Love for the sake of Allah

Assalamualaikum, and Hai..

In the previous weeks, I had surveyed my social media account regarding suggestions for my blog's topic and among many topics, I chose this.

When we talk about love, what do we think first?

For meeeee, I think about pain, heartbreaks and struggles in moving on. That's because I watch lots of Hindi and Malay dramas. You know like the breakups, betrayal, revenge, avenge, crying, and all of those sad moments.

But I am not going to talk about that because I believe this happens when you go for the wrong love. 

Maybe 👉👈

I am going to talk about 

"Love For The Sake of Allah"

.
Exactly, to be honest, I feel a little nervous to write about this. But I will try.😅😅

👉 Love For The Sake of Allah...💓

Content:

1. What is love in Islam?
2. Love yourself for the sake of Allah
3. Why we do lack of self-love?
4. How you should do it?
5. Love others for the sake of Allah
6. How you should do it? 
7. Summary

1) Love in Islam

First of all, what is the meaning of love?
Let's watch a video first.

Love for the sake of Allah means you love all the things that Allah loves as He is the Al-Wadud (The Most Loving). You see the goodness in everything that Allah loves.
Subhanallah. 🌄

But...

When I talk about love, we will "Definitely" think about others, right ?? Like loving others and all...

Let's play a game, 

List 3 people you love the most in 10 seconds. Tik tik tik

"After that, see that did you mention yourself in the list too?"

  Most people don't because we often prioritize others that we forget about ourselves... Sad isn't it?😔

We may list our parents, friends, spouses, or siblings' names first but we forget about the most important person, and "it's you" ...

And if you did mention your name, then Congratz 😊😊, we are in the same boat 🚤...

Many people find this a little "cliche" and think that it is wrong to love yourself...

Reminder ❗❗

 Loving yourself doesn't mean that you have to be egoistic or self-obsessed or look down on others... That is wrong...

"2) Why we should love Ourselves (Self-love)?"

    Self-love is important for an individual to realize his/her self-worth, respect yourself as you are, a way to appreciate what your body, mind, and soul are gifted with, and to be a better person. 

    Self-love is also important to have positive vibes around you.

Let me give you an example,

"Have you ever criticized yourself so badly, after that you found it hard to get anything done at the moment? Your mind and soul were so tired and unmotivated to do anything." 

Or have you ever given good comments to yourself and somehow it makes you feel better and beautiful for a whole day.

Can you relate to it?

Sometimes we don't realize whatever we say to ourselves, will later go to our subconscious mind and provide either a positive or negative impact on us.

I remembered the moment when my seniors gave advice, after that they would say...

"I am not saying this because I am good. But I am also advising myself as my ears are much closer to me compared to you all."

Self-love is also important to motivate ourselves to be a better person/believer.

Like if you don't love yourself then either going to Heaven or Hell won't make any difference to you. We all want to go to Heaven but if you don't care about whatever you do, and don't care that either your deeds are good or bad, it gonna be a problem.

3) why do we lack self-love in the first place?

    First of all, influenced by "fake-life profiles" that lead us to comparison, jealousy, and not appreciating what we have. 

Why I am saying this? 

    It is because we are in a generation who are often shown this fake life via social media and we often get tricked by them and start comparing our lives with them. Remember,

"Comparison is the thief of joy"

    To be honest, social media is good as a socializing place with your friends and family where you communicate and share pictures/videos. But when you overuse it and go to SocMed for validation (like you look beautiful only if someone comments on the post that you look beautiful). 

Social media become bad when we think that anything that happens there is real and the profiles we admire have a perfect life while you don't and it lowers your "self-esteem" and "self-love". Everyone had a face that we didn't know. Who knows they may have fabricated their real life behind the lenses of the camera.

Let's watch a video on this.

    

    Not only social media, but even people around us can make us feel horrible like a toxic friend who keeps on trying to put negative images in our minds about us. 

(You can read further about toxic friends in my blog titled "Being Positive")

How do you love yourself?

Actually, there are many ways, but I will list some of them.

1. Knowing yourself

There is a quote in Malay,

"Kalau tak kenal maka tak cinta"

which means if you don't know the person/thing, you're not going to love it.

So you need to know yourself to love yourself. Yeah, at first it really sounds cliche (same goes with me as it sounds weird that how could not know yourself). 

But when I tried to identify what I like, love, hate, dislike and what makes me happy, I found it hard. I even found it hard to describe myself with full of sincerity that "yeah, it is exactly ME" or "I am like this".

Can you tell why you exactly like or hate something? Have you ever taken the time to figure it out? Haha, I don't wanna play the blame game here, just wanna make you guys realize the fact. Auchh... 🤧

Even by knowing yourself, you will start appreciating whatever you are gifted with from Allah swt. You'll start appreciating the nikmah, talents and everything that Allah gives you and use it for better use for the Ummah. 😊

Some people are gifted with drawing/artistic talents so they can use them to share the da'wah in a unique way like painting, calligraphy or video making.

Some people are also talented in specific subjects in studies such as the medical field, and they work hard to help and treat others. Or they make medicines so people can heal.

There are a variety of contributions that a single person can make for the ummah (nation). You only need to discover it.

“If you are grateful, I will surely give you more and more.” (Ibrahim 14:7)

2. Avoid victimising yourself.

We all have these bad whispers in our heads that keep on trying to feed negativity into our minds. They often whisper things that make us feel demotivated and useless.

So start to avoid these whispers by start doing good.

Remember...

The biggest jihad is the battle with your own nafs'.

Why?

Coz when you help others even by giving sadaqah, it will change the perspective on your and their lives.

If you don't get the same treatment from them, then renew your intentions that you're doing a good deed for Allah and Allah take notes of everything you do without missing anything. Subhanallah. 

Even if others don't give you much attention, instead of breaking down and stopping, rewire your brain to start building up and be more stronger.

3. Taking good care of yourself.

You should also start taking care of things you are gifted with such as good health.

Many of us try a lot of things that eventually will harm our health in a period such as smoking, eating junk food regularly and many more.

A wise person once said 

Prevention is better than cure

And one way to show that you appreciate whatever Allah gives you is by taking care of it. In a hadith, it is mentioned that...

Some ways to show your body and mind self-love in your daily life are...

• Enough sleeping
• Healthy eating
• Exercising 
• Avoid toxic influences
• Maintaining your hygiene

And the most important way is by

Maintaining a good relationship with Allah.

I believe is it NOT okay, if you take care of what you have but you forget about the ONE who gave it to you.

You can maintain a relationship with Allah swt, by following His commandments, praying, fasting, and following Rasullullah s.a.w teachings (Sunnah).

4.  Forgive yourself

Sometimes some mistakes make us dwell and wanna give up...

We must have made a mistake that made us feel bad whenever we remembered that. Even I did it.

You feel like you failed in front of your own sight "How could I do this?" or "I can't believe that I did that. Astaghfirullah"...

For me, the past is a past. Things do happen in life as this life is a journey to be a better slave of Allah swt. 

• Dwelling on your past won't change the past but learning lessons from it and doing Taubah is what matters. The same goes for forgiving yourself. 
• Allow yourself to grow with it instead of questioning it. As bygones are bygones.
• You can't change anything about it. Instead, forgive yourself, give yourself healing time, pray, repent, learn lessons from your mistakes and be a better version of yourself.

Even your smartphones have an upgrade system, so why can't you, hmm ?

But if you still feel like giving up.

Remember Allah swt promises that...

and...

While other tips are...

If you have self-esteem issues, watch this..

Now, let's talk about loving others for the sake of Allah.

5)Loving others for Allah.

Let's learn what this means...

In other words, Shaykh Ammar AlShukry, a Muslim who loves for the sake of Allah ( LFTSOA) doesn't love someone for his needs or because someone facilitates (profits) him.

In easy words, you love someone NOT for what they provide you because if you do, then it would be like you love them for your own sake/benefits.

When you love someone for your "own sake", you'll put yourselves into the equation.

But when you love someone for Allah's sake, then you'll love even a stranger for something that he/she does for Allah. Even she/he is someone who often goes to the mosque or recites the Qur'an at the corner.

It's like

" I am loving them NOT because they are good to me, But because they are GOOD TO ALLAH".

Even though you don't get benefits from them, you love them because they do good deeds for Allah.

And when a person does that, they are doing a great act of Worship.

Why you should love others for Allah?

It is to purify our soul from being someone who holds grudges, is judgemental and backbites others.

When you love for the sake of Allah, you'll have a positive aura around you as we know having bad feelings towards others will affect us without we know about it.

Even it is an act that is most beloved by Allah swt. 

As in a hadith,

6) What to do when you love others for the sake of Allah?

1)Make dua' for them without them knowing.

Subhanallah, you can pray for someone even if you don't know her/him, neither her/his name nor his/her phone number.

2) Help rather than judge them.

I believe we probably have or insha'Allah will meet someone in life who is in the process of becoming better.

To be honest, even I had gone through this stage. I met plenty type of people during this journey of mine, where some made fun of my weaknesses, judged my mistakes, giving me names, but Alhamdulillah, some also guided me, taught me, and motivated me to be a better person.

Alhamdulillah, those journeys of my life became a lesson to me on learning how to treat others who are in my position.

But I also know some people who give up because they find themselves weak and feel discouraged. May Allah guide and help them.

I believe that we're in no place who is qualified to judge anyone because we are also full of imperfections. Maybe some are perfect in religious matters but they are weak at another point.

So let the only One (Allah SWT) judge us as He knew everything about you even the whispers of your heart. 💓💓

3)Think positive about them

You know the evil of the devil (Shaytaan), who whispers bad things to you when you see someone do good and you start thinking bad about that person.

For example,

1) That man is giving charity because he wants to show off his money.

2) This brother is showing off his beautiful voice to attract others.

3) This sister is just pretending to be good.

Astaghfirullah, have you gone through the same?

Whenever you find yourself in this dilemma, seek protection from Allah think positively, and try to humble yourself by keeping a positive mind.

It's hard but insha'Allah, you can. Don't let yourself drown in the negative thoughts even if you have to shed some tears.

Sometimes our hearts are full of hatred and we need a lot to improve yet we like to judge someone who may be doing something for the sake of Allah.

7) Summary

It is important for us to love others and ourselves for the sake of Allah...

Searching for love can be hard, but the first step in finding love is to love yourself. We can't expect others to love us the way we are when we don't do it first. 

While to love others for the sake of Allah, we need to be remembered as Allah mentioned in Quran

Worship Allah and associate nothing with Him, and to parents do good, and to relatives, orphans, the needy, the near neighbor, the neighbor farther away, the companion at your side, the traveler, and those whom your right hands possess. Indeed, Allah does not like those who are self-deluding and boastful.

(An-Nisa 4:36)

Loving others for the sake of Allah will help people find the sweetness of their faith in their interaction with others and their friendship.

In a hadith, Rasullullah SAW mentions that " Indeed the strongest bond of faith is to love for the sake of Allah and hate for the sake of Allah."

And if someone treats you badly, try to be the best version of yourself and keep a good distance from them as you have to take care of yourself too.

Read this here: Being Positive (also my blog)

So what did you guys think about this and your tips for maintaining self-love and loving others? Do share in the comments section. ✌🏻

Thanks for reading till the end 😊✌🏻