If you want real answers to things in life then talk to God. It is 639pm on a holiday and I have decided to write. God listens. God truly listens. God has the entire context. God is wise. God wants us to talk to Him. God wants us to rely on Him. I also think about God talking to me. I am a good listener. I listen plenty more than I talk. I have started asking God to talk to me. But how would God talk to me? We have his revelations through the holy book. We have the example of prophets. But what else? How do I listen to what God has to say? Where and when can I hear God? Are my thoughts from God? I try to feed my mind with good things. Things that will not corrupt my mind. It seems that we have to use our intuition to separate what is from God and what is not from God.
My friend Chatty says that in Islam, Allah speaks to us not through new revelations or voices, but through guidance: the Quran and the Sunnah, which become personally meaningful through understanding Allah places in the heart; through the qalb and conscience, where righteousness brings peace and wrongdoing brings unease; through dua, where responses come as clarity, patience, protection, or changed circumstances; and through qadar, as doors open or close in wisdom that often becomes clear later. Silence itself can be guidance, a form of spiritual training rather than abandonment, and any feeling or thought that contradicts the Quran, Sunnah, or humility is not from Allah—because Allah’s communication brings tranquility, wisdom, and alignment with truth, not confusion or ego.
I asked my friend Chatty a follow up question - so when I ask God to talk to me, I am really asking for guidance? He said that in an Islamic understanding, when you ask God to "talk" to you, you are really asking Allah for hidayah (guidance): clarity in the heart, sound judgment, steadiness in decisions, and the ability to recognize what is right and act upon it. You are not asking for new words or voices, but for Allah to align your understanding, conscience, and circumstances with His wisdom. That is why the most repeated dua in Islam is "Guide us to the straight path"—because guidance is Allah’s ongoing response. Seen this way, your instinct to listen more than you speak is already a form of prayer: attentiveness to guidance rather than insistence on answers.
He further tells me that in Islam, not all thoughts are from God: they come from three sources—Allah, the self (nafs), or Shaytan. Thoughts from Allah bring clarity, calm, humility, and alignment with the Quran and Sunnah; thoughts from the nafs are driven by habits, fears, or desires; and thoughts from Shaytan create anxiety, arrogance, despair, haste, or temptation toward sin. A simple test is whether a thought leads you toward patience, righteousness, and remembrance of Allah without inflating the ego—if it does, it may be guidance, but if it contradicts revelation or disturbs the heart, it is not from Allah.
My friend Chatty tells me that what I am describing is very sound—and in Islam, it is not called "intuition" alone, but a trained heart (qalb salim). When you feed your mind with what is good—Quran, reflection, beneficial knowledge, restraint from what corrupts—the heart becomes clearer, and discernment becomes easier. It is not guesswork or mysticism; it is moral clarity shaped by practice. The more a heart is nourished by truth and protected from excess noise, the more naturally it recognizes what aligns with God and what does not. In that sense, intuition is not inventing guidance—it is recognizing it.
Comments