Abdal Hakim Murad – Seeking Status Ramadan Moments 1
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Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu
salam ala acromial NBI even more Celine, Sade in our Mowlana
Wahhabi bynner Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi Edma Ain.
We're working our way now through the last month, this challenging
time of year, whenever thing becomes intensified when sabar is
not just necessary, but easier when we learn the vital and really
rather cheerful lesson, that we are capable of restraining
ourselves and disciplining the nafs
at a time when we recognize that
the fast is not just about tuck abandonment of certain outward
actions, but it's about the torque or the abandonment of certain
inward states as well.
We know that in the month of Ramadan, Sophie that he Shayateen,
the shaytans are chained up.
And one of the meanings of this is that the shaytaan is less able to
get us through these inward weaknesses. She turns a sales of
the outward flick of Ramadan is usually not very grave in sha
Allah, we're not at immediate risk of running to the fridge and
getting ourselves a cool drink. This hadith refers to the inward
qualities that Ramadan must be cultivating Ramadan as a moral
Academy.
And one of the things it seems to me that is most
dog ID, in the human soul is the problem of having too grand and
opinion of ourselves.
Jah chakra, there's lots of Arabic words that apply to this. And this
is particularly a problem it seems in a modern world, where
everything is about the self. Be yourself, experience yourself,
indulge yourself, discover yourself, without there being much
by way of a footnote explaining what exactly their self might be.
But the self which wishes to boast, which wants to strut its
stuff and flex its biceps in front of an admiring public, the self
that wishes to be the Qibla of mankind. But which nonetheless,
turns out if we look within ourselves, and consider what it
actually is to be a rather cobwebby, weedy, ghost like thing
without much substance. It's all show it's all facade
does seem to love covering up its own sense of weakness and
feebleness and its own knowledge of what it really like if it has
that knowledge by producing a facade, which it shows to human
beings. So we are a different kind of person with different sorts of
people.
Now there is a way in which that can be morally appropriate. And
this is why he says sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, or middle to
earn on Zillow, NASA, winner, Zillow home, I've been commanded
to deal with people according to their
state, according to their level to what they are. So necessarily, the
way in which we speak to a new Muslim is going to be different to
the way in which we speak to a gray bearded chief, the way in
which we speak to family is going to be different the way in which
we speak to somebody who we happen to meet on the bus. And this is
kind of obvious, and part of the
the the normal sort of common sense and practical wisdom that a
human being accumulate.
But the state within us that wishes rather desperately to be
admired. This is problematic. And this is not from mahasin o'clock,
from the goodness of character. And it seems that Ramadan is a
time when we're all a little bit broken, the blood sugar level is
down, the natural exuberance of the nafs is a little bit less soft
that the shale teen, the devils have chained chained up, when we
can start to be a bit more attentive and mindful to the way
in which we present our public image to the world. How do we wish
to be thought of and this has become something of a modern
epidemic, because it can be electronically quantified. All of
those teenagers and influences and YouTubers who are absolutely
desperate to get as many likes as they can, and take this to be an
affirmation of themselves as human beings.
They crave public adulation
And this is a very worrying because very transient and
invariably wrong way of behaving towards Benny Adam. Humility is
one of the most beautiful virtues of the religion, and the
characteristic virtue of Islam is higher.
He says sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Nikolay Deen in Hello?
Well, hello called Islam, Al higher. Every religion has a
particular quality or character trait. And that which is
particular to Islam is that of modesty. And modesty in Arabic as
in English, means those two related things simultaneously,
modesty in terms of not being obscene, and dressing modestly,
but also modesty in the sense of not drawing attention to one's
real or imagined that use or achievements. The precarity of
this is evident all of those young people, those youtubers, those
influencers, if they see the number of likes, and the number of
hits and the number of replays declining, sometimes have to go
for counseling, they feel that their self has been diminished
because their self is only affirmed by the affirmation of
others unknown others, perhaps perverse, strange, others, perhaps
robotic others, they have no means of knowing whether the esteem of
those others is actually something which one would wish for, in any
case.
So
we have
in our religion, this very drastic way of talking about
superbia pride, which is said traditionally to be the greatest
of the seven deadly sins.
And its related issue of Jair Hubbell Jaya the love of status.
And the Holy Prophet alayhi salatu salam when he speaks of this uses
quite absolute and intense language.
In a well known Hadith, it's an urban manager but it's a reputed
Hadith. He says sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Aqua former akar for
Allah Ummah T or REO was Shura till Coffea was showered in havea
that which I fear most for my Alma is showing off and the hidden
passion
that which he fears most.
Well, we know that what is worse, what is unforgivable is shirk. But
this is precisely the hidden passion, because to the extent
that one is manifesting virtues that might be religious virtues to
others, one is committing some kind of lesser shirk, share us
heart, because as well as doing things for the Lord of the Worlds,
you were hoping for the praise of
mortal, fallible, frail, temporary human beings. And this is a
diversification of the Qibla and hence looks like a near neighbor,
to shirk. It's a form of polytheism, you might speak of the
polytheism of status seeking, we care about God's opinion. But we
also really care a lot about the world's opinion. How do I look?
How is this look? How is my CV? What is people saying about me,
what is on the discussion groups and all of this nonsense, which is
irrelevant, because only the judgment of the judge capital J
carries any weight and is worth having and is objective.
So we find that in the time of the seller for adorn Allahu Allah him
there was a tremendous anxiety about publicly appearing in
connection with religion in particular.
So we know that Khalid bin Magadan, who's one of the great
Imams of early Islam, either Catholic Halacha, to who? Kama
Maha for to Shara great Hadith scholar. But when his circle
became large, and there was a crowd there, who would stand up
and leave, because he was afraid that he might be becoming famous,
and that might affect him. His intention was the preservation of
the words of the Holy Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasallam. And all
of these admiring gazes might turn him into a celebrity. And
celebrity culture is the opposite of Tahiti culture. Because it's
the approbation of the many and the fallible, rather than the
approbation of the one who is infallible.
There's also a story told about well Babe and cub
idiom she has hobby he
will hum Kalfa who
is Rahu Omar Radi Allahu Allah, for Allah who be Dora
Alia Ameerul Momineen does not call in a herdy He, the Latin le
Tabea were fitna tone Lynmouth bow. So obey been calm is walking.
And his pupils his companions are walking behind him.
And Omar Ameerul Momineen, comes and raises his famous stick.
And obey says, Oh Commander of the Faithful, what are you doing?
And he says this way of walking is a humiliation for those who are
following and a danger for the one who is followed. Everybody loses
because they kind of humbly in a staggering behind you in this
demeaning way, which is not how the Holy Prophet alayhi salatu
salam walked with his OS habit he was in the middle of them.
But it's also the thickness, a source of temptation and sedition
and subversion for the one who's being followed.
In other words, it's a danger for them, and it's bad Adam towards
them. But it's a danger for you. Because you might think, Well, I
am not just at the beginning of the caravan, but I'm actually the
most eminent amongst them, which you do not know, and which you
cannot know.
So one of the lessons that we can learn from the early Muslims is a
real fear, even a terror of being famous of celebrity culture, of
getting lots of likes and approvals for its own sake,
because they saw this as being a near neighbor to shirk, and
something that was extremely, extremely subversive.
So some of them used to
do quite drastic things in order to reduce the level of fame. And
some of them would, for instance, pretend to be doing things that
are not forbidden, but are kind of
just MOBA, not particularly amiable in Sharia, some of them
would even color their water that they would drink in public. So it
would look like wine or some other forbidden fluid
in order to reduce their celebrity status, and this is recorded of a
lot of the early Muslims. The alamat however, say that this is
only permissible in the case of somebody who is not emulated.
Otherwise, if people think Sheikh so and so he's drinking wine,
that's going to cause a lot of his faithful disciples to fall into
error that is not permissible. But for the ordinary Muslim who is
afraid that perhaps his sincerity is being damaged by this
proliferation of followers and by the fact that people regard him as
a very respectable and honorable and upright member of the
community. It is sometimes according to the Musharraf a very
valuable remedy, just to kind of appear not to be anything special.
This has to be handled with extreme caution and discretion,
usually one spiritual director will be will be in charge of that
process.
Remember, the Great Mufti of balsa
one of the early capitals of the Ottoman Empire as his Memorial
Day, the chief called the and a very magnificent important person
in the state who wish to follow a teacher in the inward path. And
the teacher saw that he was attached to his celebrity status,
the Ottoman Mufti with the enormous turban
and the third caftan and walking around with the assault on
hobnobbing with so called Great and the goods and the ego is
suddenly attached to those things.
And in order to break his pride, he commanded him saying if you
wish to become my student, you will have to go in your car these
robes into the bizarre the marketplace in borsa selling tripe
and call out the top of your voice GRG gr. J, the tripe seller, the
tripe seller.
And he found this extraordinarily difficult. And that was his first
lesson in essentially his first real lesson in the inner clock of
Islam, having mastered the outward science of jihad and fatwah was
this overcoming of the ego, but he did it. And as a result, his
teacher took him as a disciple, and he became somebody whose
clippers immediately attracted vast crowds of people whose hearts
melted because they could see that he was
Person of humility
in our time, this fitna of which said no Omar speaks the fitna of
having admiring disciples and pupils has become genuinely
subversive, the Grand Mufti of somewhere
the secretary of some Islamic University, the Minister of
Religious Affairs, with his state limousine and hobnobbing with
useless generals and other
not inspiring personalities has become a genuine fitna, and some
of them managed to escape that fitna, others are carried away by
it and become inwardly just to kind of feather blown by the wind.
Nothing there and this again, can be
a fitna for those who follow them.
If the Mufti is known to be somebody who really cares about
which angle the photographer is taking his portrait from somebody
who makes sure that he's in the front line at the state banquet
and just served with the best things that he has a new 500
series Mercedes and gets into that world. Well, that's a real
subversion of prophetic religion and people will be disillusioned
by that person.
So this has to do finally with the Hadith, and Sunnah Phil Islam is
sunnah to Al Hassan a fella who agile ha ha Romain amila, Bihar
Illa yo mille piano, whoever does a good thing A good Sunday in
Islam or introduces a good practice into Islam shall have its
reward and the reward of those who acted with it until the day of
judgment. But conversely, also the suddenness a year, the bad thing
that that person represents. The one is if the shepherd is corrupt
than the flock are likely to be in danger. So to conclude, this issue
of status of seeking to be a celebrity
Katha Bill Murray, Mina, Shari, and you Shara la he built a Saba V
Dini, he went on Yeah, it is a sufficient evil for somebody that
people should be pointing at him because of something he has,
indeed or in dunya.
And we need to be constantly vigilant of this. And it doesn't
just apply apply to scholars, and billionaires and YouTube
influences and other celebs. And those very dangerous celebrity
culture amongst Muslims, unfortunately, which comes in from
the outside world and people collecting prizes of various kinds
and going to Islam, piety awards, this kind of nonsense as if it was
a sort of
the voice or a beauty competition of some, some profane kind is very
alien to our tradition.
And
we need to be looking out for those who are not pointed to the
people who nobody attributes much status to the poor, the weak, the
disabled, the marginalized, little old lady who sits in the corner of
the mosque, and nobody really wants to talk to her.
Those are the people where the divine favor is likely to be
found. It is amongst them that we're likely to find a loss
friends, the only app.
So, religion really inverts the normal hierarchy of the world.
And this is part of it indispensability.
So yeah, it's better to be in a state of homeowner to be obscure,
not to be known, particularly in a time such as ours of ridiculous
celebrity culture, fitna distraction, superficiality of all
kinds, where unqualified people are ranking the automat and even
that holy app, and this is part of the absurdity and part of the
fitness of the age. Islam is not democratic. In that sense. Only
God's judgment is true and matters. So in this month of
Ramadan in sha Allah, one of the things that we will be considering
is the front that we put up in public.
Are we showing off to people? Are we consciously strutting our stuff
and making sure that we look like really good Muslims? Are we very
happy when we are quoting a hadith that the other person perhaps
doesn't know? I'll be very happy when we correct somebody's
religious mistake. All of this is mineral on that in deaths from the
roughnesses of the lower self, and is profoundly subversive and may
not formally break the fast but is a dishonorable and an
inappropriate state to be in particularly in this month, which
is the month of purity in the month of Akbar Allah Allah, of
turning back to Allah So may Allah insha Allah just as he purifies
our outward for
certain passions and desires purify our inward state or cerebra
from certain other passions and desires and keep us away from this
shared coffee. This hidden idolatry of longing to be a
celebrity BarakAllahu li come with a cappella cmo wa salaam aleikum
wa rahmatullah wa barakato.