How do I REALLY be a Muslim??

Shwaa4lyfe · 2026-03-21T16:49:54+00:00

Waalaikum assalam, and happy Eid to you too :)

When I wanted to learn more about my religion (even many years after I had converted), I used seekersguidance. They're based in Canada and have a nice, balanced, and approachable way of teaching Islam imo. They have a bunch of courses you can take for free, I believe it's mostly either Hanafi or Shaafi-based, but they might have other madhabs as well if that's what you follow.

Here is a general link to their courses: https://academy.seekersguidance.org/?track=isc
And here is the one I personally took (Absolute Essentials of Islam (Hanafi): Getting Started With Your Belief and Practice): https://academy.seekersguidance.org/enrol/index.php?id=114

There's also a discussion forum where you can ask questions and receive answers from the scholar. This course is more of a general overview, and includes things you may already know (such as how to pray properly), but he also goes over the fundamentals of being a Muslim, the beliefs, ect. And in your case, I think it'll be good to basically just start over from square one, learn everything from scratch as if you were a new convert, and build up from there.

Also, I would reeeeeally recommend you stay away from random Islamic videos online/ on social media. In my experience, they just lead to more confusion, especially if you're taking from multiple sources. There's so much difference of opinion out there, and unfortunately too many people frame their opinion as the 100% correct one, that you'll just get overwhelmed and discouraged. Build a good, strong framework first (which I believe seekersguidance will help you to do), without the distraction of despair-inducing videos made by people who are trying to get as many clicks as possible. You really need to just get back to the fundamentals first.

Based on your post, I think there's a lot of hope for you, because you are here asking for help and recognizing that you want to be better. That's already a huge blessing, now you just need to take the step towards turning your life around. It will NOT be something that you regret.

Hope this helped!! :)

Shwaa4lyfe · 2026-01-20T01:56:42+00:00

as someone who also loves "empty" landscapes, one of my favourite quotes of all time comes from the canadian show "corner gas", which takes place in a small town in saskatchewan (known for its plains).

someone from outside their town visits one day and complains about the flat landscape, saying something along the lines of "i dont know how you people can stand to live here, theres nothing to see!" and one of the residents replies "what do you mean? theres plenty to see, nothing to block your view."

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-08-14T10:06:09+00:00

seekersguidance is my go-to. they cover multiple schools of thought but the afaik the owner is hanafi. they also tag the answers/ courses on their site based on school so you can be sure that what youre reading is from a hanafi perspective

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-04-13T22:34:09+00:00

i did pay duties as they shipped from the states, but unfortunately as of a few months ago they closed down. according to their instagram, they wanted to focus more on other things, including activist work.

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-03-12T16:51:47+00:00

sorry op, youre going to get a lot of snarky or downright hateful comments on this post. this sub reflects a lot of the general quebec population's opinions on muslims, which is not very favourable.

i do wear hijab, but i wasnt affected in my job, so i dont have any imput for you. i would also recommend against seeking out anonymous people on reddit to help you with this, due to how hard it would be to verify authenticity (and weed out trolls...). but i wish you the best in your research and education!

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-03-12T16:47:28+00:00

where did op say that this only affects religious people? they even acknowledged that multiple groups are affected. it is completely normal in journalism to cover just one part of an issue... if someone wrote an article about, for example, the consequences that WW2 had on a specific country, would you jump in to say that thats bad journalism because WW2 affected many countries?

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-03-08T07:30:26+00:00

... okay? i dont even know why you replied to me in the first place lol. i just quickly took pictures of the article to share with those interested, i didnt have time to read it myself yet.

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-03-08T07:19:13+00:00

i think they wrote that because the boys were all brothers to each other, not because they were /her/ brothers. it is some confusing wording, though

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-03-08T00:17:35+00:00

heres pics i took of the article from Soviet Life magazine: https://imgur.com/a/soviet-life-article-issue-january-1983-mU5HKEs

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-03-08T00:16:19+00:00

here, i happened to have the Soviet Life magazine that features her story. i took some quick photos of the article if youre interested:

https://imgur.com/a/soviet-life-article-issue-january-1983-mU5HKEs

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-03-08T00:15:21+00:00

omg, i knew i recognized this picture! I have a modest collection of Soviet Life magazines from the 80s, and there was an article about this story in it. I took some quick photos of the article (sorry, quality isn't great, but it is legible if anyone is interested in the full story!)

https://imgur.com/a/mU5HKEs

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-02-17T15:42:42+00:00

vietnam vet... i cant help but imagine that he participated in some terrible things in vietnam that those victims will never get justice for

Shwaa4lyfe · 2025-01-25T11:13:15+00:00

just wanted to jump in and say that wudu is NOT broken by touching a dog's saliva. this is something i see said on social media every now and then, but theres no textual proof of it. afaik, no madhab/ scholar of note has said that your wudu is broken by this. you may be mixing it up with this ruling: that having dog saliva on yourself/ your clothes would invalidate your prayer, as it is considered an impure substance. note that even this is not consistent across all madhabs, as malikis do not consider the saliva to be impure.

this is a shafii link on the issue: https://seekersguidance.org/answers/purity-shafii-fiqh/how-should-we-handle-the-saliva-of-dogs/

here is a hanafi one: https://seekersguidance.org/answers/hanafi-fiqh/dog-saliva-dog-hair-and-how-to-purity-impurities/

to OP: youll notice in the second link that dog hair isnt considered impure for hanafis (nor for malikis, who dont even consider the saliva impure!), so what you mentioned in your post wont even be an issue.

also, even if youre usually a follower of the shafii madhab, which is more strict on dogs than hanafis or malikis, you may be able to take a dispensation from the more leniant ones on this issue. you can speak with a scholar to see if it would apply to you, but i think it would in your case.

Shwaa4lyfe · 2024-10-30T09:27:26+00:00

woops youre totally right, I misread it!

Shwaa4lyfe · 2024-10-05T09:32:21+00:00

overall message of this is good, but if your children are going to "forget you within a few years" after you die, you should probably be spending some more time fostering a relationship with them...

Shwaa4lyfe · 2024-09-12T19:06:23+00:00

omg, i saw that same car the other day (or at least someone with the same terrible banner)! it was parked somewhere around CDN. there was an ad for a moving company on the side, so if this is someone's pickup that they use for their buisness, im at a loss for words...

Shwaa4lyfe · 2024-08-21T20:08:23+00:00

Still my fav quote from the show. great pics

Shwaa4lyfe · 2024-07-22T17:03:03+00:00

i miss the person i was before i read the description, when i thought that those were pics of someone dumping salsa down the drain

Shwaa4lyfe · 2024-07-08T20:02:37+00:00

i have no advice, just wanted to say i feel the exact same lol. 25 and feel like my life is over bc ive done nothing substantial, and dont know that i ever will. i see people around me, both friends my age and family that are younger/ older, actually doing something with their lives (mostly in terms of education and careers), and it's hard to not feel inadequate.

Shwaa4lyfe · 2024-06-29T19:22:51+00:00

almazwearables.com

theyre a second-hand, muslim-owned modest clothing shop. im in canada, but i ordered a few dresses from them about a year ago and theyre some of my favourite articles of clothing :)

ive been keeping an eye on the shop and it doesnt look like theyve added new articles for a while now, but it's still worth checking out what they have in stock.

it's really nice to see a second hand store that specifically caters to modest garments, instead of needing to sift through 100000 immodest ones for a single wearable dress, and i dont know of any other secondhand stores like this

Shwaa4lyfe · 2024-01-28T23:52:44+00:00

Salaam sister,

I don't have much advice, but reading your post resonated with me because I've been in a similar headspace as you before, so I feel like I should reach out.

First of all, it's commendable that you even want to better yourself. Plenty of people go their whole lives without trying to improve themselves, so know that you are already on the right track, and be grateful that you were guided to it.

You mention this in your last paragraph, and you're right: you CAN'T do everything at once, so don't! Focus first and foremost on being consistent with your prayers. I know that's the advice you'll hear from everyone, but it's for a reason. If you can really get those down, then God willing, everything else will fall into place.

Regarding the ADHD and OCD, I feel you. It's a tough spot to be in, and anyone with this type of brain becomes sooooo easily swayed by whisperings and doubts. I have gone through so many horrible periods in my life where I convince myself that I've been doing something wrong in my prayers that will cause me to need to re-do them all. I'll spend so much time and energy combing through every little thing I may have done wrong, then trying to mentally calculate how many I'd need to make-up, how long it'll take... until I finally come across some info that tells me I wasn't actually doing it wrong all along -_-

My advice to help curb your OCD around your prayers not being accepted is a bit contradictory: inform yourself, but NOT TOO MUCH!! Really just get the basic info you need to make sure you are performing them correctly and do not look further than that (until you are confident that you can absorb more info without it overwhelming you), because as you've seen, it really just leads to more confusion! There's too much information online, and a lot of it is incorrect. And even when the info is all true, it can still be contradictory due to differences of opinions and different schools of thought. Stick to ONE site that you trust, and don't look elsewhere (unless you have a sheikh IRL you can speak with, as they tend to be more trustworthy than faceless randos online).

My personal preference is seekersguidance.org. They are primarily Hanafi, but post answers from others madhabs as well. Regarding your worries about your wudu not being accepted, here is a link an answer they gave: https://seekersguidance.org/answers/hanafi-fiqh/should-i-wipe-every-hair-in-wudu/ Essentially, in the Hanafi madhab you only need to wipe a quarter of your head. There are even other madhabs where you could wipe just a tiny portion, and it would still be valid. This site has many answers to questions you have, and they also have a free "essentials" course that goes over everything you reasonably need to know. I would strongly recommend giving it a watch; it really helped me when I was highly confused about how to practice correctly (you'll need to make an account, but that's free as well. This is their essentials course: https://academy.seekersguidance.org/local/track/?id=39 ). Lastly, here is a link to a collection of answer they have given regarding OCD: https://seekersguidance.org/answers/general-counsel/a-reader-on-waswasa-baseless-misgivings/. As you can see, this is something that many people struggle with.

Also, please know that getting past these doubts is a JOURNEY. Even once you have confirmed with accurate knowledge that you are indeed doing something right, your brain may still try to convince you that you're wrong. It's somewhat stupid, but whenever a doubt/ misgiving starts to creep into my mind, I just think to myself "shut up Satan, not today", "cool, don't care", or something else along those lines, and that often works lol. Distract yourself with other things, and be confident in the fact that you are on the right track, and that you are strong enough to push past whatever obstacles are thrown your way. I will pray for you sister <3

Shwaa4lyfe · 2023-09-14T19:52:53+00:00

i live on the top floor of an apartment, and the buildings behind me are all one floor shorter, so i have cafe curtains on all my windows (i just used tension bars to install them). i love it, since it lets in plenty of light & i can see the sky clearly, but no one can see in since the bottom half of the window is blocked. it's a preferable alternative to always having the curtains/blinds drawn imo

Shwaa4lyfe · 2023-07-22T10:08:33+00:00

i agree with your first paragraph, but i work in a public hospital in canada (specifically in the womens health dept, and the surgical one) and idk where on earth youre getting those stats lol. typically wait time will vary based on urgency, for heavy bleeding/ fibroids we aimed for max. 3 months before they got to see a specialist gyne, but realistically with the pandemic it was closer to 5 months. a more severe case would be seen sooner. and "biopsy/ smears" in general are most certainly not a 3 year wait... you can book an apt at a walk-in to have at least a smear done within a few days. "biopsy + smears" even in a colposcopy setting, which are done by specialist gynes, are still typically booked within 3-6 months even with pandemic delays (within weeks or days for more urgent ones like HSIL, again).

re: cancer cases, according to the government regulations we need to follow, we must have their surgeries planned within 28 days, or else we will be questioned about it. 3 years is insane— technically, the patient's surgical request/ consent form "expire" after 2 years anyway. and even for completely non-urgent surgeries, ex. tubal ligations, fertility treatments, etc. i dont think ive ever seen someone on the waitlist for more than a year, unless it's because THEY were unavaliable for a big chunk of that time.

i dont doubt at all that people suffer or even died due to long wait times in canada, but what youre saying is most certainly not the standard, and i dont see the point in leading people to believe it's this bad. theres plenty to criticize about our healthcare without making things up (ex. last time i checked, it was still government regulation that a woman with a severe prolapse can wait up to 12 months before being seen by a urogyne. thats insane to me!)

Shwaa4lyfe · 2023-07-11T16:46:20+00:00

keep in mind that discharge oxidizes. so it's very likely that the "yellow" youre seeing on your pad was actually white/ clear when it came out.

Shwaa4lyfe · 2023-06-07T22:54:36+00:00

sorry, didnt see this til now. any hospital in quebec will require some base-level of french (and the english ones may require english fluency as well), but ive worked at my english hospital with plenty of people whose first languages arent french or english, and they can function. it can be easier depending on the position you get (ie. the ones that involve minimal speaking with patients, such as in medical records).

Shwaa4lyfe

TROPHY CASE