:sl:
Have you tried applying for the sisters' section? Perhaps the sisters there would be able to help you out inshaAllah. Once accepted into the private forum, you could post some of your private/personal sisterly queries there. Women usually are catty though, so beware of and stay away from the monsters. :nervous:
What about real life? Do you know any sisters?
You are new to the religion and as with all things, it will take time to get used to. You have ambition and motivation so that's a good sign. Keep learning. The more you know in the way of subtle points about religion, the stronger your faith will become InshaAllah. Takes time.
I will give a general advice which has helped me (and I feel like I repeat this so often on this forum): Allah has said he comes
running to us if we go
walking to him. This means if we are
sincere about seeking him and show genuine desire to get close to him, then he will most definitely aid us and strenghten our belief/conviction.
After we affirm belief in Allah, what we all must do is to bring about a consciousness of Allah in our lives (
easier said than done). Being conscious of God/having 'taqwa' is what we must strive for. If we live our lives according to the principle that 'God can see everything we do', then whenever the thought of sin comes into our mind, we would think twice about acting it out because we know that the angels will write it into our book of deeds.
Like I said though, it's much easier said than done. Maybe if we were living on the mountains all day with nothing or little in the way of distractions that we would be able to stay conscious of God all day but since we live in the real world, there are ground realities that prevent us from such a connection with Allah. For example we have to divert our attention to work/studies etc.
Which is fine. It's all a part of the test.
When praying salah, the 5 times ritual prayers, we are told to
pray as though we see Allah and if we can't do that, we should at least try to know in our hearts that
Allah is seeing us.
This can extend to any and everything we do in life, including dua.
I still can't make du'a for some reason or another
In my experience, the best way to increase the strength of the connection with Allah is to make loads of sincere dua. Make dua with
conviction. Try to have the strong belief that Allah verily exists so each time you make dua ask him as though you are asking a
definite being and hold the belief that since Allah is All Merciful and All compassionate, that he WILL give you what you ask for. Treat Allah as being very very real. Most of the time, people can be so neglectful of this and end up doing routine physical acts and whisperings of arabic words without paying attention on Allah. End result of this approach isn't going to be very productive.
At the same time, we also realise that Allah is All Wise and will only give us that which we ask for if it is ultimately for our benefit (either in this life or the hereafter). So we have to submit to his wisdom too (yet keep hope at the same time). Every dua that is not answered immeditely is rewarded in the hereafter.
Let's look at what you want. You want to be able to be a good worshipper, being able to pray salah and do dua properly. Very reasonable and commendable desires. No doubt you are sincere. So simply tell Allah that you are seeking him out and desire these things with the hope and firm belief that what you ask for will be given to you. As soon as you pass the request to Allah, assume it is a done deal. That your request will be fulfilled. The how and when, we leave to Allah.
However, be consistent. Ask the same thing over and over again. Out of Allah's wisdom, he may even withhold from giving to you for the time being so that you continue making dua in order to increase your connection with him (i.e. if he gave it to you straight away, you'd not bother with dua anymore, since you've already gotten what you wanted).
I do believe but I feel totally neutral about it. I fear hellfire but have no desire for paradise. I fear eternal torture and loneliness but have no desire to be closer to Allah. I want to want to (I mean,
I want to have the desire to enter paradise and be with Allah). But I feel nothing about it. I don't look forward to it and I don't particularly feel inclined away from it either. The only thing that really drives me is fear of eternal torture. And my moral beliefs. My moral beliefs are Islamic.
I think that's normal. A lot of people would feel a similar way. Perhaps if you thought of it in terms of the time spans of both the world we inhabit now and the hereafter, you would become more attuned to thinking of paradise/yearning for it. Our lifespans here are incredibly short in comparison to the akhirah. I
think the entire period of human life on earth would amount to a day or a part of a day in terms of the time in the heavens.
I guess it's because I know if I die today I know where I'm going.
This is a sign of modesty/humility and it is good. Anyone who is proud and says he is going to jannah is deluded. Nobody knows and no human can say with any certainty.
As muslims, we are safeguarded from
eternal hell if we die in the state of iman/belief (people usually die in the state they lived their lives, so if religion was always a concern for them, they are very likely to die with faith than those who never paid it much attention).
However, we muslims are not safeguarded from the punishment of the grave/hell as a means of cleansing ourselves of our evil sins.
Eventually after being cleansed, those who had belief would end up in heaven too.
Whilst it helps to be cautious, we have to also keep in mind that we humans are inherently sinful creatures. We are predisposed toward following our base desires. We are rewarded for going against them for the sake of Allah. We
will sin. We are not infallible.
This is where the mercy of Allah comes into play. We seek forgiveness from him and repent sincerely, resolving never to sin again, in the hope that he will pardon us from the fire of hell.
Out of his mercy, we believe and hope he
will forgive (after we've repented) and admit us to heaven without any cleansing period in hell.
Stay in the middle zone - don't despair of his mercy but at the same time, don't become complacent and assume you are guaranteed paradise.
When I try to make du'a it's usually a disorganised fumbling with words. I cry not because I am sincere but because I'm so frustrated at how stupid and disrespectful I sound.
Sometimes I just sit and talk to myself about things that are going on in my mind and that are bothering me, and I always feel aware that Allah is listening in. But I feel that what I say is in no way a du'a because I didn't address Him, and it's when I address Him I stammer and lose focus (no I don't have any actual stammer nor a history of one) and start to sound and feel insincere.
So the only time I'm pouring my heart out is when He won't accept the du'a, because I was always told you should address Him using His name.
I think you would be right in that when you think about your problems to yourself, it is not considered a proper dua. While we believe Allah is without doubt aware of all our problems, keep in mind that he wants to see us humbled to him and wants us to realise our place and realise his majesty and the total authority that he has over every affair, big or minute, in the entire universe. So with that in mind, we
have to actually address him.
However, It is not
necessary to ask what you want in
verbal words, you can think the words in your head too (so stammering problem wouldn't arise).
I was also told it's disrespectful rather than helpful to not be formal and when I'm going over what I need to for du'a... well, let's just say I become an emotional heap.
You have been misinformed. It is a GOOD thing to become an emotional heap. A very good thing. Cry your heart out to Allah. We are told via hadith that Allah likes those who cry in duas and if we can't cry, at least try to feign crying. Don't worry, really, it's a good thing.
I should add...
I've never been normal. I've always been the weirdo. The freak. The one singled out. The black sheep. I'm used to that. I don't know if the difficulty I'm having is coming from having always been (seemingly) reliant upon myself. Now that I can recognise all that Allah has given me and even recognise that I was
never reliant upon myself, I still
feel self-reliant.
I've also never had a normal perspective of life and reality. My mind was always more in other places, times and states of awareness from the here and now. Eve now I don't quite feel "switched on" as everyone else around me. Everyone else around me just seems to chug along in a linear fashion, whereas I've always been not quite here, drifting back, forth, up, down and in several directions and times at once, but never here and now.
Sounds good to me. I see the 'normal' people as being robots who are simply stuck in and follow the system unquestioningly without thought.
Not necessarily related to what you talk about but I came across
this really interesting short clip the other day, about changing the education paradigm. You might find it interesting too.
Regading self-reliancy, there is a hadith about tying the camel (briefly, there was a sahabi - companion of the Prophet, peace be upon him - who was leaving his camel untied and when asked by the Prophet, pbuh, why he did that, he said he was leaving the camel to the protection of Allah. The Prophet, pbuh, told him to tie the camel along with having trust in Allah). So try to find a balance. Do all that you can possibly do in your power yet at the same time, realise that ultimately all authority belongs to Allah.
If something was never to be in your destiny, nothing you or anyone else can do would be able to bring it to you and conversely, if something has been written for you, nothing and nobody can take it away from you.