3 Levels of Struggle

3 Levels of struggle that everybody has a choice to make. Which level are you on? :) Whatever good we do is first and foremost benefiting ourselves, the benefit that comes to others is not from us but from Allah swt.

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So three levels of struggle I outline for you at the level of the individual,
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then a little bit past that, tangible goals within a community, tangible
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goals you struggle for and then there is the intangible idea or ideals in a
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society. Those are three levels of struggle. Now, let’s paint those three
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levels of struggle with Islam. Beyond the worldly, and not just in the
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worldly sense, in the otherworldly sense, Islam also asks us to make a
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struggle at the level of the individual. I have to fight my nafs, I have to
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fight Shatan, I have to fight my laziness, I have to fight my anger, I have
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a struggle with myself. That’s the struggle I have to make with myself. I
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have to struggle to become better in my ibaadah, so many duas we make
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are about the struggle of ourselves. “Allah aid me in remembering You;
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Aid me in thanking You; Aid me in perfecting and beautifying my
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worship to You.” That’s a struggle with yourself. Then we go a little bit
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past that, and let’s keep things in the American context, even though this
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is universal value. You say I shouldn’t just worry about myself, we need
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a masjid. We need to have a place where we can worship, where people
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can remember Allah. So masajid got built. And then when masajid got
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built, then there was a bigger concern. We need to educate our children,
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schools got built, Sunday schools got established. Then there were even
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more concerns. We need to help others get the word of Islam. Da’wah
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organizations were created. Right so, these are additional struggles that
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stem from first at the individual level and then at the community level.
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And then even beyond that there are those who are trying, they have an
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open ended target. The target is that one day we want everybody in this
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country to know what real Islam is. That may not be a tangible goal, it
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may be very open ended but they are ready to struggle for it. And they are
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not turned off by the idea that they aren’t seeing tangible results. It’s
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enough for them that it is a worthwhile activity. And any of these efforts
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that we make, for any other human being, they can believe what they
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believe, we believe that every one of these efforts are at the end, more
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than anyone else, benefitting our own selves. They benefit us. They won’t
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necessarily benefit anybody else because we are not capable of that. The
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Prophet (PBUH) benefitted humanity more than anybody else. And yet
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Allah commanded him to say, “Say, ‘I possess not for myself any harm or
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benefit except when Allah should will’…” (Yunus:49). Right, think about
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that. The Prophet (PBUH) is more beneficial to humanity than any other
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human being that ever lived. And he is commanded to say “I don’t
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possess the power to benefit you.” In other words, the benefit the Prophet
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has given us, that we benefit from him, the credit keeps going to him and
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through him to Allah. And that’s the attitude of the believer. The attitude
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of the believer is that whatever good I’m doing, I’m not benefitting
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anybody except myself. That’s who I am benefitting in the end. Me, even
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giving sadaqah is benefitting myself. Me helping build a masjid, helping
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out a school, giving a charitable donation, whatever it may be, is helping
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me. And the benefit that comes to others, is not from me. It is from Allah.