The word faith (Ar. imān) is constantly mentioned in communities, bellowing from pulpits and lessons, floating through the classrooms of Islamic schools or, most importantly, whispering to us from a deep place inside our hearts. Faith walks with us; it is there when tears run down our cheeks, and it is there when we smile.  It carries us through the good times and the bad. Faith is more than just a definition found in books of theology. It is a reality that touches every aspect of our lives. Faith’s centrality in our lives is a proof of our Prophet’s ﷺ (peace be upon him) role as a teacher and proof of his greatness because he expanded it beyond a theological concept, beyond gnosis, to every facet of our being, to, as Chaplain Marc Manley likes to call it, “Operational Islām.” Such that when the Prophet ﷺ was asked, “What is the best act?” He responded, “Faith in God!”

Teaching Faith in The 21^st Century

In the last 10-15 years faith (Ar. aqîda) has provided us with a sense of identity. While establishing an identity rooted in faith is important, often these efforts expanded well beyond the designations of faith and disbelief, to a number of “intrafaith” wars that rocked communities, and in some cases, led to divorce. I plan to touch on this in the future. But, for now, it is important to understand that classical books on faith were written with 3 different philosophies:

1. To teach and inspire
2. To compare with Other Creeds
3. To argue

Sadly, in recent times, the second and third approaches were given more attention while the first was orphaned. This series of articles will be written using the first approach – to build, familiarize, and inspire us to live faith-based lives.

Faith and 5: Faith’s Application in the 18^th Chapter

The 18^th chapter of the Qur’an holds a special status. Read by a large number of us on Friday, it teaches that faith touches on five important aspects of our lives: learning, community, thankfulness and indifference, patience with God’s decree, and ethics with success.

Each and every one of us experiences one or more of these on a daily basis: where and what to study first is a constant question we ask; each day we are faced with a large number of injustices at political, economic and structural levels; each day we find ourselves amazed by the latest offerings this world has to offer and find ourselves rocked by the tide, and each day we are confronted with tests and trials, with power and success.

In short, each day is an opportunity for us to live faith. And that is one reason why I think reading the 18^th chapter of the Qur’an each week is so important. Instead of looking at the world outside of the mosque as a challenge, we should look at it as an opportunity to celebrate God’s blessings, to stand in the tide of evil and pronounce our dedication to something greater and purer: faith!

The First: Sources of Knowledge

The sources of correct spiritual knowledge are identified at the beginning of the 18th chapter: revelation that “has no deviance, straight” and the perfect model to follow, “upon His servant.” Thus, we are taught to place our understanding of the unseen, our understanding of God’s commands upon His perfect words, the Qur’an, following the example of God’s beloved messenger, Muhammad ﷺ. This should cause us to study his Book and the Prophet’s ﷺ example, developing an intimate relationship with them.

The Second: Community

Concern for community is found in the story of the companions of the cave, “We made their hearts strong when they stood up and said, ‘Our lord is the lord of the heavens and the earth! We will never pray to any other deity except him.”   It was not enough for them to believe. But something nagged at their hearts, causing them to share God’s greatest gift, faith. Our hearts should be moved by the shallowness of a global society that has placed God on the backburner. The word guidance in Arabic comes from the same word as gift; gifts are meant to be shared. In the 36^th chapter of the Qur’ān, verse 26, we find a man so committed to sharing that gift that he wanted to share it even after his death. Ibn ‘Abbas (God bless his soul) said, “He called his people to faith while he was alive, and he wanted to call them to it after his death!”

The Third: Thankfulness and Indifference

Thankfulness for blessings and indifference to this world are found in the story of the two men who were blessed with gardens and wealth. One was thankful, the other ungrateful. “And why did you not say when you entered your (bountiful) garden, ‘What God has willed [has happened]; there is no power except God’s.’” One was humble with God’s blessings, the other blinded by them: “And I do not think the Hour will occur Even if I’m resurrected, I do not think I will find what is better than this!” We learn from this that indifference (Ar. zuhd) is not about neglecting the world, but appreciating what we have and attributing it to God’s grace and favors—using it to serve Him and society. At the same time, true wealth is not about richness at hand, but richness at soul. Zuhd is not that simple—to simply abandon responsibility. It is about embracing it with an eye to the Hereafter, an eye towards God’s pleasure. Promotions and raises are truly blessed when they are coupled with an increase in submission to God through worship and public service.

The Fourth: Patience with Calamities and God’s Plan

Patience with strange occurrences and God’s divine wisdom is found in the story of Moses and his companion. “You will not be patient.” “You will find me, God willing, patient.” We hear of patience on God’s obedience and avoiding evil, but patience with God’s plan is another story. At times, the unknown eats at us. But believing in God’s promise, “Indeed, we will help the Prophets and those who believe,” is an aspect of patience that is often neglected. Even more difficult than that is when the plan seems to throw us a curve. Patience with the good times is difficult, but patience with trials is even harder. Sh. Zakariyya al-Ansāri said that that type of patience was “hardest on the soul.”  Being pleased with God’s decree is not only a great mystery, but difficult to embrace.  A narration states that God said to Moses, “My pleasure with you is based on your pleasure with my decree.”

The Fifth: Ethics with Success

Ethics with success are found in the last story of the 18th chapter. The strong king, Dhū al-Qarnayn, exemplifies that power is not a problem when coupled with gratitude to God and respecting others. “Those things that God has established in me (through his blessings) are better (than what you offer), but assist me with strength.” It is only when power blinds a person from its true source—intoxicating them from seeing God’s blessing—that it becomes a problem. Promotions and positions should be met with humility and grace, not with arrogance and oppression.

As you experience your day, examine how faith affects your success, your sources of understanding, your concern for others, your patience with God’s plan and your engagement with power. Try to monitor your days, tying faith with your acts. You will surely find them blessed by God, bountiful. Move faith beyond the simple act of cognition, to a filter that guides your thoughts and your deeds. Faith is not about mastering a text only. It is about holding it down when your kids are driving you crazy, when your spouse is giving you the blues, when your boss is upset and when others are in need. We will spend a few more articles on this topic to help you bring faith back to your days, to your hours, to your life!

What is a gift? A gift is something that did not come from us. A gift is given—and can be taken. We are not the original owners of a gift. A gift is also not necessary for our survival. It comes and goes. We want and love to receive gifts—but they are not necessary to our existence. We don’t depend on them. We don’t live to receive them and do not die if we don’t. They are not our air or our food. But we love them. Who does not love a gift? Who does not love to receive many gifts? And we ask Al Kareem (The Most Generous) to never deprive us of His gifts. Yet, a gift is still not where we place our dependencies, nor do we die without them.

Remember that there are two places to hold something: in the hand or in the heart. Where do we hold a gift? A gift is not held in the heart. It is held in the hand. So when the gift is taken, the loss creates pain to the hand—but not to the heart. And anyone who has lived long enough in this life knows that the pain of the hand is not like the pain of the heart. The pain of the heart is to lose an object of attachment, addiction, dependency. That pain is like no other pain. It’s not normal pain. And that pain is how we will know we just lost an object of attachment—a gift that was held in the wrong place.

The pain of the hand is also pain—but different. So different. The pain of the hand is to lose something, but not something we are dependent upon. When a gift is taken out of the hand—or never given at all—we will feel the normal human pain of loss. We will grieve. We will cry. But the pain is only in the hand; our heart remains whole and beating. This is because the heart is only for God.

And God alone.

If we examine the things in our lives that cause us most pain or fear, we can start to pinpoint which gifts have been stored in the wrong place. If not being able to get married, be with the person we want, have a child, find a job, look a certain way, get a degree, or reach a certain status has consumed us, we need to make a change. We need to shift where the gift is being stored; we need to move the gift out of our heart and back to our hand where it belongs.

We can love these things. It’s human to love. And it’s human to want the gifts we love. But our problem begins when we put the gift in our heart, and God in our hand. Ironically, we believe that we can live without God—but if we were to lose a gift, we crumble and can’t go on.

As a result, we can easily put God aside, but our heart cannot live without the gift. In fact, we can even put God aside for the sake of the gift. So it becomes easy for us to delay or miss a prayer, but just don’t deprive me of my work meeting, my movie, my outing, my shopping, my class, my party, my basketball game. It’s easy to take interest-bearing loans or sell alcohol, just don’t deprive me of my profit margin and prestigious career. Just don’t deprive me of my brand-new car, and over-the-top home. It’s easy to have a haram relationship or date, but just don’t deprive me of the one I “love.” It’s easy to take off, or not wear hijab—just don’t deprive me of my beauty, my looks, my marriage proposals, my image in front of people. It’s easy to put aside the modesty that God says is beautiful, but don’t deprive me of my skinny jeans—because society told me that’s beauty.

This happens because the gift is in our heart, while Allah is in our hand. And what is in the hand can be put aside easily. What is in the heart, we cannot live without—and would sacrifice anything to have. But sooner or later we need to ask ourselves what it is that we really worship: The gift or the Giver? The beauty or the Source and Definition of Beauty? The provision or the Provider?

The creation or the Creator?

The tragedy of our choice is that we chain our necks with attachments, and then ask why we choke. We put aside our Real air, and then wonder why we can’t breathe. We give up our only food, and then complain when we’re dying of starvation.  After all, we stick the knife in our chest and then cry because it hurts. So much. But what we have done, we have done to ourselves.

Allah says:

 “And whatever affliction befalls you, it is on account of what your hands have wrought, and (yet) He pardons most (of your faults).” (Qur’an, 42:30)

Yes. What we have done, we have done to ourselves. But look how the ayah ends: “He pardons most.” The word used here is “ya’foo” from God’s attribute Al-A’foo.  This denotes not just forgiving or pardoning, but completely erasing! So no matter how many times we stick that knife in our own chest, God can heal us—as if the stab had never occurred! Al Jabbar (the One who mends) can mend it.

If you seek Him.

But how foolish is the one who exchanges air for a necklace? He is the one who says, “Give me the necklace, and then you can take away my air after that. Suffocate me, but just make sure I’m wearing the necklace when I die.” And the irony of it all is that it is the necklace itself that suffocates us. It is our own objects of attachment—the things we love more than God— that kill us.

Our problem began because we saw the gift as the air, instead of just that: a gift. So in our blindness, we became dependent on the gift, and put aside the Real air. As a result when the gift was taken back, or never given at all, we thought we could not go on. But, this was a lie that we told ourselves, until we believed it. It isn’t true. There’s only one loss that we can’t recover from. There’s only one reason we wouldn’t be able to go on: If we lost God in our lives. The irony is that many of us have lost God in our lives and we think we’re still alive. Our false dependencies on His gifts have deceived us. So much.

Only God is our survival. Not His gifts. God is our support and our only true necessity. Allah says:

“Is not God enough for His Servant? But they try to frighten thee with other (gods) besides Him! for such as God leaves to stray, there can be no guide.” (Qur’an, 39:36)

We all have needs and we all have wants. But our true suffering begins when we turn our wants into needs, and our one true need (God) into a commodity we think we can do without.  Our true suffering begins when we confuse the means and the End. God is the only End. Every other thing is the means. We will suffer the moment we take our eyes off the End and get lost in the means.

In fact, the true purpose of the gift itself is to bring us to God. Even the gift is a means. For example, does the Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) not say that marriage is half of deen? Why? If used correctly, few other parts of this life can have such a comprehensive effect on the development of one’s character. You can read about qualities like patience, gratitude, mercy, humility, generosity, self-denial, and preferring another to yourself. But, you won’t develop those qualities until you are put in a situation in which they are tested.

Gifts like marriage will be a means to bring you closer to God—so long as they remain a means, not an End. God’s gifts will remain a means to Him, so long as they are held in the hand, not the heart. Remember that whatever lives in the heart controls you. It becomes what you strive for and are willing to sacrifice anything to have. And to keep. It becomes what you depend on at a fundamental level.  It, therefore, must be something eternal, that never tires, and never breaks. It must, therefore, be something that never leaves. Only one thing is like that: The Creator.