Abdal Hakim Murad – Seeking Status Ramadan Moments 1

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.