And (remember) when your Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their seed (or from Adam's loin his offspring) and made them testify as to themselves (saying): "Am I not your Lord?" They said: "Yes! We testify," lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection: "Verily, we have been unaware of this." [7:172]

And remember Allah's Favour upon you and His Covenant with which He bound you when you said: "We hear and we obey." And fear Allah. Verily, Allah is All­Knower of the secrets of (your) breasts. [5:7]

Long before the creation of Adam ('alaihis salaam), Allaah bought forth all the souls of the whole of mankind and asked us all a question, "am I not your Lord?".

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Note: the question is 'am I NOT your Lord?' and not 'am I your Lord?' - ie. the fact is established: Allaah is our Rabb. Here He [Glorified and Exalted is He] is asking us to to basically confirm/testify/admit this fact. Allaah does not ask 'am I your Lord' because there are 2 answers here: yes and no, and implies that there is a possibility He is not our Lord. The question Allaah actualy asks leaves no room for the answer 'no', no room for even a shadow of a doubt.

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So anyways, back to this incident that occured before our bodies were created. We answered "yes! we testify (to the fact that you are our Lord)".

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And this was the pact we made, "..His Covenant with which He bound you..".

The covenant between mankind and our Creator where we affirm and testify that Allaah is our Lord. Now, I can't remember any of this incident for the life of me! ...but that's cuz the memory was wiped out; however, Allaah has reminded us about it in the Quran in the above 2 verses (and alluded to it in other verses also) "...lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection: 'Verily, we have been unaware of this' "

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This incident is called 'Al-Meethaaq', that is 'the covenant/agreement' and it is through this that Allaah has set us on our 'way' or Fitrah.

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The Prophet [salAllaahu 'alayhi wa sallam] said: ‘Every newborn child is born in a state of fitrah. Then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian or a Magian, just as an animal is born intact. Do you observe any among them that are maimed (at birth)?’

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This hadith tells us that "Fitrah" is the inherent nature that human beings incline towards naturally, and what the human being is naturally inclined to is goodness. When human beings are raised and nurtured correctly, they usually incline towards the truth.

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For example: every child knows it is wrong to steal, or wrong to lie or wrong to cheat & they know helping the poor and prphans is good - this is due to the fitrah. Also, every religion teaches that it is wrong to cheat/lie/steal, so this isn't unique to one set of people - its natural to all mankind. So basic morality = fitrah. The worship of our Rabb also comes under this.

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So fitrah exists in every child, but if he grows up to reject it, this fitrah is damaged or destroyed - helping him go astray.

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As I was thinking about recent (past few years) events in the news,I realised just how many of us have opposed and rejected our fitrah, leading to the issues we have in the world today.

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So that's why knowledge is important innit: when you know something, you can begin to grow fond of it, even love it. So learning about Islam will lead us to love it, and in turn help us to nurture our fitrah and help us to change ourselves and thus change society, inshaAllaah.