Why am I empty?

Yasmin Mogahed
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This document is a write-up of notes from I heard by Yasmin
Mogahed entitled Why am I empty.
I have added to the notes to further understand the take away
messages of the lecture. They may be subject to mistakes and do
not represent the views of the speaker.
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You are always told that if you are believers then you should never
feel a sense of emptiness within you but havent we all, at some
stage, felt empty despite being believers.
Since childhood our parents, teachers and sheikhs have drilled into
us:

Quran 13:28
Those who believe, and whose hearts find satisfaction in the
remembrance of Allah: for without doubt in the remembrance of
Allah do hearts find satisfaction. [Translation: Yusuf Ali]
And so we are told that in the remembrance of Allah we find true
happiness, true contentment and satisfaction but then how do we
reconcile feeling a sense of emptiness within our hearts. How do we
reconcile that despite being believers we feel a sense of emptiness?
Is having a feeling of emptiness within us a symptom of disbelief or
is it the nature of a human being?
Every human being has a hole of some sort because we have
been separated from our originator, separated from our home. We
are not with Allah in the physical sense - so every human being is
born with this sense of emptiness.

The real question should therefore not be why do I feel empty but
how do I fill this hole this sense of emptiness.
Some people try to fill it with entertainment, whether it be; listening
to music on your phone or iPod for hours; watching movies in
short entertaining ourselves to death. Some may indulge in
haram whilst others seek a means of distraction. Some people
invest all their time into their careers, working day and night.
Many a people turn to alcohol or drugs but as believers we should
always reflect on why people turn to such things. Why do people
ultimately turn to drugs and alcohol, music and useless
entertainment? What is that person ultimately trying to do getting
high or drinking?
Ultimately what theyre trying to do is fill this hole, this emptiness,
this place inside of them its there but they dont know what to do
about it they dont know how to deal with it.
As so the reality is we all have this desire to fill this whole within us.
If we seek it in people, then they will always let us down, if we seek
it in entertainment, drugs & alcohol, then it will only increase that
sense of emptiness once the initial high and enjoyment is over. So
whats the solution?

Well if we think of the heart of a vessel, if its so full of

Dunya and love of Dunya and all these other attachments

then there is no space in that heart for Allah.

So the way to fill the emptiness in the heart is to first, empty it of all
your attachments everything besides Allah. The process can be
rather painful and difficult. You would need to remove your
attachment music, useless entertainment, drugs, alcohol, career
obsession or whatever it is that youre using to distract yourself
from remembering Allah.
Once youve emptied your heart, you need to remember Allah
but how do we do that? How do you remember Allah?

Quran 20:14
Indeed, I am Allah . There is no deity except Me, so worship Me and
establish prayer for My remembrance (Translation: Sahih
International)

How do you remember Allah? You remember Allah by establishing

prayer. Here Allah is highlighting the fact that we need to not just be
praying but being constant in it by using the word establish. This is
something much deeper than praying; its about being constant,
about establishing it within your daily life.
Later on in the surah, Allah says . do not slacken in my
remembrance. From this we can take that even though we may be
praying, we feel a sense of emptiness because we slacken, we
become lazy in our rememberance.
So we may say we are praying or doing Islamic work and we think
that this is sufficient. However, Allah is saying this heart is so in
need of Allahs remembrance. Throughout the Quran when the
remembrance of Allah is mentioned, it is normally followed by
katheeran much/a lot so you need to remember Allah a lot ...
all the time.
So its not just enough to remember Allah, it needs to be a lot. So
from the advice Allah gives to Musa you can extract that as long as
you always remember Allah ... you are going to be OK ... theres no
need to fear.
You need to know that you can only remember Allah by His will and
permission, so invoke Allah and recite the dua as narrated in this
hadith found in Abu Dawud and An-Nasai:

The Messenger of Allah took hold of my hand and said, "O

Mu'adh! By Allah I love you, so I advise you to never forget

to recite after every prayer: O Allah, help me remember You,
to be grateful to You, and to worship You in an excellent
manner.

[Abu Dawud and An-Nasai]

A good analogy is that dhikr is like air, its like breath. Every time you
pray or remember Allah its like youre taking a breath. People who
dont remember Allah enough are not breathing enough and then
are sitting there contemplating why they feel breathless and out of
air.

The reasons is you arent breathing enough, you need

more air dhikr is like air you need it constantly to
prevent the feeling of breathlessness to prevent
emptiness within you.

Praying is arguably the most important and effective way of

remembering Allah, but that doesnt mean you have to pray all day.

Likewise, remembering Allah doesnt mean walking around saying

Alhamudlillah or Subhanallah everywhere you go.
Reading Quran is remembering Allah. If you go days or weeks
without remembering Allah and then wonder why you have this
strange emptiness within you the reason is you werent breathing
enough you were slacking in your remembrance of Allah.
So staying connected to the Quran is really very important. As long
as you remember Allah enough, whether by praying or reading
Quran, be rest assured no matter what comes your way youre
going to be OK.
Remembering Allah is also through dua. When you wake up there is
a dua, when you go to bed there is a dua to say, when you enter
and leave the house there is a dua, when you get dressed there is a
dua, when you begin and finish your food there is a dua.
All of this is remembering Allah you can remember Allah on the
way to school, college, university, on the way to work anywhere
and everywhere just so long as its constant in filling the vessel
that is your heart.

It is important to remember and note that when Allah gave

us the commandment to pray five times a day, it was spread

throughout the day at specified times.
Highlighting that we need to remember Allah throughout the
day that not a period of the day goes by without us having

remembered him .

We all know that Iman goes up and down some days you feel like
praying and reading Quran all day and other times you struggle to
even begin you dont feel like it. It is never going to ever be
constant nothing is ever constant or stable, except for Allah.
What we are seeking is a general upwards trend in our Iman yes, there will be dips but we should always be on the rise upwards.
To keep our Iman on the increase, we have to try to implement dhikr
into our daily lives as part of our daily routine.
As mentioned earlier, make sure you pray the 5 obligatory prayers
every day its your oxygen you cant live without it. Try to
implement other aspects of the sunnah slowly. day by day
week by week ... month by month even year by year. Slowly add
some sunnah prayers, night prayers try to memorize more dua,
different ways of glorifying Allah when praying throughout the
different postures and especially within sujood.

Open up Fortress of the Muslim or Hisnul Muslim and

start memorizing duas
Make dua an everyday aspect of your life from when you wake up,
to when you dress, eat, travel, sleep everything should involve
making invocation to Allah.
Try to introduce daily habits in your life to remember Allah.

Make a small sadaqa/donation box in your house where

everyday you get one coin and give it as charity by putting it

into the box do this everyday. You will be known with Allah

as one who is consistent in your charity .

Attending Islamic classes is remembering Allah, feeding the
homeless for His sake is remembering Allah, helping out with the
chores in the house for His sake is remembering Allah. Be
adventurous and know that you can remember Allah in just about
everything, even the breath of air you take.
So if your Iman is going down, then you need the see where you are
slacking in your remembrance, in your worhship. You need to ask
Allah to help You remember him.
But always keep in mind, its not just about the quantity of dhikr but
more so about the quality of dhikr having a present heart when in
dhikr.

From the hadith of the prophet whoever makes their

primary concern the dunya, their matters become scattered

and poverty is put between their eyes

This hadith is about where we focus our heart and whether we are
attached to dunya..
I end by sending peace and blessing upon the final prophet and with
the words
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds