Know The Status of Your Faith

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

It is common practice of those who have the means to annually go to hospitals locally or abroad for medical check up to ascertain the status of their health.
This is to enable them know the condition of their physical and mental health, in case they have any emerging medical ailment to take remedial measures or obtain medical advice from professionals to keep health and to improve on their health conditions. Such is the case with respect to the poor people, through TRADITIONL HARBALISTS, especially in preparation for fasting and rainy season.
Have both the elite, (the wealthy), the poor, ever contemplated doing the same with regard to the condition of their faith-IMAN which is the route of their prosperity in this world and in the hereafter?
In fact, spiritual checkup of an individual is by far more important than medical checkup. The latter is to keep an individual healthy, happy, active and alive for a period of not more than one hundred years in this world while the former keeps an individual healthy, happy, active and alive for ever in the hereafter with more and better unimaginable condition of health, comfort and all kinds of luxuries that one has never imagined or contemplated.
Speaking on the same subject matter , one of the early generation of great islamic scholars, Al-Hafiz Ibn Rajab, may God have mercy on him, said: “Self- examination of self in respect of its past sins, remorse and repentance with regards to them (sins), regret over them, contemplation, contempt for evil commanding soul (Nafsullawwamah), shedding tears out of fear of God, meditation on the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and the matters of the hereafter, increases Faith in the self-examining soul (nafsullawwamah).
This means that a servant of God (SWT) that examines the status of his/her FAITH and strives to reconcile with God (SWT) by regrating his past mistakes and sins he committed against God (SWT) and repenting, stands the opportunity of living a prosperous life both in this world and in the hereafter. This is the fundamental objective of writing this lecture to enable muslims and non-muslims through this lecture to know:
a. The definition of faith in Islam;
b. How to examine the status of an individual’s FAITH (a Muslim or a Christian from the perspective of Islamic teaching);
(c) How to learn the process of spiritual checkup of one’s FAITH periodically in accordance with the great scholar of Islam Al- Hafiz Ibn Rajab;
(d) The diseases of soul (amraadhul qalb);
(e) How to improve on the status of one’s FAITH which Imam ibn Rajab said it can increase and decrease;
(f) The significance of strong FAITH to the individual him/herself, to his country and global peace and prosperity;
(g) The danger of people’s weak FAITH to the individual him/herself, his country and the international systems