“I want to stop entirely.”

If this is your sentence tonight, you are not the first to say it — and you are not being told anything is wrong with your iman. The tradition wrote down, in detail, what a person does about exactly this: not the theory of it, the treatment of it. Named masters, named books, numbered steps, and how long each one takes.

Two rules before any practice, and they are the tradition’s rules, not ours. First: one practice at a time, kept for two weeks, before you consider a second — the rush is the problem, not the cure. Second: do the practice and leave the result alone. Do not take your own spiritual temperature afterwards; the checking is itself a turning away.

The practices the book sends you to

• What to do on the day you want to stop entirely Forty minutes, once
  The hour in which the decision comes, and what is actually done in it. — Section 13 — When Nothing Works
• Setting the minimum floor The prayers you already pray, plus ~90 seconds
  One absolute minimum you do not go below, for as many years as it takes. — Section 13 — When Nothing Works
• Staying as a station in itself Years
  Constancy is not the consolation prize. In this tradition it outranks the prize. — Section 13 — When Nothing Works
• Complaining only to Allah 5–15 min, once a day
  Ya’qub’s rule: unlimited complaint upward, disciplined speech sideways. — Section 11 — Sabr and Hardship
• The company of the sincere 1 hour a week
  How to find one steady man when there is no circle to join. — Section 10 — Adab With People

Where the first one comes from

Bukhari narrates from Jundub that revelation paused, that the Prophet was unwell and did not rise for two or three nights, and a woman said to him that his companion had left him. Then Surat al-Duha was revealed: “Your Lord has not left you, nor does He hate you” (93:3). The Qur’an also records the words of Yunus, said in the dark, in the belly of the fish: “There is no god but You. Glory be to You. I was among the wrongdoers” (al-Anbiya’ 21:87). And of the three who were left behind, when the earth had become narrow for them: they were certain there was no refuge from Allah except in Him (al-Tawba 9:118).

Other sentences

• “I do not know where to start.”
• “I feel nothing when I pray, and I have not for years.”
• “I cannot concentrate in salah.”