Levels of belief
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Peace all,
Wanted to share a reflection of mine on levels of faith or belief in God. I'm basing this reflection on experience from my own life and stages I have gone through myself.
It has recently occurred to me that just believing in God... that there is a God who is almighty etc etc, is, in a way, just the lowest level you can be at... having faith. This faith is mostly intellectual, i.e. you understand it intellectually, but there is not much feeling behind it and not much conviction through experience. This is ok, as all things start this way, weak... but it is only the beginning from where you start your journey of struggle of self-improvement and self-purification, on the way back to Allah.
I don't know the current depth of my faith in Allah... as I cannot, and don't want to, compare with others. Only Allah knows, and that's the only thing that matters. However, I feel a huge difference between myself now and myself when I just started being able to put words on my faith.... I had just discovered the quran, after not having known anything at all about it. Even before I discovered the quran, there was some seed of faith in me, I can remember, but it was totally shapeless. I thank God anyway that I wasn't shaped in any religious school of thought.
I have also gathered that the degree of one's faith depends on how much you can handle... how mature you are in terms of being capable of believing. I'm sure it's also a gradual process to evolve and develop into deeper and stronger faith in Allah. I call it the softening and opening of the heart. It can start with a small seed, and then you can develop further and further, if you have the right intentions and desire. What I'm doing is that I continuously pray to my Creator for better and better understanding, to be a better and better person, to become closer and closer to Allah. I always ask God to show me the truth, and to be able to handle it... and this happens in stages, gradually... as I have seen in myself.
I'm also sure the quran is built the same way. It has many many different levels of understanding to it. Regardless of what dictionaries and research findings say, everyone will not understand the same things from the quran... and it all depends on their level of faith.
My point is that the dichotomy of either having or not having faith is very simplistic. It may be true, but only at the most crude level. Having belief in Allah can be expressed on an infinite number of different levels, one higher/deeper than the other.... and it's in the end a highly personal journey.
Peace!
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agree that there's different levels. prophets/messenger's faiths also varied.
personally, some days i feel 'strong' in my faith. the next day, not so strong. it is an internal feeling of strength but definitely over time i have a much deeper understanding of the same koran that i have read for the past almost 20 years. more and more, i see and appreciate the truth. years ago, i wanted to know the truth and evolve towards God. paths taken have lead me to where i am today.
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I definitely agree that there are different levels of belief. For me I have always believed in God but not necessarily an afterlife which is something I really struggled with for a long time but I am able to accept it more now. I just look at how the world/nature works and is able to repair itself and believe that there has to be something greater behind it.