Question: I sometimes experience distress and depression. So what is the cause of that? And what is the cure. May Allah reward you.
Answer: “I am not able to know the cause because depression and distress have various causes. However, there is one thing that a person can benefit by and it is to say what came in the Sunnah:
لا إله إلا أنت سبحانك إني كنت من الظالمين
None has the right to be worshipped but You (O Allah)], Glorified (and Exalted) are You [above all that (evil) they associate with You]. Truly, I have been of the wrong-doers
[Reported Tirmidhi. Graded Saheeh by Al-Albani in Saheeh Tirmidhi no. 3505]
This is one thing.
Second, he reads the hadith of Ibn Mas’ud radiallahu anhu:
اللهم إني عبدك ابن عبدك ابن أمتك، ناصيتي بيدك، ماضٍ في حكمك، عدلٌ في قضاؤك، أسألك اللهم بكل اسمٍ هو لك، سميت به نفسك، أو أنزلته في كتابك، أو علمته أحداً من خلقك، أو استأثرت به في علم الغيب عندك، أن تجعل القرآن العظيم ربيع قلبي، ونور صدري، وجلاء حزني، وذهاب همي وغمي
O Allah, I am Your slave and the son of Your male slave and the son of your female slave . My forehead is in Your Hand (i.e. you have control over me) . Your Judgment upon me is assured and Your Decree concerning me is just . I ask You by every Name that You have named Yourself with , revealed in Your Book , taught any one of Your creation or kept unto Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen that is with You , to make the Qur’an the spring of my heart, and the light of my chest, the banisher of my sadness and the reliever of my distress.
[Graded Saheeh by Al-Albani in Saheeh at-Targhib no. 1822]
For verily these are from the effective, beneficial medicines. Every time a person increases in the remembrance of Allah, the worries and anxieties will be remove from him due to Allah:
أَلا بِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ الْقُلُوبُ
Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.
[13:28]
It is a must for a person to increase in reciting the remembrances established from the Prophet (ﷺ) in the morning and evening. What harms a person most in these affairs is heedlessness of the remembrance of Allah and of the remembrances of the Shariah”.
[https://audio.islamweb.net/audio/index.php?page=FullContent&audioid=316045#333221]
Translated by
Faisal Ibn Abdul Qaadir Ibn Hassan
Abu Sulaymaan
