Bond between Allah and Banda.

Society Religion & Philosophy
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This following quoted post made me think , what can make someone lose their faith ? I am talking about those who are born in a family of faithful souls.
Love ? Hate ? Education ? Personality traits ? Upbringing ? Peer Pressure ? Logic ? Shaitan ? Lust ? Abuse ? Wealth ? Arrogance ? Inferiority or superiority complex ?

How can someone keep faith strong and stay steadfast on ones beliefs when there are so many factors influencing ones faith ?

Why someone will not feel a bond between Allah and oneself ? How can one make Allah ones personal friend and feel Allah closer to ones jugular vein as described in Quran ?
“And We are nearer to him than his jugular vein ” [Qaaf 50:16]

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

in one she'r:**

nigaah-e-naaz kii kaifiiyateN hoN dil meN vohii
k rooH tan meN ho, sheesha meN jis taraH ho parii****

remember the dancing doll in the glass case? you can write a book on this soofiyaana she'r. shaa'ir ne daryaa ko kooze meN band kar diyaa :)**

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

i want to know that too

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

I want to be brutally honest here. Simple answer to your question is "its a choice". No factors can take you away from your creator, if you dont want to.

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Hmmm.... I sometimes question Muslim beliefs, but my Iman is pretty strong. Often, certain events (mostly ngative) in someone's life may turn them away from Allah. Personally, I do and recommend others to keep my faith in Him strong, no matter what happens :)

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

You could just PM and ask me to explain, Mirch :p

Here's my response:

Some people I believe are born skeptics. I believe I am one of them. I never developed a bond with God while everyone around me spoke so well of IT. Religion na chahtay huye bhi has been a huge part of my life so I won't go in details. It bothers my mother the most. I have been researching Islam since i was very young. I know more than you assume. I just don't bother discussing it in details here and I keep my focus on the bigger picture. If faith makes you a better person, by all means keep practising it.

Since I have never felt any connection between God and mankind, it renders everhything else useless: all holy scriptures, gospels/ahadees, all religious texts. They don't serve as a proof for god's existence. Even if I take those religious accounts to be literal, they could be anything from E.T. to hallucinations to a number of other things. Besides, the so-called morals or human heirarchy explained by religion goes against everything I stand for. Like I said before, I don't believe one human is better than another, I don't believe in a slave-master relationship. I don't believe you could have 'rights' over another human being. I don't believe everything is fair in love and war...and I don't believe in use of violence for ALLAH"

Why would God want you to fight amongst yourselves when you are all His creation? Yet you fight for the smallest things: Do murghiyan jo ek hi khuda ki paidaish hain magar ek haram hai ek zabiha halal hai kyon ke ek insan Allah aur muhammad ko manta hai ek nahi jab ke wo dono bhi khuda ki hi paidaish hain...

It's all perspective. I don't see what you see.. I don't feel what you feel and never have.

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Some gems from Imam Ali (as) might be of help, Inshallah:

"There are four causes of infidelity and loss of belief in Allah: hankering after whims, a passion to dispute every argument, deviation from truth; and dissension, because whoever hankers after whims does not incline towards truth; whoever keeps on disputing every argument on account of his ignorance, will always remain blind to truth, whoever deviates from truth because of ignorance, will always take good for evil and evil for good and he will always remain intoxicated with misguidance. And whoever makes a breach (with Allah and His Messenger) his path becomes difficult, his affairs will become complicated and his way to salvation will be uncertain.

Similarly, doubt has also four aspects absurd reason- ing; fear; vacillation and hesitation; and unreasonable surrender to infidelity, because one who has accustomed himself to unreasonable and absurd discussions will never see the Light of Truth and will always live in the darkness of ignorance. One who is afraid to face facts (of life, death and the life after death) will always turn away from ultimate reality, one who allows doubts and uncertainties to vacillate him will always be under the control of Satan and one who surrenders himself to infidelity accepts damnation in both the worlds."

"I want to teach you five of those things which deserve your greatest anxiety to acquire them: Have hope only in Allah. Be afraid of nothing but sins. If you do not know a thing never feel ashamed to admit ignorance. If you do not know a thing never hesitate or feel ashamed to learn it. Acquire patience and endurance because their relation with true faith is that of a head to a body, a body is of no use without a head, similarly true faith can be of no use without attributes of resignation, endurance and patience."

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Bhai sahab abb iss ka salees angraizee main tarjuma bhee kar dain takay bat samaj main aa ja-a.
There is not doubt in Hazrat Ali(AS) 's wisdom , but someone has tried to show their mastery of English in this English translation of this passage from Nahaj-il-Bilagha I guess. :bummer:

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

:) My apologies but this is what I could find of hand on the net. I understand Arabic and English but I am equally 'average' at both to translate between them. I sincerely request you to get hold of Najul Balagha and read it. One of it's English version is called 'Peak of Eloquence'. And peak of eloquence it is as it's a book that is said to be one that is inferior to the word of God but superior to the words of man. That is both in terms of lingual art and wisdom.

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Peace Pagluu

I wanted to say something similar but couldn't find the right expressions ... Sayyiduna Ali (AS) .... SubhanAllah

For the purpose of Mirch:

a) Hankering after the whims - operating on impulse, following ones own desires without questioning them

b) A passion to dispute every argument - simply being argumentative seals the mind and heart from allowing other ideas to take root

c) Deviation from truth - Since this state divorces us from a connection we go about in ignorance increasing our falsehood thinking it to be the opposite. For example an enlightened heart will set out to find God, but one whose light has been taken away will conclude that rationally if God wanted to be found then He would show Himself clearly - thus the ignorance arrogates the individual away from the Mercy of God.

d) Dissension - Means to disobey, dishonour, and openly reject. In this context it is Allah (SWT) who is disobeyed. That condition leads to other worse conditions because by then the heart is sealed from the light and hence can never experience God.

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

^B.S..... but then again, you wouldn't know...

How about hearing this from an atheist's POV? You are judging a group of people without ever having been in their shoes. What you just said is from a religious person's point of view or perhaps someone who never truly lost faith and kept looking for it until he found it = Atheist turned Muslim/christian. Atheists who embrace faith eventually were never atheists to begin with.

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

On doubt -

It will increase if one has:

a) Absurd reason - The inability to use logic properly when confronted with an issue. Sometimes it is better to avoid thinking too much about something ... Work out if it is authentic and do it ... don't try too hard to think "what could be the purpose behind this?"

b) Vacillation - This is a symptom of those who can't reason properly - they will vacillate which means jumping from one thing to another - i.e. drawing false conclusions from premises that are unrelated

c) Hesitation - which is that they will delay making decisions and wait for themselves to get distracted before they forget about it entirely.

d) Surrender to infidelity - the doing of sin and taking pleasure in it - thinking it to be good.

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

This was a good display of b) post #10 - Thanks

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

I can accuse you of displaying the same behavior.

b) Vacillation - This is a symptom of those who can't reason properly - they will vacillate which means jumping from one thing to another - i.e. drawing false conclusions from premises that are unrelated

Thanks!

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Let me ask you this: there are so many religions and so many die hard believers and yourself ascribe to one brand of religion out of many that are out there yet I ascribe to none. How does that make you a more logical, truth seeking, person than myself? I am biased toward none yet you are biased toward one that you were born with. I deny all but you deny some and accept others. How does it make sense? A hindu will tell me his religion is the ultimate truth, so will a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, etc etc…

I don’t ascribe to any Atheist newsletters or any kind of support articles but your post made me google why some believe and disbelieve. We don’t all think alike… Unlike you, I will be fair to both parties. If you have a few minutes please check out the article below:

http://www.humanismtoday.org/vol13/kurtz.html

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Let's unravel that post of yours to see if Sayyiduna Ali (AS) was correct:

Here you have confessed to being a doubter - Read the four points about doubt.

Expecting God to move to you instead of you trying to find God. c) Deviation from the truth.

a) Hankering after the whims - Theorist basically said she "didn't want religion"

a) Absurd reason - This research of Islam if done inappropriately can lead to confusion and distrust of scripture.

Prime example of a) Absurd reason ... Looking for a connection with God does not logically lead to everything being useless - and even if it is useless in the sense of emotionally/faith-wise useless - it does not make them false and it does not make them without wisdom that can help us in this life even if we had no faith.

This is more a) absurd reason - Religious accounts are a mixture of literal and metaphoric, exact and by analogy - even a religious person never takes all the words literally unless he/she knows they are meant as so. Then the human hierarchy argument is bad logic too ... Islam for example says all humans are equal - it is ideas such as evolution that promotes hierarchy based on food chain, survival of the fittest ...

a) absurd reason - This should be a separate topic ... but the confusion being made here is of duty and responsibility being confused for rights.

a) absurd reason and c) deviation from the truth - Presumption made that God wants us to fight amongst ourselves when we are all His Creation. Well a dog and a cat are both His Creation too and yet they fight like cat and dog. No God does not want us to fight like cat and dog ... this is not even true. Rather the premise for fight is often argumentation and we are told to avoid argumentation even.

d) dissension and c) hesitation -

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

LOL ... but surely then I should be atheist like you ... :) Is this your example of sound reasoning?

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Seriously? It seems absurd to you because you can't possibly see it from my perspective. It makes perfect sense to me. You already have this preconceived notion that Islam is the ULTIMATE truth no matter what. I don't. If you pursue something with a set mindset, your eyes and brain will only want to acknowledge what you are reading and understanding as the truth. Have you ever approached a scientific experiment with such a mindset? Don't you begin as a doubter and the results of your experiment either prove or disprove your hypothesis?

Then tell me why can't I have similar approach to religion? You said evolution can't be proven, hence, creationism is the truth. Has creationism been tested? Can I say creationism can't be proven, hence, evolution is the truth?

My point is we are both guilty of having a certain mindset - you can't just blame me! The question is why you believe and I don't.

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Peace Theorist

Finding the truth for something to believe in has a number of different factors … Belief is subjective first and foremost. So people will be able to create for themselves personal truths. That is another argument … However, one who is unbiased can use techniques to compare the lot of them with each other.

For example:

a) Historical evidence
b) Language and interpretation of scripture
c) Logic of text
d) Fulfilment of prophecies
e) Beauty in scriptures
f) Cohesion of ideas and concepts within the faith - i.e. no contradictions
g) Authenticity of narratives

All of these things provide unbiased means to assess which faith is grounded in truth and which is more myth based … These are not foolproof but they offer direction.

Accepting some and Rejecting others is done on the basis of how a filter works. Have you ever played “Guess Who” - If you ask whether the person is male, got curly ginger hair and has glasses the responses will help narrow down to a select few … Essentially we have accepted some and rejected the faces we turned down … Filtering is very much a logical process and I’m surprised you have not been able to make this connection.

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Re: Bond between Allah and Banda.

Not quite - I'm not saying evolution is the opposite to creation - you are ... I merely have argued against evolution as a fact being the method of creation. It could be but I won't accept it until proven ... until then I will merely accept we just got here ... just like that. Now the reason why I believe God made us --- (not to mention how) is because of the Qur'an - The authenticity of it is scientifically water tight - i.e. through the process of narrations it can be shown this is the Book that Muhammad (SAW) (a historical person) revealed to his people. It is because it is a Marvellous Book that I accept its message. Evolution does not have this advantage it is an ever growing theory and is still incomplete ... why should I accept that over Qur'an?