Safeguarding Faith (Iman)

People of wisdom state:With the approach of Doomsday, darkness gathers. As darkness increases, so does people's bumping against one another; everybody bumps against one another. What turns daylight into darkness is the gloom of unlawful things [harams], religious innovations [bida'], and disbelief [kufr]. It is such that Hadrat Imam-i Rabbani, speaking in reference to his own time, said centuries ago, "Religious innovations have become so prevalent that the world has darkened." What caused the world to get dark at that time was religious innovations. As for the time period close to Doomsday [Akhir az-Zaman, Last Age, Last Era], what causes the world to get dark is the gloom of disbelief.

What is meant by one-tenth that is mentioned in the hadith-i sharif "If my Ummah of the Last Age perform one-tenth of the commandments, they will attain salvation" is to safeguard the faith and die with the correct faith. Those who accomplish this will attain salvation because the greatest disaster in the Last Age is to die faithless. People who die without faith will go to eternal Hell. Today, lawful [halal] and unlawful [haram] things have become so mixed that the majority of people do not know what is lawful. But the truth is that whoever takes a haram lightly loses his/her faith. As a matter of fact, our Master the Prophet stated, "The biggest trouble of my Ummah that will come in the Last Age will be to protect and save their faith. Their biggest disaster will be to lose their faith." Acts of worship cannot rescue us, but they are highly valuable as they help us protect our faith. It resembles this: Let us say a fierce storm has broken. In order to protect a candle against this storm lest it should burn out, it is necessary to put it within 20 or 30 glass globes placed one inside the other. A candle that is left in the open burns out quickly. Therefore, people need to do more acts of worship and have much more sincerity in the Last Age to save their faith. Interestingly enough, it was not so difficult to save one's faith in the past, for there was not such a storm in those days. The candle was still burning even if there was not a glass globe surrounding it. Everywhere was in tranquility, so candles were burning without going out. Furthermore, there were many candles. As there is no light today, disbelief and harams have become normal practice, which is a very dangerous situation. Considerably worse days will come, and increasingly, the situation will deteriorate further.

Dying sinful is a great felicity compared with dying a disbeliever because the sinful will attain salvation sooner or later. Acting on the hadith-i sharifs "I will intercede for those with grave sins" and "Die with faith, and do not interfere in the rest," we should strive to save our faith. This, in turn, is fulfilled by having the creed of Ahl as-Sunnah, avoiding what is prohibited, and performing acts of worship. To be able to safeguard our faith, we should recite the prayer, "Allahumma inni a'oodhu bika min an-ushrika bika shay-an wa ana a'lamu wa astaghfiru-ka li-maa laa-a'lamu innaka anta 'allaamul ghuyoob," which was prescribed by our Master the Prophet, in the mornings and in the evenings. It means "O my Allah, I take refuge in You from ascribing any partners to You knowingly. If I did it unknowingly, forgive me. You know everything." Repeating the statement "La ilaha ill-Allah Muhammadun Rasul-Allah," we should frequently renew our faith. Also, steering clear of words and actions that cause disbelief, we should endeavor to protect our faith. May Allahu ta'ala keep us all from the disaster of disbelief and falling into faithlessness!