What to do when your iman is low
It happens to everyone. Almost nobody says so out loud.
There are weeks when prayer feels heavy. You still pray, but you are watching the clock. The Quran sits on the shelf. Nothing happened. Your iman just feels low.
Most people go through this and think they are the only one, because nobody talks about it.
Is it normal for iman to go up and down?
Yes. The Quran says it. Allah sends calm into the hearts of the believers so that their faith grows on top of the faith they already had. If faith can grow, it can also drop.
The companions felt it too.
One of them, a man who used to write for Nabi ﷺ, walked out of his house one day saying he had become a hypocrite. When he sat with Nabi ﷺ and heard about Paradise and the Fire, it felt as if he could see them. Then he went home, played with his children, dealt with his wife and his work, and most of it slipped away.
He told Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr said: by Allah, the same happens to me.
They both went to Nabi ﷺ. He told them that if they stayed at that level all the time, the angels would shake their hands in the street. Then he said there is a time for this, and a time for that.
A flat month does not tell you who you really are. It tells you that you are having a flat month.
Does low iman make me a hypocrite?
No. Look at that story again. The companion who was scared he was a hypocrite was scared because he cared. A hypocrite does not lose sleep over it.
Nabi ﷺ himself often asked Allah: O Turner of hearts, keep my heart firm on Your religion. When he was asked why he worried, he said every heart is in Allah's hands, and He turns it as He wills.
If he asked for a firm heart, you are allowed to need one.
What makes it worse?
Two things.
The first is stopping prayer. Praying without feeling it feels fake, so people decide to stop until they mean it again. A week turns into a month, and now the problem is much bigger than the flat feeling ever was.
The second is trying to fix everything in one weekend. Night prayer, the whole Quran in forty days, three new habits from Monday. It lasts four days, falls apart, and they feel worse than before they started.
Nabi ﷺ warned about exactly this. He said this religion is easy, and anyone who makes it too heavy for himself will be beaten by it. Aim for what is right, get as close as you can, and be glad.
So what actually brings it back?
Small things, done every day.
Nabi ﷺ said the deeds Allah loves most are the ones done regularly, even if they are small.
So keep the five prayers, even when they feel empty. Praying without feeling it still counts, and it is usually the road back. The feeling tends to come after the habit, not before it.
Then add one small thing and hold on to it. Two pages of Quran. The morning and evening remembrance. The dua above, said and meant.
And remember Allah through the day in small ways. The Quran says it is in the remembrance of Allah that hearts find rest.
What if it has lasted a long time?
Then it is worth asking what changed. Low iman is often a sign of something else, not the problem itself.
Look at what was happening around the time it started. Less sleep. New friends. A sin you keep going back to. A worry you have not dealt with. Hours on your phone at night.
The Quran asks the believers: has the time not come for your hearts to soften when Allah is remembered? It was said to people who already believed. It is an invitation back, not a door closing.
What to do
- Keep praying badly rather than not praying at all. The feeling usually comes back after the habit, not before it.
- Pick one small thing and hold it for a month before you add anything else.
- Say the dua Nabi ﷺ said often: Ya Muqallib al-qulub, thabbit qalbi 'ala dinik. O Turner of hearts, keep my heart firm on Your religion.
- Tell one person you trust. You will find out very quickly how common this is.
What not to do
- Do not decide you are a hypocrite. Somebody who did not care would not be bothered about not caring.
- Do not try to change everything on a Sunday night. That is how people end up further away by Thursday.
- Do not compare how you feel inside to how other people look outside. Half the people you envy are having this exact week.
One last thing
This week, pick one small thing. Do it every day for seven days, even on the days it feels like nothing.
Then keep going. That is how it comes back.
Source: Quran 48:4; Sahih Muslim 2750; Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2140 (sahih per al-Albani, daif per Zubair Ali Zai); Sahih al-Bukhari 39; Sunan an-Nasa'i 5034; Sahih al-Bukhari 6464; Quran 13:28; Quran 57:16
SM
The teaching in this post comes from the Quran and the hadith listed above. I only put it in plain words. The tips on what to do and what not to do are my own advice. If you want to talk about anything in this post, write to me at salam@sunnahdaily.com.
For a ruling on your own situation, please speak to a qualified local scholar. You are welcome to email me about it as well, and I will help if I can, or point you to someone who can.