Flavour of Faith

It is related by Abbas bin Adbul Muttalib that he heard the Apostle of God say: “He tasted the flavour of Faith and experienced its sweetness who agreed with a truthful heart to accept God as His Cherisher, Islam as his religion, and Muhammad as his Prophet.” [Bukhari]Commentary:Just as all delicious foods posses a flavour but can be perceived only when one’s faculty of taste has not been lost or become perverted due to illness or any other cause, there is also a special sweetness in faith which can be enjoyed by those alone who have, willingly and earnestly, made Allah their Lord and Master, Muhammad (PBUH) their prophet and guide, and Islam their religion and way of life, and whose hearts have bowed in submission to God and yielded in obedience to the prophet and assented to be the adherents of the path of Islam. In other words, their bond with God, the prophet and Islam is not merely formal, hereditary or intellectual but real, sincere and genuine.Anas related to us that “Only he will taste the sweetness of faith who has these three qualities: the love of God and the prophet that comes to him before everything else, he loves whom he loves solely for the sake of God, and the idea of going back to apostasy after he has embraced Islam is as repugnant to him as being thrown into fire.”[Bukhari and Muslim]Commentary:The subject matter of this tradition is almost identical to that of proceeding one. It says that the sweetness of faith can only be perceived by him whose love for God and the Apostle is stronger that for anyone or anything else in the world, so much so that when he loves somebody, it is wholly for the sake of God, and who is so deeply devoted to the Islamic faith that the very idea of leaving it and reverting back to the apostasy is as painful to him as being cast into fire.Source: Bilal Academy