Are Muslims not engaged in idol worshipping?
What’s idol worshipping?
- Idolatry literally means the worship of an “idol”, also known as a worship cult image, in the form of a physical image, such as a statue. In Abrahamic religions, namely Christianity, Islam and Judaism, idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than God as if it were God (Wiki).
What are the forms of idol worshipping?
- There are two worlds out there. One that is inside of us and the other that is outside of us. The inner and the other, outer world, what we say.
- So, are we involved in either forms of idol worship?. One that is deeply concealed within us, an idol in abstract form i.e; our ego has burgeoned within that it took the status of God. It has grown with such dominion in us that now it whips us left and right, and we meekly follow its command.
- The second form of God that we unconsciously follow is the people out there that we love the most. We fall in love so deep that we escalate their position to the rank of God in our heart. Love of parents for their children, or a man in his youth stupefied in the love of a woman, or any such extreme passion with which a man pursues anything or anyone except or besides Allah are classic examples of shirk.
Na’ozubillah! One’s heart is a place where God must reside, and not but any other person, or any such passion or desire, By Allah, if not Allah then our heart is a lieu of conflagration of hell.
what will be its consequences?
These verses of the Holy Quran speak about the consequences of a man who indulges in idol worship.
- (He) who made (as equal) with Allah, another deity, then throw him into the severe punishment.
- His (devil) companion will say, “Our Lord, I didn’t make him transgress, but he (himself) was in extreme error”.
- Allah will say, “do not dispute with each other in My presence, I had already in advance sent you a warning,
- The sentence that comes from Me will not be changed and I will never be unjust to the servants,
- We shall say to the hell on that day, are you full?
- And it will reply are there (any) more to come?”.
What are our idols?
- My brothers and sisters in faith, what thrones and idols have we set up in our hearts that needs to be dismantled and destroyed? Let us all sit for a while for self-introspection and identify the idols and start working to uproot them right now.
How to dismantle our idols?
- There’s a beneficial tool that I wish to bring it to your notice, recite ‘La ilaaha illallah’, as many times as you may the whole day, which translates to, “there is no deity but Allah”. It helps us, not in just dismantling the idols that we unconsciously have been worshipping, but also to reconstruct and edify the minarets within our hearts that reverberate the name of Allah.
O Allah, I seek refuge with You lest I should commit shirk with You knowingly and I seek Your forgiveness for what I do unknowingly.
Ameen.
- Remember, falling in love with any other than Allah, is just falling.
Author: Syed Mukhtar Razi.
