Reclaim Your Heart: Personal insights on breaking free from life's shackles

by Yasmin Mogahed

There is a crucial lesson in this verse: that there is only one hand-hold that never breaks. There is only one place where we can lay our dependencies. There is only one relationship that should define our self-worth and only one source from which to seek our ultimate happiness, fulfillment, and security. That place is God.

We, as humans, are made to seek, love, and strive for what is perfect and what is permanent. We are made to seek what’s eternal. We seek this because we were not made for this life. Our first and true home was Paradise:

"For me, I have set my face, firmly and truly, towards Him Who created the heavens and the earth, and never shall I give partners to Allah."

"If you worshipped Muhammad, know that Muhammad is dead. But if you worshipped Allah, know that Allah never dies."

Don’t let your definition of success, failure, or self-worth be anything other than your position with Him (Qur’an, 49:13). And if you do this, you become unbreakable, because your hand-hold is unbreakable. You become unconquerable, because your supporter can never be conquered. And you will never become empty, because your source of fulfillment is unending and never diminishes.

We always ask God to cure us of our hardships but we never stop to consider that our hardships are curing us.

Ibn Attaillah al-Sakandari said it beautifully: "Nothing is difficult if you seek it through your Lord, and nothing is easy if you seek it through yourself."

"I seek refuge in the light of Your Face by which all darkness is dispelled and every affair of this world and the next is set right."

What we often don’t realize about the abandonment of salah is this: No scholar has ever held the opinion that committing zina (fornication) makes you a disbeliever. No scholar has ever held the opinion that stealing, drinking or taking drugs makes you a disbeliever. No scholar has even claimed that murder makes you a non-Muslim. But, about salah, some scholars have said he who abandons it, is no longer Muslim. This is said based on a hadith such as this one: "The covenant between us and them is prayer, so if anyone abandons it, he has become a disbeliever." [Ahmad]