I need advice on refueling my iman (sp?).
I was really happy after taking my Shahada. I prayed on time everyday, and still do. My family reacted well, or not at all. I feel very blessed. One area though I think I did wrong was trying to jump in too quickly. I tried to be the perfect Muslim and overwhelmed myself. I always felt that if I wasn't perfect people wouldn't love me. I felt this about God too. I thought if I wasn't perfect, God wouldn't want me... God wouldn't love me. In my mind, I know this is crazy. God loves us all. Why else give us life and provide for us? But in my heart this fear I've carried my whole life when it comes to people is impacting my relationship with God. I have backed off and am starting smaller. I pray, try to slowly stop bad habits, read the Qur'an and Sunnah's during the day, and also take time to relax away from Islam (perusing old hobbies like reading). But lately, my prayers have felt routine, like something I just do.
I want to become closer with God. I have prayed for guidance. Inshallah my iman will be strong again soon.
If anyone knows what I'm going through or has kind advice that would be really helpful.
Thank you
Asalaamu Alaikum, dear sister you are feeling what many of us feel and that is our imaan (faith) going up and down like a yoyo. Imaan can leave the body as quick as it can enter it. The only way to keep our imaan topped up all of the time is to do good actions to please Allah and refrain from anything which angers or displeases him.
You should also know that Allah created us imperfect so he does not expect perfection from us but he does expect us to try our best. That is all he wants from you. He knows we will fall into error but that is why he emphasised for us to repent sincerely to him as much as possible. Allah loves repentance and his slave turning to him in the latter portions of the night when others are asleep.
So you must get it out of your head that Gods expects perfection for he expects you and me and all of us to truly try our best for that is all we can do. Surely it is your enemy Satan who is trying to make you think this way.
Satan tries many different tactics to try and deter us from the straight path. But you must reject him and instill in your mind that Allah knows you are not perfect and he does not expect perfection from you but he expects you to try your utmost to please him and refrain from anything which angers or displeases him. He knows you will err and fall into error.
He knows you will fall from the hurdles but everytime you err or fall into error then turn to Allah in repentance and if you can then cry unto him and beg of him for mercy. He truly loves his devoted slaves turning to him in humbleness and meekness in order to beg of his mercy. He is most generous and loves to give and believe me he would love to give us SO much for our devotion to him.
Surely he is giving us MUCH more than we can ever do in return. All we have to do is to devote our short lives of upto 60-70 years and in return we get ETERNITY of whatever we want. Is that a fair comparison? Certainly not. We are getting FAR too much in return for giving so little.
So my sister know that our faith will go up and down but the best way to keep it up is by good actions and trying to please Allah. Also spend time with good and pious sisters. Always read up on and listen to lectures about time, death and the hereafter for death is a destroyer of pleasures and wakes us up into reality when we get too consumed in this world of distractions.
How limited is our life and how can we really be sure that we will live until tomorrow. We have a 50% chance of dying at any moment and 50% is a huge chance of dying yet we live everyday like we will live forever in this world but we are asleep and so heedless. We do so much for this world and gain wealth, propertys and various other investments but if we die the next day then will this wealth and assets accompany us? The ONLY thing that will come with us is our good deeds. Our good deeds will be our companions in the grave and in the hereafter because they will be there for us when we REALLY need them the most, whereas what we gained in this world will leave us at the point of death.
So is it wise to spend our whole lives working for this world in expense of the next? Are we going to be here for that long that we should do so much for this world and neglect our final destination?
The succession of the night and day teach us an important lesson about this life; what goes will never come back again. This lesson is only understood by the wise people and leads them to invest all of their time in useful things as they realise that these times will never come back again. Once each second, minute, hour and day is gone it will NEVER come back. Yet our seconds go by and we do not even bother to ensure we make the best of how we spend them.
Rasulallah (Salallahu Alaihi Wasallam) urged us to use our time in a useful way when he said: “Grab five things before five others: your youth before your old age, your health before your illness, your wealth before your poverty, your leisure before your work, and your life before your death.” (Al-Hakim)
He also indicated that we are to be asked about these times and how we invested them in the judgment day. Rasulallah (Salallahu Alaihi Wasallam) said: “A servants two feet will not move on the Day of Judgement until he is questioned about four (things): His youth, how he spent it, his knowledge, how he acted upon it, his wealth, how he earned it and how he spent it and his body, how he used/wasted it.” ( Al-Tirmidhi)
When he is dying he will wish that he is given another chance or extension to his life so that he may do good as Allah says:
In Falsehood will they be Until, when death comes to one of them, he says: “O my Lord! send me back (to life),- In order that I may work righteousness in the things I neglected.” By no means! It is but a word he says. Before them is a Partition till the Day they are raised up. (23:99-100)
The key to success in this life and the next is making the hereafter the MOST important thing to us and making it our main focus. If we constantly keep the hereafter as our main focus everyday of our lives and strive as much as we can everyday to ensure that each second is spent on building up our hereafter then we will not go wrong inshallah.
Ibn Masood said: “I have never regretted anything as a day spent of my life without doing good deeds.”
How many days have we had like this where we have completely wasted them? On the day of judgement we would want to go back so that we could gain the HUGE rewards that are available just for saying Subhanallah!
Bilal ibn ass’d once said: if we are asked:
‘‘do you want to die?’’, we answer
‘‘No’’; and if we are asked
‘‘why?’’ we reply
‘‘in order to repent ad do good deeds’’. However if it’s said to us
‘‘Ok then do good deeds’’ we say:
‘‘Yes I will do’’; we keep working for this life everyday and postponing working for the hereafter.
We CANNOT afford to waste a single second in this life wasting it on that which will give us no benefit in this world or the next. Once our focus becomes the hereafter then NOTHING else will matter. Even things that we do in this world like work, study, look after and provide for family, parents, wife children etc will be like worship for us because we will do them for the pleasure of Allah. Even going to the toilet can be a worship if done in accordance with the Sunnah. Our WHOLE life from sleeping, eating, going to sleep and even breathing can become reward and worship with the right intentions so let us not waste a second more.
In the hereafter, when people are rewarded according to their deeds in this life, he wishes if he can go back to this life so he can do good deeds as he has experienced the hardness of punishment.
Allah says:
They will say: “Our Lord! Twice hast Thou made us without life, and twice hast Thou given us Life! Now have we recognized our sins: Is there any way out (of this)?” (40:11)
Qatadah said regarding the last verse: By Allah, they don’t wish to go back to their families or clans, to get more of the pleasure of life, or to spend and fulfill their desires. Rather, they wished to return in order to perform and do acts of obedience to Allah - the Almighty -; God have mercy on those who do, in this life, the same good deeds and act of obedience that the unbeliever will wish to do when they meet the punishment in the Judgment Day.
Allah Also says:
But warn them of the Day of Distress, when the matter will be determined: for (behold,) they are negligent and they do not believe! (19:39)
Ibn Kathir provided the following translation for the latter verse:
(And warn them of the Day of grief and regrets) warn the creation of the Day of Distress.
(When the case has been decided) when the people of Paradise and the people of Hell will be sorted out, and everyone will reach his final abode which he was destined to remain in forever.
(While (now) they are) today, in the present life of this world.
(In a state of carelessness) with the warning of the Day of grief and regret, they are heedless.
(And they believe not) meaning they do not believe that it is true.
Imam Ahmad narrted that Abu Sa`id said that the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) said: “When the people of Paradise enter Paradise and the people of the Hellfire enter the Hellfire, death will be brought in the form of a handsome ram and it will be placed between Paradise and the Hellfire.” Then, it will be said, “O people of Paradise, do you know what this is?” Then, they will turn their gazes and look, and they will say, “Yes, this is death.”' Then, it will be said, “O people of the Hellfire, do you know what this is?”' Then, they will turn their gazes and look, and they will say, “Yes, this is death.” Then, the order will be given for it to be slaughtered and it will be said, “O people of Paradise, eternity and no more death, O people of Hellfire, eternity and no more death.” Then the Messenger of Allah recited the previous Ayah; then, the Messenger of Allah made a gesture with his hand and said: “The people of this life are in the state of heedlessness of this life.”
So we must get ourselves out of this heedless state that we are in and let us make our ONLY focus the hereafter so that EVERYTHING we do we do to please Allah. Before we do any action we should just stop and think to ourselves
"Is this action going to be of any benefit to me in the hereafter"? If it is not then let us do that which WILL be of benefit to us. This brief moment of reflection will help us throughout our lives because it will prevent us from wasting our precious time and it will enable us to spend our precious seconds pleasing Allah and doing good deeds.
A clever and intelligent person realises that they have such limited time in this world and therefore each second should be spent on doing that which will benefit them in the long term as oppose to in the short term. Short term gains are what we do for this world and long term gains are what we do for the hereafter. Now if we spend our lives living for this world then we will have gains which are so short lived and after we die what will we have for eternity? Whereas if we lived this life to a minimum and spent our entire lives working for the hereafter then we will benefit FOREVER!
This world is like a dream that will end at any moment and in the next world we will wake up from this dream and that is when reality will hit us but by then it will be too late to do anything about it. Our chance to act is NOW! Therefore we CANNOT waste a second more.
You should certainly take things slower and gradually build up at a speed that you can manage without overwhelming yourself. Allah has never enjoined upon us that we should over burden ourselves by doing too much that we cannot handle.
Try to spend time learning about Islam and implementing what wyou learn into your daily life as well as conveying it to others so that they may benefit to.
We should always enjoin good and forbid evil every opportunity we get and give as much dawah as we can inviting people to the way of Allah.
As mentioned above we must always keep good and pious company and disregard those who do evil as bad company is like poison for us. Let us sit with the scholars and learned people and those who remember Allah.
Let us gradually increase in our recitation of the Qur'an as every letter is so much rewards that we cannot imagine. We will be raised among the levels of Paradise until we stopped reciting the Qur'an in this world. So let us keep reciting so that we can be raised to the highest stages of Paradise. Let us also learn the meanings of what we are reading so that we can understand what Allah is telling us and so that we can implement what Allah is telling us in the Qur'an into our daily lives.
Let us also gradually try to improve our character and manners as improing oneself is a lifetime process but we should start on the major things first like stopping backbiting, swearing bad language etc and whatever we need to change about ourselves for the better then let us constantly work on these things all of the time.
Abu Darda (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) said,
"Nothing will be heavier on the Day of Resurrection in the Scale of the believer than good manners. Allah hates one who utters foul or coarse language.''
We should spend in the way of Allah as much as we can particularly in the month of mercy and generosity- Ramadan - for we will regret the money we wasted and did not spend in the way of Allah.
Let us gradually increase ourselves in prayer and prostrations particularly the nafil prayers (voluntary prayers) because the more we prostrate to Allah in the form of prayer then the closer we will get to Allah and the higher our ranks will be in the hereafter.
We should always ask of Allah in dua as much as possible. We should know that dua is the weapon of the believer and this weapon should be used as much as possible for all of our duas that are not answered in this world will be stored for us in the hereafter and when we see the reward of those duas we thought were not accepted then we will wish that NONE of our dua's were ever accepted just so that we can gain these HUGE rewards.
We should be of the appreciative and thankful and always thank Allah for everything he has given us because he has done so many favours for us that we can never imagine. Allah gives more to the thankful and increases them in blessings.
-Allah likes those who are thankful [39:7]
-Allah rewards those who are thankful [3:144]
-Allah gives more benefits and blessings to those who are thankful [14:7]
-Allah protects those from harm who render Him thankfulness [54:34-35]
Also let us be patient through trials, hardships and adversities because they will help rid us of sin and it may be that a person who went through much trials in the world would face Allah with little or no sin and imagine how lucky that person would be on a day when we will tremble for the sins we committed in the world. What a terrible day that will be.
So we should spend our time in repentance and have hope in the mercy of Allah and at the same time have fear that our repentance and deeds won't be accepted. Hope and fear should always be balanced and one should not have too much hope and one should not have too much fear but strike a balance between the two.
Let us gradually increase our remembrance of Allah and keep our tongues moist with his glorification of Allah, How easy is it for us to utter useless words but how much will we regret when we realise that instead of all the useless talk we did in the world we we could have glorified Allah and even one glorification of Allah like Subhanallah and La ilaha ilallah gains one rewards one cannot imagine. It is just that in this world we cannot see these rewards but when we will see the rewards for ourselves on the day of judgement then we will say
"Woe to me i wasted my life in useless talk when i could have been glorifying and remembering Allah."
Hadhrat Mu'az [RA] narrated Rasulallah (sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) said: “The Inhabitants of Paradise will not be grief stricken or sorrowful about anything they did in the life of the world except for the time they spent without being in the remembrance of Allah” (Tabaraani)
We can remember Allah where ever we are no matter what we are doing and this is the best thing we can do in our lives is to constantly remain in the remembrance of Allah. If we alwyas have Allah in our hearts then we will do EVERYTHING to please him and refrain from anything that displeases him.
The Prophet of Guidance (sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) told us that remembrance of Allah is the best and the purest deed.
Abu Dardaa narrated that the Messenger of Allaah (sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) said, “Shall I tell you of the best and purest of your deeds before your King, the one that elevates your position the most; that is better for you than meeting your enemies whose necks you strike and they also strike your necks, and better than spending gold and silver?” The companions said, “O Yes.” The Prophet (sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) then said, “Remembrance of Allaah, the Exalted.” (Ahmad, Tirmidhi and others).
We must also think before doing any action to ensure that EVERYTING we do we do to please Allah and if it will benefit us in the hereafter then we should do it but if it will only waste our time then we should not do it.
Al-Hasan Al-Basri said: “Seek sweet happiness in three things: performing prayer, Remembering Allah, and reading the Holy Quran. If you find (delight in those three things), it is alright. But if you do not, it means that the door (to Allah’s Love and Mercy) is closed; so search for the reason.”
Another of the righteous men said, “How miserable people of the present world are! They pass away from it without having tasted the most delicious thing therein.” And when he was asked:
“What is the most delicious thing therein?”, he said:
“Knowing Allah, the Almighty, loving Him, and remembering Him.”
So sister we must strive as best we can to make the best of each second of our lives to ensure that each second is spent on pleasing Allah and each second that we waste on that which will not benefit us in the hereafter will be seconds that are wasted and seconds that we will regret FOREVER! But do so within our own limits and our own speed whetaver we can manage without over burdening or over whelming ourselves but we must strike a good balance as in not go so slow and not go so fast but take a middle path with regards to our progression in the worship of Allah.
Ramadan is nearly here and it is a month that we all need desperatley in order to give us a real boost in imaan and a perfect opportunity to train ourselves up for the rest of the year for Ramadan is a month of training for us for it is truly a mercy from Allah.
Here are a few E books that you could read which you will find very beneficial inshallah:
Ideal Muslimah
http://www.islamicbulletin.org/free_downloads/women/the_ideal_muslimah.pdf
Here are lots more free books for Muslim women:
http://www.islamicbulletin.org/services/all_ebooks_p3.aspx#link7
The following are some very beneficial lectures which you should listen to, to increase your imaan and fear of Allah:
Remembrance: ask Allah for his forgiveness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-EK9r3rMzQ
Angel of Death!!! - Sheikh Ahmed Ali
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUzRJXlB2uA
HARD HITTING Lecture on HELLFIRE & the Day of JUDGEMENT! يوم القيامة والجحيم
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O6L_fBk7VM
Sheikh Ahmad Ali - Hellfire Talk Part 1/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWTehIeCOUU
Sheikh Ahmad Ali - Hellfire Talk Part 2/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXTtk7rWx_U
Sheikh Ahmad Ali - Hellfire Talk Part 3/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmiD86w9fBc
Islam - Punishment of the Grave by Sheikh Riyadh ul Haq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWb-hYIm2WE
Death and the Grave by Murtaza Khan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r2nzJVecqo
How can we not appreciate what we have after watching this?
[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkEBUC0APMg[/URL]
AMAZING short speech -"The Goodly Life"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fugf1DcNyc
If you need help, advice or anything at all then please do not hesitate to ask. Please remember me in your duas.
And Allah knows best in all matters
