Moving Towards Jannah

In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful
Assalamualaikum

Title: Moving Towards Jannah

The thing about eeman is that, it's like a rollercoaster ride. At times, we will experience a high level of eeman. At other times, we will experience an extremely low one. Remember how I used to fuss about how my level of eeman have been at it's very low in a previous blog post? A sister told me that, having a high-low eeman is  perfectly normal, because we are ultimately human beings.

One day, you feel like you are on the top of the world. You recite the Quran, did all your fardhu prayers on time, you practise the sunnah, you had no issues with family members, and you truly just felt like your iman was at the peak of the coaster ride.

And there are other days when, you might have missed your fajar prayers, got into a little misunderstanding with your parents, and maybe your iman have hit a little too low. Our iman fluctauates, sometimes we are at highs and sometimes we are at lows. But the most important thing is that, we need to make sure that our iman is always increasing. We need to strive towards that.

However, in order to strive towards increasing our level of iman, we first need to understand what iman is all about. Iman is letting your life change; it should change our lives. We abandon our old ways, we abandon the glitter and the grills. When we abandon all that trash, we take shelter in Allah. When we have iman, we commit ourselves to change. And when we are committing ourselves with change, it comes with a huge responsibility. We need to be disciplined in our acts of ibadahs. We need to persevere and be strong to fight our nafs. We need to remain focused on our ibadahs, as we make our move towards Jannah.

Iman isn’t just about claiming to believe, but rather, it is acting upon that belief. Anyone can claim to believe. But what's the whole point of claiming that we believe, if we don't even practise what we preach? So I went on to the net, and did a little research on how to increase our level of iman, and here are my findings and I realised that, the tips are rather simple to follow. However, to make it a routine, and make it a habit, may be a little hard as we may be too caught up with worldly affairs. But it's worth giving it a try so insyaAllah, all will be well.

Tips on how to increase our level of iman:

1. Renew shahada everyday. Ponder upon the meaning of the shahada and understand it by heart.

2. Respect your parents. We need their blessings in everything that we do.

3. Do a lot of dzikrullah. Subhanallah wa bihamdi (x100)

4. Hang out with right crowd, because they will eventually influence you to do good, and be good.

5. Doa' for guidance and seek for forgiveness.

Here's an awesome seeking for forgiveness doa' to share:

Humma anta rabbi la ilaha illa anta, khalaqtani wa-ana aaabduk, wa-ana aaala aaahdika wawaaadika mas-tataaat, audzubika min sharri ma sanaaat, abuu-u laka biniaamatika alai, wa-abuu-u bithanbi, faghfirli fa-innahu la yaghfiruth-dzunuuba illa anta.

O Allah, You are my Lord, none has the right to be worshipped except You, You created me and I am Your servant and I abide to Your covenant and promise as best I can, I take refuge in You from the evil of which I committed. I acknowledge Your favor upon me and I acknowledge my sin, so forgive me, for verily none can forgive sin except You.

The reward for saying this supplication? The Prophet s.a.w has told us that, “If somebody recites it during the day with firm faith in it and dies on the same day before the evening, he will be from the people of Paradise and if somebody recites it at night with firm faith in it and dies before the morning he will be from the people of Paradise.”