Saif Morad – What to do when your Iman is low Set minimums

What's going on? May Allah

bless every single one of us with the

best in this world and the next.

Is something

that fluctuates,

and we've witnessed this.

We see that there are times when our

is extremely high. We see tremendous growth. We

feel like doing any and everything there is

that we can do. But then on the

flip side,

we witness times when we're struggling, when our

iman is low. It's very difficult to even

do the basic things.

And this is expected.

After all, the Prophet

said,

Verily the faith of one of you will

wear out within him.

Just as a shirt becomes worn out. So

ask Allah to renew faith in your hearts.

Hearts. The Prophet

is telling us that our faith will wear

out, and he's also telling us the cure,

what to do, to ask Allah

to keep us firm, to renew that faith,

to increase it. But how many of us

actively

ask Allah

to renew our faith, to keep us firm?

And just like our faith weakens from time

to time,

also our motivation in other areas also weakens.

You know, we get excited in the beginning

about working out, about eating healthy, about starting

a new business, and the list goes on.

But what happens with over time that that

motivation, that excitement, it wears out. And a

lot of people, they give up. So what

can we do to ensure that this dip

in motivation, this dip

in

ensure that this dip in motivation, this dip

in happens less frequently? Because it is bound

to happen. Well firstly, we need to approach

everything we do in a balanced manner. The

Prophet

said that for every action

there's zeal, there's a period of excitement. In

the beginning we have this excitement,

but then for every action it goes through

a period of weakness.

You know, we wear out, that motivation stops.

And the Prophet

said that whoever's action is according to my

sunnah,

sunnah

then they will succeed.

But whoever's action is not in accordance to

my sunnah,

then they will fail.

And the prophet

is referring to his sunnah. What is his

sunnah?

The sunnah of the prophet

is the middle path, the balanced way. Not

to be too extreme in it, too overzealous

that we burn ourselves out, at the same

time not to be neglectful. The prophet salallahu

alaihi wa sallam is teaching us how to

approach things,

and everyone's middle path is different. Some people

can take on more because they're used to

it. Some people in the beginning,

they can't take on a lot.

So we approach everything

in a balanced manner

because consistency is key, and consistency

over time leads to tremendous results.

And not only that, we approach things in

a balanced manner, but we also ask Allah

to make these actions, especially the acts of

and the other things that are beneficial to

us, we seek Allah's help and ask him

to make it beloved to us,

so that we enjoy doing it, so that

we don't get bored.

As some of the salaf used to say,

that when it comes to active Ibad, if

we do it out of love,

then we'll never get bored.

And this is ideally how we wanna function,

in a balanced manner, and asking Allah subhanahu

wa ta'ala to make these actions beloved to

us. Not only in our worship and spirituality,

but also in our other affairs. To make

our work beloved to us, so we enjoy

doing it. We're not miserable.

But then sometimes things happen that shake us.

We might make a mistake. We might fall

off course.

What do we do then? Our iman might

take a serious hit.

Do we give up altogether just because I

don't feel like right now that I'm not

gonna pray?

Do I start committing sins?

It doesn't work like that.

And Umar bin Khattab has a profound statement.

He said that the heart, you know, there

are times when it's extremely motivated. It wants

to do good. And there are times when

it just doesn't feel like it. When the

heart is moving towards good

and is motivated,

we try to do a lot of nawafil.

This is a time to really step up

our routine, to move ourselves to new heights.

But then,

when our hearts don't feel like it,

this is the time we stick to the

the obligatory

actions. So we stick to the obligatory actions

and we don't commit sins.

What did Umar ibn Khattab just do? He

set a limit.

There's a minimum that we cannot allow ourselves

no matter what to drop under.

And Islam is a practical religion. It's applicable

to every area in our life.

And we want to strive for excellence in

every area.

So how do we take this principle and

apply it in other areas?

This is something called setting a limit or

we can say the minimum.

Because if our minimum is the obligatory actions,

praying our 5 times salawat,

being good to our parents, our family members,

staying away from sin, eventually we're gonna bounce

back.

Because we're still doing these actions consistently.

And we can set our minimums,

our limits in other areas as well.

For example,

ideally, let's say I wanna be reading Quran

for 30 minutes a day. But then there

are times I'm gonna be busy. I might

not be able to commit to that. What

do I do then? Just give up? And

lose out on the barakah, lose out on

the reward? No. We set a minimum that

no matter what

I can at least read for 1 minute,

or one line, or two lines, or half

a page. However you wanna set it. And

this way we'll ensure we do it. Ideally,

if I'm trying to work out 5 days

a week, they're gonna times me, and I'm

busy, I'm traveling, I need to commit to

other things. Then what do I do? Just

give up and lose all the progress that

I made? No. We set a limit

that I will at least work out, for

example, 10 minutes twice a week.

That's better than giving up altogether.

Another example, if I normally read for 10,

15 minutes per day, for example.

Then I can set a minimum to read

for a minute.

That's easy to do. And usually the most

difficult thing is just starting to act.

Because when we look at the task in

front of us, reading Quran for 30 minutes,

for example,

or working out 5 days a week, it

can feel overwhelming. But if we set a

minimum, and it's easy,

then it's easy to get the act started.

And usually what happens is, things that are

in motion, tend to stay in motion. When

we read one ayah, for example, it might

spark curiosity,

it might not, but at least we read

that one ayah. So it becomes very important

for us to set limits.

And when it comes to our that we

should never

ever allow ourselves to fall below the obligatory

actions

and never allow ourselves to start committing major

sins. So to recap,

our iman, it fluctuates.

Our motivation also fluctuates as well.

And this is something that is normal.

Secondly,

to always approach things in a balanced manner.

Be consistent.

And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to

make these actions enjoyable to us, that we

love it. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa

ta'ala to always keep our motivation, our iman

at a high level. And when this phase

actually does come where our iman is low

and our motivation is low, and when it

comes to our worship, we make sure that

we stick to the obligatory action. We stay

away from all haram as much as we

can.

And in other areas, we make sure that

we maintain a limit.

Something that is easy to do,

and that we do it. It's just 1

ayah, 1 page, 1 minute of reading. And

a very important thing that we do is

we ask Allah consistently

on a daily basis

to strengthen our faith, to make these things

beloved to us, to help us when we're

in this phase, when we're struggling a little

bit, to help us get out of it.

You know, we complain to Allah

desperately,

and Allah

will always answer our dua. So we ask

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to strengthen our faith,

to keep us firm upon his path until

our last breath. Until next time.