The Growth #3 : A Faith, Quest & Question

And We sent not before you [as messengers] except men to whom We revealed from among the people of cities. So have they not traveled through the earth and observed how was the end of those before them? And the home of the Hereafter is best for those who fear Allah ; then will you not reason? [QS Yusuf (12):109]

Then is he who knows that what has been revealed to you from your Lord is the truth like one who is blind? They will only be reminded who are people of understanding [QS Ar-Ra'd (13):19]

This [Qur'an] is notification for the people that they may be warned thereby and that they may know that He is but one God and that those of understanding will be reminded. [QS Ibrahim (14):52]

Bearing in mind that each of us certainly born in different family backgrounds; whether it is the nationality, race, skin color, culture even religion bring our own various "gift" in our living growth process. Yet, In the midst of our long way of journey, we'll start questioning and make a quest about lot of things, that instances of them are like: what my life means to be, which path I will take, even, what is the indeed faith I have.

That sense of those kind of questions sometimes have been neglected until it fade away. But for some, including me (I hope you have the same thought) drive me to think and learn many things. I then knew it as 'critical thinking', another gift which I am grateful at most, and it formed me to be an open minded person with various people in all around. It's such a remarkable experience to know and understand how people behave and act. Yet, it once "shake" my own faith by questions popping up in mind, like: "Is this (what I have faith with) the true way?".

At the beginning, I felt mistaken of being open-minded. I felt I have walked too far, I might get astray. But then I learnt about being open-minded with particular boundaries. I felt like being open minded with boundaries is important. If we define open-mindedness as being incline towards the western culture then we have twisted its meaning. As being open minded should be in harmony with our values. It should make us more incline towards being open to differences and realising that everyone is only human so they are susceptible to mistakes and every one has a unique preception due to the life experiences that they have ungone. Therefore, being open minded is learning to agree to disagree without judging others with our own faiths but rather being filled with what we stand for.

Dear my friends,
Remember that questioning your faith is part of human nature. We humans are seekers and thinkers. We are also seeking for some sort of achievement whether it is happiness, income, status or etc. We are also thinkers because we will never stop being curious about the things happening in our life and the things that we do not know about. That's where we have the Quran in its place, it reminds us that we are only limited humans and that we should be striving to know the purpose of our existence which is to worship Allah. The Quran n hadith has all the guidelines to this. They tell us How and what we should do if we are faced with any situations in life


Remember that you do not sin in this case, insyaa Allah. It is very normal to feel doubtful about Islam however. That is why we need to constantly ask for guidance as well as for Allah to keep our hearts firm on the deen. This is neccessary because the shaitan loves to approach us whenever we are feeling in our low points such as feeling angry, sad or tired. Thus we only have to put conscious efforts to kick him out from out thoughts at those times although it can be really challenging. But Allah will reward you.


In some cases we slip because we are too caught up with the environment. But there is not problem with being slightly flexible, our religion is meant to make things easy for us and the duties that we must follow should not be a burden. But we should always carry our islamic identity around wherever we go without feeling the need to hesitate, if we are challenged then that is our test from Allah and to see how sincere we are with our belief in Islam. We should put in concious efforts to follow our Prophet (SAW) in his conduct. It will make us greater role models, like the english man once said, "actions speak louder than words". And plus we will be focusing on ourselves and not the wrongdoings of others. This on its own is da'wah.

At the end, I would like to embrace and whisper this to all my dear sisters, and of course, the same message for our brothers there. My friends, in our quest and question, don't forget to make sure that whatever the questions come across, whatever the quest we are eager to take, the process we have must involve Allah, not merely our thought. Moreover about our faith. His guidance is the compass we truly need in our life.

May Allah guide us as always,
Aamiin

Jakarta, April 27 2019
@srhanifa