الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على سيد المرسلين وعلى آله وأصحابه أجمعين
Brothers and sisters! I wish to share with you some thoughts on the topic of faith or iman. Iman in Islamic theology denotes a believer’s faith in the metaphysical aspects of Islam. In order to understand the real meaning of iman, it is necessary to realize that a person who has attained maturity of intelligence is confronted with questions like: “who am I,” “from where did I come, and where do I go to after my death,” “what is the purpose of my creation,” “what is the nature of the universe,” and so on. Without an answer to these questions, man is in the dark, knowing little about his real self, or about the universe, or his own beginning, or the beginning or end of the universe. It is evident that these questions cannot be answered merely by our physical senses. As yet we have not been able to fathom the vastness even of the physical world. How can we have knowledge of its beginning or end?
Despite these natural limitations, there have been in the history of mankind a number of persons who claimed that they had a special source of knowledge called ‘revelation’ or wahy in the Arabic language. They were the prophets and messengers of Allah. On the basis of revelation, they knew with certainty that this universe did not exist from eternity nor would it remain in existence for ever. It has been brought into existence by a Creator—the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Creator of time and space, and all that exists. He is unique in His essence and possesses all the attributes of perfection. He had always existed and will continue to exist for ever. Our life is not the life of this world only, but He would bring us back to life after death, and that life will be ever-lasting.
Iman means to believe—to believe in Allah as He is in His names and attributes, and to accept His commands as mentioned in the Qur’an and explained through the ahadith of the Prophet (SAW). This is the generalized form of iman. Then there is the detailed form of iman known through a well-known hadith called Hadith Jibril, and includes believing in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, in the Last Day, and in Divine Destiny or qadar.
According to a hadith, “Iman is knowledge in the heart, a voicing with the tongue, and an activity with the limbs.” The heart is the specific faculty or spiritual organ that separates human beings from animals. Thus, a human being without a functioning heart is like an animal, or worse. The Qur’an giving example of such people says, “Do you think most of them can hear or understand? They are like cattle. Indeed, they are even more astray” (al-Furqan, 25:44).
In fact, the nature of a healthy heart is to understand the nature of things, but many hearts as the Qur’an has termed them are: diseased, or rusted, or locked. The tongue is the tool of expressing what you have in your heart and mind. When the heart recognizes the truth, there should be a way out to express it. It is the capacity to speak that allows us to communicate with our Creator through our prayers, supplications, repentance, and constant remembrance of Him. Without words we are deprived of Allah’s ultimate gift—divine guidance. Allah’s guidance has come to us through the language of the Quran and the words of His Prophet (SAW).
Iman has also to be manifested through one’s actions and good deeds. The Qur’an frequently mentions iman and good actions together. Good actions are an index of true iman. So long as iman is confined to the stage of verbal confession and is limited to utterance of words only, actions could be at variance to what is confessed, as commonly found in our society. But when iman reaches a state of certainty in our heart, then our actions will necessarily be changed because the actions of a man are based on what he believes in firmly.
For example, we know that fire can burn us, so we would never put even a finger in it. Now if a person believes with utmost certainty that Allah exists and that He is All-seeing, All-hearing, and All-knowing; that every movement of this person, every word which he utters, and every intention of his heart is known to Allah; that after death, he shall have to present himself before Allah, and shall have to give full account of his entire life; then that man, believing all these things firmly, would not dare to deliberately lead a sinful life. The Qur’an explains iman or true faith in ayat such as:
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا رَبُّنَا اللَّهُ ثُمَّ اسْتَقَامُوا
“Those who said: ‘Allah is our Lord’, and then stood steadfast by it.” (al-Fussilat, 41: 30).
وَالَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا أَشَدُّ حُبًّا لِلَّه
“Those who have iman love Allah most.” (AI-Baqarah, 2:165).
My dear brothers and sisters! It is crucial that we keep a check on the level of our iman. Now, let me share with you some of the symptoms of weak iman, some of the causes that lead to weakness of iman, and some of the ways to strengthen one’s iman. We learn from a hadith which says, “Iman wears out in the heart of any one of you just as clothes wear out, so ask Allah to renew the iman in your hearts.” Our iman is not always as sound and strong as we want it to be. From time to time, the level of our iman tends to dwindle. If we feel our iman declining, then we should take measures to restore it. It is our responsibility to know what decreases our iman and how to avoid it and what increases our iman and how to embrace it. Weakness of iman manifests itself in many ways such as:
· Having no desire to perform the obligatory acts of worship
· Having no desire to read the Quran, let alone getting moved by its verses
· Finding difficulty in remembering Allah
· Committing sins and not feeling any guilt
· Not feeling bad when things are done against the Shariah
· Not feeling the responsibility to do something to promote Islam
· Not feeling concerned about the situation of Muslims
· Feeling jealous of others’ blessings
· Feeling pleased when things are not progressing for others
· Trying to find shortcuts by walking close to that which is detestable
· Preaching others to do good when not doing it oneself
· Being mean and miserly and not wanting to part with wealth
And there are many other symptoms of weakness of iman. What are the causes that lead to weakness of iman? One of the main causes for weakness of iman is being detached from the Book of Allah, which implies not reading it, not pondering upon its meanings, not memorizing it, not trying to implement it in our lives, and not conveying it to others. If there is no attachment to the Book of Allah, then how can there be attachment to Allah. And if this is the case with us, then we should not be wondering why our iman is weak. The Prophet (SAW) said,
تَرَكْتُ فِيكُمْ أَمْرَيْنِ لَنْ تَضِلُّوا مَا تَمَسَّكْتُمْ بِهِمَا كِتَابَ اللَّهِ وَسُنَّةَ نَبِيِّهِ
“I have left two matters with you. As long as you hold to them, you will not go the wrong way. They are the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet.” In another hadith, he said, “Indeed this Qur’an is a rope; one end of it is in the hand of Allah and the other end is in your hands. So hold firmly to it and you will never go astray, nor be destroyed after that.” In Surat Aal “Imran, we are told,
وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّـهِ جَمِيعًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا
“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah, all of you, and do not be separated.” (Aal ‘Imran, 3:103)
So if we let go that rope, then we lose our connection with the Book of Allah. The only way we know about Allah is the way in what He revealed to us about Himself, and that can only be found in His words—the Qur’an. Reading the words of Allah is very crucial. Can any salah which is a means to connect with Allah be valid without uttering in them the words of Allah? So, the closer we are to the Qur’an, the nearer we are to Allah, and the farther we are from it, the farther we are from Allah. If we don’t pick up the Qur’an at least once a day, and at least go through something in it, and try to understand it, then we are on our way to lose our connection with Allah. If the hearts are not attached to Allah, it’s not a surprise why people are disobedient. They don’t care about anything that Allah tells them through the Qur’an. They lose their consciousness of the all-pervading presence of Allah, and the consciousness of their accountability on the Day of Judgment.
We also have to cling to the Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW) who followed and lived the Qur’an at every moment; in every detail of his life. His life was the reflection of Allah’s Words. In fact, when the Prophet’s wife ‘A’ishah (RA) was asked about his conduct, she replied, “His character was the Qur’an” (Kaana khuluquhul Qur’an). Ayah 80 of Surat An-Nisa says,
مَّن يُطِعِ الرَّسُولَ فَقَدْ أَطَاعَ اللَّهَ
“He who obeys the Messenger obeys Allah.” (An-Nisa, 4:80)
Ayah 31 of Surat Aal ‘Imran makes following the Prophet (SAW) a condition for loving Allah (SWT).
“Say, If you love Allah, follow me, and Allah will love you and forgive you your sins; Allah is most forgiving, most merciful.” (Aal ‘Imran 3:31)
Filling our hearts with the remembrance of Allah through His words, and following the Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW) is the best way to strengthen our iman.
Another thing which causes weakness of iman is staying away too long from a faith filled environment; from an iman-nourishing environment. This causes people to fall into sin, and sinning without sincerely repenting for it is something that weakens iman. If you are sitting in the House of Allah—in the Masjid, how many times do you think of sinning; perhaps never or very little. But the moment we are outside the Masjid, we become active with the social media, with our social circles, and the like. Many of us sin not because of willful disobedience but because sometimes we get pulled into the act reluctantly. It is no secret that certain social and other pressures tend to push us into committing sins that we normally would not commit. When in such situations, we suppress the voice of our conscience and then go with the social flow. This is one of the reasons why the prophet (SAW) warned us about keeping company that can take us away from the straight path. He said: “A man will follow the way of his close friends, so let each one of you look at who he takes as a close friend.” Listen to what the Qur’an says about the person who, on the Day of Judgment, will express his sorrow and regret over taking some undesirable person as his friend.
“Woe to me! I wish I had not taken so and so as a friend! He led me astray from the Reminder after it came to me.´ Satan has always betrayed mankind” (al-Furqan. 25:28-29).
Let’s, therefore, ensure that if our social circles are directly or indirectly pushing us to commit sins or discouraging us from performing good deeds, resulting in weakness of iman, then we should disengage from such groups and people immediately. By silencing our conscience in the face of social pressures, we also start to slowly regard many wrongs as rights and gradually lose our natural inborn evaluation or assessment of the right and wrong. So, it’s important to create a faith filled environment even outside the Masjid. At home, for example, the husband and wife should be reminding each other and their children about remembering Allah and thanking Him. The children are going to inherently repeat the behavior of the people who raised them.
Brothers and sisters! An obsessive preoccupation with the duniya also causes weakness of iman, and forgetfulness of al-Akhirah—the hereafter. The human heart is like a boat in the ocean of the duniya. The boat keeps sailing and drowns only if it allows the ocean’s water to enter into it. Similarly the heart that allows this world to enter into it becomes owned by this life, by our jobs, our gadgets, our social networking services, and many other distractions, such as the fashion trends, the marketing tools, the money, the power, the status, and the list goes on. The heart that is owned by this life is a prisoner of the worst kind. The heart that is owned by any other master, than the Master of masters—Allah (SWT), is the weakest of all slaves.
Some of us may wrongly think that we can live our lives the way we like, and then at the time of death, we will just say la ilaha illallah. But at the time of death, the tongue cannot speak—except what the heart commands. Whatever is in the heart will come out. The bankrupt heart will have nothing but love of duniya to speak of on that day. If our heart is empty of Allah during our life, how can it be full of Allah during our death? If our heart is full of love of this life, love of status, love of wealth, love of the creation over the Creator, it is that which will come on our tongue when we die.
Speaking about curing the diseases of the heart, and the heart, as we know, is the seat of iman, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (Rahimahullah) said, “The keys to the life of the heart lie in reflecting upon the Quran, humbling before Allah in secret, and leaving sins.” He also said, “The heart will rest and feel relief if it is settled with Allah and it will worry and be anxious if it is settled with people.” To increase our iman, we have to work for it just as we strive for anything else.
لَّيْسَ لِلْإِنسَانِ إِلَّا مَا سَعَىٰ
“Man shall have only that for which he strives.” (An-Najm, 53:39)
لا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلاَّ وُسْعَهَا لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا مَا اكْتَسَبَتْ
“Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity. It gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns…” (Al-Baqarah, 2:286)
Brothers and sisters, in conclusion I would just say that let us strive our utmost to treat the problem of weakness of iman. Let us be connected with the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Let us feel the greatness of Allah (SWT). Let us push ourselves to acts of righteousness, and pray that they are accepted with the fear that they might not be accepted, perhaps because of lack of sincerity on our part. Let us seek knowledge for knowledge builds certainty and certainty brings trust in Allah. Let us remember the day we’ll bid farewell to this life and the day we’ll stand before Allah. Let us humble ourselves to Allah and make dua to Him to make our hearts filled with iman. Let me conclude with a hadith that says, “Indeed he who is pleased with Allah as his Rabb, Islam as his Deen, and Muhammad (SAW) as his Messenger has tasted the sweetness of iman.” May Allah (SWT) make us among them. May Allah (SWT) turn our hearts to His deen and to His obedience.
يَا مُقَلِّبَ الْقُلُوبِ ثَبِّتْ قُلُوبَنَا عَلَى دِينِكَ \ اللَّهُمَّ مُصَرِّفَ الْقُلُوبِ صَرِّفْ قُلُوبَنَا عَلَى طَاعَتِكَ
“O, Turner of the hearts, keep our hearts firm on your deen (religion).” “O Allah, the Turner of the hearts, turn our hearts to your obedience.”
أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ وَلِسَائِرِ المُسْلِمينَ وَالمُسْلِمَاتْ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهْ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ
