Dear Brothers & Sisters,
If someone you care about removes their hijab and offers “reasons” for doing it that do not begin or end with some variation of, “I know that it is absolutely fard, but I am struggling. Please make du’ah for me that Allah ﷻ guides me and I can do it again and be more committed to it inshaaAllah,” then know without any doubt in your heart that they are under spiritual attack. The same exact thing could be said of someone who stops praying, stops fasting, stops giving zakat, or any other obligatory act; or someone who falls in any act of disobedience but attempts to alter the truth to accommodate their own whims and desires.
Shaitan and his minions (which include other humans) will use all types of tactics to break us down and destroy our relationship with Allah ﷻ.
Some people are going to be attacked via their prayers…
Some via their sincerity in following the prophetic model…
Some via the sources of their income and what they consume in general including food but also via their other senses (sight, hearing, etc)…
Some via obligatory fasting or giving charity…
Some via their desires and carnal inclinations…
Some via their vices and bad habits…
Some via gossiping and speak ill of others…
Some via their pride and arrogance…
Some via their wealth, their power, their status, etc…
Some via their modesty, vanity, and sense of self-image…
Whatever the inroads to the heart are that he finds, his ultimate objective is to make us disobedient to our Lord.
He will absolutely use every single manipulative strategy possible to get us to disobey Allah ﷻ. This includes casting doubt about the sources of knowledge (tafseer, hadith, fiqh, etc.)–which by the way have been gathered and codified for the past 1400+ years in a near perfect system by thousands of incredibly erudite, God-fearing, pious, masters of their respective fields (including men and women), but that’s another topic; using “logic” and pragmatism; appealing to our emotions and sensitivities; and even anthropomorphizing Allah ﷻ by convincing us that He, being the Most Merciful of the merciful, is understanding of our choice and wishes for us to be “REAL” and “AUTHENTIC” instead of doing something that is challenging and hard for us.
When you are confronted by someone who has made ANY choice to renege on an act of worship or commit to an act of disobedience and does NOT recognize it as their own weakness but tries to rationalize it, then do NOT waste your time arguing with them. They are under spiritual attack and they need your help, not your shouting and judgement. How can we help them? By making sincere du’ah on their behalf to the ONLY ONE who guide them back, and continuing to be a loyal friend, brother, sister, mother, father, uncle, cousin, neighbour, co-worker, etc.
The best thing you can do when someone you care about is having these doubts is display prophetic character. Do not judge them, do not scold them, do not shame them, etc. Just remind them that Allah ﷻ loves them and that no matter where they are in their journey, they should always make the intention to find their way back to Him. And tell them that you will make du’ah for just that; that they return to the very act that they stopped doing. Help to strengthen their faith by showing your own conviction in them and in your Lord.
If you engage in argumentation and debate with them, you are legitimizing their position. And there is NO legitimacy to anyone who outwardly, without any remorse or regret, disobeys Allah ﷻ. So do not argue with them. Rather, make sincere du’ah that Allah ﷻ remove the veil from their hearts and that He guide them back to Him.
May Allah ﷻ protect our faith and strengthen us against the tricks of shaitan. Amin.
