Husain Sattar – Preventing Our Imaan from Melting
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There's a lot of different ways that you
can look at life and
people will define life in so many different
ways. People will define life based on one's
achievements, based on what type of bank balance
they end up with.
So many people have so many different definitions
of life, and people are continuously writing books
about this subject.
Anyway, one way that you can think about
life is that
the definition of life is to survive with
iman.
The definition of life or you can say
the goal of life is to survive with
iman.
So what happens is that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, he blesses
each of us in particular and all of
the community in general
to somehow come into this blessing called iman.
Now everybody's story is different. Maybe somebody received
this blessing from their parents.
Maybe somebody received this blessing when they went
to college. Maybe somebody received this blessing because
they knew some Muslims,
who they were working with, and then they
came into the fold of the deen.
Everybody receives the blessing differently, and there's a
lot of different avenues to to receive it.
But once a person receives it, everybody carries
the same responsibility,
and that is is that has to be
preserved.
So that's the challenge.
What it what has to happen is that
on the last day when you breathe your
last breath,
you have to have iman.
This is the challenge.
Now
iman
is like an ice cube,
and the world is like a oven.
So what we have to do is we
have this responsibility
of carrying this ice cube,
and we have to keep it frozen
and preserve it,
and then present it on the day of
judgment.
This is what, basically, one way you can
think about it.
But at the same time, there's this world
there's this fire there's this world around us,
which is basically, like, on fire.
And anytime we expose ice to the wrong
environment,
obviously,
it's going to melt.
So what we have to recognize is that
in the process of preserving this iman, which
is like an ice cube,
we are not independent, we're dependent.
We're not independent,
we're dependent.
And this is something that we often forget.
Everyone in this room, doesn't matter who you
are,
everyone in this room is absolutely
dependent
to preserve their ice.
What do I mean by that? What I
mean is that we are dependent on the
environment.
Okay? The for example, we're not gonna survive
if we don't come to the Masjid.
If you're not coming to the Masjid, which
is the one of which is one of
the very few places in this life
where the environment is cool, and it's like
a freezer, and it allows your your iman
to gel together again,
and to reform
into that frozen ice cube.
If we don't regularly come into that into
that environment, we're gone.
We're dependent. We're not independent. We don't survive
independently
away from the source of the din, you
know, away from the key places of the
din.
Without that environment, we are gone.
So to make these assumptions, right, that this
iman was given to me by my parents
and so automatically it's gonna go to my
children, uh-uh, that doesn't work that way. It
does not work that way. We are dependent
to preserve this imam.
Similarly,
we're we're dependent on the company that we
keep.
Look, if you keep the company of people
who sin all the time,
those people when every time they sin, they're
producing a fire.
In fact, Hazrat Abu Bakr he used to
announce to the people at the time of
Isha,
come extinguish
the fire that you created under your own
feet.
Meaning, that as a human being, people make
mistakes, and when we make mistakes, those create
a sort of sort of mini fire
underneath our own feet. And so what happens
is when we come to the masjid, we
extinguish that fire, if you hang around with
people who have no concern to extinguish that
fire, then those sparks eventually become big flames,
and those big flames produce tremendous heat.
Now what happens is then you go and
you hang around that group of people, and
here you are with this small little piece
of ice and you're hanging around 10 people
on fire.
So what's gonna happen? You're gonna melt.
You're gonna melt. So what are you? You
are dependent on your company.
Now a lot of times, it people think,
well, okay, I'm grown up, so it doesn't
matter. I'm an adult, this doesn't matter anymore.
I've reached the age of 60. This doesn't
matter anymore. It applies to everyone.
Now the circumstances might be different. Okay. When
you're a college student, it depend it's gonna
be who do you hang around with. Right?
When you're choosing a spouse, it's gonna be
who do you get married to? Are you
gonna get married to fire? Are you gonna
get married to ICE? Right? If you get
married to ICE, then hopefully the ICE will
join together and it'll keep things cool. If
you get married if you just say, well,
I'm not gonna worry about the dean. I'm
just gonna pick, you know, based on, you
know, a, b, and c criteria that I
made up on on my own, then what's
gonna end up what happening is that that's
gonna melt your iman eventually. And eventually, you'll
end up with left with nothing
except a memory.
So we have to be very, very cognizant
of the fact that we're dependent. Now it
may be that we're dependent on the company
in this way, but at the same time,
what we have to recognize is that we
have to select the coolest company we can.
Now it's funny because
people, they they wanna hang around cool people.
Right? So they always say, I choose these
these guys are cool. I'm gonna hang around
them. We have to choose the coolest people
we can. And by cool, I mean literally
cool. Not not literally cool, figuratively in this
in the in the iman sense.
What does that mean? It means people who
regularly interact with the Quran. Because when you
hang around them, the coolness of their iman
will come into your your heart as well.
It'll help to keep things cool. People who
are scholars. Why? Because the scholars are the
source of iman. You know? They're the ones
who allow you to preserve. Now they're the
beauty of hanging around your scholars and your
is
that not only do you get your iman
cool, but they also take a little pad
of ice and throw it back on top
as well. You know, it's like going to
the snow cone factory. The guy who sells
the snow cones, he's in the middle of
the park. It's 80 degrees, a 100 degrees
outside, but he keeps a little refrigerator,
and then he's allowed he's able to give
you a snow cone. Right? And then you
can you're able to enjoy it. So it's
the same thing. The olamah, the moshayach of
the community, what they are, they're little machines
that produce snow cones. So when you go
to them, they just put a little bit
of extra ice in your heart beyond the
fact that they're able to keep you cool
as well.
So, again, you have to always remember that
you're dependent. Now these decisions if you recognize
this one thing that I am always dependent,
then it makes the decisions in life very
easy. So when you're sitting there and thinking,
should I go to the masjid for Isha
or not, you have to say, no. Wait
a minute. I'm extremely dependent.
Because if that ice turns into water, it's
impossible to preserve. You know, if you're if
you have a piece of ice in your
hand and it slowly melts and then it
turns into water and you're trying to keep
it, you're not gonna be able to keep
it. It's fluid. It's gonna you're not gonna
be able to hang on to it. It's
the ice that can be hung on to.
So when you're sitting there and thinking, okay,
it's 8 o'clock. I'm really tired. You know
what? I had a hard day. Do I
need to be at a shop or not?
No. I need to be there. I'm totally
dependent on that gathering. I have to be
there. Why? 1, because it's the masjid and
it's cool. 2, because all the people who
are gathering together are also people that have
been blessed with iman as well. So when
a bunch of people with ice come together,
obviously, they're gonna be able to keep each
other's
ice preserved. And that's why you'll see in
the winter, someday when there's a tremendous ice
storm and then all of a sudden the
temperature you know how we have those weird
days where there's all this snow, then all
of a sudden one day the temperature turns
50. But even in 50, 60 degrees, you'll
see some snow will remain.
Where? Where the plows came together and pushed
all the snow into a big mountain.
That's where the snow remains. That's because all
that ice is together. So even in the
heat of 50 or 60 degrees, it remains
preserved. Everything else melts away.
So when we're sitting and thinking about what
am I gonna do with Isha, we have
to get to the masjid because we're dependent
on Isha. Without it, we don't exist.
Right? Maybe once we miss it, twice we
miss it, the 3rd time it's over. We
have we have just drops of water and
a memory left. Alright? Similarly, we're absolutely dependent
on our company.
The gatherings that are established by our moshayah
and our ulama,
they're mandatory on us.
Now you say, brother, what do you mean
mandatory? Allah only created few things that are
mandatory. Yeah. I don't mean literally mandatory. I
mean, as if they're mandatory.
They're mandatory on the individual who recognizes
that his iman is essential to preserve.
Because for us, the rest of the environment
is totally on fire. You know, this isn't
some Islamic,
country where and maybe not in Islamic country,
the situation is not even any better, but
it's not some sort of we're not in
Mecca and Medina
where wherever you go, you're gonna be safe.
You go to the market and it's relatively
safe. And this isn't the environment that we're
in. So we're absolutely dependent absolutely dependent on
the gatherings where there are scholars, where there
are
etcetera.
And then finally and not finally, actually, but
just along this paradigm, you have to recognize
that this is going to be your case
for the rest of your life.
You will never be independent. And the moment
you deem yourself to be independent,
you can be guaranteed that this is over.
You're not gonna survive. You have to always
see yourself as dependent. So what does that
mean? You always keep yourself close to the
community. You always keep your children close to
the community. Whenever you make a decision about
where you're gonna hang out and where they're
gonna be and who they're gonna be with,
you keep them close to the community because
it's in that gathering that we all remain
preserved.
So for example,
simple decision like, where am I going to
live? Okay. I can move out, you know,
I don't know, 500 miles away, and I
can get a nice big house and it'll
be a lot cheaper, but there's almost some
living there. Big mistake.
Big mistake. Because you'll be in a big
house, but you're gonna be left with nothing
but a memory. So what was the benefit
then? You know, then it ends up leading
into sadness.
So we have to recognize
that when we make decisions, we make decisions
as dependents.
So you have to then understand that I
have this this piece of ice, and if
I can even preserve a bit of it
and I can present it to my lord,
then I'm going to be accepted into
his agenda. But I have to preserve it.
Now people say it's not fair, you know,
you got iman from your parents and you
got iman from here and there. It's all
fair. That's not what we're being judged by.
You're being judged by your ability to preserve
it, not by where you got it from.
And then go one step beyond that, the
hope is is that, you know, our generation,
perhaps a 100 years from now, would be
preserved. But if we melted our ice, what
do we expect to give to our children?
They'll they're dependent on us.
Unless our iman is intact, what are we
gonna pass on to the next generation?
So these again, you can see the the
issue of our dependent dependence goes far beyond
ourselves. It actually spreads into many, many generations
down the line. So we have to be
extremely
particular about the decisions that we make, extremely
particular about who we hang out with, where
we spend our free time, what gatherings we
join, where we
live, when we come to the Masjid. All
of these things are extremely important, and
everything every one of these types of gathering
is a blessing.
Even I'm telling you, even for me, I
mean, when I sit down and look at
my schedule, I say, okay,
I have to come here. Because otherwise, I
might be doing a 1,000 things. I'm the
one person who has to be here. Everybody
else can go someplace else. I have a
wedding, this, that. I have to be here.
But for me, it's the best blessing in
the world because, actually, I have to be
here. Not because I have to be here
because then what will happen if I'm not
here. I have to be here for myself.
Right? Everybody brings their ice with them, and
it helps to cool me down as well.
So we're all dependent on each other. We
all receive benefit from one another. That's the
beauty of the gathering.
But, anyway, always remember this,
because you never know where you'll be or
where you'll end up or a year from
now or someplace else. But if you just
keep this one principle in mind, it will
save you from much heartache, both in this
life and the hereafter. So may Allah
give us a Tawfiq to be able to
preserve this piece of ice which we've been
given called iman.