Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan delves on some Ayats from Surah al Baqarah where one of the main conversations is what people follow, who they end up following & why they follow who they follow. And on Judgment Day everybody stands up we see that there are trendsetters and there are trend followers. What happens next?
Allah SWT is talking to people of the book, and through His Messenger ﷺ, He commands them to good things and forbids them from evil things. He makes permissible for them good and pure things and he makes impermissible for them filthy things. Hence, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ tells us to do good things, keep us away from bad things, open the door to pure things for us and close the door from filthy things away from us, so we stay away from the filthy things. So, he is setting a trend of sorts for the progress of Deen.
As time goes in an ummah, society and its pressures starts mixing in and we get drawn into the obligation to abide by not what Allah says but the obligation to abide by what society says. The additional chains, additional burdens can all be eased if we embark on the path that the Messenger ﷺ sets to let go of those burdens. We think we follow societal pressure because it will make life easy. It makes nothing but make life harder.
Hence, it is mandatory that we pray that we are not of the people who are followers of evil trends but the kinds of people that are the right trend followers in the light of Deen. we should follow the path set by Ibraheem (AS) and understand the Book of Allah the way it should be understood and avoid falling into the tide of cultural forces and pressures. We should be of those who understand His book, love His book and implement His book in our lives. We must pray that Allah opens the doors of wisdom and the wisdom of the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ to all of us.