Love, Fear, and Hope
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Subject: character
Title: Love, Fear, and Hope
Created on: Thu Nov 08 09:28:57 -0500 2007
Updated on: Thu Nov 08 09:28:57 -0500 2007
Version: 1
Abstract: ... hem - May Allaah protect us from such a fate. Then the next verse goes on to say: “You alone we worship.” i.e. we single out Allaah for our worship. And how do we worship Him? With LOVE, HOPE and FEAR. And in order to achieve these qualities, we need Allaah’s assistance, so we say then, “We seek Your Aid.” Striking the Balance After understanding the need to have love, hope and fear in our worship, the next question that naturally arises is that, in what proportion should these qualities be present in our worship? Again we turn to the Qur'aan for the answer. “Call upon Him with Fear and Hope.” [ Soorah (7): 56] “Their sides forsake their beds, to invoke their Lord in Fear and Hope.” [(32): 16] So both fear and hope should be present in our hearts in equal proportions. Anas reported that the Prophet (salla-allahu alaihe wa-sallam) entered upon a young boy who was dying. The Prophet (salla-allahu alaihe wa-sallam) asked, “How are you?” The boy replied, “O Messenger of Allaah, I am in between hoping in Allaah and fearing for my sins.” The Prophet (salla-allahu alaihe wa-sallam) said, “The like of these two qualities do not unite in the heart of a servant except that Allaah gives him what he hopes for and protects him from what he feared.”[3] Therefore whenever we do a good action, we should hope that it has been accepted by Allaah, but at the same time we should also have fear that maybe it isn’t enough or that the good deed has not been worthy of acceptance. Likewise when we sin, we should have hope that Allaah will accept our repentance and forgive us, but we should also fear that we may be accountable for it. This balance should be reflected in our Dawah (which of course is also worship). So when we invite others to the Truth, we should not give them the impression that ‘they have nothing to worry about’, nor do we suggest that ‘they are doomed forever’. Rather we couple warnings with encouragement. We inform them of the horrors of the Fire and tell them about the bliss of Paradise. Just as we find Allaah telling us in the Qur'aan: “Verily your Lord is Quick in Punishment and verily He is the Oft-Forgiving, the Giver of Mercy.” [(7): 167] And the scholars of Islaam say, “He who worships Allaah with hope only is a murji’ee. He who worships Him in fear only is a Harooree [Khaarijee]. And He who worships Allaah in love only is a Zindeeq [eg. the Soofis, the Christians, etc]. But he who worships Allaah in fear, love and hope is a Muwahhid Mu’min [a believer upon Tawheed].”[4] The Murji’a were a sect that emerged within the first century of Islaam. The people of this sect (i.e. the murji’ees) believe that sins do not affect faith i.e. no matter what sins a person commits, his eeman (faith) is complete and perfect. They worship Allaah only with hope because they believe that as long as one believed and testified to Islaam, they would enter Paradise regardless of their actions. Unfortunately, all too often nowadays we find a similar attitude amongst many Muslims today, which is why we find that so often we try to advise someone to turn to the Deen and abandon sin, they just point to their hearts and say, “Allaah knows what is in my heart”, or “Allaah forgives”, or something else like that. As for the Khawaarij, they worshipped Allaah in fear only because they held that anyone who commits major sins was a disbeliever and would ther... [Full Article...]
