How We Lose Our Iman

How We Lose Our Iman - Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan

Opening Du'a

"O Allah, make us from those who believe and do righteous deeds and enjoin one another to truth and enjoin one another to patience. O Allah, keep us firm at the time of death with 'There is no god but Allah.'

My Lord, expand for me my breast and ease for me my task and untie the knot from my tongue that they may understand my speech." (Quran 20:25-28)

Introduction: The Unique Comparison in Surah Al-Hadid

In the very middle of Surah Al-Hadid, Allah speaks about many places in the Quran and usually when He talks about it, He talks about people that are heading towards Jannah - the believers - and people that are heading towards the Hellfire - the disbelievers. But this passage in particular is unique because Allah, instead of comparing believers to disbelievers, He compares believers to hypocrites.

- May Allah not make us from them.

But Allah, instead of comparing those who have faith, as opposed to those who have no faith, is actually comparing people who have faith as opposed to people who thought they had faith, or pretended to have faith, or their faith was there but is of no value to Allah on the Day of Judgment. This is the Munafiq.

The Scene on Judgment Day: Light as the Currency

The Believers' Light

This passage is of particular importance because it tells us many things about how not to end up in that scene on Judgment Day. To summarize what's going on in this passage, Allah عَزَّ وَجَلَّ says that on the Day of Judgment, believers, when they stand, the Prophet صلّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ will be able to see them:

:the messenger can see the entire ummah إِشَارَةٌ إِلَى الرَّسُولِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ meaning - تَرَى يَوْمَ

الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتِ - believing men and women

- Their light is going to be coming out from right in front of them and from their right. (Quran 57:12)

What that means is, we have light coming from our hearts, from our chests, and we have lights coming out of our hands. Why is that important? Because your iman and my iman, if it's sincere, if my faith is sincere to Allah and my belief was strong, it actually turns into light on Judgment Day.

And that faith made me act in a certain way. Those actions that I took turn into light on Judgment Day, the actions of my hand. So you have two torches on Judgment Day.

The Journey in Darkness

The Day of Judgment is dark. It's this long walk to Jannah. And you're gonna need light to get there.

Some people are going to have extensive light. Their light is so stretched that the Prophet صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ would describe, that it could go from one city to another. It's that big of a light.

Other people have such weak light. They still have it, but it's so weak, they can barely see the next step that they're taking. So there are people with different capacities of light, and they are now making their way, and Allah has congratulated them, because they at least have light, as opposed to people who have no light, they don't have any chance of getting to Jannah.

They can't see a path. And so Allah says:

- "Congratulations to all of you of gardens, at the bottoms of which rivers are flowing, remaining therein eternally." (Quran 57:12)

Keep walking, keep going, keep going.

The Hypocrites' Desperate Plea

But then in the next ayah, Allah describes a group of people that also get up on Judgment Day, and they notice they have no light, and they're in the middle of the dark. And they see far ahead, and they see, you know, you can imagine this scene, there's complete pitch black darkness, and there's a group of people that seem to have some torches with them.

You don't even see them, you just see some lights flickering. So you realize, I better catch up with them, because those lights are getting dimmer. So these hypocrites wake up in this dark scene on Judgment Day, and they try to run and catch up to the believers, because they have no light of their own.

They wake up and they're in shock that they have nothing that can aid them:

The day on which hypocritical men and hypocritical women will say to those who've believed, wait for us, hold on, look back towards us, we could get some of your light." (Quran 57:13)

نَقْتَبِسْ مِن نُّورِكُمْ literally means, you know, in old days you had these torches with fires on top, and you can take your wood, and you can kind of light up your own torch.

So they figure, we can go borrow some of your light, it won't take anything away from yours. Hold on a second, help us out here. And then a voice is heard:

- "Go back behind yourselves, go turn back."

- "Find some light, we're not gonna help." (Quran 57:13)

The Wall of Separation

A day of judgment, the day of judgment is the day on which a mother doesn't care about her child. The day on which, you know, father and son, and brother and sister, all these relationships:

- "All relationships are cut." (Quran 2:166)

So who's gonna care about who? I just need to get to my Jannah, mind your own business. I'm not even turning back. Go back and find some light yourself.

And the idea of going back actually is sarcasm also. Go back to this world. Because on judgment day, if you don't come on judgment day with light, you can't get any.

The only way to gain that light was in this world. فَالْتَمِسُوا نُوراً So now they still try to catch up. Because they don't wanna hear it, right? So they're still trying to catch up.

And as they get closer and closer to the believers:

- "A massive gigantic wall is dropped between them. Which happens to have a door." (Quran 57:13)

And the door, inshallah, maybe some other time we'll talk about.

But Allah says a massive giant wall is dropped between these two groups. So even if they were gonna try to catch up, now they can't. As the wall is dropped, Allah says:

- "The side they can no longer see. The hidden side of it. That's got mercy and love and care in it."

- "And right behind it, approaching them, right approaching them is punishment." (Quran 57:13)

So not only were they in the dark, now there's a massive wall, you got nowhere to go. And when you look back, there's punishment coming at you. They're about to be crushed.

The Desperate Call: "Weren't We With You?"

So these hypocrites, may Allah not make us from them, become desperate. So they call out. And they say:

- "Didn't we used to be with you? Weren't we with you?" (Quran 57:14)

So they're asking for the people of the other side.

Apparently the door can be opened from the other side. Open up guys, come on, we used to be with you. And so a desperate call is made.

This is important before we go any further. This is actually the reason I chose these ayat for today's khutbah. This wording أَلَمْ نَكُن مَّعَكُمْ "Weren't we with you?" The idea is that these people on judgment day that are standing on the wrong side of the wall, that are in desperate situation, that have no light of themselves, actually assumed that they belonged among the believing community.

They were very confident about that. So much so that they're citing it even on judgment day, we used to be among you. We prayed with you, we did business with you, we were friends with you, we were family with you, we were cousins with you.

We went to the same college, university. We're all the same guys. How are we separated today? Why is this separation happening today? And from the other side, this time, now that they feel safe.

You know once the wall is dropped? Not only do these people get overly terrified, the people on the other side feel far more secure. So they're not in a rush anymore. Because now it's totally safe.

So now they take their time and actually answer them and say, well here's why you're not with us today. Here's why you're not with us today. You know the first thing the people of heaven told them, was you have to go get some of your own light.

- "Find some light on your own. Go back and get it." Apparently you don't have any light.

And then they're in shock, we used to be with you, we should have had light just like you have light. So now the people of Jannah are going to describe how these people who used to have light, they used to have light, they used to have faith. How did they lose it? How did they end up bankrupt on judgment day?

The Process of Losing Faith: Four Stages

And this ayah is particularly profound because then it will give us an insight into how does someone lose their iman.

How does someone end up taking the most priceless treasure that they can have in this life, our faith, and end up squandering it and losing it. It doesn't happen overnight. You don't just lose your iman.

It's a process. And that process has been described in these timeless words:

"Bala, of course you used to be with us. However..."

Stage 1: Self-Inflicted Trials (فَتَنتُمْ أَنفُسَكُمْ)

وَلَٰكِنَّكُمْ فَتَنتُمْ أَنفُسَكُمْ - "However, you put yourselves in fitna, you put yourselves in trial."

Fatana in Arabic actually means to put something to the test. Fatana is also used when you test the purity of gold and you melt it. And impurities come out.

Like gold doesn't go through an easy test. It goes through a painful burning test. The idea of فَتَنتُمْ أَنفُسَكُمْ there are many lessons associated with it.

For the purposes of this khutbah, I'll highlight one of them. You kept putting yourselves in situations where your faith gets tested. Try to understand what that means.

You kept putting yourself in environments where you knew it was bad for you, but you said, "no, I can handle it. I got this, I got this." You kept surrounding yourselves with friends that would do bad things, say bad things, see bad things, go to bad places, but you said, "I'm not like them, I'm just trying to help them."

And you kept going back into those environments. You kept getting into gatherings, and places, and situations. You kept putting yourselves in those places, assuming that it will not have any effect on you.

It will affect everyone else, but it won't affect you. You know, the first step wasn't that these people just became disbelievers, it was actually bad company. They put themselves in questionable circumstances, and they assume that it's not going to have an effect.

The Desensitization Process

You know, when you are... I'll give you a silly example, but it'll get the point across. If people do a lot of cooking at home, especially if you're a desi household, you do a lot of cooking at home, the home smells like a lot of masala. But if you live there, you don't smell it.

When somebody else walks in, especially if an Arab walks into your house, they feel like they're in some contaminated zone, it hits them really hard. But a couple of hours later, they're like, "it's just oxygen now." You understand?

When you first put yourself in a bad environment, you might feel it. You might feel, "this isn't good, this is gonna mess me up. I don't think I should be here." Your heart will feel uncomfortable.

But if you keep putting yourself in that situation, over and over and over and over again, guess what? It doesn't bother you anymore. Somebody who smells, you know, stands next to a smoker for the first time, is coughing, and their eyes are burning. But if they start smoking themselves a year later, that just becomes their oxygen.

They can't even breathe normally without smoking. It changes them all together. The first problem was, you put yourselves, you surrounded yourselves in a bad environment.

Stage 2: Procrastination (وَتَرَبَّصْتُمْ)

فَتَنتُمْ أَنفُسَكُمْ What was the second problem? The second problem was:

وَتَرَبَّصْتُمْ - "You kept procrastinating."

Now what does that mean? That means you realized it's bad, and you also realized in your own conscience, "I should change." But you told yourself, "I'll change pretty soon inshallah."

"I'm gonna change. I know I have to change. I know this is bad. Just one more week, and I'm gonna be a different person. Man, just this semester, I got these messed up friends right now, and I can't really make them upset, so I'm gonna keep hanging out with them. But next semester, I'm totally doing a different schedule."

"I'm not gonna be around these guys anymore. But let me just ride out this semester. Just this one more month I'm doing this, you know, just this one more weekend, just this one or two more party, just one or two more drinks," that you keep telling yourself, "just a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more," and then people tell, my favorite one, "Ramadan is right around the corner."

"It's just 10 more months, 11 more months, you know. Once Ramadan comes, man, I'll be totally different. I plan to go to hajj. Once I go to hajj, oh, you watch, I'm gonna be a different person. But until then, you know, just kinda, just make dua for me."

تَرَبَّصْتُمْ - You didn't wanna make a change today, right now. You figured, you assumed, not only are you putting yourselves in a bad environment, you're not ready to make a transformation right now. It's too much for you to be asked.

You'd rather just stick it out. You'd rather just enjoy a little bit more. This is what تَرَبَّصْتُمْ

The Addiction Trap

But you know what, and you assumed, by the way, this also has an assumption. The first assumption was, it doesn't affect you. It doesn't have an impact on you, but it does.

Something really bad becomes normal to you over time, you get desensitized. What is the effect of tarabbus, of holding off, and holding off, and holding off? Actually, you assumed that you can put the

brakes on at any time. And you can walk away from all of it whenever you want.

"I'm not addicted. I don't need this. I'm not hooked on it. I can just walk away whenever I feel like."

The truth of it is, that's not the case. The longer you stay, the more addicted you become. And the more impossible you feel, you can't get out, it's impossible for you to get out of it. You're completely immersed. You're completely drowned.

And you don't even know anymore what it is to be outside of this environment. And then you start telling yourself, "it's too late for me." And when that happens, a guilt sets in.

The guilt sets in that "I'm pretty messed up. Man, I've been doing sins. I've been in this bad environment. I should have made tauba a long time ago, but it's too late for me."

Stage 3: Doubt (وَارْتَبْتُمْ)

And that bad, nobody likes to feel bad. Nobody likes to feel guilty. And then shaitan comes and says, "why do you feel guilty? You don't have to feel guilty. The only thing that's making you feel guilty is this Islam thing."

"Islam says, this is haram, and that's haram, and that's a sin, and that's a sin, and you can't do this, and you can't say that, and you can't go there. Islam keeps making you feel bad, man. I want you to feel good. How true is Islam anyway?"

And now the thoughts start running in this person's mind, a man or a woman. "Why am I even following Islam? It seems like it just wants me not to be happy. I just want to live my life, man. I just want to be free."

"I just want to be able to do what I want. I just want to be able to hang out with my friends. I'm not so sure about the Quran anyway. How do we even know there is a God? How do we even know? What's this hadith business? How do we even know it's authentic?"

And so you have this young man or woman, this Zainab, this Ali, this Fatima, this Abdullah, this Karim, these beautiful names, and now they're starting to ask questions about, "I'm not so sure about this Islam. I don't know. I have doubts, I have serious doubts."

And these are not PhDs in philosophy, nor do they have exhaustive education in Islamic history, where they studied it and they started developing doubts. No, no, no. They were in a bad environment. They didn't change themselves. That is the process.

I've talked to hundreds of these people that literally live this ayah. They live this ayah. And then they get to a point where they have doubts. But their doubts have nothing to do with logic or reason.

As a matter of fact, when you answer one doubt, they go to the next doubt. When you answer that one, they go to the next one. When you answer that one, you go to the next one.

Then you say, "hold on a second. So how long ago did you start ending up in questionable kinds of company?" And then the truth starts coming out.

وَارْتَبْتُمْ - "The very next words are, you fell into doubt."

You started doubting. You know what doubt will do? It'll let you off the hook. You'll be able to say to yourself, "well, it's not really absolutely the truth anyway. So I shouldn't feel bad that I don't follow it. I shouldn't feel bad."

And now once those doubts settle in, and you hide behind those doubts, and continue to justify your life of procrastination and putting yourself in fitna.

Once you get to that point, then two things are taken away from you. The desire for jannah is taken away.

The desire for making Allah happy is taken away.

The desire to have that light that will make you run and get to that destination. You don't even have that in this world. The person who desires to seek that success with Allah, Allah will give them that in this world.

But that desire is gone now. You have doubts about it. And the fear of hell is gone.

Those two things are gone. Your fears are gone, and your hopes and aspirations in Allah and the akhira are gone. The afterlife is nothing to you.

The afterlife means nothing. If somebody even brings up heaven and hell, it's a joke to you. Well, if you take away heaven and hell, if you take away the motivation to end up in the reward of Allah, or get away from the punishment of Allah on judgment day, well, the only motivation you're going to have left are things that are left in this world, isn't it? You have nothing left in the next life.

So the only thing to look forward to are stuff that's left in this life. And this life will be money, it'll be fame, it'll be leisure, it'll be pleasure, it'll be material things. That's all you ever think about, that's all you ever care about, that's all you ever want to know about, that's the only thing that ever interests you, that's the only thing you make efforts towards, because you think all of these things are going to bring you happiness.

They'll bring you contentment.

Stage 4: False Hopes (وَغَرَّتْكُمُ الْأَمَانِيُّ)

So the next words are:

- "False hopes deceived you."

You had false hopes that some kind of worldly thing will bring you happiness, and you ran after it. You gave all of your life to it. And you would think that this will bring you what you're looking for, and you get to it.

Like people nowadays obsessed with the next movie that comes out, the next toy, the next device that comes out. Lines for the new Star Wars longer than passports for Hajj. Why? Because you need to go see it. If you don't see it, how does your life have any purpose?

Your life means nothing if you didn't see it opening night. And so you have to see it. And by the way, hoping that this will bring you some kind of fulfillment that you haven't found anywhere else. And people walk out of it and say, "that was pretty awesome," and then they're bored again.

"Like, what do I do now? Maybe I could go see it again." And then they go see it again, and they're like, "well it's not as exciting as the first time, but still pretty cool." You keep looking for something more to fulfill you and fulfill you.

Because the thing that will completely fulfill you, the pleasure of Allah, is no longer there. That desire is no longer there.

- "Until the decision of Allah came." (Quran 57:14)

This was your life. This, according to the believers, is a summary of a person's life. That lost their iman.

They started just with putting themselves in a questionable environment and from there, it's a downward spiral. Automatically, the next thing is you start getting hooked on it, you put off, and then later on you start developing doubts. And from there, the only thing you ever work towards is worldly, lustful, material gain, material desires.

- "And then Allah says, the ultimate deceiver," ghurur is مُبَالَغَة "the incredible deceiver was successful in deceiving you." (Quran 57:14)

The Gift of This Divine Warning

This is what the believers say to the hypocrites on the other side of the wall. This is an incredible scene, folks.

They're standing by this wall in shock, "why aren't we on the other side?" And now they're being reminded by their fellow believers on the other side, "well, remember that you did this, this, this, and this." And this is a gift of Allah to you and to me. It's a gift of Allah that this hideous scene has been painted on Judgment Day.

Because I would rather know now than then. I'd rather not stand there and then find out shocked, "why am I on the wrong side of this wall? Why am I not on the other side? How come I don't have any light? How come I lost this thing that Allah had given me?"

Every one of you sitting here, every believer has light inside their heart. Allah has granted it to us.

The problem is whether or not you and I wanna hold on to it or not. So you and I have to identify where we are. Maybe we're the people that just started putting ourselves in a fitna situation.

Maybe we just started getting ourselves caught up in the wrong thing. Or maybe we've been caught up for a while and we've been putting off, letting it go. Maybe that's happened.

Maybe we've even gone further down the road and now we've started developing doubts. Maybe that's how far we've gone. Maybe we've gone way down the road.

- "Now all we live for is toys and pleasures. That's all we live for now, is entertainment. That's what we've become."

The Only Currency That Matters

And so at the end of it all, nothing you earn, nothing I earn is worth anything on Judgment Day except that light. This is why when this passage began, Allah عَزَّ وَجَلٌ described it with light. And that light is the only thing that matters on Judgment Day.

- "The one who comes before Allah with a sound heart," the heart that can beam light in front of them. (Quran 26:89)

Anything else that you and I have, that we have now, is worthless. It's completely worthless before Allah on Judgment Day.

You can enjoy it for now, but if you get caught up in it, and it takes up the space in your heart, then you have no room left for light in your heart. You just don't have room left.

Which is why the last ayah of this passage is:

- "And today, there's not going to be any compensation taken from you. Don't try to pawn it for anything else. There's no access into those doors. There's no getting through this door with any kind of penalty or payment." (Quran 57:15)

You can't get through. Not from you, and not from those who disbelieve. The scary part of this ayah is:

- "You are now in the same position as those who disbelieve."

You ended up being in the same position as those who disbelieve. I'm not going to take any ransom from you, and I'm not going to take any ransom from them. All of you, your place is fire.

(وَبِئْسَ الْمَصِيرُ - "What a terrible place to be that is.")

The Solution: Remembrance of Allah and the Quran

And so at the end of it all, after painting this scene, Allah concludes. And I'll conclude with this ayah as well.

How is it that we can continue to preserve our light, and continue to remind ourselves not to put ourselves in that downward spiral, and whatever little light we have, how can we make it stronger and stronger and stronger? Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلٌ) Himself says:

"Isn't it yet time that believers' hearts should become filled with awe, with the remembrance of Allah."

Truly remembering Allah will bring awe into the hearts. And the more your hearts remember Allah, because Allah Himself is:

"Allah is the light of the skies and the earth."

The more Allah is in your heart, the more light is inside your heart. You understand? So He says, remember Allah. And then He says, how do you remember Allah? This is called عَطْفٌ بَيَان in Arabic.

"And they should be filled with awe, because of what came down from the truth. Because of the revelation. Because of the Quran."

Ponder over the Quran. Remember Allah through the Quran. Weep when you recite the ayat of Quran.

Think about what they mean to you, the gift that Allah has given you. Because not only is Allah the light of the skies and the earth, the Quran itself is also described as light in the Quran:

"Believe in Allah and His Messenger, and the light that we sent down."

Quran itself is called light. Quran itself is called light. And so the amount of time you spend with the book of Allah, for your own personal benefit, when you sit and recite it and ponder over it, and you think about what Allah your Master is saying to you, that is going to fill your heart with light.

And there is no greater treasure in your life than that light. And you won't realize the price of it, I won't realize the price of it, until we stand on that day when everything around us is dark, and the only light is the light coming out of my chest, and the only light coming out of my hands. That's when we'll realize.

Warning Against Hard Hearts

"They shouldn't become like people who came a long time before them, who were given the book a long time ago, and time passed, and their hearts became hard. They had the book but they didn't value it."

It's possible Allah says that a nation will have a book, they will have the book of Allah. There were nations before us who had a book too. They had Taurat, they had Injeel, they had Suhuf Ibrahim and Musa, they had.

But they didn't benefit from them. (لَمْ يَنتَفِعُوا مِنْهَا) - They didn't benefit from those books. They didn't use those books to fill their hearts with light.

Maybe they used those books for the wrong reasons. Maybe they reduced those books to just ceremonial occasions. They just enjoyed reciting it sometime every once in a while.

You know, that's all it became to them. Or maybe at some wedding gathering they can play some Quran, and that's all Quran became. But Quran was not there to soften their hearts anymore.

And this is the tragedy of history. People did not benefit from the word of Allah that came to soften hearts, preparing humanity for standing before Allah on Judgment Day. That's our responsibility now.

That's on you and that's on me. This is why:

"So their hearts became hard. Their hearts became hard."

When the heart becomes hard, there's no light inside left. It's not gonna give you anything on Judgment Day.

"Most of them are corrupt. Many of them are corrupt."

The Reality of Faith: Not Guaranteed

Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) is now in these few ayat, painting one of the most important realities, depicting one of the most important realities in the life of a believer. The iman you and I have is not something we can hold on to.

This light that we have been given is not something that's guaranteed. It's not. Just because you have it now, and you feel secure.

If somebody says salam to you, means they're Muslim. You say:

(وَعَلَيْكُمُ السَّلَامُ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ) - They're both Muslims. They're believers to each other.

We assume that we all have the light of faith inside our hearts. But according to these ayat, some people will stand up on Judgment Day and be shocked. "I thought I was with you."

And you're not. So we better realize that it's not automatic. It's not guaranteed.

It's something you personally will have to make efforts for. I personally will have to make efforts for. And your iman will not help me.

And my iman will not help you on Judgment Day. We're all gonna be caring about ourselves. Our own light.

"Go back, find your own light."

And right now we can cooperate with each other. And right now we can strengthen each other's iman. But on that day, there's not gonna be any help.

Closing Du'a

May Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) make us of those who preserve the light in our hearts. May Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) make us of those who are not on the wrong side of that wall.

Protect us and our families and our loved ones from nifaq. May Allah keep our hearts from becoming hard. And may Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) make us of those who continually internalize the word of Allah, allowing our hearts to soften and to be filled with light.

"May Allah bless me and you with the wise Quran, and benefit me and you with its verses and wise remembrance."