AbdelRahman Murphy – Heartwork Guided Steps To The Path Of Allah #10
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AI: Transcript ©
Welcome home, everybody.
It's good to see. Sorry for the delay.
We,
it's my kid's last day of summer.
So sad. So sad.
So I got I got caught with them,
hanging out for a little bit.
And then immediately after I have to we're
gonna have a little bit of a longer
q and a during the session because I
have to go,
to put them to sleep because their bedtime
just you know, summer summer bedtime for kids
is like
basically, it's
like aspirational. Like, oh, maybe 9, 9:30.
And then now Musa, my son has to
wake up tomorrow at 6:50,
to go to school. Yeah. I know it's
torture, man. So,
so the bedtime tonight is gonna be assisted
by melatonin. No.
It's gonna be,
it's gonna be tough. So I'm gonna try
to get home as soon as I can.
So please just forgive me for that, but
use the slido, slido.com, and then if you
type in heart work,
then your question will be there and we'll
have an extended, we already have one.
Already have, so we have a little bit
of an extended q and a.
So tonight we're gonna go through,
a really
a really good, mashallah, really needed,
I think,
section of the text from Imam Muhasibi.
So for those of you who've been with
us the whole time, then we're kind of
building off of, you know, stage after stage,
point after point
of this,
this ladder on how to climb to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And Imam Muhasabi is giving
us the ingredients or the lessons or the
steps on how to do that.
And he's giving us sort of these tips
along the way and these lists along the
way that help us. And yester or last,
week sorry. Yesterweek.
Last week, we finished with a really important,
tip or a really important frame
of mind, which is to understand that Allah
in all of his mercy
and in all of his kindness and in
all his favor,
is unlike
any creation,
any other person that you and I
seek for advice or seek for counsel or
help.
And so he said
that don't become a person that goes and
complains
about your destiny or about something that happened
to you,
to people that when it comes to
their station with you compared to Allah,
they can't actually fix the problem.
So we we gave the example, like, if
you tell somebody that you're struggling financially,
that person maybe can advise you, can listen
to you, but that person's not gonna be
able to just transfer all of their wealth
over to you. They won't do that because
they have their own limitations. They have their
own responsibilities.
Allah has no limit.
Allah has no burden of responsibility. See, for
us, responsibility is a burden. For Allah, his
responsibility is his pleasure, it's his it's his
generosity, he takes care of us. And so
the reality is Imam Abu Hasibi says, when
you think of
who should I direct my
my my concerns
about this world to,
who should I connect with about my complaints
about this dunya? Imam Abu Hasabi says, don't
ever leave Allah out of that equation. Right?
So he said in a beautiful line, do
not complain against one who is most merciful
to you, to the one who by comparison
is merciless.
The human being is the one who will
not have any mercy when it comes to
what you need and how to take care
of you. So now he gives some,
another advice, another tip. Someone there is singing
my shawl on the back.
Another advice, another tip.
Okay? And this one is a tough one
and and and they're related. Sometimes you think
all these things are just kinda like he's
sprinkling them, like, oh, one from here, one
from there. But there's a thread.
And so he just said, you know, don't
complain about Allah to people because if you
complain about the one who,
is merciful and most merciful to the one
who is merciless, then you're kinda missing the
point.
And then he says, okay. Well, how does
a person develop the ability to hold all
of their,
concerns about the about this life? How do
they how do they hold that in? And
and they're able to keep everything in perspective.
He says, rely upon Allah
alone. Rely upon god alone.
And as a result of that, you will
become one of the elite people.
Now, relying upon Allah
is kind of a tricky
it's kind of a tricky statement.
Because if you were to ask, like, any
person who's Muslim like, hey. Do you do
you trust Allah? Do you do you rely
upon God? They would say yes. You know,
any person it's it's almost become like a
cliche.
We like to put ourselves
in close proximity
to God as a theory because it feels
good and it also represents us well. You
You know, look at people's Twitter bios.
Look at how people present themselves. Like, oh,
I trust in God. God will always be
there. It's become a little bit of a
trend. But trusting in Allah is not just
a trend. It's actually something that anchors somebody.
And there's 2 modes of life, really. There's
ease and there's difficulty.
There's times where things are easy and there's
times where things are challenging. Now trusting in
Allah is actually difficult in both scenarios.
I'll give you an example.
When times are tough, it is difficult. It's
a challenge for a person to be able
to remind themselves
that no matter how hopeless the situation
is, I have to remember that there's something
greater than me that is guiding me and
controlling this entire environment for me. It's difficult,
especially in the onset of the situation.
That's why the prophet
he said that true patience
is at the point of calamity. When the
calamity happens, before anything else settles,
we give ourselves time to let things settle
and then we say, oh, I trust Allah.
But how many of us can trust Allah
before we can see what's happening?
That's the really, really difficult one. Right?
But there's actually another difficult kind of trust
of Allah. The first one is when times
are tough. But you know what? Actually, it's
difficult to trust Allah is when times are
easy.
Because when times are easy,
a person
starts to fall into the rut of thinking
that who is giving them success?
Themselves.
And so it's interesting.
A person thinks, okay, tawakkul, trust in Allah,
that's something I have to work on. It
is something that I have to prepare for
when times are difficult. But Imam Abu Hasibi
says no.
Trust Allah in all times.
That means when something good happens,
you have to remind yourself,
I was a part of this, but I
was in no way all of it.
Allah used me. Allah opened doors for me.
Allah facilitated
for me. And as a result of that,
I was able to achieve this. But
if Allah had not given me even, like,
a slight
trajectory push in this direction, I would have
been completely, completely
away from this success.
And the trick is when a person develops
trust with a lot in good times,
then they'll be able to use that muscle
in bad times.
They'll be able to call upon that. They'll
say, you know what? The difference between a
good time and a bad time to me
is actually nothing.
And that's how those scholars, they would say,
when when Allah gave people ease or difficulty,
their heart would not change.
They'd be the same person.
Umar
demonstrates
this. And he says
that
my relationship with Allah
is so
and and in his mind, of course, he's
saying this not out of bragging. He's saying
it as a as a statement. He's like,
it's so stable
that it's not impacted by whether things happen
to me that I like or don't like.
If something happens to me that I like,
I don't become complacent. How many of us
become complacent when good things happen? Raise your
hand.
It's it's a personality thing. Some people. How
many of us become complacent with our prayers
when good things are happening to us? Right?
Everything's going right. Nothing's going wrong. Right? How
many of us,
when bad things happen, we become distant from
our prayers? Anybody?
It's interesting.
See,
privilege
and prosperity is its own fitna.
It's its own test.
So the person, the really smart person, doesn't
just coast.
They don't just say, you know what? When
times are good, I'm good. No. The person,
as they are realizing
that times are good, they are saying things
to themselves like, this is from Allah.
This is not from anybody else. And they're
trying to find ways to connect it back
to Allah
no matter what scenario it might be, no
matter how. And the most beautiful people are
the ones that when you meet them and
they've achieved all the success that you've dreamed
of.
You're sitting here and you're looking at someone
that's achieved everything that you could hope for.
Like, on your wish list, they have all
of it. The most beautiful person is the
one when you say, wow. You did it.
And they say, this is all from God.
This is all from Allah. That reminder, that
statement is so humbling
for themselves and for everyone who's witnessing it.
And that's exactly what Muhammad Hasibi said. So
he said,
rely upon Allah in all times
and you will be considered
from amongst the elite.
You will be a person that will have
a relationship with Allah that will be unlike
anything else. Nobody will be able to even
come close
to the status that you have with Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now how do you do
this? Arbaad ibn al Samat, he said,
as a companion, he said to his son,
Radi Allahu'an.
He said, oh my son, how does a
person become truly reliant upon Allah alone? Because,
again, sometimes in these books on spirituality, they
give you, like, a goal,
but then they don't give you necessarily, like,
the steps to get there. So Imam Muhasbib
says, I got you. Right? He says, I
got you, fam. Don't worry about it. So
he says, do 2 things
and you will become a person that relies
upon Allah alone, like you have no other
distractions. He says, number 1,
give up the idea
that people
are in their own selves able to help
you.
So when you go to someone for help,
when you call, you know, triple a,
because there's so many nails on the roads
in Dallas,
flat tires are happening all the time. I
think I've set a record.
Right? When you call AAA,
when you are talking to
a a customer service agent at the, you
know, at the airline at the airline customer
service desk trying to rebook.
And you know those moments? And again, I
don't like to do, like, big, big tests
because
then we only reserve religion for the big
things.
But Islam is it's we it's woven through.
Allah has woven our faith through every moment.
Right? So think of, like, the micro stresses
that you experience.
Think of when you need to go to
Target to get something and it's closing,
and you're hoping that it's not closed yet.
Think of when you are rebooking your flight
because of some weather and you're hoping you
can make it on time to make your
connection. These are like micro stresses. What I
mean by micro, I mean is like, a
year from now, you're not gonna remember them.
But in the moment, it's like the biggest
thing that's happening.
If you're trying to rebook a flight and
someone's calling you, you ignore it because you're
like, I need to make sure that I
make this flight. Right?
And think of the desperation that your heart
feels in that moment.
Think of how you you you're you're imagining
and you're telling the person and you're wondering,
like, as I talk to this customer service
representative, like, do I take the nice approach?
Hey. How you doing? How's it going? Or
do I take, like, the, you gotta rebook
me right now, or I'm gonna tweet to
all my followers, all 13 of them.
And none of us are gonna fly you
again. You're gonna lose 14 customers for life.
You know, which approach do I take? And
you're debating this. And then remember that moment.
You're looking at this individual,
but you've confused
the help you need to be in the
hands of this person.
That's like the elementary confusion.
Right? And that's how children are. Like, if
something doesn't happen,
if I go to get my son or
daughter something from the store and they don't
have it, I go, they don't have it.
And my son or daughter gives, like, a
stink face to the person.
They're like, why didn't you have it? And
the person, like, I'm part time, dude. I
work, like, 10 hours a week here.
Right?
So then I have to explain to my
children, like, no. No. No. It's not their
fault.
Like, they're out of stock. So then my
children start, okay. Oh, well, who's supposed to
make sure they have it?
Well, that maybe is the inventory manager. They're
like, oh, man. May Allah curse. I'm like,
woah. Relax.
And then you start going to, like, production.
Oh, well, didn't they make enough? So the
more intelligent the person is, the more up
the food chain they go. Like, it's not
the person at the desk who's not giving
you your flight.
Right? It's not the person there that made
you miss your connection. Don't yell at them.
Don't put all of your hopes all of
your anger upon that person. It's not them.
Right? That's why the famous line. Right? The
famous Karen line. Let me speak to your
manager. Right?
It's okay. Alright. I have a lot of
aunt Karens. Right? So we can we can
talk about it. Right? So let me speak
to your manager because that person now is
putting it, but the Muslim doesn't stop at
that point. The Muslim says, I realize that
any help that I need
or any decision that is made
is help or a decision that is given
to me from Allah who's in control of
all of this.
And I know that this sounds like, okay.
You're making everything spiritual.
Allah literally talks about the burden in the
Quran.
Allah says, do you not see the bird
in the sky as it extends its wings
and it brings them back together? He says,
who holds that bird in the sky except
for Ar Rahman? Is the bird in the
sky not just an airplane?
Is the airplane that you're flying on not
just an example? Yes. It is. Because when
you hit turbulence, you're like,
you've made the connection already.
So the flight that you're not making, the
flight that you're stressing out about, that you
think it's her or the person above or
the person above or whoever, you're forgetting that
Allah isn't the one who's in control of
all of that. So how can you get
to aqaqul and Allah? Don't even re don't
even give yourself the opportunity to think that
this person's in control.
And, subhanAllah, you'll see something very interesting.
When you have
this as a conviction in your heart, people
around you start to feel
it. When you go to the person and
they're like, let let's see what we can
do for you. Let's see if we have
it in stock. Let's see if this and
that. I'll do my best. And then you
know what you do? You say, take your
time.
It's not on you. I know that this
is something that's beyond your decision. You're just
trying to help me out. That person, all
of a sudden, I was like, because they've
just been yelled at by all these spiritually
confused people.
All these people who think it's this poor
person's job. And you say, you know what?
And I always joke around. I say, you
know what? In Islam, we believe in destiny.
So whether or not I get on this
flight or not, I already know it's already
decided for me. And the person is like
looks up at me and they're like, wow.
I wanna quit my job and go to
Umbrella. Like, you know, like
and I jokingly say that, but I'm I'm
kinda not joking.
Because I wanna take the pressure off. And
I say, whether or not you have it,
don't worry. I believe in destiny. It was
already written for me. God already knows. So
just you you're the one delivering the news.
And, subhanallah, you see
the the effect of that energy upon people,
subhanallah. They're not used to it because this
entire society is convinced this person is the
one making the choice. So he says, or
badab in the Psalmist, he says to his
son, despair of the idea that people can
help you.
Just give up on that. And he says,
as a result of that, you will be
truly wealthy.
You'll never be in need. You're never gonna
look at someone and say,
you're the one who can give me this
or not. You're gonna say,
if Allah has decreed it for me, then
I'll get it.
I'm not upset, and I'm not
displeased and I'm not overjoyed and I'm not
elated either way because it's from Allah.
I used to have a friend who when
whenever he got, like, wrong orders at restaurants,
he would just eat it.
So he would order something. He's like, no
cheese. And then they would come with, like,
double cheese.
Or he would say, like, you know, no
sauce and they would have the sauce. And
as long as it wasn't haram, of course,
he he would eat it. And we would
jokingly tell him, like, man, stand up for
yourself. And he's like, I don't wanna turn
back what Allah sent me. And we're like,
okay. Relax.
You know, relax. You know? We get it.
It was, like, all we're all, like, imams
now. We're like, alright. We get it. Class
is over, buddy. Like, you know what I
mean? Like
but, really, like, in his mind, like, that's
what he's like. He's like, call us. Like,
what's the big deal? Because he he said
as soon as I send it back, it's
it's trash.
As soon as I send it back, he
was, as long as I'm not allergic, because
I'll eat I don't like it, but whatever.
I'm not gonna make this food that's pure
and that's halal. I'm not gonna make it
garbage because of me. Allah gave it to
me. Maybe he's teaching me a lesson. Maybe
he's saying, like, suck it up and eat
it, man. Just who cares if you don't
like ketchup? You know? Just eat whatever I've
given you and my friend, subhanAllah, again, we
joke but maybe he's more spiritually aligned than
I am.
Maybe he saw it in a different way.
So then he says, number 1,
give up that step. Number 2, he says,
completely
detoxify
yourself
from craving the belongings of other people.
Do not allow yourself
the chance to look at something that somebody
has,
whether it's like an experience or an item
or material or or immaterial, anything.
He says, beware craving other people's possessions
because this is the truest form of poverty.
This is the truest form.
And if
you were to take a statement
that was to
summarize the challenge of our generation and our
era in this part of the world, I
would say that it's these two issues.
Number 1 is that
we're constantly seeking
validation and help from others. And number 2
is that we're constantly looking and we're pining
after things that other people have. But you
don't realize.
You know, one of the craziest things that
occurs
in the in the space of Muslims
is when a social media influencer couple gets
a divorce.
And I'm not saying this to celebrate. Of
course not. It's it's it's heartbreaking. I'm not
saying this to make light of it. Of
course not.
But why is the response
that everybody has when when a couple online
divorce is like
because
for whatever reason,
we've placed our hopes and aspirations on love
and romance on these 2 people that have
a phone in front of their face all
the time.
And when this happens, it shatters our reality
because we've put our
aspirations. We've attached it to their to their
cart and their donkey.
And that's a deep sense of poverty.
One of the deepest ways of being impoverished
is to live the life of somebody else
and not realizing how much Allah has given
you
in your own life.
If you were to broadcast your life, you'd
also have
1,000 upon people across the world, 1,000 upon
1,000 looking at the privileges you have and
saying, I wish I had those. The only
difference is that you don't have a blue
check next to your name like this couple,
but you are actually someone that possesses something.
So instead of being obsessed
with what other people have, look at what
you have.
Look at what you have.
You'll never ever be happy
if your happiness lies in the hands of
other people and what they have in their
hands.
But you will actually have endless contentment with
Allah
If every time you close your eyes and
you think of what Allah has given you,
you feel overflowing
with happiness and contentment for Allah Subhanahu wa
ta'ala. May Allah ta'ala give us this. So
one of the things that's challenging
is
the connection of all of this big philosophical
talk
to practical
spirituality.
Like, okay. I get it. I need to
be happier with what I have. I need
to look less at what other people have.
I need to make sure that I don't,
you know, complain about what Allah has given
me. And in fact, I need to be
more reflective about what I have, and I
need to be grateful for that. Right? Okay.
But now how do I do that? Like,
how do I become a person that lives
in this way?
My Mahasibi, he continues
and he says this very important line. How
many times a day do we pray, everybody?
How many times a day should we pray?
Sorry. Everyone's like, you wanna be honest or
you want me to how many times a
day should we pray? Do Muslims pray? I
am holding up 10. Sorry. Confusing. Okay. 1.
One hand. 5. We pray 5 times a
day. Right?
And there's actually a lot of
conversation, believe it or not,
amongst the scholars
about this number
and this frequency. Like, why 5 times a
day?
And the story of prayer is interesting because
it didn't start as 5. It started as
much more, and it was Sayedna Musa alaihi
salaam who
told the prophet
go back
and seek from Allah concession to make it
less because he's like, trust me.
Your people will not be able to handle
it.
Like, 50 times? No way. Right?
So then eventually, it went down to 5,
And that's why we make dua for prophet
Musa. Thank you, prophet Musa.
Because you hooked us up, really.
But think about it. The scholars wrote this
very interesting, like, reflection.
Perhaps
perhaps
this daily prayer regimen would have been easier
and would have been a higher percentage of
fulfillment
if
it were less in frequency.
Right? So maybe twice a day.
And in fact, when Islam first was revealed
to the prophet, alaihis salatu, salam, when the
Quran first was revealed before prayers became mandated
as 5 and at these times, it in
fact was twice a day.
It was once in the morning and once
in the evening.
And the scholars say that this was a
method of building up and ramping these people
up. Right? Ramping up these people who have
been immersed in cultures of not praying at
all.
So the 5 times daily prayers the scholars
say, what's the wisdom of it? And there's
a lot, but one that I really like
that I myself personally like, this is me,
Abdul Rahman. Like, no kufi. Just me. Right?
That I really, really like is when the
when one of the imams he wrote, he
said, perhaps the 5 daily prayers is Allah
Ta'ala's way of checking in on you to
make sure that you don't lose your way
too much during your day.
Like, perhaps the the frequency is such
that if a person in earnest completes it
at those times,
it will be a way for them to
check themselves. And we have a hadith that
says as much. The prophet
one time asked his companions. He said, if
any of you
were to
walk outside of your house and there was
a fresh river, like a nice flowing river
outside your door, and you were to enter
into that river and you were to swim
and bathe in that river 5 times a
day, he said, would it be the case
that after
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 baths in that
fresh river, that beautiful spring water, He said,
would it be the case that you would
have any dirt left on you? And they
said, of course not, Yarasulullah.
There's no way. I mean, 1 shower, 2
showers,
5, 5, there would be no filth. The
person would be so clean. The prophet
says, this is the analogy of the 5
prayers.
This is what it does to the heart
of a person.
When a person engages in 5 prayers, by
the end of the day when they've done
their Isha prayer, there is no filth left
on their heart.
They've taken care of it. All of the
negativity, all of the statements, all of the
thoughts, all of the images, all of the
things that have dirtied and sullied their inner
are cleansed. Now what do we do now
when we miss these prayers?
We're allowing for that grime that soot to
sit on us.
And this is why, actually, when we wanna
get our prayers right, don't think that you're
doing anything for Allah.
It's like a person who showers and says,
you're welcome everybody. That's
for you, man. That's for you. Right?
So when we pray, it's actually, subhanallah, Allah
has given it to us as a prayer.
That's why the prophet, a sate wa sallam,
he said the
Allah gave me the coolness of my eyes
in prayer. It was a gift for me.
When he told Bilal, yeah Bilal, call the
adhan, he would
say, oh, Bilal, give us rest with it.
Allow us to disconnect.
And look now full circle. 1400 years ago,
we have what? We have the prophet
coming saying, you know what? 5 times a
day we have to pray in the morning,
in the in the midday, in the afternoon,
evening, and night time. Right?
And now we have
corporations and companies that are bringing in these
specialists talking about mindfulness exercises,
sitting.
And one even suggested I saw, well, I
am not making this up 5 times a
day.
She's from Harvard. I wonder where she got
that from.
Right? Did her PhD in Morocco probably. She's
like, I have this new idea. It's like,
no. You do not.
5 times a day,
sit, detach,
go away from the screen,
sit in the corner. She's like, face Mecca.
We're like, woah. That's a little bit too,
you know, face Mecca.
No. She didn't say that part. But she
said, sit, think,
process. What have I done with my day?
Who am I? What am I doing? I'm
like, you're describing salah. Just make wudu
and stand and say Allahu Akbar. Like, you're
Muslim now. You know?
And full circle.
So for a long time, right,
we we thought to ourselves, like, spirituality was
getting in the way of progress, and now
we're realizing that we've become so fixated on
heedless progress that we need spirituality to anchor
us.
And so now we're trying to create new
forms of spirituality. Like, no. No. No. Don't
call it religion. Just call it meditation.
Don't call it, you know,
tohid. Call it aligning your chakras. Like,
this is the new language.
And
Imam Abu Hasibi says, you wanna become a
person that trusts more in Allah? You wanna
become a person that's detached from the belongings
of other people? You wanna become a person
that no matter what,
when you look at your belongings,
you feel
unworthy of how much Allah has given you.
You wanna become that person? So grateful. Yes.
Yes. We do.
Listen to the next line.
When you pray,
think to yourself
that this is my final prayer.
So if you're not reading the book in
in sequence, you're like, what does that have
to do with anything? Have you guys ever
stood before your prayer
and thought to yourself, like, this is the
last one? It's not a common thought, but
that's why the prophet, alaihis salatu sallam, he
used to actually announce this.
Before the salah, sometimes he would say, what?
Pray this as if it's your last.
Pray this as if it's your last. You
know why? Because it could be.
And so much like everything else,
our
false promise that we make ourselves is that
we'll always have a second chance or a
3rd or a 4th or a 5th.
So if I told you, for example, like,
Maghreb is gonna start in 20 minutes, this
is the last Maghreb you're ever gonna pray.
No one in here would dare miss it.
We wouldn't be late. We would go. This
is the last one.
Right? It's like when my daughter's like, how
long do we have left? And I'm like,
one minute. She's like, ah. She goes and
does everything because she realizes that
the finality of the moment is paramount.
So the prophet
would stand up before the prayer and everyone's
lined up and their bodies are focused, but
their hearts might not be. And he would
say, pray this as if it's your last.
And anyone who hears that,
even for a moment, if they think to
themselves, this is my last, now all of
a sudden, everything that they're pining after, everything
they're yearning for, every distraction they have, all
of these things that are causing this dunya
we distress, this material
chaos that we live in,
they just melt away.
And you think to yourself, like,
what what if this is my last?
The first thought you have is, like, do
I have wudu?
Because if this is my last and I
don't have wudu, like, well, that that's not
gonna go well.
And then you stand there and you wonder
and you're like, do I even recite properly
or do I rush through it every time?
If this is my last time, I better
slow down a little bit.
And then when you go for a cool,
you're no longer doing those 45 degree,
you know,
triangle. Right? Little obtuse triangle, angle looking. No.
You're going all full 90. I'm gonna make
sure I go all the way. You're not
rushing through.
You're not forgetting which Rocca you're in. Can
you imagine the final prayer you're in? You're
like, is this Rocca 3 or Uh-huh. 1.
You know?
You're not. You are focused. You're locked in
as they say.
Now, Imam Imam Mohammed has to be saying,
when you line up for your prayer,
if you can do this,
if you can make this how your prayer
is,
it's just 3 minutes.
It's just 4 minutes. It's not like Imam
Mahasibi is saying do this for 24 hours.
You know?
Go on a meditative retreat and focus in
a dark room for 5 hours. He's not
saying that. Muhammad Hashmi is literally saying, hey.
After you just had
a delicious lunch,
can you pause for 3 minutes and just
focus on Allah?
Is that possible?
Because I guarantee you
that if the task at hand were to
scroll for 3 minutes and focus on something,
we could.
If it were to focus
on watching something we could. If you were
watching a a a basketball game that was
enticing to you, USA versus France or Serbia,
it was the Q4, you're not looking away
at
all. You're if it was the Champions League
final, you're not looking away at all. But
during prayer, it's like we can't keep focused
because our mind is running amok.
So he says,
let your prayer be the time where you
promise yourself that this is my meditative moment.
This is my chance
to connect to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
He says each time we pray, we should
think about it as being our last. That's
how we do that.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam I want you
to think about this. Right?
One thing that's amazing about
our religion
is that we're taught
that we wanna be consistent.
The goal is actually consistency.
The goal is not to become a person
that is, like, spiritually amazing one time, but,
no, you wanna become a person that's
spiritually involved as much as you can all
the time, right, dare I say,
to whatever capacity you have. Now listen to
this line. So powerful. The commentator says,
our prophet, peace be upon him,
warned us
to work hard to make sure that our
final actions are our best actions. Actually, du'a
that we make. We say, oh, Allah, make
the best of my deeds my last deeds.
Make the best of my deeds my last
deeds and make the best day of my
life the day that I meet you. Say,
I mean. There's a du'a that we should
make. We wanna finish on top. We wanna
finish at the highest point. We don't wanna
start high and then finish low.
Right? But to the contrary, we wanna, like,
start wherever we started and finish high,
right, at the growth point. So that way
if the angel of death comes and takes
our soul, we're in a good state.
Now what do you do
if you want to have a finish like
that, but you're not sure when that
exam is going to finish. You don't know
when it's gonna end.
You try your best to be consistent.
The only way that I can guarantee as
much as I can
that I will be taken in a good
way is if I'm consistently
good. I wanna have the least amount of
lapses possible.
I'll tell you a funny story about this.
So my kids,
when they tell me to watch something you
know, like, Baba, watch this.
If it's them if it's watching them, it's
fine. I love watching them. So if they're
like, Baba, watch this. They do some, like,
flip.
The Olympics were on. They do some, like,
somersaults. I'm like, wow. Good job, mama. You
know, high five. She breaks something in the
house along the way. I'm like, great.
Back to HomeGoods we go. So
but it's really funny when your kids tell
you, hey. Watch this. And they tell you
to point out, like, the TV, and it's
like something funny that they saw. And they're
rewinding it because they do this. Here's the
TV. Here's Baba. They're like
and I'm doing the same thing because I
wanna see it it's weird. As a dad,
you wanna see your kid's reaction
because, like, I don't care about, like, this
YouTube thing. I wanna see, like, my son
laughing and my daughter laughing. So I'm kinda
like
and then you do that weird thing where
you, like, meet eyes, and you're like, no.
I probably stop watching. And then they give
you the worst punishment. They restart it from
the beginning. They're like, no. You weren't. We
gotta do this all over again. All 3
minutes, right, of this blonde haired YouTube kid
that I hate. So
the point being
is that if you wanna succeed in any
test, you have to be consistent. So if
I wanted to make sure that I was
not gonna have to be punished by rewatching
it, I'm gonna stare at the TV because
there might be a chance that Iman is
gonna shoot a a glance over to me
and catch me looking at her instead of
the TV, and that's not what she wants.
Consistency is the thing that solves your problem
when you need when you don't wanna take
chances.
So he says,
our prophet taught us, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
to guard your final action. I love that
line. Guard it.
Guard your final action.
Says that being the case,
we need to be vigilant
in our devotion to Allah. We can't miss.
We can't miss. I want you to imagine
in your mind the pain and devastation
of a person
who died
and their loved ones,
and their death came immediately after a lapse
in good judgment.
It's really difficult.
It's really challenging.
Not only for the person, may Allah forgive
everybody,
but it's difficult for the family. Wallahi, it's
so tough. I'm I'm telling you as a
person who spends time with families that are
grieving,
and there is a different
energy in the room.
Death is death. Don't get me wrong. But
there's a different energy when the person died
on the way home from the club
versus a person passing away
after Jumah. There is a different energy. Amidst
the tears, the emotions are very different.
And so he says,
if we want to be in a good
state when Allah calls us back to him,
and there's no bargaining when the angel of
death comes.
Doesn't matter how Arab you are.
There's no bargaining.
When the angel of death comes,
the only thing we can do is just
smile and say it's time.
He says all of our worship should be
taken in the very best fashion,
in the very best way.
Then he quotes a hadith.
Allah
is beautiful and he loves beauty.
Allah is beautiful and he loves beauty.
This means that when you pray,
don't pray slow or fast. Pray beautifully.
When you give charity,
don't give cheap or a lot. Give beautifully.
And
as Muslims, our goal is to perform these
deeds as beautifully as possible. So why?
So that when the moment comes and the
angel of death comes to take our soul,
we're in the most beautiful state.
You know,
in the Western culture,
when people pass away, they take their bodies
and they try to put makeup and
outfits on them to make them beautiful.
As Muslims, we wanna be beautiful before we
die, not after.
We want the beauty to be there in
the moment that we're
taken, not after. We can't cover up ugliness
with makeup after we've passed. But we believe
that when it's our time to go, if
we've done our best and if we've repented
and come close to Allah to God as
much as we can, we believe that there
will be a nur that will be immutable.
You can't turn it off.
And we believe that people will come and
attend
our gathering of our funeral.
It's gonna be so interesting, isn't it? Your
soul is going to be removed from that
body and you're gonna be given a chance
to witness and see
all of the good that you did in
the form of how people have come to
pray for your forgiveness.
May Allah make it easy
for all of us.
And then he continues.
We'll stop there because now he's changing a
little bit.
Okay. Well, I'll give you a little bit
of a nugget before next week.
He says, and know that you will never
experience a contentment and sweetness of faith
until
in your heart
you believe
that Allah,
God Almighty, is the one who's in charge.
And when he decides or decrees something for
you,
that's good. And when he decides or decrees
something is not for you, it's equally good.
It's equally good.
It doesn't matter
what the decision is.
I am so
I'm just so grateful
that Allah is the one making the decision
for me. I'm less concerned about what the
decision is. He says that is the true
sweetness of faith. We'll go ahead and pause
here. I'm just gonna leave you with that.
We're not gonna go too much into the
commentary on that, but we'll, go ahead and
pause. May Allah give us the most beautiful
ending. May Allah allow us to be people
that when we live our life, we live
our life in the best way and our
life ends in the best way. May Allah
for those who have passed away. May Allah
Allah shower his mercy upon them. And may
Allah
give their families patience and strength.
So for some q and a that we
have.
So there's a request. Please make for my
friend's sister.
She has blood cancer. May Allah give her.
May Allah take away the illness and may
Allah make it easy, for you and for
her and for the family. I mean,
Okay. Let me
How do you deal with your parents thinking
you are a failure
because you aren't married and you look a
certain way?
But you know that you're not because Alhamdulillah,
you have everything else. SubhanAllah.
So
this person,
whoever's asking this, may Allah bless them,
they seem to be very strong because I
can't imagine being told something
or being made to feel this way. Now,
again, it may not be intentional. Sometimes parents,
you know, they say things and, they don't
realize
that it's hurtful. They don't understand. And sometimes
they're just kinda taking on what's told to
them. And so we, you know, we have
to be merciful as well. Right? We have
to have mercy both ways.
Mercy has to come down and it also
has to go up.
So,
you know, sometimes your parents will say stuff
to you that's so funny. Like, they'll be
like, oh, maybe you'll maybe you'll come see
me when I die. And you're like, okay.
That's too much, you know. Or they'll make
they'll make a a funny joke about you
if you make a mistake.
So hopefully, inshallah, this is not the case.
But if it is the case that this
person genuinely knows, maybe the parents have said
something or have made them, given them definitive,
you know, proof of this.
I mean, it seems like you're already on
the right path
but
it's important for us to not
allow
these things to dictate what it means to
be successful
or to be a failure.
This has nothing to do with it. You
know, on the day of judgment, there's not
gonna be a line for married people and
single people.
Get in line, married people. Come on in.
Yeah. Woo. Single people.
What's wrong with you? Like, that's not how
agenda's gonna be.
It's not gonna be people that were had,
you know, a certain style of body or
type or this and that. No.
You know?
The way that we understand beauty,
The Hadith says that Allah doesn't even look
at your body.
He's not even concerned about it. Human beings,
that's all we look at.
It's all we can see. It's what we
obsess over. Allah actually could care less
about what the body type of a person
is.
Allah just wants to see that the heart
is good.
And when you're younger, it's kind of difficult
to understand this because we're so
obsessed.
Well, maybe not young anymore, but just even
older. We're so obsessed with how we look.
Right?
We think that how we look is ultimately
the the goal of life.
If we see, like, one wrinkle on our
face, it's like 16 syringes just to put
some stuff in our face.
If you don't know what I'm talking about,
then may Allah bless you.
If you do,
you look fine. Okay? You don't need to
get anything filled. Okay?
But the important
step in this whole process is to define
success
from Allah for yourself.
What does it mean to be successful?
You know, if somebody not being married is
a failure, then it's gonna be a very
interesting conversation with Maryam alayhis salaam.
I mean, it's gonna be interesting. Right?
Many great scholars were not married, didn't have
children. If that's people who aren't married, then
it's like, oh, they don't have children.
It's not a choice that you have. Right?
Allah Ta'ala is the one who
decides. So all of these superficial measurements of
success and failure,
you can't control others, but you can control
yourself.
And people might project those things onto you
by how you look or what you do
or how much you make or all that
stuff. Wallahi, the thing that will make you
the happiest is if you just align success
with Allah. That's it.
Am I happy?
And
am I am I pleased knowing that Allah
is pleased with me? Am I doing that?
Right?
And I'm trying my best in a certain
way. If I'm doing that, then Allah ta'ala
will love you and nobody needs anything more
than Allah's love. All the love that we're
seeking for other people is just somehow, some
way we're trying to replace the love of
Allah.
Like, we think that if we get this
or if this person likes me, it'll make
me feel satisfied and fulfilled. No.
You only get that with the sake of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That's why at Hajj
and Umrah, you don't even notice, but everyone
looks pretty rough.
Everybody.
They're all down there making them throw off.
Nobody looks like how they look here.
And I I say that as a person
who, like, leads Omar groups. I'll meet with
the group in the airport. I'm like, hey.
It's good to see you, Samu Alaikum. You
ready? Then we go get Neharam. I'm like,
where's everybody?
And they're all standing in front of me.
I'm like, wow.
All All the guys look like Leo from
the revenant. Right?
It it's just crazy. People look different, and
because they're not focused on that at that
moment.
And whoever's focused on that, whoever's like, oh,
wait for me for a while. I just
gotta go, you know, do this or that.
I'm gonna go quick pump in. It's like,
relax, man. Nobody cares. I'm gonna go just
reapply my my found my foundation. It's like,
nobody cares. You're going to go make the
offer on the house of Allah. Trust me.
Nobody's looking at you.
Right?
And so
just define your success with what Allah Ta'ala
has defined success as.
May Allah
make it easy.
If my potential spouse is here, how do
I approach them? I'm a male. You don't,
actually.
You don't approach them here. You do not
approach them here. I don't care what you
do in life. Do not approach anybody
here.
Okay?
Quote that. Tweet it. TikTok it. Send it
to everybody.
This is a space of learning
and a space of community.
Nobody is coming here.
Would I say this listen to this very
carefully. When people come to gatherings for community,
while it may be a potential
option for some, this is not the core
reason why people are coming here. And so
you never ever want to ruin something
by introducing something in a state of mind
that a person was not ready to hear.
The person is coming here ready to listen
to a lecture or to get coffee, and
you're like, I think I love you.
That person's like, what? Like, I'm not even
here for that. Right?
So,
okay. Practically speaking, if you're in public, if
you're in a place and you notice somebody
and it looks like their character, the way
they carried themselves, this and this, is something
that you admire
and you would like to get to know
more and see if they're available or if
they're interested in marriage. There's ways to do
that that does not include you just walking
up to them and turning into Ryan Gosling.
Right?
You can do it in many ways, get
creative. If they have friends and you have
friends, if you have a married friend who's
married to one of their friends, you can
say, hey. Can you send my picture over?
Maybe they're interested. That way it protects you
from, like, embarrassment. Same for them. You can
do it in these creative ways. It's fine.
But don't just walk up to somebody and
be like, hey. After Moghadab, I gotta talk
to you. And they're like, who are you?
Don't do it, please.
Can haram relationships become halal? Yeah. Of course.
Of course, they can.
It's not good
it's not good to start with the intention
of getting halal at some point because you're
putting a lot of burden spiritually on yourself.
It's not the best thing. It's the best
to be able to make sure that you're
doing it as halal as possible
until it comes to the point where you're
actually certified. Right? But if people are in
a relationship and then they decide they want
to change for the better, that's awesome. That's
great. And you should try to seek the
means by which you can you know, it's
imagine this. If you're on a road trip
and you're driving somewhere,
the question is basically like, can we turn
around and then make a u-turn and go
back? Yes.
But you have to realize you're wasting time
as you turn around.
So you can make you can readjust and
you can, you know, take the exit and
get back on the right path. That's exactly
what you should do. If you realize you're
already going in the wrong way, just head
in the right direction.
But if you're not even there, I wouldn't
try to say, you know what? We're gonna
go backwards for a while and then go
forwards.
Because you're you might actually end up damaging
what could have been by going in that
way.
Okay?
I'm not saying that to scare you, but
it actually happens.
I keep falling back into a repetitive sin.
I keep trying hard to leave, but it
almost feels like I'll never be able to
overcome it no matter how hard I try.
What should I do? There's a hadith about
you. There's a hadith about this person.
Where the prophet, a sate wa sallam, he
tells us in the hadith that there's a
person that will go to Allah with a
sin
and they will repent to Allah and the
angels will tell Allah about every time. And
this happens, like, 3 times, 4 times. You
go through the whole process.
The person sins, they feel guilty, they go
repent. And then immediately after repenting, the next
day they wake up, they fall back into
the sin again.
So this happens multiple times. After the last
time, the hadith could see Allah ta'ala each
time he forgives this person.
He says, let it be known that I
have forgiven them. I've forgiven them. I've forgiven
them. The last time, okay, that this happens,
Allah ta'ala changes what he says. He says,
let it be known that I have forgiven
them
and no matter what they do moving forward,
I will have forgiven them.
The scholars say, why didn't Allah say this
after the first time?
Why did it come after the 3rd time,
the multiple instances? Because
the person had shown that no matter what
they did, they were never going to give
up on Allah. You see,
Shaytan wants you when you're doing a repetitive
sin, Shaytan wants you to think that you're
hopeless,
because that's what he is.
He's hopeless.
He's actually canceled by Allah. That was the
first person to get canceled.
With Shaytan
followed by Faraun. Right? Okay. So Shaytan is
hopeless, and Shaytan wants you to join him
because misery loves company, Wallah.
So what he does is he tries to
tell you, like, you're you're you're cooked. Like,
just stop. Like, Allah is never going to
forgive you. But the prophet
fills our
heart with narrations that tell us, no. Actually,
Allah will forgive us, and
the the the the,
persistence of that forgiveness
matches the persistence of your willingness to repent.
And this person, after sitting 3 times the
exact same way, the exact same time, when
they showed a absolute resolve that I'm never
going to run away from Allah, Allah
said, I'm never gonna leave you either.
And that's that's Islam. I mean, that's what
we learn. Allah does not ask for perfection.
Try to find 1 verse in the Quran
or one hadith where Allah says, be perfect.
Try to find it.
Try to find it. Allah never actually uses
that request or demand. Perfection is not sought.
All that Allah asks, do good, and when
you do bad, come back.
That's it. To Allah, that's actually perfection.
Perfection is how we think. Perfection means, oh,
what? No mistakes. No. To Allah, perfection is
the one who when they make a mistake
they come back to him.
Okay.
Make it easy.
One last question.
This is so funny.
Someone said you have a pebble on your
forehead. Do I? I guess I don't.
Are we not allowed to be toe to
toe during prayer? What?
This is amazing. Okay.
Is it okay to hate Israel so much
that you wish nothing bad for them?
Is this my son?
Musa, go to bed, man. You have school
tomorrow.
No. He did ask an interesting question yesterday.
He asked very similar.
I mean,
so
we hate
Zionism,
and Zionism is represented through the Zionist project
of Israel. So absolutely,
we wish
nothing but justice,
and we mean that in the most concrete
of ways.
But can you can you hate
Jewish people? No. Of course not. Right? In
fact, if you look at the protest, they're
filled with Jewish people that are standing up
for truth
and justice.
In fact, most Zionists are actually not Jewish.
They're Christian, which is interesting.
And so, yes, it's absolutely it's not even
okay. It's it's it's an obligation to hate
any
ideology that is oppressive and that is tyrannical,
and that includes whether it's Zionism,
whether it's the anti Muslim hatred in in
India,
whether it's the killing of the Rohingya, whether
it's the,
genocide happening in Sudan or the Congo. It's
an obligation. It's not okay. It's an obligation
to hate that with all the virtue in
your heart. May Allah make it easy.
You've previously mentioned your sister straying away. I'm
having the same trouble
with my brothers, and I don't know what
to do. We keep growing further apart.
You know, the best thing I think with
any relationship is to try to be available
and try to connect emotionally as much as
possible with people that you feel distant in.
It's not easy. You know, sometimes you have
different personalities and different preferences. You might feel
closer to some friends than you do your
siblings. That happens sometimes. Right?
And and the nature is the Quran is
filled with stories where we have a
a a multitude of family styles. I mean,
look at for example, you have, like look
at just prophet Ibrahim
and his son versus prophet Ibrahim and his
dad.
I always found that to be so fascinating.
His relationship with his son is, like, perfect.
His relationship with his dad is, like, literally
the worst.
Okay. You look at, for example, the story
of Sayidina Yusuf, who's the prophet, who's the
son of a prophet
and his brothers
try to leave him for dead.
So the Quran is so nuanced in how
it identifies family relationships.
It never ever lays out the perfect
family relationship because that's not real.
Every human is gonna have their differences with
other people. But with family,
the responsibility that you have that Allah has
given you is to do your best
is to do your best. And that means
to try to maintain
a relationship as much as possible
with mercy and with love and kindness. Now
the the the thing that most people do
wrong in this scenario when they feel that
growing apart is they try to,
make up for lost time.
So for example, if somebody if you weren't
close to your sibling or they're drifting away
and it's been a few years, and then,
like, you have one conversation, one cup of
coffee, one this and that, you're like, hey.
So you have, like, a lot of prayers
to make up. Like, you better get started.
I'm only saying this guy love you. It's
like, no. That's not the time to bring
that up. Don't make up for lost time.
Just get back on the right track again.
Okay? That means that, for example,
you might
see something that a sibling or cousin or
relative or whoever does that's impermissible. It's just
blanket haram. And they're doing it right in
front of you.
Right? They're like smoking and you're like, okay.
And and they're expecting you to be like,
hey, that's haram. But you can say,
alright. Let's just sit outside.
We'll get coffee outside. Why? Because the goal
that you have is to maintain this relationship.
It's not to fix this person right away.
You get my point? So a lot of
times when you're trying to connect with somebody,
don't worry about trying to abbreviate all of
the time that you haven't had together into
one moment that you can somehow rectify. No.
Just be genuine
and connect
and be there for them. Be there for
them. Be available and be there for them.
May Allah make it easy for us.
There's a lot of questions from. Maybe we'll
just do a q and a one night.
Hello. I know dogs are haram. Dogs are
not haram.
Dogs in of themselves are not haram. Relax.
What do they do to you?
There are certain parts of dogs that are
challenging with regards to performing prayer and maintaining
purity. But a dog,
you know, just walk with a dog and
be like, haram. Like, that's not
even pigs are not haram. Like, you can't
eat them or use their materials, but it's
a poor pig. Just leave it alone. Like,
they're impure, but they're not haram. Right? The
language, we gotta be careful. I know that
dogs are haram, but I have 3 little
dog. Okay. This is another question. We'll do
next week inshallah.
Oh, man.
Just do your best or become Maliki. Okay.
Alright.
Inshallah, we'll do that question. I'll I'll I'll
mark it, and we're gonna do it first
time next time inshallah. Okay?
Everybody. Prayer has come in, so I'm gonna
ask everyone to head on over to the
masala.
I do have to get home after right
away to go put my kids to bed
for school tomorrow, so I appreciate your, allowing
me to leave without questions.
If If you sat on one of the
chairs, if you could please do us a
favor, help fold it, put it on the
dollies. And if you sat on one of
these backjacks,
then if you could line it up in
the front, we'd really appreciate it.