When getting up for the prayer is the hardest part of the day
A prayer you get through while depressed is a real prayer, and it reaches God as one. The Qur'an addresses the person whose capacity has shrunk, the ill and the exhausted and the one who can no longer keep up what they used to manage, and its instruction to them is to do the amount they can. "Recite, then, what is easy of the Qur'an." That line sits in the same passage that says God knows you cannot sustain it, and it arrives as mercy.
Depression makes the small mechanics heavy. Getting to water, standing for the length of four units, holding a sentence in mind long enough to mean it: each of these can cost far more than it looks like it costs from outside. The Qur'an treats that cost as real, building concessions into the law itself for illness and for the body that cannot do what the ordinary case assumes. "God wishes to lighten things for you, for the human being was created weak."
The Qur'an also describes a remembrance that asks for no standing at all. It names the posture of whoever is doing it, lying down included, which is where many people are when the time for prayer comes in. Someone who cannot manage the full form can still say the name of God from bed, and the Qur'an lists that among the practices of people it praises.
A common fear inside a depressive episode is that a prayer performed without feeling is worthless, and that the shortened, late, sitting-down version is an insult. The Qur'an closes that door from an unexpected side, commanding the prayer in the same breath as "We ask no provision of you; we provide for you." What is owed runs in the opposite direction from what the guilt assumes, and the prayer stays open at whatever amount you have. If the flatness itself is the worry, verses on feeling nothing when you pray take up that question directly.
The promise attached to all of this is about direction. Ease is said to come after hardship, and the easing is described as something done to the person, with their own strength left out of the account: "God will bring ease after hardship." That is worth holding on to when an episode has run long enough to feel permanent. Depression distorts the timeline, and a text that keeps insisting on an after is a useful thing to have in the room.
What none of this settles is what your treatment should be. Depression is an illness, and these verses do not stand in for a doctor, medication or therapy any more than they stand in for a splint. They speak to the part the medical side leaves untouched, the sense that worship has become worthless because it has become small. Verses on depression sit alongside these, and how Hikma reads explains the approach.
73:20 — Indeed, your Lord knows that you stand in prayer for nearly two-thirds of the night, or half of it, or a third — as does a group of those with you. And God measures the night and the day, knowing that you cannot sustain it, so he has turned to you in mercy. Recite, then, what is easy of the Qur'an. God knows that some among you will be ill, and others traveling through the land seeking God's bounty, and others fighting in the way of God. So recite what is easy of it, and establish the prayer, and give the purifying alms, and lend to God a beautiful loan. Whatever good you send forward for yourselves, you will find it with God — better and greater in reward. And seek God's forgiveness. Indeed, God is forgiving, merciful.
4:28 — God wishes to lighten things for you, for the human being was created weak.
5:6 — You who believe, when you rise for prayer, wash your faces and your hands up to the elbows, wipe your heads, and wash your feet up to the ankles. If you are in a state of major impurity, purify yourselves. But if you are ill, or on a journey, or one of you has just relieved themselves, or you have been intimate with women, and you find no water, then seek clean earth and wipe your faces and hands with some of it. God does not intend to place any hardship on you, but he intends to purify you and to complete his favor upon you, so that you may be grateful.
22:78 — And strive for God with the striving that is his due. Indeed, he has chosen you, and has placed no hardship upon you in the way — the path of your father Ibrahim. He named you those who surrender, before and in this, so that the Messenger may be a witness over you and you may be witnesses over the people. So establish the prayer, give the alms, and hold fast to God; he is your protector — and what an excellent protector, and what an excellent helper.
3:191 — those who remember God standing, sitting, and lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth: 'Our Lord, you did not create this in vain. Glory be to you — protect us from the punishment of the fire.
4:103 — When you have completed the prayer, remember God — standing, sitting, and lying on your sides. And when you are secure, establish the prayer in full. Indeed, the prayer is prescribed for the believers at appointed times.
20:132 — And command your family to pray, and be steadfast in it. We ask no provision of you; we provide for you. And the best outcome belongs to mindfulness of God.
65:7 — Let the one of abundance spend from his abundance, and the one whose provision is limited, let him spend from what God has given him. God does not burden any soul beyond what he has given it. God will bring ease after hardship.
87:8 — And we will ease you toward the path of ease.
20:130 — So be patient with what they say, and glorify your Lord with praise before the rising of the sun and before its setting; and glorify him through the hours of the night and at the ends of the day, that you may find contentment.