بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّ حِيْمِ
Last week we spoke of the importance of cultivating faith in our
hearts. We remind ourselves of what
Allah tells us in Surah Hujuraat;
The desert Arabs say, “We believe”.
Say, “Ye have no faith; but ye (only) say, 'We have submitted our wills
to Allah, for not yet has faith entered your hearts. But if ye obey Allah and His Messenger, He
will not belittle aught of your deeds: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most
Merciful. (49:14)
If you have true faith in your heart it will manifest throughout your
entire personality and when that happens, you will submit to Allah
willingly. There are some who profess to
have faith but as Allah says ‘in their hearts
is a disease; and Allah has increased their disease’ (2:10); meaning that they
don’t really have faith. And Allah expounds
about such people in the very beginning of Surah Baqarah;
Of the people there are some who say: "We believe In Allah and
the Last Day;" but they do not (really) believe. (2:8)
In reality they are professing to be something they are really not. There is something else in their hearts. We need to culture our hearts to ensure that
faith enters and remains there, because the heart is the centre or nucleus of
the personality. And if the heart has
true faith it will manifest itself throughout the entire personality.
Understand that we, on one hand, want our entire personality to meet the
expression made by Hazrat Abraham (as): Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice,
my life and my death, are (all) for Allah, the Cherisher of the Worlds:
He understood so well the
importance of his complete personality being in total submission to Allah. And that is what we should all strive for.
If we want to get close to our Lord we need to aspire for it. We cannot put anything between us and
Him. If we love the world more it will ultimately
come between us. The true believer, in
all conditions, learns to submit to Allah no matter what the circumstance may
be. We are living for His sake and He
will not let us down. He will give us all
sorts of trials and always remember that the higher you go the more the trials you
will get. Prophet Muhammad (pboh) is reported to have
said “when Allah loves a servant, He tests him” (Tirmidh)
Look how He tried His Beloved (pboh).
He was an orphan born in the most
aristocratic family but they were so humble.
His mother could not even afford a wet nurse. And look at how he was able to draw all the
people close to him. He never forced
them. On one hand they knew if they were
associated with him they would get blessings from Allah and on the other they
knew they will learn to culture and cultivate their personalities.
The test of faith of the believers is the trials from Allah. When the trials come will you run to someone
else other than Allah? When everything
is good and peaceful your faith isn’t truly tested. As Allah says in Surah Hajj;
There are among men some who serve Allah, as it were, on the verge:
if good befalls them, they are, therewith, well content; but if a trial comes
to them, they turn on their faces: they lose both this world and the Hereafter:
that is loss for all to see! (22:11)
Some people sit on the fence. When
everything is nice and rosy there aren’t any complaints; but when they are
afflicted with some hardship they lose faith and trust in Allah. This is what we have to be careful
about. Any of us can display levels if
hypocrisy at anytime if we give something priority over Allah.
Everyday Hazrat Umar (ra) would visit a
Companion who Prophet Muhammad
(pboh) made
a special dua for. This particular
companion thereafter possessed the ability of identifying a hypocrite. So gifted was he that whenever there was a
Janaza of a hypocrite he would not attend and this led Hazrat Umar (ra) to scan
the crowd to see if this particular Companion was present. If he was not present Umar (ra) would refrain
from leading the Janaza because he knew the deceased was a hypocrite. And Everyday Umar (ra) would visit this
blessed companion and ask “am I a hypocrite?”
It is quite easy to fall into complacency. For example when salaat time enters and we
don’t pray our salaat because of some worldly preoccupation; what happens? These are the things what we need to be
careful about.
A true believer is a humble person because on one hand they know their
Lord is close to them and on the other they know they can make mistakes at
anytime. Your heart is like the pearl
inside an oyster. Try your best to keep
it bright and shinning.
Ask you Lord for forgiveness for the wrong we would have all committed. Yes we make mistakes but if our intention is Allah
He will help us. Strengthen your heart
through His remembrance and through this insha Allah, Satan will not get the
better of you.
We all have one life to live and everyday that passes is a day
gone. May Allah always protect us, guide
us and bless us insha Allah.
The video presentation of this discourse can be
accessed at
