I've got a coworker who is a Muslim and I've been listening to Islamic scholars and imams on Youtube to try to learn what I can. I started reading the Quran today as well. As a Catholic, is there anything wrong with me saying Salat (which I don't know how to do) or performing wudu?
Salam
I don't want details pl..just the source of ur test..
For me it's my husband.
My greatest blessing is my children and my loving and understanding family (parents/siblings)
There was a period of my life where I made terrible personal choices. I was completely lost and committed significant sins which largely just affected me. My journey back to Islam began slowly then hit me all at once and I was devastated by the realisation of the choices I had made. I repented continuously, wept for weeks, and changed entirely. I was horrified and couldn’t grasp the person I was but committed to learning how to pray, reading Quran, fasting, giving charity. Being good to my family. Although it was a painful period, I felt like I was in the light. I felt new and peaceful somehow. This was a few years ago.
Today, I am a shell of a person. My sins are the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing before I go to sleep. Even my sleep is sometimes disturbed. Shame drips from my face. I try to take care of myself physically but hate myself so much for what I’ve done that I don’t believe I’m worthy of even the basic care at times. I have felt darkness closing in on me over time, suffocating me and stealing everything from me. Nonetheless, I continue to pray, give to charity, try to be good. I have prayed and asked Allah for positive change. For forgiveness. To not be defined by my worst choices. But I feel I am still in darkness.
Today, after my prayer, I said I’ll open the Quran, seeking a sign from Allah, to help me understand. The page I opened exactly described my worst sin. I didn’t see forgiveness for my sin in the verse and it made second guess that I felt that my repentance was accepted.
I’m writing here because I can’t speak to people close to me about this. But I don’t see how to rectify this. I have wished I was never born. I have wished I left this earth before committing those sins against myself and the commands of Allah. I feel like I am living a life sentence for sins I made when I was practically a child. This darkness I feel is not normal. It wasn’t here when I repented. I don’t know how to escape it.
Salam, I'm a 25M in California, currently talking to a 25F. We've been getting to know each other for about 4 months, and I'm at the point where I want to make things halal and involve our families.
The issue is that my Muslim parents think I'm too young, that 4 months isn't enough time to really know someone, and that I don't make enough money to support a marriage in California. I currently make around $70k/year.
I genuinely want to approach this the right way and make it halal, but I don't have my parents blessing right now.
For those who have been in a similar situation, are my parents' concerns justified?
Should I wait and focus on my career, or is it reasonable to move forward with involving families and seeing where things go?
I turned 30 this year, and instead of feeling that I have built a life, I feel defeated, depressed and left behind.
I moved to Europe 14 years ago to study medicine and have lived alone ever since. Somewhere along the way, depression, loneliness and isolation took over. I gradually lost my ability to function and think clearly. I eventually left medicine and started studying something else. Now, at 30, I still have not finished my bachelor's degree. I only have my final project left, yet some days even getting out of bed feels impossible.
I have almost no friends. What I wanted more than anything was simply genuine companionship, but the relationships I found were mostly with men who saw my loneliness and vulnerability as something they could exploit. I was already exhausted, depressed and desperate for affection, so I tolerated things I normally never would have tolerated.
One long-distance relationship particularly damaged me. He played with my emotions, humiliated me, exploited how emotionally deprived I was, and I kept forgiving him and returning. At one point he told me, “If I wanted to, I could ruin your life.” Later, after leaving his poison behind, he mocked the idea that he had harmed me: “Did I tell you not to pray? How could I ruin your life when we live so far apart?”
I had spent years trying to live a disciplined and religious life in Europe. That relationship disturbed something inside me deeply. I made mistakes during a period when I was severely depressed, but I have since tried to reset my moral compass and protect my faith, dignity and upbringing.
I also tried Islamic marriage groups, hoping that approaching marriage seriously would be different. Instead, I repeatedly encountered men who seemed interested in entertainment, control or sexual gratification while using religion and marriage as respectable packaging. Some had spent years in casual or sexual relationships and suddenly wanted a “pure” woman, while apparently having no intention of holding themselves to the same standard.
I am tired of being someone's temporary experiment.
The painful part is that this goes much further back than romantic relationships. I don't remember ever truly feeling loved growing up. My brother has probably been the one person whose love I never doubted. My relationship with my parents became more loving later in life, but as a child I often felt unseen by my mother, while my father seemed preoccupied with his image and place in society.
Now my parents are getting older, I have only one sibling, and I am terrified of eventually losing the few people I still have.
I look around and see people living ordinary lives with their spouses, children, families and loved ones. Meanwhile, I am breaking down alone. I cry walking down the street, at the bus stop, in the supermarket. Sometimes I barely leave my bed. I struggle to find any emotional middle ground: one day I feel high and capable of rebuilding everything, then I spend days completely down again.
People say loneliness as though it is a temporary feeling. For me, it has been the structure of my life—from adolescence, through moving abroad, and into adulthood. Moving to another country only made it deeper and harder.
I am 30 years old and I am exhausted from carrying myself alone.
I don't need another person to tell me that “30 is still young.” I know that intellectually. What I don't know is how to rebuild a life after spending so many years surviving instead of living—how to finish my degree, regain my ability to function, build healthy friendships, protect myself from people who exploit vulnerability, and somehow believe that love and belonging are still possible for me.
I am tired. I genuinely don't know where to begin.
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