Refresh Your Imaan

When he was dying, Ubadah ibnu as-Saamit (radi Allahu anhu) told his son: O son, you will not find the taste of Emaan until you know that whatever you receive, you would have never missed it; and whatever you have missed, you would have never received it. I heard Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) saying: “The first thing which Allah created was the Pen. He commanded it to write. It asked: ‘What should I write?’ He said: ‘Write the Decree (Al-Qadr) of everything until the Day of Judgement.’” O son, I heard the Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) say: “He who dies not believing in this is not one of my people.” [Abu Dawud – Jamu al-Fawaaid] Where you will be born, where and when you will die, what you will receive, what you will miss, what joys or sorrows will come in your life – these are all written. This is the exam paper of life that you are presented with. How you will deal with these events will determine your rank before Allah (subhana wa ta’ala). Pray to ...

Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Let there be no harming, nor reciprocating harm.” [Sahih - Ibn Majah]   The meaning of this hadith is the prohibition of all forms of harmfulness, great or small, since the grammatical indefinite (of the words “harming” and “reciprocating harm”) in a negative context indicates generality. Thus, harming oneself or any other creature, without reason from the Shariah, is prohibited.   Based on this hadith many contemporary scholars hold it to be unlawful to buy, sell, use, or grow tobacco, because of the unlawfulness of consuming what has been proven to be harmful.  Epidemiological data link smoking and lung disease in the following ways: 1. Up to 50% of smokers may die of smoking-related diseases. 2. Smokers are three times more likely to die in middle age than are non-smokers. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: 1. COPD is very rare in non-smokers. 2. 90% of deaths from COPD are attributed to smoking. 3. 98% of people wi...

Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “There was never a Nabi that Allah raised amongst his Ummah before me except that he had in his Ummah some Hawaaryyoon (helpers) and Sahabah (companions) who held fast to his Sunnah (way) and followed his commands. They were then succeeded by a people who professed what they did not act upon and did that which they were not commanded to do. So he who makes Jihad against them with his hand is a believer, and the one who makes Jihad against them with his tongue is a believer, and one who makes Jihad against them with his heart is a believer, but beyond that there is not even a mustard seed (worth) of Emaan (faith).” [Sahih Muslim] Innovation in religion is of two types. One is to innovate in actions, such as to celebrate the birth of Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam). The other far more dangerous type of innovation is in matters of belief and Aqeedah; such as the doctrine introduced by the Mutazilah that the Quran was created and n...

Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Those evils which befell the Bani Israil shall befall my Ummah, so much so that if there were one amongst them that openly committed fornication with his mother there would be one among my Ummah who would do that too! And the Bani Israil split into seventy-two sects and my Ummah shall split into seventy-three sects. All of them will be in the Fire, except one group.” They (the Sahabah) said: “Which one is that O Rasul Allah?” Whereupon he said: “It is the one to which I and my Companions belong.” [Sahih – Narrated by At-Tirmidhi] Only one group from the seventy odd groups will go to Jannah while the others will end up in Jahannum. This is precisely because they cast aside the Sunnah and consider it better to formulate and originate religious beliefs and novel ways of worshipping Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) -- as if they know better than the very people who surrounded the Messenger (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) and about whom Allah (subhan...

The Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “A party of the Bani Israil set out on a journey. They came to one of their several graveyards in the course of their journey and said to one another, ‘If we should offer two Rakaat Salat and supplicate Allah, The One Full of Glory, perhaps He will revive one of the dead men for us and bring him out that we may ask him about death.’” “They did what they had suggested. Meanwhile, from one of the graves, a man raised his head. He was wheat-coloured and between his eyes there was a mark of prostration. He addressed these people saying, ‘O you there! What do you intend with me? (Why have you gotten me revived?) I have been dead for the past one hundred years and the fever of death has not yet cooled on me. It is there till now! Pray to Allah, the Glorious, the Majestic, that He may return me to as I was.’” [Ahmad] Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) is able to bring the dead to life anytime, but He has set the principle that He will not rev...

Abdullah bin Umar (radi Allahu anhu) said that he heard the Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) narrate this hadith – and he did not hear him say it once or twice or even seven times, but he heard it more frequently than that. He (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Kifl was a man of Bani Israil. He never shied away from committing a sin. A woman (once) came to him (on an errand) and he coaxed her to let him perform the immoral act with her against sixty dinars which he gave her. Thus, when he sat down with her to perpetrate the immoral act, she began to tremble and shake violently in fear. He asked her why she was crying, did he not like her? She said that it was not (what he thought) but that she had never committed the sin before and her destitution had compelled her to do that (otherwise she would never have agreed).” “He said that on the one hand she spoke thus and on the other she had committed herself (having taken the money). He added, ‘Go, go away from here! That...

The Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “He whose last words are, ‘La ilaha il Allah’ (none has the right to be worshipped but Allah), will enter Paradise.” [Abu Dawud] This hadith is like a password given away. Is it really this easy to enter the beautiful land of everlasting happiness? Sometimes death comes after an illness when it is anticipated, sometimes it comes unannounced. Regardless, a Momin is blessed with the ability to die on the kalima (La ilaha il Allah). This is because a Momin has lived his/her life on the kalima and the fact is that a person dies on the same that he/she has lived on. A pious man was called to make dua for an old man on his deathbed. When the man entered the house of the dieing person he was surprised to hear loud music being played. He admonished the relatives, “Is this the time to be listening to the instruments of the Shaitaan? Why do you not recite the Quran and ask the dieing one to recite the kalima?” Accordingly, the music was...