Transcription
Most common pieces of advice that we hear as Muslims on a very regular basis is to just trust Allah. Leave it to Allah. Have And I know most of us genuinely want to like it's not like we're hearing the advice and thinking, "No, actually, I'd rather just stress myself out." We want to trust Allah. We know that we're supposed to be trusting Allah. We know that we're supposed to leave it in the hands of Allah.
And yet, for some reason, it's still 2:00 in the morning. We're going through every worst-case scenario that could possibly happen. I'm planning for things that haven't even happened yet. refreshing our emails for the fifth time in an hour. We've all been there and you know feeling like we're behind in career, in marriage, in life, always thinking about the next step before we've even landed on the current one. And in the midst of all of this, if someone said to us right now in that moment, "Just have to," something in us would want to say, "I know I'm trying. I want to. I genuinely don't know why I can't."
And I want to stop by saying, "It's not because you're a bad Muslim." The reason why this is so difficult for so many of us, especially the recent generations, goes much deeper than you think. And the reason stems from the way that we've wired our brains to think, and that's what I want to talk about today.
So when I moved to Turkey about 3 years ago, and if you've moved to a Muslim country from the West, you know that I'm exposed to different kinds of methods of learning knowledge. And within the community that I spent a lot of time with, there was a huge emphasis on the concept of what we call *tawakkul*, which is knowing Allah, learning who Allah is. And honestly, for me, the emphasis on that knowledge, the emphasis on getting to know my Creator, was the breakthrough point for me. That was the moment when I realized that the biggest thing that was holding me back in my *deen* was not knowing who Allah is. And specifically, learning about who Allah is by the way he describes himself, which is through the Quran and in the universe around us. Even he said, "The strength of your *tawakkul* is directly proportional to the depth of your knowledge of Allah, of the attributes of Allah." And *tawakkul* is described as a station of the heart, and he says, "Stations can't be reached through information alone. The heart has to be trained like a muscle." So when it comes to *tawakkul*, it's about learning who Allah is. Before we get into that, I want to explain what's actually happening in our brains, because I think it helps to understand why this is genuinely difficult and not just a willpower thing.
Our brains are essentially architects. They build physical pathways through a process we call neuroplasticity, which is based on the world we live in and the patterns that we repeat, the patterns that we train our brain for. What modern life has spent years training our brains to believe is this: control equals safety. So when you have everything in your hands, when everything's under your control, when you've planned every single possible outcome, this equals safety. But on the other hand, we've made uncertainty equal to threat. Because the part of your brain that registers danger can't tell the difference between a predator and an unstable job market, for example, you know, or a university result that you're waiting on, a relationship that's uncertain. It just registers the outcome is not in my hands, which means immediate danger, and it responds accordingly.
And then when you add to that the technology that we have nowadays, you know, it makes us feel like we're invincible. Everything should be trackable. Everything should be manageable. We can follow a package across three continents in real time. And you can literally open your phone, sat in the UK, watch a package being sent from, say, China. We can predict rain to the hour. We've been conditioned to feel like uncertainty is just a gap in information, and that information is always gettable. So when something isn't in our control, it genuinely feels to our brain like it's an emergency. We have hustle culture that tells us that doing something, you know, constantly planning, constantly optimizing, preparing is the cure, the antidote to fear. And you always need to be doing something to stay in control. And that is actually neurologically reinforced. Taking action releases dopamine. It feels like relief in that moment. So we've trained ourselves to associate constant planning with safety and stillness with danger.
And social media as well is constantly showing us people's results and, you know, attributing them to their own effort and strategy and consistency. You know, "I achieved this because I did this. I got here because of my money, because of my status, because people love me." The means are always visible. But the one behind the means, the one truly behind the means, which is Allah, is invisible. You know, we can't see that Allah is the one who allowed this person to have this status, and Allah is the one who allowed this person to have this success. It was Allah who enabled it. But social media has convinced us that people's success is attributed to themselves and their own efforts. And after enough years of this, we start subconsciously feeling like outcomes are just a function of effort, which makes it feel almost irrational, you know, not trying to desperately control the outcome, not trying to plan every single detail to guarantee a result. And none of this is a moral failing, right? It's just your brain doing its job based on how you've trained it.
And the only way to actually reverse this is to treat it at the root, to give your brain a higher logic, to show it a trustee who is better at managing everything than you will ever be. And that is how you rewire your brain.
So, who is Al-Wakil? In Arabic, Al-Wakil means a legal trustee. Someone who you formally appoint to take a matter completely out of your hands and manage it on your behalf, in full. Al-Wakil doesn't help you carry the load. Al-Wakil takes the load from you entirely. And that's actually the weight of this word. So when Allah describes himself as Al-Wakil in multiple places in the Quran, he's not saying he will assist you. He's saying that he will take full custody of whatever you hand over to him.
And now let's look at where this name appears in the Quran, because the context is never random. Okay? And this is those who are warned: "Your enemies have mobilized their forces against you. So fear them." They were only made stronger in faith and they replied, "Allah alone is sufficient as an aid for us, and He is the best protector." Someone comes to the believers and says, "Your enemies have gathered against you, you know, fear them." That's a real external threat. And the natural response here is to panic, you know, to grip tighter, to stop planning defensively. What happens? "It only increases them in faith." You know, if you look at the structure in the ayah, there isn't even a pause in between. "Your enemies have mobilized their forces against you. Fear them." And so increased. There is no middle action in between these two events. And that phrase, in that moment, is what we call a cognitive pattern interrupt. It completely breaks the pattern in which we've trained our brains to follow. You know, the threat is real. It's not being dismissed. But the brain's focus immediately shifts from threat to the certainty of who is managing it. And every time you say that phrase, every time you say "Hasbunallahu wa ni'mal wakeel" and you actually mean it, and you know what you're saying, and you believe what you're saying, you are building a new neural pathway for your brain. You're telling your brain, "I have this problem, but Allah is, you know, Allah is my trustee. He's the best of trustees, and He is sufficient for me." And this literally cuts through the pattern which would usually lead to anxiety or a panic response.
Another example is in Surah Taha: "He is the Lord of the east and west. There is no god worthy of worship except Him. So take Him as your direct command." Make Him your *Wakil*. Scholars described this Surah as the Surah of the night. Its whole context is the early hours of the night, you know, the exact times that our minds can run without restraints. You know, all the what-ifs. You know, "What if this doesn't happen? What if it happens like this? What if she says this? What if the outcome is like this?" And it's precisely there where Allah says, "Hand it over to me. Appoint me as your *Wakil*. You know, leave it to me."
And there are so many examples of *tawakkul* in the Quran where Allah is teaching us about himself. And honestly, we could go on and on, but I want to continue on to something I absolutely love about Allah and our *deen* in general. Allah doesn't just give us a verbal promise and then leave us to figure it out. He gives evidence. He says, "Look around you. Look at the universe." The evidence is in the universe. We see Al-Wakil in the horizons. We see Al-Wakil in the earth that hasn't missed its orbit for billions of years. We see Al-Wakil in the stars who aren't worrying about staying in place. Every biological system, every celestial body in the whole universe is completely relying on a supreme manager, and none of it falls apart.
Even think about what's happening in your body right now. You have roughly 100 trillion cells, and you didn't manage any of them today. You know, you didn't coordinate your own digestion, or you didn't tell your blood where to go. You didn't have to do these things. When was the last time you worried about which direction your red blood cells were traveling? You know, we don't worry about these things because it's not our job to manage these things. And the same goes for, you know, the seed beneath the soil. They aren't anxiously micromanaging their own growth. The planets aren't stressing about their orbit. The trees that lost every single leaf in winter still trust that spring is coming. None of them are intervening in their own functioning because all of this is already being managed by one of the most common examples given for *tawakkul* in Islam is birds.
There is a hadith by the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. He says, "If you were to truly rely upon Allah with the reliance He is due, you know, with the reliance that He deserves, you would be given provision like the birds. They go out hungry in the morning and come back with full bellies in the evening." And because of this hadith, I wanted to take a closer look at birds and I came across something which honestly blew my mind. So there are certain species of birds that migrate thousands of miles across open ocean. There are no landmarks. There's nothing to land on. There is no visible destination. But before they leave, they do what they can. They eat enough to nearly double their body weight. So essentially, they're tying their camel, right? And then they launch into the sky. And here's the absolutely fascinating part. Scientists discovered that their navigation works through a protein in their retina, which when is hit by a blue light, it goes through a quantum reaction which allows the bird to see the Earth's magnetic field. This is a guidance system embedded directly into their biology by Al-Wakil, and Al-Wakil only. The birds can't see where they're going. They can't control the wind. They don't need to understand the physics of flight. All they need to do is trust the system that they were given, and it brings them exactly where they need to be, every single time. You know, the orbits, the cells, the migration, the seeds, it's the same one who has promised to manage your affairs. When that's something that we actually acknowledge, not just as a piece of information that we've learned, you know, not just an extra fact, when it's something we truly believe, the brain finally then has the proof to embrace Allah as the trustee, as the ultimate trustee, as Al-Wakil.
I wanted to include an example from the works of Said Nursi, who was a great Islamic scholar of Turkey, and he gives this amazing example of *tawakkul* through a story. So imagine two men board a ship, and both of them are carrying heavy loads on their backs. They both have tickets. They both get on the ship. The moment the first man steps on board, he puts his luggage down, sits on top of it, and travels in complete ease. So he leaves his load. The second man, which Nursi calls foolish and arrogant, which is an interesting combination, refuses to put his load down. Someone says to him, "You know, put it down. Rest. The ship will carry you anyway. We're already on the ship. Put your load down." He's like, "No, I'm not putting it down. You know what? If it gets lost, I'm strong enough. I can carry my own load." And he's struggling, but he says, "It's fine. I can carry it myself. You know, I don't trust this ship." And they say to him, "The ship carrying you is stronger than you are, and it will keep your belongings safer than you ever can. And if you keep going like this, your head will start spinning. You'll lose your balance. You'll fall into the sea. The longer the journey goes on this ship, the weaker you'll become, and your back is already bent. And if the captain sees you like this, he'll either think that you're out of your mind, or he'll think that you're insulting the ship." And eventually, this man comes to his senses. He puts the load down. He sits, and he says, "May Allah be pleased with you. I've been freed from the exhaustion, from the embarrassment, and everything else." And he closes by speaking directly to the reader. He says, "Oh you who like, do the same. You know, come to your senses. Trust so that you can be freed from going around begging from the whole universe, trembling in front of every difficulty, and from the burden of carrying what was never yours to carry."
And I think about this story when someone says, you know, "Just leave it to Allah," and we still have all of our what-ifs. It's not really a trust problem at this point. It's that we don't know enough about the captain yet to be able to hand over our bags. Think about the first time that you've left your child somewhere new, you know, like nursery or school, or even just something that you really cared about in somebody else's hands. What do you do beforehand? You research. You ask questions. You need to know enough before you can let go. And that's not weak faith. It's not weak *iman*. That's just how trust works. It has to be built on knowledge. And Allah knows this about us. He created us. And he knows the way he created us. And that's why he doesn't just say, "Trust me," and then leave it there. He gives us his names. He gives us the Quran. He puts the signs in the universe and within ourselves. And so he's essentially saying, "I know you need to know me first. So let me show you who I am."
So what does *tawakkul* actually look like in practice? Because we should know that *tawakkul* is not passive. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, "Tie your camel and then put your trust in Allah." The action and the trust aren't opposites. They work in sequence. Think about it like planting a seed. Okay? You prepare the soil, you plant it, you water it. That's your part. And honestly, even those steps are, you know, a mercy from Allah because he's given you something to do. He's given you something to be purposeful and present. But the moment the seed is in the ground, the actual work of turning it into something that's not yours anymore. That belongs to Allah. Just staring at the seed and waiting is also not *tawakkul*. That's just a recipe for anxiety. And never planting it, and then, you know, "I have this seed in my hand, but Allah will just turn it into a flower." You know, that's not surrender either. It's just not doing your part.
It means you do everything within your reach, and then you hand over the outcome completely, entirely. You don't wait for the results from your own effort. You wait from Allah, because the result was never yours to produce in the first place. You know, you've sent the job application. You've prepared. You wrote the best version of yourself on that page. That's your part done. You've had the difficult conversation that you've been putting off. You know, you said what needed to be said, and what the other person does with it is not in your hands. You've revised for the exam. You've put the hours in. You walk out of that hall, and there is genuinely nothing more that you can do. The result is not yours to produce. You hand that part over. And same with absolutely anything that you're stressing about. You've made the *dua* repeatedly, sincerely, and your job ends there. When it comes, and how it comes, belongs to Allah. Every single time you reach that handover point, after you've done the work, after you've taken all the steps, after you've tied your camel, and you choose to let go rather than grip, you're essentially laying down a new neural pathway for your brain, one that your brain will eventually start to recognize the next time that you're in that position. "I've been here before. I've handed it over, and I'm still fine. I'm still safe. Allah is managing my affairs." And that is how the rewiring actually happens.
And, you know, even when the outcome doesn't look the way that you hoped, remember what Allah says in Baqarah, where He says, "Perhaps you dislike something, and it is good for you. Perhaps you love something, and it is bad for you. And Allah knows, and you do not know." And I know that we've all been in a situation where, whether it be an outcome, whether it be a person, whether it be a new job, we assume that it was good for us, and then we realize later on that it ends up being a huge relief that Allah saved you from that particular path. Because part of *tawakkul* is trusting that Allah knows better than we do, and part of it is trusting that whatever you hand over, the outcome will always be in your favor, even when you can't see why yet. And Allah knows.