Husain Sattar – Preserving Our Iman
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AI: Transcript ©
Whenever we look at our lives, we see
that they're extremely complex.
And,
unfortunately, in that complexity
arises a lot of confusion.
So we have to make sure that we
have our school balanced with our work, with
our families,
with our hobbies, etcetera.
So when you try to put everything together,
it gets very confusing as to what even
the purpose of life is.
But one of the benefits
of sitting with people who are elderly,
people who have spent some time on this
planet, and people who are near to leaving
this life
is that they speak with much clarity.
You sit with them and basically, they tell
you that, you know, the only important thing
is that I die in a state of
iman.
So, subhanAllah, I was actually just,
recently sitting with my grandmother,
and that's all she kept talking about. I
mean, she's a very, very elderly woman. She's
not like she can do the things that
she used to be able to do. It's
not like she has the same interest that
perhaps a young person might have had,
but, you know, her mind is very focused.
She says, you know, the key thing is
that you die in you die with iman.
And it's so straightforward for her. It's so
clear for her. It's, it's actually kinda funny
because
we were talking to her, and then we
were discussing how people were doing. We're saying
that this person is doing well, and that
person is doing well. She doesn't have the
opportunity to go out and meet different people.
And,
and the discussion arose that, oh, you know,
this person is doing well.
This person is, you know, a lawyer. And
this person is doing well. This person's business
is going well. And this person is doing
well. This person has become a physician or
whatever it was. And then she kinda looked
at us really confused, and she said,
you know, doesn't he make money? And doesn't
he make money? And doesn't he make money?
So what difference does it make about all
these things? You're confusing me. You know? Just
they all make money, and they all keep
their family healthy. That's it. You know?
But we that's the way we look at
the world. We confuse things, and we tend
to make things so complex, but, actually, things
are very, very straightforward.
And there's only one goal in life.
And that is is that an individual, they
die in a state of iman.
An individual dies with belief in the state
of iman, then they have some hope on
the day of judgement. And if they don't
die in the state of iman, then it's
gonna be a very difficult day.
Now,
the very simplistic way of looking at life
is that basically what happens is that when
you're a child,
your parents
ignite a flame in your heart
and that flame is called Imaan.
In fact, it comes in a hadith that
the prophet
said that every child is born on fitrah.
Fitrah is a natural disposition,
and then their parents raised them to be
Jews, raised them to be Christians, raised them
to be Muslim.
Right? So what happens is is that you're
given this iman or you could say that
this iman is ignited in your heart
by your parents.
Now for some people who are new into
the deen, they're it's ignited in their heart
by the person that they met that had
some iman in their heart and obviously transferred
it into the other individual's heart.
But for the most part, it's gonna be
our parents.
Then once that iman is in our hearts,
we have two responsibilities.
Okay. Number 1, to keep it alive.
And number 2, to pass away with it.
Those are the 2 key things. Number 1,
to keep it alive. And number 2, to
pass away with it. So here's a very
simplistic way of looking at it. Basically, you
have this fire.
Right? Now you know that when you want
fire, you have to get fire from some
place else. Right? You light a match and
then you let's say that you have a
candle that's burning and you wanna light the
neck candle. You take the wick of that
candle. You hold it up to the other
candle, and then that is what gives it
its gives it the fire. Right? So in
the same way,
somebody took the wick of our heart and
ignited it, and that's our iman.
Now what happens is as you walk through
life,
you have to keep that fire burning.
If that fire gets extinguished, you're in trouble.
If that wick goes out, you're in trouble.
Alright. So as you're going through life, you
have to, number 1, keep it going, and
then number 2, you have to make sure
that you pass away with that fire burning.
So you have essentially 2 responsibilities. Now, the
Prophet
when he came, he came amongst a group
of companions and he ignited all of their
hearts,
And he ignited their hearts in such a
way that their fire was radiant.
It was just radiant. It was glowing. It
glows so much, and even till this day,
that we quote their examples
as the pinnacle of the Deen.
And it's because we see their light from
1400 years away, right? The brighter a light
is, the better it's going to be seen.
If you want to look at light, I
mean, for example, if you just have a
small little light in your house and you
travel a mile away, you're not going to
be able to see the light coming through
the window.
But if you travel a mile away from
the Sears Tower, you can see all the
lights glowing in your face even from that
far away, you can pick up the lights
in the individual rooms and on the building
because there's so much more energy. There's so
many more lights put together. So in the
same way with the Sahaba, despite the fact
that we're 1400 years away from them,
the light of their iman, it shines all
the way to to this far distance in
time, and even in place, and and even
across cultures.
That's how powerful their iman was. But actually,
they were ignited by the Prophet
That's why their hearts were so powerful.
So their hearts were ignited by the Prophet
and then they subsequently ignited the hearts of
the next generation, who then subsequently ignited the
hearts of the next generation.
Now when an individual has that light in
their heart,
right,
number 1, they have to protect it. So
you have to be very defensive
because you know that in any minute, some
wind can come and blow your flame blow
your fire out. Now if I gave you
a candle, right, and I said, I want
you to take this candle and I want
you to walk from here
all the way to the lake,
and your goal is is that that candle
has to
stay
a flame.
You can't let the candle,
go out.
So what would you do? You'd be very
careful. Right? You would cover the flame, you
would protect the flame, you would be constantly
watching the flame. You would not even know
what was happening as you walk to the
lake. For example, if I gave you this
small little candle, it's a windy day, it's
a cold day, and you start walking to
the lake,
by the time you get to the lake,
you would not even know
what you passed if I asked you. You'd
be so focused on the candle the whole
time you would not know that well this
car there was a car accident here or
this many cars passed me or I saw
these people passing me or these people were
playing along the way. You wouldn't be able
to describe anything.
You would just be staring at that candle
the whole time, focused on that candle the
whole time, making sure that some wind didn't
come that would extinguish it or making sure
that water, for example, from the sky through
rain did not extinguish it. So that's the
way the person should be about their iman.
We should have we should be so focused
on our iman especially in this environment where
just one wind can come and I've seen
it. One wind will come and totally,
cause the flame to extinguish within the heart
of an individual.
So what business do we have worrying about
what's going on in our own environment
when we are we should be so focused
on our own iman?
Right. Now that's that doesn't mean that doesn't
preclude you from worrying what goes on in
your environment, but it does show you the
amount of focus that you need to have
on your own iman.
So that's the first thing to keep in
mind. Right. Because we have to go from
this place where we are right now to
our graves
with that candle burning. And if that candle
goes out anywhere along the way, we're in
very big trouble because you have to present
that candle to Allah on the day of
judgment
and say, this is what I was given,
this was the Amana that was put into
my heart and this is and I made
it reach my grave which was my goal.
Alright?
Now,
that's the first issue is to be extremely
careful one about focusing on our iman and
number 2, the second issue is gonna be
focusing on the environment that we're on in.
Right? Now for example, if you were told
that basically you have to keep this candle
alight, I give you a candle. And I
say you have to keep this candle alight.
And I say you can do anything you
want. Alright? You can I just need you
to keep this candle going until midnight? You
can do anything you want. The key is
you need to keep the candle going until
midnight. Most people would not leave the masjid
if they really wanted to keep the candle
alight.
Why? Because they know that if they go
outside, it's windy outside, it's snowing outside, it's
cold outside. There's a very strong chance that
that candle would become extinguished.
So what will they do? They'll keep themselves
in a protected
environment, and that's exactly what we were taught
by the pulsoites on them, to be very
particular about our environment. For the most for
the most part, stay in the masjid as
much as possible. If you're not in the
Masjid, stay at home as much as possible.
And if you're not at home, then you
when you're out, it should be for the
purposes that are necessary within the deen. And
you're gonna find these three things. I mean,
the prophet says some of the statements about
leaving home just alone. If you were to
go through the hadith and look at the
statements about leaving home, they are so intriguing.
They're so eye opening. The prophet Hashem is
advising, I would not go out after you
would not go out after dark if you
knew what I knew. Right? I mean, what
kind of statements are those? They're highlighting to
you that the environment out there is not
what you think it is. It's not as
safe as it is as you think it
is and that you've been given this trust
that needs to be keep that needs to
be kept burning. It needs to be kept
alive.
So we have to be very particular because
basically we have to get to our grave.
It's a question of time not distance. Right?
We're not required to take that iman out
into these varying places in the world to
try to keep it alive except with, with
certain circumstances like the fact that we need
to work or go to school or whatever
it might be. But for the most part,
we're given control.
So wouldn't it be much smarter to say
in a protective environment
than in an environment where it'd be very
easy for that flame to go out? So
that's one that's one other aspect of our
iman.
The second or third aspect
then relates to the fact that
certain in certain places and in certain times
Allah
gives
individuals
or gives you the company of individuals who
have the ability to refresh your flame.
For example,
just generally speaking,
the Prophet is the light of the Deen,
right? He is the representative of the Deen,
he's the one upon whom the Deen was
revealed in his heart.
Then he took that flame,
he took that vigor, he took that iman
and he distributed among he distributed it among
his companions.
They subsequently passed it on to the next
generation and they subsequently passed it on to
the next generation. Now, in the process of
that transferring,
by the nature of Imaan,
it tends to become dimmer over time.
Right.
The best of generations is my generation, then
the one that follows, then the one that
follows. Highlighting that as this iman was passed,
as this flame was passed from generation to
generation,
that that light, the brightness of that iman
would be slowly dimming over time.
Then the Prophet
also told us another thing which is that
every 100 years
Allah
would send them a reviver.
Okay, and this person would be a reviver
of the Deen. They would work among the
people
to bring their iman back to a very
to a sustainable level so that iman would
not be lost altogether.
So here's basically what happens, the Prophet comes
with this perfect iman distributed
among the Sahaba perfectly.
Okay? So they are glowing all in the
presence of the Prophet subsequently. He leaves them.
They themselves describe Madinah becoming darker the day
he left. Okay?
Then they subsequently have this iman in their
heart. They pass it on to the next
generation, who then subsequently pass it on to
the next generation, and over time it begins
to dim, meaning the whole community as a
whole. Then Allah
sends revivers within the community, whether they be
scholars, whether they be Mishaikh, who then basically
reignite the hearts of the community
in order to bring that flame back to
the most perfect level that it can exist
within that particular generation.
So, at the in the same way, just
as we would, number 1, protect our iman,
number 2, we should put ourselves in environments
where we can reignite our iman, and those
environments exist.
And that's exactly what this what life is
all about. It's about searching for those types
of environments. When you have a place where
you can go, where things can be you're
you could spend the whole week or you
could spend the whole month or you could
spend the whole year darkening, darkening, darkening that
iman and all of a sudden you can
come to a place where the person has
of, you know, one of those,
igniters
and they just basically ignite your heart and
put it back to that level,
then that's an enormous blessing and we should
take advantage of it. That's what Ramadan is
about, for example. That's what Hajj is about,
and Hajj is a great example of that.
Basically, you see it's amazing. You see all
these people gather,
right, and they come with just a flickering
flame of iman.
They
spent their time in the life of this
world. They spent their time in very difficult
environments.
Many people come there with the hope that
Allah
will save the last remnants of their faith,
Right? And then they come and you could
see that you can even see it on
the faces of people. People are coming there
to become purified. They're coming there to reignite
their iman. And then, subhanAllah, once the Hajj
is over, everybody is so energetic.
Everybody looks so bright, everybody is so focused.
It's just an incredible change that you begin
to notice if you just sort of perceive
it 1 within yourself, 2 within the people
you're with,
and then 3 within
everybody there. And that's because Allah
has created these
oases where people can go and they can
get reignited, where they can get their iman,
they can get their candle burning,
alright, all again.
So,
that's the other important aspect of our iman
is that sometimes Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala creates
people or places people within the community who
have the ability to reignite our iman. Sometimes
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala creates opportunities like at
Ramadan, like atikaf, alright, or like the Hajj.
So we should take advantage of all of
those.
When you're when a candle you're looking at
a candle
and it's about to go out, what do
you do? Just put your hand right around
the flame. Right? Then all of a sudden,
the flame comes back up, and then it
goes up very high, and then it looks
very bright and strong again.
So
in the same way, coming to the masjid
for 5 times daily prayer is the exact
same way. You have this candle, this flame
of iman in your heart. It's flickering, flickering,
you're trying to keep it going, and then
all of a sudden you come in the
gathering of the Masjid, it's like putting your
hand around the candle, that flame goes straight
up and it comes very strong again.
So these types of gatherings for us, right,
for the people who basically know that their
primary focus in life is to take this
iman that's in their heart and take it
with them into the grave so that it
will provide light for them in the grave
and on the day of judgment
so that they'll be guided to Jannah, Insha'Allah.
For us, the job is very simple. We
get very caught up in, oh, this person
is a physician, this person is a doctor,
this person is a lawyer, this person is
a student, etcetera. We're all the same. We're
all carriers of a small flame, and we
all have the opportunity of 1 we all
have the responsibility
of keeping that flame alive in our heart
and passing away with
it, and then giving that flame to our
children
and the subsequent people around the the other
people around us, so that we can, Insha'Allah,
increase the overall light of the community,
which is basically what the prophet
responsibility
as placed upon us was, right, to keep
our iman alive and to hopefully guide a
few other people along this path as well.
So be very vigilant be very vigilant, and
the worst thing to do is to pour
water on one z mark. That that candle
is never gonna play. Not the problem with
that type of candle is number 1, the
flame goes out, and number 2, people will
sit with a torch, you know, one of
those flamethrowers. You can just melt the whole
candle. It won't light again. That wick doesn't
light again because it's wet.
So the way we throw we throw water
on our iman or water on that flame
is by sinning,
by knowingly sinning. One thing is you make
a mistake, you slip. Another thing is that
in the mind, it's calculated.
Right? You're thinking, I'm gonna do this, and
then I'm gonna go do this, and I'm
gonna do it this way, and it doesn't
matter. I don't care. That's when it becomes
dangerous. Right? And then all of a sudden,
that's like throwing water on top of the
candle.
Then what happens is then once you do
that or once that mistake occurs and then
you want the flame to light again, it's
very hard. It takes a lot of energy.
It takes a lot of effort. You have
to let things dry out. You have to
let things reset. You have to wash away
the effect with the tears with the tears
of the eyes. And then eventually, that heart
can be reignited.
So number 1, protect your environment. So that
that you don't even risk the flame flickering.
Right? Number 2, stay in the environments where
the flame is strong and where it can
be reignited.
And then, number 3, don't pour water on
the flame because it's gonna be very difficult
to keep it going in that case and
it's gonna be very difficult to reignite it
even if you decide to do even if
you try to do so at a later
time.
So may Allah
give us a tawfiq
to preserve the iman that's in our heart,
to allow it to become strong and radiant,
and to hopefully carry it with us to
our grave.