السلام عليكم
Hello everyone,

Since year I have a question, what’s the meaning of Alif Lam Mim, and why it appears in 6 times in the Quran ?

Thank you for your response !

May Allah bless them and protect them. Allahumma Ameen.

Nowadays I feel like Allah won't have mercy on me because I don't lead a religious lifestyle. I didn't pray much before but recently I started being more consistent with my prayers and for a while it felt good but then the thoughts kept growing, the feeling that l'm doomed for anyways. 1 avoid all major sins, don't drink, observe all fasts and now trying to pray as much as I can too but when I see some people who refuse to shake hands with the opposite gender let alone be friends with them or listen to music, that's when I realize how far below I am and it makes it feel like everything's just meaningless, especially after what 1 heard about smaller sins accumulating into major ones, and since then I started feeling like the major sins I drew a hard line against despite them being around me all the time, I'm probably just committing sins of that level anyways. 1 want to be a decent person, follow all five pillars of Islam as soon as l'm capable of earning and do as much charity and help people out as I can, in a way it also felt like making up for where - lack but it has started to feel like nothing would suffice, that Allah would still punish me for whereI was wrong. I just know I can't be like the people I mentioned, sometimes it's just not possible to tear a piece out of your personality you've kept for two decades and throw it away. I randomly get these thoughts at random times and that has taken a toll on my ability to do my daily tasks such as studies etc. At first looked up hadiths about how Allah is all merciful and indeed he is and I want believe that but then I hear all the advices about how one should fear him all the time and think of their sins, even if minor as huge sins and some part of that just stuck with me, now anything I do, I feel like l'm walking on eggshells. How does this even work? How can believing in his mercy and fearing him that much even work? how can two of such opposite things go hand in hand? Okay maybe for the people who commit a sin, feel awful about them and ask for forgiveness but what about those who do ask for forgiveness but the sins are a part of their daily life? When I hear religious people or people on the internet be harsh about something I do, It stings a lot and I start to overthink and start viewing everything from their lens, sometimes my whole day is ruined.

Im a bit confused as to the extent of witchcraft we believe in as Muslims? Do we believe it can be used to harm another person? If so, how can Allah allow one person to cause harm to another person unknowingly, using forces of the unseen? You may compare this to Allah allowing people to get robbed, assaulted etc. but in these cases, the victim usually knows what has happened to them and can take the appropriate steps. However, if someone has witchcraft done on them, they might never know and just think their life has taken a turn for the worst?

Recently, I've been struggling with thoughts about death, particularly my own death. It's not that I want to die, quite the opposite. I'm actually frightened of dying.

It's a strange feeling that's difficult to explain. Sometimes I'll be going about my normal day and suddenly get this heavy feeling in my chest, almost like something bad is going to happen or like I'm going to die soon.

It can happen at any time, whether I'm alone, during the day or at night. There's no particular trigger. Once the thought enters my head, I find myself thinking about death, what happens afterwards and how one day I simply won't be here anymore.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything similar? Is this a form of death anxiety or thanatophobia?

More importantly, has anyone managed to overcome it or at least stop these thoughts from taking over?

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's been through something similar.

Hi everyone. I am looking to become a beginner in religious art. I usually draw inspiration from my religion Old Norse Paganism for art.

But, I want to dabble in other religions as well to expand my style and practice as well.

I want to ask Muslims if Islam allows art depicting any religious figures (men, women, angels, demons, gods etc) in art work.

I don't want to depict Islam in a disrespectful way. I recently started to like Ottoman era art in mosques and online depictions and want to try it myself.

Please let me know if you have any information about it. I do not live in a Muslim community. So I sadly can't ask anyone in real life about it.

So I live in Punjab in a PG, here sometimes Sikh community people come and ask for donation and you can't refuse too. Is it haram to give donation to them?

I have a health problem where I am weak standing up for a short time and having trouble getting up and moving somewhat often. I know I can do prayers sitting down....but how? And when I go to a mosque, can I do the sitting down prayers there too?

Thank you

General AIs gather data from across the internet and answer. So even when you ask with deep search on, the AI never consults the source book, it just searches the internet and presents you an answer with a citation which could be planted and fake. So, there is no authenticity.
A research paper written in 2025 named ‘ IslamicEval 2025’ gives a detailed overview of how LLMs hallucinate when asked a question about Islam and gives it a value of between 37% - 99%.

I had an energy drink, I think some liquid was around my mouth, and I washed my face like properly during wudu, after prayer I see that solid particles formed around my mouth, does this invalidate wudu, as the liquid could’ve been a barrier?

I’ve thought about sponsoring an orphan (ideally in a 3rd world country) for a few years but never taken the steps to actually do it.

My main concern is that the child may not be fully benefiting from it. I want to ensure the child gets 100% of the donation or as close to it as possible.

Not sure if there are any websites to avoid. There are a lot of charity organisations so it’s really difficult to know who to trust and who to avoid.

Has anyone here sponsored an orphan before? What was the process like? Any other advice you can give?

I’m going to be praying tawbah in a bit, and one of my shortcomings were prayers.

Do I still have to make up for missed prayers of before or just go on with my days as normal (counting that I try my best not to miss prayers anymore)?

The last thing I wanna hear after enduring the worst test of the my life for 2 years and presumably the rest of my life is to hear that it’s a punishment. Everyone always seems to when some silver lining like “allah tests those he loves” and “allah is with the patient”. But that just doesn’t really feel like anything. This test has done nothing but make be doubt if this is all empty words, which supposedly is signs that it’s a punishment. What did I ever do to deserve this

I was making a specific dua for a month, made istighfar, made dhikr, tried my best to stand up for tahajjud, truly believed that my dua will get accepted, and today it got rejected.

For context, it is something in the lines of not being able to go on a schooltrip with my bestfriends because of my major. (Yes, I know it sounds incredibly stupid, but please try to understand me and have mercy on me.)

I know that my relationship with Allah (SWT) is not transactional and i won’t get my duas accepted just because i did all the things that i did, but the disappointment weights on me a lot, because i was so attached to this dua and was convinced that it would work out. I also know that it could be for the better, that maybe this rejection avoided a calamity, that i’ll get something better later or i’ll get rewarded for my duas later, but i wanted to go with so bad and i can’t help but ask if it was supposed to avoid a calamity, couldn’t i just have asked to make this trip good for me? I know Allah says that perhaps I like a thing that is bad for me, but why wouldn't Allah make what i wanted good for me when i asked? I know that it's for our benefit, but Allah is the All-mighty and can rewrite our destiny if we ask, is there a reason he wouldn't make it good for me when i asked? I hope you understand.
But i know that Allah knows better and that he would never let my efforts be in vain, and i know that I've lost nothing in relation to my dua because it gets answered in its own way.

I know i may sound stupid arguing and counter-arguing with myself and that the reason i'm so upset is stupid, but I hope someone can give me some some advice because I've been so upset that it's embarrassing. Jazakallah Khair.

Over the past year I have been obsessively focused in doing everything humanly possible, thinking through every solution and overcoming every obstacle to achieve something and each time I am met with failure. I get anxious thinking about having to do this and it is starting to eat away at my sanity and will to live.

I had a breakthrough the other day that made me realise that I was taking the whole “tie your camel” thing too seriously and had little actual exercise of tawakkul even though I constantly told myself I did.

So my question is, now that I have realised this, can I just let go all of it to Allah? I’m on the brink of actually losing it if I continue to strive for this any longer but I’m scared that if I stop that part then it’ll just me being tawakkul and asking God for something but not working towards it anymore.

Can what I’ve done all this while count towards “tying my camel”, or doesnit have to be simultaneously both aspects for it to work?

Why does Allah keep testing His servants like the tests never come to an end and it’s just test upon test upon test?? Like how much can a person handle fr? Its like I keep being tested and everyone just says ”oh it’s a test from Allah” well I know but how much more do I have to be tested for ease to come? Like Allah sees my tears, sees how badly I want to harm myself and kms and He still keeps testing me. I cry in duaas and keep begging Allah to ease my life but He just makes it harder. It’s like He doesn’t hear me. Even when I do good in hopes of Him answering my duaas, nothing changes. Like why does He test us so much even when we beg and pray to Him to ease our hardships??

Years ago, I had OCD and I was an insane germaphobe. In islamic studies, I am taught to be pure and clean before my prayers. And I took that seriously.

I would spend hours, daily, trying to clean myself from any impurities. This might be tmi but I would wipe my privates about 5 times or more just to make sure I was clean. If I saw the slightest bit of colour, I would panic. And sometimes, the scary part is, there wouldn't even be any colour on the tissue paper and I saw just seeing things (which happened way more than I would've liked). I remember this one time I was washing my hands and I got fascinated by the way the soap felt, which started by obsession with washing my hands. Everyday and every time I felt necessary, I spent a good 2-5 minutes washing my hands with anti-bacterial soap. I also got obsessed with hand sanitiser and I could finish a bottle in two days. It got so bad that my hands changed colours and was extremely dry.

Alas, I managed to still feel impure. I was afraid to step on floors or sit on the sofa in case there was dirt. By dirt, I don't just mean urine and whatnot, it also included makeup. I would wash my face for about 1 hour just to make sure the cotton pad had no more makeup on it.

During that year, every day I would be stressed and anxious. I would be worried to pray because in my head I would think: "If I mess up and I didn't know, God wouldn't accept my prayer and my efforts will be wasted and I will end up in hell".

Ever since then, it has been hard for me to go back to Islam. I am ashamed to admit it. Honestly, I want to go back but my past habits catch up to me. Some weeks back, I tried focusing on my prayers again but all I could think of was "Am I reading the right thing? If I am reading the wrong one then my prayer's invalidated and I am going to hell."

I think a year after that, I got a bit weird. I started exploring different beliefs, specifically atheism and satanism. Okay, atheism was because I kept watching Sheldon but satanism was because I got really into heavy metal. But in the end, I can't deny it. Islam makes the most sense to me so I really really want to get back into it. Despite all the stress I got over my 'impurity', I had a glow or a shine to my face and also peace in my heart.

pls any advice 😭

Knowledge Is Light!

Knowledge is a light that illuminates our minds and shows us the right path. It brings us peace and earns us respect. It strengthens the bonds of brotherhood among Muslims and bridges the distances between us.

Who among you thirsts for knowledge and how are you experiencing it?