10 Steps to Perfect Faith

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim - In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful!

Firstly, my heart felt condolences to four: To Bibi Fatima (AS) on the death of her father; so hard it must have been to have to give permission to the angel of death to come into your house to take the soul of the most purified Prophet of Allah! To the Aimmah (AS) and the family of the Holy Prophet (SAW). To the people from the Ummah of the Prophet who are saddened by this heartbreaking event. And finally, the sincerest of my condolences to the Imam of our time (ATF).

In a lecture given by Sheikh Shahnawaz Mahdavi, the problems faced by our Holy Prophet were conveyed in a very analytical manner which covered some fine aspects of how much the Holy Prophet loved Islam. He began by saying that when something is free, we tend to minimize its worth, and neglect it. We do this with our faith as well, where as the Holy Prophet (SAW) used so much effort to bring Islam to us, that he is qouted to have said that he was troubled the most compared to all other Prophets of Allah!

6 main methods of the Quraysh were highlighted, including firstly the calling of names such as Madman and Magician, when that didn't work, there was disgracing the character by attributing false wrong deeds to the Holy Prophet. Then when people were still turning to Islam they even tortured the followers, and the next stage was the boycott of Banu Hashim, which lasted for three years, but still after the three years, Islam was getting stronger. This left them with little choice, either to imprison the Holy Prophet, drive him to exile or kill him. They decided that even in prison and exile he would still convert people to Islam so they decided to kill him, and that was when he was forced to migrate to Yathrib(Madina).

After all these failed they still tried to stop the message of Islam by using military power, where in the battle of Khandak, 10,000 men were sent to Yathrib and they also had inside influence of the remaining Jews within Yathrib. But alas, it was to no avail, and this victory made the Muslim empire a superpower of the time! So as a final blow the evil people decided to stop Islam from the inside by pretending to accept Islam and gaining power then destroying it's principles. And these people have been given the worst of punishments in hell, they are known as the Hypocrits!

With all this trouble which was faced by the Holy Prophet, he had struggled so hard that we still have Islam today, if it was not for his great determination to spread the true message, it would have been corrupted by this time, but we find more than 1400 years later there is still the perfect religion among us!

The verse quoted in the beginning is from sure Baqarah verse 177, and the Holy Prophet has said that whosoever acts up to this (one) verse has attained perfection in faith. This is because it conveys the "practical" piety in a clear and distinct manner. Belief in God and benevolence towards mankind have been outlined as the essence of this perfect religion, and no man can argue with the correctness of that!

It is interpreted by some commentators that the turning of the faces towards the east and the west refer to an aspiration for the conquest of the countries in these directions which is not the aim or the purpose of the Islamic faith. Rather the aim of this perfect religion is the attainment of virtue. For this process of attaining virtue; in accordance to the tafsir(commentary) in the translation by S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali, it is written that there are 10 conditions highlighted by this verse:

1st condition: Faith in ONE GOD!
2nd condition: Faith in the Day of Judgment
3rd condition: Faith in the Angels
4th condition: Faith in the Holy Book (Qur'an)
5th condition: Faith in the Prophets of God
6th condition: Spending from your wealth for the love of God; with the following preferences,
A) Nearest Relations
B) Helpless Orphans
C) Poor
D) Helpless Wayfarers
E) To liberate captives or slaves
7th condition: Keeping up the prescribed prayer
8th condition: Paying the prescribed poor rate
9th condition: Fulfilling all the promises you make
10th condition: Being patient in times of distress and in times of conflict

Thus Zuhair's View:
All these conditions prescribed to us within this verse would be noted by any intelligent reader as being superb qualities to adopt into anyone's life.
To complete the post today I would like to send salutations on the man who brought to us this great religion and worked so hard to keep it alive throughout his entire life:
"ALLAHUMA SALLI ALA MUHAMMADIN WA AALI MUHAMMAD!!!"

This post is as always open to any criticism and comment. May Allah(SWT) guide us all to the straight path, upon which are the purified ones and away from which are the wrong doers, and unjust.

Islam in the Economy

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim - In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful!

The Economists of this day and age have based most of their derived principles on one basic theory; the profit maximization theory of a firm. This theory indicates that all firms want to maximize profits. We find, what is known as, the consumer perceived value is to be increased to attain more profits, because even though a good or service may have a low (actual) monetary value, if the customer feels that it is valuable, he is willing to pay more for it.

There are different ways to increase the perceived value of an item, in some cases increasing the cost of the item would actually increase its perceived value, like when we go shopping and find two items which seem to be the same but have different price tags, it would seem obvious to us that the one which is expensive is the one which has better quality.

So in this process of "playing the market" we find that the firms; due their intention of maximizing profits, end up becoming un-Islamic. As we see in the time of Nabi Shu'ayb (AS), the people also wanted to maximize profits, and they too had tried using the method of increasing consumer perceived value by playing with the weights and scales. The only difference is that today with the advancement of technology, we have found different means to increase this perceived value, but the concept of the principle remains the same. And what was the punishment of the people of Madyan; to whom the Prophet Shu'ayb (AS) was sent? A drought was caused upon them, through the lack of winds, after which a dark cloud came over them which they went under for shade from the drought, and when that happened, an earthquake caused their annihilation to the point where no one could tell that they had ever existed!!

Islam on the other hand teaches us to work and earn so as to provide for your family, but not to maximize profits at any cost, rather to buy and sell at the actual values, and not the perceived values. It is not always about the money, but it is always about the pleasure of Allah (SWT)!!

In a further analysis of the ayat which I began with, let us look at the tafsirs by two great Mufassireen: (Sura-e-Hud, Ayat 84)

Tafsir Al-Mizaan (Allama Tabatabai):

- Prophet Shu'ayb (AS) invited the people to stop their bad deeds and injustice, to the point that the Holy Prophet (SAW) said, "Prophet Shu'ayb was the orator of the Prophets."

- Prophet Shu'ayb (AS) used to live in Madyan itself, and from the way Allah calls him their 'brother' shows that he had kinship and relationship with them.

- Out of all the sins, this ayat points out the people's bad habit of cheating in their sale and not weighing the scales properly, indicating that this sin was the most apparent, and had spread everywhere, so much that its terrible ill-effects could be seen everywhere - and therefore it was necessary that a person should be appointed by Allah to invite them to avoid this particular sin, before inviting them towards other things.

- From the sentence "...surely I see you in prosperity..." and those before and after it (serve Allah, and fear of Qiyaamat), we can extract the meaning that Prophet Shu'ayb (AS) was using two ways to invite the people to avoid the sin of cheating:
1) since they had so many riches and were well-off, they needed not cheat and oppress others.
2) If they disobeyed Allah, they would have to face an inescapable punishment on Qiyaamat.

- The word "khair" above may also refer to the fact that Prophet Shu'ayb (AS) was telling the people that he is their well-wisher and wants nothing but their good by advising them. If this is the case, then even the warning against the punishment of Qiyaamat may be part of his good intentions for his people.


Tafsire Noor (Sheikh Qaraa'ati):

"And to Madyan..."
- The sending of prophets by Allah was a steady stream throughout history.
- The message of Prophet Shu'ayb (AS) was within the boundary of Madyan (only).

"...their brother..."
- Each prophet that was sent to a particular tribe, was from that same tribe.

"...serve Allah, you have no other god than He..."
- Monotheism is based on the recognition that there is only one God.
- Serving Allah is not sufficient; one has to avoid the polytheists and polytheism as well.

"...do not give short measure and weight..."
- The prophets did not only talk about akhlaq and belief; they also talked about the problems of economy.

"...surely I see you in prosperity (khair)..."
- Imam Sadiq (AS) has referred to this part of the ayat as referring to lots of goods and richness.
- This shows that prosperity and riches on their own are not enough to prevent people from cheating.
- By these kind words we can derive that one should be encouraging and be considerate of people's feelings while doing Nahi Anil Munkar.

"...serve Allah...I fear for you the punishment of an all-encompassing day."
- The Prophets' main word was always an indication of the beginning and end of man's life (i.e Tawheed and Qiyaamat)

"...do not give short measure and weight...I fear for you the punishment of an all-encompassing day."
- Belief in Qiyaamat provides the ground for Taqwa and avoiding sins.

"...I fear for you the punishment of an all-encompassing day."
- There is no escape from the wrath of Allah.

Thus Zuhair's View:
We have to be aware of the extent which we can go to inorder to obtain our livelihoods, there is no point to become rich in this world when in the end we are poor in the next! Let us remember to always buy and sell at the price which relates to the actual value of the commodity rather than the consumer perceived value.

Any arguments, comments or suggestions are most welcome! May Allah guide us all to the right path, on which are the purified ones, and away from which are the unjust and wrong doers!!

Death

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim - In the Name of Allah; the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.

It is within the nature of man to have his actions motivated by a goal. This nature is present in every human being, whether we are aware of it or not. Each and every action we do has to have a goal we plan on achieving, even self sacrifice for the sake of someone else, the goal is the happiness of the other person; although a selfless goal, but a goal none the less.

This goes on to prove that since we are living life, there must be a goal we have in mind, or else we wouldn't choose to live anymore, but on the contrary we find our lives are very precious to us. Some may find that the goal they choose to be their primary goal to live life is very insubstantial and trivial; in that it could perish easily before they themselves live life fully, and thereby causing them to be catapulted into the realm of depression.

But for those who know the truth; that this life is but a passing phase that even the prophet Nuh (Noah) after having lived for hundreds of years, when asked, said it felt like he had just moved from the sun into the shade... for these people who know that after this life is when the true existence actually begins... for them their choice of goals is the true choice, a goal which has nothing to do with this inconsequential world, but rather a goal which s not deterred by the eminent death lurking in the shadows at every turn; the goal of attaining cloaseness to the Only Existence Which has Existed and Which will Exist for eternity!!

We find that this goal is the only goal which makes sense logically, for every other goal is temporary. And yet we find those who don't believe in the Existence of God; but can't they see, death itself is a proof that God has to exist?? Is there anyone alive today who can claim to be abstained from death???

What is death? We find that a human being who has incurred this phenomenon known as death may still have his organs working, but something seems to have been removed from him. Isn't it obvious then that there must be a spiritual aspect to life? where once the person is dead, the spirit has to have left his body? And then comes the question that if this is so, then where does the spirit go after death, and where does the spirit come from before birth??

In the verse mentioned in the beginning we find that we will be returning to The Knower of the unseen and the seen after our deaths, and that He will inform us of what we used to do. The journey known as Barzakh, begins at this time, where we are tried continuously. And then we have Qiyamah(The Day of Judgement) where our deeds will be weighed. All this gives us reason to live the life of a pure Muslim, but even more than that is the reason of Allah(SWT) Himself deserving to be worshiped.

We are supposed to look at death as something to look forward to and not to fear it, as Imam Ali (AS) says about the Lovers of God:

"With their bodies they associated with this world while their souls in suspense in the company of the highest ones. Had not been their terms which had been ordained by God on them, their souls would not have stayed in their bodies."

But at the same time we need to consider this life as a time to prepare ourselves as Allah does not create anything without purpose, and thus we have the narration from Imam Hassan which states:

"Behave , in this world , in such a way as if you will be living forever , and for the world hereafter act in a way as if you'll die tomorrow."

Thus Zuhairs View:

We need to prepare ourselves for death, because it could come to us at any moment, and in regard to death we should have two opinions, the first is that we are returning to our Lord, and thus we should pleased to be closer to Him. But on the other hand this life given to us is a gift from Him, so we should make the most of it and attain as high a station as possible within the short time available.

Please feel free to add or agrue any of the points i have brought about. May Allah(SWT) Guide us all to the right path, on which are the purified ones, and away from which are the unjust and wrong doers.