Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – How We Lose Our Faith

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