يَمُنُّونَ عَلَيۡكَ أَنۡ أَسۡلَمُواْۖ قُل لَّا تَمُنُّواْ عَلَىَّ إِسۡلَـٰمَكُمۖ بَلِ ٱللَّهُ يَمُنُّ عَلَيۡكُمۡ أَنۡ هَدَٮٰكُمۡ لِلۡإِيمَـٰنِ إِن كُنتُمۡ صَـٰدِقِينَ
They regard as favour to you (O Muhammad SAW) that they have embraced Islâm. Say: “Count not your Islâm as a favour to me. Nay, but Allâh has conferred a favour upon you, that He has guided you to the Faith, if you indeed are true. (Surah al-Hujraat 49:17)
I think there is one blessing that many Muslims take for granted yet never really give much thought to. And that blessing is the ability to utter the kalima and to believe it in one’s heart.
If Allah so chose, He could seal our hearts so that we would be rendered incapable of saying the kalima. We would also lack the ability to believe in it and, in fact, may even fight against it with the full conviction that in doing so we are doing a good thing.
The very fact that we are Muslims is not a testimony of our own goodness or superiority, rather it is a great favour from Allah and this favour is not bestowed on everyone.
To believe in the tawheed of Allah and the messengership of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the greatest blessing that could be bestowed on any human being. This is so because to utter this statement “la ilaha ilallah Muhammadan Rasulullah” is the ticket to Paradise. And to enter Paradise is the greatest success of all, for the person who does so will remain there forever and be secure from any further punishment from Allah and instead be in a state of eternal bliss.
As Muslims, we feel saddened when there are people who are exposed to the truth yet fail to acknowledge or embrace it, and even at times work against it.
The prophet (pbuh) experienced this grief when the people of his time turned away. Allah says in Surah al Kahf 18:6:
“Then perhaps you would kill yourself through grief over them, [O Muḥammad], if they do not believe in this message, [and] out of sorrow.”
(See also: 3:176; 6:33; 5:41; 26:3 and 35:8)
We fear for those who turn away in rejection that a seal of some kind may have been placed on their hearts so that they can neither see nor hear when the truth is presented before them. Of course, we cannot know that for sure so we keep on making effort to the best of our ability with the hope that Allah will open their hearts and they will see the reality of what Islam has to teach.
My dear readers, never take for granted this great blessing of being a Muslim. In addition, do not be swayed or overly influenced by those people who claim to be born Muslim but have turned away from the faith towards something else. They have become deluded into thinking that Islam is either false or has nothing to offer them and instead they run after things of no lasting value. This will be a source of regret for them in the hereafter if they continue on this path.
Dear readers, if we are to acquire full love and appreciation for this kalima then we must work towards bringing its reality into our hearts on a daily basis because it can easily slip away if we are not careful.
I know that in the environment in which we live it is not always easy to achieve this because there is nothing that encourages us to remember Allah and everything to encourage us to turn away from Him.
Like anything of value, we must make effort to protect that which is most precious to us. And for every believer, the thing of greatest value should be Islam with all other things being of secondary importance.
Dear fellow Muslims, foster a greater appreciation and gratitude in your hearts regarding just how blessed you truly are to have been presented with this kalima and have believed in it, for this is truly a great favour from Allah.
When we look at the state of the Muslim world we may have the tendency to become disheartened for there is so much poverty, wary, instability, corruption, illiteracy and tyranny etc., which may tempt us to look down on our fellow Muslims and develop an inferiority complex to the point we would want to hide or downplay the fact that we are Muslims.
But, my dear readers, it is Islam, and nothing else, that gives us Izza, that is honour, dignity and self-respect, where we can hold our heads up high and be filled with a sense of gratitude over what Allah has called us to. And we can maintain this Izza within us regardless of the material and political situation that we may be witnessing in the Muslim world at large, for we believe that all of these trials, tests and calamities are a test from Allah.
Material goods or political power are not the true sources of Izza for the believer, rather the belief in this kalima is what raises our status and nothing else.
This is the greatest blessing from Allah.