Fluctuating Iman

salat wa salam ala be about Mr.

defeatable. Now.

So we'll walk while he was alone, Sharon Mollepata said to have

another

one of the important things to remember about Eman about our fate in this religion is that according to most of the malherbe, of Akira, Eman is something that increases and decreases. It's something that fluctuates. It's something that goes up and down all the time. And

sometimes we forget about this. Sometimes we take our demand for granted, we take our faith for granted. We assume that because we are strong believers today, that we will always be strong believers, because we have Yaqeen, because we have conviction because we have firmness of faith today, that we will remain on that level for the rest of our lives. And very often when we enter that stage where we think we have reached the highest level of demand, or we think our demand is safe, are we think that we are at the strong level. It's usually at that point that Chicon creeps into our heart and begins to whisper into our heart and begin to slowly lead us astray.

When we look at human history, you will find that there are many people who started off at a high Eman and ended up at a very low. And there are people who the opposite story as well. People who spend their whole lives with no evil, but die amongst the most righteous, the righteous.

And we see warnings about this evening. And he says well, that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam warned us that someone would wake up in the morning as a believer and go to bed as a disbeliever that someone could literally wake up in the morning with Eman in their heart and across the from the religion before the evening, meaning within the span of a single day a person could lose their fate. So what is demand? How does it increase? How does it decrease? And why is this important? Eman which translate as fate. Meat refers to our beliefs in this religion.

In the famous hadith of Gibreel, when the angel Degray Elisa Lam asked the prophets of Allah while he was on what is the man, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam replied to his belief in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the last day and yesterday. And it's from this hadith that we get the Six Pillars of Imam, that the Six Pillars of demand are the six things you have to believe in. If you believe in these six things, you are a Muslim. If you disbelieve in one of these six things, you are not a Muslim.

And these six things are to believe that Allah is the only God and the only one worthy of worship, that he has angels do whatever he wishes, that he sent messengers with messages and books, and that we will be resurrected on the day of judgment to account for our lives, and that Allah has controlled and knows the destiny of the universe, that these six things form the foundations of our faith. Eman means that you believe in these things. Now, amongst the scholars of Akita, there are two schools of thought are regarding Mr. Right, the marcolini or Hanafy school of thought says that Imam does not increase or decrease it's just that you believe in these six things you believe in the

60s, right, and all of the verses that say Eman increases and decreases this must help interpret those verses to meet your taqwa your piety increases or decreases, but the other two modes of the partida, the Ashari and the asari. Muslims, they say Imam itself increases and decreases, that the Quran says Imam increases and demand decreases. So they take those verses literally. So what we have is two schools of thought.

Both schools of thought I would hope in our July mood of Dr. Pine. And one school of thought says that our Imam doesn't go up and down. What goes up or down is our piety levels, right. And the other school of thought says is our actual demand goes up and down. Now for the average Muslim normally, this difference makes no real difference in our lives. Either way, we want to make sure our piety or our mind is increasing and not decreasing. Right. But there are certain points in your life with this definition. You know, may may be important, for example, trying to understand why some people go through a period in their life that they have doubts about Islam.

Now, if you follow the opinion, that demand does not increase or decrease, then this period in the person's life, but they have doubts about Islam, it's very difficult to understand why well how does it happen? But if you follow the majority opinion that he might have increases or decreases, then you can see this is a point in their life where they might have decreased to a very low level. And that's why I believe that

strong opinion as that is the wording of the Quran. There are many word sentences in the Quran where Allah says he might increase it or you might decreases, for example, to

describe the true believers as those that when they hear the Quran recited the Eman increases the Dawa. So that is the majority view. And that's the view that we are using as the basis of today's discussion. So going with that opinion that demand increases and decreases, what causes it to increase and what causes it to decrease in general, good deeds, increase your demand. And since decrease your demand, meaning every time we worship Allah, we experience a Eman boost. Right and many of us understand this concept of demand. Right? Ramadan, we all experience the demand within Ramadan. Overall, how can we experience anyone who's been given your own route go for Hajj. Many of

us understand this. But it's also the opposite when we sin is a decrease in demand. And we see this in the Hadith where the prophets Allah said that nobody's really a believer while they are fornicating or stealing, meaning at that moment when someone commits a major sin, the man drops, it drops drastically. And many people would have experiences that at some point in their life. You could feel the presence of Allah subhanho wa Taala and other points in their life they feel like am I even really a Muslim?

And what you're experiencing is different points in your life or the highs and the lows of EMA. And our job as believers is to ensure that our highs are more than the lows and that we constantly working towards the highs. And we are constantly increasing our Eman. Allah subhanho wa Taala has given us many many ways to do that. We are about six or seven weeks away from Ramadan. And it is in the month of Ramadan is meant to be a period of increasing your mind and it's meant to be that booster shot that you need. You know when your mind is getting weaker, and you're starting to commit more soon that you started to falter. You get it one month they just pushed you to be the absolute

best that you can be and that's really the purpose of Ramadan. And that's why the Quran Allah says about Ramadan fasting in Ramadan, that the whole purpose is the other conduct our own so that your Dawa may increase

so we should think about our demand like a spiritual

it is a it is like a or a fig around us. protecting us from the wash wassup shake on protecting us from outside influences, protecting us from dowty temptations. And when your demand is low, that armor weakens, the armor becomes vulnerable. And that's when she got to get through to you. So when your demand is high, when you just create the agenda, you are fasting in the month of Ramadan, you are sitting in front of the Kaaba it's very rare for thought to enter your mind and say I don't think Allah is real. It's really rare for that kind of thought to even enter your mind. Because your your your shield against the doubts are so strong that he can't even enter your mind.

What if someone spent the week committing sins, somebody stopped praying this rollout we someone's disconnected from the Muslim community. That's when the doubts come more easily. Because now there is a hole in the commodity the holy the armor in Japan is using that hole to fill them with doubts. It's the same with temptation. Someone who is paying 100 At that time is not going to feel any temptation to commit Zina or commit murder or to steal because your demand is high. But someone who is committing all kinds of other sins, all kinds of minuses. At that moment, you do feel the temptation to command wages, because at that moment, your demand is low. So as believers, we must be

aware of this. And we should never take our demand for granted. We should never take our demand for granted. I have seen too many times in our lives, people who they assumed that they were pious. They assumed that they were good Muslims. And they stopped working on themselves. After a few years, they just stopped practicing Islam altogether. Because each day the demand is decreasing. While they think that they are saying the believer never takes it easy. The believer is constantly working on himself until

we look at the Sahaba

Ibaka regular was told that he is of the people he was praised in the Quran. But he said that even if I have one foot in general I won't feel safe but

he had that level of worry about your own demand. Oh my goodness, Hatha Raja. Hello, Andrew, what's going the Ashura washer. He is someone who the prophets lawyers have said that he saw his house agenda he saw almost house agenda yet over regular. You should be worried what if I'm a hypocrite? What if he used to have this fear of over his own demand? This is true faith. True Faith is when you're worried about the quality of your faith through pages when

You worried about yourself constantly working on yourself. And then we have the opposite. Who's the first football with the story. The story really shows what happens when we stopped working in our Eman and we take our own Heidi for granted. Now this story is passed down from the Israel DVR from generations of the Jews and Christians, some scholar seeds. These are the seeds that you saw in the art either way, it is an acceptable stone has been passed down generation to generation and found most of the books was some expenditure reality. And the story states that at the time of binary slavery, there was a righteous man. And this righteous man, everyone usually points piety. And there

was a family in his town, where they were just three brothers, and they set the system and the three brothers had to leave town to go for jihad. So they know who to leave the sister under the care of so they asked his righteous man to take care of the system. And this man and this man began over the year over the month while these men were gone out. And remember, in those days, if someone's going out, it will take years to come back, right? No airplanes, there's no cars, if you're traveling to another country, because if you take two or three years before you're back home, over the next few years, things happen. Right? He spends time with this woman at the conventions together. And before

you go in, she has a baby. And then she comes to him and tells him that he these men come back and see that baby, they're going to kill him. And so this man kills this woman he feels to be

and he buries them. And then the men come back home and he lies to them and tells them that, you know, she died a natural death was where they go. And then they do men have a dream about where she was buried, and they find her and they find the baby's body, and that man is taken to be executed. While he's on his way to be executed. She can come to him and said I can save you says I can save you. All you have to do is make some shattering. So this man in desperation he makes such that too she can and she laughs and runs away. And this man is executed his last act what worshipping the devil. This is a man whose whole life was worshipping Allah. But he became complacent about his

demand. He became complacent about sin. He stopped thinking that if he said, I will fall into sin, I'm too strong, young, bad things can happen to me, our pious person, and he ended up committing all three of the major major sins. In the verses of the Quran. Allah describes the biggest cyndrical commodity always lists three reasons shall murder and Zerah these are the three biggest sins sure is the biggest sin against your Creator, to give somebody else the rights of your creation. In this case, the man worshipping the devil is creating. Murder is the biggest sin you can commit against somebody else to take the life of another human being. And Xena is the biggest sin you can commit

against your own self destruction of your own honor and your own dignity. These are the three biggest sins and this man which is all three before his death. So the purpose and the wisdom behind the story. The main lesson we all need to learn from it is never be complacent about your IMMAF never be complacent. I am pious. I'm a good Muslim. I'm going to Jenna don't ever think that. Always, always work on yourself. Always focus on becoming a better Muslim. Always look for areas where you can improve. And always be aware of the speak of your EMR. Be aware of the state of your EMR because if you are not aware of your state of your mind, she can can catch you at anytime

we ask Allah to protect us to guide us and to make us on the people that we mark. Hannah Robin is at the mercy of Saddam Hussein will have the

was that was salatu salam O Allah, Allah wa Abbadabba. But

in the story that we discuss, you know, we see an example of a man who started off at a very righteous person, they committed all these sins. The scary thing is I have over the past 15 years see almost the same story happen over and over again.

This is a story that will get passed down through the generations. But it happens. And it seems to happen

all the time, that someone thinks they are pious. So they think they can't fall into Xena. So they start hanging out to the opposite gender boom, he's not doing things that they would have been guarding themselves against. And before you know it, they come to you terrified, saying that I've committed a major sins.

You asked Allah to protect us. We also have to do what it takes to protect ourselves. And so we need to focus on protecting and building our own.

How do we build our own human? How do we protect our own human number one, never be complacent? Never ever think that I am hice wash my hand without the Quran. Well that goes up to unfishable do not consider yourself pious. Do not consider yourself pure. No

All believers should ever consider himself or herself to be pious. We all should be aware of our own sins and our own fault and what areas we can improve upon the day you think you are pious, the day you have good arrogance and pride, and you've committed a sin and be proud of yourself. Rather be real with yourself. Understand, I am a human being I have since I have faults, I have areas in which I can improve. If we have that mindset, inshallah we can always improve. Or if we think we have highs, and we think we've reached a level where we go into gender, then that's when she can't get worse a few years ago, one of my friends, which was it, you know, what was supposed to be a

righteous man. And that righteous man was no smoking while watching TV while pasatiempo didn't go to the masjid. So he was confused, but they weren't willing to see a righteous man. So he asked his med students, what's up with your teachings, and he's pious. He said, Yes, Allah came to him in a dream and said, You're going to gender so you could do whatever you want.

So this man doesn't pray anymore.

This is the devil's deception. This is the deception of Shiva, that someone thinks they are so pious, they don't have to pray anymore. This is

BS. Be aware of this Be very wary of this. This never happened to any of the sahaba. The Sahaba were worried about the fate right to the past week. None of them reached a level where they said oh, I don't have to pray anymore. Be really, really careful. So don't become complacent. Number two, make sure you have daily acts of worship.

One of the wisdoms behind why praying five times a day is obligatory semi all these have a base daily attribution. This is the wisdom of you're supposed to be doing praying Fajr Johan After Maghrib and Isha at least does the bulk of it is the minimum that we are supposed to be doing daily to protect our environment. And a trend I have noticed that very often. The people who leave Islam, one of the first things they did was the left side

that this is a tree and somebody leaves Tala, he stopped playing solo, and he begins a downward spiral which eventually entered him leaving Islam.

And when this happens, you think about the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, I look forward to being the nabina who masala Formentera kung fu

that the difference between us and the disbelievers, the salah. Whoever abandoned Salah will leave the religion but it's two interpretations of this hadith one is that if you don't pray, sir, you're really not a Muslim anymore. The other interpretation if you stopped praying Salah you're on the path to go for your department leaving the religion and we see this happening in our times that someone may be a good Muslim, and then they get lazy with your Salah. And once they are lazy with their salah, they get lazy with other things. Then they get lazy with the halal and haram and they get lazy with even doing the basics even going for Juma and before you know it, you might ask them

so we must have a base acts of worship that we do every single day. The five salah is the minimum we are supposed to have more than that. The sooner Salah reciting Quran, studying his religion, vicar is the bar. These are things we should build up to do on a daily basis. We should ask Allah for forgiveness multiple times a day, we should remember Allah throughout the day, we should take time during the day to recite Quran. These types of acts of worship, ensure that our demand is always increasing the count that all the negative things that happen throughout the day that will decrease our demand. So everyone should build habits of righteousness. And we should never think that a habit

is too small. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told I shall regular and have that the most beloved deeds to Allah or those that are consistent even if they are small. Meaning if you are reciting Quran for 10 minutes every day, this is beloved to Allah. And is he more beloved than reciting the entire Quran in one day and not reciting it for the rest of the year. Because that 10 minutes a day has a stronger impact on your mind than just reciting once off. So we must build habits, consistent habits of righteousness, these habits will shape us and build us up into better versions of ourselves.

The third thing that we can do to help ensure that our demand is constantly increasing, is to spend time with righteous people to spend time in the company of those who remind us of Allah subhanho wa taala. And in our time this is becoming a lost art. This is becoming something that we forget all about, that your people either spend time with people that they share worthy hobbies worth, or we have to keep to ourselves, and especially in the past two years, which spending too much time by ourselves. We need to go back to this habit of spending time with righteous people. Because the people you spend time with their personality, their character, their righteousness, or lack they

have rubs off onto you. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he described our company he said a righteous friend is like someone who sells perfume that he

Even if you don't buy anything from him, you still got to walk out of the shop smelling good. And unrighteous bread is like the blacksmith, you're the person who makes the armors that if you even near him, you got to get dirt on your clothes. Meaning that just spending time with someone righteous has an impact on you. And spending time being influenced by somebody unrighteous has an impact on you. And we need to weigh how much time we are spending with both groups. Many of us we spent too much time on the wrong on the wrong side, not saying we shouldn't spend time some people must understand when they see this. And they seem you must cut off people. I'm not saying to cut off

anyone. But rather, we need to spend time with those who are righteous to build our oedema. And then we need to be doing Dawa to the rest of the world as well. So we have to find a way to balance. It shouldn't be that we spend so much time around those who are our major sins that we end up falling into sins ourselves, you know, good examples I've seen in my own lifetime people who would be going to the clubs to do down and eventually end up committing sins of coffee because they are there every day. That's what happens when you are involved in these type of places. So we need to be around righteous companies and the people you spend time with impact who you want. And just sitting in the

company of a righteous person increases your demand. And anybody who ever spent time with somebody who is righteous Gnosis, that's just spending time with such a person increases your demand, it makes you feel closer to Allah subhanho wa taala. It makes you feel more convinced about this religion.

And then finally, the final step that we can take on a daily basis to improve our demand increase our demand is to focus on gradual improvement. You see, we tend to make two opposite mistakes when it comes to our demand. Some of us just give up, and some of us go too hard. What do we mean when we go to HUD, you notice this specifically among someone who either just started practicing Islam or just converted to Islam is it they try to do everything in one goal, you have to become the child to become super pious overnight.

And when they do that, they ends up breaking

that a few years ago, I had a student who had converted to Islam. And on his first week of converting to Islam, he gave up all of his worldly hobbies. And he started playing tahajjud and started fasting and started praying extra salah, and I want him I want if you're trying to what you're doing too much, you're not going to be able to manage this for the rest of your life. You have to be gradual, you're not going to be able to perform at this level for the rest of your life. And that's what happened. That trying to be that good, it broke him. And God just as once I have met hundreds of people like this, the work to make up for the sins of the past, he tried to do too much

at once. Instead, even the Sahaba did not cook that much at once. Even the Sahaba gradually built the piety gradually built the practice of this religion. It's not all at once. And we need to be realistic about our journey of spiritual growth, that we are at a certain level and we want to reach another level. What can we realistically do to reach that level? Maybe if you're playing four times a day and not trying to have to budget, the realistic thing to do is to focus on brings a lot more budget on time. You know, maybe if you're not observing your job properly, just focus on that for now. Take one or two things at a time and focus on improving the one or two things. And once you get

that right then choose another one or two things. But if you're going to try and change 100 things about yourself overnight, you're going to break yourself. And so the end we end with this beautiful the ratio of Ayesha regular waha where she says that had the first revelation been don't drink alcohol or don't commit see now the Arabs would have said we never want to stop doing these things. But rather the first revelations were worse verses about the day of judgment and Paradise and how it and didn't once Yvonne was for me the hearts of people then Allah revealed the halal and haram only when he was permitted to take that approach and apply to yourself. Work on gradually growing close

to Allah subhanho wa Taala all of us have room to grow. All of us have sinned all of us have fought all of us have weaknesses. All of us have something we can focus on to improve but understand how demand goes up and it goes down. If we are not improving if you're not working or going up. We are going down. So there are constantly for our entire lives focus on improving our demand. Because if we do not do that, if we allow shaytaan room to work with decreasing our demand, we ask Allah for guidance you ask Allah for righteousness we ask Allah subhana wa Tada for conviction We ask Allah for good Hindi Robin I've been I've been doing your husband I will feel Africa has never been harder

but now Robin I have let me know as watching I will do react in a colada in which he mama Allah, melodic and harmonic

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