Salaam all. Hope you all have been having a great Ramadan and a great last 10 nights. Just wanted to get a few thoughts off my chest here.
Before anyone gets on me for the title, hear me out. I'm not saying its ok to cherrypick what you want from Islam. The religion is perfect in and of itself and we should all strive to fully implement all its teachings in our lives daily.
Now that that's out of the way, far too often, I've heard individuals making Islam out to be an all-or-nothing religion in which you're pretty much better off doing nothing than something. We've all seen the memes/jokes about the "milennials who will drink, smoke weed, and commit zina regularly but only eat halal meat/won't eat pork" and at some point have thought "what's the point of even following that?" (guilty myself). It gets even worse tho. I've legit heard individuals say "there's no point in praying if you don't do XYZ" and "there's no point in not eating or drinking if you're not also going to stop XYZ while fasting".
Are we following the same religion? The Islam I follow was sent down for all of humanity, the best of the best and the worst of the worst. The Islam I know specifically says all actions are judged by intention and that nobody knows anothers intentions except Allah. In what world is following a direct command of Allah useless? Now, are these rituals the end-all-be-all of being a good Muslim? Of course not. But if we're gonna sit here and tell people that their acts of worship are useless if they come up short in other regards, then is there any point in following in the first place? We're all fallible in our own ways, and saying there's no point in any circumstance is just wrong.
This type of attitude is absolutely toxic and if said in the wrong way, can absolutely push somebody away from Islam if said at the wrong time. Alhamdulillah when I heard these things said to me I was not in a volatile state where it could have swayed me away, but I know there certainly are people who could be on the fence about continuing to follow Islam and something like that could be the straw that broke the camel's back. You can say "I was just exaggerating and didn't mean it literally" but you never know what state a person is in and how it could lead them away from Islam. And if it does, you have to answer for it.
Yes, there are nuch worse sins than eating pork. Yes, simply praying does not make you a good Muslim/person and we should strive to advise each other towards other good deeds. Yes, fasting is about more than just not eating and drinking and if that's all a person is getting out of it, chances are they're doing something wrong. But to say there's no point in them obeying Allah's commands because they happen to fall short in other departments? That's just wrong.
For all we know, that guy resists pork but drinks alcohol may have more sincerity in that one action than some of us have praying 5 times a day. For all we know, a person praying and supposedly doing nothing else can have more sincerity than a person who does everything else. If we doubt another person's intention/sincerity, its on us on the Day of Judgment. May Allah protect us.
May Allah allow us to become better at giving naseehah and at bringing people closer to Him and not further. Ameen. Salaam all!
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from Islam http://bit.ly/2YY9uyM
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