Q&A: Past Grief and Struggles

During the process of reflecting on past experiences, particularly the mistakes that led to grief, we surrender before Allah and trust in His wisdom. Despite our best efforts to overcome previous mistakes, new challenges arise, and we continue to face difficulties. My question is: how can we interconnect the past mistakes that led to grief with our current efforts to overcome them, and still struggle to find correction?

Additionally, what role does the nafs (ego or lower self) play in absorbing worldly influences, and how can we justify our experiences? What are the solutions to these struggles? I’m looking for answers beyond the notion that the soul is separate from worldly concerns or that we’re simply on a trial. Even when we’ve checked off all the right boxes in our own minds, the grief and struggles with our faith (aqeedah) persist. How can we reconcile these ongoing challenges?

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It is a profound and heartfelt question. It seems to me that grief emanating from past mistakes is not merely an emotional residue; it is a reverberation of disorientation — a sign that the soul (nafs) is still negotiating its place between fitrah (the natural state) and the altered reality shaped by modernity’s cultural architecture. Even if one’s efforts to correct the past are sincere, but he may be operating in a cultural landscape divorced from the spiritual roots. Hence, despite personal physical transformation, the spiritual aspect lags behind.

Nafs is central to the modern Muslims’ problems. Nafs absorbs “minuscule injections” of Western ideologies — materialism, skepticism, hedonism — which subtly shift our internal moral compass over time. The nafs, left unchecked, does not just absorb these — it begins to justify them, providing “rational” reasons for why certain sins are acceptable, or why despair is a valid conclusion. These aren’t just “worldly concerns” as in money or status — they’re ontological shifts that redefine our sense of meaning, value, and purpose. What was once a sin becomes a “personal choice,” and what was once repentance becomes “healing.” These shifts muddy the clarity between true authentic spiritual being and one’s deviation from it.

Why ‘Doing Everything Right’ still feels wrong is perhaps the most piercing point: you check all the boxes — prayer, repentance, seeking knowledge — and yet grief and confusion persist. This is not a flaw in your process, but a symptom of what we might call epistemic alienation — you are trying to revive truth in a culture where the concept of truth itself has been distorted. The problem is twofold: one, desacralization and two, confusing knowledge as the state of intellect with wisdom as the state of one’s heart.

In such a condition of epistemic alienation, you may engage in acts of devotion sincerely, but they occur within a desacralized world where symbols, rituals, and even the divine are reduced to functional or psychological tools. Prayer becomes mindfulness, repentance becomes therapeutic release, and sacred knowledge is consumed like data rather than internalized as lived wisdom. This desacralization strips meaning from practice. At the same time, modern man often confuses the acquisition of information — a cerebral activity — with the possession of wisdom, which is the alignment of the heart with divine reality. Hence, despite intellectual certainty, the heart remains unsettled because it has not fully tasted haqq al-yaqeen — truth as a lived, felt, and transforming presence. One must realize that the heart takes time, even if the head has shifted positions.

The solution at societal level is two-fold, not in the form of empty platitudes, but as a real cultural and spiritual strategy:

• Resuscitate the correct conception of being (fitrah): This involves deeply realigning your worldview — through tafakkur (reflection), suhba (companionship of the righteous), and immersion in traditional knowledge. This is not merely learning what is right but experiencing how the righteous lived, thought, and acted.
• Rebuild culture in sync with religion: This means withdrawing validation from cultural practices and internal justifications that are at odds with Islamic spirit, even if they’re not outright sinful. For example, questioning the modern idea of success or self-worth that often drives our grief.

In essence, I am not just calling for a personal change, but civilizational realignment — one that begins in the soul and expands outward.

This might sound abstract and overwhelming for an individual, however there are these following concrete steps that you might take to help yourself in healing in the real sense of the term:

• Reclaim your true nature first by erecting barriers to “minuscule injections” in your life to matters antithetical to correct being. What voices, ideas, or values are subtly rewriting your faith? Identify them, label them, and reject them with full yaqīn. This counteracts the noise and ideological clutter that leads to cultural and religious alienation.
• Do a kind of “media fasting”. Media is the primary conduit of the “minuscule injections” of Western materialism and skepticism. Without conscious detox, you cannot think your own thoughts. Leave the books that you are reading except for those that are part of your school or college curriculum. Limit usage of social media to almost nothing, or simply deactivate it all.
• Establish prayer and surround yourself with people of yaqīn, not people of doubt. Avoid those who argue religion like a debate club — even if they wear piety on their sleeve. You would find such people around traditional Islamic centers for example in Dargah Hazratbal, at Makhdoom Soebun, at, Dasgeer Soebun, at Czrar-e-Sharib, at Reshmol Soebun, at Janbaz Soebun etc. Establish prayer and persevere through this time.
• Anchor yourself in the Quranic purpose of life. Not as a concept, but as your daily decision-filter. Before any action or thought, ask: does this bring me nearer to that purpose? This can only be done by resuscitating “Purpose of Life” narrative inside your life. Sull Kaak’s lectures might help you here Insha Allah.
• Don’t isolate your struggle. The feeling of alienation is not yours alone. It’s the symptom of an entire ummah negotiating its return to fitrah. Leave isolation and become part of communal activities like maenz raat, khandar, eid, qurbani, walima, janazah, czurim, 40th, khatm-e-sharif, aqeeqah, zarr qaasin, urs-e-paak etc.
• Restore cultural living, go back to your Kashmiri roots on how to practice religion. Participate in mundane muamalaat. Don’t retreat into abstract reflection or excessive isolation. Go buy milk. Visit your aunt. Sweep the floor. Sit with your family after dinner. The sacred is not always found in the extraordinary — often it is rediscovered through the ordinary, when done with intention and presence. These acts restore your connection to fitrah and re-root your being in the real, lived Islam.

Remember always, you are not broken. You are awake in a world that is deeply asleep. And the grief you feel is not a failure of your faith, but a sign that your soul remembers its origin — even when the world tries to make it forget.