We know that what we think influences our well-being. Our thoughts influence how we feel and how we experience and live life. That is why it is extremely important to understand that our thoughts also influence our spirituality and our spiritual progress and development.
Our positive and negative thoughts about Allah and His creation have an immediate impact on our relationship with Him.
Negativity and Bad Thoughts
Thinking positively and having positivity are of vital importance for our spiritual development. Due to bad experiences or the societies we live in, many of us have learned to be suspicious, skeptical and doubtful towards the world and towards people.
We mistrust others and have negative opinions about others. And we tend to bring this attitude to our religion and to our relationship with our Creator. This is detrimental to our spiritual advancement and keeps us away from drawing closer to our beloved Allah.
Sometimes we catch ourselves thinking negative about certain aspects of our religion and sometimes we even think bad about Allah. May Allah protect us from these kinds of thought.
Where do these negative thoughts come from?
They might come from our lack of knowledge about our own religion. The less we know, the more we are prone to misunderstanding certain aspects or interpretations of Islam. That is why it is essential that we always make an effort to learn more about Islam.
Secondly, these thoughts can have their base in our own personal negativity and bitterness. Many of us are used to seeing the negative side of life. We are trapped in a culture of complaining and looking for people’s flaws and faults to make ourselves feel better.
This negativity is so ingrained in us that we automatically bring it into our relationship with Allah. Ya Allah, protect us from thinking bad about You.
We have to make a conscious and wholehearted effort to work on our inherent negativity and the bitterness that soils our heart because it might be this negativity that keeps us from reaching the next stage in getting closer to our Lord. And it certainly poisons our relationship with the people around us. Allah tells us in the Quran that we should leave doubt because most doubt is sinful. (49:12)
Having Beautiful Thoughts and Positivity About Allah
It is essential that we try to instill positive thoughts in ourselves. We have to force ourselves to think positively and be positive. First and foremost we have to have positivity about our Creator. We can never allow ourselves to think negatively of Him.
Allah revealed to us that one of His most important names and characteristics is Ar-Rahman, the All-Compassionate, the One that has created everything from His compassion.
Habib Umar bin Hafiz explained in a recent talk that Allah’s compassion is the essence of creation and all created things. There is a constant flow of His compassion to His creation.
This alone should be enough for us to make it impossible to think anything negative about Allah. We have to fully understand that Allah only and always wants the best for us, for all of humanity and for all of creation.
In an Hadith, our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) explained that Allah has one hundred portions of mercy. He sent one portion of this mercy to His creation and this caused mercy between creation. The other 99 portions of mercy, Allah keeps for the Day of Judgment.
This gives us a lot of hope for many aspects in our lives. And it is Allah’s compassion and mercy that should keep us from thinking anything negative about Him.
Positivity Towards Other People
Our positivity about our Creator should lead us to positive thoughts about His creation and especially about our fellow human beings. Our beloved Prophet Muhammad (may Allah shower peace on him) said that we should overlook the slips (the small mistakes) of respected people. He further said that:
It is only the merciful who are granted mercy by the All-Merciful. Be merciful to those on earth and the Lord of the Heavens will be merciful to you.
And one of the great early Muslims, Hamdun al Qassar, said that we should seek seventy excuses for the faults of our friends and if we cannot make seventy excuses for them, we should know that the shortcoming is in ourselves. This shows that negativity and thinking negative about other people, especially our Muslim brother or sister, has no basis in our religion.
Erase Our Negativity
If we aim to draw closer to Allah, we need to work on our thoughts and attitude towards Him and towards the people around us. We need to make a committed effort to erase the negativity and bitterness from our hearts.
When a negative thought comes knocking on the door of our mind, we have to be firm and keep the door closed. Instead, we should try to generate a positive thought that counters and defeats the negative one.
Constantly remembering Allah in our heart and with our tongue can help us achieve more positivity. Seeking Allah’s forgiveness, repenting from our negativity and turning to Him to guide us towards more positivity in our life will insha’Allah help us to gain His pleasure.
And Allah knows best.
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