Advice from the Quran: How to Attain Sincerity.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu!

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

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Free oneself from the opinion of others:

..... only for the countenance of Allah. We wish not from you reward or gratitude.

(Surah Al-Insan, Verse 9)

Compete in doing good:

.... Had Allah willed, He would have made you one nation (united in religion) but (He intended) to test you in what He has given you; so race to (all that is) good. To Allah is your return all together ...

(Surah Al-Ma'idah, Verse 48)

Increase the fear of Allah:

Or who is it that could provide for you if He withheld His provision? But they have persisted in insolence and aversion.

(Surah Al-Mulk, Verse 21)

Understand that every soul shall taste death:

Every soul will taste death, and you will only be given your (full) compensation on the Day of Resurrection .... And what is the life of this world except the enjoyment of delusion.

(Surah Aale Imraan, Verse 185)

Only expect the Pleasure of Allah:

And whoever of you devoutly obeys Allah and His Messenger and does righteousness - We will give her her reward twice; and We have prepared for her a noble provision.

(Surah Al-Ahzab, Verse 31)

May Allah give us all the ability to bring sincerity into every part of our lives - Ameen.

Wasalaam!

Emptying the Vessel (Part One)

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu!

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Before you can fill any vessel, you must first empty it. The heart is a vessel. And like any vessel, the heart too must be emptied - before it can be filled. One can never hope to fill the heart with Allah, so long as that vessel is full of other than Him.

To empty the heart does not mean to not love. On the contrary, true love, as Allah intended it, is purest when it is not based on a false attachment.

The process of first emptying the heart can be found at the beginning half of the shahada (the declaration of faith). Notice that the declaration of faith begins with a critical negation, a critical emptying.

Before we hope to reach true tawheed (true monotheism), before we can assert our belief in the one Lord, we first assert: La ilaha (There is no God) There is no illah.

An illah is an object of worship. But it is imperative to understand that an illah is not just something we pray to. An illah is what we revolve our life around, what we obey and what is of utmost importance to us - above all else.

It is something that we live for - and cannot live without.

So, every person - atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Christian, Jew - has an illah. Everyone worships something. For most people, that object of worship is something from this worldly life, the dunya.

Some people worship wealth, some worship status, some worship fame, some worship their own intellect. Some people worship other people. And, many as the Quran describes, worship their own selves, their own desires and whims. Allah says:



Have you seen he who has taken as his god his [own] desire, and Allah has sent him astray due to knowledge and has set a seal upon his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? So who will guide him after Allah ? Then will you not be reminded?

These objects of worship are things to which we become attached. However, an object of attachment is not just something that we love. It is something that we need, in the deepest sense of the word. 

It is something that if lost, causes absolute devastation. If there is anything - or anyone - other than Allah that we could never give up, then we have a false attachment. 

Why was the Prophet Ibrahim (as) told to sacrifice his son? It was to free him. It was to free him from a false attachment. Once he was free, his object of love (not attachment) was given back to him.

If there is anything - or anyone - that losing would absolutely break us, we have a false attachment. False attachments are things that we fear losing almost to a pathological extent. It is something that if we even sense is drifting away, we will desperately pursue.

We chase it because losing an object of attachment causes complete devastation, and the severity of that devastation is proportional to the degree of attachment.

These attachments can be to money, our belongings, other people, an idea, physical pleasure, a drug, status symbols, our careers, our image, how others view us, our physical appearance or beauty, the way we dress or appear to others, our degrees, our job titles, our sense of control, or our own intelligence and rationality.

But, until we can break these false attachments, we cannot empty the vessel of our heart. And if we do not empty that vessel, we cannot truly fill it with Allah.

(Yasmin Mogahed)

Wasalaam!

Having a Sincere Intention

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu!

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

The most important thing to do before starting anything is to have sincerity in what we are doing, and to make the right intention. The tiniest of actions can become huge just by having the right intention. Most of the books of Ahadith begin with the same Hadith:

It is narrated by Umar bin al-Khattab (ra), who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (saw), say:

Actions are (judged) by motives (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended. Thus, he whose migration (hijrah) was to Allah and His Messenger, his migration is to Allah and His Messenger; but he whose migration was for some worldly thing he might gain, or for a wife he might marry, his migration is to that for which he migrated.

(Al-Bukhari & Muslim)

This is a really important thing to remember because being sincere in what we do puts our physical and spiritual state together. By us making a sincere intention or changing our intention, the result of our action changes.

As Muslims, we  should always be checking our intentions and understanding the purpose of our actions. We should always be asking ourselves about our intentions for our short term and long term goals.  The believer should constantly ask himself; “Why am I doing what I am doing?”

 The Hadith above means that the person will be rewarded for only that which he intended. So, as mentioned in the Hadith, if a person performed the Hijrah (migration), but did it with a different intention then he would not be rewarded for that action of Hijrah (migration).

Riya, the showing off of deeds publicly, is a major sin which ruins sincerity and can invalidate actions. For example, giving money in charity will not be accepted as a good deed if it was for the sake of showing off to others.

The Prophet (saw) informed us that if you perform an act for the sake of someone else rather than for Allah’s sake, then Allah will reject that deed entirely and will leave the reward of it for the partner that the person has made. This highlights the implications of showing off as well as the graveness of associating another person in your actions which should have been for the sake of Allah.

Everything we do has to be intended for the sake of Allah. A good action with the wrong intention will not get us any reward in the Hereafter.

May Allah give us all the ability to have sincere intentions for everything that we do - ameen.

Wasalaam!