Struggling with My Faith
Question:
Hello, thank you in advance for any help you can offer me.
I am born and raised Muslim and I'm struggling with my faith. The person I want to marry is born Muslim but is either agnostic or undecided on his beliefs. I began researching intensively in order to be able to convince him to let me raise our children (if we marry and have children) as devout Muslims. He has no problem with them showing interest in Islam but does not want me to force any practices on them even in their teens, if they're not doing it by their own free will.
Through my research I read translations of the Quran and frankly I was terrified. This has been my experience reading the Quran every time ever since I was young. I am unable to come up with enough convincing arguments in raising children on religion when even I'm terrified of my own religion. A large percentage of it is about hell.
I'm terrified of going to hell if my children refuse to practice Islam, for marrying someone who doesn't have faith, for getting angry at God for making me terrified. This has greatly affected my faith and I feel I'm on the verge of letting go of Islam, and that also terrifies me. Any advise or information you can share with me to help me strengthen my faith would be greatly appreciated.
Answer:
Let us start with your last statement:
“I feel I'm on the verge of letting go of Islam”
Well, you can never do that in its entirely. According to the Qur’an everything is submitting itself (aslama) to God (3:83). This means the attitude of ‘islam’ is already inbuilt in every substance of what is known as ‘you’. You may mentally decide not to submit yourself to your Creator, but your body, your soul and your intellect, in line with the rest of the world are fully submissive to Him.
Please have another look at the verses of the Qur’an about hell. Make sure you do recognise to whom the promise of hell is given. You will see that about 90% of the verses on hell are actually about the polytheists and rejecters at the time of the prophet (pbuh). Others are for major sins like murder and adultery (and even there, true repentance can avoid hell).
You need to deliberate on this. By specifying the residents of hell as such, God is actually showing His mercy towards the human being. For people like yourself, the verses to look at, to recognise God’s compassion towards His sincere servants, are the ones like this:
قُلْ يا عِبادِيَ الَّذينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلى أَنْفُسِهِمْ لا تَقْنَطُوا مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَميعاً إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحيم
Say: O my servants who have done wrong to your soul, do not get disappointed from the compassion of God, God forgives all sins, He is Forgiving and Merciful. (39:53)
In terms of raising your children, a couple of points:
- At our time and age, it is in fact not a bad idea to avoid forcing children to practice the religion. A better approach is to make this as part of their routine life by encouragement, reasoning and practicing it ourselves.
- You will not go to hell if your children go to a wrong path. As parents we are not responsible to put and keep our children on the right path. We are only responsible to show them the right path. Imagine, if parents were to be punished for children’s misguidance, then (God Forbidden) prophet Nuh (pbuh) should be punished as well!
If the person who you want to marry is agnostic or undecided, then that means he should be open to new understandings about religion and islam. I suggest you encourage him to learn more about islam from various sources.
Deliberation on the following may be a good starting point, which is the same verse that I referred to above:
أَ فَغَيْرَ دينِ اللَّهِ يَبْغُونَ وَ لَهُ أَسْلَمَ مَنْ فِي السَّماواتِ وَ الْأَرْضِ طَوْعاً وَ كَرْهاً وَ إِلَيْهِ يُرْجَعُون
Do you seek a religion other than of God’s while everything in the heavens and the earth have submitted to Him willingly or by compulsion and the return is to Him? (3:83)
Please let me know if I can be of any further help.
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August 2015
Hello, thank you in advance for any help you can offer me.
I am born and raised Muslim and I'm struggling with my faith. The person I want to marry is born Muslim but is either agnostic or undecided on his beliefs. I began researching intensively in order to be able to convince him to let me raise our children (if we marry and have children) as devout Muslims. He has no problem with them showing interest in Islam but does not want me to force any practices on them even in their teens, if they're not doing it by their own free will.
Through my research I read translations of the Quran and frankly I was terrified. This has been my experience reading the Quran every time ever since I was young. I am unable to come up with enough convincing arguments in raising children on religion when even I'm terrified of my own religion. A large percentage of it is about hell.
I'm terrified of going to hell if my children refuse to practice Islam, for marrying someone who doesn't have faith, for getting angry at God for making me terrified. This has greatly affected my faith and I feel I'm on the verge of letting go of Islam, and that also terrifies me. Any advise or information you can share with me to help me strengthen my faith would be greatly appreciated.
Answer:
Let us start with your last statement:
“I feel I'm on the verge of letting go of Islam”
Well, you can never do that in its entirely. According to the Qur’an everything is submitting itself (aslama) to God (3:83). This means the attitude of ‘islam’ is already inbuilt in every substance of what is known as ‘you’. You may mentally decide not to submit yourself to your Creator, but your body, your soul and your intellect, in line with the rest of the world are fully submissive to Him.
Please have another look at the verses of the Qur’an about hell. Make sure you do recognise to whom the promise of hell is given. You will see that about 90% of the verses on hell are actually about the polytheists and rejecters at the time of the prophet (pbuh). Others are for major sins like murder and adultery (and even there, true repentance can avoid hell).
You need to deliberate on this. By specifying the residents of hell as such, God is actually showing His mercy towards the human being. For people like yourself, the verses to look at, to recognise God’s compassion towards His sincere servants, are the ones like this:
قُلْ يا عِبادِيَ الَّذينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلى أَنْفُسِهِمْ لا تَقْنَطُوا مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَميعاً إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحيم
Say: O my servants who have done wrong to your soul, do not get disappointed from the compassion of God, God forgives all sins, He is Forgiving and Merciful. (39:53)
In terms of raising your children, a couple of points:
- At our time and age, it is in fact not a bad idea to avoid forcing children to practice the religion. A better approach is to make this as part of their routine life by encouragement, reasoning and practicing it ourselves.
- You will not go to hell if your children go to a wrong path. As parents we are not responsible to put and keep our children on the right path. We are only responsible to show them the right path. Imagine, if parents were to be punished for children’s misguidance, then (God Forbidden) prophet Nuh (pbuh) should be punished as well!
If the person who you want to marry is agnostic or undecided, then that means he should be open to new understandings about religion and islam. I suggest you encourage him to learn more about islam from various sources.
Deliberation on the following may be a good starting point, which is the same verse that I referred to above:
أَ فَغَيْرَ دينِ اللَّهِ يَبْغُونَ وَ لَهُ أَسْلَمَ مَنْ فِي السَّماواتِ وَ الْأَرْضِ طَوْعاً وَ كَرْهاً وَ إِلَيْهِ يُرْجَعُون
Do you seek a religion other than of God’s while everything in the heavens and the earth have submitted to Him willingly or by compulsion and the return is to Him? (3:83)
Please let me know if I can be of any further help.
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August 2015
