How many of us have actually looked at the wording of the Istikhaara dua and pondered over its meanings? One of the most amazing part of it, to me, is the following:
فَاقْدُرْهُ لِي وَيَسِّرْهُ لِي ثُمَّ بَارِكْ لِي فِيهِ
"...then ordain it for me, make it easy for me, and bless it for me"
Just spend a few moments contemplating on what you are saying here. What precedes these short phrases is you asking Allah for guidance in a certain matter and asking the all-Knower that IF this matter is good for you in this life and the next then to ordain it, make it easy and bless it. Not only are you asking for guidance but you are also affirming that only Allah alone has complete knowledge of the unseen and He alone knows whether this matter is good for you or not. In other words, you are putting your complete trust in His guidance.
Then we come to a part where there seems to be a bit of confusion and a lot of differences. And this is the part about the answer to your istikhara. Some people believe that the answer comes in the form of a dream. That's it. Just a dream. They are so adamant that they will make istikhara hundreds of times to seek the answer in the form of a dream. When they don't see a dream after many attempts, they take that in itself as a bad sign and think Allah is turning them away from this matter. Nice. I'm not sure what they actually expect to see in this dream but more thank likely what they MIGHT see will have a totally different meaning once interpreted by a knowledgeable person than the 'obvious' meaning they derive from it. But khair, that's going in to dream interpretation, big topic in its own.
Then we have people who confuse their own personal doubts and negativities as a sign from Allah. These people go in to making istikhara with certain doubts and worries which they've not taken out time to clarify or clear, make istikhara and when these doubts popup again in their minds, they take them as a sign from Allah turning them away from the matter.
Brothers and sisters, if we look at the meaning of the words we recite, Allah has already given us one form of the answer:
وَيَسِّرْهُ لِي
"...make it easy for me"
Yes, one of the positive signs from your istikhara is things being made easy for you. So, if you're deciding about a certain (halal) job, and you find that everything is being made easy for you, salary is good, terms and conditions are to your liking, there's no haraam involved, etc. then take this as a sign of things being made easy for you. If you are deciding on marrying someone and you've discussed things, both families are happy, you find everything being made easy then, again, this is a positive sign. If you deny things being made easy as a positive sign then ask yourself whether you've understood the meaning of the du'aa you recited.
Reality is brothers and sisters that once we've made istikhara, taken all necessary precautions, taken advice (very important) and find everything being made easy for us, then, if we truly had tawakkul, we would never ever let our personal doubts cloud our judgement. Because in all honesty, by making istikhara in the first place, we are admitting we are weak and do not have knowledge of the unseen hence we need Allah's guidance on a certain matter. If Allah was to then show us signs guiding us towards a decision and we completely rejected these signs simply because we didn't see a dream, saw a 'bad' dream or because of doubts we created in our minds by over-thinking then we really should question our understanding of the dua, how well we think of Allah and the actual point of making istikhara in the first place.
May Allah guide us all to that which is good for us both in this life and the next. May Allah protect us from the whispers of the shaytaan and doubts we ourselves create in our minds.
Now if you want the opposite of the above, please refer to yesterday's post :)
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