Today\u2019s reminder is on the rise and\nfall of Imaan and the acceptance of acts of worship<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This life is a time of our existence\nwhere we are constantly bombarded with shaitaan attempting to take us off the\npath of Allah SWT as taught to us by the Prophet SAWS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this battle between our imaan and\nour nafs, the battle between what is right and the temptations to do what is\nwrong is ever present in this world we live in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What this does though is that it\naffects our level of imaan. Some days we find ourselves elevated in the deen,\nour acts of worship are on point, we feel connected to Allah SWT and we feel\nthe love of Allah SWT and we love being Muslims and following acts that we know\nwill please Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other times, we are caught in the\ntraps of Shaitaan, our imaan suffers and we begin to feel low, we feel\ndisconnected from Allah SWT and unfortunately, this sometimes has the danger of\nspiralling out of control as we then move further and further away from blessed\nacts and fall more and more into acts that are against the deen of Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first point to make in regards to\nthe rise and fall of Imaan is that this is not unique to you and it is not\nunique to the cursed. Everyone has good days and everyone has bad days. Allah\nSWT tells us that He designed us to in this way and that the pleasure comes\nfrom His slave returning to Him asking for forgiveness and mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nobody is perfect and everyone makes\nmistakes. However, remember that the ultimate goal of Shaitaan is not to have\nyou commit the sin but it is to make you believe that there is no forgiveness\nfrom Allah SWT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shaitaan is determined to make each\nand every one of us convinced that we are beyond forgiveness as this then leads\nus to depression and despair which then leads to further and greater sin\nwithout any hope left in the person. We must all be mindful of this strategy\nand avoid despair at all costs. Allah SWT is the most forgiving and the most\nmerciful and He will do so if we ask Him of it and repent with sincerity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this leads the reminder nicely\nonto the way in which we know that our worship has been accepted by Allah SWT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point here is that we must ask\nourselves, for what purpose are we taking the actions that we are taking in\nthis life. For example, if we are giving to charity, are we doing that for\nAllah SWT\u2019s pleasure or are we doing it to make ourselves feel good or to show\nothers that we are charitable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another example is, when we come to\nthe masjid to pray. Are we doing it because we are prominent members of our\ncommunity and we pride ourselves in making an appearance in the masjid, to\nsocialise with others only or to demonstrate to ourselves and others on our\nlevel of imaan. Or are we coming to the house of Allah SWT in a state of\nhumiliation, of humility and of yearning to seek His mercy and pleasure alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The imam reminded us of the following\nayat from Sura Al-Bayyinah in which Allah SWT is addressing the stubbornness of\nthe disbelievers around the Prophet SAWS at the time and the ayat is translated\nto say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
though all they are ordered to do is worship God alone,\nsincerely devoting their religion to Him as people of true faith, keep up the\nprayer, and pay the prescribed alms, for that is the true religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear\nbrothers and sisters, Allah\ndoes not accept any person\u2019s work in prayer, fasting, zakat, hajj, ummah, good\ndeeds and charity if this work does not come completely and with the sole intension\nfor Allah SWT\u2019s sake. We need to be mindful of this if we are to gain the\nreward of our actions and have them in our account on the Day of Judgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other\ncondition, which is even more important than the one just mentioned is highlighted\nby the imam as he reminded us to ayat 65 of Sura Az-Zumar which is translated\nto say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has already been revealed to you [Prophet] and to those\nbefore you: \u2018If you ascribe any partner to God, all your work will come to\nnothing: you will be one if the losers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so dear\nbrothers and sisters, we must remind ourselves of the importance of the key\nstatement of belief. As Muslims, we bear witness, that there is only one God\nworth of worship and that Muhammad SAWS was his messenger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But we are\nnot being asked to believe that just or to say it just, we are being asked to\nbear witness to this fact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When someone\nbears witness to something, it is not saying it to be true but it practically\ndemonstrates that something is true. When we are bearing witness that we only\nworship one God and that we believe Muhammad SAWS is His messenger, we need to\nbe mindful of this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have to\npractically show this in our actions, our words and our manners. There is no\npoint being a Muslim by name if we don\u2019t demonstrate it in our every day lives.\nAnd there is no point to being a Muslim if our lives go against the teachings\nof the Prophet SAWS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore we\nneed to align ourselves with the meaning of bearing witness because without\nthis we run the risk of becoming hypocritical in our faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear\nbrothers and sisters, imaan is not something which will always be at 100%. We\nknow that we will have dips and falls in the levels at times. What we need to\nprotect at all costs is the manner in which we recover from those dips and that\nis to continue to practice, with sincerity, the acts and behaviours taught to\nus by the Prophet SAWS and the mindset brought about being a Muslim that bears\nwitness to the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today\u2019s reminder is on the rise and fall of Imaan and the acceptance of acts of worship This life is a time of our existence where we are constantly bombarded with shaitaan attempting to take us off the path of Allah SWT as taught to us by the Prophet SAWS. And this battle between our […]<\/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-3089","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\/3089","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=3089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salahadeenmosque.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}