Obeying Your Heart This Holiday Season

All praise and gratitude belong to God alone. We have just completed our seventh Newcomers Retreat here at Taleef's Chicago campus. Newcomers is our yearly gathering for those who have recently embraced Islam. It's chance to learn the basics of our religion and build relationships with others on this journey to know God and His Messenger ﷺ. For me, it's become an opportunity to see Islam again with a "beginner's mind" by looking at it through the eyes of our attendees. It snaps me out of all the ways the religion becomes yet another routine of my day-to-day existence by returning me the world of endless questions and infinite possibilities I experienced when I first embraced it. So, for any attendees from any previous years who are reading this, thank you. May God continue to increase you in your knowledge and sincerity. Ameen.

A very common theme of our attendees' questions was the struggle to implement the guidance our religion provides without giving up our own innate sense of justice and mercy. Yes, we came to Islam looking for guidance. Yes, we acknowledge that we don't have all the answers. But where does that leave our own moral compass, our own sense of right and wrong? These questions become particularly poignant when it comes to our families.

One sister informed us during a Q&A session that someone had told her it's impermissible to pray for our deceased non-Muslim family members. She wanted to be obedient to God's commands but this one left her incredibly distraught and anxious--not only about her ability to pray for her family, but also about the implications for her faith in a merciful God. One of our scholars in attendance had to explain that this is a misperception based upon God's command to the early Muslims not to pray for particular Meccans, like Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab, who had died in a state of disbelief while oppressing, torturing, and killing members of the early Muslim community. It is not a general rule applied to all non-Muslims, and, in fact, assuming that God's mercy encompasses our non-Muslim family is part of having a good opinion of Him. The relief on this sister's face as she received this explanation was palpable. Yet it still bothered me that she still felt she had to be given permission to be merciful with her family.

I pulled the sister aside after the Q&A and asked her how that explanation made her feel. "Great! It was such a relief. I knew something felt off but I was afraid my desire to pray for them was coming from a place of selfishness." So I asked, "When else have you ever considered it selfish to do good for your family?" She didn't have to answer. We both knew the answer was "never." But this half-educated idea that she couldn't pray for her own family, which was likely offered to her in a casual, offhanded manner, became a magnet attached to her moral compass. It cast doubt on her entire notion of right and wrong. What I told her next is what I really want to say to everyone reading this: "Don't doubt your own desires for goodness and mercy. These feelings aren't random; God put them in your heart. They're genuine forms of guidance."

Many of us will face similar questions and struggles as we venture home to visit our families this holiday season. Should I visit my family for Christmas? Can I be present as they're blessing the food in the name of Jesus? What if I have children and I'm afraid being present will confuse them? These questions are important and finding appropriate answers to them is indeed our duty as Muslims. But let's take appropriate mercy on ourselves first by acknowledging that the anxiety we often feel around these questions is itself a sign that our hearts are in the right place. We want to obey God. Therefore we are beginning with excellent intentions. Secondly, let's consider that maintaining family ties and being absolutely gentle and merciful with our parents is a command that God repeats frequently throughout the Quran. We know best what it means to be merciful with our families. We know which actions and words will break their hearts. We must be confident in our abilities to be truly Prophetic.

This should empower us to obey our hearts this holiday season. And this is why I won't provide any specific advice on how to deal with these issues. Your own sense of how to navigate family relations while remaining obedient to God is perfectly valid. Instead, I'd simply like to provide the encouragement that some will need to accomplish this. The very language that God's revelation provides around right and wrong validates our intuitions. God instructs us frequently to "command what is right and forbid what is wrong." The Arabic for "what is right" is معروف (ma’ruf), literally "what is well-known." Likewise, "what is wrong," منكر (munkar), literally means what is not known or well-recognized. The language God uses here validates something that is very important for us to remember. This is our fitrah, or our created disposition that naturally inclines toward what is good and recoils from evil. Our intuitions of right and wrong are valid because they come from knowledge that God placed within us that is good and pleasing to Him. Everyone has a fitrah; therefore "what is good" is "well-known" to everyone at some level. This is why the Messenger of God ﷺ tells us, "I have been sent to perfect good character." He did not say "to teach good character" because we already know what is good. Islam almost always heals and revitalizes; it very rarely makes amputations or transplants.

A Companion of the Prophet named Sufyan bin Abdullah, may God be pleased with him, once came to the Messenger of God ﷺ and said, “O Messenger of God, teach me something about Islam so that I will not need to ask of anyone after you.” The Messenger of God ﷺ said, “Say, ‘I have faith in God,’ and then be upright.” The Prophet ﷺ did not tell Sufyan how to be upright. He simply commanded him to be upright, with full faith that Sufyan knew what this meant and how to do it. Being upright, to speak literally, requires us to stand on our own two feet, to strike a balance, and to hold our heads high. No one else can do it for us. God created us "in the most excellent of forms" both outwardly and inwardly. Let's thank Him by using these gifts this holiday season.