Tawakkul: Putting your trust in Allah

I want you to recall one latest episode from your life where you felt absolute helpless, you got panic, you caught yourself in extreme despair because of whatsoever the reason might be. Each one of us do, right? It is normal to feel such emotions especially when situations like that hit you. There is one thing that we forget in that moment to realize that there is this huge divine power - Allah, Who has control over everything. We forget that the doors to Allah’s mercy and help are always open for us. We don’t realize it until we fall apart.

While growing up, I have seen elders in my family especially my grandparents talking about Tawakkul a lot. I would at times wonder, how can one talk about Allah so much so that they would conclude their every conversation by resting their matters upon Him. Alhamdulillah, I have now come to the terms of understanding Tawakkul which means putting your trust upon Allah.

It is important to understand that to practice Tawakkul; we need to first build our connection stronger with Allah. In this fast pacing era, where everyone is chasing success in this world, somehow we are leaving behind the real truth of hereafter. We are after chasing more, forgetting to be grateful for the blessings we already have. We care about the rules set by people so as to not hurt them, at the cost of hurting our only Creator, Allah. Allah has made His message very clear to this Ummah to not treat this world as their permanent place to live in but to prepare for the hereafter. It is so disappointing to watch people around turning away from Allah instead of turning towards Him. We need to walk that one step towards Him so that we find Him ten steps closer to us.

To keep ourselves firm and aligned with Allah, we need to follow “one step at a time” strategy. Allah made Salah obligatory for Muslims. How many of us really offer five times of Salah? Have we ever delved into the reason of us not offering Salah? What are the excuses that we convince ourselves with or give when anyone asks us about it? Honestly saying, I would get offended when someone in my family would scold me for not praying Salah. With time, I realized that those alarms were so necessary and important until I made this a habit of offering Salah. We have five times of Salah as an alarm set by Allah to remember Him, to praise Him, to be grateful to Him, to ask for His forgiveness, to repent for our sins. It is so unfortunate to find excuses and later complain of not attaining peace in our lives.

We trust people around us but we fail to trust our only Creator. We are so blindfolded by the temporariness of this dunya. Whenever we encounter any minor inconvenience in our life, we know it has a solution like for example, one wakes up in the morning and finds they have got fever. Obviously, they would rush to a doctor and know that medicines will treat this fever. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same kind of trust on Allah. Whenever we experience anything huge which is saddening, we become hopeless, we forget to put our trust on Allah. We lose our hopes and tend to dwell into that one particular thing. On the contrary, if we have a strong connection with Allah, we know it is He who has put such situation and it is He who will take care of this matter further. If we live by this mindset, we will Insha Allah never fall prey to satan who is always upto deviating the devouts of Islam from their track.

We have to know that Allah is the best of Planners. Whatever he does, is always in the best favors of a person. Let us not forget to praise Him, thank Him for His blessings bestowed upon us. Let us make this a habit of glorifying Him. We tend to only complain to Him but let us begin our duas (prayers) by Praising His Divine Power. This one single change brings so much of peace because Allah loves when He watches His servant praising Him for what He is. This opens the doors of help, mercy, peace, happiness and what not!

One should have this passion to get closer to Allah. It happens gradually. We tend to read every kind of book but we forget the only book that is Quran. Quran, the book of guidance to the mankind. Why is it that we keep our holy book (Quran) on the upper shelves of almirahs but find it difficult to pick it up, recite it and understand it the way Allah has asked us to. Allah is not happy with that. However, He loves his servants when they have that passion to know what their Creator tells them through His book. Reciting Quran gives peace. It automatically brings you closer to Allah. It brings resilience. He tells us to recite Quran, slowly and calmly. Don’t rush it. And when we read the tafseer (explanation) of Quran, it adds more meaning to what we are reading. Let us start small. Let us begin reciting few verses from each chapter per day. I would strongly recommend keeping your count low in verses so that you can read the tafseer too of those particular verses (ayahs). That’s how we can develop the habit of reciting Quran every day.

Know the reality of this dunya. Know that it is not forever. Know that we are being put through the trials of this dunya from our very own Creator, Allah. Know that Allah tests us with everything He puts us through, be it hardships or be it comfort. Our responsibility is to be humble and put our trust upon Allah. Let us just not only remember Allah in hardships, instead thank Him even in the good times.

Put your best in every good work that you do. Tawakkul never means that you don’t even put efforts. Put your best efforts. Do hard work, test your capabilities and then leave the rest upon Allah. Trust Him enough that whatever the result be, it is surely going to be in your best interest. Even if the result is not what you had expected, trust that Allah has better plans for you than what you had expected.

By: Sana Khurshid