Assalam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu! :)
May the peace, mercy and blessings of Allah swt be upon you!
Daily Reminder 22:
Let’s take an example of an individual who prays the obligatory and voluntary prayers, fasts in the month of Ramadan, offers Zakah and Sadaqah, recites the Quran in abundance, is kind to his parents and relatives and preaches good.
But on the Day of Judgement, all his efforts are termed INVALID and he is thrown into the Fire. Why?
There are two dangerous practices when committed by a Muslim, all his good deeds become invalid - no matter how great of a deed they are.
They are: Shirk & Bid’ah.
Shirk can be Major or Minor. A detailed answer can be found in the link below:
However, major or minor, Shirk is Disbelief and we must carefully look into our lives and the customs around us to keep away from the biggest sin there is.
Quite contrary to the common belief, Shirk is not just limited to worshipping idols. The most well known acts of Kufr are:
1. Wearing an amulet (or taweez) or tying threads for protection,
2. Visiting a soothsayer or a fortune teller,
3. Swearing oaths to any other besides Allah swt (For e.g.: saying “I swear on you I didn’t lie”),
4. Seeking help from the dead (visiting Darghas),
5. Idolising movie stars
6. Skipping prayers for the sake of TV shows and movies
Bid’ah is basically anything that has not been commanded by Prophet Muhammad (saws) and exists today as a result of cultural or social stigmas.
The Prophet (saws) has said: “Every innovation is going astray and every going astray will be in the Fire.”
[Sahih Muslim & An Nasa’i]
The most common acts of Bid’ah are:
1. Celebrating the Prophet’s Birthday and Shab e Barat,
2. Mourning for the deceased on 3rd, 10th and 40th day,
3. Saying out loud the intention for Salah,
4. Greeting people with Salam after Salah
5. Marriage customs that are not mentioned in the Hadith and Sunnah
A short daily reminder does no justice to the seriousness of a grave yet common issue.
But through this reminder, I hope to get some minds open up to the dangers of a few acts that they may be committing because of unawareness or lack of the right knowledge.
As your sister in Deen, I pray with all my heart that Allah swt protects you and your family from the whispers of the shaytan and from deeds that lead to the disobedience of Allah.
May Allah swt forgive all our sins, major and minor, apparent and hidden, intentional and unintentional and bless us with the right knowledge, wisdom and ultimately Jannah! Ameen.
Verse of the Day:
Juz: 22
Surah: Fatir
Verse: 5
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّ وَعْدَ اللَّهِ حَقٌّ ۖ فَلَا تَغُرَّنَّكُمُ الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا ۖ وَلَا يَغُرَّنَّكُم بِاللَّهِ الْغَرُورُ
“O mankind, indeed the promise of Allah is truth, so let not the worldly life delude you and be not deceived about Allah by the Deceiver.”
Imagine your best friend to be sticking around you for an entire day. No matter what work you intend do, they keep giving you countless suggestions. If you want to have chicken, they pester you until you decide to have an egg. When you’ve picked a blue shirt for yourself, they somehow manage to convince you in wearing neon green. Or you’ve decided to eat healthy and your friend lures you into eating 5 cookies.
Will this make you annoyed or are you happy with someone else dictating your choice and ruling over your desires?
This is exactly what shaytan does to a human being. This is his full time job – to rule over you and make you a slave of his commands!
Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrated from Safiyyah bint Huyayy (ra) that the Prophet (saws) said: “The shaytan flows through man like blood.”
Which means he knows us in and out. He is aware of our innermost secret desires and weaknesses. And he knows what nerve in our body when pressed, incites evil desires!
For instance, a woman generally has a desire to adorn and beautify herself and that is how Allah swt created her. But this nasty creature is going to leave no stone unturned until he turns that desire into an evil one. Either by making her spend thousands for enhancing her body features or display her beauty to the non-Mahram or waste a whole lot of time in adorning herself.
Or perhaps a man did lower his gaze after the first, mistaken look. He has no intention to look back. But guess who wants you to look at her? Your intimate enemy. Somehow he’ll twitch your eye and make your sight fall on her. And the trap only gets more fatal from then on.
This is exactly why Allah swt calls the shaytan, a deceiver because that’s the only thing he’s a pro at! He will make the Aakhirah seem far-fetched and lure us into the temporary glitters of this Dunya.
And he’s going to twist our thoughts and hearts in such a way that the commands of Allah swt will seem like a burden and eventually he’ll work his way to weaken our relationship with our Creator. This is will reach a point where ultimately the promise of Allah swt of an everlasting blissful eternal life will seem fake, untrue and we begin to question ourselves if there is any positive outcome of controlling our desires. At this point, our hearts would have given up on committing good deeds and even if we try committing one, our hearts would ache! This is what happens when we give into the whisperings of shaytan and devote our lives to his orders.
In order for us to take precaution, Allah swt speaks of the nature, tricks and treacherous goal of the shaytan in many verse of the Quran. Allah also speaks about the consequences of those who desired His pleasure and those who chose the temporary over the permanent life. This is why the Quran is a life guard! Because it teaches us to save ourselves from this tempting and bewitching world and to prepare ourselves for an eternal life.
And this is a fact that even shaytan knows and that’s exactly why he’s going to put in all his power in keeping us away from learning, understanding and implementing the Book of Allah.
Now we know where the battle lies. ;)
Sunnah Challenge 22:
In a group of three? Remember this Sunnah from our Prophet (saws).
Narrated ‘Abdullah (ra):
The Prophet (saws) said, "When you are three persons sitting together, then no two of you should hold secret counsel excluding the third person until you are with some other people too, for that would grieve him.”
[Al-Bukhari]
How many times we are with a group of three friends and only have two of us speaking, excluding the other one? To think about it, is it not something we do quite frequently?
Islam is not complete by just praying, fasting or even charity! To treat others in a kind way, to not hurt someone, are the basic aspects of a good character Islam gives great importance to!
Do you want to be treated the way you treat others? If your answer is no, there is much room for change! Would you like being ignored when two people are having a conversation? Just a simple act of treating others the way we want to be treated opens the doors of Paradise for us! [Sahih Muslim]
Assalam Alaykum.
No comments:
Post a Comment