Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – How We Lose Our Faith
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the topic of losing faith and ap expiration, with a focus on the various angles of the topic, including one's belief in religion and desire to become an Optimist. The problem of people not being concerned with their beliefs and desire to become an Optimist is emphasized, along with the importance of faith and practice. The speakers also emphasize the importance of belief in Islam for spirituality and avoiding discomfort with certain moments. They advise against giving too much information and suggest ignoring certain questions and not giving too much information. The segment ends with a call to be careful and not give people too much information.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa
salatu salam ala so you didn't notice Selena while he was Sofie H
Marina and my birth.
My dear sisters, Allah subhanho wa Taala says in the Quran, one Tamil
Alone In Kuntum, meaning that you will be elevated as long as you
are true believers. Then Allah subhana wa Tada says, You have
Lavina mono is that enormous somebody or sada are people who
believe,
seek assistance, seek help, through patience, and through
prayer, through patience and through prayer. So these are the
two things that ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada says in the Quran, among many
other things. And I think for the topic today, which is about losing
my faith, this several different angles that can be discussed in
losing my faith. Other than that, as I said that this particular
topic, losing my faith, which was actually supposed to be the topic
from the conference itself, can be discussed in many different
angles. The way you would discuss this among people with doubts
would be different to the way you would discuss it to people with no
doubt. If somebody has no doubt, then obviously, there's no point
telling them about the doubts necessarily, to unduly create
doubts. But there are certain things that we need to understand
firstly,
there are, and there are quite a few people who have doubts about
the faith. Now the reason for the doubts could be very different.
There's probably just a minority that actually become atheist. And
the reason why they seem to be the most prominent is because they,
they seem active, when a person becomes an atheist, they're
probably going to be telling others what their beliefs are now
and why they've chosen their beliefs and why they've rejected
Islam and clear apostasy, that that would basically be why they
would they would do that. And that's why you will probably hear
somebody like that. Now, they are clearly somebody we need to be
concerned about, and somebody we can try to help.
But the there's a bigger proportion of people who are not
necessarily atheist, but they have another problem, which is called
apathy. Apathy is basically something else. Apathy means an
indifference or disregard.
Not being concerned, not caring, I can't care less kind of attitude.
That's apathy. And the reason that generally comes up is because a
person doesn't practice their faith, then they're bombarded day
in and day out with various different propaganda about the
problem with Islam. So when you're living in a minority, and the
media, and the discourse out there is that Muslims are doing this
wrong, and Muslims are doing that wrong, and not just Muslims. But
Islam has this problem. And it's an inherent problem. And it's this
problem. And it's that problem. I mean, there's statistics that
clearly show that in the media, how many times Islam has been
linked to these kinds of things in a in a way that is totally false,
but it creates an atmosphere, for example, let's just say, I mean,
we may all have somebody who's done maybe something untoward or
something unfavorable in our families, or in our communities,
right. And it's just saying, our families. Now, if you're told long
enough, by everybody, you've got a bad family, you've got a bad
family initially, you're not going to believe that anyway. Right?
Because you everybody has pride of the of their own background. And,
you know, they're proud of their families. But when you then
pointed out certain small examples, and they're magnified,
because at the end of the day, it's all about perspective, as
well. And it's magnified, look at what that person done, look at
what this person done, and eventually makes you feel at least
doubtful. I mean, it could make you at least feel doubtful. And
then what happens is that when with a family of course, there's
not much you can do with a family, you can't really abandon your
family, although some people do. But when it comes to faith, it's
easier to do that because you don't have that maybe that sense
of belonging. Now there will be some people who will never who
mashallah will never become unconvinced, who will never become
doubtful, you know, who've experienced the faith mashallah
who have magnified in the hearts who have taken the faith
experientially, you know, the kind of feelings that they feel when
they make dua, the kind of responses they get, when they've
made dua, when they've done of God when you know, the calmness of the
heart, the tranquility of the heart that they actually feel when
they do have God and remembrances and so on. When they've made dua
and Allah subhanaw taala has accepted the door I mean, these
are experiential things, which I think solidify your faith to such
a degree that it doesn't matter what kind of doubts may come up
afterwards. They they they will not do anything for you. And
that's when Islam the belief of Islam has gone beyond just the
theology gone beyond just the okay I believe it because x y and Zed
or because it makes sense or because what do you call it? That
is the you know,
Out of the three religions, this is the latest religion. And you
have all of these reasons, these logical reasons, historical
reasons, and other such reasons. But when you've actually
experienced it, it's a totally different thing. And that's why
Imam Ghazali mentioned that that is probably and that's the way you
get from spirituality that you get from the soul of Sufism, or, you
know, proper, proper dissolve, that where you actually feel the
experience of what Islam is doing for you, it becomes you. It's very
different from where you just know it's true. And you just believe
for whatever reason you're convinced intellectually, but the
problem with intellectual conviction is that sometimes
somebody can spin it in a different way and create doubt in
that intellectual conviction. But when it comes to spiritual
conviction, experientially, when you've experienced it, when you've
tasted it when you've had its favorite flavor, and you're
tasting it day in and day out, right? And you get that
tranquility and it gives you that contentment, then there's no way
that anybody can take you off that so I obviously the solution is to
become tranquil in that state to have that not enough. What we call
enough smoke in knifes raw the knifes Meridia, right, which are
basically the satisfied soul, the pleased soul, right? The Guided
soul, the enough syllable hammer, right, that's the guided soul. I
mean, it's to get that state that obviously, we need to work for it.
But you can't tell people who have apathy to do that. Because that
obviously requires an effort. So the reason why after apathy comes
up is for obviously, one of the reasons which I mentioned is
because of the constant bombardment, it just makes you
feel like there's nothing in Islam because you're not countering it
by going and learning about it by experiencing it. Right? There's
not enough, and then maybe even if they've been to classes, maybe the
classes weren't effective enough, maybe they weren't being taught in
that right way. All right, I just went somewhere. And basically, I
was told that they don't listen to a number of other other people,
because they just can't speak their language. And they will only
listen to certain people because they can speak their language. And
it's, you know, that depends, but obviously, it's on the person to
go and try to look for somebody that can help them rather than be
rather than have this apathy and this indifference. The other
reason for apathy and indifference is because generally speaking, if
you look at even with other prophets, the people who believed
the most or believed initially that believed first, who were
willing to take the leap and take on the belief that the prophets
were clear what we're calling people towards, they were
generally the poor people. And the rich came in much later. Right?
The rich came in much later. It doesn't have to always be the
case. But that is a lot of the case in many of the situation.
That's why Allah says in the Quran, Allah subhana wa Tada says,
In the Quran about new hada his Salam that his people said, not
me, no luck, our tabernacle out of saloon, that should we believe in
you, where it's the lowly people, the downtrodden people, the
reveal, right? Those people who are not considered dignified Dave
followed you, so we should follow you because they followed you. So
they tried to say that this is a class system, it's like that in
many countries around the world, for example, in in Pakistan, at
least I know from what I've heard of students from the the kind of
elite, not saying this is everybody, but a lot of the elite
or the wealthy people. They think Islam is for the lowly people. And
when they come here to study at universities, and they actually
see
Muslim students born and bred from an Indian Pakistani background,
subcontinent background, that they are very practicing, you know, the
women are wearing hijab and niqab etcetera, the men are having
beards and so on, and they're praying, you know, they've got
prayer times, they got a masala University and so on, they get
shocked and surprised, because they're saying that you are the
ideal for which we will aspire, right? Because, I mean, in Indian
Pakistan, speaking in English is a massive deal. I was just in India,
you know, two weeks ago, and they, they just want to speak English,
they don't, they don't even want to relate to ODU, or Hindi, or any
other languages want to speak English. It's like, you know, God
knows what they see. So anybody who actually speak speaks English
natively, and is considered to be in you know, in England, that's a
big deal. So when those students come here to study and this is the
elite that come because it's very expensive to come and study here
in these universities, and they see the, the normal, you know,
everyday person who's practicing they're completely surprised.
They're completely surprised. This is obviously a society shall
Hamdulillah we don't it's not that bad for us living in the West
itself, right? I mean, to some degree, at least in England
Hamdulillah that you know, deen is for everybody. Right that the
wealthy considered this the non wealthy the middle class because I
mean, we don't have too much of that fluctuation. We have very
wealthy people. But generally everybody's mashallah you know,
they're decent. So, what happens? Why does this why does this come
about is because psychologically money, influence position
Respect, gives you a false dichotomy gives you a false sense
of satisfaction, contentment, that I don't need anything else. When
you have money, you can buy what you want, right? You can order it
when you want, you can have same day delivery, even right instant
gratification of things and you've got the money to buy it, well,
then obviously, you feel a lot more confident with yourself, you
feel like all my, all my needs are being taken care of, I can buy
what I want, in terms of material possessions, right in terms of
things, goods, items. And they're not too focused on their heart too
much. That comes once in a while when they suffer a bit of a loss,
or they see a loss, or they have a setback or something like that. Or
if Allah Sophie comes in. So there's a false sense of
security, and contentment that comes with having a lot of money.
So money in itself is not a problem, but just the way it
interacts. With the human being or the way the human interacts with
it. That's what happens. So then you feel like religion is not for
you. Your religion is not necessarily for you.
And that's what creates his product. That's that's some of
what creates this problem. And if you've got influence and you can
get things done, then why do you need because you only look at your
soul when your material things become obliterated.
Successful is the one who has material things as well, and also
is focused on the soul. They get the best of both worlds, not just
the best of the dunya but they get the best of the Archaea inshallah
as well, that they they mashallah enjoy having the means in this
world. And they also are focused on the hereafter. That's what's
really to achieve. But this is just to give us an understanding
of where, why people don't care about their faith. Because
mashallah, we've got a lot in this country that it offers us to be in
this country.
And because of that, you don't feel so connected to the deen
along with that it's obviously magnified with the fact that maybe
there's not enough people explaining Deen to such people in
a particular way. Because, you know, if I'm taught to explain the
into a certain group of people, then it's quite a bit of a
difficult task to relearn how to do it to other people, because I
have to understand them first. If I don't understand them, how am I
going to explain this to them? That's why we're all in this. This
is don't think this is just about Allah ma. Because there's probably
interaction with religious people, with with so called people
suffering from apathy and other problems, their interaction with
just religious people will probably be more than the
interaction with a scholar. So we can't say it's a scholars that you
don't have to take care of this only every one of us has to take
care of this. Because we will have such people in our family. Right?
If you're an uncle or an aunt or a brother or a sister or someone
there's going to be somebody will come. And they may come with a
really weird question.
Right, might even seem blasphemous. It's something that
you think your family or your circle or your community should
not even talk about, like you. It's unbelievable. Right? A
beggars belief that why are they even asking this question, but
that's the reality. Just because something is not at the fore is
not open, it doesn't mean it's not there.
A lot of this, a lot of the time, people only bring these things up
when they feel they can trust somebody. So if somebody does
bring something up like that to you, because they think you're
religious, then don't
react to it in kind of some kind of disbelief. Because what they've
brought it up, it's a reality, you'd rather try to deal with it.
Don't try to cover it up. Don't try to say ignore it. Because
ignoring the ignoring could have worked, they've probably tried to
ignore it. Anybody who wants to have faith, and then they first
get their doubts, when they first have the questions about certain
things about weather, how they should deal with certain things,
they probably are going to try to ignore it if they've had that
basis, if they've had that teaching, but now they can't
ignore it anymore. That's why they felt compelled to reveal it to
you, they probably feel embarrassed and ashamed to do it
anyway. So now you're gonna say no, no, don't think about that.
That's not good enough. I've seen so many people become worse
because somebody's told them ignore it. You can't ignore
something you need to be able to respond to it, or how you how
we're going to respond to it. While we must take that occasion,
consider it an occasion to go and enlighten ourselves. Right? If
we're connected to a scholar or some a teacher or somebody who may
know these things that we need to ask them if that particular
individual came to us could not ask them. Clearly they've asked us
because they have some trust in us. Let's not break that trust.
Let's try to help and provide pastoral care. So a lot of people
in fact, even people who've gone complete to atheism or
agnosticism.
The reason why they've gone there is not because they fully
convinced
stuff that ideology.
It's just that what they have experienced in their own setting,
so called religious setting has turned them off.
It's basically made them feel
it's been either too strict to them, it's not been cohesive and
consistent to them. It's been to cultural for them or culture has
been cloaked
into Islam for them. And they have had a negative impact, for
example, forced marriages, to insist you must marry your cousin.
And the reason you must do that is because your parents are saying
so, and it's necessary to be obedient to your parents. All
right, and Islam say so. So you must do that. Whereas my parents,
that person is gonna say that my parents have never told me about
Islam otherwise, our only Islam was when Ramadan came along. And
on Eid day, but otherwise, when this came, my parents were very
Islamic that okay, you must marry your cousin, because that's what
we want. But I feel no compatibility with my cousin. Of
course, if your compatibility cousin, you should marry them it
what's wrong with that.
But if you're not compatible, and you can't see a future, and then
that's cloaked in Islam, then I've seen even people lose faith over
that.
So there's a lot of things like that there's a lot of stuff like
that, just to conclude, there are people who've lost their faith or
who have become agnostics, or they've become atheist. Some of
them is because they've actually read into it. And they've actually
take on taken on the ideas of Dawkins etc. And sometimes you see
them regurgitate regurgitate the same old ideas, even though
they've been debunked so many times because they haven't read
the response to Dawkins is the number of responses written that
they haven't read, they've just become, you know, they've just
become obsessed with his ideas and his arguments. That could be one
reason the other reason, a lot of the time, it's because they've had
a bad experience. These people need a lot of pastoral care, I
think this is probably the majority of the atheists, you
know, they just need pastoral care, they need somebody to show
them some love, not love for atheism, but love for them as a
human being. Right, love for them, concern for them compassionate for
them, right. And hopefully, inshallah they will understand,
and they will come back, but then you have the majority, which is
just apathy, which is they just don't care because they've just
got too much, right? And nobody's come to them or they don't want it
or whatever the case is. So what we got to take away from here is
that let us try to help people and when we don't know that let us not
try to try to mess the situation up further by trying to tell them
to bury their head in the sand, or try to give them answers that
don't really work. When you're in doubt yourself. Go and ask
somebody else and find out what these things are and make a lot of
dua for such people as well make dua for ourselves that if Allah
subhanaw taala can maintain our faith. So I want Sophia on
authority, Rahim Allah Allah who is one of the greatest of the
Hadith Hadith scholars, and also one of the greatest worshipers as
well, according to YBNL, Josie, it was a contemporary of him Abu
Hanifa once he was seen crying and somebody asked him, Why are you
crying? And he said that he said, I have not I have not disobeyed in
a he picked up basically he picked up a piece of a grain of wheat, a
which is a very small grain, right, smaller than a pea. And he
said that I have not disobeyed Allah this much in my life. So
then they're saying like, why are you worried about? If you haven't
disobeyed Allah, we need to be worried that We've disobeyed Allah
so much. You haven't disobeyed Allah at all even that much? He
said, Because Iman is so precious faith is so precious that I don't
know if I will maintain it until I die. Or will this faith be taken
from me? That is the risk?
That's the problem that we all need to be worried about. There's
a lot of challenges out there. They've always been challenges,
but there's a lot of challenges out there. And if Allah subhanaw
taala can Bitna either Dini he right oh Allah Oh Allah you know,
establish us on your deen. Keep us on your deen sunreef Illumina
Allah Tala attic and Let our hearts be focused on your worship
all the time in your obedience. Then in sha Allah, that's where we
get that's where we can get something so we make these doors
to Allah subhanho wa taala. May Allah accept us and protect us and
preserve us. And likewise, our families, our entire Muslim world,
entire humanity, may Allah grant them good understanding and
insomnia and also our progeny until the Day of Judgment make
them a delight to have our eyes working with that one and Al hamdu
Lillahi Rabbil Alameen