One of the main factor which weakens our Iman(faith) is the environment aroud us which we live in. Sometimes it's the friends, our family, relatives or even the community we live in. Just imagine that you are living in a community where there are majority of the pious and practicing muslims, how greatly that would impact us, right?

We would offcourse incline towards what people are doing. Just how a group of people are holding onto their culture from certain places, we would also have good grip on our Iman if we would have lived in such a communtiy. But neverthless, such communities are usually not found anywhere, if they -exist, they would be rare in numbers.-

Now friends are someone who we consider as one of our closest. We laugh with them, we share our secrets, we do what they do, we go where they go and sometimes we even acquire their characters even if they are worse! Now here I want to highlight a very important point, when we are with a group of people who we hangout with and share everything between each other it is apparent that we acquire some of their characters. Just when this happens, we tend lose our Iman, we sometimes leave behind everything and like to be in their company. We live behind the salah just because we are roaming with them in a mall or playing any sort of sports with them. We become the victims of peer pressure and indulge in acitivities like smoking, going to the shisha parlour and hangingout with the girls. This all things would lead us to danger, that is, to hell fire. Just like how we are choosy when we buy cloths for us that's how we should choose our friends. Remember a good friend would be your way to Jannah, a good friend encourages you when you are low on the Iman, he uplifts you and supports you throughout rather than running away from the situation which doesn't endorse their thinking. Imagine that you are within a circle of friends who always talk about Islam, sharing the information regarding Islam and enjoying some motivational and inspirational stories Prophets, sahabas and great figures of Islam just by thinking about it makes us to go in the group.

I would sum this talk by mentioning the inspirational hadeeth of Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,

A man follows the religion of his friend; so each one should consider whom he makes his friend.

Subhanallah, these are called the words of wisdom and only the people with knowledge can understand -how deep these words are.

I pray to Allah subhanahu wa taa'al to make it -easy for us to follow the principles of Islam and the guidance of Prophet sallallhu alaihi wasallam and also to make us from the people who have strong Iman.

-Ali Hussain