The necessity of Religion- period.

Many in today's world have completely walked away from religion because of some logical appropriate reasons. Unfortunately, fanatics have taken over the meaning and structure of different religions, esp. Christianity and Islam, and have reinterpreted them in such a way that people who are formerly religious find no validity and it gives those who were never religious reasons to not want to be.

What is spirituality? Broadly, it is the belief that one has a spirit and is concerned about it. Where does spirituality come from? Billions of people believe that spirituality comes from the creator. For thousands of years people have thought extensively about the spirit, the creator, and the afterlife. From ancient Chinese spirituality to Islam, the belief in Allah, Heaven and every other name the creator has given himself, people have sought solace in spirituality through religious practice. However, modern people have decided to take it upon themselves to develop their own spirituality and "connection" with the creator. Talk about making the biggest mistake first, which is the lack of humility due to extreme ego inflation! How can anyone face the creator through their spirit when they are still completely controlled by their ego?

Instead of seeking religious affiliation, many, esp. in the West are seeking spirituality, which is the heart of all religions. People are wanting all the benefits of religion without wanting to take responsibility in this existence for their actions that are moderated by the direction that the creator has given to us through religion.

As I am a Muslim, and one who initially did not want to assimilate religion with spirituality, I cannot help but to promote my opinion with arguments based on 1400 years of Islamic thought. When I was reintegrating myself into spirituality I thought that it would be possible to just practice the spirituality of Islam without having to follow the laws of Islam, quickly I realized that without the discipline that the religion gives me, I would not get anywhere with my spirituality. I began to ponder why it was that I needed to follow these 1400 year old ideas in my modern life. Outwardly, in the west, Islam appears to be mid-evil, uncivilized, and even static. One has to swallow a lot of pride to follow the general rules of Islam if they are reverts in the west. I, myself, had to give up going out on dates along with flirting, eating haraam food, my very cool bicycle, alcohol, and my general status in culture. I had to also give my friends, not because Islam dictates it, but because I know longer had anything in common with them. I knew though, that if I wanted to develop any form of spirituality whether directed by Western religions or Eastern, I was going to have to give up all of my ego through ritualistic discipline first before I was going to taste any spiritual "wine".

As of yet, I have not met any real spiritual person who is not deeply religious, not to say that it cannot be, but that the odds are far greater if one has developed the strong discipline of religious ritual and rites first or in conjunction with spiritual development. Understandably, when people who seek to know their spirit have to contend with narrow-minded religious zealots, instead of trying to understand that religion, they immediately walk away. Instead, what our spirit is truly asking us is to educate ourselves about the religion, humble ourselves to the fact that we know so little, and find the truth.

Islam, is a religion based on law, enlightenment, and justice. Prophet, saaws, was immediately enlightened by the light of the creator and was immediately purified spiritually. Others around him, the sahabis, also became enlightened when they received the undeniable word of Allah. It was only in subsequent generations, that people turned away from enlightenment and became fully immersed in ego aggrandizement and personal idol worship, instead of following the path to enlightenment that Islam offers.

The right of practice of Islam is essential to enlightenment. It is by far the quickest path and most explicit. The path to enlightenment, sirat al-mustaqim, is begged upon in every prayer, essentially one who practices Islam puts intention to have enlightenment 40+ times a day. That's INCREDIBLE! As a practicing Muslim, one says that they want the straight path to Allah (enlightenment) so often. Although, not everyone is making true intention when they ask for the path, the fact is that what passes the lips still has an affect on the heart. It is healthy for the heart to feel those words. In our human life, we walk easily with 2 feet, religious practice and spiritual servitude are the 2 feet that we use to walk on the path to enlightenment. If one only practices religious doctrine they will have a struggle to know Allah, if one only uses "spirituality" they miss the whole point of life and thus will struggle in the long-term to know Allah. When one uses both their lives will become meaningful and if Allah wills it, their path to Him will be easy.

The whole point of Islam and sunnah of rasul, saaws, is to facilitate spiritual development and social harmony and illumination. It recognizes the fact that ALL deserve to find the Creator in their lives right now. Islam (synonym for spiritual work) is for everyone, not just priests, fathers, popes, pastors and monastics, it is the right for all in humanity. It is a right that Allah has on us that we try to know Him, through his generous and loving nature, he has created this miraculous universe and the way to him through 140,000 prophets and through the exemplary human P. Mohammad, saaws. Why waste time constructing your own spirituality, when the quickest path to spirituality has been given to the world?

I would be surprised to hear any reason that is not based on ego attachment. The path to spiritual success is a well trodden path especially amongst the Muslims. May Allah guide us all on the sirat al-mustaqim so that we can experience enlightenment here and now.

jzk.

living with an agnostic or atheist

The pain of living with family who are vehemently anti-Islam is probably the most trying and sorrowful place to be.  Prophet, peace be upon him,  said that we need respect our parents even if they hate Allah, swt, and our beautiful prophet and way of life.  How can any Muslim sit and listen to another blaspheme in the most horrendous ways without wanting to splash the persons face with cold water?

It is the most difficult task to face Ibless in the flesh of a parent who screams and paces the floor talking about how evil you are because you believe in Allah and his messenger!  Truly the person becomes as ugly as the devil and nearly as frightening.  That sort of anger is the type anger to abhor in others.  Do you laugh? do you scream? Do you yell back?  Do you turn up the Quran recitation louder?  

When you start to see the hell someone is facing because of their ugliness, especially a parent or a sibling, you want nothing more for them to be forgiven.  Though it may happen because of the awful way they talk about Prophet, saaws and Allah, swt, that they might as well go to hell.  

Truly a parent may bring you into this world but if they don't teach you about his world or give you the opportunity to learn about this world in the spiritual sense can no longer be considered a valuable parent.  Especially if the parent is trying to stop you from practicing Islam and tries to throw your iman in your face, how can anyone forgive such hatred and malice?

It will never be easy to be a Muslim even if you live amongst believers, but there is a special trial for one who has to live with non-believers, especially non-believers who hate Islam.

astaghirlilah.

Duty Parent Child Allah,swt.

Before I reverted back to Islam, I felt a very limited desire to care for my father. My mother, I always felt it was necessary to ensure her safety and security, but I had not cared so much for whether my father could get along. I had reasons, or at least I thought I had reasons to feel that way.

One day I was sitting in a coffee shop chatting with an old friend about my recent understanding of Islam and how I felt that I need to return to believing wholly in Islam. She asked me whether or not I was willing to follow all the rules. Well, at that time, I had not really cared to follow all of the rules that solidify my role in life as determined by Allah, swt.

A few months later I was faced with my dad's mortality. He became really sick and was on the verge of dying. I had not ever cared about my father's health because he had not cared about it.

Because of Islam, I look forward to caring for my father everyday when I wake up. I do this because of Allah, swt, and not just because it is my duty as a child.

We are all children of someone whether living or not. May we live to fulfill the duties that we have to Allah through our familial and community duties.

May Allah, swt, bless you with a clean heart so you can fulfill your duty with the intent to only do it for Allah.

Salaam.

Reverts and Disease

Salaam alaikum,

When I reverted to Islam, my life completely changed. My heart swam in a sea of jasmine and pearls. Suddenly, I forgave all the pain that happened to me at the hands of others. I have an ability to smile and love honestly to those who are close to me.
Because Islam, Ihsan, and Iman I have been able to reach levels of spiritual development unknown to me previously. I experience extreme ecstasy when meditating on the names of Allah. You can too.

A few months back a Hindu friend of mine called me complaining of extreme physical pain behind her ear. She had a head injury that left fluid behind the ear. She asked me if I knew anyone that could help, since the hospital and medicine was not helping. I called up my religion teacher and asked him to call her and help her out. Within 5 minutes of prayer her severe pain disappeared and her ear unblocked. She said it seemed as if cotton had been removed from her ear canal. The pain never returned. Regardless of how it happened or where it went, the fact is that because of prayers out of the Quran ash-Shareef, a Hindu woman was healed of severe pain that almost took her to the hospital. I know many more circumstances similar to that that are all based off of the abundant energy that the Quran gives.

As I mentioned, I am not here to convince anyone to believe in what I believe in, I could really care less. My only hopes are to reform Islam and educate Muslims about the spirituality and the power of the practice. Wherever we find oppression, we truly find it in ourselves. If you believe you are outwardly oppressed, look to your heart and free it from the disease of hatred, envy, fear and other negative attributes that you live in.

We must not always use our emotion in order to determine which action to take. We must follow our heart and if your heart is full of disease you must work to purify it before ever trying to act “righteously” truly you will be of the munafiqun (hypocrites).
One such story goes that the armies of the prophet were at war with the Quraish. One Muslim had his knife at the neck of a Quraishi and the Quraishi said the Shahada and became Muslim. The Muslim fighter cut off his head. When returning after battle, he told the prophet about the situation. Prophet was upset and told him that no one knows what is in the heart of another and never assume that you are doing the right thing especially in regards to taking a life, stealing, etc.

What is happening now has to do with Fatwas, which are rulings by sheikhs about how to act in this day in age. There are many sheikhs who are diseased in their hearts and thus use their egos to determine interpretations of the Quran to justify their egos. Prophet said that at the end of times 70,000 sheikhs, mullahs, ayatollahs will be killed by the Mahdi because of the negative and evil ideology they were spreading. These are the worse of the creation, they take the beautiful words of the Quran al-kareem and turn it into hatred and murder.

Here is what we need to know as westerners about Islamic revivalism. It is based off the oppression of the west on the Muslim world. Muslims just want to be left alone to follow their own laws and to practice their faith.

75% of Muslim reverts leave Islam

According to Dr. Ilyas Ba-Yunus, PHd, professor of Sociology at State University of New York, before retiring conducted a demographic study of the Muslim population in the USA found that 75% of Muslim reverts leave Islam. In his study he found that the majority of people who leave Islam are those who revert to Islam while incarcerated, the next largest group were women who reverted while being married to a born Muslim, the 3rd largest group was the children of these women and a small percentage were "drifters" or people who jump from spirituality/religion to the next.

It is all too troubling to think that Allah has called these people to Islam, but their spirit did not gain enough control over their lives to fight against the Shayateen. Allah, swt, ask us to seek knowledge to gain more insight to our spirituality and faith. What are we doing to put the pieces together to fully comprehend what Allah, swt, is telling us?

Upgrading or Reverting- I'm Muslim

I would like to share with you all how I came to know those words and why they are so important to me. In 2000 I was living in Sana’a, Yemen, which is where I said the Shahada. What I witnessed amongst the Yemenis is a truly beautiful culture and way of living that is dictated by Islam. People follow the Sharia and Sunnah because they know that it helps to develop spiritual relations with the One God. I witnessed how this beautiful society was so able to promote spirituality and not just rigid religion. The women that I was associated with carried with them a peace that is hard to find amongst my friends here. In fact, I admit that I never knew what true friendship was until I met a sweetheart of Allah, Maha Al-Qerbi. There is special care that is felt amongst spiritual people of which is extra powerful amongst the true lovers of the One God.

Although, when I returned to the States in 2001, I had a hard time cultivating Islam. I found it easier to go back to my old life. I hadn’t follow develop the discipline to be a Muslim. In the beginning of 2007, my heart started to be pulled back to Islam. After years of not praying, not thinking about G-d, not caring about anything in life, but my own, something just changed. I suddenly felt empty. No longer did I care about all the things that kept me locked into this culture. Not my bike, not my knowledge of beer, nor my ability to attract good-looking people towards me, was satisfying in any way to me. One night in that winter of 2007, I attended a zikr-Allah. I put on my abaya and hijab and suddenly remembered Allah. I wept when I heard other people saying the name of G-d. With their hearts and not with their ego, people declared their love to the Beloved.

That summer, I crossed the Asian world. I visited tombs of saints in Central Asia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. I prayed at the great Ottoman Masjids and saw the faces of my brothers and sisters looking for Allah. When I arrived back in the States from that fascinating travel, I looked deeper into my heart to see if I was truly ready to submit to Islam. The world around me had not changed, but I had. I knew that I would be able to listen to my heart and truly give myself to G-d.

What does it mean to give oneself to Allah? It means that one must follow the life of the Prophet Moh’d, sws. How does one do that? For me it meant, to stop listening to my ego and start listening to my heart and spirit. I started praying all of my prayers and even more. I found out much about the saints, the women, and the lovers of Allah. Their stories and poetry vibrated through me.

One such saint is Rabia Adawiya, a woman from Basra, Iraq. She was kidnapped and forced into prostitution at a young age. Through the hardship of her life, she kept her heart turned to Allah and came to know Allah as her Beloved.
In one stanza in one of her classic poems she writes: “O Allah, If I adore you out of fear of Hell, burn me in Hell. If I adore you out of desire for Paradise, Lock me out of Paradise. But if I adore You for yourself alone. Do not deny to me your eternal beauty.”
I had previously been under the impression that Allah was separate from humanity, her words gave me new insight. Being in Love with Allah is a hard emotion to take on. How does one fall in love with G-d? I looked towards different Sufi tariqats to understand how the saints invoked such emotion. I found it easily in them. For hours I sat and listened to highly spiritual beings explaining what Islam really is. What Allah is and What his Attributes are and Why it’s important to cultivate those Names into ones life.
There are thousands of stories, fables, and parables written by Muslims since the time of the Prophet that put so vividly the world of Islam. Another beautiful stories goes as followed.

There was once two young children who played with one another. As they grew up the boy fell in love with this girl. He would never be allowed to marry her. He became a majnoon, wandering from forest to forest, living in caves because of the pain of seeing his beloved with another. One time he without thought passed in front of a man praying, almost knocking him over. The man yelled at him. Majnoon points out to him, that one must not be in love with Allah if he is so distracted by such a fly, as he was so in love with his Layla that he never noticed this man praying.
This story illustrates the perfection of Ishq that one must shoot for in this life. We must not pray just because we feel obligated, one must pray and live ones life in sincerity to develop enlightenment and ISHQ for Allah.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to express all the beautiful aspects of Islam and what it means to me to be a Muslim. It is such a blessing to know that I have an extremely supportive community who accept you regardless of your color, background, or social standing. Purity comes rapidly to the heart for the lovers of Allah and a special clarity comes to the mind. After a few months of seeking to know Allah, I was able to confidently give up many aspects of my ego in return of my spirit.

Today, as I sleep I find myself remembering Allah, through prayers. When I dream, I hear words of my Beloved. When I walk through the day, caring for my father, I see the duty that Allah has sent me to fulfill. In fact, because of the practice of Islam, I have gained special attributes myself. When needed, I can see through the eyes of others and feel their hearts beat as my own. I am more in check of my feelings and more able to feel comfort with one breath. In-Allah. Out-HU