Mohammad Elshinawy – Dealing With Doubts
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the challenges faced by Islam, including doubt, fear, and personal and emotional struggles. They emphasize the importance of clarifying one's doubts and leaving them in the "right and true way" to encourage faith. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of building one's faith and staying hopeful in Islam, and the power of knowledge and worship in shaping one's life and avoiding confusion. They stress the importance of faith in avoiding wasting one's time and achieving their dreams.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah holiday he also have he married a big in the name of Allah All Praise and Glory be to Allah handmades find his peace and blessings be upon His messenger Muhammad and his family in his companions and all those who tried his path.
Welcome back everyone in sha Allah we will begin a series of talks that are unrelated. In sha Allah azza wa jal due to a number of reasons.
Tonight's talk being as you should see, above you, the subject of solidifying our faith, solidifying our faith against what may time and time again challenge it and overcoming the doubts that may time and time again arise. And this is normal. And this is not just in our generation, even if the stakes may be higher and the slippage may be more often in our time and place. For reasons we will discuss, but ultimately, at the end of the day, Allah azza wa jal says lava the Hala canal in Santa Fe Cabot, we created the human being in a state of toil in a state of toil, meaning they're scraping, they're striving, there's trying, there's pushing their struggle, there's hardship. And that's just, you
know, the nature of this world.
exam questions being too easy or not really questions and not really assessing anything. And so if this life is an exam, there's going to be all sorts of questions.
But as we said, at the end of social care if it's an open book exam, and you have the answers in front of you, if you look in the book, and so we wish to look through the book of Allah azza wa jal in light of the subject, that we're going to have hardships even in our faith, like the people before us did, even if the nature of those challenges to our faith may vary a little bit. And the first way I want to discuss this is, what is it that opens the door for doubt? May Allah protect us from shit, ever confusing anything about him that is only fitting,
or equaling anything with him that is unworthy, and also check the doubts that can lead to this shit.
So you know, in its inaugural study, European Institute, which obviously is a is a research institute, and a Data organization, that I'm hoping many of you are familiar with, or gets familiar with, after tonight, they tried to map out, you know, what are the inlets, or the pathways sit out, and after they, you know, had this large study performed, they tried to categorize the most common 20 or 30 reasons for doubt. And then they divided them into these three categories. The first of them is what they call the moral and social concerns people have with Islam. What keeps Muslims sometimes on the fence?
And so moral concerns like what exactly is the role or the status of women in Islam? Why do bad things happen?
at the hands of people who claim to be Muslim, or claim that Islam sort of called them to this action, bad things people do in the name of religion, and also just the intolerance, the intolerance, some religious people show.
Like, acting like the only their way is right. So these things cause people to be averse because of those moral and social concerns they have. Then the second category in the middle, there is what they call philosophical and scientific concerns. So that feels like you know, logic, philosophy or science, empirical data is contrary to Islam and pushes us away from Islam, for instance, you know, is there any philosophical or scientific proof for God existing? Or is it uncertain, philosophically, uncertain, scientifically, that uncertainty over the existence of God, because there is supposedly no data, no facts, no evidence for it? Then the whole discussion of evolutionism
versus creationism? How do you figure out, you know, this whole mess with Islam saying or religions is saying, including Islam, that Allah created the first human being as is as an adult, right and Adam and I said, I was the father of humanity,
versus the evolution story that we hear about in biology classes and in the scientific community, or, for example, how certain beliefs and practices simply are illogical or irrational. They philosophically don't hold water, that's another bucket.
And then the third is that of personal and emotional concerns, personal and emotional concerns. So P
People say I've tried religion, they thought they'd gave Islam a fair chance. And it simply didn't give me anything, I didn't feel any happiness, or any improved quality of life because I'm Muslim. Or, for example, someone felt snubbed by the fellow Muslims, you know, just in the community.
People were not nice to me, right? I felt ostracized alienated by the community.
Or people have this personal trauma in their lives, or they have this personal trauma in their lives, such as the death of a loved one. So I think an easy way, because we're not going to obviously get into these things. And over the counter to the very strategy, I want to propose to many of you today, with regards to doubts that a person may have, or you may know someone that has it, addressing these things, retail is actually a rabbit hole you may never climb out of, it's actually not as productive as you may think. But let us at least summarize them in a way that people have doubts many times for intellectual reasons, more on social, philosophical, scientific, all that
call it intellectual reasons, right.
And then there are emotional reasons. There are emotional reasons, which is the whole personal grievances.
And
after separating them into intellectual and emotional, I want you to realize that these aren't separate buckets.
They're not, they are very much related categories are not separate categories. They feed each other more often than you think, you know, there are even sort of like near lot neurological studies that experts, you know, talk about how, you know, the most recent data is uncovering for us more and more every brand new day.
how human beings are far more
impressed upon their decisions are far more the result of emotionality than we thought, and far less the result of rationality than we thought you always think I'm being objective. I'm being rational, I'm being fair and all. But actually, as they control for this in one test after another, they're starting to say, you know, maybe, maybe we're tricking ourselves just a little bit. You know, maybe we're actually not arriving at what we're discovering. But we're arriving at what we want to arrive at, confirming our biases, our pre determined conclusions, our preconceived notions. So number one, realize that intellectual and emotional affect each other, like, I'll give you an example,
emotional, if a person
were to grow up in a household when they saw where they saw the women of their household being disrespected, or abused or persecuted, let's say right?
They are far more susceptible then whether they realize it or not, to the intellectual objection, or concern of why does Islam say this about women? Why does Islam say that about women? Right, they are more than likely to say, Yeah, that makes no sense. I'm out of here. How come a woman inherits if they will, they won't have it in them for subconscious reasons that are originally emotional, they won't have it. And then they say, wait a minute, what's the whole story? Oh, she gets half but doesn't have to spend on herself. He gets double and he has to spend on her and her sisters and her mom, they won't have it in them the bandwidth to do that. The emotional bandwidth, but they think it
was an intellectual reason why they doubted and left. Is that clear? Very good.
Now let's talk about an important checklists. When doubts do arrive,
the first thing you want a person to do whether ourselves is to identify, clarify, he used the word clarify right? Clarify. Is this a doubt or not?
Because not every doubt is the type of doubt that should alarm you. That should make you feel like oh man, this threatens my faith? No, not at all. There is a category of presumed doubts, just called West USA called passing thoughts, passing thoughts, you're fine. We all get them. The Sahaba had them. Right. In one Hadith, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, shaitan will continue to pester you asking you who created this and who created this? You know if this was from you, this would be an act of worship, reflecting on what is made by the hand of God, if you will, grows your faith, but he's sort of trying to sabotage your faith, right? Who created this who created this and
you keep saying Allah, Allah Allah until he tells you but then who created Allah, right? He tries to confuse you there about this cause and effect thing, this creativeness of things is a rule of our world. It does not apply to Allah azza wa jal. He is not part of our world. He is the creator of our world.
Our world and its laws subhanho wa taala.
And so he said when shaitan asks you that question Who created God say I meant to be law he also they say I believed in God ignore that question. Because if you don't ignore that question, you will actually have have no answer for it. If you actually give in to this passing thought, you start entertaining it it gets louder and louder, you will get sucked into a black hole that we call radical skepticism, radical doubt you'll you'll develop a psychology of just doubting anything and everything. And if you develop that, then no proof will work. Right? No proof of work. If you tell me now well, how do we know God exists? I'm going to tell you well, how do you know you exist? And
then I'm gonna you're gonna say whoa, as deep as true. Maybe I maybe I'm inside the video game of an alien, right? Maybe I'm part of, you know, an extra terrestrials imagination.
You will just get sucked into this. And it would render life meaningless, and it would render you paralyzed. Right. And so ignoring these whispers is the only key. It's the only way Don't get bogged down by them.
And in another Hadith, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in Allah azza wa jal was Eliana Murthy FEMA had death that we had and Fuzu her Miralem Tamil be elter Colombi Allah has pardoned my OMA for whatever it's sold suggests to it these passing whispers, so long as it does not act on it. And so long as it does not speak of it, speak of it means what? Like accept it, let it settle and put advocate it doesn't mean like Ask an Expert Hey, what do I do here? Right? That's fine. But when you allow it when you believe it, how do you know you believe that? Because you acted on it or you promoted it? You promoted it? That's the idea. Any questions on this?
The Sahaba I said so you had this issue? The companions of the Prophet SAW Salem, one of them said
Mirasol Allah. And they were several but in one incident, he said, I hear things like these thoughts. These are still federal law thoughts come to me sometimes they're so bad that if I were to free fall from the sky to smash on the ground, I'd rather that happened to me than actually explain to you what I'm hearing
her horrible, right?
She's like a love hate on Mr. Adorable. How am I supposed to reach that now?
So
he said sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Ella Wadjet tumu? Are you really experiencing that? Then he said, Alhamdulillah he loved the rod, the Qaeda who will always praise be to Allah Who restricted his schemes, who schemes shaitan schemes, Devil schemes to simply whispers simply suggests all he can do. He's happened now all he could do is just, you know, blitz you with whispers. And then he said, There Lika sorry, holy man, this is important. He said that is pure faith. You're you think you have a doubt. He's saying that's pure faith. What's pure faith? Not the doubt. The fact that you're bothered by the Dow is a sign of your faith. The fact that you came to the Prophet SAW Salem
because you're uncomfortable and complaining and feeling guilty. That means you're a believer. Right? You heard the Whisper what you do. You went and complained about it. You looked for a remedy for it? Yes. You didn't sort of like stop praying and go to the club, did you? So your resistance to the doubt is a sign of pure faith. He said that's a reassurance right? These aren't actually doubts in type of doubts that would sabotage your deen.
And then he said sallallahu alayhi wa sallam for either Elijah Hadoken vedika fairly aesthetic Billahi Valley and when one of you finds themselves sort of barraged with these whispers, let them seek refuge with Allah say, Oh, we live in a shutdown regime. See I seek refuge with Allah from you know, corsetry THON and let them Willy enter he let them does this meaning interrupt themselves, interrupt the thought change the subject, ignore it. You know, even people that have like obsessive compulsive disorder when they go to those cognitive behavioral therapists, what they all they do is what what the Prophet SAW sent him saying that hadith, they teach you how to self interrupt how to
sort of over time, train yourself to not give into the that pestering prompt inside you to you know, keep chewing your nails until you bleed or keep washing the dishes until your skin falls off or whatever it is, right.
So to teach yourself to ignore these is how you deal with passing thoughts or else their volume gets higher, you ignore them their volume gets lower until they disappear altogether in sha Allah clear. Second subject. Stratified stratified means put them in sort of like
A hierarchy, grade them.
What does that mean? That means there are some times you have actual questions about Islam, right? They're not passing thoughts. They're legit concerns, legit or pressing confusions you have, but you want to say, wait a minute, am I doubting Islam here? Or am I doubting something in Islam here? Right? That's very important. Because something you may not understand in Islam is not necessarily something that would warrant disqualifying or walking away from Islam, don't you agree?
And you know, all scholars of Islam, they've practiced what is called Tarkoff, called suspending judgment. Like these are scholars of Islam. Forget the average Muslim scholars of Islam who have the highest, you know, knowledge about the deen and the highest spiritual refinement, usually because of the deen that they carry these scholars say, and I really am not comfortable with having an opinion on this. I really don't know how to reconcile those two texts.
But they're fine with it. Why? Because they understand this deen is bigger than us all. This Dean contains more wisdom than any one individual can understand, right? This is from Allah azza wa jal, he is again, he's the most wise. So I should expect to not be able to grasp all of the wisdom.
You with me?
And so to say, oh, yeah, I'm not really doubting Islam here. I'm just not understanding. I'm sort of I have a misconception about something in Islam, and it's causing some discomfort, that's fine. It's fine for that to happen. Because humans want to know, humans want to be certain. The fact that you can't have certainty in every last detail of the deen what it means or why it means that it's not a it's not a deal breaker. You know, another reason for this, why it's so important to stratify is because let's say someone else brings you the doubt, right?
You're not what what is a good enough answer for you may not be a good enough answer for them, right or wrong. So where are we going here?
I remember there was a
Christian missionary sister, who
she used to like attend classes, I found that after a while we had to be with her like, in the computer lab, she ran the computer lab in college. She used to take classes every Wednesday on how to debate Muslims on their book on the Koran. And so I was giving a talk on my campus Brooklyn College about women's rights in Islam and Islam, honored women and distinguished them to the end of it.
She heard me say something, and she walked out
the sister so and by the way, so and so I forget her name right now, I probably wouldn't mention it anyway. But she walked out as he walked out. So everything I was saying was like, really flowery and nice. So I next time I saw her I was like, I heard you, you didn't like what I had to say. We had a good relationship, we could talk through these things. Right? She said, It makes no sense. You talk about like justice, and even gender, gender justice, then you say in the same breath, that your Prophet said, your mother, your mother, your mother than your father. That's not just this.
Can you imagine? Like, that's the one Hadith that gets all the girls to go, ah, you know, Islam is so beautiful. And that's the one Hadith that sort of drove her away.
Right?
But wait a minute.
Is it just this that the mother gets three times the right to kindness as the father?
Is three equal to one? That's like a Trinity question, right?
Is it at face value? It's not. So do you have a response for this? She has a sort of a point there, doesn't she? Maybe at first glance, till you stop for a second, then you? You trust it? And you say, wait a minute, let me think through this. There's a there's a wisdom here that perhaps there's a wisdom and then you say like a horrible Bureau hammer, Allah said, it's because she carried you by herself and delivered you by herself and then nursed you by yourself by herself. And then the dad sort of helped a little bit more with the other stuff. And so therefore, she has tripled right? In full justice. This is the right to kindness, obviously, that
that is intended in this hadith. But what I'm trying to say is here, is that the reason if you couldn't understand what is the wisdom for the triple emphasis on mom over dead to say Islam is unjust. Now, I just don't get it. Right. Many people because they think something is objectionable to them to their taste. They think it means it's impossible. No, it's not impossible. There's also a possibility that we simply don't understand this right or wrong.
Maybe there's a reason why I think it's unacceptable. By the way, I found out later, do you know why she couldn't get around that hadith? Because she hated her mom growing up. She admitted this to me
We'll talk about that more emotionality than rationality sometimes right? Well, you may not always notice it. So stratify is this really a doubt of Islam or like a doubt a misunderstanding, an unknown that makes you uncomfortable within Islam, because that's normal. When the companion said or the man before he became a companion said, O Messenger of Allah, I want to become Muslim, but I find resistance inside me. Jitney carry hand like it's I would be doing it against my will call Aslam while Quinta Karianne he said become Muslim. And even if you don't like it, even if it's like uncomfortable for you, breaking habits takes time getting used to the light in after the dark takes
time, doesn't mean the light is bad, right? And so don't allow that to erode your your clean, you're a little bit of a doubt about something within Islam should never challenge your fundamental belief about Islam to begin with being the truth, for very good reasons you should learn about them not wishful thinking, you know, not blind faith, it is very, very, very justified for so many reasons. Okay. Number three, you have to have a strategy. When you when you deal with doubts, what is the strategy? Don't seek out doubts to get rid of doubts. Why?
Because there's too many, right?
Or if your faith is going to be dependent on having the right answer, for an endless number of criticisms, endless number of doubts, endless number of accusations, then you'll die because before you develop some faith, right?
Here's another reason. You need to realize that getting rid of your doubts, and building your faith are actually two separate things. What do I mean?
Let's imagine you had the intelligence and the lifespan to answer every single doubt. That just removes an accusation from Islam, right?
It doesn't actually prove the truth of Islam. So example, let's go back to the woman example. Let's Islam oppresses women. Why do you say that? Here's a list of ads and a hadith. Let's say you're able to arrive at a satisfactory answer and even convinced the person in front of you with the status with answers that are good enough for them. That Islam those don't mean Islam oppresses women. What have you done there? Have you proven Islam is true?
You haven't you just prove that Islam doesn't oppress women.
So, right.
If Islam promotes violence, why do you say Islam promotes violence? Here's 115 texts between the Quran and the Sunnah. We get through all of those. All it means is what? Islam is pro peace. So what everybody's pro peace, you get it. You've just made Islam acceptable. You haven't made Islam, valuable or distinguished.
And so building your faith is such a better strategy than trying to dismantle your doubts. Is that clear?
You believe why you believe you develop why you believe Islam is true, then let the doubts come. If I have time for them. I have time for them. If I don't, I already know what I'm standing on. I know why I'm standing on it. You know, as Liam says, The best advice I ever got in the world after Quran and Sunnah is the advice and it's me and my teacher Rahim Allah who said, Don't let your heart be a sponge, it just, you know, come at me, it's also good Allah know who can do that. Who can handle that you will have no choice, but to soak up all the doubts and they'll continue oozing out of you, even after you wash the sponge 100 times, still some soap keeps you know, oozing. Right, you'll
still not be able to get rid of all the residue. He says so he said to me, don't be like a sponge be like solid glass that sees the doubt, but doesn't suck it up.
You build out your glass defenses, you build out your bulletproof glass. So that out hits it and it slides off. And actually give you guys a personal story of mine. I don't want to over dramatize this. I've never left Islam and Hamdulillah. But I'll tell you I had a professor in college undergrad. The class was a modern Middle East, understanding the makeup of the modern Middle East. The professor was a he was a secular Jew, whose PhD was in the modern Middle East. His specialization was the fall of the Ottoman Empire. But this guy lived to be a contrarian. He just lived to disagree with people he just lived to prove people wrong. And so like he actually was like
very anti Zionist, just I believe he didn't care. He just is poking the buttons of the Jews in my campus. That's the reason why he wanted to be like the eccentric Jew. And then when he came to us, the class is modern Middle East. We walk into class one day.
And he has a Xerox a photocopy of a page from say hello Bukhari, the Hadith collections at English
He has a page photocopied the class is like 80% Muslim and he puts it on all our desks.
It has nothing to do with the modern Middle East. He's basically showed us that you guys don't know Islam and stuff contrarian.
And so what is that page handbook? It is a Hadith the famous hadith of ze dibny tablet or the Allah Han you know they didn't elaborate was the man or the Allah may Allah be pleased with him who compiled the Quran? The hadith says that our book was so dear I was approached by Ramadan pop up and Are they familiar man had come to them and said so many of the expert writers are dying off the Quran could be lost. Yes, Allah will preserve it but we have a duty. So we need to do is we need to compile the Quran into a book and spread that book into different lands so that people aren't debating on you know, people are coming into Islam, not Arabic is not the first language for
everybody. let's standardize this. And so after a while they say nobody better than Zaid, let's bring Zaid in Zaid said it was it would have been easier for them to ask me to relocate a mountain than to be the guy responsible for the Quran. But I did it. And I would not trust myself with the Quran and I didn't put any idea in that Quran unless I found it with the companions to testify to concur with me and corroborate. This is how the eye was spoken by the Prophet alayhi salatu salam talked about the Messenger of Allah. Okay, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The end of the Hadith says, and I could not find the last ayat of surah Toba except with Jose Monica. But
that's it. That's how the Hadith that narration that's how it ends.
Of course, he's looking at us with a cheesy smile saying See, Quran is transmission. That's why he's insinuating right isn't as reliable as you think there are yet there is that people didn't know about that he simply found them with some less famously known companion. And this is an example of that.
I'll tell you, I was extremely bothered, because it was the first time I was coming across this hadith. And I don't want to say it didn't sleep, but I was up with my slow AOL internet connection.
You know, pacing back and forth through the internet, trying to get to the bottom of this hadith. And by the way, there's actually there's nothing problematic about this hadith. It's all about context. You figure out oh, wait a minute. They didn't the Thaba to begin with was chosen, recruited. Why? Because he had memorized the whole Quran. He had the whole code entered. But he was not going to suffice with his own testimony until someone corroborated or two people corroborate it right. That's the first thing. The second thing is you also read that the Quran naturally, you know, was spread out over 23 years and towards the end of the prophets life the most Quran because more
and more rulings are needed are being revealed more and more events are happening the state is developing, scaling very fast. And then the Sahaba are all going in different directions. So he's saying the first person I found in Medina with it is because they have an affair but that's all.
No, nothing problematic there. Right? But unless you know why you believe the Quran is miraculous, and from ALLAH and he will keep his promise and preserve it. Unless you know how the Quran reached us reliably and you see it.
Then you every time you come across one of these things, but wait a minute, does that mean and that's sort of the part of the story I wanted to share with you. Fast forward 20 years. Someone shared with me a few years ago, a hadith insertive new manager that says
that while they were preoccupied with the washing and burial of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, someone read someone, a goat
snuck into the room of Aisha Radi Allahu Anna, and ate a parchment upon which Quran was inscribed.
So if you see that in a vacuum, what does that look like?
What does it look like?
What could that mean?
Yes, something of the Quran was lost, right? It was gobbled up. You know, goats eat anything. It's true. It ate my nametag when I was a little kid no mentary school went to the zoo, they eat me. Right goats. And so a goat ate a piece of the Quran. So a piece of the Quran could have been lost right or wrong. I remember now fast forward, right. I know where I stand and why I stand there. I remember someone asked me what this hadith What about this hadith and I just smiled.
I smile. I'll get to it when I get to I didn't scramble, right like life didn't come to a screeching halt. Why? Because I'm now hearing the doubt the act from a very different place. I know the Quran was not reliant upon written manuscripts. The Quran was preserved the oral track the memorized track, and this is the bonus the manuscripts, right? Think about it. How in the world is a book decentralized? Everyone's hearing from the press?
First of all, Allahu Allah sama from his students. They're all going back to their country. They're teaching them. They're teaching them and then we still have the same one. How does that work? Playing telephone wise? Right? You guys know playing telephone, how it works.
Like if I tell you the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog whispered in your ear, and you go tell it to someone you go to tell you go tell. So you go. By time you get to the last person in this room, they're gonna say, this dude. Now his jokes always fail. Someone get this guy off the microphone. Right? That's what the story will be with one sentence, not, you know, 114 chapters 6200 Plus verses you get it? And so I realized, oh, yeah, well, who is on the unit fees? At Notre Dame, Allah said they are clear verses in the chests in the hearts of those that were endowed with sacred knowledge. I'll figure that one out later. I'm not my faith is no longer dependent in sha Allah
right? On having a retail answer to every last doubt. Is that clear. So don't try to go seek out every doubt. Because that won't build your faith to begin with. And building your faith is a different project. It's also insane. For you to subject yourself to doubts. Are you so sure that you're you'll get to the answer in time? Isn't that absolutely reckless? But can you imagine someone saying,
I'm going to subject myself to 100 viruses to prove that my immune system is strong?
What do you think that guy?
I'm going to run across this highway to prove to these people that I really am agile.
This is insanity, isn't it? But those things, viruses and highways will only cost you your life.
Yes, playing with your faith. That way, subjecting your faith to an endless amount of doubts will be what at the cost of the afterlife, it will be for eternity. So that's a very important point as well.
Focus on why Islam is true over why this accusation is false. Number four, hope is very important.
Some people have this doubt, and it's really they're riddled by doubt for a certain period of their life. And so they lose hope. I know a brother who said to me
I know I'm not going to be able to find an answer.
And I that means I know I'm never going to accept Islam. He's a Muslim, born Muslim, like be able to come back to Islam. And I know my wife is gonna leave me for it. And I know my two children are going to you know, live in a broken home.
I told him then why are you asking me any questions? You already know there is no answer. Right? And so hope is very important. You know, sometimes it's even like a doctrinal issue. People think that I've technically already left because I have these questions. Therefore I might as well just keep going.
You get it. So be hopeful. It there's no reason for you to.
to panic in sha Allah just put the work in. And you know, even it's Emir Rahim Allah he says that people that have more doubts, because some people are just more like skeptical by nature, radical skepticism is bad. But there is like some sort of spectrum of acceptability, some people just like that they're more philosophically oriented, they're more abstractly thinking. So they just become more skeptical. Even Taymiyah says that for some people could be a path for them to have even stronger faith inshallah.
Because remember how I said, building your faith is more important to then than what? dismantling your doubts. But what if you have both now? What if you've built your faith? And do you have the answers to the counter arguments? You could be stronger than someone that simply knows intuitively, or for basic, even though sufficient reasons why Islam is true, so be hopeful. This could even be a reason for you in sha Allah to have greater certainty, greater conviction, stay hopeful, never despair. And the last thing is no rush slow down. When someone has like trouble with the faith, even if they're walking out on the faith altogether, tell them the sin.
What's the rush?
If this Islam thing is wrong, you're still gonna live a better life. Right? Statistically speaking, all studies agree people report better life satisfaction, people report more fulfillment people port better family ties, people or port better acts of like altruism and charity, which makes you feel good to do good. All of that happens way more consistently. The numbers always come in the favor of people that actively practice religion. Right? So let's just for argument's sake, I'm not saying believe in Islam, just in case it's true, I'm saying as a stepping stone for now, for argument's sake, let's say Islam is false. Why leave it? Right let's I'm
Imagine hypothetically that atheism is true.
What have you lost? By believing in Islam? You actually gained? Right?
On the other side, imagine you choose atheism, for instance, and then you turn out to be wrong. And when that moment you die, the screen doesn't just turn off.
What if you realize the other side is actually reality. And this was almost an illusion world compared to that real world. When the veils get lifted when the curtains are raised,
you know, they call this they taunt religion, people that follow religion, they say, this is Pascal's Wager, you're telling us, you know, believe just in case because the likelihood of it being true is irrelevant. The benefit of believing in case it's true is good enough of a reason. Right? Of course, you you you need to have firm convictions, but we say Yeah, fine. This is even the earliest Muslims. It's reported live Nebuta libro de la Juan, he he said something to this effect. He said XAML
auto vivo and when a GMO Killa Houma LA to battle edge said you could call la coma
call to La coma that the the doctor doctors weren't very respected a long time ago because medicine was very primitive. So the doctor and the astrologer both said both claimed that the bodies will never come out of the graves I said Get away from me.
If it is true what you say astrologer physician right in Kenya have gone Mata Kulu for less too, because and I've lost nothing. If it's true what you say.
And if it's true what I say that there will be a resurrection fell Hassan or LA coma, you guys are the biggest losers ever.
And so there's really no rush. What is the rush? You know, for someone to when the stakes are that high to say, Yeah, I Googled it. And the first five answers weren't good enough for me. That's what your purpose and your eternity means to you. I asked the sheriff and he he brushed me off or his answer wasn't good enough. That's what your eternity means to you.
And it's not like you know, also when we speak about Islam, Islam is not some sort of like cult, it's not like there's 17 people behind the member that are the ummah. Islam is a religion of 2 billion people. Just in our era. Islam is the religion of people from the east to the west, postmodern and pre modern people that have way higher IQs than you, right? It's not absolutely bogus, that I'm not going to entertain this for another 30 seconds, right? Humble down and slow down. There's no reason to rush. There's no reason to act like there's
something very valuable that I'm going to miss out on if I don't jump ship right now.
Here is and I'll be done Inshallah, in eight minutes. Here is a very important area that we would be remiss if we don't address when Allah azza wa jal speaks about faith and strength in faith. He connects it with strength and commitment, strength in piety, and Lavina Emmanuella. me I'll be so Imana homebuilt Ohlman Hola. Hola. Hola, Minowa hamaca Dune, those who believe and they don't corrupt, they don't pollute their belief with the injustice as they commit. They are the ones that will have security and they are the ones that are rightly guided. And so this is telling you those who believe and don't corrupt their belief with what doesn't say doubts, it says wrongdoing.
So seeing doubt as many times being sourced in a casual commitment to Islam. It's negligence. It's this obedience, it's defiance. Right?
And how that infects the heart. You know, a lot of times we could be empathic and say, you know, this person is suffering from doubt. But we don't want to make them feel like they're a victim feather in the wind that can't control anything. You want to empower a person and tell them how it is. By the way, there are such things out there called moral weakness. You need to pick yourself up by your bootstraps, you need to do your homework, you need to be more committed to the deen and then you'll start seeing results or else we're just selling people out. When you make them feel like oh, it's none of it is your fault. You're just a victim of your circumstances. Oh, no, no, no, there's a
fraction of this that allows for you to be a victor as they say of your circumstance, right? Take control of your destiny.
And I want you to look at this this chart very quickly. And it just reminds us of the beauty of the Quran is language. Right? When when the hearts are polluted when the hearts are
corrupted. When faith is compromised, What did Allah call it? He didn't say necessarily. The hearts are black. That's not really the standard language even if there's a maybe a reference to it. It doesn't say the hearts are dead. Even though the hearts they are is a Hadith where the heart might die, right? It usually says ficolo be immortal. marudhar right. The hearts are
disease.
And there's such like beauty in the fine tuning of the Quran is language those kernels of nuance, there's their treasure for us. Why disease, because we are all extremely familiar who doesn't get sick. We all know what disease looks like, we all know what illness looks like. And so Allah has given you an in depth angle to understand what happens to your spirit as well when he says there's spiritual diseases out there. So like you look at when your disease, the disease damages your perception, give me an example, guys quick, how does it damage your perception?
Come on, give me an example.
Do sick people sometimes go blind or not?
You aren't thinking of an extreme example like that. That's exactly what I'm trying to do here. This exercise. Think of the spectrum of what happens with disease. Let's think of a less extreme example, when you're mildly sick, let's say a fever. Can you hallucinate or not?
Let's say you're not even hallucinating? Can you be a little bit disoriented from the fatigue of an illness? Right or wrong? Just a balance issue?
Yes. And so the same way, disease for the body can damage your perceptions in a bunch of different ways. The disease of the spirit, the heart can damage how your heart sees things, how it sees realities, how's it sizes, up value judgments and all of that, then you go to strength, when you are diseased, does it not affect your strength? Give me an example.
Weakness, right? All the way to what paralysis or maybe irreversible, requiring even amputations sometimes, there's a whole spectrum, right? You know, someone when they were reading this to me, so yeah, junk food tastes bad, good when I'm not being healthy.
And when I'm being healthy, I can't stand junk food, the perception is affected, likewise, the strength is affected. So when you go to the spiritual disease, you need to know that your willpower is also affected, when the heart is polluted, your strength to do the right thing, not just see the right thing is right, then you think about vulnerability, when someone is sick, they are more vulnerable to become more sick. If you get dizzy, you can bang your head, right? If you have HIV, you can die from the flu, and so on and so forth. Likewise, when a person it's a slippery slope, you give into a sinful lifestyle, it can slip to much uglier places, it can become a satanic lifestyle
rather than biller. And likewise, the body feels the pain of sickness. And that's a blessing to be able to try to reverse it if you can.
And the Spirit also feels the pain of its diseases. And so the spectrum of severity between the two, something I want you to appreciate many times people and I have countless stories that I cannot share tonight. And then they'll play in talks about this, you know,
700 years ago, 600 years ago, he says usually people it's a disease of desire, temptation, lack of strength of the heart, so they give into it. And then it flips into a disease of doubts. After that. You want to start justifying, you want to not feel guilty. And so you begin to move the goalposts. But these, of course, feed into each other, both of them the doubts and the desires, the diseases of the heart.
Last slide, or Yeah.
How do you build faith? So
that's profound.
And someone adjust this?
Oh, social hall. Thank you social hall.
So we spoke about how faith is lost, it could be a desire, that leads to a doubt. And that's the slippery slope. Now, how is faith built? Because you said building faith is the most important. So modern psychologists, social scientists, they look at the patterns and human behavior and why they believe certain things. They say that faith is built either because of your associations who you associate with, it's called social conditioning, right? You believe this restaurant or this fashion or this religion is better because of just what's around you. You take it from the air.
And then there's persuasion because if you're persuaded of something,
you're more likely to break away from the herd because that's the way Allah created you. You respect your mind you value your mind, when your mind is compelled to something you might break away. Then there's faith of by actualization meaning faith by experience, maybe it's an easier term, faith by experience.
And it's extremely important for us all to be invested in experiencing our own faith. That's what I want to focus on here. I'll tell you why. If everyone and their mother likes cheesecake, you're probably gonna like cheesecake. Yes. But then the doctor persuades you that
Oh, no, no, no, you're a special case you're you have a severe condition of diabetes. You can die from cheesecake. Will you be able to resist the herd effect and stop eating cheesecake? That night at least?
That's actually what I'm actually get into this. You'll see Yeah, absolutely. You may even be disgusted. That you you see it as death, right? But then we can week out. You're called the party pooper. You're being sort of shamed. Come on, man. Just a little bit. This is a small slice. This is organic. This one is cane sugar, right? This one's fat free cream. And they just keep pestering and pestering and pestering. Even though you're persuaded your new conviction is cheesecake is bad. What's gonna happen over time
you're gonna unpersuaded yourself, because of the power of association, association is the most common reason for you to have a belief in anything. Okay, experience the strongest, but association is the most common. So you start saying, maybe I'm better now. I mean, it was, it's been two months since appointment, maybe I'm better now, maybe you actually don't have good reasons to believe that you just the maybes, because you want it to be true. Remember what you what we began with the bias that you want to confirm,
maybe just half a slice, right? Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, and then you unpersuaded yourself because of the power of socialization, or the atmosphere, the environment.
But if you actually experienced death by cheesecake, and Allah permitted you a second life, I would like to think you'd be farther away from caving, right or wrong.
That faith is the exact same way as for association that just tells you the importance of us having, you know, this, this shows you the power of community, to offer the right emotional input, where people can feel at peace with their Islam, right, to associate with more Muslims, to be less, you know, pressed by that feeling that subconscious feeling in the outside world, that I'm a misfit in society, that could be more powerful, by the way, in saving the faith of people and keeping doubts off than 1000 lectures. Because that's just how most people operate. And then he talks about persuasion and that's the power of knowledge, owning learning about your faith and the why of your
faith, why it's true.
The intellectual input to the data
and then the third one is something no one can do for you about yourself. That's the power of community to the power of on the importance of you know, research institutes and the right kind of content intellectually stimulating, to persuade, but then experience you got to put in the work. That's the power of worship, right? That's the power of worship. You keep knocking you keep knocking as Mr. Wood said, Allah will open the door you just keep knocking you think you're gonna keep knocking on Allah is the only one open.
As if Nava secondary Rahim Allah.
He said,
Don't ever abandon the vicar of Allah azza wa jal remembering Allah because you don't feel your presence with Allah. So I don't feel it. So I'm going to stop. There's no, he says your forgetfulness of his remembrance is worse than your forgetfulness in his remembrance. Like for you to remember Allah, in your prayers and your Quran. Even if your mind drifts, it's better than you're not doing it to begin with you get it. Your forgetfulness in his remembrance is better than your forgetfulness, away from his remembrance. And perhaps he'll elevate you eventually just keep knocking right? Elevate you from being heedless to being alert and from being alert to entering in
His presence and from being in his presence to seeing everything else is insignificant except the one you remembering. And Allah can certainly do that for you. It's not difficult for Allah. He said, You keep knocking people say I stopped praying because I didn't feel it. Remember, I told you that they felt like they didn't get anything out of religion. Tell them that's the greatest sign of sincerity that it's not pleasureful or pleasure Obal for you yet you still did it. That means you're sincere. That means you did it for Allah's pleasure, not for your pleasure, keep knocking. You tell people that's the power of worship. I shared with you guys a story before about the the Baptist
woman right who my friend tried to persuade. I think it matches up really well with Association persuasion experience. He's talking to her and she's like, Listen, no matter what you say. She's like 70 years old, you know, bonnet and long skirts, Southern Baptist.
And she said to him, I You will never persuade me to be Muslim. Do you know why?
He said why? She said because Jesus speaks to me at night. If you just believe in him, I'll speak to you too.
So he realized that and so he quit, like Okay, I gotta like, you know, regroup. Think of a new strategy. It comes back to a few days later because you know, you're right. What do you mean? Did he spoke to me?
it through the Jesus.
She said what I told you, I told you you just gotta believe you no one else believes.
And he said, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he said he didn't know you
said what? He said, Yeah. He said he never spoke to you before. Say you weren't speaking to Jesus, you speak to the devil.
So it's like Lady, one of us was speaking to the devil. How in the world do we figure out which one was speaking to the devil? Like, you can't base your faith on some voices you hear in the dark, right? She says, I know you tricky, man. You're sure. But moral of the story. She never became Muslim, as far as I can tell. Why? Because she believed falsely, that she experienced faith.
Can you imagine now for a Muslim that has all three?
That That's how powerful experience is even if it's presumed? Right? I imagine you have the association element, the power of community, you have the persuasion element. Islam is actually objectively provable, right? And then you experience it yourself. That's when you own faith. As Dr. Hoffman had says, That's the day may Allah forbid that you wake up in the morning, and everybody left Islam, the Imam of the masjid May Allah forbid, left Islam and you don't even care. I don't care. I have my faith. My faith doesn't get rattled. I own it. It's mine. It's not dependent on anything anymore. May Allah allow us to have faith that never wavers. Subhana Allah Muhammad diksha
Allah Allah Allah, Allah exact a little later.