The Reality Of Iman: Finding Balance Between Hope And Fear

Opening Praise and Salutations

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, and to the righteous. There is no aggression except against the wrongdoers.

I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and that there is no partner for Him, the Lord of the worlds. I bear witness that our Master, our Prophet, our Beloved, and our Intercessor is Muhammad, His servant and Messenger, the one who was sent as a mercy to the worlds. May Allah's peace and blessings be upon him and his family and companions — those who are pure, and those who follow them with kindness until the Day of Judgment.

My dear respected brothers and sisters in Islam, respected elders and youngsters, السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

The Endless Bounties of Allah

Indeed, Allah — His fadl and His karam, His grace upon us, His bounties are endless. Allah has brought His bounties of the deen and the dunya upon us. And just as He has gifted us with all of these blessings, we pray to Him and we ask Him, beg from Him, that He grants us the tawfiq to make shukr for these blessings and that He does not snatch them away from us.

My dear respected brothers and sisters, every single thing that we have in this world that we cherish, that we value, that we hold close to our heart — everything is temporary and everything we will have to leave behind. And that which will actually be of value for us in the eternal abode that we are all heading towards is our iman and our amal saliha — our belief and our righteous actions. And when it comes to our iman, there are many different ahadith of Rasulullah ﷺ defining iman and giving us different alamat and indicators that a person has iman, and different virtues of iman, and different ahadith on how to build one's iman.

Iman: Between Hope and Fear

One of the ahadith wherein Rasulullah ﷺ is explaining one of the haqa'iq, one of the realities of iman from one particular perspective, is when he said:

The reality of iman is that which is between hope and fear.

This is a concept that on many different levels we remind one another of many times, and we have spoken about it here as well. But the reason I wanted to mention this once again is because of the different conditions that the ummah is going through.

On one side, we have our beautiful iftars and our parties, and inshallah we have a very beautiful, happy, joyous occasion of nikah coming up after this jumu'ah as well — from a dear friend, very close to our heart, his son, a former student is getting married. So we have these joyous occasions — we have nikah and parties and aqiqas and children are being born. And at the same time we have different tragedies that are happening, at an individual level and at a collective level, that bring pain to the heart.

And in our own spiritual journey towards Allah as well, we go through certain conditions — what in suluk is known as bast and qabdh. Sometimes things are opening up and we are enjoying the dhikr of Allah, we are enjoying the halawa and sweetness of the recitation of the Quran, we are truly feeling the dua — that emotional connection to Allah in our dua, in our tahajjud, at the time of iftar.

And other times — na'udhu billah, may Allah forgive us — the fast may seem like a burden, or our heart is disinclined from standing in taraweeh, our heart is turning away from good actions, our heart is lusting for the carnal desires of the nafs, of shahawat. So these are the conditions that we continue to fluctuate between.

Allah also mentions about this world:

And that it is He who makes one laugh and makes one weep. Sometimes He will bring such conditions that will make you laugh, and sometimes He will bring such conditions that will make you cry. This is the nature of this world. In this dunya there is happiness and sadness, poverty and richness, health and sickness, life and death. Whereas in the akhirah, Allah has separated: one is the place of Jannah, where there is eternal pleasure and happiness, and the other — the place of Jahannam — is eternal pain and suffering.

So as we are going through these conditions, how do we maintain that balance? Because the reality of iman, as mentioned by Rasulullah ﷺ, is al-imanu bayna al-raja' wa al-khawf — the reality of iman is between hope and fear.

The Wisdom of Ibn 'Ata'illah al-Iskandari

Many people have said many things — many different philosophers, many different Hakim al-Ummah and Hakim al-Islam — have tried to explain this concept. But one of the most succinct, and subhanAllah eloquent, and very deep, and very beautiful, and appealing to the mind and the heart statements — that in my limited reading I came across, that really impacted me — I wanted to share. I believe I have shared it before as well, but once again, this following statement from Kitab al-Hikam of Ibn 'Ata'illah al-Iskandari rahmatullah alayh really summarizes the whole matter.

As we are traveling towards Allah, sometimes we are overcome with ya's — despondency — and a person loses hope in Allah, or loses hope in himself. Losing hope in Allah is very dangerous, because that is actual kufr. Allah speaks about that as kufr in the Quran:

Do not lose hope in the mercy of Allah. Losing hope in the mercy of Allah is kufr. And on the other extreme, considering oneself Jannah-secure — that a person cannot ever be faced with punishment, and that Jannah belongs to him, that he has a confirmed place in Jannah — that is also a way of khasarah, of loss. Allah says:

Those who feel they are immune from the punishment of Allah, that Allah cannot catch them — those are the khasiroon, the losers.

The Statement of Ibn 'Ata'illah

So what did Ibn 'Ata'illah al-Iskandari rahmatullah alayh say? He said:

(Ibn 'Ata'illah al-Iskandari, Kitab al-Hikam)

He said: if a person wants that the door of hope should open up for his heart, and his heart should be filled with hope from Allah — positive energy that will motivate him when he is losing hope, looking around at the conditions of the world, looking at his own condition — perhaps he is saying to himself: "Ramadan has come, and people are coming towards the house of Allah, people are fasting, people are doing sadaqa, people are doing all these good deeds, and yet, O nafs, O my nafs, you are so wretched, you are still not coming under control, I have lost hope in you, and there is no way that you can ever be rectified." He loses hope with himself, or he loses hope with the conditions of the ummah — what's happening in Gaza, what's happening here, what's happening there. He loses hope entirely. So if he is in such a condition of hopelessness, what should he do?

Ibn 'Ata'illah says: fashahid ma minhu ilayk — sit down and contemplate, ponder, and reflect, meditate for some time on ma minhu ilayk: what are all of the blessings that are coming to you from Allah? Because you have completely sidelined that, you have ignored it, you have forgotten about it. Think about all the blessings Allah has given you.

Contemplating Allah's Blessings — Opening the Door of Hope

And once you start contemplating over what Allah has granted you, then there is no way that your heart cannot be filled with hope.

Allah has granted us existence — wujood. He created us and made us human beings, made us among the ashraf al-makhluqat, the best of His creation:

Then after He made us the best of His creation, He made us from the best of the umam:

You are the best nation. We did not apply for this, we did not make any effort to belong to this ummah. This was something that He created us into. And subhanAllah, He chose us to be in this ummah. Just as Allah chose Rasulullah ﷺ to be the Khatam al-Anbiya', He also chose the ummah of the Khatam al-Anbiya' to be the khayr al-umam.

Allah has selected you. And:

He has selected us. So, Allahu Akbar — we must have something! There is no reason to lose hope. There must be something within us — perhaps we are not recognizing our own worth. Maybe there are good qualities, many mashallah capabilities and potential within us that we are not realizing. Because Allah has seen something in us — that is why He put us in this ummah. He granted us the honor of being in this ummah.

The honor of this ummah will become manifest on the Day of Judgment. Rasulullah ﷺ has said:

Verily, Jannah is forbidden to the Prophets until I enter it, and it is forbidden to the nations until my ummah enters it.

This is the honor of this ummah. We will see the honor in many different ways. Allah says:

The Honor of Being Witnesses on the Day of Judgment

In a court system, there is a lot of honor and power and authority that is given to the witness. Because it is based on the testimony of the witness that the entire system is in play. The judge is in a position of honor — all arise, the judge has entered the court. But why does the judge have honor? Because he is making the decision. But based on what? Based on the testimony of the witness. So the witness has a lot of power in a court system.

On the Day of Judgment, Allah will establish an elaborate system of justice — even though He has absolutely no need to do so. As He said:

There is no one who can dare question Allah about what He does, and He will ask everyone else why they have done what they have done. He doesn't need to do anything — He could put everyone in Jahannam or everyone in Jannah. No one can ask Him. That is within His qudrah. But it is contrary to His sunnatullah. He will not put His believing servants in Jahannam. And if He wishes, He may forgive someone and enter them into Jannah — that is up to Him. But He will definitely not commit zulm on anyone.

In any case, Allah has established justice on the Day of Judgment. There will be different witnesses testifying for people and against people. And there is also:

The scale of justice — to weigh the deeds, to weigh the books. SubhanAllah. Amongst the witnesses will be the earth itself:

On that day the earth will testify what has happened. So the earth is a witness. And:

We will seal their mouths, their hands will speak forth, and their feet will testify about what they used to earn. And they will say to their body parts:

"Why are you testifying against us?" They will say: "Allah has given us the ability to speak today — He who gave you the ability to speak in the dunya." So the body parts will testify, and the earth will testify. The books are there — كِرَامًا كَاتِبِينَ يَعْلَمُونَ مَا تَفْعَلُونَ — and:

They will find their actions present in their books. Allah will say:

"Read your own book. It is sufficient for you to determine where you belong." And when they look at the book they will say:

"What is with this book?! Every minor and major sin — everything is present in this book." So all of these evidences will act against a person or in favor of a person on that Day of Judgment.

The Ummah as Witnesses for the Anbiya

So in that same system of justice and witnesses — Allahu Akbar — the nations of the past will come to Allah, and they are clutching at any straw, as a drowning man, coming up with any excuse when they see the fire of Jahannam in front of them.

That day a person will take heed and reflect, but it is too late. So they will say, when the case is brought against them — the Prophets came and invited you, and you rejected — they will say:

"No warner came, no bringer of glad tidings came — this is false, no Prophet ever came to us." So that is an outright lie, but they will take whatever option is available to get out of that impending, everlasting damnation in the fire of Jahannam. So then the Prophets will say that they did their job, they gave da'wah. And the nations will say: "No, we never saw you before — who are you, where did you come from?"

So Allah will ask the Prophets: "Do you have any witnesses in your favor?" They will be struggling to find a witness because everyone is denying. Then the ummah of Rasulullah ﷺ — that is you and I — Allah is creating this whole system just to give us honor: that we will testify in favor of the Anbiya against their nations.

You will testify against the people of the past in favor of the Anbiya — that these Anbiya did their task and fulfilled their responsibility in their mission, and these disbelievers are lying. But obviously everyone should have a big question in their mind: how in the world does this make sense? How is this possible? For eyewitness testimony, you have to be there. And we came, frankly, centuries afterwards.

So this will be the exact same objection that the mushrikeen are going to raise — that where did you come onto the scene? You weren't even there. How dare you interfere in our matter? Just be quiet and leave. They will try to disqualify the witness because he was not present — meaning us.

So then what will happen? We will say: subhanAllah, if we had been there and seen it with our eyes, we could testify. But we have more yaqeen and more conviction in what is narrated to us by al-Sadiq al-Amin — the most truthful messenger who received the revelation from Allah — than in what we could see with our own eyes or hear with our own ears. So our Rasul ﷺ — the ayat of the Quran were revealed upon him, and he has narrated to us that the Anbiya fulfilled their respective missions. And:

They came and they invited their people — it is mentioned in the Quran. And the Rasul ﷺ will come and testify in our favor and say: "Yes, O Allah, this is what You revealed unto me, and I relayed it to my ummah." So in any case, Allah has given this ummah so much maqam. We are in that ummah.

Opening the Door of Fear — Contemplating Our Deeds

So if we want hope — and now the time is ending — let us go back to the original statement. What did Ibn 'Ata'illah say?

Idha aradta an yanfataha laka babu al-raja' — if you want the door of hope to open up for you, when you are feeling down and depressed, sad about your own condition or the condition of the ummah, then fashahid ma minhu ilayk — contemplate over the blessings that He has granted you. And this contemplation you can continue ila yawm al-qiyamah — it will never end. Because the blessings of Allah are beyond measure and count.

But we have to complete the sentence. On the other hand, if a person's heart is becoming complacent, so full of arrogance, with no motivation and no fear — and you want to create fear in the heart, to jolt it and awaken it from its slumber of forgetfulness — then what do you need to do? Wa idha aradta an yanfataha laka babu al-khawf — if you want the door of fear of Allah to open up in your heart, because you have lost all fear at the opposite extreme — then fashahid ma minka ilayh — sit down and contemplate, meditate, about what you are sending forth back to Allah.

What is coming from Allah to us are blessings, and what is going from us back to Allah are acts of disobedience — major acts of disobedience, minor acts of disobedience. Whenever He gave us a test, we did not make sabr. Whenever He gave us a blessing, we did not make shukr. How many blessings — qall laka biha shukruna — we never thanked you, O Allah. And how many calamities — we did not make sabr. And how many times, knowingly and unknowingly, in major and minor ways, in the day and the night, we have been disobeying You.

So if we just sit for a moment and reflect on our ma'asi — our sins, whether of omission or commission, whether we did wrong things or left out right things that we were supposed to do — then all of a sudden, there should be no other conclusion but that our hearts should begin to tremble with fear. What we have brought upon ourselves. What do we truly deserve. And how Allah could punish us if He so wishes. This is sufficient to bring fear into our hearts.

Ramadan: Glad Tidings and Warnings

So as we are in the month of Ramadan, to conclude and to make it relevant: there are two sides to the ahadith of Rasulullah ﷺ — he brought glad tidings and he brought warnings. While he mentioned all the virtues of the month of Ramadan, which we hear all the time and I did not go through them again this time — he also mentioned warnings.

He said:

Whoever stands in prayer on the Night of Qadr with faith and seeking reward, his previous sins are forgiven. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2014; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 760)

SubhanAllah — that is great. But at the same time he also said:

Whoever is deprived of its goodness is truly deprived. (Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 1644)

Whoever is deprived of doing ibadah on that night is completely mahroom — a deprived soul. When there is such an amazing gift from Allah, the doors of Jannah are open, the doors of Jahannam are closed, the shayateen are chained, and the ibadah is multiplied — then man hurima khayrahā faqad hurim: he is mahroom, he is completely deprived.

And subhanAllah, Rasulullah ﷺ said ameen to the curse of Jibra'il alayhi al-salam — for the one who finds the month of Ramadan and still does not secure his forgiveness.

Closing Du'a

So may Allah allow us to wake up to these opportunities that are all around us as we are going through this month of Ramadan, to allow us to benefit from these beautiful blessings, not to become amongst the deprived ones, and to attain the reality of that iman which is between hope and fear.

Announcements

جَزَاكُمُ اللَّهُ خَيْرًا — السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ. We have some important announcements.

Some special du'a requests. We have, of course, our dear brothers and sisters who are still suffering in Gaza and throughout the world — we make du'a for them. One of our staff members' father is having an angioplasty today — please make du'a.

Muhammad al-Zahir Hussain, the Shalimar Banquet's manager — who worked with Dar es Salaam and many other organizations, hundreds of organizations, for all of their fundraising dinners — passed away. إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ His janazah salah was at IC in Ogden today, first Jumu'ah. The burial is at Arlington Cemetery in Elmhurst. Brother Masood Alam Khan also passed away in Pakistan — please make du'a. Brother Abdul Hadi, a 10-year-old boy, is going into brain surgery — please make du'a for him.

Please also pass the donation boxes. صَدَقَةٌ تَدْفَعُ الْبَلَاءَ — it wards off calamities and draws the mercy of Allah.

Please note that we have a lot of different programs happening:

Tonight — One-Night No-Tech I'tikaf for Brothers (Ages 18–25) at Masjid Dar es Salaam. There will be Quran and nasheed night, guided individual ibadah, Islamic trivia, board games, IT snacks, suhoor from Slice, and halaqas with Mufti Azeem Uddin. Please RSVP. This is an amazing program for the youth.

Tonight — Sister Sanctuary: Reflect, Revive, and Reconnect — Friday, March 15th. Sisters ages 16 and up are invited to a halaqa in the masjid with du'a, dinner, and dessert, led by our female alimat.

Tomorrow — Father and Son I'tikaf — Saturday, March 16th, 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. There will be separate sessions: for fathers — The Art of Fatherhood: Balancing Mercy and Discipline; for early teens — sessions on good company, selecting friends, and resisting peer pressure; and for younger kids — a blessing hunt, exploring Allah's gifts. Different speakers with specifically tailored programs for all segments of the ummah. This is a first-time program — all the way until suhoor, then they can go home and rest on Sunday.

Tomorrow — Annual Community Iftar — Saturday, March 16th, for brothers, sisters, and the entire family, with dhikr, du'a, etc. Everyone is requested to join us.

May Allah accept all our ibadah.