> Your covenant with Allah 7:712, you've got its favours - so you're accountable for them

[Qatada]

:


Remember the covenant which Allah discusses that He took from the children of Adam that we would believe in Him?

Qur'an Al A'raf

7:172. And (remember) when your Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their seed (or from Adam's loin his offspring) and made them testify as to themselves (saying): "Am I not your Lord?" They said: "Yes! We testify," lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection: "Verily, we have been unaware of this."

173. Or lest you should say: "It was only our fathers afortime who took others as partners in worship along with Allâh, and we were (merely their) descendants after them; will You then destroy us because of the deeds of men who practised Al-Bâtil (i.e. polytheism and committing crimes and sins, invoking and worshipping others besides Allâh)?" (Tafsir At-Tabarî).

So the disbeliever will reply in return that they don't know of such a covenant and that it is a matter of faith for the Muslims. They further argue that they were forced to agree to the covenant, without having the choice to accept or reject.



So your reply to this is simple;

You say that whether you like it or not, you are being given the benefits of the covenant. So compare yourself to the rest of the creation and see whose more favoured than the human race? So if you say that I was forced to abide by the covenant, then you are also getting its favours and benefits, whether you like it or not. Even if you were to live like an animal, you would still have an intellect and potential to reach greater heights, and much more which animals don't have.


Now that you have its favours, then you will also have to fulfill its conditions - otherwise by default - you will be held to account for the favours given to you on Judgment Day, then you will be given an equal recompense for your gratefulness or ungratefulness.



So the issue isn't about you not having any control of wanting to be born, the issue is of the reality that you're facing. This reality is that you're getting its benefits, so you sleep in a bed in comparison to a donkey which sleeps on the floor. You eat all sorts of foods and can use the internet with the use of an intellect, something which the cow can't do. Due to this, you have to accept its reality, be thankful to Allah for His favours, through which He would give you more good. But if you're ungrateful for these favours, and disobey Allah - then by default He will punish, because He is the King, and He does what He wills, when He wills.


He is not questioned about His actions, rather they will be questioned. [Qur'an 21:23]



You can even put forth examples;


Imagine I gave you $20,000 through my Messenger and i told you to keep it and use it for your own use, so long as it is not spent on evil. Then I will give you more or less throughout your life, but you have to give 2.5% of it to the poor every year. You also have to ask me 5 times a day to make me choose you over other people as the one who recieves rewards.


I also tell you that if you fulfill these conditions, after a limited amount of time - I will give you an even greater reward than this which will be more longer lasting.



If you reject what i give you, and you're ungrateful - then i've got the ability to remove these rewards from you and to punish you. You have no other way of recieving an income because I own this land.

Whether you like it or not, you have to agree and get more good, otherwise you lose. So are you willing to abide by my contract?

[salamfromrom]

Salam

I think This is true, I had an experience during my sleep on my 13th Bday and It was like this. I commited shirk in my sleep, a picture of jesus appeared in my dream and when I identified it as "the son of God" The earth broke into pieces and I fell into darkness. I only woke up when I screamed from help from the One God. It was terrifying, I thought I was going to hell forever because of my associating partners to Allah while I was supposed to know that He is the only God. That's what ultimately let me to islam. The Qur'an is the Miracle , definately the truth.

Salam

[Assad]

Bro. In your dream you saw that Jesus came and you identified him as Son of God ? And than the earth broke and you felt in the darkness... could that mean that first you saw a Satanic vision and than you saw a reality ? That is, the sonship of Jesus is just as the broken earth and darkness i.e. disbelief ?

[salamfromrom]

Originally Posted by Acid

Bro. In your dream you saw that Jesus came and you identified him as Son of God ? And than the earth broke and you felt in the darkness... could that mean that first you saw a Satanic vision and than you saw a reality ? That is, the sonship of Jesus is just as the broken earth and darkness i.e. disbelief ?

Salam


well it certainly felt similar to what you're describing.


Basically what happened was that I had a bible in front of me. I felt as if I was meant to pick it up and when I did, it opened to a page with a ''drawing/picture'' of jesus. This first part certainly felt like a dream, except that I was a little more conscious during this particular one and thats why i remember it in such detail.

As soon as I was presented with the ''picture'' of jesus(pbuh), my mind, having grown up to people who kept praising jesus(pbuh) as the son of God, I automatically thought ''what is this picture of jesus the son of god doing here''.

As soon as I had this thought of Shirk/Kufr everything became very real and the earth simply disintegrated into what I would think atoms...every particle or piece of the room and everything in it dissappeared as if it was black sand (best way i can describe it) and I fell deeply into what I could call Cold Darkness. Again , words can't do things like this justice, but Im trying to put it into words as best I can.

It was horror, and I only woke up when I asked Allah(swt) the one true god to save me. (offcourse I didnt know the word Allah and I didnt use words because I did not have a body, it was more of a mental communication)

Anyways , that changed my life, and whenever my iman/faith is weak I think about that time and how helpless I felt before the Lord of the Worlds and how I do not want to face Him after I die having associating partners to Him (May Allah[swt] protect us from that.)


that is the one thing I remember the most vividly out of all my memories, wether from sleep or awake in my whole life.

To clarify:

That is, the sonship of Jesus is just as the broken earth and darkness i.e. disbelief ?

In a way, yes. Immediately after I commited shirk by ascribing a Son to Allah(swt) I realized that I had commited the only unforgivable sin in the world, and I distinctively remember that I wished that I had commited all the sins in this world, like murder, theft , rape etc, instead of commiting Shirk. But it was too late, the earth disintegrated and I started falling. The following Ayat comes to mind when I remember that. And here it is:

.....and whoever ascribes partners to Allah is as if he has fallen from the sky and the birds snatch him or the wind blows him away to a far-off place.

Qur'an Ch.22V31

The way I understood the darkness and piercing cold (even though I did not feel a body at all so the existence of the cold might not make sense to you*) was because I was Farthest away from Allah(swt) and I realised that being shunned/ignored by Allah(swt) is the greatest spiritual punishment of hell , just as I recently read that ''the greatest blessing and joy of the people of Heaven is them being close to Allah(swt) and Him removing his Veil so they can better see him'

*About the cold: as soon as I woke up , I was shaking because of the terrible cold, my body was as if frozen, even though the temperature of the room I was sleeping in was very warm, and the other people in the room which were woken up by my scream(I woke up screaming) were surprised by this.


the best way I can describe that 'lost/banished' feeling would be if you imagine being sent to a far off planet, far away from any signs of life or loved ones and buried there in a small pit for all eternity all alone and away from everything you hold dear. That was the supreme terror.

I knew this was the punishment for disbelief , and that it would be forever. I think the spiritual state of darkness could be a state in which the disbeliever automatically finds itself in after death (remember the ayah or hadith, not sure which, in which we are told that the faces of disbelievers will be as if pieces of darkness), because i remember that even though I did not have a body, I knew that something was preventing me from being able to see, and I only recently understood that the reason I was not able to see, is because my Kufr was like a blindfold, blinding me and blocking me from receiving the reward of Allah(swt) which I think He is eager to bestow on his believing slaves.


*if any of the above goes against traditional islamic views, please correct me immediately!*




Salam a leikum