Last Friday, after the conclusion of Maghrib, the evening prayer, Muslim congregants gathered outside the prayer hall in the multi-purpose hall of the mosque. There, they seated themselves to listen to Ustadh (teacher) Faizan Mumtaz speak about trials and their benefits in Islam.

The Central Illinois Mosque & Islamic Center (CIMIC) on Lincoln Avenue hosts a Family Night, a community gathering, once or twice every month. The topic for last Friday’s (April 20) was “The Benefits of Trials” and the speaker was Ustadh Faizan Mumtaz.

Ustadh Faizan Mumtaz is an instructor at Fawakih Institute, an educational Islamic organization. The organization teaches Qur’anic grammar and in-depth translation and other fields of Islamic learning. Ustadh Faizan Mumtaz works with and teaches youth along with teaching Classical and Qur’anic arabic.

The talk took place at CIMIC at 7:45 p.m, after the evening prayer and dinner (which was provided), the topic being “The Benefits of Trials.”

Ustadh Faizan Mumtaz covered many subtopics, including what trials are, who faces them and the meaning and quality of patience.

He defined trials as being tests, tests of will and faith, emotional and physical, that are sent down and engineered by Allah (God). Ustadh Faizan then went on to clarify that everyone faces trials, and each trial is designed for each person respectively.

He mentioned how Allah only tests people with trials they have the strength to face. Allah knows and understands what each person is going through, and Allah is the only one who truly understands how any person feels in all situations.

Ustadh Faizan expanded on another principle which is that Allah provides blessings and sustenance out of love, and takes away things, that we would see as blessings, out of love. It is important to understand this principle, especially in situations where a person’s trial is them losing something they care about. Ustadh Faizan gave a personal example of when he once bought his brother of video game, and his brother would play it nonstop, so as a big brother and out of love, he (Ustadh Faizan) had to take away the video game so his little brother would not suffer in school and/or become completely anti-social.

Ustadh Faizan then spoke about the virtue of patience and applying patience. Ustadh Faizan said, when I asked him why he wanted to speak about trials and patience, that trials and tests are emotionally and physically trying obstacles that people everywhere have to face every day. He says that patience is key in dealing with and facing said tests. Ustadh Faizan has faced tests and trials and he explained that he has had to exercise patience. Many people don’t know how to apply their patience or even why, so Ustadh Faizan wants to help people understand patience.

The discussion closed off with an open Q&A session and the event ended right before ‘Isha, the night prayer, around 9 p.m.