So, Allah jalla wa ‘ala says in al-Fatir, 34:
“They will say, ‘Praise be to Allah, who has removed from us all sadness.’”
I don’t think there’s anyone nowadays any more that claims, “How can you be depressed whilst being a Mu’min?!” If they do, they get shot down pretty quick and too right as well.
Mental health awareness has increased massively and must not be neglected in our communities. However it is also important to recognise the limits of this area of knowledge, because not only is it a detailed, difficult area of science but also it is subjective, and also it overlaps with religious principles too. So this is not an easy subject frankly.
The word in this verse is الْحَزَنَ (hazan) which I’ve translated as sadness. The original word is connected to tough times in Arabic, so we might say that the surface of some land has حُزُونَة in it i.e. it is very rough and craggy terrain. Our journey therein would therefore become difficult. Difficult times are what put people down, and they cause grief, depression, sorrow etc.
There are many evidences from life itself, let alone the Qur’an and Sunnah that grief and sadness are states one enters into and we have to be sensitive to such situations and help those affected as best as possible.
What’s beautiful to notice about *this* verse though is that if you want to consider yourself from the people of Jannah, then you *must* go through a period of sadness or depression in your life.
It doesn’t need to get to very severe clinical levels, but by definition the believers praise Allah in this verse (and this is quoting them speaking in Jannah by the way after The Reckoning) for removing sadness from them, which means it must have been there in the dunya. Or put another way, if you have not felt any depression or sadness in this life – which is of course a place of trial, tribulation and a prison for the believer – then you should seriously fear that you have the signs of the people of the Fire!
I love this point. It means we can never look down upon someone who is in depression. In fact the opposite: if we were going to look down at anyone then it would be the one who *doesn’t* go through any depression or sadness in their life!
And likewise, when Allah ‘azza wa jall says in al-Tur, 26:
“‘When we were still with our families we used to live in fear.’”
This would mean that if you don’t taste fear and anxiety in this life, then you might also not be from the people of Jannah because that is what they will praise Allah for in the Akhirah when they look back at life on Earth!
Now this doesn’t mean that if things are going all dandy and there’s not a single issue that you fear or are sad about, that you should suddenly ask Allah for difficulty and trials to create that sadness.
No. Depression and sadness although normal and signs of the people of Jannah, are NOT a positive or healthy thing. If it was then we wouldn’t praise Allah for getting *rid* of it from us. Allah wouldn’t praise Jannah for being a place where “there will be no fear for them and they shall not grieve.” So whenever we get afflicted, we should ask for patience and rely on our faith and every other means available from advice, counselling and medication to get ourselves free from it.
Depression is real and we must all go through it in our lives at some point at some level. But it is not a positive attribute in of itself, rather its consequence is positive. This also proves that being hopeful, happy, and optimistic is the default position of the believer, whilst embracing the difficult times with hope and patience and asking Allah for His ‘aafiyah i.e. “His pardon and sound physical and mental health.”
May Allah replace our hard times for happier times, and enter us into the permanent abode of happiness. Ameen.
