Archive for category: How to do

Question: The death of my lover, who has left this world after a severe and painful struggle with cancer, has hurt me too much. I have been melancholy and desperate of life after the death of one of my friends. In your opinion, what are the reasons for this horrible disease?

The answer: It is said that the Greek doctor (Galen) two thousand years ago was the first one who tried to ascertain the relation between cancer and the qualities that cause man to become afflicted with this malignant disease.

In a research by some British doctors in 1802 A.D., this question was posed, ‘Is there a relationship between man’s morals and natures and this malignant disease?’

In 1864, Doctor Walter H. Walsh wrote in his response to the previous question, ‘Sensitive persons, who suffer from spiritual pressures, prepare for themselves a ground for cancer.’

Thirteen years later, Doctor Grendon presented his theory by saying, ‘Worry and griefs have a great effect in afflicting one with cancer.’

In 1870, Doctor Sir J. Pajet wrote, ‘Despair and lack of hope help cancer to grow. There is no doubt that melancholy is the most serious cause of this disease.’

After some years, Doctor Penny Brhn performed some experiments and classified the patients of cancer into three classes:

1. Those who help others, but no one helps them or appreciates their efforts.

2. Those who find it difficult to reject needy people, and thus they become sad for not being able to satisfy the needs of people who ask them for help.

3. Those who feel meanness and do not have self-confidence.

Scientific centers conclude that failure in marital life, losing one’s job, insolvency, heavy debts, and the like bring man worry and psychological upset and pave the way for cancer. However, it is not necessary that these things will definitely cause cancer, but in most cases, it is so.

Many times, one becomes afflicted with cancer because of a defect in his defensive cells from childhood, as Doctor Jung thinks. He adds that one who is psychologically suppressed in his childhood has a fertile ground for cancer.

The American doctor Lawarene Le Shan, who is a specialist in cancer, says, ‘We must know what we want in life, and then we can carry out what we want with a strong will and determination. This requires us to know how to live healthily and enjoy our bodily powers to achieve what we want in life…cancer destroys life; therefore, we must learn how to protect ourselves from it. Then, let us avoid all that paves the way for cancer.’

Consequently, what are the means of protection?

1. Let us learn self-confidence. When the body and the soul become strong with self-confidence, they give one the ability to resist diseases.

2. Let us be kind and friendly because a man’s soul is thirsty for cordiality.

3. Let us assign certain times for (lawful) amusement.

4. Let us toil for good aims and not waste our ages in trivialities.

5. Let us regard our feelings and the feelings of those around us. This is a bridge to mutual understanding.

6. Let us busy ourselves with what we like and stick to it.

7. Let us have good food, avoid too much oil, and eat a lot of vegetables and fruits.

8. Let us not ignore vitamins and minerals in our meals.

9. Let us have good morals, be merry and sportive, and submit to the Merciful Creator in all our affairs.

10. Let us hold religious meetings and participate in the meetings of others, whether meetings of joy or sorrow, because social relations take man out of fatal isolation.

Finally, O our Lord, we seek your protection from any disease…O You, Whose name is a remedy and Whose mention is a healing, send as many blessings on Muhammad and his progeny as there are diseases and remedies, recover our patients, and have mercy on our dead; You are able to do whatever You like!

Question: As you know, melancholy is the disease of this age. Psychological clinics are full of sick persons whom melancholy has thrown out of the circle of life.
I have a melancholy, introvert father. He is forty years old but he seems to be seventy years old. This matter has troubled our family life. I am fifteen years old but I do not know the reasons that have made my father so. Does Islam have solutions that can be depended on to save such sick people? Would you please answer in details, because there are many people like me who wait for this answer?

The answer: Islam has solutions for everything. It has declared the cure of melancholy and its like and emphasized, before that, on prevention. Here, I summarize The answer’s in five points:

First, the traditions of the Prophet (S) and the infallible Imams (a.s.) have referred to “melancholy” as “grief” and “distress”. They have warned the Muslims of it by saying, ‘He, whose grief increases, his body becomes sick’, ‘Grief is half of senility’, and ‘Grief is the disease of mentality’.

Boredom, distemper, lack of appetite for food, physical and psychological weaknesses, insomnia, instability, absentmindedness, pessimism, fatigue, feeling of guilt, inactivity, not feeling joy in the beautiful scenes of nature or other material pleasures, neglecting one’s health, and paying no attention to life, which are qualities found in melancholy people, have been mentioned in the traditions with certain expressions.

Second, there is a close relationship between melancholy and the culture of the individual and that of the society. Some religious and social cultures lead to melancholy through their tragic literary works, sad music, and crying as it is widespread in the Eastern countries. As for the Western societies, the culture of disengagement from family connections leads one towards melancholy when he finds himself alone with no one to participate with him in his joys and sorrows. Therefore, we find that suicide rates are on an increase in the Western countries, which do not care for family connections, while in Japan, where family relations and connections are strong, the ratio of suicide is very low, whereas religious and rural societies are the least afflicted with melancholy and acts of suicide.

As for religious societies, it is so because religion prohibits suicide and considers it as a crime of murder, whose recompense is being in Hell forever. Moreover, religion satisfies man’s sentiments and his spiritual needs, which give him a power to adapt himself to changes and stimulates in him positive motives that resist melancholy.

Third, the reasons for melancholy must be understood. These reasons are not the same for all people. Each one is different from the other. For example, the reason for melancholy of someone may be the lack of love and sympathy and for another may be the accumulation of psychological pains, remorse after committing a sin, disappointment, the death of a lover, emigration and being away from one’s family and relatives, a great financial loss, or poverty and neediness.

Fourth, what is the successful cure for this disease?

Modern psychological clinics have depended, in curing this disease, on the tranquilizing tablets of Valium or other gladdening drugs, while some other clinics prefer electrical shocks. All these cures are rejected by the Islamic clinic, which depends on prevention initially and then on cure54.

For curing this disease, Islam prescribes the following:

1. Take a bath with cool water, and especially pour it over the head; Imam Ali (a.s.) says, ‘Whoever has grief that he is unable to identify, let him wash his head.55’

2. Wash the clothes and remove bad smells, which means cleanliness in general; Imam Ali (a.s.) says, ‘Washing one’s clothes takes away grief and sorrow.56’

3. Mention Allah a lot, especially by saying “there is no power save in Allah”; the Prophet (S) says, ‘saying “there is no power save in Allah” has a cure for ninety-nine illnesses, the least of which is grief.57’ Imam as-Sadiq (a.s.) says, ‘If grief increases, you should mention “there is no power save in Allah.58”’

4. Eat grapes, as mentioned in the traditions of the Prophet (S) and the infallible imams (a.s.)59.

Fifth, protection is the most important way to prevent melancholy and introversion. Islam has established constructive teachings to prevent any negative state that may destroy man’s comfort and happiness. Islam first establishes belief inside man and then strengthens that faith inside him to reach a degree where he becomes certain of the wisdom of Allah and becomes satisfied with the fate Allah has determined.

The Prophet (S) says, ‘Allah, with His wisdom and favor, has made comfort and joy in certainty and satisfaction, and made grief and sorrow in suspicion and dissatisfaction.60’

A real believer sees the causes of melancholy trivial especially when he recites this Qur’anic verse, (it may be that you dislike a thing while Allah has placed abundant good in it)61.

A real believer does not envy others because he knows that “envy eats faith as fire eats firewood”. Imam Ali (a.s.) says, ‘I have not seen an unjust one who is more similar to the wronged than one who envies: continuous panting, upset heart, and endless sorrow.62’ A real believer dose not look for the material pleasures of this life because he has read the Islamic concept about this worldly life as “it deceives, destroys, and passes away.63’

A real believer has to submit to the saying of Imam as-Sadiq (a.s.), ‘Loving the worldly life causes grief and sorrow, and abstaining from it causes comfort of the heart and the body.64’

A real believer does not pant after the lust that is in the back of his mind and refrains from pondering over it because he has read the warning of the Prophet (S), ‘A lust of a moment may bring a long sorrow’65.

Hence, a real believer protects himself lest he fall into melancholy. This is the vigilance of faith that leads to protection and safety from melancholy and its like.

Dear brother, you have to read this answer to your father and tell him:

1. Believe in Allah and work with the hope of arriving at the bliss of Paradise because this makes man patient with the difficulties of life!

2. Be active and do not be lazy!

3. Not committing a mistake is not a reason for great pride; rather, great pride lies in getting out of the mistake.

4. Dear father, stand on your feet to light your way and the way of others because an inverted candle does not light!

5. Have you pondered on flowers and smelt their fragrances? If there are no flowers in life, the scenes of beauty will be incomplete!

6. Happiness is a gift from Allah. Why do you not raise your hands towards the Heaven to receive this gift?

Finally, tell him frankly that worry, upset, fear and melancholy take him away from Allah; therefore, he has to do remembrance of Allah and be close to Him to be free from all those psychological diseases! Tell him: Come on! Forget the past and change your state and our state for the best by the assistance of Allah!

Question: I am a young woman from a religious family and all my interests are religious, thanks be to Allah! I have a friend in school who often sits with me, but she is not religious. All the time, she is interested in news of singers, athletes, issues of teenagers, molestations, and exchanging letters with young men, though she is still too young. She is sixteen years old. Would you please warn the youth, fathers, and mothers with the necessary Islamic advices? Many thanks for your interest in guiding us to what will make us happy in this life and the afterlife.

The answer: Thank you very much O daughter of faith and abstinence! Your feelings to save your friend and your care for your religion show your true upbringing. I hope that you continue on this path until you arrive at the eternal bliss.

The problem you have mentioned is a fact from the bitter reality that fathers and mothers try to ignore, thinking that they can cover the behaviors of those teenage girls. I think that indifference towards such girls encourages them to continue in corruption and covering up this concern is stupidity because such girls are exposed before others and scandal moves from mouth to mouth.

Let me say frankly that the problem firstly belongs to fathers and mothers, for they, in bringing up their children away from religion and love, have thrown the children into the way of corruption, and then when the tragedy takes place, they hurry to look for solutions but they will not find any even if they shed tears of sorrow and regret.

If only those fathers and mothers, who have turned their backs on religion and slept on the pillow of irresponsibility and have failed to satisfy their children with love and sympathy, would read the sayings of even Western scholars.

Dr. Raymond Page says, ‘The first picture a child draws in his mind about Allah comes out of his relation with his parents. Also, the first concept that comes to his mind about obedience, forgiveness, and straightforwardness is connected strongly with the behavior of his family…parents may not have a suitable opportunity to educate their child and develop his thinking, so they have to introduce Allah to their children in the best way with strong determination, will, and watchfulness. In this concern, they can depend on two good sources: religion and nature.’

Dear daughter, as for your situation towards your deviant friend:

First, deal with her as if she is sick, and she really is sick but she does not know. A sick one needs care, and you, with your faith, morals, and patience, can offer her religious advice and talk to her with the language of nature and conscience. You should tell her that the purpose of her existence is to arrive at the pleasures of Paradise. Islam does not prohibit the pleasures of this life provided that they are obtained lawfully.

Second, if she can get married, you can arrange the procedures of this by consulting with other religious women who understand such matters.

Third, when advising and warning her, depend on the frightening aspects of Islamic teachings – I mean what concerns death: the pressing of grave, its loneliness, and darkness for those who disobey Allah. It is mentioned in traditions that “he, who fears Fire, avoids unlawful things”. Tell her that Allah the Almighty will stand man in the difficulties and horrors of the Day of Resurrection to punish him for all his doings. Allah says in the Holy Qur’an, (Surely, the hearing, the sight, and the heart, all of these, shall be questioned about that).

There are many stories that affect one’s conscience that you can use to guide her to the right path and surely you will be rewarded by Allah.

Stories of accidents in our present time show that most of those who die are unsuspecting youths. Death is a sudden visitor and defeating comer. Isn’t it?

Finally, if she does not listen to you and you find that she may influence you or do wrong to your good reputation, you have to cut your relation with her bravely and without any kind of courtesy for “a strong believer is better than a weak believer,” as the Prophet (S) has said.

source :For a Better Future

Question: I am a young man. I want to get married, but I fear that I may fall into the same predicament my brother fell in. In the beginning, his wife had good morals, but later on, her morals became bad. Many problems occurred between them until they became a bad example in the family. I do not know how to convince myself and pass over my difficult psychological state to get married and live happily!

The answer: Dear brother, with the scenes you have seen, your worry is very natural. However, you should be certain that problems are not always repeated because each person has his own independent personality if he has a will. Your will is stronger in the stage of youth, and you can take lessons from your brother’s experience. Instead of being desperate about this experiment, you can read about the successful experiments of millions of people who have gotten married and lived happily. In order to attain this happiness, you should read books about the happy marital life to learn the qualities of a good wife who can help you lead a happy life. Do not place in your mind an imaginary picture of an infallible girl who has no defect, because first, you yourself are not so, and second, there is no such a girl in this world at all. Yes, such a girl is in Paradise and her name is “Houri”.

When you determine to get married inshallah, please make note of the following points:

1. Man acquires most of his habits from the environment he lives in. Therefore, we have to excuse others as we would like others to excuse us.

2. Some disagreements that result from the differences in knowledge, beauty, health, and lineage do not harm marital happiness. This is like the differences between day and night or between the four seasons for example. One complements the other so that life continues with ultimate wisdom. Spouses, who want their life to continue happily, have to think in this way about their differences that are beyond their wills.

3. As for acquired habits that harm the marital relation, spouses have to try their best to get rid of them and to not be indifferent towards them.

source :For a Better Future