Fatwaa ID: 1444

Question:
Salam and greetings to you brother in Islam

There is an issue that I wish to discuss as for sometime I have been experiencing continuous anxiety related to the matter, one can islamically label my thoughts as waswasas from shaytaan. Little background might also help understand my situation better.

I grew up as a liberal, non-religious and non-practicing muslim very much a secular individual, even up till the time I got married and few years beyond that after witnessing a personal tragedy when I started seriously looking into religion. A time I started experiencing spiritual awakening, as I became thoughtful about the purpose of life and am I following the correct path that will ensure salvation for me after death. That was the time I started looking into religion with great interest, studied theology of major religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Bahaism, etc. I simply did not wanted to be muslim just because I was born in a muslim family, or have blind faith in islam. The process made me a practicing muslim much more than ever before as theology of islam made more sense to me then any other religion I looked at, furthermore Nouman Ali Khan’s linguistic analysis on the text of the Quran gave me great confidence on Islam’s divine credentials something I found missing in other religions.

The trouble is that I was doing research on the topic of faith nullifiers recently. Topic which defines actions that takes a muslim outside the fold of islam. One such action is having a doubtful faith or doubting if islam is the true religion of Allah, an act that constitutes apostasy. My mind at times gets hammered by these unnecessary misgivings if in all of these years I was actually a muslim or not, since my lack of knowledge, ignorance and uncertainties about the deen of islam took me to the path of self- study. Like I already mentioned above I knew nothing about religion, I believed in higher power called God or Allah, similarly believed in doing good and spreading good but thought if I accepted myself as muslim following the sunni tradition because of the family I was born in will constitute that I am a muslim. However like I said at that time I also felt that doing research on religions to identify which is the true one is essential, had no idea that believing islam as religion of truth and doing research on it to identify if it “the Haq” can perhaps constitute kufr.

Today I’m almost forty married with children, but all these relationships originated in my life at a time when I was ignorant and unsure if islam is the deen appointed by Allah(SWT) for mankind, since I never took interest in it or knew much about what is required to be muslim.

I would like to ask for guidance and get a frank answer from you in this regard.

After explaining my entire life situation can my marriage and children be considered as islamically legititiamte, since I became a married man and a father at a liberal, secular and non-religious phase of my life when i had many questions also doubts and was not certain if islam is true or divinely appointed religion?

Answer:
In the Name of Allaah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
As-salaamu ‘alaykum wa-rahmatullaahi wa-barakaatuh.

Dear brother,
Rest assured that your imaan is intact. Likewise, your marriage and children are legitimate.

It is natural to have doubts. The fact that you are having or had doubts indicates towards your imaan. You did the right thing by studying and trying to understand your faith instead of bottling up your doubts.

May Allaah Ta’aala keep you steadfast upon Deen. May He bless you and your family in both lives and protect you from all harms.

And Allaah Ta’aala knows best.
Mufti Muajul I. Chowdhury
Darul Iftaa New York
https://askthemufti.us/

12/18/1444 AH – 07/06/2023 CE | 381

وصل اللهم وسلم وبارك على سيدنا محمد وعلى ءاله وصحبه أجمعين

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