What is Fear of Allah? It is the feeling the human gets when they are living in the ‘dunya’, going about their lives and striving to live according to the commandments of Allah. But do all of us have that feeling? The answer is very simple. No. Why do we not have that fear? The answer is again very simple. Because we have not paid heed to the greatest of the greatest guidelines of Islam, the miracle of the month of Ramadan, the book that was brought down on our last Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), the Quran. Had we paid attention to the intricate words of Allah in that book, we would not have reached where we are today; in a state of complete fearlessness of the Hereafter.

We now live in a world where we see inhumanity, violence, atrocious and disgusting acts of Muslims killing Muslims, brothers murdering each other, families getting destroyed in the fight for properties. You name the brutality and we’ve heard of it, if not seen it. And the only explanation to this is that the fear of Allah has not been ingrained in our hearts. We have ignored the sayings of Allah in the Quran and that has led to our downfall.

The Quran, in numerous places, has talked about the importance of fearing Allah. Fear of Allah is not something that you have to learn, it comes naturally with the love we have for the Almighty. It comes through the belief and the faith we have in Him, that HE above all will always be there for us, that He is responsible for all the good and bad in our lives.  Allah says to us in the Quran:

"The believers are only those who, when Allah is mentioned, feel a fear in their hearts and when His verses are recited to them, it increases them in faith; and upon their Lord they rely"- (Surah al-Anfal 8:2)

Such is the beauty of the words of the Quran. That when we read them, we feel the power of the words come crushing down upon us, we feel goose bumps at what Allah says, the promise of Allah that we will be rewarded for our good deeds and punished for our evil ones makes us fear Him. And THAT is when we ask for forgiveness. Allah says in the Quran:

… If only I had not been given my Book and had not known about my Reckoning! If only death had really been the end! My wealth has been of no use to me. My power has vanished. (Surat al-Haqqa: 25-29)

It all comes down to the recitation of the quran and the supremacy of the words of Allah. Again and gain, repeatedly, Allah has asked us to do good and shun evil in the Quran. And that has made us fear Him. He says "On the Day when every person will be confronted with all the good he has done, and all the evil he has done, he will wish that there were a great distance between him and his evil. And Allah warns you against Himself (His Punishment) and Allah is full of Kindness to the (His) slaves." - Quran (3:30). Then why are we still living in fearlessness of Allah. Why do we not READ the words of the Quran and understand them, make them a complete source of guidance to spend the rest of our lives?

We need to. We need to understand that all the sustenance and happiness we get in this world is brought my Allah’s benevolence. But we also need to fear the time when our evil acts will cause Allah to punish us, destroy us as He destroyed the People of ‘Ad who paid no heed to the teachings of the Prophet (PBUH). It’s all there in the Quran. Read it. Understand it. And the fear of Allah I talk about, it’ll all come to you immediately. The fear that it doesn’t end here, in this dunya. The fear that there will come a world where we will have to be answerable to Allah for our deeds. That world would be the Hereafter, either Jannah or Dozakh, where we will live forever. So read the Quran, fear Allah and follow the right path to Jannah InshaAllah.

"And when my servants ask you (O Muhammad SAW), concerning Me, indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me. Let them, then, respond unto Me, and believe in Me, so that they might follow the right way."