Overcoming Emotional Doubt
How can we keep our theology strong in the face of Islamophobia and tragedy? Often there are intellectual doubts that invade our minds, but sometimes those doubts manifest from our hearts. Sh. Ibrahim Hindy breaks down the impact of emotional doubts and how we can begin to dismantle them.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. I know a lot of the discussions today have been very academic in nature and talked about a lot of the intellectual challenges that we're facing as Muslims. And Dr. Nazer is going to speak afterwards, I'm sure, about the work that Yaqeen Institute does, which is trying to deal with a lot of the intellectual challenges that young Muslims are facing in today's day and age. And I think many of us, particularly those who are younger, can sympathize with the image of a young Muslim asking challenging intellectual questions to their Sunday school teacher, or their parent, or their local imam, and the response that they get is, how dare you ask this question? Right? Maybe you have something thrown at them, maybe a shoe is taken off, Allah knows. Things like this might happen. And it creates this gap in our community, where young Muslims have these intellectual questions about Islam, and we have the intellectual tradition that has the answers to these questions, but the gap between how is it delivered to them. And a lot of what Yaqeen is doing is trying to translate that work to give us access, to give young Muslims today access to that information. And a lot of the talks that you've heard today kind of tries to create that gap between our intellectual tradition, and between the questions that young Muslims are facing today. But today in my talk I'm taking a little bit of a step in a different direction to some extent. I think that sometimes it's counterproductive to think that the gap that young Muslims are facing today is purely intellectual. Particularly in this age of Islamophobia. Dr. Gibran spoke about this to some extent as well. Particularly for us as Muslims in a minority.
The tragedies and the hardships that we are facing, and that we are enduring, are having an effect on us that goes beyond simply an intellectual question, or an intellectual problem that we might be trying to work out. Imam Al-Shafi'i rahimahullah ta'ala alayhi and his companions as well, they famously made the observation that the qalb, anna alqalb mahallat alAAqdat. The heart is the place of intellect, the place of understanding. And of course they referenced verses in the Qur'an, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, lahum quloobun yaAAqiloon abiha. Do they not have hearts with which to understand? So Allah is referencing in the Qur'an that your heart is where your intellect is. Now by the way I heard, I saw this YouTube video of this guy who is trying to refute Islam, and he brings up this point. He says, can you believe how foolish these Muslims are? They think that the heart is where you think, and obviously we think with our brains, but they think that you think with the heart. But obviously what Imam Al-Shafi'i is saying is something deeper, he missed the entire point. What Imam Al-Shafi'i is saying, what the scholars are deducing from this, is that our emotions affect the way that our intellect functions. The way that we are, our emotional disposition is, is having a significant influence over how our intellectual discourses are. So the brain thinks of course, and the brain computes, and our mind and our head computes, but the intellect is swayed by the emotional disposition of a person. And I've seen this personally so many different times. The first time, when I just started to work as an Imam, and the parents came to me, and they said, here's my 13 year old child, and he's telling me he's not a Muslim anymore. So I sit down with him, and say what's the issue? And he asked me a question here, a question about religion and violence, and a question about this, and I answer all these questions. And he's still bothered, and I started to think to myself, you know what, let me just change the subject, let me talk about something completely different.
And we started having conversations about something completely different, and slowly he starts to open up to me, what's the issue, he has a teacher at school, a social studies or a history teacher at school, who keeps making these comments about how religion, and particularly Islam, are problematic and problems to the world, that religion is a source of problem. And that this influence of this person in a position of power, is obviously putting him in this situation where he feels the societal pressure, and it causes him to have these intellectual doubts, that he wouldn't normally have, if he wasn't in that situation that he happens to be in. And this is a common theme most of the time, when I'm dealing with usually parents, who are bringing their children, saying talk to my kid, he says he's not a Muslim anymore. You start to peel the layers of it, and you find that it's much less of an intellectual issue, than it is an emotional issue. And there's a lot of research out there, that's showing that children as young as 5, 6 years old, are feeling the effects of Islamophobia. They're feeling the effects of Islamophobia, they're feeling the hardship that we ourselves are seeing in today's day and age. And it's just a year ago, almost to the day, maybe to the week, that a dear brother of mine, very close to this location here, was at a park with his family, when he was beaten up by two Islamophobes, and he was beaten severely, subhanAllah. Put in a coma, and he had skull fractures, and he had multiple surgeries, Alhamdulillah he's doing a lot better right now. And I know this masjid helped to contribute to support his family afterwards, and so may Allah reward them. But you know subhanAllah, one of the interesting things about that case, the police officer was saying, he never saw, because the wife ran to grab a police officer, who was parked in the distance. She ran to grab the police officer, she brought the police officer over while they're kicking her husband. The police officer remarked that, even as the police officer is approaching, and they saw the police officer,
they continued to kick, they didn't care. And so subhanAllah, this is a traumatic incident, and one that I'm sure many of you are familiar with. Let alone what happened in Quebec City, and the six worshippers who were killed in the masjid. Let alone what happened in Christchurch, that all of us witnessed and saw, and the effects that that had. I spoke to an Islamic school afterwards, young children asking them, I had to speak to them about this incident, first question I said, what do you know about it? I want to ask them, did you guys hear anything about this? And all of them, no matter how young they were, were telling me details of this. And telling me we saw the blood in the masjid, and we saw this, and somehow they saw the videos themselves, and the pictures themselves. Young kids have seen this. So they're carrying the brunt of this, just as we are. And the weight of these tragedies, does not just cause suffering, does not just cause tears, does not just cause fear that we have, but it plays a role in how we view, and internalize our own theology. And unfortunately, Islamophobia is not going away anytime soon. We need to prepare ourselves, mentally and spiritually, to overcome the tragedies that we're facing, whether it's on a personal level, someone's facing tragedies on a personal level, financial problems, or they're having family problems, or they're having, you know, they lose a loved one, or something like that. Or whether it is these communal issues, these issues with our community, these violent acts of Islamophobia, that we are seeing and often enduring. And so in the time that we have remaining, and hopefully I'm gonna catch us up to our schedule, because I don't like to talk too long, so I'm gonna make it a relatively short talk, insha'Allah. I wanna speak about how we can understand these difficulties that we're facing, and how we can overcome them. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions in the Qur'an, He talks about the example of those who worship Allah on a condition. وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَنْ يَعْبُدُ اللَّهَ عَلَى حَرْفٍ Of the people are those who worship Allah upon a condition.
The worship of Allah is conditional. And then He said, when good things happen, they are satisfied. فِي نَصَادَةُ خَيْرٌ اِطْمَأَنَّ بِهِ When there's good things happening to them, they're satisfied, they're content, everything's good. They have no problem coming to the masjid, no problem worshipping Allah, no problem giving charity when everything is good. But as soon as bad things happen, then they turn back, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, فَنَيَصَابَتْهُ فِتْنَةً اِنْقَلَبَ عَلَى وَجْهِهِ خَسِرَ الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ The person turns back right away, meaning they turn 180 degrees over, they just completely reverse the rules. Because they see their religious commitment as being a deal that they're making with Allah. And a lot of people are like this, you know, I do my prayer, you give me this. I give my zakah, you give me this. They consider it to be a deal with Allah. Like they are on an equal playing field with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and that this is the deal. So as soon as bad things happen to them, tragedies happen to them, they say, hey, you're not holding up your end of the deal, so I'm not going to worship you. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says about this person, خَسِرَ الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ This person has lost the dunya and they've lost the akhira. And this is the type of mentality that can influence many of us when we're dealing with a lot of these tragedies and these calamities. We want to reflect on the role of tragedies and calamities, and how do we perceive them, how do we protect our theology as we endure them. Why does Allah عز و جل test us and try us with these tragedies, with these difficulties, with these calamities? And a more philosophical question, why does Allah allow evil to exist? And this tends to be the root of a lot of questions that people ask about Islam or about the nature of God, and so on and so forth. And what should our response be to these tragedies? How can we make ourselves and keep ourselves strong, and our theology strong? So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and their scholars have mentioned many, many, many different wisdoms that is tied to the reasons why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
allows pain and suffering and hardship to exist. Of those reasons, the existence of pain and suffering, from the wisdom of it, is to bring about good in others, to extract the good from others. And so the reason an orphan exists in part, is that when the orphan exists, it causes us to treat them with a level of kindness. The reason that there is poverty is that it extracts from us the need to give to that person charity. Their suffering, that suffering, causes us to respond with love and mercy. In other words, good can only manifest itself in the presence of evil. How is generosity manifested unless there's someone suffering through poverty? How is compassion manifested unless there's someone suffering through pain and trauma? And so if we were to eliminate all of the suffering, and all of the evil, then good itself would not be able to manifest. And so those who produce good in the presence of evil, are rewarded. And those who suffer tragedies and calamities, they too are rewarded for their patience. And so Allah عز و جل is able to allow us to manifest all of this good through the vehicle of these challenges, this pain, and this suffering. And of course the Prophet ﷺ said, ارحمون يرحمهم الرحمن ارحموا من في الأرض يرحمكم من في السماء That the Prophet ﷺ said, the most merciful shows mercy to those who are merciful. So show mercy to those who are on earth, and the one who is in the heavens will show mercy to you. And so this is one of the major points of a benefit that arises from the existence of evil. Is that second order good as they call it. That the response to evil with good can only exist when evil itself exists. And it cannot exist in its absence.
The second is that calamities and tragedies have the potential of bringing us closer to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى That it's human nature that we remember Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى when things are difficult. That when you have belief, when you already have belief, and difficulties occur, that difficulty pushes you to remember Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى. How many times even have people accepted Islam, and you ask them, what caused you to accept Islam? And he says, well I went through this hardship, and this hardship, and this hardship, and those hardships drove them to do what? To remember Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى. And this is the reality when things are good, and everything is smooth, and there's no problem, then you're not thinking about higher purposes. You're not thinking about higher goals. You're not thinking about the higher reasons that exist for you to chase after. And so in the tragedies that we face, we realize our own limitations. We realize our own weaknesses. And we recognize the greatness of Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى. And in this it causes you to increase in your belief in Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى. And Allah عز و جل mentions, فَلَوْ لَئِذْ جَاءَهُمْ بَأْسُنَا تَضَرَّعُوا وَلَكِنْ قَسَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى says, why is it that when some of the people were punished, or when they faced tragedy and hardship, why didn't they feel humility? Because usually this is the response, is that when you feel hardship, you feel a sense of humility. You realize your weakness as a human being, and your need for Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى. And so the wisdom of distress is that, it reminds us of Allah عز و جل. The third point that I want to mention here, of the wisdoms of suffering and pain, is that Allah عز و جل uses it to raise the ranks of the believers. In some faith traditions, other faiths, not Islam, the tragedy that befalls someone, is an indication that Allah does not love that person. So if a person has tragedies, that's a reason, that shows that Allah, that's proof that Allah doesn't, that God doesn't love you. And if the person is rich and powerful,
and everything is good, then they say, oh that's proof that God loves this person. And the Quran in many many places rejected this completely. And many different verses Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى mentions this. And in fact, and so in Islam, not only do we reject this, you know the verses in Surat Al-Fajr, it's not coming to me right now. فَإِذَا ابْتَلَاهُ وَأَمَّنْ إِنسَانُ فَإِذَا قَدْرَ عَيْهِ رِسْقَهُ فَيَقُولُوا رَبِّي آنَاً The person who says that when Allah has restricted their rizq, in this world, their sustenance in this world, they say, Allah has humiliated me. If Allah gave them, they say Allah has honored me. If Allah restricts them, they say Allah has humiliated me. Then Allah says, كَلَّا. Allah says, no. This is completely wrong. This entire theology is wrong. And if we were to make a connection by the way, if we were to make a connection, it would be in the opposite. Because the Prophet ﷺ said, إِذَا أَحَبَّ اللَّهُ قَوْمًا إِبْتَلَاهُمُ If Allah loves a people, He tries them, He tests them, He gives them a test. Why? Because through the test, their faith becomes manifested, their faith becomes clear, their sincerity becomes clear, their devotion becomes clear. We know the example of Prophet Ayyub ﷺ, and that he suffered losing his family, and losing his health, and losing his society, turning away from him, and losing his health, and losing all of these things. And yet he was beloved to Allah before, and beloved to Allah afterwards. And he never loses his faith. And Allah blesses him afterwards for his patience. Now somebody might say, but why did Allah test him? Allah tests him to raise his ranks, to make it clear that he's worthy of all the blessings that Allah ﷻ will give him. Part of this is connected, the scholars connected to the justice of Allah ﷻ. There might be two people right now who are equal in deeds. Allah knows one of them is better than the other. For Allah's justice to occur, that the better one receives the reward on the Day of Judgment,
He needs to test them to show their difference. Because Allah will not have two people who are equal in deeds on the Day of Judgment, says, you go to Jannah and you go to the Hellfire. It doesn't make sense. We would say, why? Why are you giving this person and not giving this person? So for Allah to show that justice, He tests them, the one who passes, passes the test, and the one who fails, fails the test. And so the justice of Allah ﷻ also becomes manifest through this. But in this there's a lesson for us as well. That's never to allow shaitan to say to us that, look, this is proof that Allah hates you. He gave you this challenge, He gave you this tragedy. This is proof that Allah hates you, that Allah does not love you. And this is sometimes the whispering of shaitan. And rather to remember the example that the Prophet ﷺ gave of when the mother was running in the battlefield trying to find her child. Picking up every child that she could find, looking at the child, thinking it's hers. Crying and weeping uncontrollably, hysterically trying to find her child. And when she found that child, she hugged him and kissed him and held on to him. And when the Prophet saw this, he asked his companions, would this mother throw her child in the fire? And they said, of course not. After she's going crazy trying to find her child, she's gonna throw this child in the fire? How could she do that? And the Prophet ﷺ said, اللَّهُ أَرُحَمُ بِكُم مِنَ الْأُمَّةِ الشَّفِيقَ بِوَلَدِهَا That indeed Allah has more compassion for you than the compassionate mother has for her own child. And so understanding this, you understand that when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tests us, He also gives us what we need in order to survive the trials and tests that we are facing and that we are seeing. And of the wisdoms of trials and hardships as well, is that what we consider to be a trial and a suffering and a hardship, sometimes is not a trial and a suffering and a hardship. Sometimes it is in fact a blessing. And how often does something difficult happen to us in our lives, and in the moment we think it's terrible,
but days later, weeks later, months later, years later, we think that wasn't the best thing that happened to me. That had that not happened to me, things would have been worse. Because of this crisis there was more opportunities that would not have been available to me otherwise. And so in retrospect, had we gotten what we wanted, it would have been the worst thing for us. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions this in the Qur'an, لَا تَحْسَبُوهُ شَرًّا لَكُمْ بَلْ هُوَ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ When Allah is referring to an incident in the Sira, He says, don't consider this to be an evil thing, this is a good thing for you. وَعَسَىٰن تَكْرَهُ شَيْئًا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ Allah says, maybe you hate something, and in fact it is better for you. And this ties into what they call the problem of evil. What's his name? I don't know, the Greek guy. Who said, you know, coined this issue that he said, is God able, and if He is willing to prevent evil, but He is not able, then He is impotent, and if He is able but He is not willing, then He is malevolent, and if He is both able and willing, then why is there evil? Right? He gives you this problem of evil. But if God is powerful, then why is He not stopping the evil? If He is powerful and merciful, why is He not stopping the evil? And if He is merciful but not powerful, then why should I worship a God who is not powerful? And if He is powerful but not merciful, then why should I worship a God who is evil? That's his argument. But the problem with this is that it considers God, the underlying contention here, that they're not stating, is that it considers God to be two-dimensional. God is only powerful and merciful. And it's withholding other attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That God is knowledgeable, that God has wisdom, that God has reasons to allow evil things to occur. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala of course gives us the example of Prophet Musa, in Al-Khidr in the Quran, which of course is a lengthy topic in and of its own. But in this topic, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this story is showing us,
in this story, three evil things, that we are seeing it through the eyes of Musa alayhi salam. We are seeing them as being evil things, that are people who are kind, and they help Musa in Al-Khidr, and they destroy, and Al-Khidr destroys their boat. Or he goes to a people who are, not generous to them, and stingy with them, and treating them harshly, and Al-Khidr repairs their wall. And Musa considers these things to be lacking wisdom, and he considers them to be wrong. Because he's seeing them through our eyes as well, we would consider them to be wrong. And finally when Al-Khidr takes the young boy and kills him, and of course Musa considers this to be incredibly wrong. But what's the message in all of this? Al-Khidr is telling him, you don't understand, you don't know. There's something beyond this. وكيف تصبر على ما لم تحط به خبرة؟ How can you be patient with something that you do not have the experience of? And in the end he reveals to him that each of these seemingly evil situations are in fact good. There's in fact wisdom behind it. That the people who are suffering, quote-unquote, because of this, are actually benefiting, because of each of these situations that he's going through. And so in this we understand that, sometimes what we perceive as evil and suffering might in fact be the cause of greater good that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has knowledge of and that we don't. Another wisdom to mention is that suffering and hardship separates false belief from true belief. That separates the real belief from the verbal belief. That we just say that we believe from actually believing. How do we know this, that your belief is actually true? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us suffering and hardship to see which belief is actually sincere from which one isn't. And finally I'll mention this last one, is that of the wisdoms of suffering is to remind us of our higher purpose. And a life of ease means a life of attachment to the dunya. And as the saying of some of the salaf said,
حُبِّ الدُّنْيَا رَأْسُ كُلُّ خَطِيَةٌ That the love of the dunya is the root of all evil. And this is the reality. When you chase the dunya as sister Zahra's discussion about chasing the dunya and how, when you make the dunya the center of everything, it causes greed and it causes difficulty and it causes a lot of these hardships that people are facing in their life. And so sometimes the tragedy, when you face the tragedy you forget the dunya. You're dealing with this tragedy, you forget sometimes all of these pleasures that we are in the world that we are often chasing. And it helps you refocus on your greater goal. And so if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves us, another point is that if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves us, and yet He causes us to suffer, this should cause us to reflect about the nature of suffering itself. And of this is the most powerful hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, that he says on the day of judgment, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will ask for, أنعم أهل الأرض, that the person who lived the life of the most luxury of the earth, and He will bring this person forward, and He will just touch him, dip him into the hellfire. And you will ask him, have you ever experienced luxury and ease in your life? And the man will say, لا قط. He said, never have I ever experienced good. Allah takes a person who lived the most luxurious life, who never had to work, who had billions of dollars, who had private jets, who had all of these things, one second in the hellfire, and he says, I've never seen any luxury. And then he says, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam says, he asks for the person who was most severely tested in the dunya. And that person is brought forward. And Allah orders that he is simply touched in Jannah, for a moment, just simply touched in Jannah. And then Allah asks him, have you ever witnessed any difficulty, any hardship, any suffering ever before? And he says, قال لا قط. He said, I've never seen this ever before in my life.
Which tells you what? All of the suffering of the dunya, just like all of the pleasures of the dunya, in relation to the akhira is inconsequential. And so, when the person is trying to say, how can God allow this evil to happen? This evil in the grander scheme of things, is in fact inconsequential, in the greater scheme of things, but of course as humans we don't have that until we see the next life. Then we start to understand how inconsequential it is. Finally, I'll just end with inshaAllah a couple of points, about how we overcome these tragedies. And the first point of benefit that I want to mention, is that we constantly have to ensure that we are thinking the best thoughts about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That we are ascribing the best motives to Allah عز و جل. What we call, حسن الظن بالله. Having beautiful thoughts about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because shaitan whispers to us all and tells you, see, Allah does not love you. See, He's not giving you this. See, He's making everything difficult for you. See, why should you even worship, considering that Allah is doing all these things to you. And these whisperings of shaitan, these negative thoughts, causes the person to have, to draw away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, even though Allah عز و جل loves that person, and is causing the best things to happen for him, even in the difficulties that they're facing. And so to have positive thoughts about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, to coach yourself to have these positive thoughts, this is incredibly powerful. The Prophet ﷺ said, لَا يَمُوتَنَّ مِنكُمْ أَحَدْ إِلَّا وَيَحْسُنْ ظَنَّهُ بِاللَّهِ Let not a single one of you die, except that you have beautiful thoughts about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so this is something that we should be constantly engaging in. The Prophet ﷺ said as well, that in the hadith Qudsi that Allah says, أَنَا عِندَ ظَنَّ عَبْدِي بِي That I am whatever My servant thinks of Me to be. Meaning the more beauty we ascribe to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the more we think positively about Allah azawajal, the more positivity we're going to see in our lives as well.
The second is that when we're suffering through hardships, to expect the reward from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the Prophet ﷺ said, لَا يُصِيبُ الْمُسْلِمُ مِنْ نَصَبْ وَلَا وَصَبْ وَلَا هَمْ وَلَا غَمْ وَلَا حَزْنَ He says that nothing afflicts the believer, not fatigue, nor disease, nor sorrow, nor sadness, nor hurt, nor distress, except إِذَا الْحَتَّى الشَوْكُ Even the thorn that pricks the person as he's walking, he says, except that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will replace it with, will remove his sins for it, and will give him reward for it. And the Prophet ﷺ also said the other hadith, how amazing are the affairs of the believer, everything of his affairs are good. Everything that happens to him is good. If there's hardship, he's patient, and that is good for him. And if there's benefit or if there's good, then he is grateful, and that is good for him as well. And so to constantly be thinking of, constantly be thinking of the reward that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will give you. The hadith of the Prophet ﷺ seeing an elderly man who is sick, and telling him, لَا بَأْسْ تَهُورٌ شَاء الله It's not a problem, this is actually Allah removing your sickness. This sickness is Allah removing your sins. He's removing your sins through the sickness. And it relates to being positive and being optimistic. The old man said, no, he rejected this. He said, no, what do you mean, Tahur? What do you mean I'm gonna be purified? He said, I'm an old man, and this is a terrible illness, and it's gonna take me straight to my grave. So what did the Prophet say to him? He said, إِذَا فَنَعْمُ If this is what you think, then it's true. Meaning if your mentality will be negative, and you're not expecting a reward from Allah, and you're not thinking positively about Allah, then that's going to happen to you. But if you're positive in your thoughts, then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will be positive for us as well. And the final point that I wanna mention is, to use the opportunity of hardship when our emotions are heightened in that time, to turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and worship.
And considering as we're talking about times of fitna that we're in, one of the hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam that is particularly powerful in this regard, is that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, بَادِرُوا بِالْأَعْمَالِ الصَّالِحِ قَبْلًا يَأْتِيَكُمْ فِتَنْكَ قِطَعِ اللَّيْلِ الْمُظْلِمِ He said, be hasty, quick to do your good deeds before there will come trials and tests that will be like pieces of the darkness of the night. And this is the parable, because imagine being at night, in the middle of the night, there's no full moon, there's no street lights, and imagine you needed to find your way around. You wouldn't know which way to go. You wouldn't know do I take a right, do I take a left, where do I go? قِطْ قَطْعِ اللَّيْلِ الْمُظْلِمِ And then the Prophet describes what this is. He says, فِيهِ يُصْبِحُ الْمَرْءُ مُؤْمِنًا وَيُمْسِي كَافِرًا In that time, the person will wake up a believer and will go to sleep a disbeliever. Or they will go to sleep a disbeliever and wake up a believer. And this is something we're witnessing right now as the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam described. You hear about someone who lived their life attacking Islam, an Islamophobe. All he's doing is publishing anti-Muslim things. All of a sudden he becomes a Muslim. Or the person who's religious and then all of a sudden you find out he became a non-Muslim. This is exactly what the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said to us. These are the fitn that we're facing right now. What's the advice? How do you save yourself from it? The advice came in the beginning of the hadith. بَادِرُوا بِالْأَعْمَالِ الصَّالِحِ Do your good deeds as quickly as possible. Allah gave you iman today. You might not have iman tomorrow. Don't take it for granted. Allah gave it to you right now. Take advantage of it right now. Do good deeds right now. Those good deeds inshaAllah are going to protect us from these fitnas, from these trials, from these sufferings that we're facing in our lives. Jazakum Allah khair for your time and for listening.
وَنَقُلُوا قَوْلِ هَذَا وَاصْتَغْفِرُوا لِي وَلَكُمْ اصْتَغْفِرُوا إِنَّ وَلَا فُرْرَحِيمٍ As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
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