How to overcome sins?

Answer

 

All praise be to Allah, and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah, upon his family, his Companions, and those who follow him.

 

We always say: Negative ideas are always followed by negative behavior unlike the positive thinking which pushes toward positive work; and this is the summary of your problem dear daughter. You have surrounded yourself by illusions, obsessions, worries, and fears until they affected you negatively. If you replace these ideas with positive ones, you will be able to achieve something useful that will keep you away from illusions and fears.

 

I shall sum up for you some practical applied points that may help you get rid of them:

* First, get rid of your fears by busying yourself with things that you should do and leaving aside the negative thinking which prevents you from work, such as: Shall the invocation be accepted? Will Allah accept my repentance or not? So, do your job and ponder over these honorable Ayahs: "And when My slaves ask you (O Muhammad peace be upon him) concerning Me, then (answer them), I am indeed near (to them by My Knowledge). I respond to the invocations of the supplicant when he calls on Me (without any mediator or intercessor). So let them obey Me and believe in Me, so that they may be led aright." [Surat Al Baqarah: 186].

 

"Know they not that Allah accepts repentance from His slaves and takes the Sadaqat (alms, charities) and that Allah Alone is the One Who forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful?" [Surat At-Tawbah: 104].

 

"And He it is Who accepts repentance from His slaves, and forgives sins, and He knows what you do." [Surat Ash-Shura: 25].

 

"And verily, I am indeed forgiving to him who repents, believes (in My Oneness, and associates none in worship with Me) and does righteous good deeds, and then remains constant in doing them, (till his death)." [Surat Taha: 82].

 

* Second, Have a glad tiding with good to find it in imitation to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) who liked good omen because it implies good thinking of Allah and hated pessimism which changes the real causes of things to something else.

 

* Third, here is a practical example from the biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and how he and his Companions were firm in the middle of pains, distress, and horrors which terrified Medina on the Day of the Trench. Polytheists from Quraysh, Ghatafan, and the Jews of Banu Qurayzhah surrounded it from all sides and besieged Median as Allah described it in the Qur'an when He says: "When they came upon you from above you and from below you, and when the eyes grew wild and the hearts reached to the throats, and you were harboring doubts about Allah. * There, the believers were tried and shaken with a mighty shaking." [Surat Al Ahzab: 10 - 11].

 

In the middle of this darkness, you find the Prophet (peace be upon him) heart-assured, confident, satisfied with the judgment of Allah, and sure of Allah's victory as Allah described him in His Saying: "And when the believers saw Al-Ahzâb (the Confederates), they said: "This is what Allâh and His Messenger (Muhammad peace be upon him) had promised us; and Allâh and His Messenger (Muhammad peace be upon him) had spoken the truth. And it only added to their Faith and to their submissiveness (to Allâh)." [Surat Al Ahzab: 22].

 

Al Bara' ibn `Azib said: When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) commanded us to dig the trench, a huge rock came across and an pickaxe had no effect in it. So, we complained to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and he came, throw his garment, took the pickaxe, and said: In the name of Allah, hit once, and the third of the rock was broken. He said: Allahu Akbar, I have been granted the keys of the Levant (the region covering Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine). By Allah, I can see its red palaces from my location.

 

He (the narrator) said: Then he hit again and said: In the name of Allah and broke another third and said: Allahu Akbar, I have been granted the keys of Persia. By Allah, I can see the palace of its white minarets. Then he hit the third and said: In the name of Allah, then the rock was broken.

 

He said: Allahu Akbar, I have been granted the keys of Yemen. By Allah, I can see the gate of San`a. Fourth: Try and learn, do not fear failure, and always be ambitious to the best. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "A strong believer is better and dearer to Allah than a weak one, and both are good. Be keen to things that may benefit you, seek the help of Allah, and do not refrain from it. If you are afflicted in any way, and do not say: If I had taken this or that step, it would have resulted into such and such, but say only: Allah so determined and did as He willed. The word `if' opens the gates of satanic thoughts." [Reported by Muslim on the authority of Abu Hurayrah].

 

One of the best narrations in the history of caliphs is the saying of `Umar ibn `Abdul-`Aziz: I have a very ambitious soul which it never yearned to a status and achieved it but it yearned to a better one until today it reached the final status which is it yearned to Paradise.

 

* Fifth, you can overcome the Shari`ah violations which you fall into by sincere repentance and fulfilling the total submission to Allah. So, monotheism is not only the acknowledgement of servants that there is no creator but Allah, and that Allah is the Lord and King of everything as idols worshippers admitted that while they were polytheists. However, monotheism implies the love of Allah, submitting to Him, showing humbleness to Him, perfect submissiveness to His Obedience, devoting worship to Him, and desiring for His Pleasure in all sayings and actions, withholding and giving, loving and hatred, and stopping all links with sins and insisting on committing them.

 

Whoever knows these, knows how to resist his bad nature, negligence, glory, decorate oneself and Satan, become able to restrain his whims, and trust in Allah's Pardon, perfect ability, glory, forgiveness, pardon, mercy, and forbearance, and if Allah does not bestow mercy on him, he shall be perished.

 

* Six, Imam Ibn Al Qayyim mentioned in his book "Tariq Al Hijritayn wa Bab As-Sa`adatayn (1/ 175 - 177)" a rule concerning a path that delivers to straightness in conditions, sayings, and actions, and I shall report it to you, and you should contemplate.

 

* First, guarding and protecting ideas, and warning against neglecting them or following them. The root of corruption comes from thoughts because they are the seeds of Satan and the soul is in the bottom of the heart. So, if they are planted, Satan undertakes to water them one after another until they become wills then turns them into determinations then they produce actions. No doubt, rebelling thoughts is easier than rebelling wills and determinations, so a person finds himself helpless to rebel them after they had turned into firm determination. So, he will be negligent if he does not rebel them while they are mere thoughts like the one who underestimate sparkles that fall into dry wood, and when they turned into fire, he was unable to put it off.

 

If you say: What is the method of preserving thoughts?

I said: Many causes:

* First, firm knowledge that Allah is acquainted with your heart and Knowledgeable of your thoughts.

 

* Second, showing shyness of Him.

 

* Third, your fear of Him to see these thoughts in His Container (the heart) which He created to know and love Him.

 

* Fourth, your fear of Him to be dropped from His Sight.

 

* Fifth, preferring loving Him over any other.

 

* Sixth, your fear that these thoughts and their sparkles intensify until they eat the faith and love that lie in the heart causing it to go away while you do not know.

 

* Seventh, to know that these thoughts are like the grains which are thrown to a bird to catch it therewith, so let it be known that every thought is a trap to you while you do not know.

 

* Eighth, you should know that these evil ideas do not exist with faith, love, and referring to Allah, but they are directed against them but they are against them all, and when they gather in the heart of a person, one of them overcomes the other and expels it.

 

* Ninth, you should know that these evil thoughts are like a sea of fancy that has no shores, and when the heart enters that sea, it will sink.

 

* Tenth, these thoughts are the valley of the fool and the wishes of the ignorant which do not produce but regret and shame and when they overcome the heart, they fill it with devilish insinuations. Likewise, good thoughts which are the origin of goodness and that benefit its owner with two conditions:

* First, not to leave an obligation or a Sunnah.

 

* Second, memorizing it should not be intended, but should replace them with thoughts of faith, love, referring to Allah, relying on Him, and fearing Him.

 

For more information, see our counsels on straightness and its constituents, how to find the effect of obedience in my behavior and manners? How to repent? Among others.