Yaqeen: Finding Certainty in a World of Skepticism

Yaqeen: Finding Certainty in a World of Skepticism

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.

I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And with Him do we seek help, and there is no harm to us except against the wrongdoers.

And I send peace and blessings upon those who have been sent as a mercy to the worlds — our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and companions, and upon those who followed his Sunnah, and were guided by his guidance until the Day of Judgment.

I know it is strange in these regions to have people coming from the northern farmlands, but I have come from the northern farmlands to give you all da'wah to Allah. So hopefully we can all benefit from today's lesson. Today's lesson, in the time I have been given, is not enough time to cover what I want to cover.

Overview

I'm going to quickly go through the outline of today's talk. We have four main chapters:

The first is — what is yaqeen, and what are the examples of yaqeen? The second is the world we live in — the age of skepticism — what is the world we live in, and why is it so difficult to have certainty as a Muslim in these times? The third one is — how do we strengthen our yaqeen, our belief, our certainty, our conviction? What is the practical way to do that? And the last one, and perhaps the most useful one, is how do you practically deal with an intellectual doubt? A step-by-step process to deal with doubts.

Each of those chapters, or each of those sections, deserves a talk in and of itself. But we're just going to quickly skirmish through those chapters and give broad bullet points that all of us can take away, inshallah.

Why This Topic?

Why is this topic important to me? Why is this a topic that I decided to speak about? As a Muslim chaplain since September of last year, I've realized that about 80% of the conversations I have with young Muslims — myself included — are related to their doubts about Islam. Things that they were unsure of, or things that rattled their iman that they never admitted to until a calamity hit them, financial difficulty hit them, exam time approached, and suddenly they were not sure why there was evil in the world. These doubts tend to crop up at the wrong times.

And so, initially a student might need to have a conversation about a mental health issue, something they're struggling with — they're very depressed, they're anxious. And as you begin that conversation, they slowly start opening up, and it turns out that they have doubts in the basic beliefs of Islam. Things that they were unsure of after coming to university.

And so I realized that this is something that needs to be addressed. We need to understand it. We need to understand why it is that we have these doubts, why it is normal to have these doubts, and then how to approach them and how to solve them.

Chapter One: What is Yaqeen?

The Quranic Foundation

Allah says in the Quran, describing the believing Muslims:

Allah says: "And We made them leaders, guiding by Our command, when they were patient and certain of Our signs."

This ayah tells us that there are two ingredients to becoming a leader, or for the Muslims to achieve success. The first is certainty — yaqeen. And the second is patience and steadfastness. And those two things also tell us what the two biggest challenges are that Muslims face, especially young Muslims.

What's the opposite of steadfastness and patience? What pulls away your patience? What makes it difficult for you day in and day out at university to be a practicing Muslim? Number one is desire. The desire to zone out. The desire to sit back and relax and watch Netflix and miss Maghrib and miss Isha — because it requires too much energy to get up and go and do wudu. The desire to look at somebody of the opposite gender. The desire to spend your time with those who are of bad company. Desire is what destroys your patience, your sabr, your steadfastness.

The second challenge is doubt. What erodes your yaqeen, your belief, your conviction, your iman? Doubt. Other ideas. It only requires a seed — a small idea planted in the back of your mind — to then grow over time. As you hide it away and suppress it, one day that doubt comes back to bite you. It's grown from a small idea, a small thought, to something that doesn't allow you to pray salah. Doesn't allow you to do anything in life. It overwhelms your mind and consumes you.

That is what doubt can be — although it starts as a small idea, a small thought. One video from Speaker's Corner. One sheikh who said something that made you question a little bit. It starts as a seed. But if you leave it aside and let it grow, it will turn into a beast. A monster that consumes you and you have no idea what to do with it.

So in order to find success in both worlds, the two qualities we need to adopt are — number one, patience, and that's a topic for another time — and number two, yaqeen: certainty, conviction.

The Example of Abu Bakr

Let's look at some of the examples of yaqeen to understand what exactly it is. Ibn Taymiyyah said: "The yaqeen and the iman in Abu Bakr's heart could not be matched by anyone."

Abu Bakr ibn 'Ayyash said: "Abu Bakr didn't race ahead of his peers or beat everybody else solely because of his prayer or his fasting."

"But it was because of something that had taken root in his heart."

It wasn't a physical action, a physical behavior that made Abu Bakr special. It was an action of the heart. A quality that he had. A belief that he had. A strength of conviction that he had that nobody could match.

The Definition of Yaqeen

Before we look at the examples, what does yaqeen mean literally? What is its definition? It's when the truth — the haq, the correct information — finds its roots in your heart. It goes from just being a piece of information in your mind to something you firmly believe in, you are willing to die for, you are willing to give up your day for, you are willing to do anything for. That's when it goes from information — ilm — to yaqeen: certainty, conviction.

This feeling of being settled — of this information, this belief, being something deeply rooted in your heart — is the complete opposite of feeling that that belief is something agitated in your heart.

We all believe that the Prophet Muhammad is a messenger sent from God — a divinely sent messenger. But suppose someone plants a seed in your mind that this man was a womanizer who married someone at the age of six, and how could he do this? And you initially just ignore it, but over time, it slowly starts plaguing your mind. You're unable to pray your salah. Your iman in your heart is no longer firm and constant — it's agitated, it's not settled. We can all relate to this in some way, shape or form. That is the opposite of yaqeen.

And yaqeen does not mean blind faith. It means believing with certainty something you have a reason to believe with certainty. It's as though you've seen it with your own eyes — you have evidence for it. That's why the levels of yaqeen are three. Allah mentions in the Quran:

عَيْنُ الْيَقِينِ — the highest level — is being so certain of something as though you've seen it with your own eyes. For example, to believe in paradise and hellfire as though you can see them today. To believe in Allah though we cannot see Him, as though you can see Him. This is مَرْتَبَةُ الْإِحْسَانِ:

"That you worship Allah as though you can see Him." The highest spiritual state is to worship Allah as though you can see Him. It's a very high state to be able to get to — to believe in things that are unseen as though you actually see them.

The Example of Prophet Ibrahim

What are the effects of yaqeen on human beings? Let's look at three examples of people who had yaqeen in their hearts and it showed in their actions.

The first is the Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him). Ibrahim is one of the greatest of Prophets — أُولُو الْعَزْمِ مِنَ الرُّسُلِ — one of the five, perhaps the greatest, Prophets, from whom comes a lineage of other Prophets.

But Ibrahim at one point in the Quran seems to doubt in Allah. He doesn't actually — but it may seem from the apparent language that Ibrahim doubts Allah. What does Ibrahim say in the Quran?

He says: "O Allah, show me how You bring the dead back to life." Allah asks him a question:

"Ibrahim, do you not have iman? Do you not believe?" This is the question. Ibrahim responds:

He says: "I do believe — of course I believe. But I ask so that my heart may be put at rest."