wait... what exactly did you mean when you mentioned 'beating around the bush'?

al-Ghazali said something about seeing a beautiful woman from the corner of your eye - and how it wasn't ever worth looking twice.

This is because either:

A) She's ugly, and then you're disappointed.

or

She's gorgeous and then you resent not being with her.

I think it's the same with sexual thoughts - it's only ever going to make you resent not being able to have sex - therefore feeling bad. Or it might tempt you into actually going out to seek sex - which will also make you feel bad in the long run.

But nobody ever said it would be easy. And if they did, then they're trying to tease me.

MakeMeRawr_6TeenF wrote:

Ya'qub wrote:

I think it's the same with sexual thoughts - it's only ever going to make you resent not being able to have sex - therefore feeling bad. Or it might tempt you into actually going out to seek sex - which will also make you feel bad in the long run.

but what if you KNOW that it won't?

If you just KNOW because you have total control over yourself (as most people do)?

THEN why can't you still?

Just because of the SLIGHT potentiality that somehow you'll lose all control and just have sex because you want to feel pleasure you've felt to a higher degree?

I think at one point I used to be fond of the phrase/line "Islam is not a social club".

Some things are difficult and yes, that can suck. And some times we have to just accept that that is the way it is, that we will struggle, that things will not be easy and there may be no simple solutions either.

My previous answer was probably a bad one , but my line of thinking (for those who have not followed my posts on any subject over the past few months) was "ok, people are weak/fail/mess up/are not perfect. So what next? Should they be ostracised or should they be accepted at being "merely human"?". It is kind of an engineers view of the world - things fail, so you put a lot of planning into what to do when they fail. find "paths of least damage" etc. to make failure not be catastrophic.

And yes, I do think it needs to be thought about because other stuff happening is way worse.

Saying that, we are not the only people to find this tough - many sahabah begged the Prophet to be allowed to castrate themselves, but were forbidden and told that the challenges that have been written for them in life cannot be side stepped or something.

From Bukhari:

Narrated Abu Huraira:

I said, "O Allah's Apostle! I am a young man and I am afraid that I may commit illegal sexual intercourse and I cannot afford to marry." He kept silent, and then repeated my question once again, but he kept silent. I said the same (for the third time) and he remained silent. Then repeated my question (for the fourth time), and only then the Prophet said, "O Abu Huraira! The pen has dried after writing what you are going to confront. So (it does not matter whether you) get yourself castrated or not."

so, it is not meant to be easy.

helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllo

this is a forum
duh

maybe someone needs to broaden their horizons!!
u talk if u as perfect as the angels!
ps if you READ carefully the conversation between I and YOU it was a personal conversation... :!:

MakeMeRawr_6TeenF wrote:

Thank you very much

(was it not a little weasely and back tracky and... lame?)

touchy touchy

" if u cant take the heat get out of the kitchen " comes to mind.

please READ your own comments, you seem to be very confrontational, and hang on to every word that others say. remember when you point your finger towards someones faults and errors four fingers are pointing towards your self.

u are going to your grave and me to mine

lets leave it at that

lol
sorry

ive read your blogs n that
ive sent you my opinion and personal relates
if you would like to discuss please feel free
but do it in private

MakeMeRawr_6TeenF wrote:

i have actually come to terms with a lot more than i had just under a year ago...

It really feels like much longer.

Really? I was just thinking that with Ramadan round the corner, I can't believe the last year has gone by in a twinkle of the eye.

And not in a good way.

I feel like I'm sinking at the moment. No actually I feel like I'm sunk.

The mind can be trained to a certain extent. But there will always be that primal instincts side of us.

Personally this whole thing never really occured to me. To ask for forgiveness for my thoughts. Coz they're just thoughts, and i have no intention in allowing it to go that far. Heck there are thoughts that even i wont even allow my mind to think.

Although i understand it might not be so easy for other people to control themselves :roll: in which case if it helps to pray then theres nothing wrong with that. But i do agree that sometimes you do need a more potent shield to protect yourself from those whispers. And it would have to be pretty strong.

Salaam all.

First of all, Welcome to the Revival, Harun. Please hop over to the 'new members' thread and introduce yourself.

@ Rawry, I think that you are speaking about two seperate issues; bad thoughts and 'why does it feel like I'm not allowed to do anything?'

Why does it feel like I'm not allowed to do anything
A few years ago, I started to feel the same way, where it got to the point where I went to the person I used to talk to for advice and asked "Is it Halaal for me to be happy?"

He didn't give me a straight answer (idiot ) but he should have emphaticaly answered "yes!"

You see the reason that folk like us have this problem is that the texts (Qur'an and Ahadith collections) talk about progress. How to be better people and more sincere worshipers. What they don't explicitly discuss is, being happy and having fun. They discuss this, but not explicitly.

There is this idea that we should be grim, productive worship-automatons in this world and that we can be happy and have fun in the here-after. This is not true. Attainment through pure rituals of worship and obediance is the for the Angels AS; the way of man is attainment through loving worship and obediance. The Messenger of God SAW spoke of a people whose worship rituals would be so vast that the we would feel our own rituals (including Qur'an recitation)to be few in comparison, however their recitation wouldn't reach to their hearts, and they would pass out of iman.

In other words, we should do our rituals for a reason, God says in Surah Rahman, "Is the reward for Ihsan anything but Ihsan?" Where 'Ihsan' is understood to mean something beautiful done with the intention to please someone. That is, you do an act with love and the reward is that Allah does something for you with love to make you happy.

Again I'm talking of deeds and acts, but the point is that we shouldn't be grim and automatic about 'being religious', the religious person is happy and makes others happy.

You see the four madhhabs are not to tell you how to pray. They are not revelation, rather they tell you the principles by which you, yourself, figure out how to pray. However because access to the machine of the madhhab requires such a high callibre of trainning, only those who study the madhhab can obtain readings and results, and so the common man finds out how to pray (finds results) by letting the madhab-operator run his investigations and share with us his results. For this reason, the great use to the COMMON man, regarding the madhhab is in the various results and findings gathered from the machine.

In the same way, Islam is a deen, a comprehensive/holistic way of life, and yet for the transmitters of Ahadith, the overwhelming usefulness was for those ahadith which spoke of religious and spiritual attainment. This is why, in my opinion, the famous collections always mention acts and deeds and little else.

For those aspects of Islam which don't refer so much to acts and deeds, it is more useful to look at the seerah (way of living) and mu'aamalaat (soical interactions) of The Messenger SAW, and of those most faithful to Him SAW, that is, the Sahaba, the Taabi-een and the saints RA.

With regards this aspect, whenever my shaykh, shaykh Tahir ul Qadri, holds a large sitting, he occaisionally makes humourous or light-hearted remarks to illustrate that sunnah of the Messenger (SAW) of making some joke with your congregation and friends. He also teaches, that with Mujahadah (spiritual work and disciplines), one must be of cheerful heart and countenance. Our acts of worship shouldn't make us feel grumpy and frustrated, and whilst its better to be involved in acts of ritual worship, been involved in other acts is fine as long as they are not prohibited.

It is not a lesser evil, it is merely neutral. Not rewardable and not punishable. However these things too can be turned into acts of worship with pious intentions, e.g. Whilst playing football, make sure you call out your own fouls instead of only those of the other team (my own examnple).

You are allowed to have fun and the Messenger SAW positively encouraged social interactions and not being a stranger to others. As long as you don't do anything prohibited, why can't hanging out with your friends be a sunnah?

My understanding is that Islam is of two complimentary aspects; Beauty and polishing. The first aspect is the aspect of Salaam. God says in the Qur'an that whatever he revealed was not revealed to be a burden, and the Messenger SAW said that He (SAW) was only sent as a mercy to the worlds. So be happy, and engage in things which make you happy. The other aspect is the aspect of Mujaahadah and self-improvement, whereby you try to give more than take and you try to give more time to acts of ritual worship. Self-improvement could also be trying to feel happy when you say AlhamduliLlah!

v aslaam

thankyou

Q: what new members thread?

@Dawud - I actually read that post! Maybe turn it into an article/blog post?

@weds - your story seems to confuse differentiate between desires and temptations (in the context of this topic). Desire - liking ice cream. Temptation - having a bowl of it sitting right in fonr of you. Oh, it's raspberry ripple... om nom nom

mee as well please-@ br:Dawud..

Salaam

Sorry, I meant to post earlier but I've been busy.

With regards bad thoughts, I can think of two types; annoying and uncontrollable bad thoughts and temptation type bad thoughts.

The annoying uncontrollable ones are usually those that once they hit you, you start wrestling with them and really getting yourself worked up over them, or else you feel guilty for having 'thought' them. These types often get you durring prayer, but at other times too.
Its the type of neurotic thought that isn't from your own mind and you would never think and yet it just pops into your mind automatically. Here the response is simple, ignore it. There is a hadith where the Prophet (SAW) teaches that if a bad thought comes to you durring prayer, ignore it. From experience if you make it your habit to ignore these types of thoughts and not engage with them or wrestle with them in any way, then the time will come when you stop associating with them and stop feeling guilty, then the thoughts will stop happening.

The other type is the type of thought that can stem from a 'what if?' or it might not even be a conscious 'what if?' It might just be 'I want it.' which can become 'I know its wrong but I want it too much.'

At the 'what if?' stage, you should stop immediately. Imagining scenarios that involve prohibited things open the door to shaytan. Like Ya'qub said in quoting Imam al Ghazali (RA), you will feel bad that you can't make your fantasy come true. My experience with these sort of imaginings is that they do not satisfy you, instead they lead you to wonder how things could develop and thus you dig yourself further in until you're arguing with your fantasy wife because you have to arrange the marriage for your virtual son and he's just come out of the closet about supporting Arsenal.

Even if it does just stay in your head and you would never dare act upon it, its still not cool. Maybe you're not actually doing anything wrong, but you're not helping yourself out spiritually either. You see right and wrong isn't just about not hurting other people (although that is a good measure) its also about your relationship with God. If a person is indulging in virtual sin then they are expressing a desire to do something which God doesn't want them to do. But arguing with God isn't the worst bit, the worst bit is what we do to our hearts.

These kind of mental indulgences are corruption. They don't kill you or do anything noticiable, but they have effects. You feel guilty because your conscience tells you that you did something wrong to fantasise about what you did. And we did do something wrong, because our hearts loves purity. Fair enough, no-one got hurt, no sin was committed, but the heart got abused and violated. Its for the sake of the heart and its peace that we shouldn't think these thoughts. We are all fundamentally good and obediant to God, this is the gift of having a human heart and that's why we feel our consciences feeling guilty afterwards, because we put our secret and subtle hearts through something that hurt them.

After this reason there should be the reason of your personal, cordial relationship with God. You claim to love Him and obey Him and yet by thinking these bad thoughts we dishonour that relationship. Maybe nothing is written down on the accounts, and nothing real is done, but its dishonourable, its not what good folk do.

After this reason there should be the reason of being careful, that even though this is just a fantasy, what if you start to want it and look for bad stuff for on TV or worse. This usually how a good person can slip and do something bad. There are many stories that showcase this phenomenon, and it only happens to good people who are not used to doing bad. For people who are sometimes do bad, they instead feel that 'I'm evil anyway, I'm too bad to be saved it doesn't matter what I do...' (which is wrong and there's many stories which illustrate why they're worng), but the point is, little bad thoughts can and do lead to big bad thoughts and then to actions. I am sad to say that I have personally experienced this several times.

Whatever the reason that we use to reject these bad thoughts, we should reject them in the manner prescribed by Noor in the original post. Seek refuge in God, seek forgiveness from God and ask God to make you find pleasure in that which He loves for you.

I suppose the seeking refuge is against the fear of little bad thoughts becoming big ones, the seeking forgiveness is for dishonouring your emotional relationship with God and the last prayer is a provision for your heart.

EDIT: For the record, its not a sin to think bad thoughts, its just bad in every other way.

Apologies for the long post, I tried not to make it long...

@You, I don't think its blog worthy (I'm not an authority, just giving some advice.) I can't be bothered going through the article process of edits and re-edits, but others should feel free to poach what I've written, as long as they represent the spirit of my thinking.

Blog posts do not always need the same level of care, post editing as articles - they can be rough and ready. (also with the conversion one you posted somewhere - would also be good as a blog post as otherwise, it has got lost.)

No need to clean themk up, but if you do not want them as blog posts, that is fine too. Just ideas.

@ dawud, even though ur posts are reeaaaallllyy long lol, i enjoy reading them, just thought ad tel u

Well, this was one forum worth reading from the beginning to the end. Thanks Rawrsy.

And I agree with Rawrsy, You and M4k4v3l1: Dawud's posts are so...thorough and inspiring..

s.b.f wrote:

Well, this was one forum worth reading from the beginning to the end. Thanks Rawrsy.

And I agree with Rawrsy, You and M4k4v3l1: Dawud's posts are so...thorough and inspiring..

+2 altho ive said that before a couple times! no harm in saying it again

@ Rawry afaik a "lesser evil" is still an sin but its better to carry on doing that if it stops u doing something worse.