Knowing Allāh subḥānah is of two types: First, an awareness that leads to affirmation [of God’s existence], this [knowledge] is common amongst all people: the righteous, the evil; the obedient, the disobedient. Second, an awareness that necessitates shyness from Him, love for Him, attaching the heart to Him, yearning to meet Him, fearing Him, turning to Him and repenting to Him, finding solace in Him, and fleeing from the creation to Him. This is a special awareness that is known…
❝Know that Allah does not do to His slaves except what is good for them; be it something they love or something they loath (a hardship). And Allāh does not remove a decree of hardship from a person until he is pleased with it. When the person becomes pleased with it, Allāh removes it, and it is perhaps for this reason that a period of hardship might extend [because a person is not pleased with Allāh’s Decree]. Thus, whoever wants…
❝The īmān that doesn’t drive a person to the worship of Allāh and His obedience holds no value, just like the ‘īmān’ of iblīs, which did not drive him to the obedience of Allāh but instead he disbelieved and was arrogant and disobedient of his Lord, as Allāh says, And [mention] when We said to the angels, “Prostrate before Ādam”; so they prostrated, except for Iblīs. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers.❞ -— Sh. Moḥammed at-Tuwaijirī,…
When the great scholar Sulaym b. Ayyūb as-Sulaym (known as Abū Fatḥ ar-Rāzī, d. 447 hijrī) was a ten year old child in his hometown of Rey, Iran, he went to a sheikh to learn recitation of the Qurʾān. He narrates; the sheikh called me over and asked me to start reciting the Qurʾān. I started to recite sūrat al-Fātiḥah but struggled to do so and couldn’t complete its recitation because of how poor my pronunciation was. So the sheikh…
