Before truly discovering the depth and beauty of Islam, it irritated me when, upon a tragedy, lost love or disappointment, someone would assure me not to worry, with quite corny sayings such as when the door is closed, a window will open.
To me, these words were groundless, because no one can see the future. These words sounded hollow and were more to lighten the situation rather than to provide solid comfort. It seemed to be a substitute for the more obvious truth that we simply don’t know what’s going on, and that there is no assurance that something better is on the way.
Could the person saying those words guarantee a better future? I didn’t think so, based on those who kept waiting for the window to open, and often ended up disappointed.
Are these words of comfort totally off tangent, though? Here is how we see things if applying the knowledge of Islam:
1. Dunia is temporary
Nothing is forever. We cannot freeze a moment in time. That rainbow will disappear, the shadows of the tree will shift and leave us exposed to the sun. Our bodies change, our thinking constantly evolves and even our hearts can switch between love to hate to indifference in a second. Our lives will end. This state of flux extends to everything in our lives. The elements of it which bring us joy will evaporate, and the elements that bring us sadness will also fade away. So whatever we are facing, good or bad, will pass. We have to be open minded and ready to cope with these changes, and to understand that whatever we are going through, is not forever.
2. The past is the past
Many of us cling to the past, and hope that whatever happy situation before will be restored to exactly how it was. We romanticize our memories and are unable to move on, waiting for the past to catch up with the present. Back to the days before that person passed away. Back to the days where we were working in our old jobs. Back to the days before the war started.
The reality is that time moves forward, things change and will never be the way they were before. You can go to the same restaurant and order the same dish that you ordered last week, but the experience of eating it will not be the same. Life goes on and the past cannot be recreated. The faster you understand this, the easier it will be to write a new, better chapter in your life, instead of flipping the pages backwards and to wait for something which will never happen again.
3. The world is a testing ground
There is never a perfect situation. A happy family would have a black sheep, a good job might require you to move town, a marriage might be destroyed by an early death.
Allah always tests our sincerity, and like most tests in this world, we are tested where it hurts, where it matters and on topics which are the most difficult to us.
“Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.” (Al Qur’an 2:155)
We are tested with our deepest fears and our wildest dreams. The harder the test, the higher the rewards IF we pass the test, and the solution is given together with the test – to patiently persevere with what Allah has decreed. It means not to fear, not to complain and not to despair, but to be optimistic and patient.
Life is like a food platter, with some components of them sweet, and some of them bitter. The series of tests is to determine whether we are grateful to Allah with the whole platter and all its different parts, or whether we will complain, rebel, and disobey Allah when we take a bite of the bitter. To pass the test, we have to be grateful for what we have, and to be patient with what we don’t.
No one said that the test would be easy, and in fact Allah asks us: “Do the people think that they will be left to say, “We believe” and they will not be tried?” (Al Qur’an 29:2)
Allah tests us all the time, through ease and hardship. Through hardship such as heartbreak, tragedies and dead ends, Allah is reminding us that HE is our first, last and only option, and that we are to turn to Him. Through ease, our test is whether we remember Him, or whether we grow spiritually complacent and place our reliance on our success, be it our jobs, banks or those we love.
4. You can handle it
Especially in times of hardship, things might not make any sense to us. We struggle to see the justice in what has happened, and all we see ahead is an impenetrable wall. We cannot visualize a future without the thing or the person we lost. We get furious and scared if afflicted with disease and pain. When in such a vulnerable state, it is easy for us to feel broken, lost, sad and desperate. We mourn and cry, and sometimes it feels like our world is crumbling.
Allah promises us that He will not burden a soul with more than it can bear: “Allah does not burden any soul with more than it can bear.” (Al Qur’an 2:286)
If you feel yourself unraveling, trust in Allah that He had already empowered you with the strength to bear the weight of the problem. He knows our personal and individual limits and He would not torment us with what we cannot cope with.
The problem occurs, when we add on to the original problem with other problems of our own creation. For example, a woman in a failing marriage tries to make herself feel more confident by having a relationship with another man. A man in a difficult situation turns to gambling for release. These are self imposed problems, so if you drink alcohol to ease a broken heart and wake up with a hangover, you did this to yourself! Instead of working on lightening that load, your actions actually made the problem harder to solve.
However, if you trust in Allah, know that whatever the original problem is, you have the inner strength to see the matter through.
5. The goal is akhirah
There are ways to test tangible things – the money you have, the number of children you are blessed with, etc. But did you know that in your book of good deeds, the intangible things are recorded as well? Each pang of pain and sadness you endure, all the anguish that you have hidden within your heart, does not go unnoticed or unheard by Allah. We think that just because we keep our suffering silent, no one will know. But as a believer, trust that in reality, Allah knows the intensity of our emotions, even if we keep quiet about it.
The tears of a believer are so precious, because when we cope with pain and disappointment the way Allah wants us to, with the full understanding that we are being tested for our sincerity to Him, with the maximum amount of contentment possible towards His decree, and with absolute trust in Him to take care of us, the rewards are magnificent: expiation of sins, avoidance of calamities, easier provision and other immeasurable rewards from Allah.
Allah knows how difficult it is to remain calm for His sake when He snatches everything away from us, or our agony when He gives us disease and pain which we bear with patience. In reality, all our reactions, hidden or open, are recorded in our books and will be placed on our scales on the Day of Judgment.
So remember – this is just a test to see if you deserve something better, and if you bear it in the way advised by Allah, you will accelerate your entry into Jannah, insha Allah.
If the pain is too awful to bear and we cannot be placated, it is because we are either ignorant of the promise of Allah, or that the trust in Him is lacking. Yet, Allah understands everything – our crushed feelings included. So have faith when someone comforts you and tells you it will be fine. Because it will be, if you trust in Allah.
6. The heart has to be free
The love of Allah cannot truly take place in our hearts if our lives and emotions are cluttered with the love, commitment and devotion to other than Allah. The more we drift away from the purpose of life, the less of Allah we have in our hearts, and Allah will send us a wake up call to remind us. The wake up call however, needn’t necessarily be pleasant.
Sometimes events jolt us to give the clarity of vision and perspective. Someone’s death, for example, is often the catalyst for us to reassess the direction of our lives. A loss of something, if it makes us turn to Allah, will cause us to devote more time and attention to Him. We have all been lost in the spiral of dunia at some point in our lives, and if Allah pulls us back by removing some element of dunia, be thankful.
When something is taken away from us, it is a gentle wake up call for us to place our reliance only on Allah, and not the ones we love. It is a reminder that anything or anyone we love in this world will vanish, and that only Allah remains. It reminds us that the only one in control is Allah. The One who took did it for a reason. When we let go of what we lost, we should occupy that space in our hearts, thoughts and emotions with the love of Allah – the love which will lead us to the infinite victory in this life and the hereafter.
7. The door will open
Akhirah being the goal, if Allah loves you and sees you spending too much time on dunia and this proves to be an obstacle from your akhirah, He will remove it to clear the way for you. This obstacle might be something or someone that you love obsessively above Allah, and its removal will cause you pain. Or it might be something that you love dearly, but what you love is harming you in dunia and akhirah. However, if you understood the implication of what had happened, you would be grateful.
If Allah takes something away from you, and you are patient with His decree, He will replace it with something better. It might be a better version of the thing that you lost or a different thing or person entirely. In the case of Umm Salamah AS, Allah took her beloved husband’s life in the Battle of Uhud, but gave her a replacement husband who was even better – Rasulullah SAW. In the case of Yaqub AS, he was reunited with his beloved son, but at the stage where Yusuf AS was no longer a small boy, but a prophet and an esteemed treasurer of Egypt.
Be open minded that the replacement may come in some other form. It is not always apple for apple. The dead will not come back to life. Don’t demand for what you lost to be restored to the way things were, but rather, place your hopes and reliance on Him to plan the best for you. You may have lost your job, but He might give you a windfall which is worth more than your salary. He may have given you a disease, but compensated it with the cleansing of your sins and making you a more patient person. You just don’t know the manner in which the rewards are coming, so expect the unexpected, and be grateful to Allah every step of the way.
8. Life is fair
Life is fair, because Allah is just. The issue is that when something happens, we only see a one sided view and our vision is incomplete.
With Allah, there are no loose ends. Whatever happens, trust in Allah to be fair to you in this life and the Hereafter. His justice is comprehensive. On the Day of Judgment, even animals will be able to claim their rights against each other.
Allah will deal with the person who wronged you. He will compensate you for what was taken from you. You will not be cheated and deprived of your rights and He will dispense justice in the way no one on earth can. For example, if someone had hurt your feelings, no judge on earth can prescribe a sentence of equal pain or give you the remedy to ease the hurt, but Allah in His infinite wisdom, is capable of that and more. Leave things in the hands of Allah. You will get your justice even if the wrong was done behind your back.
We tend to think life is unfair when things go wrong. However, the truth is that Allah is infinitely fair, but only if looking beyond. Our lives may end and we feel that things have been left hanging, but Allah’s justice goes beyond our lifespan. Maybe we were deprived of something in dunia, but we will get our compensation, and more, in akhirah. Maybe we are fed up with our calamities, but we would be more content to put up with it if we understood that this will reduce our calamities in akhirah. Maybe we were denied beauty or wealth, because Allah knows that we will use these gifts wrongly and to our own destruction. Finally, “But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not.” (Al Qur’an 2.216)
Will the door open?
In fact, think of the times even when your relationship with Allah was shaky, but when He took something from you, you later realised that what you received in return was so much better. So imagine if your relationship with Allah was stable and you react to loss in a way that please Him, how much more will He give to his obedient slave?
For a Muslim, when a door closes, we don’t look at the window to open. The more accurate description would be that when a DOOR CLOSES, MANY DOORS WILL OPEN. But this is only if you believe and are contented with the will of Allah, and respond to an incident in the way that Allah wants. Remember that not all the doors are located in this world. Some of these doors will be open for you in Jannah, by which time, you would wish that Allah had tested you with even more suffering and hardship in dunia, because of the immense and indescribable rewards awaiting you for putting up with such hardship, heartache and disappointment with patience in Allah.
It is never the end for the believer when dunia does not go according to plan. For Muslims, life is a marathon, not a sprint. We just keep on going and going, because what we want is to cross that finish line to Jannah. Whatever blessings and shortcomings that Allah scatters in our path are either tools or obstacles, either to temporarily grant us relief and respite, or to try us. Just like any obstacle race, if you spend too much time being distracted by the obstacle, you will lose the race.
May Allah open the doors of Jannah to us, ameen.
