Remedying Doubts and Desires-Mufti Minhajuddin Ahmed

Opening

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the Master of the Messengers, and the Seal of the Prophets, and upon his pious and pure family, and upon those who follow them with good till the Day of Judgment and beyond.

Allah, the Exalted, said in the decisive revelation, after I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan:

Guide us to the straight path, the path of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not of those who have incurred Your Wrath, nor of those who are astray. Ameen.

Sadaqallahul Azeem. My dear respected brothers and elders in Islam, السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

The Central Importance of Salah

We know that the most important obligation in our deen, after stating the Kalima Shahada — أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ — is Salah itself.

It is Ra'sul Ibadat — the highest form of worship of Allah. أَوَّلُ مَا يُحَاسَبُ بِهِ الْعَبْدُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ — the first thing a person will have to give an account for on the Day of Judgment.

And the position of Salah in Islam is like that of the head in the body. As Rasulullah said:

(Reported by al-Tabarani in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat; also referenced in various compilations of Islamic scholarship)

The position of Salah in Islam is like that of the head in the body.

And in this Salah that we perform, fulfilling this obligation, in every single Raka'ah we are obligated to recite Surah Al-Fatiha. Rasulullah has said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 756; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 394)

There is no Salah without Surah Al-Fatiha.

In every Raka'ah — the first, second, third, fourth — whether it is Fard or Nafl, whether it is Wajib or Sunnah, whether it is Jumu'ah or Dhuhr, whether it is Isha or Taraweeh, whatever the Salah we may be performing, we recite Surah Al-Fatiha in every Raka'ah. If you are performing 20 Raka'ah of Taraweeh, then 20 times you recite Surah Al-Fatiha — the same surah every single time, in every Raka'ah.

The Du'a of Guidance in Al-Fatiha

And in this, we are asking from Allah — after praising Him and thanking Him for His blessings and glorifying Him — then what do we do? We are seeking guidance from Him. We make du'a to Allah:

O Allah, guide us to the straight path.

And this straight path that we are seeking guidance to is further defined, qualified, and described:

The path of those whom You have favoured. So there are people whom Allah has favoured, and Allah has selected them, and Allah has shown His pleasure regarding them, and we are seeking from Allah that we should be able to follow their path. Who are those? They are the Anbiya, Nabiyyeen, Siddiqeen, Shuhada, and Saliheen. As Allah Himself defines and identifies them:

Indeed those whom Allah has favoured, they are the Prophets of Allah, the Siddiqeen — the righteous followers of the Prophets — the Shuhada — those who gave their lives for the sake of Allah — and Saliheen, the righteous ones. They are the best companions a person can ever hope to have in Jannah. وَحَسُنَ أُولَٰئِكَ رَفِيقًا

But then it does not stop there. Further it is defined by Allah:

Not the path of those who have earned the anger of Allah, nor the path of those who have gone astray.

Two Great Trials: Shubuhat and Shahawat

So these two specific groups have been identified. And this is worth consideration. We should ponder over this, we should reflect on this — why are these two groups mentioned here? And who is Allah referring to? And why is He singling these two out?

The scholars explain for us that Allah is defining for us that all of us in our lives, we are undergoing two different types of trials. Two different types of tests. One is the test of Shubuhat, and one is the test of Shahawat.

Fitnatu Shubuhat and Fitnatu Shahawat.

Fitnatu Shubuhat — The Trial of Doubts

Fitnatu Shubuhat are tests pertaining to doubts — intellectual doubts that creep into our faith. A person begins to have doubt in his faith. He begins to doubt the existence of the Creator. He begins to doubt in the existence of Allah. He begins to doubt in the veracity of the Book of Allah — that truly this is a revealed word of Allah, these are not made up words, Muhammad did not come up with these words on his own, these are definitely the words of Allah. He begins to have doubts regarding that. He begins to have doubts regarding the prophethood of Muhammad. How do I truly know he was a Prophet of Allah? These types of doubts start creeping up. A person becomes confused with regards to his aqeedah, with regards to his belief. And this is a very dangerous trial, because this could actually take a person out of the fold of Islam itself.

Fitnatu Shahawat — The Trial of Desires

And then the second trial is Fitnatu Shahawat. Shahawat are the carnal desires of the lower base self — the desires of the flesh, the sins of the flesh. The first category dealt with intellectual doubts; in the mind a person is confused. The second is that a person may not be confused mentally. He knows what's right and wrong. He has no ambiguity in knowing what is the right thing to do and what is the wrong thing to do. Yet despite knowing what's right and wrong, he is not able to conquer his inner desires. And knowingly, without any confusion, he ends up doing wrong things — disobeying Allah. It could include hurting himself or hurting others, not fulfilling the rights of Allah and not fulfilling the rights of fellow human beings. This is the problem of Shahawat — following the inner desires.

So Allah is identifying for us that if you want to be on the straight path, and if you seek the Siratul Mustaqeem, we have to ensure that we do not fall into these two traps. And then He mentions two groups in the past who fell prey to these respective trials. They lost in this battle. They were not able to come out of this test successfully. They failed. One is the Nasara and one is the Yahud.

The Yahud: Those Who Earned the Anger of Allah

The first one, the Yahud — Allah says that they had no ambiguity, no cloudiness in their understanding. They were very, very clear. They had clear understanding of what is truth and what is false, who the Anbiya are, and what their teachings are. Yet because of hasad — jealousy — because of kibr — arrogance — because of these inner sicknesses, they were not able to accept the truth. In fact, beyond rejecting the Prophets of Allah, they assassinated the Prophets of Allah:

They used to kill the Prophets of Allah. Zakariya was assassinated — he is a Prophet of Allah, but he was assassinated and cut in half. Yahya was beheaded. Many of the Prophets of Allah were killed by these people. Knowing that this is a genuine Prophet of Allah, that he is speaking on behalf of Allah, that he comes with the guidance from God — yet they disbelieved in him. Beyond refuting and disbelieving, they actually ended up killing those Prophets. So this is the people who earned the anger of Allah. That's why Allah says: مَغْضُوبٌ عَلَيْهِمْ — those who earned the anger of Allah. And this group is described in the first surah that follows — Surah Al-Baqarah.

And Allah says:

They earned the anger of Allah upon anger. Because despite understanding what is the truth, they chose to reject it — based on not liking the truth, based on the nafs, based on kibr and arrogance.

When the Prophet migrated to Madinah Munawwara, then the Jews who were living in Madinah Munawwara recognized him. They knew him to be the Prophet of Allah, as all the signs that had been foretold in the Torah were fulfilled in his noble person. Allah says:

They recognized him — they had no doubt that he was the Prophet of Allah — just like a father has no doubt in recognizing his own son. Yet:

When the Prophet came — the one they recognized, the one they knew to be the final Prophet they had been waiting for — yet they denied him. Why? Because he was from Bani Ismail, not from Bani Israel. He came from the Arabs; he did not come from their family. So they rejected him. They were waiting for the final Prophet to come from their family, from the Bani Israel, but he happened to be an Arab. So out of prejudice — why is this Prophet from the Arabs and not from our family — they chose to reject him despite recognizing him.

The Nasara: Those Who Went Astray

The other extreme — Allah mentioned in Surah Ali Imran about the Nasara — is that they had the purest intentions, the best wishes, the cleanest hearts, and were the most humble people. They did not have any ounce of arrogance. Very, very humble and soft people. But what happened is that there was confusion regarding Isa. Allah says:

They did not kill Isa, they did not crucify Isa; rather they fell into different doubts regarding him. Some people said he himself is God. Some people said no, he is one third of God. Some said he is the son of God — all different beliefs regarding Isa. Some said he is a Prophet of God — no, there is only one God and he is a Prophet. There was a minority who kept to the belief that we maintain.

This was not out of spite or out of hatred of Isa. This was because of confusion. They saw the miracles right from the birth. The birth itself was a miraculous birth without a father. And thereafter Allah gave him those miracles — that:

And the one who is Akmah is not only blind, but the one who was born blind and never had vision — it's not that the vision was weak and was restored, but the one who never had vision from birth, I am able to restore his vision with the permission of Allah. And the one who is a leper, I am able to cure him with the permission of Allah. And even the one who is dead was brought back to life with the permission of Allah.

So seeing all these miracles, and seeing the birth being such a miraculous birth, all of these outward conditions led to confusion regarding his nature, and people ended up coming to such beliefs which are contrary to our correct belief of monotheism — about the oneness of Allah:

Say, Allah is the One. He is independent of His entire creation, and the entire creation is dependent upon Him. Neither does He have any children, nor is He begotten by any parents. And none of His creation can ever be like unto Him in any respect — neither in respect to His being nor His attributes. He is absolutely independent from His entire creation.

So they made a major, major blunder — how did this happen? Because of lack of knowledge, lack of clarity. So these are the two groups:

We do not want to become one of those who fall prey to their passions and desires having all the knowledge in the world, nor do we want to become among those who have the purest hearts and intentions but do not have clear vision and understanding and knowledge, and end up committing major blunders in aqeedah and belief. These are the two paths that we are specifically being called to seek protection from following.

The Solutions: Ilm and Tazkiyah

So how does this relate to us? All of us in our own lives, we have to find that we are going through tests and trials. There is no one who is not going through a test or a trial. There are those of us who have the Fitnatu Shubuhat — different doubts creep up in our minds about our beliefs. What is the solution to conquering this Fitnatu Shubuhat? It is that we have to acquire knowledge. The solution is ilm, ta'lim. By acquiring knowledge, by attending duroos of ulema, lectures of ulema, halaqat of ulema, studying the books written by scholars — all the doubts that we have have been answered by scholars. But we have to take the time out to go and search for the truth and learn it. So the solution to the first problem is that we have to acquire ilm.

And the solution to the second problem of shahawat is that we have to acquire tazkiyah. Tazkiyah is purification of the heart. Tarbiyah of the nafs. Islahul batin, tazkiyatur ruh, islahun nafs — all of these various words which mean the same thing. That despite having all the knowledge, being the greatest scholar and knowing everything, if a person does not purify his heart, he is not able to conquer his inner desires and subjugate that nafs — that internal force which is ammarah bissu, propelling him and pushing him towards evil — then all the knowledge in the world will be of no avail.

Iblis, the father of all the shayateen, had great knowledge. He was mu'allimul malaika — teacher of the angels. But despite having such great knowledge, he became Shaytanur Rajeem — the cursed one. Allah said to him:

You are expelled from the Jannah. You are cursed until the Day of Judgment. What led to his downfall is that despite having ilm, he did not have tazkiyah of the nafs. He had kibr — arrogance. When he saw the order of Allah to make sajdah to Adam, he rebelled. He said:

You created me from fire, You created him from dirt — how can I ever bow down to the one created from dirt? He used his logic, which had been helping him in his ilm — to understand concepts and to become a great student of knowledge — but that same logic he now applied against Allah's order. He missed the basic logic: don't look at the nature of the command, look at who is giving the command. The command is issuing from Allah, so therefore it is worthy of acceptance and you need to submit to that order. Do not look at the nature of the command and start to dissect it and see if it's appropriate or not. This basic logic escaped him. What blinded him was his arrogance.

Our Need for Knowledge in All Aspects of Life

So each one of us has to look into our lives. Where are we failing? Is it due to lack of knowledge? We have very limited knowledge of the religion, my dear brothers and sisters of Islam. We are under this illusion that we have studied enough, that we know what's right and wrong. Those who are performing salah, those who are giving their zakah, those who are fasting in the month of Ramadan, going for Hajj multiple times, those who are practising the deen — we are actually very, very far from fulfilling the fard requirement of how much knowledge of deen we require. Because ibadat and worship is just one part of our deen.

First of all, even in the fulfilment of these ibadat, there are many, many gaps with respect to our ilm. Performing the salah in the correct manner, discharging our zakah in the correct manner, performing our Hajj and Umrah in the correct manner — all of these ibadat, if you go back and study, you will find that there are many gaps in our ilm. But our deen is not even limited to the ibadat. What about mu'amalat and dealings? What about mu'ashara and social life? What about akhlaq, character, adab, etiquettes? These are other branches of our deen in which we are completely at a loss.

So there are many people who might be punctual in salah. And there might be a woman, for example, who recites the Quran every day and never misses her Tahajjud salah. But she did not study the fiqh of nikah, the fiqh of divorce. She never had an opportunity. She does not know — for example, maybe she was caught up in a very troublesome marriage and Allah Ta'ala gave her najat and saved her from that, and she ended up getting free from that oppressive husband. Now, due to the law of the land and the culture, she applies for marital support and alimony after the marriage, and she is now taking that money from that ex-husband. But she never went and learned the fiqh of divorce — what is the responsibility of a husband? It is to take care of the wife during marriage. Financially taking care of the wife during marriage is the responsibility of the husband. And if the marriage terminates, during the iddah period — but who knows that after the iddah period, it is haram for her to force the husband to pay for her throughout the rest of her life? After that, financially, her responsibility is upon her father if he is earning, or brothers if they are earning, or older son if he is earning. But no one studies the fiqh of divorce. We barely study the fiqh of salah. Who has time to study the fiqh of divorce and the fiqh of marriage?

So now this person is eating haram money the entire life. The very righteous, pious woman who is performing Tahajjud salah is living on haram income — even though the court order might be in her favour, it is still haram. Because the husband — unless the husband, for example, from his own side, says, "okay, I want to support the mother of my children," and he decides to do so — that's fine, that's great, it will make it halal for her. But if he doesn't want to, it is not halal for a Muslim. The wealth of any Muslim, the property of any Muslim, is not halal unless he is pleased to give it to you. If he is being forced to give it through a court order — and so many such cases exist in our community, where 50%, 60%, 80% of his income is going away — this would not be halal.

So who is going to teach the fiqh? We have to learn it. Whatever condition we might be in, whatever business we might be involved in — a person might go to great lengths to ensure he buys 100% zabiha halal meat, but the income with which he is buying that halal meat is haram money. With haram money you buy halal meat, or with the most halal income you buy haram meat — at the end of the day, what you are ingesting, what you are digesting, and what is becoming part of your body would be haram. So we have to ensure the way we earn is halal, the way we spend is halal, the way we worship Allah is correct, the way we interact with each other is correct — our fiqh of mu'amalat.

So there is a lot of knowledge that we are lacking as a community. We need to acquire that ilm. This will remove all the shubuhat and doubts that we have — ilm regarding our aqaid, our beliefs. What does it mean when we say:

What does it mean to believe in Allah? What does it mean to believe in His dhat — His being — in His sifat, His attributes? What is the tawheed of Rububiyyah, the tawheed of Uluhiyyah? What does it mean to really believe in the oneness of Allah?

Due to lack of knowledge, a person might end up falling into shirk. Taking the attribute of Allah which belongs only to Him and giving it to someone else is also shirk. A person says, "I believe in one God," but those attributes that belong to the one God he assigns to someone else besides God — that is now shirk in the sifat. Allah alone is Alimul ghaybi wa shahada. And if you take the knowledge of Ilmul Ghayb and give it to someone else — إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ — only Allah we seek help from directly. But if you start calling upon others who are not present, asking them for help — "Ya Ali, come to our help, al-madad," "Ya Abdul Qadir al-Jilani rahimullah, come to our help, al-madad" — now we are calling to someone else besides Allah and seeking help from ghayrullah. This is now falling into shirk. Why? Because we did not acquire knowledge.

The Need for Tazkiyah After Knowledge

And then the second one — shahawat — is desire. Now a person has all the knowledge. He knows what the correct aqeedah is, he knows how to perform salah correctly, he knows how to marry correctly, and what are the fiqh of dealings, earning, and spending. After acquiring all the knowledge in the world, then he has to have the inner willpower to practice on the dictates of that knowledge. Just acquiring the knowledge is not sufficient. He has to conquer that nafs from inside, which will push him to not follow those teachings. And how will he do that? Through tazkiyah. What is tazkiyah? Through dhikr of Allah. Through remembering Allah, through different mujahadat and sacrifices, to conquer that nafs which is pushing him in the wrong direction.

This nafs, if we leave it in its natural state, it will push us towards the fire of Jahannam. But if you work on it — فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا — it can take you towards fujur or it can take you towards taqwa. It can take you towards the disobedience of Allah or it can take you towards the obedience of Allah after you work on it. Whoever has subdued this nafs — قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَا — whoever has purified it, indeed he is a successful one. وَقَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّاهَا — and the one who left it and allowed it to remain tarnished, he will indeed be unsuccessful.

In fact it is said:

The one who acquires more and more ilm, but he does not acquire zuhd and taqwa and tazkiyah along with it, then he is only becoming further and further away from Allah. The one who acquires more knowledge but did not acquire the tarbiyah and tazkiyah and rectification of his soul along with it, then he has only become further and further away from Allah.

Remaining in the company of the pious individuals, doing the dhikr of Allah daily, and depriving the nafs of its desires — these are all different tools to subjugate the nafs, which is necessary for our najah.

Surah Al-Asr: The Complete Formula for Success

That is why Allah concludes in Surah Al-Asr:

By swearing by time, Allah says: All mankind is in utter loss — except for those who believe and do righteous deeds. They are the only ones who are safe from destruction. Allah begins the surah by saying that by time itself, all of mankind is headed towards utter destruction — إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ — except for those who believe and do righteous deeds. So these are the only two conditions for success — iman and a'mal saliha, belief and righteous deeds. Everything is already included therein.

But then Allah specifically mentions two more: وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ — inviting one another towards haqq and inviting one another towards sabr.

And Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahullah mentions a beautiful point here. He says: aren't inviting towards haqq and inviting towards sabr already included in a'mal saliha? Are they good deeds or bad deeds? Naturally, everyone would agree they are good deeds. So وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ was already included there. Then why are they mentioned again? He said they are mentioned again to specifically invite our attention — to arrest our attention — and take it towards the two trials: the fitnah of shubuhat and shahawat. The مَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَالضَّالِّينَ — the ones who failed in those trials — the trials of doubts and desires, lack of knowledge and lack of tarbiyah of the nafs.

Allah, that's why, reminded us: تَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ — invite towards haqq. Inviting each other towards haqq will remove your shubuhat and doubts. The more you talk about Allah, the more you talk about the greatness of Allah, the more you talk about the angels of Allah, the more you talk about the Day of Judgment, the more you talk about the beliefs and aqaid — then all your shubuhat and doubts will vanish. That's why تَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ is a solution to the first problem — so we do not become مَغْضُوبٌ عَلَيْهِمْ, so we do not become الضَّالِّينَ, so we do not become those who have gone astray and those who lack knowledge.

And number two is تَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ. Sabr doesn't just mean to be patient at the time of calamity. Sabr also means to conquer the nafs. Conquering the nafs is the way to overcome the passions and desires. That is why these two have been mentioned separately. So how can we be successful in conquering our nafs? Through تَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ — inviting each other to be patient at the time of trials. And how can we remove all the jungle of doubts and clear them? Through تَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ — inviting one another towards haqq.

Conclusion

In conclusion, let us all look into our own lives. We see that there is a great amount of effort that is still required on both of these fronts. And if we engage in these efforts, inshallah, hopefully we can be successful. We will not be — inshallah — مَغْضُوبٌ عَلَيْهِمْ — those who are in the anger of Allah — nor among those who went astray, the ضَالِّين. Rather, inshallah, we will be raised with those أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ — those whom Allah has favoured — those who are on the Siratul Mustaqeem. May Allah make us among them.