format_quote Originally Posted by
Challenged
Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wa salaatu wa salaam ala Rasulillah;
Salaamu aleykum brothers and sisters, and warm greetings to other my brothers and sister in humanity.
I'm in a bind; I moved back, for personal reasons, to a rather un-islamic home shortly before Ramadan. In fact, it's rather polytheistic. This being said, I'm the only Muslim in the house, which does not belong to me [talk about epic challenge].
I'm hoping for clarification on what can be done to combat the waswaas, purity and shirk issues that are likely to be faced. Not only for me but other revert Muslims who might be in similar situations.
Masha'allah I have found some quality posts, deeper in the forum, on combating waswaas (
How to overcome Waswas (Shaythans whispers) in worship) But I want to look at the peripheral reasons, and proclivities of waswaas within the confines of a home that is not mine, and what I can reasonably expect to do without being guilty of shirk...
i.e.
- Presence of statues, ornaments, trinkets of any form of
i) animal
ii) other creation of Allah (malaika/angel)
- Combination bathroom/toilets. No washrooms without toilet.
- General tidyness and propensity for laziness in cleaning (clearly vigilance is the key but still...)
It's my family home and, despite having destroyed a number of the above ornaments and trinkets in a (:facepalm:) bit of a noob-rage, have found that the resulting sin caused by oppressing my family could be equally bad, if not worse. Truth be told, I would "cleanse" [rather delicate choice of word, honestly] the house from top to bottom within a week but have found limitations that have prevented, reduced, delayed and almost stopped any form of cleaning progress. Some of this has eventuated from family member that I'm living with. (does catering to their sensitivities amount to shirk? How to proceed Islamically given ownership is not mine?)
The truth is that Allah subhano wa Ta'ala is always a witness but given that I have been struggling, under my own fault or otherwise; without committing further shirk by asking my brothers and sisters, I want to find out what can be reasonably done in this situation to account for, solve, neutralise, limit (etc ad nauseum) the challenges faced by being in a situation and, indeed, an environment of this nature.
Also - apologies for really packing value into this post - can you please advise what is to be commonly accepted, Islamically, regarding the potential for, and relevance of, possession/exorcism and their diagnoses/solutions?
I suspect many of these answers already exist in my head but given my propensity be wrong, on many counts, I would appreciate clarification.
Jazakallahu khair, wabaraakallahu feekum
akhi Challenged
Walaykum asalam warahmatullahi wabarakatahu
Im in the same situation just different circumstances less shirk more haram, though these harams had a majour impact on my emaan and i thus ended up nearly falling off deen again Astagfirllah, so i myself find myself torn between two different places to stay each of them with their high stakes of being surround by haram & shirk & harm.
I have to share a room (parents), as when i got kicked out i ended up moving from place to place then ended up in a hostel (homeless shelter- honestly disgusting place) and with so many other circumstances led to me loosing my faith, then Allah bringing me someone who helped me gain my faith back, which then led me to then talk to my parents (after 2 years of not speaking) who one of which is very ill.
Now im back & forth between hostel and parents house both have their very bad downsides and well the upside would be my parents house is clean & not surrounded by 100s of "silly people" & recently found out that the hostel is going to be demolished to build a renovated version, so unless my nikkah hurries up and happens i will be stuck at my parents house that is still full of problems.
The best thing i can suggest is if you have your own room i.e bedroom, make that as halal as possible i.e no pictures, Quran played every 3days (surah Baqara), kept clean, if that is not a option as you like me, are sharing a room then do the best you can with what you have i.e slowly move out pictures or when you go to pray face the pictures down if your not able to remove them,
have a area that is for praying where you can keep it as clean as possible.
For the bathroom there is not really anything you can do, so when doing wudu or ghusl dont mention Allahs name out loud, do it in your heart or head as a form of reminding yourself instead of saying it out loud.
Honestly with your family, if they are forcing you to partake in their actions of worshipping other than Allah, then it is upon you to deny any advancements of this & to explain your stance with Islam in the most polite and kindest way possible, these are still your family and should be respected if they are your parents then even more respect & kindness should be shown towards them (yes ofcouse easier said harder done, but this is what ks commanded of us) (maybe they dont understand or are in the kindest way ignorant and by the grace of Allah you are what can turn their heart towards Islam so, show them what islam is and what it means to be a muslim with your actions & kindness towards them)
Ofcourse best case scenario for all of us would be to have our own houses, but it wont be the case for over half of us due to rising costs of living & expenses.
Id honestly tell you from my experience that no matter how "dirty" you feel the place is (trust me any place that doesn't feel islamic will feel dirty) just find a clean area and pray, dont do what I done and let go of your prayer it will destroy you and everything will feel like its 1000 times worse than what it really is, when i started to pray again & make dua & go back to my classes my heart started to feel at ease, i began to feel happy that even though i didnt like where i was, i had somewehere, i had a small place to pray & make dua, i became so gratefull for the small things that i overlooked & my problems although still there became less "big"
(Ofcourse im no scholar just a student so these are all things i done to make it better for me personally)
As for the possession & exorcism & jinn stuff, i will reply after im just eating sorry :)
Keep your head up brother im sure your doing better than you think in sha Allah,
Keep making dua to Allah & keep your prayers up.