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Fatwa CenterCase of waswaas (obsessive whisperings)
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. I am a junior doctor and a trainee. I suffer a lot from thoughts of dishonesty and wrongdoing. The last time when I was on duty, a patient came to the emergency room. I tried taking his blood pressure, but my apparatus stopped working. My colleague just wrote the pressure by herself. At the time, I was relaxed. Later on however, I felt bad about it. However, I did not want to bother the patient again and also did not want to do that in front of my colleagues. Later on, I recalled that I had heard a sound that shows low pressure with my appratus, but I could not go to the emergency room and take the pressure with borrowed apparatus at the time due to fear of being noticed. Now I am so obsessed with that; what if the patient died later on. The patient did not seem that critical though. Kindly guide me for I am so depressed. Also, tell me, if we give someone's belongings to someone else by mistake and we are not sure whether we really made a mistake or not, are we accountable for that mistake? I was thinking about something else when instructions were being given to me, and I only heard little of it, and then I used my common sense and placed the belongings where my common sense dictated it. Please help.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger. {C}{C}
It has become clear to us from your previous questions that you are affected by Waswaas (obsessive whisperings). These whisperings are from the plots of the devil, whose goal it is to spoil the life of the believer and make him feel sorrowful. So you should ignore them and not pay any attention to them, as this is the best remedy.
For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 330250.
Ibn Hajar Al-Haytami 
was asked about the disease of Waswaas, and whether or not it has any remedy.
He replied:
“There is an effective remedy for it, which is to ignore them completely, no matter how frequently they may come to one’s mind. When these whisperings are ignored, they do not become established; rather, they go away after a short time, as many people have experienced. As for those who pay attention to them and act upon them, they increase until they make him like one who is insane or even worse, as we see among many of those who have suffered from them and paid attention to them and to the devil, whose task it is to insinuate these whisperings. So think about this effective remedy which was taught by the one who does not speak of his own whims and desires to his Ummah (i.e. the Prophet ), and understand that whoever is deprived of this is deprived of all goodness, because Waswasah (whispering) comes from Shaytaan (the devil), according to scholarly consensus, and the accursed one (the Shaytan) has no other desire than to make the believers go astray, make them confused, make their life a misery, and cause them distress to the extent that they leave Islam without realizing it. [Allah says:] {Surely, Shaytan is an enemy to you, so take (treat) him as an enemy.} [Quran 35:6] Al-‘Izz ibn ‘Abd As-Salaam and others mentioned something similar to the above. They said, 'The treatment for Waswasah is to believe that this is an idea from the Shaytaan and that Iblees (Iblees is the Devil's name) is the one who is bringing these thoughts to his (person’s) mind, and he should strive to fight him. Then he will have the reward of the mujaahid (fighter in the way of Allah) because he is fighting the enemy of Allah. If he does that, then the Shaytaan will flee from him.”
Also, you should observe the Athkaar (plural of Thikr [expressions of remembrance of Allah]) and perform Ruqyah (healing through the Quran recitation and supplications).
For more benefit, please refer to fatwas 88660 and 82918.
In principle you are acquitted from sin in causing the death of that man, as certainty is not eliminated by doubt. So you have no responsibility towards him.
The same thing applies to what you mentioned regarding giving the belongings of one person to another; there is no sin on you since you have doubts regarding this mistake and are not sure about it.
Allah knows best.
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