Throughout our lives we seek guidance on matters relating to it.\nFrom our youth, when our parents and elders are a source of guidance, to later\non in life when we seek guidance from our teachers, our mentors and our seniors.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a need to have guidance and we often seek it from them\nwho have superior experience over us, people who possess the knowledge we don\u2019t\nhave and people who are there to help us in our journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, many people go through life without acknowledging the\nprimary guide and that is from Allah SWT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The imam reminded us of Sura An-nur, ayat 55 in which Allah SWT\nspeaks of this topic. It is translated to say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allah has promised those of you\nwho believe and do good that He will certainly make them successors in the\nland, as He did with those before them; and will surely establish for them\ntheir faith which He has chosen for them; and will indeed change their fear\ninto security\u2014\u02f9provided that\u02fa they worship Me, associating nothing with Me. But\nwhoever disbelieves after this \u02f9promise\u02fa, it is they who will be the\nrebellious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear brothers and sisters, in this ayat we are both being\ntold of the guidance He provides to bring us success and also the conditions of\nthat guidance, namely we are to worship Him and associate no partners with Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so, we should ask ourselves, are we fulfilling both\nparts of this contract that He states in this ayat. For example, if we are\nstuck in our family life, we can seek help from others in the form of advice,\nmaybe even seek counselling \u2013 but are we seeking the guidance from Allah SWT as\nwell; and do we even know how to do this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as Allah SWT states in ayat 9 of Sura As-Saf which is\ntranslated to say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is the One Who has sent His Messenger with \u02f9true\u02fa guidance and the\nreligion of truth, making it prevail over all others, even to the dismay of the\npolytheists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is the one who sends true guidance. Guidance that has no hidden\nagenda, guidance that is not diminished in it being from a fellow creation of\nHis and guidance that is perfectly tailored for us, then surely we should have\nAllah SWT as the primary go-to for guidance in all the uncertainties we face in\nthis life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear brothers and sisters, guidance from Allah SWT is the\nonly guidance that we seek in this life. Advice and opinion from learned people,\nour elders and our loved ones has it\u2019s place but we should all have Allah SWTs\nguidance at the forefront of our decision making when navigating life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so, if we are to accept that the successful are those\nwho worship Allah SWT and seek guidance from Him then how does one achieve\nthis? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reminder concludes with two practical points in relation\nto this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we are to go to our boss for\nguidance on the work we are doing. We are likely to respect the time they have\nset aside to help us, i.e. turn up on time. We are likely to dress smart, we\nare likely to listen to what they have to say and play our part so that we get\ntheir guidance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equally so, when we are submitting\nourselves in worship, e.g. prayer, then we should perform our ablution with\ncare, make sure we pray on time, with focus and meaning, we should then take our\ntime at the end of the prayer to raise our hands up in dua and ask Him for\nguidance with specific dua and help. After all, we declare in every rakat that\nwe come to Him alone for worship and help and so we should fulfil this promise\nby performing salat correctly and with the right etiquette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those of us who are new to\nthis concept, the advice here is to make the Quran a frequent source of\nguidance. Open the Quran randomly and begin reciting. For those who don\u2019t\nunderstand Arabic, use a copy that has a translation alongside it and focus on what\nis being said in the ayats that you are reading. Learn to ponder over these\nwords and seek guidance from them. More often than not, the miracle of the\nQuran is that, what may seem like a random ayat being recited is directly related\nin some way to the guidance that you are seeking. Open your mind to the idea\nthat the answer lies in what is being read at that given time and watch how\nlife is transformed over time to one that is being guided by Allah SWT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two key points to remember with this\nmethod are that first of all, the guidance being offered may sometimes\ncontradict what the heart desires. As Muslims, we accept we are slaves to Allah\nSWT and to His word. If the guidance we are feeling goes against what we wanted\nthen we can\u2019t pick and choose what to follow, this is faith and we need to\naccept this point if we are to receive true guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Secondly, when we are reading the\nQuran, especially the translation. Any confusion comes from our limited understanding\nof the Quran. We don\u2019t read the Quran in order to critique it. This is an\nimportant point because it\u2019s the only time we must stop ourselves doing this.\nEverything else in life we judge and we critique. This must be the exception as\nQuran is perfect but our understanding is not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear brothers and sisters, as Muslims we have with us the\nperfect guidance for life. We just need to educate ourselves and others to make\nthe most of the guidance we can potentially have so that we are amongst those\nwho are rightly guided to the path of Allah SWT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Throughout our lives we seek guidance on matters relating to it. From our youth, when our parents and elders are a source of guidance, to later on in life when we seek guidance from our teachers, our mentors and our seniors. There is a need to have guidance and we often seek it from them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_regular_price":[],"currency_symbol":[],"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon"],"blocksy_meta":[],"post_slider_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","post_slider_layout_landscape_large":"","post_slider_layout_portrait_large":"","post_slider_layout_square_large":"","post_slider_layout_landscape":"","post_slider_layout_portrait":"","post_slider_layout_square":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}