Thursday 15 June 2017

The Scale to Weigh Your Eemaan and Love for Allaah

Imaam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (may Allaah have mercy on him) stated:

A lover takes pleasure in the service of his beloved and acts without restrictions in his obedience. Whenever the love becomes stronger, the pleasure in the obedience and service becomes more complete. So the servant should weigh his eemaan and love for Allaah with this scale; he should examine whether he takes pleasure in the service of his beloved or detests it and discharges it with weariness, boredom and aversion? This is the yardstick of a person’s eemaan and love for Allaah…

That is why the Prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) said: “The comfort of my eyes has been placed in the Prayer.”[1] Anyone whose comfort of his eyes is placed in a particular thing would wish not to be alienated from it nor removed from it, for the comfort of the eyes of a servant is his bliss and good life. One of the pious predecessors said: “I am elated by the night because my life takes delight in it and comforts my eyes with it by conversing with the One Whom I love, my seclusion in his service and tingling with pleasure in front of Him. However, I am saddened by the coming of the dawn because the day will distract me from that.”

There is nothing more pleasing to a lover than the service of his beloved and his obedience. One of the scholars said: “I felt pain with the Salaah for twenty years then I enjoyed it for twenty years.” This pleasure and enjoyment in service only comes through endurance and toil at first, if a person is patient on it and he is truthful in his patience, it will lead him to this pleasure. Aboo Zayd said: “I gave my soul to Allaah while it was weeping. I did not cease devoting it until it was carried away by Him while it was laughing.”

Source: Tareeq al-Hijratayn wa Baab as-Sa ‘aadatayn, p. 697-698 by Imaam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah





[1] Recorded by Ahmad and an-Nasaa’ee and others

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