London based entrepreneur, cybersecurity analyst doing a PhD in AI
On Suicide Prevention and a Psychology of Hope.
On Injecting Hope and Suicide Prevention
There are moments when the human mind becomes an unreliable forecaster of its own future.
A relationship ends. A diagnosis arrives. Debt becomes suffocating. A career collapses. Bereavement turns a familiar house into an empty one. War shatters families. Soldiers return carrying injuries that cannot always be seen. Victims live with trauma long after television cameras have moved elsewhere.
The suffering can be completely real. The dangerous step occurs when the mind turns today’s reality into a prediction:
Nothing will ever change.
It is easy to become despondent. I have been there. Political leaders can rile populations with communal pride, nationalism or righteous anger; they are rarely the ones left picking up every piece—the amputees, bereaved families, displaced children, PTSD, debt and psychological wreckage.
Suicide prevention, at its deepest level, is an intervention against the proposition that today accurately predicts forever.
The World Health Organization estimates that 727,000 people died by suicide globally in 2021. Seventy-three per cent were in low- and middle-income countries, and WHO says there are indications that for every suicide death there may be more than 20 attempts. Suicide was the third-leading cause of death globally among 15–29-year-olds. WHO identifies financial problems, relationship disputes, chronic illness, violence, abuse, conflict, loss and isolation among important risk factors. (World Health Organization)
Modern medicine approaches this through psychiatry, psychology and public health.
Islam approaches the same vulnerable human being through another architecture: sanctity, prohibition, hope, meaning, community, prayer—and treatment.
These systems should not compete.
They should reinforce one another.
Islam puts a boundary around life
The Islamic starting point is unequivocal:
“Do not kill yourselves [or one another]. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful.”
— Qur’an 4:29
Notice what immediately accompanies the prohibition:
mercy.
Islam does not say that feeling unbearable pain makes someone worthless. It says that a human being experiencing that pain does not possess sufficient knowledge of their future to declare their life worthless.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ reinforced the prohibition with an exceptionally grave warning against deliberately taking one’s own life in Sahih al-Bukhari 5778. (Sunnah)
But mainstream Islam also makes an important distinction. Suicide is a major sin; it does not automatically make the deceased a non-Muslim. The deceased Muslim is still washed, shrouded, prayed over and buried within the Muslim community. (موقع دار الإفتاء المصرية)
That matters for prevention.
The prohibition is a fence around life—not permission to humiliate someone already drowning.
Do not make a permanent decision inside a temporary crisis
Islam’s preventive psychology becomes even more striking before suicide occurs.
Muhammad ﷺ said:
“None of you should wish for death because of a calamity befalling him.”
If someone nevertheless became overwhelmed, he taught:
“O Allah, keep me alive as long as life is better for me, and let me die if death is better for me.”
— Sahih al-Bukhari 5671. (Sunnah)
Psychologically, this is remarkable.
The suffering is not denied.
But an irreversible decision is removed from the distressed mind.
I know how I feel today. I do not know my entire future.
Modern suicide-prevention science contains a comparable principle. WHO’s LIVE LIFE framework advocates restricting immediate access to highly lethal means partly because time matters: suicidal crises can fluctuate, and delay can prevent an irreversible action. (World Health Organization)
Public health creates physical delay.
Religion can create moral and cognitive delay.
Injecting hope
Islam then attacks hopelessness directly.
To people who have profoundly wronged themselves, the Qur’an says:
“Do not despair of the mercy of Allah.”
— Qur’an 39:53
Then:
“Indeed, with hardship comes ease. Indeed, with hardship comes ease.”
— Qur’an 94:5–6
And when people ask about God:
“Indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me.”
— Qur’an 2:186
None of this means Qur’an replaces psychiatric treatment.
The psychological proposition is subtler.
Suicidal thinking can narrow the imaginable future until one exit appears to remain. Islam inserts additional possibilities.
Repentance means the past need not become identity.
Duʿāʾ means fear has somewhere to go.
Tawakkul means uncertainty does not have to be carried alone.
Community means somebody ought to notice when you disappear.
And faith means hope need not be generated entirely by the distressed brain currently struggling to produce it.
Religious psychology
The empirical evidence is sufficiently substantial to take seriously—but not to exaggerate.
A systematic review examining 89 articles found that religious affiliation did not necessarily protect against suicidal thoughts but was associated with lower risk of suicide attempts in some circumstances; religious-service attendance showed similar protective associations. (PubMed)
Religion and Suicide Risk: systematic review
A later meta-analysis included 63 studies and 8,053,697 participants. Religion/religiosity was associated with lower odds of suicidal ideation (OR 0.83), suicide attempts (OR 0.84) and suicide death (OR 0.31); the association with suicide plans was not statistically significant. The authors explicitly warn that association does not establish causation and that results varied substantially by religion, culture and setting. (PubMed)
Religion and suicidal behaviour: meta-analysis
A prospective JAMA Psychiatry study following 89,708 American women found that attending religious services once a week or more was associated with an approximately five-fold lower suicide rate than never attending (adjusted hazard ratio 0.16). It remains observational evidence, not proof that attendance itself caused the difference. (JAMA Network)
JAMA Psychiatry: service attendance and suicide
And a meta-analysis of 49 studies found positive religious coping generally associated with better psychological adjustment to stress, while negative religious coping was associated with worse adjustment. (PubMed)
Religious coping and psychological adjustment
That distinction should transform how mosques respond.
“Why is your faith so weak?” is not suicide prevention.
“You are suffering. Your life is sacred. Come and tell us.”
That might be.
Islam does not compete with medicine
The Prophet ﷺ was explicitly asked whether people should seek medical treatment.
He replied:
“Make use of medical treatment…”
— Sunan Abi Dawud 3855, graded sahih in the cited edition. (Sunnah)
There is therefore no sensible opposition between:
Qur’an and CBT.
Duʿāʾ and psychiatry.
Tawakkul and medication.
For Islamic jurisprudence, preservation of life—ḥifẓ al-nafs—is itself one of the fundamental objectives of the Sharia.
Seeking competent treatment can therefore serve an Islamic objective.
Britain, America and Israel
The burden is concrete.
In England and Wales, 6,190 suicides were registered in 2024, an age-standardised rate of 11.4 per 100,000. England separately recorded 68,468 emergency hospital admissions for intentional self-harm in 2023/24. (Office for National Statistics)
Scotland recorded 704 probable suicide deaths in 2024, a rate of 12.7 per 100,000; Northern Ireland registered 290 suicide deaths in 2024. These statistics use slightly different national reporting systems, so they should not simply be added together as though they constituted one perfectly harmonised UK measure. (National Records of Scotland)
NHS England reports £21.193 billion in 2025/26 spending across its broad mental-health-services measure, although this includes learning disability, autism and dementia and therefore is emphatically not “the cost of suicide.” (NHS England)
In the United States, final 2024 data record 48,824 suicide deaths. The age-adjusted rate was 13.7 per 100,000. CDC estimates that in 2024 14.3 million adults seriously considered suicide, 4.6 million made a plan and 2.2 million attempted suicide. (CDC)
The American 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline received more than eight million contacts in 2025. Crucially for my argument, America’s 2024 National Strategy explicitly includes faith communities among community supports providing crisis outreach, aftercare and follow-up. (SAMHSA)
In Israel, the Ministry of Health’s latest English-language overview reports that over the decade through 2022, emergency departments recorded an average of approximately 6,300 suicide attempts annually, alongside approximately 405 recorded suicide deaths per year. (אתרי בריאותי)
Israel also provides a compelling real-world example of means restriction: its Ministry of Health reports that changes to IDF weapons-carrying policy, together with changes in the military mental-health system, were associated with a 40% decline in IDF suicides. (Government of Israel)
That is prevention by buying time.
Turn mosques into Suicide Prevention Hubs
Here is my proposal.
Mosques in Britain, America and Israel—and ultimately mosques around the world—should become Suicide Prevention Hubs.
Not hospitals.
Not psychiatric clinics.
Gateways.
Train imams and designated volunteers to recognise warning signs. Give every mosque a confidential referral pathway into qualified mental-health services. Teach people how to respond when somebody talks about suicide. Follow vulnerable people after hospital discharge. Build bereavement groups. Teach emotional literacy and digital hygiene. Watch for elderly people becoming isolated. Notice the regular worshipper who abruptly disappears.
And teach two propositions together:
Islam prohibits suicide.
Having suicidal thoughts is not a reason to hide from Muslims. Tell us. We want you alive.
Britain’s national strategy says suicide prevention is “everybody’s business.” America’s strategy expressly places faith communities inside the prevention architecture. Israel emphasises early detection, proactive screening, treatment, follow-up and restricting lethal means. WHO demands multisectoral prevention. (GOV.UK)
So connect them.
Mosques could potentially reduce some healthcare burden by identifying distress before it becomes emergency admission, increasing treatment uptake and helping prevent repeat crises.
But do not invent the saving.
Pilot it.
Measure referrals, hospital presentations, repeat self-harm, treatment completion and suicide outcomes.
Then publish the data.
There is already empirical evidence for Buddhist Meditation and Mindfulness being incorporated into a secular framework including benefits for insomnia, and Companies like Google have used it.
A bridge, not another argument
For Jewish readers, the sanctity of life naturally recalls pikuach nefesh. Christians possess pastoral institutions and their own theology of hope. American suicide-prevention bodies already encourage collaboration among Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith communities. (theactionalliance.org)
The Islamic contribution is a particularly powerful combination:
Your life is sacred.
Your present despair does not contain complete knowledge of your future.
God remains accessible.
Your community has obligations toward you.
And treatment is legitimate.
Religion at its best does not merely tell us what might happen after death.
It helps keep human beings alive before it.
That is what I mean by injecting hope.
Protect the life.
Treat the suffering.
Reconnect the person.
Keep tomorrow open.
Because the future contains information that the mind experiencing its worst moment simply does not yet possess.
Footnote: Why Islam? My argument by elimination
I would make this argument carefully, especially in The Times of Israel, because several simplistic claims often made in interfaith polemics are factually wrong.
Hinduism cannot simply be eliminated by saying “it has no God.” Hindu traditions are extremely diverse: some are explicitly theistic, others monistic, some polytheistic or non-theistic. Hinduism has a rich tapestry of traditions including Yoga which has shown global benefit and is adopted widely. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Buddhism is a stronger elimination under my premises because its principal philosophical traditions do not require a sovereign Creator God, even though Buddhist cultures contain deities and devotional practices. If my starting proposition is that reality ultimately originates in one personal Creator whom humans can address, classical Buddhism is not proposing the same thing. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Judaism cannot honestly be dismissed as “lineage rather than monotheism.” Its central confession is the Shema: “Hear, O Israel… the LORD is One.” It is one of history’s great monotheistic traditions. I have deep respect and veneration for the Jewish tradition and I am eternally grateful to the Rabbis who gave me time. Indeed, I even sent sweets on Yom Kippur to the dear Rabbi from New York who taught me. (Voices on Sefaria) The Islamic disagreement lies elsewhere: God is the most “just” – God cannot create a religion which is for a narrow subset of people – and leave everyone else to languish. That principle would go against God’s definition in Judaism itself. The current incarnation of Judaism – where the covenant is strictly with an ethnic group which does not see itself as universal or provides a reasonable pathway for people to convert and normalise goes against the perfection of God as conceptualised by Middat HaDin.
Let me make this clearer – say I am blind or deaf. I cannot study the Torah reasonably in detail to pass the required standard to become Jewish – I may have family obligations – I may be a single mother with 5 children. What do I do? Does God not love me? Am I left in eternal hellfire? Is there no messenger or message for me from the one who made my heart beat over 100,000 times a day? That cannot be. That goes against Middat HaDin.
Christianity also understands itself as monotheistic. Indeed, in Mark 12:29 Jesus himself cites the Shema: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Bible Gateway) This makes sense from an Islamic perspective. The religion is always universal – and God sent messengers for all of humanity. My Islamic objection is therefore not that Jesus taught multiple gods, nor can the historical development of Trinitarian Christianity responsibly be blamed on Paul in one sentence. The Islamic objection is theological: the Qur’an rejects dividing divine identity or identifying Jesus with God, while honouring Jesus as Messiah and messenger. This is in line with the Shema. See Qur’an 4:171. Qur’an 4:171
Atheism/naturalism may offer sophisticated philosophies of mortality and meaning, but by definition it supplies no revelation from a Creator guaranteeing resurrection or continued personal existence after death. At a deep psychological level – that guarantee matters. Humans yearn safety. It is one of the natural dispositions of a human being. Therefore, we seek it after the natural point where this life no longer will be and we need something as “hope”. Indeed, this ideology of atheism I believe is one of the reasons where suicide rates go up – because once things go wrong in life, people cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel, or meaning in suffering which only religion universally gives.
That leaves, for me, a demanding set of tests: one uncreated Creator; no incarnation or division of God; continuity with Abraham, Moses and Jesus; universal rather than ethnically restricted revelation which would go against the Jewish principle of Middat HaDin and the Islamic Principle – name of God of Al Adl – The Perfectly Just; direct worship of God; resurrection and accountability; and a revelation claiming finality and preservation.
Islam explicitly claims all of these: uncompromising divine oneness in Qur’an 112:1–4, continuity with the prophets in 2:136, a common Abrahamic monotheism in 3:64, the Qur’an as criterion over previous revelation in 5:48, Muhammad ﷺ as final prophet in 33:40, and divine preservation of the Qur’anic reminder in 15:9.
Qur’an 112:1–4 — Tawḥīd
Qur’an 2:136 — Abraham, Moses and Jesus
Qur’an 3:64 — a common word
Qur’an 5:48 — confirmation and criterion
Qur’an 33:40 — finality of prophethood
Qur’an 15:9 — preservation
That is an eliminative theological argument, not a mathematical proof: somebody who rejects one of the premises will reject the conclusion. But given those premises, I find Islam uniquely coherent alongside the scriptural preservation not found in any text, not just religious, any text in human history extending this long – 1400 years.
And nobody needs to accept that conclusion to accept the public-health proposal.
If mosques can convert faith into hope, community into early detection, prohibition into a reason for living and religious leadership into a bridge toward professional treatment, they can serve Muslims, ease pressure upstream on healthcare systems, cooperate with synagogues and churches, and become genuine Suicide Prevention Hubs.
That would be a form of benefit requiring very few arguments.
Keep somebody alive.
The psychology of hope while going through suffering comes from this Hadith :-
The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “No fatigue, nor disease, nor sorrow, nor sadness, nor hurt, nor distress befalls a Muslim, even if it were the prick he receives from a thorn, but that Allah expiates some of his sins for that.” (Sahih Bukhari, 5641).
I think this is highly important in today’s world – many people see the world turning “chaotic” with news feeds and social media filled with Israel vs Palestine, Russia vs Ukraine, Kim Jong Un’s regular “Missile tests”, Germany wanting to rearm and starting mandatory conscription, Poland building Europe’s largest army, every country – everywhere you look – there is a sense of unease and restlessness in people and a feeling of “impending doom” as if “waiting for a Tsunami”.
I squarely blame “elected leaders” for acting no more than schoolyard bullies doing this – and it needs to come to an end. Saying it’s “game theory” is not enough – take them all to DAVOS – sit them in a room and get them to talk. To all leaders – Be a hero – but in “positive ways” – compete to bring “maximum good to a maximum number of people”.
This axiom for leadership is based on this Hadith :-
Jabir reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The believer is friendly and befriended, for there is no goodness in one who is neither friendly nor befriended. The best of people are those who are most beneficial to people.”
Source: al-Mu’jam al-Awsaṭ lil-Ṭabarānī 5937
Grade: Hasan (fair) according to Al-Albani
Checked source links
- Global/UK: WHO global suicide figures · ONS England & Wales 2024 · England self-harm admissions · Scotland 2024 · Northern Ireland 2024 · NHS mental-health expenditure.
- United States: CDC final 2024 mortality data · CDC suicide statistics · 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention · SAMHSA 988 contacts in 2025.
- Israel: Israel Ministry of Health suicide statistics · Israel Ministry of Health prevention guidance.
- Religious psychology: 89-article systematic review · 63-study / 8.05m-person meta-analysis · JAMA Psychiatry cohort · Religious coping meta-analysis.
- Islamic sources: Bukhari 5778 · Bukhari 5671 · Abu Dawud 3855 · Mainstream ruling on suicide and Muslim funeral rites.
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