Nahela Morales – From Islam to Iman Climbing the Spiritual Ladder
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The importance of faith and balancing it with daily activities is emphasized in Islam. It is important to test one's faith to determine whether it is unbearable and avoid associated emotions. It is also important to protect oneself from abuse and abusive behavior, set boundaries, and learn to implement, implement, and reflect on the Cters of Islam. It is also important to memorize the title of Islam and set boundaries to achieve spiritual goals.
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I will be lucky Mina shaytan al rajim Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem
Subhanallah he where he will be handy Why should you Allah ilaha
illallah wa Shawanda Muhammad Rasul Allah. Salam Alaikum
Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh welcome back to another episode here in
about Islam. And last month we talked about, we talked about
Islam and we we are on a three part series. And so
today we are hoping to cover in the next 30 minutes inshallah
we're hoping to cover
what is faith, right. And so after faith comes a son, and that will
be the end of this three part series. All of this information is
based on an article on Yaqeen Institute and some videos from
Sheikh Omar Suleiman. So if you want to look anything up, that's
where some of this information you can find and you can do more of
your own research inshallah. So my name is Anna Halal Morales, and I
am a convert to Islam. I reverted soon after 911. And so that was my
introduction to Islam. I just wanted to put it out there,
because I know some of you may be new, and it's your first time
watching us or me in this channel in this space. So I'm gonna give
it a couple of seconds just to allow some people to hop on. In
the meantime, I'll go ahead and share it myself on to some
channels. And why don't you do that for us as well go ahead and
share before we get started. So you can benefit and you can
receive some blessing some baraka from sharing this video. So we'll
give it a couple seconds before we start. And so today we are talking
about Eman, faith, and what is what is it? What is what do we
need in order to maintain that faith up during our time here in
this
in this place we call home for now, but this is not a home. This
is a temporary home and we'll talk about that. Inshallah. So go ahead
and I'll give you a couple of seconds for you to share this out.
Inshallah. So today we're talking about faith, amen.
Okay.
I want to start,
I really want to start with everybody just kind of thinking
for a minute, for a second. Where are you in your faith? Right?
How are you feeling today? Do you ask yourself this when you wake
up, right? Are you in a good mood? Do you allow things to resignate?
Or do you allow things to carry on from one day to another?
If your faith is low, or was low the day before? How are you
basically dealing with these emotions. And so today we are
going to talk about how do we revive? How do we maintain? And
how do we strengthen our faith, our Amen. So last time, we spoke
about the importance of the six articles of faith. And we talked
about the five pillars of Islam. And so one of the things that
we're going to talk about today is we know that the technical aspect
of it right we know that that's the six articles of faith and that
we believe in the prophets and the books, and we believe in the
angels. So that's the technical but beyond that today, we want to
talk about what does it take for us to be able to maintain a level
of faith and balance it because we understand that faith is like a
roller coaster right? It fluctuates. It fluctuates with our
daily endeavors. It fluctuates with our environment, it
fluctuates with the people that we are around with or surround
ourselves with. It fluctuates with
if we're having a good day, a bad day, if you get fired. If you lose
your job, if you you know, are doing bad in school, if you get in
a fight with your parents or with your spouse, if your children one
day tell you they don't love you. So fake goes up and down. And
that's what we want to talk about today. How do we
how do we balance it to a point where our faith is unshakable? And
what what I'm talking
Talking about is the type of faith that when things come at us
because they are going to come at us, Allah subhanaw taala tells us
very clearly that he's going to test us. And part of that test is
to test our faith to test where are we, when those tests do come,
when those trials come when, when that calamity seems like,
unbearable, right? Like you can't take it. So that's when we want to
make sure that our faith is is not playing games on us. And we just
say, Oh, the heck with everything. And I don't care about anything,
we never want to get to that point. So we want to make sure
that we balance everything we are doing on an everyday basis. And
so, as I mentioned, we spoke about
Islam. And so the first pillar that we spoke about was the
Shahada. And that's something we utter something that we speak,
right.
And so when we speak it, do we feel it, and for us, converts for
us reverts for us that come into this faith, many of us do some
research, and we acquire some knowledge to see what we're
getting ourselves into. Before we take this next step of our
Shahada. And uttering it means that we have felted in our heart,
that that hedaya that guidance, Allah has placed that in our
heart, and I don't know if you have heard, but normally, when a
person takes shahada, they tell them something like, Oh, you're
like a new baby, you have no sins. You know, I remember someone
telling me, Oh, I wish I was you have the law, you're off on a
fresh start. And so
personally, my faith was tested almost immediately after
converting, but the research that I did prior, and the time that I
invested in learning about my new faith, and obviously learning
about my Creator, and this is why it's so important for us. And I
think I've mentioned it in the past. But faith comes in a way
where when you know your maker, when you know, your creator, you
know, he's your Sustainer, you know, he's your protector. And
we'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. But when you know all
of what he encompasses, and that he is the one that gives him the
one that takes, then when things come at you, your faith is not
shaken to the point where you say, oh, you know,
I don't, I don't believe in this, or I can't handle this, or, you
know, I've heard some people that are in very low places within
their faith, and just want to throw everything out the door. And
so faith gives us hope, hope, the only type of hope that comes from
uttering it, feeling it and mentally being in a state of
submission, right? When we when we say our shahada, we are submitted
to the will of Allah. And we are saying that we are not going to
associate anything or anyone to him. And so that means that our
faith will be solely based on the six articles of faith, believing
that everything that comes to us is by the will of Allah, and that
there is something good in it, and perhaps in the moment, you will
not see it. But in the long run, Allah will allow you to see it,
and we hope that we are of those that are patient and are able to
see beyond of what is happening in our lives. And I want to share
something with all of you that actually happened just a few days
ago. Subhanallah and it brought me to tears because oftentimes, we we
believe that our faith is good, and then something happens to us
or to our loved ones. So for those of you that may not know I run a
group and I am a co founder of embrace, which is a project to
Vigna and we are solely dedicated to service the new Muslims, the
converts the first generation and if you'd like to call yourself a
revert, and so we have people from all walks of life, all age gaps,
and
mashallah, we have a very solid family
that really it like I said, it brought me to tears because
my co host in a lot of the things that I do with embrace sister
Aranda, her mother actually had a stroke and she had a stroke in the
middle of the night.
But the reason why I'm sharing this is because her Eman her
faith, a sister Cheryl, who is now 76 years old, is so stable in such
a good place. That what she told her daughter really brought me to
tears. You know, they were discussing what if you know, your
heart stops? Do you want to be brought back? What if you need a
ventilator? These are the things that they were discussing. Once
they were in the hospital and prior to her going into surgery.
And Sister Cheryl, who is 76 years old, understands that everything
in this life belongs to Allah including us, we belong to Him.
And it is really up to him to take us whenever he wills. And so when
all these questions were being asked, she said, Please, if Allah
is ready, I'm ready to meet him. So do not do anything extra. And I
am okay with with going I am at peace. I am a Muslim, make sure
that I am buried as a Muslim. So she was even thinking ahead of the
game, which most of us are even scared to mention the word you
know, death. Or when we think of death, we think of something bad.
I personally, with the years I have grown to appreciate life, but
also work towards my day, my expiration date, right, which is
your death. And this is so important when it comes to our
Eman when it comes to our faith. And this is where sister Cheryl
really touched my heart. And it was wonderful. And the first thing
that I utter was, I hope to get to that level of faith. Because our
faith fluctuates. Like I said at the beginning one day, we're up
here one day, we're here and one day we're here. But when we're
here, we have to make sure to remember everything that has we've
had been blessed with and everything that has been given to
us, by our maker by our Creator, and and make sure that we don't we
don't lose sight. We don't lose sight of our final destination,
which is not this life, right? We understand that. Our final
destination is inshallah and may we all make it there general for
those Amin. So
when we talk about faith, we want to make sure that we are not only
uttering it, we're only not only saying it not only saying good
things, but that we are feeling in our heart, and that our heart is
reciprocating the same thing, and our limbs and our brain and our
mind and our souls. And so one of the best examples I can I can give
you on this is somebody that is bitter, or somebody that uses foul
language or is abusive to someone
you know, you can think that they have low faith, right? Because
obviously, they're not showing their faith with their actions
with their limbs and with their tongues, if they're abusive. And
I'll give me an example. Let's say your neighbor did something
accidentally and you automatically start attacking them. Instead of
allowing that person perhaps to apologize, then your faith might
be not in a very good place because we're all human perfection
only belongs to Allah subhanho wa taala. And so we have to make sure
that we give each other the benefit of the doubt. And we treat
each other with utter respect, and compassion and mercy, the same
type of compassion mercy that we're always seeking to gain from
our, our rub our Lord. And so when we talk about a man we also should
remember that he man is something that gives us safety. Right? And
what I mean by that is that we shouldn't allow nothing to corrupt
our our Eman and that includes, you know, like I said, our tongues
nothing that takes us away from the remembrance of Allah from
worshiping ALLAH SubhanA with Allah. So if if, let's say you you
know I normally plan everything around my salah. I don't like
anything to come between my Lord and me, this is my time with my
Creator. So if I need to go out, I make sure if Doohan is about to
come in, I make sure that I pray
And then head out and see where my time is in order to make sure I
don't miss asset. And I don't miss Maghrib, and so on and so forth.
So nothing that comes between our maker because at the end of the
day, this is how we elevate and revive and maintain and strengthen
our faith, making sure that you prioritize that relationship with
your Creator. And you don't allow anyone or anything to come between
you. And when your salon we talked a little bit about this last
month, but when you are in tune with your practice with your
worship with your iada. And then you know when things come at you,
you know who to go to, you know exactly who to go to. And I
mentioned our Protector. So one of the things that we need to make
sure we keep each other on check is when we see where these
insecurities come from when when our Eman is like wavering or is
shaky, right? So if you are afraid of people harming you, for
example, and this is an example that Sheikh Omar Sutherland said,
if you're afraid of someone hurting you, then this is an
insecurity that you need to you know, basically recognize number
one, and number two, understand that our protector
is Allah subhanho wa taala. And nothing or no one can harm us
without his will. Right. And this is i, if anybody wants to look at
that, it's I a nine, chapter nine, I have 51, where Allah subhanaw
taala is very clear, right? That nothing, absolutely nothing
happens to us without his will. And so if you're someone that is
struggling, perhaps with sustenance, or you're always
worried if you're going to be poor, or if you're going to have
enough, and then this is something that you need to, you know, check
again and recognize and see where that is coming from. Where is this
insecurity coming from when you know that Allah subhanaw taala is
a Rezac, he is the provider, he's the one that gives us right and
when we we put our trust in Him, then He obviously gives us He is
the type of Lord that you think he is. And when we are grateful, he
gives us more because we are being grateful. So we have to make sure
where our weaknesses and vulnerabilities are at in order
for our Eman not to fluctuate or go down, down down he'll and one
of the things that I like to encourage is to always learn
three things right to always have that relationship with the Quran.
Always, if you don't know, if you don't know how to read in Arabic,
it's okay. You can still pick up the Quran and reflect, you know,
read and ponder. You don't have to read the entire Quran. I mean,
when the Quran was being revealed, it was 10 ideas that were given
all at a time, like the Prophet saw some say Go learn these,
implement them, right, learn them reflect and implement. So we can't
learn everything overnight. But we need to make sure that whatever we
are feeding our mind, our soul, you know, and we are uttering that
we are not only memorizing or learning, but that most
importantly, we are implementing. And so that's 111 of my biggest,
you know, advice is for you to make sure that you have that
relationship with the Quran, even if it's one idea, even if it's one
verse one line, sometimes it's just one sentence, just that and
that's what you need for the day and to maintain that. Amen, right.
And so we want to make sure that by the same token, when we are
when we are in this state of vulnerability, when we have all
these insecurities, we we know who our Maker is. And so number two
would be that I would highly encourage to you for you to
memorize
the 99 names of Allah and whoever memorizes them a prophet muhammad
sallallahu alayhi wa salam PSB onto him, says that he will enter
Jannah so memorizing the 99 names of Allah and what are their
significance and making sure that you apply them when your Eman goes
down, right or when you're starting to feel a bit shaky or
you know, kind of losing yourself and not really balance. Make sure
that you know who Allah is because once we know he is the provider,
he is the sustainer then those those feelings of fear of poverty
will vanish because then you know, with certainty that
Your Lord will never leave you, and you will call on to him. And
so number three, I would say, you know, read and learn and reflect
on the CETA of our beloved Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, you know, he is the best man sent to mankind. He wasn't
sent only for the Muslims, he was sent for all of humanity. And so
when we learn about him, we learn about his life. We learn about his
Eman, we learn about how he handle, you know, death when he
handle, you know, he was an orphan, he was illiterate. I mean,
he lost his wife, he had a year where was it, it was called the
year of sadness, where he lost it all he lost children. When you
learn his life, and how he handled it, and how he used emotional
intelligence, all through his prophecy, then we're able to
handle whatever it is that Allah is testing us with. And the test
is really, it only comes for us to see for a lot to see where are we?
Where are we? How committed are we? Where is our conviction,
right? So for us that take shahada, you say I should do a la
ilaha IL Allah should do and Muhammad Rasul Allah, is that just
in the lips, or is it in the heart, right. And so we have to
make sure that that conviction is always both in three, I always
say, the mind, the heart, the heart, the mind, and that in the,
in the lips, right? And make sure that your limbs, right, that all
of you is acting accordingly to the pleasure of Allah. And so
these are the three things that I want to leave you with. So make
sure that you, if you haven't, start learning, the the names of
Allah, the name, the names of Allah insha, Allah, and also, you
know, study the seed of the Prophet, it's very important, and
make sure that you maintain somewhat of a relationship with
the Quran. I see the Quran as a compass, you know, without the
Quran, we are completely lost. And so the, the Sunnah in the Quran go
hand in hand. And when you have that, you know, it's almost like,
I'm doing my masters. Now I'm going to school. So when I don't
have an answer, I go to one of the books where, you know, perhaps I
miss something. And so we have a manual, we have something to fall
back on. And that is the Quran. And that is the sunnah of our
beloved prophets, Allah who has the land. So we need to make sure
that whatever we are doing with our tongues, you know, and there
is a Hadith where the prophet saw some says, Whoever believes in
Allah and the Last Day, has the man and has the man that he either
speaks well or remains quiet. So it's very clear, right, that we
have nothing nice to say we say absolutely nothing at all. And I
think this is something that we were taught at a very young age,
whether you were Muslim or not, I know that this is a thing that
always came, you know, out of my teachers out of my grandmother.
And so this is very, very important.
And this is a very intense, extensive topic, but I just want
to give you the most important things. And I guess what I really
want to end with is, you know, when we get to know our Creator,
we know that he is the only one that we ask for
anything that is that we need including our faith and we do that
very well. And some of us may know or may not know that but every day
at least 17 times a day, we say set off almost stalking which
means right to guide us guide us on the straight path. And so we
are uttering it now the question is, are we feeling it? And that's
what I really want to leave you with inshallah I ask Allah Subhana
Allah to revive our faith to allow us to increase with certainty and
to for us to understand our faith where it's unshakable, you know,
and when it's full of conviction, so when things come our way, we
know how to handle them, maybe may we be of those that are always
seeking for the pleasure of Allah subhanaw taala
and help others that may be in a lower state of Eman then as a
mean, next time in sha Allah we will be talking about Sam and so
these videos inshallah you can find them either here on the
Facebook page or you can also find them on the on our YouTube
channel. So with that, I want to I want you to remember the three
things that I mentioned and I will see you next time. May Allah
subhanaw taala bless you and continue to guide you and protect
you. Just like
Hello hair Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh