Muslims must live by the joy and fervor of living in the time of the movement of the Mahdi, but inertia will cause them to regress

All Muslims who evaluate the last 30 years with good conscience and sincerity can easily see we are in the End Times and that we are therefore living in the age of the Prophet Jesus (as) and Hazrat Mahdi (as) and at a  time when the moral values of Islam will rule the world. The fact that Allah will be sending the Prophet Jesus (as), one of the Resolved Messengers (Ul al’Azm), back to earth after 2000 years and that the great struggle of Hazrat Mahdi (as), the greatest guide since the time of the Prophet Adam (as), is certainly instrumental in Muslims feeling great fervor, enthusiasm and joy. Every believer who sees and is aware of this will experience the joy of this holy age at every moment. With that joy he will strive, intend and hope to be in the vanguard of the Prophet Jesus (as) and Hazrat Mahdi (as), to prepare the ground for them and to support them in the finest manner. Knowing that he is living in this holy century will be instrumental in Muslims enjoying much beauty in this world and considerable gains in the Hereafter.

On the other hand, to seek to cover up and conceal the fact that we are living in the age of the Mahdi, using quibbles of various kinds and in the face of hundreds of hadiths of our Prophet (saas) and the many clear references in the verses of the Qur’an, is a most dangerous path that will lead Muslims to inertia and passivity. That path leads to the acceptance of an average or even below-average life instead of striving for Allah’s approval with all the means at one’s disposal. That life style is a mentality that reduces living by the religion and proper moral values to the bare minimum. It is a mentality that performs the minimum of religious obligations, seeks to restrict religion to the narrowest area of life, seeks no beauty, love or depth and fails to properly appreciate the blessings bestowed by Allah. But its most perilous aspect is that it goes even further and leads to a mindset that drags a person backward each day and makes it even more difficult for them to sincerely live by religious moral values.

Some who fails to feel the excitement of starting each new day for Allah’s sake and who does not enthusiastically seek the maximum of Allah’s approval in all things will be exposed to the conditioning of denial. In the event he fails to move forward and does not grow in depth and proximity to and love of Allah every single day, then he will regress every day. Inertia in faith, love and depth means regression. For example, the lovelessness in someone who does not feel a profound joy and fervor in his soul towards the beauties bestowed by Allah and who regards them as quite mundane, will soon turn into a distaste for these delights, and then even anger. Someone who does not fervently remember Allah with the words "SubhanAllah [Glory be to Allah], Alhamdulillah [Praise be to Allah]" when he sees such delights will eventually turn into a person with a frozen, petrified soul who fails to understand the wisdom behind their Creation or even never thinks about them at all. This petrifaction of the soul will lead to a coolness and apathy toward Allah, the religion and his Muslim brothers. Someone who fails to think how Allah has promised to make the moral values of Islam prevail the world and who does not strive to spread the moral values of the religion in the light of the enthusiasm stemming from this promise, can never obey the commands of the religion with any spiritual fervor. Such a person will eventually become a robot who goes to work and back, enjoys no sincere conversation even with his own wife and children and who appears to perform religious observances but who draws no spiritual enjoyment from them. Increasing numbers of people with such a mindset will mean an apathy, inertia, defeatism and passivity prevailing across the Islamic world.

Therefore, everyone who lives by the moral values of Islam must scrupulously avoid attitudes, ideas and conceptions that might lead his Muslim brothers and all mankind toward such an inertia. He must not forget that inertia can lead to irreligion. Nobody must waste Muslims’ time on ideas that are hard to believe, that have no place in Islam, that depict the global dominion of Islamic moral values as far off or almost impossible or accounts that seek to eliminate the idea of the movement of the Mahdi. Everyone must consider the harm that such a mindset may do to the world of Islam and strive to compete in doing the greatest amount of good for Allah’s approval, rather than making do with an average life. This is what is most compatible with the moral values of the true believer as revealed by Allah in the Qur’an:
 

Then We made Our chosen servants inherit the Book. But some of them wrong themselves; some are ambivalent; AND SOME OUTDO EACH OTHER IN GOOD BY ALAH’S PERMISSION. THAT IS THE GREAT FAVOR. (Surah Fatir, 32)
 

Allah will not disappoint those who strive to gain His approval with fervor, determination and enthusiasm, who do all in their power to bring about the global dominion of His religion and who strive to be among the followers of Hazrat Mahdi (as) by seeing the signs foretold by our Prophet (saas).