sister fathima

[sister-fathima]

The story of Ayyub (A.S) is usually told from the perspective of patience, but in fact, it is also about the devoted love between him and his wife. 

For 50 years he lived a life of comfort and luxury, raising 7 sons and 7  daughters. h=H eenjoyed many forms of wealth such as real estate, livestock, gold and jewelery. Everyone in his community acknowledged him as their prophet; they had accepted the message because they associated his wealth, status, children, succes, health and good looks with the truth- until Allah decided to test him and his people. 

Allah sent the first test in the foorm of an earthquake.His house collapsed instantly killing all his children. But Ayyub (A.S) was patient. Then theives entered his ranch and his home, stealing his livestock, torching his orchards and murdering his servants. In just one night, Ayyub (A.S) went from rich to bankrupt. Subsequently, his health began to deteriorate that he couldnt even stand. He could only pray lying down. His wife had to bath him, feed him and comb his hair for him.

In those times, everyone he knew departed except his wife - she alone remained. All of a sudden, everyone who believed in him started to disbelieve that he was a prophet of Allah. If this is happening to a prophet of Allah,that must mean he is cursed, they declared. He must have committed a sin we are not aware of that has caused Allah to inflict him with this. Leave him and do not belive anything from him. They associated a life of luxury with the completion of faith.

His wife was the only one who remained with him through wealth and poverty, sickness and health, happiness and sorrow. She now had to work as a servant to help her husband. She asked Ayyub (A.S) once to ask Allah to help him but he told her that he couldnt do so because he was so shy before Allah, that Allah gave them 50 years of luxury and he couldnt bear a few years of distress. She went quiet, suffering in silence with him. At the moment, Ayyub (A.S) had not thought about her conditon. Eventually, the situation became worse.Nobody would hire his wife. they would say, “We do not want you to come, you mmight carry the curse into our house.” 

Even though she told that she did not even have food, people would just shut her out. For days they did not have anything to eat. Even in this situation Ayyub (A.S) refused to ask Allah’s mercy and remained patient. 

The next day she went out again to find someone who would give them something to eat. She came to a house a woman opened the door. Upon hearing her appeal, she was told that she had to shave her beautiful hair if she wanted food. She wanted to make a wig out of that beautiful hair.Because of her love for her husband, she shaved all of her hair and carried the food back home. When she reached home, she refused to answer Ayyub (A.S)’s questions reagrding the food.When he got angry, she simply pulled her veil down to show him. Ayyub (A.S) was moved by what he saw. He pitied her. He could not bear her suffering despite his. At that moment, Ayyub (A.S) made a dua which Allah has recorded for us in the Quran, “And (mention), Ayyub when he called to his lord, “Indeed adversity has touched me and you are the most merciful of the merciful.”” Surah Al Anbiya

Allah responded immediately, and commanded him to touch the ground with his foot. He was told by Allah that the water which emerged was cleansing water; so to drink and wash with it. When his wife returned back, she could not even recognize her husband who was no more a sickly man. 

Thereafter Allah returned to Ayyub (A.S) everything in double. 14 children became 28 children. Estates as well as people who believed his message increased. 

The Lessons:

1. It is important for a husband and wife to connect and bear burdens as a team. Sometimes, we may think that out spouse is not doing enough, but it is easy to forget what they are actually doing for the family. 

2. Perhaps by seeing us loving our spouses immensely and caring for each other, we might set an example to our children on how marital relations work. 

3. There is always going to be difficulties. If two people go into marriage thinking that married life is an endless honeymoon, the moment they hit a bump in life, they will give up on each other. Do not forget about perseverance and patience.

[sister-fathima]

We have just spoken about true love; the love created by Allah between a husband and a wife. Now lets speak about what masquerades as love: what looks, feels and sounds like love but in reality is foreign to it.

The theme of surah yusuf is love. It is the love of a father for his son and vice versa. It is the false love, the infactuation, the sinful and passionate lust of a woman for a man. It is the love of the dunya, authority and kingdom. Love of all shapes and shades are discussed in surah yusuf. However, we are going to focus on just two aspects of it.

True love that is pleasing to Allah - I t is the exchange of love between one another that is not sinful. For example, the love a husband for his wife, a mother for their childrenand the children between parents or grandparents. This type of love is blessed and honorouble. It is pleasing to Allah.

Masquerading love - it is the sinful love; an infatuation or impassioned love that is built on the same emotions and feelings but it will lead you to sin. It feels the same as the first love mentioned above and the people involved want the same experiences. Everything that is described as true love is found in it. But to get it, sin must be comitted. It is the wayward text message, that secret meeting or that look that one would not want anyone to see or know about. The example of that is the love offered to Yusuf (A.S) by the wife of his master. He refused it saying, "I take refuge in Allah." because his heart had an inkling to Allah.

Through the story, we learn that because of Yusuf's true love for Allah and his patience, everything that was taken away from him was returned to him by Allah.

The Lessons:

Harm is inescapable. People who are to care for you might not do so. There will be people who steal from you, who harbour jealousy or ill feelings towards you even among your own flesh and blood.

Never do to others what they have done to you in a sinful way. Never take revenge on abuse. What elevated Yusuf's status was his patience. The beauty is in patience. Do not respond to cruelty with cruelty - if you do so, you will only be equal to the wrongdoers, and you will be punished similarly.

Allah seeks for us to re-establish the ties of kinship. This can be very difficult. Sometimes our anger, pride and arrogance get in the waycausing greater corruption that what we may have experienced. Allah warns us of that in surah Yusuf, so we should take that councel and observe similar behaviour.

[sister-fathima]

We have just spoken about true love; the love created by Allah between a husband and a wife. Now lets speak about what masquerades as love: what looks, feels and sounds like love but in reality is foreign to it.

The theme of surah yusuf is love. It is the love of a father for his son and vice versa. It is the false love, the infactuation, the sinful and passionate lust of a woman for a man. It is the love of the dunya, authority and kingdom. Love of all shapes and shades are discussed in surah yusuf. However, we are going to focus on just two aspects of it.

True love that is pleasing to Allah - I t is the exchange of love between one another that is not sinful. For example, the love a husband for his wife, a mother for their childrenand the children between parents or grandparents. This type of love is blessed and honorouble. It is pleasing to Allah.

Masquerading love - it is the sinful love; an infatuation or impassioned love that is built on the same emotions and feelings but it will lead you to sin. It feels the same as the first love mentioned above and the people involved want the same experiences. Everything that is described as true love is found in it. But to get it, sin must be comitted. It is the wayward text message, that secret meeting or that look that one would not want anyone to see or know about. The example of that is the love offered to Yusuf (A.S) by the wife of his master. He refused it saying, "I take refuge in Allah." because his heart had an inkling to Allah.

Through the story, we learn that because of Yusuf's true love for Allah and his patience, everything that was taken away from him was returned to him by Allah.

The Lessons:

Harm is inescapable. People who are to care for you might not do so. There will be people who steal from you, who harbour jealousy or ill feelings towards you even among your own flesh and blood.

Never do to others what they have done to you in a sinful way. Never take revenge on abuse. What elevated Yusuf's status was his patience. The beauty is in patience. Do not respond to cruelty with cruelty - if you do so, you will only be equal to the wrongdoers, and you will be punished similarly.

Allah seeks for us to re-establish the ties of kinship. This can be very difficult. Sometimes our anger, pride and arrogance get in the waycausing greater corruption that what we may have experienced. Allah warns us of that in surah Yusuf, so we should take that councel and observe similar behaviour.

[sister-fathima]

We begin our journey with Adam (A.S). When he was created, our souls were created with his. As mentioned in one narration, Adam (A.S) was admitted to Jannah and he asked for a companion, someone from his own soul, created by Allah for his happiness and comfort. Human beings are not meant to live without such bond. Even Jannah is not whole without someone to enjoy it with. And we take this understanding from our Prophet (S.A).

Jannah is not enough on its own. Adam (A.S) and his wife lived in happiness. They are commanded not to come near, touch or eat from the forbidden tree; and it was just one tree of all the endless trees in Jannah. Adam (A.S) forgot and falling into shaytha’s whispers, ate from the tree. They were sent out of Jannah and brought down on different parts of the earth. In one of the narrations it is shared that on a sacred day Adam (A.S) wandered throughout the earth, looking for his beloved. He wished to love and embrace in dunya, the one whom he loved in Jannah. So he roamed the earth searching for her. He climbed up a small mountain, and a little bit after asr and before magrib, from a distance, he saw Hawwa. He descended from the mountain and embraced her when they were finally reunited. They said, “ Our lord, we have wronged ourselves. And if you do not forgive us and grand us your mercy, then we will remain as losers.” [Surah Al-A’raf, 7:23]

That was the first time human beings petitioned together one earth, asking for forgiveness. They walked until they came to a valley that was marked for them by Jibrik(A.S). That spot was where they first did their salah.

The lessons.

1. It is important that we generate a spirit of connection and harmony with our spouses. Adam (A.S) traversed the earth looking for his wife Haww; he did not ask Allah to replace her. In fact his love for her was beautiful and can be seen clearly through his actions - she was from him, a part of him and he would not give up on her.

2. Adam (A.S) and Hawwa endured difficulty. It is painful to imagine living in Jannah with one simple rule and still failing to abide by it. It does not matter what you have experienced in life or how much faith you have today; they do not necessarily guarantee that you will successfully pass the tests to come, which you are not aware of yet. Allah does not expect us to not make any mistakes. Instead, He wants us to return to him in repentance every time we fall into sin.

Walk the earth u til you find someone who will remind you to say, “Our lord, we have wronged ourselves. And if you do not forgive us and grant us your mercy, then we will remain as losers.”

[sister-fathima]

Listen, evil eye is true. How do you know that you are effected by evil eye?

1. Bad smells in the house

2. The spread of insects and reptiles all of a sudden

3. Family problems for silly reasons

4. The spread of sicknesses and infections

5. Damages in the walls and electronic appliances

6. Sadness, depression and laziness

The solution is

- reciting surah Baqarah

- reciting all three quls

- making istigfar on a daily basis

[sister-fathima]

Did you know that during the 23 years of his Prophethood, our Prophet Muhammed (S.A) was only involved in active battle for less than 24 hours.

Unfortunately people judge him to be a prophet or “war” or “violence” without truly understanding what he stood for.

He stood for compassion, peace and care. Even when he was oppressed and mentally tortured, he never retaliated with violence or hatred. He was patient in times of hardship and did his best to spread a positive message. He gave up his own belongings and wealth to take care of those that were less fortunate.

To me, it seems very wrong to ONLY describe the life of Allah’s prophet (S.A) as being revolved around wars and fighting. Muslim or not, he’s someone everyone can make example of; his beautiful morals, understanding of justice and righteousness as well as his humane compassion and love for all humanity, no matter who you are or where you’ve come from.

- seyferdogan

[bintadnan]

[sister-fathima]

Have you heard the story of a worshiper who got tricked by Shaythaan ?

Barsisa was a worshiper from the time of Bani Israels. He worshiped Allah day and night.

One day three brothers decided to go for jihad. The town suggested them to leave their sister to be looked after by Barsisa, because of his piety. Barsisa refused and seemed refuge in Allah as he was scared of falling into sin.

Shaythaan told him: “What if they leave her with someone bad? It would be all your fault!”

And so he accepted saying “Put her in the house next to my place of worship.” She remained living next to that pious person for some time. He would put food for her in front of his building of worship. Then he would lock the door and return to his place of worship. He would then tell her to come out of her house and take the food.

Shaythaan whispered: “why don’t you go in and leave the food on the table so that no one sees her coming out alone?” So he started to take the food into her house. He continued like that for some time.

Then as time passed, Shaythaan returned saying: “ Why don’t you go talk to her? She’s alone and has no one.” He then started talking to her from atop his place of worship.

Then Shaythaan came again. He said, “If you were to come down and talk to her while she sits at her door and talks to you, that would be even more comforting for her.” He continued to encourage him until he came down and sat at his door and would talk to her. The girl would come out of her building and sit at her door and they would talk for a while. Shaythaan continued exhorting Barsisa until he entered her house and spent the whole day talking to her. Then when night fell, he returned to his place of worship.

Barsisa and the woman committed fornication and to make things worse she got pregnant . She gave birth to a boy. Shaythaan whispered to Barsisa and made him kill the baby first. So Shaythaan whispered: “ Do you think she will conceal from her brothers what you did to her, kill her and bury her with her son.” He continued spurring him on until he killed her and threw her in the ditch with her son. Then he put a large rock over them and leveled it.

When the brothers returned, he lied, informing them that their sister died of an illness. Later in the night Shaythaan came in all three of their dreams, showing where Barsisa killed their sister and her child. When they checked, the realised it was true and Barsisa was given death penalty. The sadest part was when he was prompted by Shaythaan to give up on Allah and take his side to be freed from his predicament. He gave up Allah and Shaythaan just left him.

[sister-fathima]

Tawakkul is not an assurance that everything is going to be okay, it is the assurance that Allah is in control.

- unfolded.guidance

[mindofserenity]

There’s this quote that stuck to me ever since I read it, “be the kind of soul that others wish they could meet you a thousand times”.

الترجمة الصحيحة: ‏كن الروح التي يتمنى الآخرون مقابلتها ألف مرة.

To be the best of who you are, your heart and soul, for everyone that crosses your path. Be simplistic and powerful with your words, be meaningful in your actions, have purity in every intention you make. With Allah ‎in my heart, I want to make sure others see that first before they meet with me and that in itself is empowering in the most humble way.

I don’t want to leave a mark in this world. Allah already has.

[mindofserenity]

Closing this chapter of my life, to welcome the new beginning.

This journey has and always will be, my greatest life lesson. Everything in this book, encompasses my thoughts, my emotions, my sorrows and joy, my lessons and my promises. Messages to myself, and my messages to you. I made a promise to myself, that when a chapter in my life ends, let it end. For a new beginning awaits and all my fears will cease if I remember that Allah has full control of it.

All of my works and my moments, every blessing, inspiration and beauty, do not belong to me but to Allah. Finally sharing my journey with you all, I hope it can bridge our hearts together as an ummah. I pray nothing more for it to aid in your journey too إن شاء الله

You can find my book here. I will also soon release a free pdf version of it for those who cannot access it, along with a campaign I am starting to donate a percentage of the proceeds.

From my heart, thank you 🌹

[flowersofjannah]

[islamicrays]

Some tips before ending your marriage…

Go back to the first time you met them. Remember the first time they made you smile.

Rewind to the times when you used to talk to each other all day, everyday without getting bored of each other’s company.

Rewind to the time when you would wipe each other’s tears, when you hugged their problems and made all of those promises.

Relive all the sacrifices, the laughs the tears, the happiness, the memories.

Did that make you smile now?

Now think about it, do you really want this marriage to end?

Is your bond that worthless?

Are you sure you want to lose this person?

Remember it’s very easy to give up.

But to sit down and talk things through, to speak to a marital coach or therapist to want to fix everything together needs courage. Please don’t give up yet.

Don’t ever let your ego kill a beautiful relationship because it takes a lot of effort to invest yourself into someone.

You can’t let it all go in a blink of an eye, without first exhausting all avenues of reconciliation and healing.

Reflect deeply!

-Qasim Rafique

[alhamdulillah10]

Have you regretted speaking bad about someone?

Here is a Du'a that you can make for them.

‏اللهم فأيّما مؤمن سببتُهُ فاجعل ذالك له قربة اليك يوم القيامة

Allahumma fa’ayyuma muminin sababtuhu faj’al dhalika lahu qurbatan ilayka yawm al qiyamah

Translation: Oh Allah whomever of the believers I’ve abused, let it be a means for him to be closer to you on the Day of Resurrection.

Sahih al-Bukhari 6361 (Book 80, Hadith 58)

May Allāh subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us for our hidden and apparent sins and increase us in multitude our good deeds and accept our Du'as 🤲🏻

[sister-fathima]

[every-n-anything]

Things I've seen in Covid19 as an ICU nurse:

- a husband and wife admitted to icu, positive for covid after sending their two teenagers back to school when it opened. She coded and died yesterday. We wheeled her body into his room so he could say goodbye to his high school sweetheart from his hospital bed. We dont expect him to survive.

- 94 year old man, married to his wife for 64 years, both tested positive after a single visit to their dentist. It was the only "outing" they had since March. Because there are so few beds available, they were sent to separate hospitals. She stroked and died shortly after. He watched her funeral on FaceTime and never got to say goodbye.

- a 25 year old who flew home from another state because his mom was afraid and asked him too. He tested positive 3 days after his flight. He died 20 days later in our ICU.

- a father/son duo who run a manufacturing company, tested positive along with the majority of their employees. They both came to our ICU. Dad died. Son was able to leave the hospital 30 days later - he learned of his father's death after leaving, for fear of impacting his recovery.

- A schoolteacher, working for special needs children, tested positive 1 week after her school mandated they reopen. She died 10 days later. Her last words before we intubated her were, "Im going to be your next survivor!" We told her she was right, but we all knew it wouldn't happen.

- a 45 year old woman with a 6 and 8 year old at home. After 65 days, she never woke up due to hypoxic brain injury. She never made it off a ventilator.

- tiered nursing models, where ICU patients are being cared for primarily by nurses without ICU experience while one ICU rn gets placed as a "supervising" nurse over 5 ICU patients, and monitors the regular nurses care over them. Your loved ones not getting the appropriate level of care deserved because we have no staff left to care for them.

- patients who should be in ICU unable to come to the ICU because there are no beds available. Left on the regular floor in hospital with no additional supervision or coverage because there's not enough staff to do so.

- patients that have been sent from out of state because their home areas have no room to take them. When these patients are close to end of life, their families are hard pressed to arrive in time to say goodbye.

- a unit opened as a tiered-staffing ICU where there is no negative pressure in patient rooms and no way to install them per maintenance. Nurses are going to be required to wear PAPR during their entire shifts without taking them off while working in that unit. So 12 hours without drinking water or eating unless you can leave the unit. Which it being tiered staffing - its not safe for the ICU rn to leave because there will only be 2 ICU nurses on the unit.

We are a long ways from having herd immunity with the coming vaccines. Please wear your masks. Dont go where you dont absolutely have to go. Wash your hands. This is not the time to go on new dates, have family gatherings or big game nights or get together. Please. You have called the nursing profession "the most trustworthy" for decades - and now when we beg you to listen, to wear a simple mask and social distance, you call us liars and the trauma we see these patients go through every day a conspiracy. Please. We are breaking.

[partytilfajr]

Salaam! My question is that since I'm in my mid-twenties and I'm starting my marriage search soon (I'm a woman) I want to know if i can ask the person I'm getting to know about their previous relationships? If they're a virgin? All of that stuff basically. I read that if they've repented for their sins they don't have to answer these questions or they can just lie and say no since they've repented, but as a potential/future spouse isn't it my right to know?

Wa alykum as-salaam!

So, Dar Al-Ifta Al-Missriyyah has written about this question, extensively, though it must said that the question they are answering is about a man asking about a woman about her status. You can read that answer here.

They write something that is important to note, as I want to underline that many times we fuse the rationale of larger society with the opinion of our Muslim leaders. In the opinion, they write this to conclude:

As for the claim of some men that they have to know if their future wife has fell into a sin or not is a corrupted opinion as it promotes declaring sins, revealing what God concealed, pursuing people’s pitfalls, and thinking ill of people which are all prohibited in Islamic law. As a matter of fact, there is no relationship between the loss of virginity and between adultery as this relationship only existed due to some cultures which do not see any problem when the man commits adultery whereas when the woman commits the same crime she is stained with shame and disgrace.

I just wanted to highlight that this double-standard that exists for women underlines to problems of our societies, and that Islam does not seek to enforce or encourage the hypocrisies that pervade society.

So, in short, yes, you should not be asking people about their status. The only time that people should be disclosing those sorts of things is if it impacts you. So, if someone has an STI, that will impact their partner, and so it should be disclosed.

I am quite aware that the standards for men and women are different, to put it kindly.

Boys expect their future wives to be virgins, while girls hope that their future husbands don’t have something. This is the double standard within our communities (Muslim or not) and it’s exhausting and annoying. I get it.

So Dar Al-Ifta, again, gives you the legal rationale, and again, they are writing about protecting the reputation and the value of a woman, since cultures have used sexism and misogyny to control women’s bodies and to stigmatize women for mistakes that they turn around and applaud men for.

My sense is that we have used this ruling as a way to protect sisters, but that we do not expect to use these same rulings for our brothers. I get why we do that, it’s an Islamic ruling that retorts and slaps away the sexist-fueled obsession with women’s bodies and the double-standards imposed upon women.

If I’m honest, I think most men tend to disclose these sorts of things, and many of them are not aware of this ruling--not anywhere close to the awareness of our sisters. I understand why sisters expect virginity, they’re like “hey, I waited, so should you.” I’d like to underline that there are more brothers that have waited, I’m not going to lie to you, I did not think it would be that high. Which is kinda sad, but I think you get what I’m trying to say.

Now, again, I think most people tend to disclose their pasts, both men and women, and I think they do this out of trust and love for the person they are talking to. I would counsel Muslims to not only take this sort of disclosure as a trust that they should keep to themselves and understand that whatever happens between you two, that you keep that information to yourself. I also think that both men and women tend to write people off for making mistakes.

First of all, we all make mistakes. The issue here is that we only have sympathy for people who sin the way we do. To be a “good Muslim” among Muslims, you don’t drink, don’t smoke, and don’t have a (public) girlfriend/boyfriend, and you’re a good Muslim. Our concern is centralized on discovery, so as long as people don’t know we do these things, we are fine.

We all make mistakes, the thing is, we are not defined by our mistakes, but what we do once we make them. Do we seek to rectify them? Or do we allow them to fester, do we seek help, do we try to fix what we’ve done?

The problem is that we fixate on sins that deal with our concerns vis-a-vis our place in society. The Prophet is reported to have said:

O those who embraced Islam with your tongue and its flow did not reach your heart yet. Don’t inflict harm on Muslims, don’t belittle them and don’t pursue and dig for their pitfalls as whoever digs for the pitfalls of others, God will dig for his own pitfalls and declare it before people… [Tirmidhi]

Now, I know you feel it is your right to ask this question. The ruling I’ve linked above. Just to speak plainly, I tend to believe people disclose this fact, regardless of the ruling--that’s just my sense in dealing with this concern quite often. I’d underline that you treat a brother as a human being here. Our world is filled with prejudices, sexism, misogyny, and all sorts of inequities too innumerable to list here. Of that, there is no doubt. When you are sitting across from another person, they are a human being--and yes different people benefit from these inequities and have various privileges--but I suggest that you treat the person across from you as that: a person.

We cannot abstract human beings. Our boys benefit from double standards--in that they are able to get away with things socially--but those double standards condemn them to facing the reality of their sins. Brothers cry to me about their mistake, it’s not just sisters, and yes, the brothers (if discovered) will face far less than if a sister was discovered, I am not questioning that, nor am I even debating it, I’m saying, just treat the person across from you as a human being.

People are going to ask and people are going to answer, but I ask you to show compassion for someone who is offering you a window of their vulnerability. We often look at potential spouses as products, with check-lists, like we are comparison shopping for a car. They are human beings. I’ve seen the dumb stuff boys write on Twitter, with their dumb jokes, talking about trust issues over a girl wearing makeup or whatever, and yes, they are cringe. I will try and petition Al-Azhar to make corny bro jokes haram, or at least makruh.

You are going to ask regardless of what I write here, and people are going to answer regardless of what they read, because they want to be honest, and it breaks my heart. People just want to be loved. That’s why they are reaching out. It’s why they laugh at dumb jokes. It’s why you stalk people on social media, because you want to reach out to someone else, to have someone love you and accept you, for, well you.

So I get why people respond and answer these questions, I know why people ask them, and I think the Islamic answer is there, and while the central framing of the Islamic answer is to protect women, their honor, and their place in societies that do not treat them with the respect and understanding that they should get for simply being a human, and that disconnect is violently enforced through sexism and misogyny--and Islam seeks to protect women from that human-made reality that contravenes the dictates of Islam. It is a failure of the test by God, on our collective society, that we create these inequities--for God demands justice, and our social norms are reflections of whether we truly believe in God or not, and when women face these barriers and prejudices, it means that our society has failed that test.

After writing this much, I asked myself: ‘why are you writing this much, Osama?’ I think because I have seen such a lack of compassion in our community, and I feel like we have taken religion and twisted it, but we are only aware of our rights and not our obligations, and that creates a very twisted way in dealing with religion and God--and then I thought about how consumerism fuels that self-centered understanding of God, so that religion really only has value as it pertains to our personal desires, rather than in improving our actions, softening our hearts, and in introspection so that we may work to improve society, starting with ourselves.

Anyway. My point is this: regardless of the rulings, you’re probably going to ask, they’re probably going to answer. If you can’t forgive someone because they made a mistake, then ask yourself why.

[partytilfajr]

why do we follow a god that we’re suppose to be fearful of?

The idea of “fearing” God comes from how we translate the word “Taqwa.”

The phrase “fear God” is the most common translation of the concept of Taqwa, and can also be rendered as “be conscious of God.” I think that is a more accurate translation, most of the time. You should be keenly aware of God’s presence, which should translate into you acting correctly with other people.

However, Taqwa is not just about others, it is of benefit to yourself.

Taqwa’s root is “waqa” (وقى) which means “to protect.” So Taqwa isn’t just about awareness, but also about protecting yourself.

The Prophet is reported to have said:

There is nothing that you leave out of God-consciousness [taqwa] except that God will compensate you with something better. [Ahmad]

Again, the issue here is how you translate the word “taqwa.” But when you put things into perspective, God-consciousness is about how we approach life, and that even if we learn more about Islam, we must implement that knowledge.

Imam Sufyan Al-Thawri said:

Knowledge is considered to be superior over all things because it is meant to be used for the purpose of Taqwa.

So you can know something, the question is do you put it into your mindset. So like, let’s say you know that something is bad for you, knowledge is not sufficient, you must put that knowledge into your consciousness, be aware of it, and thus act upon that knowledge.

Does that make sense?