Reflections at 4am...

How my faith changed and what I’ve learned about Iman.

Growing up, not to brag and Astagfirullah I am not showing off or doing riya but I have always been religious to the best of my ability. I have always been a good kid, I am the literal teacher’s pet, the nice kid etc. I have always known that I have not struggled with performing my religious duties even as a kid.

I am in no way trying to say I have the perfect family but I learnt how to wake and stand for Qiyam or Tahajjud from my mother, I learnt how to recite my morning and evening Adhkhars, my duas, and to have Tawakkul, all from her. I will be forever grateful for all that. Thank you Maa, May Allah reward you with the best of rewards.

My Father who would pray Qiyam too, never did he pray a Salah without him praying the Nafl ones too especially the one after Maghrib and Isha Witr, him making dua after praying Maghrib at home which is a family tradition now, him always talking about being mindful of Allah and to always be truthful, it was only after he passed away that I noticed the bits I learnt from him too. Funny how you notice a lot of things when there’s no one to remind you or the one who does it isn’t there. May Allah forgive him, widen and lighten up his grave, and admit him into the Highest ranks of Jannatul Firdaus, Ameen.

My siblings who we share stories of the prophets amongst ourselves, have one read the Arabic text from the Qur’an while the other reads the English translation, and do all bits with, have also contributed to the personality I have. Thank you guys too.

What I want to talk about now is; through all these, I have always prayed for more Iman, a good ending and to earn the satisfaction of my Rabb, but along the way, as I started hitting my teenage years, I started going through the normal teenage phase.

Everything has been going well for all I know until I turned 17 I think which was two years ago. I noticed that I have been picking up tiny faults and making mistakes here and there and all the normal things that I would not do became things I would do and I would end up feeling guilty and then try to fix it. I am always scared I’ll lose my Iman

Every Muslim struggles in a way or the other with their Iman but that does not make us a bad person, as long as we keep realizing them and fixing them. But hear me out…

What if when we ask Allah for a good ending and Jannah, and everything else He SWT makes us go through all these phases to test our Iman and help us work for our Akhira? You know?, to help us strengthen our faith since we keep coming back again and again?

This is me probably comforting myself but, You do feel remorse. You pray. You make tawbah. You get up for Tahajjud. You care deeply about Allah accepting you. These are not signs of someone Allah has rejected. These are signs that Allah is still pulling you back to Him.

Allah says:

“Do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Allah forgives all sins.”

Suratul Zumar 53

All means all. We will never out-sin His Mercy.

Allah also says in a Hadith Qudsi:

“O son of Adam, if your sins reached the sky and you came to Me seeking forgiveness, I would forgive you and not mind.”

I believe you’re not making excuses for the sin, you’re acknowledging it and trying to fix your life and that’s exactly what a believer is supposed to do.

Sometimes Allah lets a believer fall so they come back with more humility, more dependence on Him, more softness, and more sincerity. I read somewhere that Sins can break arrogance, they can open the heart, They can make you cry, and those tears purify you, you will be okay, you will come back stronger, your heart will settle again.

I guess what I am trying to say to myself and you is, your journey with Allah is not measured by never slipping, but by the way your heart reacts after you slip. The fact that you feel discomfort when you do wrong, the fact that your soul pulls you back toward Him even when you’re ashamed, the fact that you still whisper dua at night even when you feel undeserving these are all signs that your heart is alive. A dead heart doesn’t feel anything. A heart that Allah wants to guide is the one that trembles, the one that worries, the one that hopes, the one that keeps crawling back even when walking feels hard.

Maybe our mistakes are not signs of distance, but signs of training. Maybe they are the places where Allah is softening the parts of you that were too hard, polishing the parts that were too proud in a good or bad way, and preparing the parts that needed to be reshaped with tears and returning.

In the end, what matters is not how many times you fall, but how many times your heart finds its way back to Allah. I believe Allah is closer to you now than when you felt “innocent” or “religious” and Allah has not left you for even one moment.

That’s all for now, bye!