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Ask the Counselor -General Counseling

Nasira S. Abdul-Aleem
17 May, 2017

Dear Brother/Sisters,

We would like to thank you for joining us in this Counseling Live Session.

We would like also to thank our counselor, sister Nasira Abdul-Aleem, for answering the questions.

Please scroll down to read the answers of the questions below.

Feel free to contact us and send your questions any time to:

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Wednesday, May. 17, 2017 | 19:00 - 21:00 GMT

Session is over.
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Views expressed by hosts/guests on this program (live dialogue, Facebook sessions, etc.) are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.  

Assalamualeykum, I need your advice regarding my aunt. She has been physically and mentally abused since she married at the age of 15. The family of her husband used her like a servant, she has been beaten by her husband. Her mother-in-law made evil magic on her. My aunt has two grown up sons. One is married and has a 7 years old daughter. The mother of this girl is mentally abusing and even beating her little daughter and she is calling it teaching discipline. My aunt uses heavy antidepressants and many other medicines. She suffered from memory loss and can't remember two years of her life due to trauma. Now they're living away from the husbands family but the husband is still beating her from time to time. The mother of the little girl is selfish and neglects the child. the girl was literally raised by my aunt. She loves her granddaughter so much. I observed that the girl is already showing signs of anxiety and depression. she has cry attacks and panic attacks. Her father is helpless and tries desperately to look after the family financially. My aunt has now become the servant of her daughter in law, even being severely mentally ill, she even can't walk normally due to these issues. She is been under psychiatric treatment but only through drugs. She can't go out alone, the only thing she is doing is house chores. When I visit her, she gets so happy and I'm listening to her and I want to help more. I wish I could take her out of this hell but I can't. As a student, I can't help her financially. I know she should take psychotherapy but there is no money and no time. No one supports her. Despite these conditions what can I do? I remember her that Allah knows her situation. I tell her to seek refuge in Allah. How can I talk to her else? What can I tell her? I'm quite interested in clinic psychology but I'm no psychotherapist. I wish I was one, I feel so helpless and desperate. I don't want my aunt to suffer anymore.



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu,

 

SubhanaLah. I feel your pain! First and foremost ask Allah for help!

 

In America, you can report child abuse, can you do that in Turkey. Or, do you not want to do that. I don’t like to do it in America because the system is abusive, so, sometimes it is from the frying pain into the fire instead of help.

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Also, you live in Muslim country, are there no groups/social service organizations (non-profit orgs) run by Muslims that have it as their service to intervene in cases like this where a child and an elderly person are being abused (without getting the authorities involved)?

 

Even though you are not a therapist, you can start reading about how psychology works. But, in this case, that is not what you need exactly. You need to get your aunt and her granddaughter out from under the oppression! Then you can help them recovery by helping them understand the psychology of both life and Allah’s plan (i.e., why He created pain and suffering, to test us and help us learn and grow, and as a struggle that, when we overcome it, we can earn Jannah)

 

As far as your Aunt’s needs go, that is a hard one because she is an adult and has to make her own choices, where she can (I know that she does not have her own money so may be stuck, she may just have to deal with her lot). However, the child needs to be protected, inShaAllah. Can you try educating the mother first about the right way to parent, that children learn when in an environment that is loving and encouraging? Hate and abuse never made for permanent healthy growth, as you pointed out, she is already showing signs of anxiety, etc.

 

Ask Allah, and keep asking Allah to send help!

 

If the suffering cannot be relieved, or at least not anytime soon, in the Quran, Allah Says that, when we feel traumatized, very scared, or extremely sad, or the like, we should deal with it by saying “inna li lahi wa inna ilaihi ra jee un” (From Allah we come and to Allah we will return). Thikering this helps the believer see life in its true context, as part of the whole of it, which includes the next life too. That one short sentence references the beginning and the end of life, thereby referencing the essence of life, that life is for the next, not this one.

 

I know that this may not feel like help but the way you painted the situation, it seems as if there are not solutions except internal ones – for your aunt. Again, I must urge you to take action to protect the child. I know this may cause problems in your family but you have to decide what is more important, this poor child’s life or you dealing with problems in your family!

 

May Allah Make it easy for you.

 

My husband has got married without my consent and told me one month later. When we got married, he took swear on Quran and said: "Allah is the witness of all that if I deceive you or get married to any other woman then I must be sent to hell without any other option of forgiveness and I may be kafir at the time of death". He asked me to take same question, I also took same swears that I'll not marry any other man and if I deceive him all conditions are applied to me too. Now, he deceived me when I'm in his nikah; he is not accepting me and asking me to marry someone else, though I want to be with him in any condition but he is saying that his second wife will not accept me. So, he doesn't want me now and will not marry me till death. What do I do now? Should I go for a second marriage? I'll be counted guilty or I'm free of swearing? Please guide me!



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu,

 

SubhanAllah! When two people make a contract with one another and one person in that contract breaks the contract, that contract become null and void for the other person in the contract! If you husband swore as you say he did, and still took another wife, you should not want to be with him because he has little to no fear of breaking his oaths to Allah and the seriousness of his oaths to Allah! A woman’s—wife’s—only protection in a marriage is her husband’s taqwa (awareness of Allah watching him and fear of doing wrong and displeasing Allah).

 

A man is not supposed to obey his wife, so he is supposed to do right by her not because she said to but because Allah told him to, and that is the very thing that your husband is not doing!

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Please double check with the scholars on this site if what I have told you is true – that you can break the oath you swore because he broke the contract first, so you no longer are obliged to keep your part of the contract. Also, contracts that are not Islamic are not binding and your contract sounds really iffy. Please ask a scholar about these finer details of fiqh!

 

I want to compliment you on your taqwa, may Allah increase you in good and in reward!

 

If you have to keep your word/contract and live a future life of celibacy, in the Quran, Allah says that, when we are traumatized, or very scared, or extremely sad, or the like, we should deal with it by saying “inna li lahi wa inna ilaihi ra jee un” (From Allah we come and to Allah we will return). Thikering this helps the believer see life in its true context, as part of the whole of it, which includes the next life too. That one short sentence references the beginning and the end of life, thereby referencing the essence of life, that life is for the next, not this one.

 

May Allah Make it easy for you.

Assalamualaikum. I am going through a hard time. My husband has issues with his family, parents, and siblings. I advised him many times for the sake of Allah, but he is not listening. Instead, he gets angry. He loves me and our daughter very much, but he says that I don’t need to interfere in all these and wants me to just stay away from these issues. My duty is just to look after him and the kids. I am really worried and disappointed with his character. Now I am thinking of divorce. When I told him this, he cried. I don’t know what to do, but I trust Allah. I am thinking of taking this decision only for the sake of Allah. What should I do? Please help me.



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu,

 

I am sorry to hear that you are suffering this divide between you and your husband. You too have two different ways of understanding what marriage is in Islam is, Your husband’s idea is not supported by the example of our Prophet (saw). He (saw) went to Khadijah, his wife (May Allah be pleased with her) with his problems! That is what makes a marriage the intimate relationship that it is meant to be, wherein one enjoys a personal life, as compared to our public life, which is not intimate or safe for sharing our intimate feelings.

 

I would suggest that you write to the scholars on this website from sound evidence from Q and H for what I have said so that you can show it to your husband. Hopefully, that will influence his idea of what the Muslim marriage is supposed to be like. Most men think like your husband. They think that the man is a dictator in his Islamic marriage. This is not true, Allah says in the Quran that we are “equal, but the man is one degree above” in marriage.

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This means that the man and women should try to find answers to their problems that are mutually acceptable. But, if they can’t, then he gets the final say, but only after he tried to get an agreement with his wife and could not. In that case, someone’s idea has to take president—and Allah gave him that right. For some strange reason, Muslim men forget the “equal” part and the “one degree” parts and jump right away to the “above part. Go figure. It is called a “slippery slope” in slang.

 

Husbands also do not realize the benefit that Allah has provided for them in a wife: their wives have a wealth of information that they do not have that they can add to their own knowledge base, it comes from her life’s experiences and her feminine viewpoint, two things which are completely outside of his experience and worldview. Nonetheless, husbands, men, people, do not get it. Our culture defines human value as knowing stuff. So, we feel like we don’t have value if we don’t know things.

 

We feel embarrassed when we don’t know stuff and we hide that fact believing it is a shortcoming. This is not Islam! Islam is: Allah is Al-Aleem, the All-Knowing. We are not that-because only Allah is One, that means we are not like Allah. So, our job is humility, the acknowledgement that we do not know. If people were to have this perspective on the world, we would be open to learning, we would be searching for ways to learn, not ways to prove we know.

 

To help yourself now and if he does not come around to sharing with you as his wife, or at least sharing a little more with you what he feels he can benefit from, in the Quran, Allah says that when we feel traumatized, scared, or sad, or the like, we should deal with it by saying “inna li lahi wa inna ilaihi ra jee un” (From Allah we come and to Allah we will return). Thikering this helps the believer see life in its true context, as part of the whole, which includes the next life too. That one short sentence references the beginning and the end of life, thereby referencing the essence of life that this life is for the next, not this one.

 

May Allah Make it easy for you.

I am suffered from diseases neurofibromatosis according to doctors there no cure for this any where in the world .It is the diseases caused due to genetic mutation of neuron cell.It 's symptoms appears on skin .There are multiple lymph like structure all over my body .please give me any solution.



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhum,

 

I am sorry to hear that you are not feeling well and that you have a disease that is causing you so much anguish and problems! May Allah give you Shifa’a (healing)!

 

The Hadith says that for every disease Allah created, He also created a cure. So, I recommend that you do not take the doctors words and opinions as the final truth on the matter. Rather, take their opinions as: “they have not yet heard of or discovered its cure”.

 

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It already may have been discovered by some other doctor or doctors somewhere else in the world. So, do a search on the web to see if you can find a doctor, or doctors, who are studying and/or curing, and/or finding ways to deal with and/or relieve the symptoms of your particular disease. Somewhere else in the world other than your local town, a doctor may know more about your disease and how to live with it, if not cure it, than your local doctors, inShaAllah.

 

If not, if you truly are going to have to live with your disease because its cure has not been found yet, know that, every pain we suffer is an expiation for our sins. And any test we suffer is a blessing in disguise! I know it does not feel that way but it is paradoxical, i.e., it appears to be one thing but, in actuality, is another.

 

Expiation for sins is at the core of what it means to be a Muslim. Allah says in the Quran that He loves those who repent again and again. The Prophet (saw) indicated that the difference between a believer and an un-believer is that we ask (the believers) Allah to forgive us. When Aisha, the wife of the Prophet (saw) (May Allah be pleased with her), asked the Prophet if a man who was very good to others (before Islam) was going to Jannah, the Prophet said no because he never said “Rabbi aghfirli”, which means, “Oh my Lord, forgive me!”.

 

This proves that it is not our deeds that get us into jannah but our humility in front of Allah. A mustard seed’s size and weight of pride will be in hell. The opposite of pride (what will be in jannah) is humility, i.e., the recognition that we need Allah to provide for us, the thankfulness (shukr) that He did and does, and the willingness to be low in front of Allah, which we show Him (and ourselves) by asking Him to forgive us when we are human, which means fallible.

 

I am not trying to say that you have done anything wrong in relationship to your disease, you have not as far as I know. All I am saying is that it is a blessing to suffer pain because it is the route to forgiveness, and forgiveness, i.e., the mercy of Allah, is our only ticket to jannah, and jannah is the goal, not this life!

 

It is not enough to believe in Allah, shaitan believes in Allah. What we are supposed to do is believe in the form of humility, i.e., submit to Allah. Submission is a behavior and the hadith says that all behaviors are judged by their intentions, in other words, we do cannot know what a behavior means by looking at only the behavior; only Allah Knows that because he can see our intentions, we cannot see other people’s intentions! We have to search for them by asking ourselves or others to understand our own behavior as well as others.

 

All that to say: asking for and getting Allah’s Forgiveness is the measure of our humility, which is the real measure of our belief, not belief alon, and when we suffer pain, it is an automatic expiation for our shortcomings! So, try to be grateful for anything that causes you pain. Once the Prophet (saw) asked his companions (may Allah be pleased with them) what they loved most in this world. All of them said the obvious answers (I forget what they were) but Abu-Hurairah (Allah be pleased with him) said that he liked to be sick. Everyone, even the Prophet was shocked and ask why and he said because it is an expiation for my sins. Subhanalah! So, be comforted by this news my dear sister and try to find a way to look at your suffering in this different light, inShaAllah.

 

In the Quran, Allah Says that when we suffer something that makes us feel traumatized, or scared, or really sad, or the like, we should say, “Inna li lahi wa inna ilaihi ra jee un” (From Allah we come and to Allah we will return). Thikering this helps the believer see his/her life in its real context, as part of the whole of what the real life is, i.e., this life and the next life, with the next being vast and lasting infinitely longer than our present one. That one short sentence references the beginning and the end of life, thereby referencing the essence of life, that life is for the next, not this one.

 

May Allah Make it easy for you

I have been getting anxiety attacks more frequently now than ever. I have gone to the doctor gave me medication and will be going for more test the end of next month. However something happened to me while making salaah which made me really scared I got up . I was in my last rakat in sujood and something came rushing through my body and I had another attack I did call the ambulance who still haven't arrived yet. What I want to know is what it could be that happened to me and do I need to have a ruqaya performed.



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhum,

 

I am sorry to hear that you are not feeling well and that you are having panic attacks. May Allah Give you Shifa’a (healing)!

 

Panic attacks feel very similar to heart attacks, so it is very important that you go to the doctor and find out if these sensations are coming from your heart or your nervous system.

 

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Sometimes panic attacks happened without provocation, but usually, they are in response to stress—or rather, to a level of stress that the person cannot handle. That threshold of stress tolerance is high in some people and low in others. And, an individual person’s threshold for stress will change when they are constantly under stress. Our threshold for anything is called our “tolerance level”.

 

Most people understand the concept of “tolerance” in relationship to drugs, i.e., the more we use a drug, the more we need it for it to get the effect desired from taking it. This happens because our bodies get used to the drug, so we need more of it for it to have an effect on us.

 

Stress, on the other hand, works in the opposite way: the more stress we have, the less we can tolerate it, i.e., we react sooner rather than later to stress because we get overwhelmed with it. Unlike drugs, stress makes our tolerance level less because we are full to our maximum tolerance level for stress. So, when we have more stress, it is like we are overflowing with it, which is what a panic attack is. Once the body learns that it can relieve stress by means of a panic attack, it will resort to that route to relief more quickly, i.e., the more stress a person has, the sooner s/he will have a panic attack—if they are prone to panic attacks in the first place.

 

So, when we have more stress, it is like we are overflowing with it, which is what a panic attack is. Once the body learns that it can relieve stress by means of a panic attack, it will resort to that route to relief more quickly, i.e., the more stress a person has, the sooner s/he will have a panic attack—if they are prone to panic attacks in the first place.

 

If you are having panic attacks and not heart attacks, the best remedy for panic attacks is to remove oneself from the source of the stress provoking the attacks or to remove the source of the stress from you, if possible. If that is not possible because the source of the stress is your child or spouse or schoolwork, etc.

 

Then try to “solve the problem”. Scholars in Islam, therapists, and wise aunties, good friends (who are your confidant) can help, sometimes. But, if those routes to help still do not resolve your problems, then medication can help. If you are having to deal with verbal, physical, or sexual abuse or sexual harassment, like on your job, those things are NOT okay and you should get help to extricate yourself from any abuse! ofcourse first and foremost, and throughout the doing of all these potential remedies, you should be asking Allah to help you solve your problem(s).

 

In the Quran, Allah Says that when we feel traumatized, very scared, or extremely sad, or the like, we should deal with it by saying “inna li lahi wa inna ilaihi ra jee un” (From Allah we come and to Allah we will return). Thikering this helps the believer see life in its true context, as part of the whole of it, which includes the next life too. That one short sentence references the beginning and the end of life, thereby referencing the essence of life—that life is for the next, not this one.

 

In its simple yet true terms, it reminds us that we are going to get the relief we need when we meet Allah. Because Allah is Ar-Rahman, the Merciful, that comforts us, the believers. In the next life, all the wrongs done in this life will be righted by Allah, Who is Truth and Perfect Justice. According to the hadith, our meeting with Allah is going to be happy, like a wedding because we will finally, Al Hamduli Lah, be getting the justice we deserve because all will be right!

 

InShaAllah, saying this can help you get your mind back on track—that this life is just the path to the next and not an end in itself. Saying this can help you get the perspective you need on your pain causing you the panic attacks – if indeed what you are having is panic attacks.

 

La illa ha illa Lah! (You can say that too to glorify Allah that His Sovereignty will Reign Supreme on That Day—to everyone’s notice.

 

And, May Allah Make it easy for you!

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