Suffering from severe illness at Eid
I am a girl of 20 years of age. For last few years I have not been well on the occasion of Eid. I have been suffering from a lot of viral infections on or before Eid. It destroys the fun of Eid, as I am isolated and cannot move out freely and celebrate Eid.
I think Allah(swt) is punishing me for the sins that I have committed in my life. I read a few articles published on this site, and I was very inspired by them. This is the reason I'm here. I want to know whether there is anything that I should do in order to earn back Allah's(swt) love. I am not able to decide, as I have lost all faith in myself. I feel like I have to suffer like this my whole life.
I am so saturated with handling all these infections, and I dont know how long I have to suffer. I just want to know why this is happenning to me. Is there a way out, or do I have to live my whole life like this? Is it only me, or there is anyone else suffering from the same trauma? I want answers, but I don't know how to get them or where to get them from. I hope I can get an answer here.
-Sana Zehra
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As-salamu Alaykum, Sister,
I do not know what happens to you on the Eid, but try to examine your habits and see if you are doing something to "shock" your system. Do you get enough sleep during Ramadan and on the Eid? Do you eat healthy foods? Do you maintain balance?
When I was 20, I had no awareness of these things, but they are actually very important. A lot of people get sick on the Eid due to lack of sleep and other issues.
Assalaamualaikam
As Ramadan has been around the time of some countries' school holidays for the past few years, if you are in such a country, it may be that you are becoming unwell due to a combination of exposure to relatively unfamiliar viruses and the additional challenge to your immune system of long days of fasting. The starts and ends of school holidays are common times for people to become unwell - they're spending more time around different groups of people, going to different places, changing their diet and activity levels...
One of the challenges that we can encounter in Ramadan is making sure we get enough nutrients in between our fasts - it's especially difficult when we are fasting for long periods (some of the fasts in the Northern parts of the world will have exceeded 15-16 hours in recent years...).
It's easy for us to be tempted to pile our plates with sugary, yummy foods and calorie-laden treats, but we need to keep using the same discipline we use during the day, and make healthy choices. Think about what you're going to eat in advance, and balance your meals so that you're getting enough protein, carbohydrates, fats, fluids, etc. to keep you in a state of good nutrition.
You might also want to consider taking a dietary supplement with vitamins. Important ones for us to consider are vitamin C (which has a role in the immune system) and vitamin D (which is important for keeping our bones strong). It's especially important for us sisters to make sure we get enough vitamin D in our diets, as we are likely to make less ourselves - vitamin D is made in the human body but requires sunlight - as we observe hijab (inshaAllah), we have less exposure to sunlight - this has a lot of health benefits (fewer wrinkles, lower rates of some skin cancers, etc.), but means our vitamin D production is likely to be less.
Be careful when selecting any supplements though - not all of the ones on sale will be halal. Check for halal certification, look at the ingredients, and speak with a pharmacist or dietitian if possible.
Another thing to be mindful of is that pushing your body too hard can also increase the chances of becoming unwell. During Ramadan, we want to do our best to attend masjid, complete our reading, go for prayers during the night - keep trying to do as much as you can in this blessed month, but keep an eye on your own health, and make sure that you have some "you-time" in your schedule to relax and re-charge from all the running about we end up doing.
Midnightmoon
IslamicAnswers.com editor