The Imam Who Forgot How to Pray

I need you to understand what it means to be an imam in Saudi Arabia. It's not a job — it's an identity. People don't see you as a man. They see you as a function. You are the person who connects them to Allah. You are supposed to be unshakeable.

I was appointed imam of a mosque in north Riyadh at twenty-eight. For fifteen years, I led five daily prayers, delivered two khutbahs a week, counselled marriages, washed the dead, visited the sick, and answered questions about everything from zakat calculations to whether cryptocurrency is halal. I was the first call for births and the last call before burials.

I burned out so slowly I didn't notice until the fire was gone.

The morning it happened, I stood on the musallah for Fajr. Forty men behind me. I opened my mouth to recite Al-Fatiha and — nothing. Not forgetfulness. Not a stumble. A void. The words I had recited perhaps 50,000 times in my life simply were not there.

I stood in silence for what felt like an hour. It was probably four seconds. Then muscle memory kicked in and the words came, but hollow, mechanical, emptied of meaning. I finished the prayer. I walked to my office. I locked the door and sat in the dark.

I didn't tell anyone for three months. In my community, an imam with doubts is like a pilot afraid of flying. People don't want to know. They can't afford to know. So I performed. I stood and recited and counselled and smiled, and inside I felt like a building with the foundations removed — still standing, but only by habit.

What broke the silence was a trip to Madinah. I went alone, without telling the mosque committee. I sat in the Rawdah of the Prophet's mosque at 2am on a Thursday and I did something I hadn't done in months: I spoke to Allah not as an imam, but as a man. Not with memorised du'as, but with ugly, honest, desperate words.

I said: I don't feel You anymore. I'm tired. I've been so busy connecting other people to You that I've lost the connection myself. I don't know how to fix it. Please fix it.

I sat there until Fajr. I don't know if anything changed cosmically. But something shifted in my chest. Like a window opening in a room that had been sealed.

I went back to Riyadh and did something unprecedented: I asked for help. I told the mosque committee I needed a sabbatical. I told a trusted friend — a sheikh in Jeddah — what had happened. He said, 'Faisal, burnout is not kufr. It's exhaustion. The Prophet himself grieved and struggled. You are not failing. You are human.'

I had been so busy being everyone's connection to Allah that I'd lost my own.

I took two months off. I prayed alone. I read Quran slowly — not to prepare khutbahs, but to hear it. I went to the desert outside Riyadh and sat under stars and remembered why I loved this faith before it became my profession.

I'm back at the mosque now. I still lead prayers. But I've set boundaries. I take Mondays off. I see a counsellor. I say 'I don't know' when I don't know, which is more often than the congregation expects.

Last week, a young man came to my office and said he was struggling with his faith. I didn't quote a hadith. I said, 'Me too, sometimes. Let's talk about it.' His eyes widened. He said, 'I didn't know imams were allowed to say that.'

We are. We must.