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How Can Religious Youth Protect Their Faith?
Question: We are seven brothers and sisters. Our father and mother are religious and we are like them. Praise be to Allah! A few days ago, I was listening to a lecture by one of the Ulama’, in which he divided people into four classifications:Some are religious in their youth and they continue so until the end of their lives. These are the happiest of people.Some are dissolute in their youth and then they are guided until the end of their lives. These people are happy, but less than the first ones.Some are religious in their youth but then they become dissolute and spend their lives in debauchery and deviations. These are the losers.Some are dissolute from the beginning until the end of their lives. These are wretched and the worst of losers.It is a nice speech, but how can I preserve my and my brothers’ and sisters’ religiousness so we can be from the first kind and not let the Satan deprive us of our religion?
The answer: Blessed be you and blessed be your parents who have fed you with faith and guidance!
Know that you are among those on whom Allah prides Himself before the angels and says to them, ‘Look at my slave! He has abstained from his lust for the sake of Me.[79]’
It is sufficient for you that Allah is proud of you. Continue on your way to get the eternal bliss of Paradise!
I remember a family I was acquainted with in Denmark in 1991 AD. They had emigrated from Iran fifty years ago, and they still continued their religiousness there. The father told me that he, his wives, and children continually offered the Night Prayer. This conduct, in the midst of corruption in Denmark, is quite difficult to attain. Blessed be they and their likes everywhere!
The practical way of continuing in righteousness, about which you asked, is being continuously supplied with intellectual and spiritual energy besides being careful not to let the self slip here or there, through the following lights:
The first light is that you have to remember, always, these traditions with the questions that follow them:
1. The Prophet (S) said, ‘Any young man who abstains from this life and its pleasures for the sake of Allah, and spends his youth in obeying (worshipping) Allah, Allah will give him a reward of seventy-two veracious persons’[80].
Do you want to prevent yourself from this great reward?
2. The Prophet (S) said, ‘The most beloved one to Allah the Almighty is a handsome young man who devotes his youth and beauty to the obedience of Allah. Of such a young man the Beneficent is proud before His angels and says: this is My real slave.’
Do you want to prevent yourself from this pride of the Beneficent?
3. The Prophet (S) says, ‘Allah loves the young man who spends his youth in obeying Him.’
Do you want to prevent yourself from this love?
4. The Prophet (S) says, ‘The preference of a young man who worships Allah in his youth to an old man who worships after he becomes old is like the preference of the prophets to the rest of people.’
Do you want to prevent yourself from this preference? Certainly not!
With these motives, you can continue in your religiousness. Do not follow the steps of the Satan, do not approach them, and do not think of them even out of curiosity because this may incite you to a dangerous slip. In the first instance, the Satan invites to unlawful things by means of curiosity, and then after sometime, he invites you and says: ‘all right, pray to Allah to forgive you after your sin! Does Allah not forgive all sins?’ In these deceitful ways, the Satan induces man and then laughs at him.
The second light is that you have to read about the qualities of the pious. Imam Ali (S) has mentioned these qualities to his Companion Humam in one of his speeches. It is one of the most wonderful educational speeches, which is full of spirituality, encouragement, and energy towards righteousness[81].
The third light is, besides regular worships, to hasten to do good deeds! Carrying out the needs of people and helping the poor and needy keep one firm in faith and certainty and this is the best thing Allah wants from His good people. Contrary to what some people believe, that religiousness and worshipping are realized in complete isolation, Islam believes “the best people are those who are the best to people and sincerest to all Muslims.[82]”
The fourth light is to know righteousness has a special spirit that survives with the following items: “Knowing Allah and being humble before him, continuous pondering over the greatness of Allah, asking Allah for forgiveness, sincerity, abstinence, giving up bad habits, asceticism, jurisprudence, reason, prudence, giving the rights of people back to them, keeping silent, supplication, and abstaining from the unlawful looking[83]”.
You have to establish these qualities inside your soul to continue in the straight path.
The fifth light is, if you commit a sin, you have to immediately repent and pray to Allah to forgive you. You should well know that Allah loves young men who repent. In fact, there is nothing more beloved to Allah than a young man who repents, and nothing is more odious to Him than a man who becomes old while he still commits sins indifferently.
Finally, I pray to Allah to make you continue in your faith and not to let the blame of others weaken your determination. It is mentioned in the traditions that one day Prophet Abraham (a.s.) saw a white hair in his beard and said, ‘Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, Who has made me live till now while I have not disobeyed Him a bit.[84]’
Notes:
[79]A Prophetic tradition.
[80] Mizan al-Hikma, vol.5 .p.9.
[81] Refer to Nahjol Balagha, the speech of “the Pious”.
[82] Quoted from traditions mentioned in Mizan al-Hikma, vol.6 p.20-21
[83] Contents of Prophetic traditions.
[84] A tradition narrated from Imam al-Baqir (s) in Mizan al-Hikma, vol.5 p.9 as quoted from Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 12 p.8.
Can faith be spread today in spite of the inundation of temptations?
Question: Weakness of faith and beliefs has become widespread in our age. Our aged fathers and mothers say that faith in the past was stronger. Do you think it is possible to spread faith nowadays alongside this great corruption and means of deviation which have entered everywhere, even inside our homes via the TV, video, and internet?
The answer: When one knows that believing in Allah brings tranquility and ease to the heart, which in return cause success and happiness, one’s life becomes pleasant and happy.
When one sincerely and definitely believes that Allah protects and assists him, and when he knows that belief in Allah invites him to mention Allah and that the words of remembrance bring tranquility to his heart, which is the basis of every success, then he knows the worth of religion and keeps away from corruption. He will ask himself: if living under the shadow of faith makes me, my family, and my society happy and makes love and cooperation spread amongst us, then why should I choose to live under the opposite shadow?
Yes! Being religious in the irreligious atmosphere that is widespread is difficult. A religious person faces contempt and insults and suffers much in resisting them and continuing on the straight path. He feels pain and sorrow for the deviants and scorners. However, he becomes more resistant whenever he wins a fight, and this is what delights him and encourages him to continue on the straight path, especially when he remembers the blessings, pleasures, and rewards he will have in Paradise.
When one plants a seed into soil, it does not grow and bear fruits except after much care. Such is said about the sperm. When a father puts his sperm into the womb of the mother, a healthy child is not produced except after attending to all conditions.
A seed needs care and patience, and a sperm also requires care and patience. Does not a believer also need patience so that his faith will bear fruits? However, his faith bears fruits every day in this life in one way or another.
I say the same thing concerning your child. His heart will not open for faith except after efforts, patience, and care.
Parents are responsible for planting faith in their children’s hearts through making friends with them, showing them love and kindness, kissing them, embracing them, playing with them, listening to their speech, and explaining to them what is right and what is wrong. Parents will harvest what they sow in their children. If there is any mistake, parents should blame no one but themselves.
If these facts and their advantages are known, obstacles in the way of true faith can be removed by man himself. Then, he will dislike anything that takes him away from these facts and their advantages. A real believer does not let the television, video, or internet – if they are means of corruption and vices that may weaken his faith and lead him to the path of wretchedness and grief –destroy his future or his children’s future.
Is it acceptable for a reasonable person to leave his children, who he loves more than himself, in the middle of diseases that will afflict their souls and bodies and lead them to the fire of Hell?
Hence, parents have to plant religion in their children from their early years in a wise and successful way lest they deviate later on.
The pure nature in children remains pure if parents undertake their responsibility from the first day. Nature was and is still the object, on which prophets, reformers, and all good people depend in their tasks of reform. Without the divine nature in man, no one can take people from the darkness of deviation into the light of faith. It is a great mistake to be desperate of guiding people. If the prophets and the saints were desperate, faith would never move to people after them. Whatever corruption prevails, it disappears because it is the falsehood that vanishes when the truth comes. Let us bear the mission of the truth and trust in the assistance of Allah. It is the test by which the faithful are tried.
The injustice and corruption we see in our time are not exclusive to our age only. The ancient ages had worse than this as we read in the Qur'an and the books of history, but Allah always supports His faithful people. In fact, our age is better than most of the past ages in many ways such as the spread of faith and faithful people all over the world, the establishment of mosques, Islamic centers, libraries, and presses, and also the increase of religious people and clergymen. Hence, despair has no place inside the souls of faithful people who carry out their legal duties and who whenever they rely on Allah, Allah supplies them with courage and power with which they defeat the means of corruption and deviation and use this power and courage in guiding people and reforming defects.
Although we acknowledge the corruption that has appeared in the land and sea because of corruptive means, which are the modern hands of corrupt people and enemies of religion, we do not acknowledge the impossibility of reform and education, and we do not give in. Man has to act sincerely and then Allah will support him to achieve success. If we are sincere to Allah, we plant guidance firmly in our children’s hearts, and then we carry out our legal duty for which Allah rewards us. Allah says, (And nothing devolves on us but a clear deliverance (of the message))[78].
Notes:
[78] Holy Qur’an, 36:17.
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