Faith as a Compass: The Real Effects of Neurodiversity on Prayer

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

It’s commonly thought that autistic people are more likely to be atheists. Personally, I strongly believe that autism is what led me to Islam.

While some like to people-watch, when I was 19, I used to nature-watch. I loved being in nature, away from anything human-made, and just watching. Watching the trees blow in the wind, watching a butterfly visit flowers, watching birds dance in the sky. You can see signs of Allah everywhere in nature. Belief in God was something obvious to me, but it was also private. I didn’t like people telling me what to believe because I already knew what I believed. Then I picked up a translation of the Qur’an one morning at 5 am. I read up to Surah Al-An’aam that morning, called my friend when it was socially appropriate for a phone call and said I want to accept Islam. When I read the Qur’an, I recognized those signs of Allah that I saw in nature. I recognized the Creator that I already believed in within the words I was reading. When I mention this to people, they’re always amazed. Autism has always helped me see things differently than others. I can often tell you the big twist of a movie or TV show long before it happens. I pick up on the writer’s style and storytelling techniques and just know what they’re going to do. It’s the same when reading the book of life. The world is created with certain patterns and principles. It’s like Allah’s style. The Qur’an has the same patterns and principles. I don’t know how to explain it, but my brain picks up on it. As soon as I recognized Allah in the Qur’an, I knew this was the path for me.

I understand why autistic people may leave religion, though. I often think, if there was any reason for me to accept Islam, it’s the Qur’an, but if there was any reason for me to leave Islam, it would be the Muslims. Sorry, but Muslims are far from perfect. Many autistic people from all faith backgrounds experience negative interactions with people within their communities that drive them away from religion. Autistic people are commonly driven away from faith because of asking too many questions (or the “wrong” ones) – and yes, this happens in Islam, too, even though we’re encouraged to ask. Many autistic people are also driven away from religion because of not receiving the accommodations necessary for them to participate.

I originally wrote this post about building spiritually-rooted routines with neurodiversity in mind – routines that help with autism and ADHD needs when it comes to prayer. I deleted that post because it was too surface-level for what I want to talk about. I’ve had trouble with prayer my whole life, and my neurodivergent kids also struggle sometimes. I want to talk about the real obstacles that neurodivergence presents when it comes to prayer. I don’t have solutions, but I will mention some small steps we have taken and are currently taking that seem to be helping.

My goal with this post is to connect with other neurodivergent Muslims. I haven’t seen anything on the Internet describing our experience, and the typical advice when it comes to prayer does not address these obstacles. I hope that other neurodivergent Muslims will see this post and feel understood and validated. Or that they will see this post and understand what their neurodivergent children are going through; that they’re not lazy or disobedient. These obstacles are real, and not our fault. I’m also not trying to highlight the negatives to justify not praying; obstacles are meant to be overcome. Let’s open a discussion about this and help each other establish prayer.

I’m going to focus more on the autistic experience with prayer because it personally affects me most, and I’m going to respect my children’s privacy by not mentioning their struggles specifically. Everyone’s experience is different; please leave a comment if you have a different obstacle than what I’ve mentioned or something else that helps you.

It’s a long post, so grab a cup of coffee and feel free to jump straight to a section that’s relevant to you:

• Autistic inertia
• Autism and all-or-nothing mentality
• Neurodiversity and the feeling of being perceived
• Neurodiversity and sleep needs
• The imposter whisper
• Neurodiversity in the masjid

Autistic inertia

Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion, with the same speed and direction, unless acted on by an outside force.

Autistic inertia is the difficulty autistic people experience when starting or stopping tasks. Whatever we’re currently doing, we prefer to keep doing it. For example, I have a hard time getting in the shower, because when my body is dry, I want to stay that way – and once I’m in the shower, I have a hard time getting out, because when my body is wet, I want to stay that way. This is also why autistic kids have an especially hard time with transitioning between tasks.

Autistic inertia can look like extreme demand avoidance: intense avoidance of everyday demands, like five times daily prayers. When autistic inertia is strong (usually because of autistic burnout or just general overwhelm), having to go pray can feel like a mountain instead of a molehill. To others, it often looks like laziness, but autistic inertia is part of neurodiversity and not so easy to overcome.

One of the common traits of autistic inertia is difficulty resuming tasks after an interruption. Autistic women experience this when they take a break from prayer due to menstruation or post-childbirth bleeding. Sensory issues surrounding bleeding can cause dysregulation, and if they have irregular cycles, it can come as a surprise, further adding to the overwhelm. The times I’ve been most consistent with my prayer have been during pregnancy, when I didn’t have a period interrupting my schedule every month.

The positive side of autistic inertia means that once we’ve started praying, it’s often very easy for us to keep praying for a long time (like during taraweeh!).

Autism and all-or-nothing mentality

Autistic people have a strong tendency towards an all-or-nothing mentality. This manifests in a few ways. For one, we often think there’s a “right way” to do things. When it comes to prayer, we may subconsciously believe that the right way is to pray all the prayers on time, which is true, but the all-or-nothing mentality means that if we don’t do it the right way the first time, it’s automatically wrong and wrong is not worth doing. We don’t like grey areas, so for me, this happens especially at the end of menstruation. For me, the window of time where I’m not sure if my period has ended causes me a lot of stress, and if I realize I should have prayed or should not have prayed, it feels like I started off on the wrong foot.

Another aspect of all-or-nothing thinking is the strong sense of justice that most autistic people share. We have a very clear idea of right and wrong, and when people behave unfairly, we find that intolerable. When it’s an imam or a religious figure in authority, like a halaqa leader or an Islamic speaker, this can lead to very negative thoughts. When I had first converted to Islam, I wanted to learn to read the Qur’an in Arabic. I used a number of different resources to learn how to read, translation, Arabic grammar, and tajweed (recitation). One of the resources was an Islamic speaker who specialized in tajweed. I loved his lectures, and the way he taught resonated with me. I taught myself tajweed mostly using his lectures and videos. Long afterwards, after I had finished learning how to recite, gotten a teacher, earned an ijaazah and started hifdh, I saw his face in the news. He was convicted of some serious crimes. That news hit me very hard. I couldn’t imagine how this man, from whom I had learned so much good, could do something so… opposite. And it was extremely hard for me not to automatically mistrust every other teacher. To this day, when I go to play an Islamic lecture or find a resource for my kids, I think, “What if this person is just like him?” Islam teaches us that all humans are fallible, but autistic people often need reminders of that.

There is one way that all-or-nothing mentality manifests that I believe is the most dangerous by far. We all know that iman increases and decreases. Imam Ahmad was asked whether iman increases and decreases. He said, “It increases until it reaches the highest part of the seventh heaven, and it decreases until it reaches the lowest part of the seventh plane.” But for autistic people with all-or-nothing thinking, we see it as either on or off. There’s no middle ground. Intellectually, I know that there are degrees, but it’s very hard for me to know what those degrees are. If I feel good in my faith, I will feel my iman is high. But if I miss a prayer or struggle to understand something, I feel my iman has completely dissipated. It takes a lot of inner work to learn to see things in degrees.

This is why that’s so dangerous: In the 7^th century, there was a civil war between ‘Ali (ra) and Mu’aawiyah (ra). This was a tragic war in which 70 000 lives were lost. A group split off (the Khawaarij, literally, “the ones who left”), declaring both sides disbelievers. Not only that, they said the entire ummah were disbelievers except for themselves, and they said violence in Allah’s name was justified. They said committing a sin negates iman, and therefore, anyone who sins is a kaafir. They would fight any disbeliever unless they repented. These were the first Islamic extremists. Obviously, I wholeheartedly disagree with what they did, but I also understand them. They saw things in black and white. They were literalists. They had a strong sense of justice. They believed their way was the “right” way. But this isn’t the way of mercy and leniency toward believers the Prophet (saw) taught us. This is what happens when we let all-or-nothing thinking blind us.

Neurodiversity and the feeling of being perceived

I remember in university, we had a multi-faith prayer room where we could go to pray between classes. I had no problem praying in it. But I remember the jolt of shock I would feel whenever someone would walk in with me, or during my prayer. It was (and still is) often enough to make me forget whatever I was reciting. When I used to lead a halaqa group for high school girls, I was so nervous about leading the prayer that I forgot Surah Al-Ikhlas in the first rak’ah, and then I forgot Surah An-Nas in the second rak’ah. I have memorized half of the Qur’an, but I can’t recite when people are listening.

The fear of being perceived is something experienced by many neurodivergent people; it’s not unique to autism. People who experience this fear feel hyperaware of how they are viewed by others. It leads to constant masking, emotional exhaustion, nervous system dysregulation, and self-doubt caused by pressure to conform to neurotypical norms and social expectations.

Many neurodivergent people have experienced harsh judgment for their natural traits. These criticisms often become their inner voice. This also leads to projecting those negative beliefs; they have difficulty trusting others. When they feel they’re being perceived, it can make them criticize themselves even more harshly, as they imagine that others might be judging them as they’ve been judged in the past.

The fear of being perceived can also cause severe anxiety and panic. A person who experiences this might feel their heart racing, shortness of breath, and an overwhelming urge to retreat or shut down. Many neurodivergent people may avoid situations in which they might be perceived altogether as a coping strategy.

Neurodiversity and sleep needs

Sleep issues are common with autism and ADHD, including insomnia, sleep walking, sleep terrors, sleep apnea, sleep paralysis, narcolepsy, flattened melatonin curve, circadian rhythm sleep disorders, and restless leg syndrome.

Autistic people tend to get less REM sleep than allistic (non-autistic) people. Allistic people spend about 25% of their time in REM sleep, while autistic people spend about 15% (according to my fitness tracker, I usually spend 0-5% of the night in REM). People with ADHD are 83% more likely to experience sleep disturbances than neurotypical people.

The natural consequence of this is that autism and ADHD make people need more sleep to get the same benefits as a neurotypical would. Eight hours are simply not enough. Kids, especially teenagers, need at least 10-11 hours of sleep per night. It may be possible to wake us up early, but if we haven’t gotten enough sleep, this can result in massive dysregulation, challenges with memory, mood, and overall mental health. Poor sleep leads to being more sensitive to sensory stimulation, difficulty regulating emotions, less resiliency to stress, and so on.

Needing more sleep than neurotypical people makes prayer challenging in the summertime, when Isha is late and Fajr is early. Interrupted sleep always results in dysregulation and isn’t sustainable. This is something we still struggle with, and we haven’t found a good solution yet. For now, my solution is to keep trying to find a way to fit enough hours of sleep in, but not feel guilty about missed prayers due to sleep, because Allah knows our struggle and our intentions.

The imposter whisper

Imposter syndrome affects everyone, regardless of their neurotype. I think autistic people are just more prone to it because masking is such a common coping strategy for us. We can mask to the point where the line between the individual and the mask is blurred.

Hypocrisy is a huge deal in Islam. No one wants to be a hypocrite. This makes masking, which might normally feel like a solid survival technique, feel dangerous. Am I really this person, or am I just pretending? The fear of being perceived makes me act differently when I know people are watching compared to when I’m alone. Is that hypocrisy? These thoughts can become intrusive and can discourage a person from taking action.

Neurodiversity in the masjid

Despite all these challenges, spirituality and religion can be so beneficial for neurodivergent minds.

Before I had kids, I used to go to a class at a masjid to learn the meaning of the Qur’an. There were a couple of months when I didn’t have a way to get to the masjid for class unless I went at Fajr. I had to ask the Shaykh if he could open the women’s side for me to stay in the masjid from Fajr until class started (five hours later). He was hesitant to let me stay alone, but he agreed. I loved those mornings, and I will never forget them. It was so nice to be fully alone in the masjid, to read Qur’an, pray, tour the building, and do whatever I want. One day, I practiced handstands in the prayer area. The only interruptions were when the Shaykh used to knock on the women’s door to give me a box of strawberries that he had washed for me. I felt like I belonged there.

The masjid can be a second home for neurodiverse people; it provides comfort, emotional regulation, and guidance to navigate difficulties. If the people in charge are doing their job, the feeling of acceptance that a neurodiverse person experiences can be life-changing.

I believe our ummah has a responsibility to provide this environment for all Muslims. We are a neurodiverse community, and all of us have a place within Islam. Islam is for all people.

Yet most masjids are not set up with neurodiversity in mind. The masjid our family normally goes to has added an artificial echo to make the imam’s recitation sound “better,” which makes it so that I can’t hear the khutbah or recitation at all. It sounds like thunder. It makes it so that I can’t even go to Jumu’ah prayer. As soon as the khutbah starts, I feel like it’s assaulting my ears; my heart beats faster, and I feel like running. Turning off the artificial echo harms no one, but keeping it on harms me – and when my request to turn it off is dismissed with no explanation, it makes me feel like the masjid doesn’t care about me. It makes me feel that I’m not welcome there, and following that, that I’m not welcome in the Muslim community.

These are the kinds of thoughts that lead people out of faith. It’s vital that we, as a community, create masjids and faith environments that are neurodiverse-affirming, that act as a second home and place of acceptance for neurodivergent Muslims. Humans need acceptance. If they don’t find it within our community, they will go find it outside our community.

If this post resonated with you, please like and share, and leave a comment below about how you manage these obstacles in your life.