- Islam holds that we are all born basically good but have a natural weakness due to our physical nature
- Islam also has the concept of an evil enemy, a Devil that preys upon our hearts and minds. But it only has limited power over us and God has given us the tools to combat him.
The Three-Fold Journey
- The Animal Self
- The Accusing Self
- The Restful Self
- ^Three Levels of Development ^
- these are the stages we obtain as we come to the final realization that god is, in fact, real and that we ought to move closer to him
- No child is born evil, but if their every urge is fulfilled they'll never learn self-control
The Animal in All of Us (Animal Self)
- During this stage our basic desires for food, sex, creature comforts and wealth guide our life choices
- The struggle out of animal self is made even harder by an evil jinn named shaytan
- He seeks to corrupt and ruin us
Stepping up the Plate (Accusing Self)
- After the second stage has been entered and we realize we need God in heart and mind, we can now try to mold our life according to his universal way
- We become less attached to the life of this world, more introspective, less irritable, and stressed
- through daily routine of prayer, reflection, fasting, and study, and a counscious morality, our heart becomes more at ease
The Supreme Acheivement (restful self)
- Nothing in the world has a hold of us any longer
- We lead lives of quiet contemplation and are not phased by anything
- We no longer live to satisfy ourselves but to realize the higher purpose of life
Sin and Redemption
- surrendering to God means to believe in him, to promote harmony on earth, to follow a personal code of morality
- charity, honesty, thrift, compassion, self-control, and integrity, are the goals of a Muslim
- Sins: dishonesty, violent behavior, greed, jealousy, gossip, and sexual promiscuity
How Does God Forgive?
- When you commit a bad deed or sin, it will be held against you on judgement day
- The only way to remove the stain of that sin is to follow a four-step process of repentence called making tawba
- Four steps: feel remorseful, repent by saying "God forgive me", make restitution for the sin if possible, resolve never to do the sin again.
Law and Order
- There are only a few crimes that incur physical punishment
- personal moral sins require only the four-step process
- islamic law mixes personal morality and civil and criminal law into one overall code in keeping with the religious view that there is no difference between the secular and spiritual realms
Everything Counts when is Counts
- you save or damn yourself everyday through your belief, or lack of it, your actions, good or bad, and your overall record
- our sins, if we dont repent of them, will be held against us
- everytime we do a good or bad deed it is recorded with god
- salvation in islam is founded on believing in a surrendering your will to god and nothing more
The Last Payday
- God will reward good even as He will punish evil
Our Report Card
- We will either be sent to heaven or hell on the day of judgement based on our list of good and bad deeds
- Islam does not teach that people are born sinful like in christianity
- we are all born spotless and can choose between good and bad
There'll Be Hell to Pay
- The consequence of rejecting god and staying in the animal stage is that our soul becomes corrupted or warped
- so we go to hell to have our soul cleansed by fire
- when the deserved punishment is finished the newly cleansed soul may again rejoin gods presence and recieve its reward in heaven
- some souls are so warped that they will never get out of hell
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