Chain Messages through Media

Bismi-llahi ar-rahmani ar-rahimi, In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. And I beg for forgiveness from Allah for whatever sin that I have done in the past and to show me the right path. Ameen.

Assalamualaikum / Greetings dear readers.

This post is regarding something that caught my attention. This is supposed to be a very detailed post but due to time constraint, this is the best i could come up with so far Alhamdulillah.

It's been a normal practice for us human beings to send chain messages around to our contacts. Some do cheer us up and others relay good information that can be useful in our daily lives.

What got me thinking was the ones regarding messages on Islam. It is perfectly fine for us muslims to share around the useful contents of those messages but what comes at the end of the message can be considered an act of shirik, which is doing something that makes a muslim, a DISBELIEVER.

My stand also supports one of the forum discussion made by Yusuf Atiff Bin Abdel-Lateef Diab. I took some of his words from http://muslimonline.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=1137&st=0&p=7852&

We cannot be following non-muslims who state at the end of the letter that for eg "if you send this to 10 ppl, you will get good luck for 10 years.." etc. This is never the right way. If we love Allah, we do not have to show to other people. Of course, sharing knowledge in Islam is good and Allah loves it, but by writing those words, it is a sort of threat to the reader. And who are we to determine whether we will get good luck for 10 years by spreading the chain message when it is our responsibility to believe in Qada' and Qadar, in that everything comes from Allah swt and we cannot foresee what may come onto us. And Allaah says in Surah al-Isra'a ayah 36: "Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge."

More devastatingly, when we spread the message holding the words "if you love Allah,..." this brings us closer to shirik. We do not have to show that we love Allah. We only have to PROVE that we love Him through acts of worship and doing what He orders us to do (and bring ourselves benefits) and stay away from what He damns (and save ourselves from Hellfire). Not all human beings are able to do that up to perfection because we are normal human beings. We can't even live up to the best behaviour of Rasulullah SAW and yet we are taking up the "challenge" of SHOWING (not proving) our love to Allah. Also, if we have niat to spread the message but didn't do so, wouldn't it bring more wrath to our Master?

Let's do good by spreading around this REAL message, for the sake of sharing knowledge with others and not for the sake of believing in bad omen which can bring us to shirik. Let us repent from this mistake before the sun rises from the West, and may Allah forgive our sins of the past. Ameen.

If there's any error, I'm open for rectification. None is perfect as perfection only belongs to Allah (God Almighty). All good things come from Allah and all the bad things are from my side and the side of Shaiytan the accursed.