Ruqyahforanxietyanddepression

Someone has told you that your anxiety or your depression is spiritual. Perhaps a relative, perhaps a raqi, perhaps a video. This page is written for that moment, and it says two things at once: what you have is an illness that medicine treats, and ruqyah belongs in your week as well. Neither of those cancels the other.

Anxiety and depression are illnesses, and they have treatments

Low mood that lasts for weeks, loss of interest in what you used to enjoy, broken sleep, appetite changes, a racing heart, dread that arrives without an occasion: these are recognised conditions with a research literature behind them and treatments with measurable results. They also run alongside thyroid disease, anaemia, vitamin deficiency, chronic pain, bereavement and childbirth, which is part of why the assessment matters.

The Prophet ﷺ said that Allah has not sent down a disease without sending down a cure for it (Bukhari 5678). A cure that exists has to be looked for, and looking for it in a clinic is the same act of obedience as looking for it in the Quran.

Seeing a doctor is taking a means, not losing trust

This is where the harm usually starts. A person is told, gently, that going to the doctor shows weak tawakkul, and that a believer treats this with recitation. So the referral is not chased, the follow-up is missed, and a year goes by.

Trust in Allah includes using what He created. The Prophet ﷺ consulted physicians, told his Companions to seek treatment, and used remedies himself. Medication is a substance Allah made and a doctor prescribed; there is nothing of shirk in swallowing it, and nothing of shirk in sitting in a therapist’s room and describing what your week is like. The argument in full is at taking the means and tawakkul, and what delay costs is documented at the cost of delay.

If your family and your clinician are pulling you in two directions, when the family says possession and the clinician says otherwise is written for that room. And if you are wondering how common your framework is, close to half of the Muslim patients interviewed in one transcultural psychiatry clinic considered the jinn a possible cause of what they were experiencing; the research is read in full at what psychiatry finds.

Waswasa, and what it does not explain

Waswasa is the whisper: an unwanted suggestion arriving in the chest, from the shayṭān or from the restlessness of the self. It is real, the Quran names it, and Sūrat al-Nās exists to seek refuge from it.

Two things follow. The whisper is not a sin: the Companions told the Prophet ﷺ that they found in themselves things they would rather be burned to ash than speak of, and he said, that is clear faith (Muslim). And he said that Allah has overlooked for this Ummah what their souls whisper to them, so long as they do not act upon it or speak of it (Bukhari and Muslim).

What waswasa does not explain is a fortnight of not being able to get out of bed, a panic attack in a supermarket, or a mother who cannot feel anything towards her newborn. Those are the shapes of illness, and treating them as a spiritual failure adds shame to something already heavy. The whole subject is set out at whispers and doubts.

When the thoughts are the OCD pattern

Ordinary waswasa comes, is refused, and passes. A different pattern takes over the day, and it has a name and a treatment.

• Washing for wuḍū’ many times over, or restarting the prayer until it is nearly out of time.
• A thought you cannot dismiss no matter how often you seek refuge, each dismissal followed by a fresh one.
• Reassurance from a scholar or a relative that helps for a minute, then the doubt returns unchanged.
• Hours a day of checking, counting or confessing, and intense guilt or panic around the thoughts.
• The doubt spreading: from wuḍū’ to prayer to contamination to relationships to belief itself.

That is obsessive-compulsive disorder, described by Muslim scholars for centuries under the same word. Ibn Qudāmah and Ibn al-Qayyim gave the same instruction that cognitive-behavioural therapy gives now: act on the certainty you already have, refuse the compulsion, and let the discomfort pass without answering it. If you recognise this pattern, ask your GP for an assessment and mention OCD by name.

What the Sunnah gives for worry and grief

Grief has never been a defect in a believer. Ya‘qūb, blind with sorrow, took it to the only place it belongs:

قَالَ إِنَّمَآ أَشْكُوا۟ بَثِّى وَحُزْنِىٓ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ وَأَعْلَمُ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

Qāla innamā ashkū baththī wa ḥuznī ilallāhi wa a‘lamu minallāhi mā lā ta‘lamūn

He said, “I only complain of my suffering and my grief to Allah, and I know from Allah that which you do not know.”

Complaining to Allah is a Sunnah of the prophets. And the settling He gives has a named cause:

ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَتَطْمَئِنُّ قُلُوبُهُم بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ ۗ أَلَا بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ ٱلْقُلُوبُ

Alladhīna āmanū wa taṭma’innu qulūbuhum bi-dhikrillāh, alā bi-dhikrillāhi taṭma’innul-qulūb

Those who have believed and whose hearts are assured by the remembrance of Allah. Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah hearts are assured.

The Prophet ﷺ said this at times of distress:

لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ الْعَظِيمُ الْحَلِيمُ، لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ رَبُّ الْعَرْشِ الْعَظِيمِ، لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ رَبُّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَرَبُّ الْأَرْضِ وَرَبُّ الْعَرْشِ الْكَرِيمِ

Lā ilāha illallāhul-‘Aẓīmul-Ḥalīm, lā ilāha illallāhu Rabbul-‘arshil-‘aẓīm, lā ilāha illallāhu Rabbus-samāwāti wa Rabbul-arḍi wa Rabbul-‘arshil-karīm

There is no god but Allah, the Magnificent, the Forbearing. There is no god but Allah, Lord of the mighty Throne. There is no god but Allah, Lord of the heavens, Lord of the earth, Lord of the noble Throne.

Alongside it, Ḥasbiyallāhu lā ilāha illā Huwa, ‘alayhi tawakkaltu wa Huwa Rabbul-‘arshil-‘aẓīm, said seven times morning and evening (Abu Dawud 5081): Allah is sufficient for me; there is no god but Him. In Him I place my trust, and He is Lord of the mighty Throne. It sits with the rest of the morning and evening adhkār, where every one of them is given in Arabic, transliteration and English, and those are the part of this most people find they can keep on a bad day.

And the du‘ā he ﷺ said most often names the two states separately, because they are not the same thing — hamm is the worry that looks forward, ḥazan the grief that looks back:

اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْهَمِّ وَالْحَزَنِ، وَالْعَجْزِ وَالْكَسَلِ، وَالْبُخْلِ وَالْجُبْنِ، وَضَلَعِ الدَّيْنِ وَغَلَبَةِ الرِّجَالِ

Allāhumma innī a‘ūdhu bika minal-hammi wal-ḥazan, wal-‘ajzi wal-kasal, wal-bukhli wal-jubn, wa ḍala‘id-dayni wa ghalabatir-rijāl

O Allah, I seek refuge in You from worry and grief, from incapacity and laziness, from miserliness and cowardice, from the burden of debt and from being overpowered by men.

Notice how much of it is not about feelings at all. Four of the eight things named are the conditions that manufacture worry and then keep it running: not being able to act, not wanting to, debt, and being under someone else’s power. It is a du‘ā that treats a low mood as something with causes, which is exactly the posture the rest of this page asks you to take. It is on a card in the morning and evening adhkār with the counter, if you want it somewhere you will actually see it.

Where ruqyah sits in this

Reciting over yourself is permitted, free, and safe to do while you are on treatment. Do it, and keep the medical treatment running at the same time. What it does not do is replace the assessment, and a raqi who declares every intrusive thought to be a jinn of waswasa can deepen an obsession rather than settle it, and can postpone care a person needs.

Where whispers arrive alongside the other signs of sihr or mass (aversion to the Quran, night terrors, reactions during recitation), a raqi who follows the Sunnah may recite, and the medical treatment continues throughout.

What to do this week

1. 1

   Book the appointment

   Ask your GP for an assessment for low mood or anxiety, and say how long it has been going on. If you already have a diagnosis and a prescription, keep taking it as prescribed.

2. 2

   Keep three lines a night

   Sleep, mood, and what happened that day. Two weeks of this is the most useful thing you can put in front of a clinician, and it will show you in six weeks what has changed.

3. 3

   Guard the five prayers first

   Before any extra recitation. Prayer is the anchor of the day, and it is the practice most likely to slip when a person is unwell.

4. 4

   Recite over yourself once a day

   Al-Fātiḥah, Āyat al-Kursī, the last two verses of al-Baqarah and the three Quls, with the routine if you want a shape for it. Five minutes is enough.

5. 5

   Say the du‘ās above, out loud

   The du‘ā of distress, the refuge from worry and grief, and Ḥasbiyallāh seven times morning and evening. Keep them short and keep them daily rather than long and occasional.

6. 6

   Tell one person

   A spouse, a sibling, a friend who will ask you next week. Isolation is where both illnesses grow.

Take the record you have been keeping to the appointment, and keep the medicine going until the doctor who prescribed it says otherwise.