Learn The Foundations Of Health First - Part 2

Your goal is to save yourself.

That sentence sounds too simple until you realize how many people forget it.

They enter discussions they were never ready for.
They follow doubts they were never commanded to investigate.
They collect refutations before they collect foundations.
They sink in the swamps of sickness before they understand the foundations of health.

And then they wonder why their chest feels tight.

And sometimes, worse than the tightness, is not feeling the tightness.

A heart can become so used to smoke that it stops noticing it is choking.

That should terrify us.

Because when falsehood becomes normal to the ear, the heart starts losing its alarm. 

Al-Albānī once mentioned that if prophet Dāwūd ʿalayhi as-salām, being the prophet who worshipped Allāh the most, was to try and do all acts of worship in Islam during his lifetime, he wouldn't be able to do so, due to the vast number of them.

Likewise, my dear brother, deviance has many forms and colors.

If one was to seek refutation of every doubt, he wouldn't be able to. A lifetime is not enough.

And he may meet his Rabb with empty hands, having spent his life studying sickness instead of building health.

Don't confuse seriousness with wandering.

A serious seeker does not enter every issue.
A serious seeker knows what comes first.
A serious seeker seeks by priority.

Tawḥīd comes first.
Ṣalāh comes first.
The obligations of the day and night come first.
The meanings of the Qurʾān come first.
The Sunnah comes first.
Creed comes first.
Arabic comes first.
Manners come first.
Fear of Allāh comes first.

Anyone studying the Seerah and the Salaf wouldn't miss this pattern.

But some people want to walk past all of that and discuss the most dangerous issues of blood, rulers, takfīr, rebellion, allegiance, judgment, tabdīʿ, tafsīq, and the speech of scholars they cannot even read properly.

It's true that side quests are not always bad.
They could be useful, a way to gain tools, explore the world.

But some side quests are traps when you take them too early.

Why?

Because you are not strong enough, and you are not equipped.

You have no idea about the whole map. You are not ready for the enemies there. 

And what do you expect happens?

Of course you lose time, you lose strength, you lose direction…and sometimes you lose the main story.

عياذا بالله.

Why are we treating our main story like it is a game?
It is your salvation. Eternal. Torment or bliss.
You want to risk that for a nicely edited clip with shiny glossary?

There is a difference between learning what protects you and chasing what consumes you.

If a doubt reaches you and affects you, ask the people of knowledge.
Take the answer that protects your religion.
Then leave.

Do not rent a room inside the doubt.
Do not decorate it.
Do not start inviting others into it.

The Salaf were not impressed by their own ability to "handle it".

They were afraid for themselves.

Ibn Sīrīn رحمه الله did not need to prove that he could listen to falsehood and remain steady.
He chose safety. He put his fingers in his ears.

And we, with weaker hearts, thinner knowledge, less Arabic, fewer scholars around us, and endless group chats in our pockets, act as if we are built from iron.

Instead of fingers in the ears, we have radars, binoculars, and sound amplifiers, and all of that stink gets poured right into our hearts.

Does our reality and state of hearts make sense now?

If it still doesn't then you have a reason to weep.

The salaf were afraid for themselves.
We are impressed with ourselves.

That is one of the doors of deviation: being more impressed with your ability to enter danger than afraid of what danger may do to you.

You might say: "I am only refuting them".

Maybe.

But are you actually refuting them, or are you circulating their doubts with Islamic packaging?

Are you protecting people, or are you making the young and ungrounded aware of a door they never needed to know existed?

Are you extinguishing a fire, or carrying sparks from room to room?

There is a kind of knowledge that expands the chest.
It makes you more submissive to Allāh.
More attached to prayer.
More careful with your tongue…
More aware of your sins…
More loving toward the Sunnah.
More respectful toward the scholars.

And then there is a kind of exposure that leaves you restless, suspicious, argumentative, and spiritually breathless.

Do not confuse the two because both may come with quotations.

So, again, return.

Return to tawḥīd.
Return to ṣalāh.
Return to Qurʾān.
Return to Sunnah.
Return to the speech of the major scholars.
Return to Arabic.
Return to adab.
Return to fear of Allāh.

If a doubt reaches you and you need an answer, ask.
Take what protects you.
Then continue walking.

Chasing doubts is not the same as doubts reaching you.
Huge difference.

It's not sane to keep testing how sharp knives are and calling ambulances.

The road is already long.
Your life is already short.
And your goal was never to win every side discussion.

Your goal is to save yourself.

Testing how deep every pit is will not make you wise.
Eventually, one of them will answer you.