By Muhammad Arif

Without your name, who are you in essence? Will you say I am me?

Would you believe if I were to say we are all dead in reality? Yes dead.

Do you get sleepy? What happens to you when you sleep? Where do you go? You are constantly breathing 24-7, who decides when and where it stops?

Know that your Lord is ever awake, who does not get tired, who gives us life and death and is keeping us alive every second with every heartbeat and breath. This is the salary that Allah (swt) gives us every day despite us not putting in the work.

Did we ever thank him for this? One may ask why should we? Think of the following examples below:

TRY NOT TO THANK/ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR BOSS/YOUR LOVED ONES AFTER THEY HAVE DONE SOMETHING FOR YOU, WOULD YOU NOT BE CALLED AN UNGRATEFUL ONE? WILL THEY DO THE SAME THING FOR YOU TIME AFTER TIME?

Could you get paid without doing any work at all?

But know that your Lord loves you so much that he forgives you again and again nor he does not simply take your life away or disrupt any of your bodily functions for forgetting Him.

Earth vs Afterlife

This worldly life asks you where you see yourself in 5/10/15 years. Well, it is a good goal to have, but in reality, all these goals are greatly influenced by the pleasures of this life.

The afterlife asks you the following:

What is your vision/mission in life daily? From the Moment you wake up? To understand we have a bigger purpose in life when we first open our eyes after sleep. We need to remind ourselves of this:

Our Vision: I need to know and attain my Lord & His Closeness

This of course takes time and practice to make it happen. Why so? Because the creator of the universe had said so in his glorious Quran (7:172). Before coming to this world our spirit did testify the following (paraphrased)

Allah asked, Am I not your Lord? And we said Yes, you are! We testify. Allah continued, and cautioned, now you have no right to say on judgement day, we were not aware of this. (end)

Take note of the words “cautioned” & “we were not aware of this”. So why did we forget / will we forget?

Allah (swt) wants to test us. To see who among us would be in the highest of ranks to the lowest of heavens and also the hellfire. So that in the next life we will know why we are placed at certain ranks, and it will be clearly according to the choices that we make during our temporary stay here.

He created Nafs (egoistic & forgetful self) and placed it inside us. And this is the enemy along with the Shaitan (devil) that we have to battle in this worldly life. The enemies around us will try their level best to make us betray and forget Allah (swt), make us people who are heedless, especially the devil who hates it when we remember Allah (swt), what more constantly.

Our Mission: To build upon remembering Allah (swt) 24/7.

Sounds difficult? Totally, because of how the world/shaitan has played his tricks and deceived us. This might even scare most of us. We trick ourselves by thinking that it is too much to handle. We need to strive to be amongst the elite, else we will be risking our chances of Paradise. Would you be wanting to take the risk?

But what is too much actually? E.g. One will never say earning too much money is scary? Surely not right? Or don’t people fall in love with someone (a creation of Allah swt) that they cannot stop thinking about them 24/7?

This is why we should change our thinking.

Allah (swt) says in the glorious Quran:

“I did not create jinn and mankind except to worship Me.”
Quran 51:56

But how do we make this possible with our day-to-day tasks? This is where we start to seek knowledge and grind it into practice.

Our reward: To see our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in our dreams before we pass away.

You get to see him here, surely, you’ll be closer to him in the next life.

Seek knowledge: Allah (swt) is my pursuit (Maqsud). What else is there to seek other than Allah (swt)?

Coming to classes weekly actually teaches us a beautiful habit on how we should envision our day. Coming to class holds countless merits, but the main takeaway is that Allah wants to raise our status, but in it we have to intend that we are there for him and to make the effort in being consistent. To recharge your battery of faith at least once in every 3 days in circles of remembrance to sustain our souls, else our spiritual state starts to wither.

This knowledge that we acquire here are not for academic purpose, well it can be, but the aim here is to strive to incorporate them into our lives. Hence, how well we fare in applying this knowledge gained is the real examination for us. This knowledge bequeathed by our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Hence knowing them, adopting them, only brings us closer to him. By getting closer to him, is ultimately getting closer to Allah (swt).

Our Goal: Ihsan (Knowledge of Allah -> Leads to knowing Allah intimately)

Like how people strive for career progression, we have to strive for spiritual progression with Allah. And it starts with concentrated acknowledgement which is related to our first pillar of Islam, our Shahadah (Testification/Proclaimation).

La Ilaha Illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah

This is not a one-time thing we say and move on, just to proclaim that we are Muslim. This is actually a 24-7 requirement that we need to strive and exhaust ourselves in as Our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ taught this curriculum of Iman for 13 years in Makkah.

When we say “La Ilaha” we negate everything that seems to benefit us by itself & when we say “Illallah” we attribute it back to Him, i.e. any benefit or loss happens only by the permission and help of Allah.

Understanding that Allah gave us the following 7 gifts, how we use it to remember him is also how we find inner balance. He gave us the following.

Life, Knowledge, Will, Power, Hearing, Seeing, Speech.

We are technically using his facilities/gifts. Should we not then be deeply grateful to Him? By taking care of the following gifts and using it accordingly to His Ordainments, we will find the sweetness of Iman.

To attribute any of these to ourselves or to creations is being heedless of Him and contending in partnership with Him (Hidden Shirk). There are many variations to how associating partnership to Allah can happen. One is apparent Shirk (Jali) and another is hidden/subtle Shirk (Khafi). We have to strive to be free from both types of contention/claiming partnership with Allah in order to reach closeness with Him. Some examples of subtle shirk are quoted below:

Shirk’e Ism = Thinking/Feeling that everything that we possess are ultimately ours. This is forgetting that Allah is the Owner and Provider of all tangible and intangible sustenance.

Shirk’e Fi’l = Thinking/Feeling that we are able to effect movements or actions by our own selves. This is forgetting that Allah is the Creator of all actions and The Helper who helps us to effect even one blink of the eyelids.

Shirk’e Vaswi = Thinking/Feeling that we possess our own attributes of Life, Knowledge, Will, Power, Hearing, Seeing, Speech etc. This is forgetting that Allah is the Sole Provider of these formless and critical attributes for our well being.

Shirk’e Dhaat = Thinking/Feeling that we possess our own existence by our own selves. This is forgetting that Allah is the One who brought us into existence when we were non existent.

Tawhid: The goal is to strive to attribute all of the above critical Help from Allah to Him Alone and to remove the forgetfulness that the above bounties are an auto entitlement. We have to strive to ‘See’ Him in all of this bounties that we are constantly receiving from Him. To Remember Allah (swt), To thank Him for every step, movement, action, sight, hearing, speech. To thank Allah (Alhamdulillah) with our whole hearts. This is also how the hearts find protection from grief and sorrow and will find true contentment and presence with Him.

“Surely in the remembrance of Him does the heart find ease.”
Quran 13:28

We are all in a transitory life, from Allah we came and to him we will return. In between we have to strive and become a Saalik (one who seeks him) so that we can attain him and return home in a way that He would be pleased with us.

May Allah (swt) help us to stay consistent in the straight path and take us back only when he is pleased with us.