Outbox: June 27th

ASA Jay,

I've kept looking at your e-mail over the past three days but didn't know whether or what to reply.

I do understand everything in you wrote here but have to admit that I'd have felt it much more a year ago.

Things for me now have gone beyond right and wrong. I'm questioning why we are here in the first place. And if the purpose is to worship Allah, I would love to do that. But I do not think He would need to create people to worship Him.

On my human side, looking at sins, good deeds, human nature, desires, natural disasters, the countless blessings around us, heaven and hell and the afterlife .... etc.. I think to myself "I did not choose to be here in the first place, why was I given a mind to think with the way I am, why was I given desires and feelings, and why million other things?"

You are telling me to go study other religions and then decide. And I don't want to. I just wanted for one religion to be as clear as the sun and that's it. I don't want to spend the rest of my life studying religions and looking for the truth. I know for you it's crystal clear. And I'm sure the truth is clear to your Christian family as well and they might be feeling sorry for you.
Start looking for answers? Where? And in whose interpretation? Consensus? Of whom? Of scholars who wrote their volumes hundreds of years ago? Or of those in the modern world? And which one do you trust? Salafis or Librals? Sunnis or Shia? Sufis or non-Sufis? Which version of Islam? The one in Cairo, Jeddah, Ryadh, London, New York, Morocco, Turkey, Iran?
I truly do not know where to start.

Is this confusion a test from Allah? Well, I really can't take it any more and only He knows what's in my heart. And I didn't choose to take that test.

Is this confusion and sadness a punishment for mistakes I've made? I am weak, human, and not perfect. And that's how I was created. And don't tellme I have the choice. I know I do. But I didn't choose to be here and have the choice and never chose to be human and weak.

I meet people who feel happy for me that I'm questioning my religion. They have no idea how happy I was two years ago when I took it for granted. I was so at peace but don't know how to go back to that peace again. It's a search that has started and not been successful yet. I pray to God to give me strength, guidance, and patience.

I remember very well during group prayers at the mosque some sheikhs saying 'Oh, Allah, You who change hearts, make our heart alwyas set to Iman (faith)' and I always wondered why he would pray that Allah never changes his heart. Now I know. I'm not the same girl you met four years ago. You should be feeling lucky you still pray and feel it. You should always ask Allah to keep your faith in your heart and never test you on that.