Sikander Hashmi – [Audio] Healthy Faith & Doubts KMA Friday Message
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AI: Transcript ©
Respected elders,
dear brothers and sisters, my young friends,
Nowadays, it seems like scams are at an
all time high, and they seem to be
everywhere.
You hear about credit card scams, bank scams,
fake check scams,
grandparents scams, crypto scams, concert ticket scams, and
the list goes on and on.
However, there's one scam that is hardly talked
about,
and that is the iman scam.
And this is when a Muslim gets scammed
out of his or her iman, their faith.
They could become a victim due to their
lack of awareness,
perhaps a lack of education
about their faith,
or perhaps simply by getting trapped by a
scammer. And we'll talk a little bit more
about that later.
But my brothers and sisters,
let us understand that our faith
is
the most valuable asset that we have.
And once our faith is gone,
then we become
irrelevant
to this universe.
A person
losing their iman,
getting scammed out of their iman
is like a player
or a soldier or a team member who
goes rogue
and ends up
trashing their career.
Look at how carefully
the Sahaba, the companions of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
watch their faith
But when the companions of the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wasalam
and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam himself and
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when they talked about
about nifaq and about being a munafiq,
that was something huge.
That wasn't just like, you know, just being
a bad person by being a hypocrite. But
it was actually
about
even being worse in the eyes of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala than a normal disbeliever.
Right? Because a Munafiq was someone who would
pretend to be a Muslim, but inside of
their heart, they would actually not have iman.
They would not have Islam in their heart.
Okay. They would just pretend to be Muslim
simply for acceptance or for whatever other reason.
So hamdala radiAllahu anhu, one of the actually
one of the scribes of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. He tells him Waqarah radiAllahu
anhu nafakahhanzalah
about he himself that Hanzalah has become a
monafiq.
And Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu was like, subhanallah.
What are you saying?
So he explains. He says when we are
in the presence of the Messenger of Allah
Sallallahu alaihi wasalam,
and he reminds us about the hellfire and
he reminds us about paradise,
we feel as if we are seeing them
with our very eyes. It's so real,
like the description of the Prophet salallahu alaihi
wasallam. And that environment is so authentic
that it's almost like we are able to
see the hellfire, we are able to see
paradise with our own eyes.
But when we are away from the messenger
of Allah salallahu alaihi wa sallam
and we're attending to our wives, our children,
our business, our work,
most of these things slip from our minds.
So this is the reason why he was
worried that he had become a he had
become a hypocrite
because of the state. So he was paying
attention
to the state of his iman.
And Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu hears this and
he says, Wallahi, by Allah I have experienced
the same thing as well.
So now both of them are worried that
they have become munafiq's.
So Abu Bakr
and Hanzalah radiAllahu anhu, they go to the
Messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And Hanzalah radiAllahu anhu, he says that, You
Rasulullah
Nafakkah Hanzalah. Hanzalah has become a hypocrite, a
monafic.
And the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam says, what has happened to you? You
know, what's going on? Like, why are you
thinking like this? Why are you saying you've
become a monafiq? Like, who comes? You know,
my great companions comes and says, I've become
a monafiq. Like, what's happening?
So he explains the same thing that, You
Rasulullah, when we are in your presence, if
you're reminded of the hellfire and and and
paradise,
you know, we feel as if we are
seeing them with our very eyes, but when
we leave you, we get busy with our
families and our work, you know, and our
children, then most of these things slip from
our minds. And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam reassures him, and he says, by him
in whose hand is my soul, which is
another way of saying by Allah.
If your state of mind
remained
as it is in my presence,
as and you are always occupied with the
remembrance of Allah
like if you were state of mind and
heart was actually the way you're
expecting that it should be,
then the angels will shake your hands in
your beds and on the roads.
Okay? Like you would grant you could reach
such a high state that even the angels
would come and would actually shake your hands
to salute, you know, your your steadfastness and
your your your ability to maintain that high
throughout, meaning that it's really not possible.
And the prophet goes on he says, oh
Hanzalah, rather time should be devoted to this
and time should be devoted to that.
So we learn my brothers and sisters, and
the Prophet by the way said that 3
times.
So we understand that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
has created us with hearts that are not
just physical but they're also spiritual as well.
Right? Physically, we can see the physical heart,
but our soul also has a spiritual heart
as well. And that spiritual heart is the
place where our iman, our faith, and our
taqwa, which is our fear or consciousness of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, our piety reside.
It is the place of emotions and feelings.
And once a person has faith, once a
person has iman, it is like a seed.
If that seed is fed the right nutrients,
it's given the right ingredients, and the right
conditions,
and the right environment, it will grow.
What will happen? It will grow just like
when you plant a seed
and the weather you know, you plant a
seed in the wintertime or maybe even, you
know, the previous fall, and then it snows
and, you know, the weather changes and the
season changes, and then finally spring comes around
and the and the temperature starts to warm
up, and, you know, the the soil is
moist and the proper nutrients are there, then
the seeds begins to sprout.
Otherwise,
what happens?
If it doesn't find the right nutrients and
the right ingredients, if it doesn't have the
right environment, its growth may stall, or it
might end up dying out altogether.
Right? Therefore, we
know that external influences
have a great impact on the health of
our imam. Once again, we know that external
influences
have a tremendous impact on the health of
our faith.
What are these influences?
The people we spend time with,
what we choose to watch,
what we listen to, what we choose to
read,
what we talk about,
what we engage our mind in.
All of these things will have an impact
on the health of our faith.
Right? And now that we're living, you know,
in the age of of of social media
and,
you know,
intelligent
algorithms,
Right? When you start clicking on certain types
of videos and certain types of articles or
start listening to certain types of podcasts,
your world will become filled with those types
of videos and those types of articles and
those types of posts.
Right. Because the algorithm knows that these are
the things that you're interested in, and that's
what it starts showing you. Right. So your
reality then, like, you you become surrounded
by
the types of things you show interest in.
And I was just looking at an article
or I just saw the headline where they're
actually talking about, you know, what AI is
actually able to predict, you know, about your
behavior, your personality, your lifestyle choices, your credit
score, like, all this stuff simply based on
your behavioral patterns that are being recorded and
that are being observed. Right? So when you
start engaging in these types of discussions
and engaging in this type of material, that
becomes your reality. That becomes your environment.
Okay.
So that's like planting a seed,
right, and then having winter all year long.
Like, how is that seed actually gonna sprout,
and how is that plant gonna survive
if you create a greenhouse or, like, an
environment where it's always winter? It's never gonna
sprout, or whatever is there is gonna end
up dying. Right? Because it doesn't have the
right environment.
So,
you know, this is what's happening more and
more today. Now some of this fluctuation is
actually normal. Right? As we learned from the
hadith of hamdulillah radiAllahu anhu, it is normal
that there will be times where you will
have an iman rush, you'll have,
you know, a high state of iman or
yaqeen. And then at times, you know, it's
gonna fluctuate, it's gonna go down, you're gonna
feel down, you know, you're gonna feel a
little bit detached and then you'll recover and
there'll be ups and downs depending on the
environment you're in and the types of things
you're hearing as when
they were in the presence of the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and they were hearing
the words of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
it was a different state of iman. Right?
And when they stepped away, it was a
different state of iman, a different level of
iman.
So the state of our iman will go
up and down depending on our activities.
Now those activities that need to be done,
Right? Obviously, we live in this world, you
know, very few people would be able to,
like, go and and seclude themselves somewhere. It's
probably not even recommended, you know, in our
faith. So we obviously have been sent to
this dunya, to live in this dunya, to
build Jannah in this dunya, Any to aim
for jannah, to build our jannah in the
hereafter
by spending our time in this life as
best as possible in a way that is
most pleasing to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So naturally by living in society, living as
part of communities and societies,
part of civilizations, there will be things that
we need to we need to do, and
we are indeed encouraged to do as well.
There's nothing wrong with doing the basic activities
of life that we need to to do
to in order to survive and excel in
a way that's pleasing to Allah.
So
we do them
knowing
that they potentially may have this impact.
Right? We do these things just like Hanzal
radiAllahu anhu would go to his family, and
tend to his business, and spend time with
his children.
He was doing those things because that is
a part of being a good Muslim,
a responsible Muslim.
Right? But he was aware that it's having
an impact on him, that it is affecting
his email. So we do the things that
we need to do, but we are cognizant
of the fact that those activities
at certain points may have a detrimental impact
to our faith, to our iman. Now when
you have leisure time, so this is when
you don't when you're not doing things that
you need to do. K. When you're not
working, you're not studying, you're not spending time
with your family, you have downtime.
Then we wanna try to spend it in
a way that is healthy for our iman,
or at the very least it's not harmful
for our iman.
Okay? It's great if you could spend our
free time in a way that actually nourishes
our iman. It actually supports our faith and
allows our faith to grow and to flourish,
right, where we give the right conditions, the
ideal conditions, so like a greenhouse
for our seed and our plant of iman
to grow. But if you're not able to
do that in your free time, then in
our free time, then at the very least
let's not put ourselves in environments where or
surround ourselves with things
that will end up hurting our iman, that
will allow you know, that will be sort
of like the winter for our seed and
for our plant of faith.
Now sometimes entertaining certain thoughts
can be an avenue for shaitaan
to directly place poison in our hearts
that can wreak havoc with our iman.
Let me say that again. Sometimes
entertaining certain thoughts and ideas
can be an avenue that we open up
that allows shaitan to directly poison our hearts
and our minds,
and that can wreak havoc with our iman.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said,
That the shaitan will come to one of
you, and he will say that who created
such and such?
Who created such and such? He's gonna start
getting you to ask questions.
Until
he says to him that who created your
Lord?
Okay. What does that tell us? It tells
us the shaitan doesn't come normally, he doesn't
come directly to his point right away,
but rather, you know, he plays a long
game.
K. He starts off
a little bit behind and gradually builds up
until he gets you to the point where
he where he wants you to be.
So what did the prophet say? The shaitan
will come to one of you and say
that, who created such and such?
Who created this? Okay. You know, so you're
just like pondering and reflecting and asking questions,
asking lots of questions.
Until he says to him, who created your
Lord? And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said,
That when it reaches that stage,
when the questioning reaches that point, let him
seek refuge with Allah, meaning say,
and stop thinking about it. Right? Because because
this is going in a direction
which is
pleasing to shaitan because it is leading a
person to question, you know, the existence of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the existence of the
creator, and it's taking them down a road
that's gonna be detrimental to their iman, clearly.
In another narration, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
has said, the people will continue to ask
one another questions till this is pronounced,
that Allah created all things, but who created
Allah? And whoever comes across anything of that,
he should say, amen to billah. He should
say, simply, I believe in Allah. Right? Because
if you actually go down that that path,
you don't, you know, come to any real
conclusion. Right? Because,
anyways, let's not go there. So this is
for our own benefit. Now, our faith, our
iman is a gift. And no matter how
much you wanna protect it,
just like anything else, we cannot fully do
it on our own.
We cannot fully do it on our own.
We need to ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
In Surat Aliam Imran, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
tells us about the Ulul Al Baab. These
are the people of understanding, these are the
people of reasoning. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
tells us a dua that they make. What
is the dua that they
make?
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says that these Ulu
al Baab, the people of reasoning, the people
of understanding,
they turn to Allah and they say, Our
Lord, do not let our hearts deviate after
You have guided us.
Do not let our hearts deviate after You
have guided us, Grant us Your mercy. You
are indeed the giver, meaning of all bounties.
So sometimes,
you know, a so this is, by the
way, a dua that we should all learn,
and we should all regularly make.
Sometimes a person can be doing everything right.
K. A person's doing everything right. They're surrounding
themselves with the right people, the right environment,
you know, they're gonna masjid, they're, you know,
reciting Quran, they're listening to inspirational lectures, they're
reading the right things, you know, every so
they're doing everything right. Yet they are confronted
with a situation
that challenges their beliefs or their understanding. Could
be a tragedy,
could be an illness,
a seeming failure.
Right? Or a series of apparent failures, or
perhaps to read something that, you know, that
they or they come across an idea that
challenges their faith.
This is nothing new, but again, perhaps it's
happening more and more due to the
increased and easier exchanges of information and algorithms
and all of that.
Now when this happens, my brothers and sisters,
it can lead to a deep sense of
loss and confusion.
Now some of these people will seek help
from the right sources,
Others will find material and voices that will
validate their doubts and their confusion,
making their situation
even more dire.
My brothers and sisters, let us know that
our deen and our iman
has to do, of course, with who? With
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
So when in doubt, whenever you have such
a situation where you find yourself at a
loss, or at a fright you know, in
a crisis of faith, or you know, in
this type of situation where you're just confused,
1st and foremost,
turn to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala with sincerity
and humility, and lay it all out. Right?
You don't need to be formal with Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. You know, like you just
lay it out in front of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, you spill it out. For instance,
you say something like, oh Allah, this is
what I used to believe, or this is
what I believe. But this is something I
have come across.
It is wreaking havoc in my faith, in
my for my faith, or wreaking havoc in
my mind. You know, this is how I
feel now. I am a weak being, I
don't understand, I am confused,
I only want to know the truth, I
am not able to distinguish truth from falsehood
at this state. You Rabb, oh my Lord,
please guide me and grant me tranquility in
my heart.
Simply turn to Allah
seeking His assistance in your state. In the
Quran, Allah refers to the concept of
Literally, quite literally, the opening of the chest
for example, or the expanding of the chest.
So one's heart
to summarize, it's essentially the idea or or
the belief of one's heart opening up
to belief,
or anything else from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
and becoming at peace with it.
The heart opening up to belief or something
else from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and being
at peace with it.
Right? Have being content with it, in accepting
it.
This comes from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, but
sometimes you have to ask for it. You
have to beg Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for
it. You have to ask Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala for guidance. And sometimes Allah is seeking,
is looking if you have that desire to
be guided,
if you have that desire to have
The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam tells us the
hadith Qudsi that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
said, Oh My servants, all of you are
misguided, or all of you are astray
except those whom I guide, so ask me
for guidance, and I will guide you. After
all, we do say ikhdilasarat al Mustaqim how
many times? Every day, if you offer the
4th prayers, at least 17 times a day
that we recite it or that we hear
it. This This highlights its importance, the importance
of asking Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for hidayah.
So keep doing it sincerely, and don't become
despondent, don't become impatient because the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam said, The supplication
of every one of you is granted
if he or she does not grow impatient
and says that I supplicated but it was
not granted.
The supplication
of every one of you is granted
if
he does not grow impatient
and says that, I supplicated but it was
not granted. So when making dua, don't expect
an immediate response. You know, sometimes you may
really want an immediate response because of your
situation, that's understandable,
but don't be impatient and continue asking Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, Insha'Allah, Allah will respond to
your dua in the way that is best
for you at a time that is best
for you. Now if you have doubts
and you are concerned about your faith, that
is actually a sign of iman. How?
Well, you wouldn't be concerned if you didn't
have iman.
Okay. So the fact that you're concerned about
your faith is a sign of faith in
and of itself. So your concern is actually
a good thing.
Many times these doubts are actually due to
a lack of knowledge
or a lack of understanding.
Right? Our ignorance allows us to get scammed
out of our iman.
What does our ignorant ignorance allow us to
do? To get scammed
out of our iman. Just because we are
not able to find an answer, does not
mean that the answer does not exist.
Once again, just because we are not able
to find the answer, it does not mean
that the answer does not exist. And just
because we can't wrap our heads around something,
doesn't mean it's wrong.
Okay? In fact, it is likely that there
will be some things that we are not
gonna get. Why is that?
Because,
you know, the basics, of course, we understand.
Every sane human adult,
or every sane adult human being has the
innate ability
to recognize the Oneness of God, to recognize
tawheed, the Oneness of Allah
But beyond that, there can be some details,
some secondary issues perhaps,
that are too challenging for us to comprehend
because we haven't studied it fully. Right? We
don't get it,
and we expect that because Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala's knowledge and wisdom are unmatched.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's knowledge and wisdom are
of no match to ours. Right? Or ours
is no match to that of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala because His knowledge and His wisdom
are the greatest,
and ours is nothing, is miscue compared to
the knowledge and wisdom of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. So naturally, there will be things about
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and His system that
we may not be able to fully comprehend
because
our knowledge and wisdom cannot get to the
knowledge and wisdom of Allah
So don't let these secondary issues collapse your
iman. Right? It's like demolishing your house because
you don't get why the windows are so
ridiculously small in the basement, or like you
can't understand why they couldn't just put that
window or that HVAC unit, you know, anywhere
else in that other than that awkward place
where it is now. So you don't like
something, you don't understand why the engineer or
why the contractor did it that way or
the designer did it that way, and you're
like, you know what? Let me just demolish
my whole whole house because I don't get
this.
Okay. Don't demolish your iman, instead ask Allah
to resolve
your doubts
and grant you peace with iman. We ask
Allah
to continue to guide us. We ask Allah
to protect our iman and that of our
future generations till the day of Qiyamah. We
ask Allah
to lead us towards those things which will
strengthen our iman and protect us from that
which weakens it. Ameen.