Dear friend,
You have sent me a letter in which you expressed worry about your spiritual journey. You shared your concerns about how your relationship to the Five Prayers has evolved — how it has changed, how it has weakened at times, and how this change has unsettled you. You also spoke about your relationship with your Shaykh, about a growing distance where there was once attachment and eagerness. And you asked me, through these questions, to clarify my position and to redefine the aim and the purpose of my teachings.
I want to begin by addressing this very clearly.
I do not feel sorry for your state. It is not as desolate as you may feel it is. Alhamdulillah, I would even say that it is a good state. What you are experiencing are symptoms of an evolution in consciousness. A transition period like this is not only natural, but necessary, when one moves away from a rigid, identity-based religiosity toward an open culture of spiritual evolution and consciousness development.
There is a rule on the path — in fact, on any serious path — which says that one should endure the path without complaining. Traditionally, this endurance has been understood as bearing prayers, fasting, sacrifices, discipline, what a Shaykh may ask, and also the turbulence that can arise through the company of others on the path — murîd, students of knowledge, and collective life itself.
But on the path of seeking the Haqq, of seeking truth itself, the pain is of a different nature.
It is often a deep solitude, and a gradual estrangement from much of what we have been used to. The suffering here is mostly internal: confusion, destabilization, the loss of reference points, the loss of identity. The things that once defined us no longer hold, no longer speak. This can be deeply painful — and for the ego, even devastating. And it is precisely this pain that prevents so many people from ever daring to change.
The pains of growth are real. They are not imaginary, and they are not signs of failure.
You raised several points, and I would like to address them carefully.
The first concerns your worry about progressively losing your attachment to the Five Prayers.
So let me ask the question openly, for everyone reading this: what are the Five Prayers, according to my understanding and my teachings? They are five daily portals. These five portals are meant to celebrate our connection to the Divine Presence through the Muhammadan posture and positioning in relation to Creation, the Universe, and the Divine Itself. I am sure you do not disagree with me when I say that this description often comes as a surprise, simply because it does not fit the understanding we were given when we were first taught to perform these prayers.
To be honest with you, I do not feel that there is any real loss when someone stops performing prayers that were practiced primarily with the intention of having to do them because they are obligations, or worse, doing them to fit into society, or even worse, doing them to feel good about oneself — which ultimately becomes a subtle form of ego-worship.
So I ask myself, and I ask you again: where is the loss?
At best, these exercises — if they were truly held with discipline and respect for time — could have structured daily life. But in reality, this is rarely the case. Most people rush, catch up, and make up prayers just before the next adhân announces itself, often experiencing prayer not as something desired, but as something that takes them away from what they believe they must do instead.
At worst, these exercises become sources of ego inflation, self-contentment, and even self-destruction.
So again: where is the loss?
As I said before, one can never lose what one has never truly found.
Take this moment, then, as an opportunity to find the Salat. Not the movements yet — but the meaning of Salat. To find Salat as those moments, those portals, in which you genuinely feel called to enter a deeper, higher, or more intimate presence of yourself with the Divine.
And after you find the Salat, you may naturally reconcile with the Muhammadan form — the Muhammadan exercise, the Muhammadan meditative posture — not as an obligation, but as a gift that was shown to us, like all the methods left to humanity by Prophets and Sages. Allow yourself to rediscover this meditation without forcing onto it the certitude that it is the best, the most complete, or the ultimate form. Simply rediscover it as a practice that nourishes the soul, brings peace to the heart, and balances one’s energy — internally and externally — with the energies around.
The second point you mentioned concerns your loss of interest in visiting your Shaykh — when you once felt almost addicted to his presence and impatient to see him.
This is not necessarily a good sign or a bad sign. It depends.
Who is this Shaykh? And what does he represent in your journey?
It is very possible that this Shaykh served a particular period of your life, a phase of your development, but that your present growth can no longer align with the language he is using, the culture or subculture surrounding him, or the type of interactions taking place in that environment. It may simply no longer be what your soul needs at this stage.
This does not mean that you have become better than others. And it does not mean that you have become worse, or that you have fallen out of some imagined paradise.
There is nothing to be nostalgic about. There is everything to be grateful for.
Looking backward is one of the greatest enemies on the spiritual path.
When we read the Qur’an, we see that the command given to the family of Prophet Lût was unequivocal: “Do not look back” (lā taltafit) — a command repeated in Sûrat Hûd (11:81) and Sûrat al-Hijr (15:65). Keep walking. Keep moving forward.
Whatever has passed was meant to pass. The form that was demolished was meant to be demolished. The taste that was lost was meant to be lost.
We grow. We evolve. We change. This is natural — and it is desired by Divine Wisdom.
And let me insist on this point: do not compare yourself to your husband. He may be more advanced than you. You may be more advanced than him. I honestly do not know — I have not met him, nor spoken with him. What I do know is that your journeys are different. You do not need to match one another. You do not need to catch up. He does not need to catch up either. What you have met, he has not met. Your calls may simply be different.
Now, knowing you, I can already anticipate your next question: “So are you saying that there is nothing to worry about on the spiritual path?”
No. That is not what I am saying.
There are things that should concern us.
What should truly worry us is an increase in selfishness: the hardening of the heart, the loss of compassion, the decrease of empathy, the desire to hurt others, envy toward people on the path or toward others in this life.
These states — even though nothing exists outside of the Divine — are traditionally described as movements of hell. And they should be taken seriously if they arise within us.
On the other hand, losing interest in visiting a certain Shaykh, in listening to a certain type of discourse, in Qur’anic recitation for a period, or feeling drawn instead to another kind of music; losing enthusiasm for ritual prayer or fasting — these are not necessarily negative signs. They may simply be invitations to rediscover the truth within these forms, and to allow these practices to become what they were always meant to be: exercises that help us grow.
Because this is the path of consciousness development. This is the path of the prophets of all ages. The message was never self-centered, nor inviting to self-centeredness. It has always been about evolving in consciousness.
How do we know if consciousness has evolved?
Look at how you feel the pain of others. Look at how you connect to their joy.
If Imân is this active engagement in creating and activating a safe space for everyone, where are we with that responsibility?
It is not about a selfish feeling, nor about an intense inner state. It is about translation into existence.
Growth in consciousness, if it is real, will translate into action in this world, and into an amelioration of attitude in this life. This is what we are all about.
The exercises and methods that were given to us were only meant to:
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help us become more connected to our deep divine reality: Salat;
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allow this connection to grow, expand, and bear fruit — so that we may grow better, healthier, deeper, higher, and wider: Zakat.
Both Salat and Zakat are to be lived personally, in the most intimate context. But their truth is to be tested, appreciated, and evaluated with people — in the presence of people, and in interaction with people.
If you are truly a person of Salat, then you will be a musallî who is not like those described in Sûrat al-Mâʿûn (107:1–7) — those who pray while remaining disconnected from ethical responsibility and human care.
And if you have lived the reality of Zakat — spiritual growth — you will be generous in giving and sharing that growth with others, in many ways.
You will do this Zakat in a state of rukūʿ — deep alignment with your divine reality, and with who you truly are — echoing the Qur’anic description in Sûrat al-Mâʾidah (5:55).
Bismillah.
With care, Hamdi
