More than a thousand words.
What then does it mean to be a Muslim?
I’ve been ruminating over this for a while. It feels almost herculean to write on something I’ve already written about before without repeating myself. I once shared these thoughts in a correspondence with someone. I asked if I could just use what I had written to them. They told me not to be lazy and lazy I was not. But I tell you, it was hard. So here you have this. I request that you read it to the very end. Special thanks to M.A.M.A
When his Lord ordered him, “Submit ˹to My Will˺,” he responded, “I submit to the Lord of all worlds.”(2:131)
Islam does not mean peace. It means submission. Submission to God. It is however unfortunate that a lot of us have strayed far from submitting to God. We have instead chosen to submit to something other than He whom submission is due to: our desires. Why is this so?
Perhaps it is because we place on such a high pedestal things that are undeserving of that status. What we see, what we hear, and what we consume. Maybe it is the phones we scroll endlessly, the internet we scour, the movies we watch, the songs we sing, the actors we glorify, the singers we idolize, the friends we keep or even the mindset we bear. And what we exalt eventually seeps into us, it molds our very being, our thoughts, our desires, even the whispers we hear in our minds. You are what you eat as they say.
“Do this sin,” our minds whisper. “There’s nothing wrong with it—it’s normal.” Our friends echo the same. They tell us that refusing makes us backward. And that pressure that ensues, that fear of being out of touch with our peers become our greatest vulnerability. It is in those fragile moments that we fall, we fail even. We comply, not out of conviction, but out of the desperate need to belong. We want to look “cool,” not old-fashioned. We crave the approval of others more than the approval of our Creator.
Sometimes it is Satan who seizes this moment of vulnerability, sometimes our peers, and sometimes our own restless desire to fit in.
Woe to me! I wish I had never taken so-and-so as a close friend
It was he who truly made me stray from the Reminder after it had reached me.” And Satan has always betrayed humanity. (25:28-29)
˹O Prophet!˺ If you were to obey most of those on earth, they would lead you away from Allah’s Way. They follow nothing but assumptions and do nothing but lie.(6:116)
Worse are we who act with the trend. Since when did the popularity of something become the justification for it? To please our friends, we displease God. We do not transgress against anyone but our own souls, if only we knew. We do not want to be left out, so we follow suit with whatever they do. We let go of our commitment to God just to please man. We rubbish our submission to Him just to commit to the whims of man. Man? A mere mortal. I tell you, submission to man is not submission to God.
We start new things for no genuine reason but simply for the applause of others. We try new habits, chase new trends and adopt new lifestyles, not out of conviction, but because we want people to tell us “we’re current” or “we're in vogue.” And so, our lives become performances for others instead of acts of worship for Allah.
Even worst are we who publicize our sins. A wrong act done in private is still a sin, but to make it public is to transgress twice, once against Allah’s command, and then again by flaunting it before His creation. We are not only disobedient, we are daring in our disobedience. We are openly transgressing on the very earth of the One who sustains us, without shame or restraint. O man, what hath emboldened thou against thy Lord?
Some of us refuse to consume lectures, reminders or even short clips that might call us to account. We scroll past them quickly or mute them altogether. Because deep down we fear being reminded of our responsibilities. We feign ignorance, “I didn’t know it was wrong.” But intentional ignorance is no excuse. It is like traveling to a new country, breaking its laws, and then defending yourself by saying you didn’t know. The law is still the law, and its violation still counts.
Because of this fleeting world, we run far from the guidance of God. We slave after the world, after the whims of man instead of the Most High. We make permissible the impermissible. I tell you, this world will surely come to an end. O man, how deluded you must be to forget your final abide.
There are some who say, “Our Lord! Grant us ˹Your bounties˺ in this world,” but they will have no share in the Hereafter.(2:200)
If this is what we are, what then does it mean to be a Muslim, to submit?
Everyone sins. I do. You do. We all do. Sin is woven into human nature. No matter how righteous or pure, if you are human, you will sin. That’s reality.
But just because sin and humanity are linked does not mean sin is justified. Being prone to something does not justify it especially when these inclinations are elicited by our friends or desires. Anger does not excuse violence nor does a medical diagnosis of psychopathy justify murder.
Yet many of us erroneously justify our wrongdoings by pointing to our nature. We rationalize by the mere fact of our inherent inclinations towards them., “God made me this way. He is forgiving, so He will forgive me.” Instead of curbing our souls, we dive deeper into the abyss of disobedience. We indulge in sin, wallow in it, breathe it like oxygen. And in the end, we submit not to God—but to a distorted idea of His mercy.
Of course, Allah is forgiving and merciful.
But we must ask: what does it mean to be a Muslim?
Does submission mean deliberately acting against His will and then banking on His forgiveness?
Does it mean living in sin without fear or remorse, persistently listening to music, shaking hands with the opposite sex, drinking, watching filth, dating and all that. After all these, we console ourselves with “God forgives all sins”? And still, we go right back to it.
Is that really submission?
Or does it mean striving to obey Him, stumbling at times, always turning back, always seeking His pardon?
Have we reduced Islam to a mere tag, a name we carry with no substance?
We repent only to return immediately to the same sins. We trap ourselves in a cycle of recidivism.
If this is our state, what then does it mean to be a Muslim?
To be a Muslim is to submit. To submit our will to the One who created us. To serve Him and none besides Him. To obey His commands even when our desires say otherwise
To be a Muslim is to fight our innermost urges, those demons that drag us to sin. To be a Muslim is to stop pleasing man at the expense of God. To be a Muslim is to submit to God and God alone.
We will fall and that is expected. But so long as we do not justify our wrongs, there is hope. As long as we repent sincerely and resolve sincerely never to return, we are still within submission. Even if we do.
Rationalizing sin only weakens submission. It becomes a coping mechanism that makes us numb. We compare our sins with others: “At least I am not as bad as them.” But comparing minor sins with major ones does not make us less of a sinner. It only blinds us.
At first, we soften the edges of sin. Afterwards, we erase them entirely. Until finally, we transgress openly. The guilt that once pricked our hearts vanishes. We drown it. We suffocate it.
We call God’s law a cage, a prison, and seek freedom through disobedience, through rebellion.
But this freedom is a lie, an illusion—nothing but the ruse of the devil.
As we move closer to Satan, we move farther from Allah. Our desires grow rabid. They become our compass, our lord. But submission to desire is not submission to God.
Have you seen the one who has taken their own desires as their god? Will you then be a keeper over them? (25:43)
And who could be more astray than those who follow their desires with no guidance from Allah? (28:50)
By Allah, the struggle against the soul is hard. But difficulty does not mean impossibility. The goal remains to submit to God, not to man. Step by step, one sin at a time, one effort after another—that is how the battle with our soul is fought.
Falling into one sin does not mean we should add more. Saying, “I already listen to music, so I might as well shake hands with the opposite sex,” is a deception of Satan. Engaging in one sin while avoiding another is not hypocrisy. Doing both only multiplies guilt.
It is like saying: “My leg has already been shot, so go ahead and put in more bullets.” Or “I already have cavities, so I should eat more sweets”. Or “I already stole once, let me steal again”.
Every act makes it worse. Every sin compounds harm.
Stopping everything at once may feel impossible, which it is. But with patience it can be done.
Some, however, fall into despair after repeated relapses. They conclude: “I can never be forgiven, so why bother?”
This is dangerous.
Like a drug addict who gives up after withdrawal, they surrender to endless relapse. But no matter how low you have sunk, you can still rise. No matter how depraved you think you are, you can still shine.
Importantly, no matter how far you’ve fallen, no matter how dark your sins, never abandon your Solah. Even if you are drinking, even if you are entangled in dating or other sins—your prayer must remain untouched. Solah is very important. If everything else slips, hold on to that rope sincerely.
I once heard of an adult film star who believed hell was her inevitable fate. “God cannot forgive me,” she said. But this strips God of His very attribute of mercy. Even the most infamous sinner can be forgiven.
Never lose hope in Allah’s mercy. To despair is to deny His very magnanimity.
Allah says:
“O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful.” (39:53)
Never, ever despair of His mercy. But never use His mercy as an excuse for laziness either. He is forgiving, yes, but He is also severe in punishment.
The believer walks a path between hope and fear. He does not grow arrogant with mercy, nor does he drown in despair of wrath.
So then—what does it mean to be a Muslim?
To be a Muslim is to submit, to surrender our will—not to man, not to the world, not to our own desires, but to Allah alone. Submission is obedience even when our soul resists. Submission is fighting desires instead of giving in to them. Submission is refusing to please people at the cost of displeasing the Creator. To be a Muslim is not to romanticize sin but to resist it. To be a Muslim is to submit to Allah and to Allah alone. Let us be Muslims.
And that, I tell you, is more than a thousand words.
PS
It should be noted that nothing I’ve written here suggests that I am sinless, or even a good Muslim. Far from it. Falling into sin while acknowledging it as wrong is not hypocrisy. To condemn haram and call to halal does not mean I am immune to falling into haram myself. This is me trying to do a good thing while still dealing with my flaws. I am perfectly flawed but I won't let shaytan guilt trip me into staying silent because of these flaws. I tell you, that too is part of striving.
To be a Muslim,to submit , surrender and obedience to the will of Allah.
How will one know what its means to be a Muslim,if they didn't even know Islam.
Perhaps the ideology has been reduced to dressing alone.
And many belief " Only Allah know who is worshiping him " to give themselves validation or " The intention matters" when you are publicly doing what's prohibited.
May Allah continue to rectify our affairs
This deeply resonate with me.
Barokah llah feekum.