us we need to say to our family and friends to
all those that are suffering alone and away from our eyes even if they're physically with us we need to say we are here
for you i don't know if you yourself are suffering but know that i am here for you we need to say this to our family and
friends they should feel this love and this warmth from us that's even if we don't know a particular person is struggling
that person should understand that if he needs help you are there for him your family your friends your close associates
that should be the vibe that you give them the comfort that you give them and uh if the person says to you oh you will
never understand you don't know what i'm going through the response is very clear maybe you're right why don't you
explain it to me i'm not going to say i understand your pain i maybe will not understand your pain maybe your pain is
beyond my understanding but you know what allah understands and allah is rahman and allah is rahim and also we say
to this brother or sister that no matter what pain you are in or what you are suffering that the one who puts you here
knows you can pass the test and that's why he put you here as allah says in the quran no soul is burdened with more
than what it can bear we need to remind our young brothers and sisters we need to remind those struggling with
depression with suicidal thoughts that hey if the world thinks you're a failure allah knows you're not a failure and allah
knows you're going to pass this test and allah put you in this test with the full knowledge and who is more
knowledgeable than allah allah put you through this test knowing you have the tools and the patience and the
perseverance and the fortitude to pass through that test if he knew you would fail you wouldn't be in this test so the very
fact that you're being tested that allah knows you have it in you to pass that test simple as that it's in the quran there's
no two ways about it there's no ifs ands or buts about it you are not going to be tested more than what you can bear and
you know you're right i don't understand your problems you're right i haven't walked in your shoes you're right i don't
know everything going on about you but i'll tell you one thing you're definitely definitely there are people that are tested
worse than you and they are better than me and you you know who they are they are the prophets of allah the prophets
of allah are tested more than any of us look at our prophet salallahu alaihi wasa i want to go into a mini syrah lecture
here but thrice orphan his mother died his father died his grandfather died born into poverty raised in the most
extenuating circumstances rejected by his own people accused of every single evil under the the the sky every single
accusation a madman possessed etc thrown out by his own tribe multiple assassination attempts subhanallah and yet
throughout all of this exuding faith and dignity inspiring others with courage so don't take me or your family or friends as
role models take the prophets of allah as role models study their history read about them and their trials because wallahi
their trials are more than mine in yours i'm not saying they're the same maybe your specific trial is different i'm not
comparing the the the the actual trial but i'm comparing the overall the sufferings of the prophets are at a different level
all together and what they had to undergo is much more than any of us even though they are better than any of us and
so don't translate your suffering into the notion that allah does not like you on the contrary in our faith we turn it around
dear brother and sister and we say if you are tested then know that allah loves you our prophet sasam said this this isn't
me speaking allah prophet sallallahu alaihi said memorize this hadith the prophet sallallahu alaihi when allah loves his
servant he tests him and the more he loves him the more he tests him so that his ranks are raised higher and higher and
higher so as you are being tested and you're struggling to understand the wisdom in these tests you know what dear
brother and sister the wisdom is very clear and that is allah wants to raise your ranks and the way that that is done in this
world the way that that is done is by passing one test after another and you know how you pass the test you know how
you pass the test by not doing something foolish by not cheating by not do re-changing the rules and suicide is a type of
cheating suicide is changing the rules we don't do that we do not do that we are patient we persevere we turn to allah
we ask allah for our patience and we live day by day with the full certainty that a day will come that will be better than
yesterday and slowly but surely our lives will become better and you know dear brother and sister however you're
feeling don't keep it bottled up do not keep it bottled up go find people who love you wallahi there are people who love
and care about you if one person says no if one person rejects you if one person doesn't understand don't give up on the
rest of humanity talk to somebody talk to your close friend talk to your cousin or somebody who cares about you if one
person doesn't understand find somebody who does trust me your friends would rather talk to you than pray over your
janazah your friends would rather talk to you listen to you cry give you their shoulder to cry on than to come to your
janazah and pray over your body so these are the two alternatives find somebody to talk to and don't even think about
the other alternative also another aspect of this tragedy that i feel the need to comment on is that the letter that this
brother wrote subhanallah it really uh it really demonstrates the shallowness of this dunya you know the brother writes
that he had everything successful education he's in college you know he's popular with his friends he even mentioned
may allah forgive he had a girlfriend everything he had all of that he goes everybody would think that i would be the
happiest but inside he was empty and you know what that shows it does show that this dunya is not the ultimate abode
of happiness now again i don't know the specific family and brother what not we're speaking generics we need to
extrapolate subhanallah depression is on the rise the world health organization has released a report last year in which it
said that globally globally the reports of depression are at all time high in every single continent in every single country
and millennials are the highest in human history millennials those that are born 2000 and after are the highest in human
history now i am not a millennial i was born in the 70s and i'm speaking now to the adults that have children especially
those that have teenage children dear adults you need to stop stop extrapolating your childhood onto their childhood
you know we don't understand what is happening with the modern world we don't understand the damage that has
been done with the internet and with satellite stations and with social media we're still studying the effects of the
damage of social media on toddlers and on children we don't know what is going on the world is aghast psychiatrists
across the across the globe are are just shocked at the rise in teenage suicide and depression at the rise in having to
prescribe medication to teenagers and we think we're still living in the 80s and sometimes even i feel this way like i tell
my children hey i had it worse than you but you know i don't understand they're in a different world it's not their fault
it's not their fault they were born in a different time in a different place and we don't understand why it is going on we
don't nobody has definitively answered what is going on is it just because of social media is it the narcissism is it the
overload of entertainment is it the emptiness of spirituality is it the breakdown of family uh is it that you know they're
not interacting with one another you know we would go out and play i would literally get dirty in the streets playing with
my friends and you know my kids don't do that anymore right we don't know what is going on but something something
across the globe has affected our next generation it's altered their minds it's making them think and act in ways that we
did not act and we don't understand just because we don't understand it does not diminish the severity of it i don't
understand why they seem to have everything but maybe because they have everything maybe because to a certain
extent they have been spoiled and pampered but it's not their fault it's the fault of technology in the world that they find
themselves in but there is an emptiness in their lives and you know our fathers and grandfathers they say we don't get it
we came to this country wanting to give you guys a better life you have it all we gave it to you it's on a silver platter why
don't you appreciate it but you know our fathers had to struggle to get what they had and our children they are born into
that luxury our parents and our grandparents they had to work hard to get a little bit of that happiness and our children
they don't even know how to get happiness they're surrounded by this false happiness and therefore when they
experience it then internally they're yearning for a higher purpose and they feel an internal vacuum and this brother's
manifesto again if you read it it is screaming for internal help he keeps on saying what's the point of it i'm not happy i had
everything everybody thinks i should be happy but i'm not happy he had his degree on his way he had everything he has
getting good grades and a top university but still there's not a sense of fulfillment and of course again i don't know this
particular brother so i'm not prescribing what should have happened but i'm speaking to the future and i'm speaking to
us right now that we can learn from this the importance of instilling in our children that the ultimate happiness and the
ultimate purpose is not a degree it's not education it's not getting good grades it's not getting married in a house no the
ultimate happiness is the happiness of the akhirah it is the pleasure of allah it is having a connection with our creator and
again i am not saying that religion is going to solve every problem but it's never going to harm anything is it right having
more religion is always useful and i would say that one of the things as a community that we need to do especially as
financially we rise the the the the um avenue of success and our wealth you know is a crude generation from a
generation you know i speak now my children are third generation now you know and subhanallah again on a personal
anecdote my father came here in the early 60s and he keeps on telling me and reminding me that his first job was i think
90 cents an hour you know he would he would have to work my kids if they were to get a job at minimum wage they
would box i'm not going to work at you know six dollars an hour would i why would i do that in three generations right
from 90 cents to whatever it is it's a different era now and i don't blame them that's the way that they are what is then
the alternative it's not their fault you know their grandfather was successful that insha'allah their parents were
successful now they have financially a modicum of success guess what then we need to emphasize finances and degrees
and education they're all secondary what is most important is our islamic identity that's a tarbia that needs to be done
and again to be clear i am not saying it wasn't done in the family i'm not saying it would have solved the problem i'm
simply saying it is one of the things we need to do as a faith-based community and that is to emphasize we have a higher
purpose this particular brother he did not discover a higher purpose in life i don't know why was he not a believer was he
not really i don't know we don't know but what we do know is that in the manifesto it is patently clear he kept on saying
what is the purpose of it all what's the purpose of working and gaining money and to which if we had somebody like that
come to me i would say that's not your purpose you're right what is the purpose of working 50 years and then dying
what is that's not the purpose the purpose is you leave a positive legacy the purpose is you bring happiness to orphan
children around the world the purpose is you gain some money and you distribute it to the fukura the purpose is you
bring a smile to the face of refugees in your community the purpose is you so you bring something positive and you bring
a higher value to your life than money and then entertainment and then you know uh getting a good degree because a
lot of our young brothers and sisters a lot of them they're getting all of this for free they have all the education they want
they have all the entertainment they want and they're still not happy unless we tell them that's not your goal because
you see let's be brutally honest here for many of our ancestors for our first generation that was the goal the goal was
what what i need a large house that's the goal that's why i left my homeland we were struggling we were in the lower
socioeconomic class i need to get to upper middle class guess what our donation got there by and large alhamdulillah by
and large i'm being stereotypical by and large we got there okay now our children they're not they didn't get there they
were born into it and they're seeing through the shallowness of all of this and they're wondering what what is it all for
and that's where religion does have a huge role to play again not the only role but a huge role and that's why it is even
more important especially those parents dear parents who are not the into the religion that much realize for the sake of
your mental sanity it will help you and your children to have a good and healthy relationship with stable uh religion you
know too many of us we emphasize a better tomorrow via education and via good grades and we neglect the better via
and via spirituality more important than tomorrow is the tomorrow will go every day you're going to have that the akhira
will never go away and that is why dear brothers and sisters instilling in your children a genuine love of allah and the
genuine purpose of life it is so so important reading this letter as he himself said nothing made him happy and i'm gonna
quote you one aspect he goes it's not fair i did everything right every little curse word thing right and i'm still apathetic
it's not fair how everyone can be so content while i can't even fathom being happy no matter what i do i just can't be
happy and quote he is saying he's tried everything and again i don't know that family or that brother we need to make
sure our children don't give up on religion happiness is not going to be found in what the list is here which is education
and friends and this and that and haram thinks that he has no happiness ultimate happiness yes the spiritual side what
are we here to do what will make us feel noble what is a higher purpose it's definitely not degrees it's definitely not
education that's secondary you can be happy and you're not educated in the technical sense right you think the only way
to be happy is by getting a bachelor's and a phd subhan allah how elitist is that no happiness is internal happiness is a
connection with allah surrounded by loving family and friends that is happiness right education is not an indication of
happiness but unfortunately too many amongst us emphasize the worldly side and we neglect the uh the religious side
so again make sure that we do this because uh the brothers letter really is a cry for help and again i want to be clear here
for allah i am not overlooking the horrible crime that took place not at all for allah no one is condoning uh the brutal
murder of four innocent people by two young man no one is is is saying that that is justified and if there was sanity in
those who did this crime they have to answer to allah for one of the most heinous crimes imaginable and that is of killing
your own parents and your own sibling and toddler and your own grandmother but if they were not sane if they were
not and we do not know we do not know then what is the purpose in passing judgments what is the purpose you know i
i gave a facebook post and a number of people were very angry why didn't you use harsher language how could you
overlook the crime that the person has done to which the response is i am not overlooking but i'll let allah judge i'll let
allah judge i don't know whether they were sane or insane i don't know we will leave it to allah the crime is brutal and at
some level everybody everybody is is is tragically you know affected at some level at some level every one of them is a
victim this is not to exonerate how can anybody if there was sanity then then allah deal with them i can't even there's no
adjectives there what's the point what are my adjectives going to do to solve that you know so we leave their affair to
allah again the goal is to take this incident and to extrapolate generically so that we try our best that nothing like this
ever ever happens again and you know one point of the letter uh which was actually uh very touching was that the this
person says that what kept him going for the longest time was the love of his brother and the love of his family
subhanallah the letter says that what he would have he said he would have killed himself a long time ago he would have
done this many many years ago he said but what kept him going was love now here's the point here is the point that i
want to bring up with you that we need to ask ourselves next time somebody comes out to us reaches out to us
remember this brother what did he say the love of the family pushed him for as long as it did and then something else
snapped he didn't his family didn't stop loving him something else snapped but for that period of so many years he goes
what delayed it was that love he it's right it's written right there for us so next time we see somebody in our own
extended family circle of friends our acquaintances realize what they need is validation and love what they need is to be
sustained by that love and allah knows in an alternative you know we don't think about what ifs you know but we do
which simply wonder it's not we don't go down the path of of what ifs what if what would have happened in an
alternative universe but from our side we need to realize that reaching out sympathizing empathizing comforting helping
just loving someone who's troubled and you know if you listen to my seerah lectures and lies of the sahaba i do this all
the time that you know the sahaba would con comfort one another the process i'm comforting the sahaba allah is
comforting the prophet sallallahu alaihi and multiple times in the quran i know it's difficult i know your heart is troubled
allah is doing this the comfort is needed you the words of affirmation words of support just to say i'm here for you
anything you need etc etc another point that he mentions and this needs to be mentioned explicitly some of us need to
hear this explicitly is that he says that medication did help him and i say this because all too often many of us have this
sense that medication doesn't help but the brother himself said that medication did help i'm not a doctor i'm not gonna
argue medically here and there i'm simply using what the brother wrote and also by the way i'm not a doctor uh but
people have come to me that are that are struggling with issues and they come to me with respiratory advice and you
know sometimes they're struggling with depression sometimes they're struggling with suicidal thoughts and they're
coming to me for religious not for the because i'm not a therapist i don't do the therapy side and they have told me that
medication has helped them overcome some of these thoughts so i'm no doctor but anecdotally clearly sometimes this
medication is is helpful if it is i guess done properly and whatnot but my point is that this point is merely being generic
and that is that we should not dismiss outright uh medication uh if the doctors prescribe it and they are experts in the
field then uh that is something that we should be uh open to now another very awkward topic i'm gonna gloss over this
because it's not something i'm interested to talk about too much detail but i have been asked this multiple times the last
day or so and that is with regards to um again let's not talk about this particular case because i don't want to be you
know it's sensitive still it just happened let's talk generically speaking that a lot of people are told that when somebody
uh takes his or her own life uh much less does a crime uh against humanity that the community should not pray janazah
over that person rather members should do this but not the leadership not the imam and you know this is an awkward
topic i'm not talking about this particular scenario i don't want to be insensitive but the topic needs to be discussed
generically once again it is authentically reported uh that uh the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in madina somebody
was brought to him janaza and he had taken his own life and uh the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam himself did not uh
offer the janazah but he told the others to offer the janazah over that person and from this the ruler have derived that
anyone who does uh a type of crime like for example a highway robber a murderer somebody that does a crime against
humanity or even you know dies in this type of fashion and they were sane and normal that they they did it in their own
thing that the leadership of the community should send a message because you see imagine in a tight-knit community
imagine in a a community where everybody knows each other and there's great respect and love that you hear that
somebody you know is is is a murderer and the community refused to pray janaza only two three people they prayed and
they it's gonna cause you know a signal to be sent to the rest of the living people right it's gonna cause others to say i
don't wanna i don't wanna i don't wanna go down that path you know i don't wanna be you know ashamed of that on on
my janaza so the purpose is very clear in a tight-knit community where everybody you know there's love and there's
camaraderie that to do something of this nature sends a message that hey we we are not happy at what you have done
and i remember by the way that you know um again this happened in one city that uh a certain person had done crimes
against humanity killing a lot of people and what and uh the masjid basically said we we're not gonna pray janaz over this
person to send the message that and so you know just some two three people they just preaching us in the graveyard
and it is to send the message that we would this is another issue not not this one now uh i have been asked about this
and i i want to just say that you know this goes back to the pros and cons it's not like a ruling for a specific scenario it
goes back to the um pros and cons and you know we don't know the mental state really of the people who did this uh if
they were mentally diagnosed as insane if they were really completely insane we leave to refer to allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala uh if there is a point that a message should be sent that people are actually going to derive a message that is being
sent and again that's a big if you know if people not praying janazu over a person who has done a crime will send the
message to other people to not do that crime then definitely it's a part of the sunnah but will that be met in such in this
type of circumstance allahu allah i'm skeptical and so i leave this matter to the local community the old local masjid leave
it to them and it is up to them what is to be done um one final point and i was wondering whether i should do this or not
but you know it's in the note of the brother and it needs to be therefore i mean i just don't see the point of leaving it out
and that is the it's relevant only to us here in america and that is the damning section in his own letter about the laxity of
our own gun laws i quote and this is from his letter i would say the only hard part of the plan was getting the guns but
that would be a lie my fourth and final point gun control in the u.s is a joke all my brother had to do was to go to the gun
shop say something about wanting a gun for home defense sign some forms and that was it there was a question asking
if he had any mental illness but get this he lied both of them were diagnosed as mentally ill both of them were diagnosed
as suicidal both of them were on medication okay he literally walked in the guy asked him are you mentally ill he goes no
and that's it he literally just said no i go back to his letter they didn't ask for proof or if he was just or if he was taking any
medication he was just a yes or no question literally anyone can get a gun if they haven't been officially diagnosed thanks
for making the process so easy end quote both of these brothers both of these brothers were taking medication for
mental illness they had been diagnosed with mental illness they had been diagnosed as suicidal and yet he himself says
gun control in the u.s is a joke this is a damning indictment of our own country's lax gun laws where a diagnosed
mentally ill depressed suicidal person could just waltz in and buy two guns without even a rudimentary background
check you know i don't want to make this uh you know uh uh political and i to those who say we shouldn't politicize gun
control following a tragedy i say and what else should we do when the one who himself realizes he shouldn't have a gun
when he himself leads you a suicide note saying why did i even get this gun i shouldn't have been able to get this gun and
then you tell me i shouldn't politicize a tragedy after six lives have been taken for how long are we going to ignore the
elephant in the room this country of ours the united states of america it has the highest rate of death by guns in all of the
liberal western democracies of the world by far the only countries that beat us they are the countries in which there are
drug cartels that's it even the middle east we are higher than the middle east itself and they call the middle east and
other muslim countries barbaric and yet the number of debts that are caused by guns we are by far the number one in
the western liberal democracies and the reason for this isn't because those that are born in this part side of the world
has some different dna it's quite straightforward why are there no mass shootings in the nordic countries why are there
no killers roaming the streets in canada and in australia and whatnot why it's one major factor that separates our land
from all the other lands and that is the ease of getting weapons and also especially of assault rifles and pretty much
almost like submachine guns we just walk in and we waltz in and we get it and subhanallah it's just a sad reality of the
world that we live in and no matter what happens yet the gun lobbies of this country remain powerful and strong and it
shows you the shallowness of our politics where what counts is who finances what and the powers behind lobbying and
not actual statistics and not actual realities in any case to conclude all of this your brothers and sisters yes there was a lot
of commentary on the specifics no doubt about that but it wasn't about the specific incident here in dallas you know
what terrifies me what really terrifies me in all likelihood every one of you knows somebody who's potentially thinking of
suicide every one of you without exception is directly in the immediate circle of another potential one of these maybe
not even the house killing or not just himself or herself but we don't know we don't know because we're not monitoring
the signs or even worse we do know but we don't care like he himself said every friend of his and i'm not blaming i don't
know but that's what he himself says every friend of his abandoned him that's what he himself says so the question is
not about the past the question is about the future that what are we going to do about battling mental illness depression
suicidal thoughts in the next generation it's not their fault i understand we i don't understand well i don't understand
why i don't understand these kids seem to have everything that we would have only dreamed about when i was growing
up in the 80s and yet still they're empty and they're searching for meaning and and and i don't understand why but it is
what it is and what i don't want to see is our own children our own youth going down this this road i don't want to have
and you know in the course of the last few years stuff for allah but in all of our communities in every single you know
masjid community this is happening now our teens are turning to suicide every few months we hear of one in our own
local this one was especially tragic because it was a murder suicide but just in terms of suicides it is a normal statistic and
in terms of depression it is a mainstream statistic mainstream i don't know off the top of my head but i was reading
somewhere 25 or something of you know millennia i mean that's an obscene percentage one out of four is struggling
with depression and then you know percentage of that struggling with suicidal thoughts so it's time that you know we
we stop pretending that this trouble doesn't exist it's time that we forget our taboos and lokia what will people say
forget other people it's your own kid it's your own son it's your own daughter forget what others are going to say when
they come to you love them when they come to you open up your hand and heart to them this is the future these are
our futures if we're not going to protect them then who will we have to stop worrying about our previous you know
cultures and whatnot this is the future of our faith it's the future of who we are there's nothing more precious to us after
our faith than our children so this incident should be an eye-opener for all of us that we just want to make sure that
nothing like this ever happens again and we have to try our best to work actively for reducing mental illness depression
and especially suicide we ask allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for afiya we ask allah for his protection we ask allah to help guide
us and to guide others through us and with that inshallah we're going to take a break for ramadan for our q a and come
back after the month of ramadan was foreign foreign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlZhuV81aaQ

Depression and Mental Health In Islam | Nouman Ali Khan

if you're suffering from depression one of the worst things you can do is suffer alone but you have to share you shouldn't
just go around telling your friends by the way I'm really depressed what should I do then you go to the next friend hey by
the way I'm really depressed what should I do I just need some advice and you just collect advice you don't do anything
you just collect advice some people are like that and then they start making memes depression is the worst thing in the
universe.

Yes, depression is serious it's an actual medical condition and you should treat it as such our religion offers spiritualual
Solutions and it also offers emotional Solutions our messenger sallallah alaihi wasallam when he was having difficulty in
his marriage sought the help of a counselor the counselor to humanity sallallah alai wasallam recommended somebody
should come and counsel the what's going on between myself you know and and uh so when he did that with when he
did that what does that teach you it's a Sunnah of the Prophet s wasallam to seek outside help it's a Sunnah of the
prophet wasallam and if you're suffering from depression one of the worst things you can do is suffer alone but you have
to share you shouldn't just go around telling your friends by the way I'm really depressed what should I do then you go to
the next hey by the way I'm really depressed what should I do I just need some advice and you just collect advice you
don't do anything you just collect advice some people are like that and then they start making memes depression is the
worst thing in the universe and then the next meme if only people knew how depression worked and next these are
going to help you like putting a billboard outside your house depressed over here please drive slow slowly and wave you
know seek help not from Facebook seek help not from Instagram or or or SnapChat seek help from actual people who
can help you seek my recommendation a professional counselor there's nothing wrong with seeking that kind of counsel
but seek that kind of help it'll you know maybe maybe it's not something spiritual maybe it's something emotional and
let me tell you one thing about that human beings have three kinds of needs we have physical needs like food and other
needs we have spiritual needs connecting to our God and then we have emotional needs yeah feeling loved feeling like
we belong feeling like we're understood feeling safe those are emotional needs right these are all equal needs if one of
them is missing it affects the other ones they are connected to each other if you're hungry which is a physical need you
might be in a bad mood which is emotional and when if you're in a bad mood and you're hungry your prayer is not going
to be that good is it now things are connected so yeah we we we have to acknowledge the the the importance of
addressing emotional challenges and not reducing them to spiritual challenges you know sometimes people have an
emotional problem like depression they're sad or they feel like they don't have the energy to get out of bed by the way
depression isn't just sadness there's more to it than that right but somebody says you should just remember Allah if you
had IM in Allah you wouldn't feel sad really you heard of how many years did the man cry until he lost his eyesight you
want to go give him a lecture about how much IM in Allah he should have he's a messenger of Allah he's a prophet of
Allah you could be spiritually connected to Allah and still feel depression our messenger nobody's more connected to
Allah in his words than our messenger sallallah and Allah says about him we know that the things they say make you sad
and here we are more Islamic than Islam if you have Iman you will not be sad it's completely okay to be sad it's a part of
life our messenger felt sad sallallahu alaihi wasallam that's not a spiritual problem and by the way when you tell
someone even at funerals we do this somebody's son son passed away somebody's wife pass have wait what I don't
have sa don't cry have sa did anybody give y am the lecture to not cry and have sa having sa and crying are two separate
things you're totally allowed to cry and the fact that you're crying does not mean you don't have what sa and if
somebody's experiencing that kind of sadness and you go tell them by the way you don't have sa they're like oh I'm sad
now I'm even more sad because Allah is not happy with me you made their problem even worse you know so we have to
develop emotional sensitivity when giving counsel we sometimes we give Islamic counsel that's not Islamic that's not
even from Allah's book or the teachings of our messenger sallallahu alaihi wasallam