AbdelRahman Murphy – Heartwork Guided Steps To The Path Of Allah #15
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Okay, assalamu alaikum, bismillah walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala
rasulullah wa ala adihi wa ashabihi ajma'in,
welcome home everybody.
It's good to see you, alhamdulillah.
Okay, tonight is the shortest heartwork of the
year, this happens every year, because the sunset
time has come in early.
So we're gonna insha'Allah go until the
couple minutes before the Iqama and then we're
gonna head over.
Iqama is at 7.45 insha'Allah, so
we'll make our way over there.
So we'll jump right in insha'Allah with
tonight's topic.
If anyone has any questions for the Slido,
slido.com, you can type in heartwork and
you'll see, you can send in your questions
there insha'Allah.
Alrighty, so Imam Muhasibi, we're on this journey
together, all of us.
If this is your first time here, then
welcome, welcome to the journey.
For those of you who have been coming
or listening, welcome back.
So we're on this journey together to find
our path, on the guided path to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Imam Muhasibi writes this book called Ar-Risalat
Al-Mustarshideen, which is the book in which
he said, this is a small letter, a
short letter, for those who want to be
rightly guided to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And he's been talking a lot about some
of the traits that are important on this
journey.
I think one thing that's really important to
realize as you read through these traits is
that you recognize that the things that he
says are important are not things that are
very difficult to do.
It's a very important thing to realize.
A lot of times when we think about,
when we conceptualize our own path forward in
Islam, we sometimes become very hesitant because we
think that it's going to be too far
out of reach, and I'm already so far
behind, and there's no way that I can
make it up.
And we put ourselves at a disadvantage, completely
like mentally self-inflicted.
But if you look at what Imam Muhasibi
is saying, he's mentioning very, very attainable goals,
very basic things.
I'm not saying basic to put them down.
What I'm saying is that they're all attainable.
If a person sincerely reaches for them, they'll
be able to get them.
He's not saying that if you want to
come close to Allah, you have to fast
every Monday and Thursday.
He's not saying you have to finish an
entire Quran every month.
He's not saying these things.
All he's saying is watch your relationship with
Allah and His Messenger.
Make sure that you prioritize them above all
else.
Be careful not to have a practice of
faith that is two-sided, that is two
-faced.
Be careful to be a person that does
not tell others to do what they themselves
do not do, etc.
So all of these things are a very,
very introductory basic level of spiritual attainment.
Now, the last section that we talked about
last week was the section on nasiha or
shura, the importance and the imperative in Islam
of being a person that both gives advice
and also receives advice.
And we mentioned that this is one of
the most important things that the community has
to offer.
And one of the reasons why it's important
is because only people who love each other
would take time out of their day and
would genuinely, sincerely try to advise one another.
This is part of what we believe to
be a pillar in our religion.
If we didn't care about each other, we
would never, ever try to advise each other
at all.
We would watch each other and the demise
of one another.
We'd see people stumble and fall.
Not giving someone advice is like seeing someone
trip and fall and drop everything and not
offering to help.
And not taking advice is like dropping everything.
And when someone says, Hey, can I help
you?
You say, No, I don't want your help.
Both of those situations are absurd.
We would never think of that as normal.
So advice is essential.
Advice is absolutely essential in terms of climbing
the path to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And he mentions this.
And he says, just to briefly wrap that
up, he says that one who gives you
advice is displaying their love for you.
And one who hides advice from you is
actually showing their hatred of you, their betrayal
of you.
So don't be the person that hides and
don't be the person that holds giving advice.
He mentions Umar ibn Khattab radiallahu anhu says,
There is no good in a community or
in a family or any group of people
that do not sincerely advise one another.
And we talked about the conditions for advice,
right?
Let me go through it one more time.
The conditions for advising someone is that it
has to come from a place of love.
It has to be constructive, not destructive.
It's very easy to break somebody down.
Anybody can walk up to somebody and say,
hey, you're doing that wrong.
But how many of us can show somebody
that there's a better way to do something
without making them feel embarrassed or shy or
humiliated?
That's the creativity that we're talking about.
Can we be creative in the way that
we offer advice?
To the point where the person actually is
totally unaware that the advice is being given.
Number two is that the advice should measure
with and be commensurate with the actual need
or the flaw.
If somebody made a small mistake, then I
don't have to dump an entire bucket of
advice on them.
If somebody made a small mistake, I can
use the dropper and I can give them
advice that measures to the mistake that they
made.
Likewise, if somebody is making a really big
mistake, then I should not approach them with
the dropper.
If somebody is doing something very, very horrible
to their family, to their friends, whatever, then
it might require that I approach them in
a more serious way.
And the third thing that is mentioned by
some of the scholars, and I know we
have others, is that you have to make
sure that when you advise 99 times out
of 100, that advice has to be given
in private.
Very rarely.
I know a lot of us say, oh,
well, you know, it's important to advise, but
we have to make sure we give advice
in private because that's part of preserving someone's
dignity.
And then the last step that we talked
about in one of his books, he says,
if giving the advice, this is a very
important one, if giving the advice to somebody
is going to push them away even further
and push them into a place even worse
than the place that they're in, then don't
do it yet.
Don't do it yet.
It might not be the right time, or
you might not be the right person, or
that person might need a different environment.
You know, there's so many factors.
You really have to be a very thoughtful
person.
There might be times where you know what's
wrong, but you saying it is going to
trigger that person, right?
And in that moment, what's the more important
thing?
Do you want to be right or do
you want to make sure the person gets
the advice?
If you want to be right, then that's
a sense of narcissism that is going to
be tough to beat.
If all it is is about me winning,
man, that's going to be tough.
But if you really want to help the
person, it might mean that you give the
advice through somebody else even though you're not
going to get any recognition at all.
There's a very famous story.
Abu Hanifa, rahimahullah, is a very famous scholar,
and he was one of the great imams
of the four legal schools.
Abu Hanifa is like one of the goats,
okay?
And his mother used to actually refuse to
learn Islam from him.
So I want you to imagine he's teaching
like thousands, tens of thousands of people.
And then even after his passing, right, his
students continue to teach, and now he's benefiting
how many people?
And his mother was like, no, I'm interested
in that imam, the other one, not you,
right?
I know I just triggered a lot of
us.
There's a lot of doctors whose parents don't
go to them, etc.
So Abu Hanifa, and for a while he
was confused, like why is my own mother
not interested in learning from me?
But then at the end of the day
you're like, you know what, probably because she
cleaned me when I was a baby and
yelled at me.
All my flaws are exposed to my mother,
right, my family.
Our families know who we really are.
Everyone around us admires us, but our families
are like, oh yeah, that one?
Okay.
So the guy who Abu Hanifa's mother used
to go to to learn from, when he
didn't know the answer, who did he go
to?
He went to Abu Hanifa, very good.
So he would go to Abu Hanifa.
So he'd say, yeah, imam, your mother asked
me a question, and I don't know the
answer.
And he's like, what's the question?
And he'd give him the answer.
And then he would give the answer to
that sheikh.
That sheikh would go and tell Abu Hanifa's
mom, and then she would later come and
say, he's so smart.
And she would praise the other guy.
And he would, again, in that moment, like
how many of us would be like, you
know, check the footnotes, you know, like who
told him, ask him who taught.
But subhanallah, in that moment, he just said,
yeah, you're right, he's very smart.
That's why you go to him, right.
He's the one, you know.
And in those moments, again, the reason these
stories are so powerful is because they're cute,
they're short, they're funny, they're real.
It's history.
But the reason why they're so powerful is
because if anyone had a right to feel,
you know, offended or whatever, it'd be somebody
of great stature.
But if it's you or I, and this
is like a day-to-day, you know,
daily life sort of relationship, then don't let
your ego get in the way of helping
in the right way.
You know, if somebody else is better at
advising, then go through that person.
Don't let it be you.
Don't block the khair with your own ego,
okay.
So those are the four ways.
Those are the four things.
It has to be constructive, not destructive.
It has to be measured with the actual
flaw.
It should be in private, not in public.
And it should be if you give it
and it's going to be more destructive, then
it's better to withhold for that moment, right.
If you give it and it's going to
push the person away, don't do it.
Don't do it at all, okay.
Now, why did he talk about nasiha?
Because he said in everyone's journey to Allah,
nasiha is another step on that path.
But once a person has jumped on that
step or has walked upon that step, there
are conditions and there are other steps that
will dictate whether or not they'll be successful.
How will a person be able to accept
advice?
Raise your hand if you find it tough
to be advised.
Raise your hand if it's difficult when someone
comes to you.
What's the typical response when you're advised?
Defensiveness, right, whatever, what do you know?
Defensiveness, maybe there's a lot of rationalizing, a
lot of explanation, okay.
This is actually an indication of something that
could be pretty problematic.
And he mentions it here.
He says that the next step on joining
the path of Allah subhana wa ta'ala
is that you have to be a person
that prefers the truth over yourself.
You have to be a person that in
all scenarios, you prefer the truth.
You don't prefer your own opinion.
You prefer what Allah subhana wa ta'ala
has sent down as the truth.
And this, there's so many stories in the
seerah where this is demonstrated.
Where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam himself,
do you know that there were stories and
moments in which they were trying to come
up with an opinion or a solution on
how to handle certain scenarios?
And you have like Abu Bakr, right, you
have Umar radiallahu anhu, of course you have
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
You have all these companions.
Now, if the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
is receiving revelation from Allah, naturally, everyone's gonna
defer to him.
But there are moments and there are instances
where he would ask for their advice.
He would say, what do you guys think?
And there were times where he sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam was inclining in one direction towards
one decision.
And there were some companions going towards the
other side.
And Allah would later reveal that the other
companions were on the correct thought trajectory.
Away from the one that even the Messenger
of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was originally
opining toward, that he thought that he was
going towards.
What's the lesson in this?
Now, normally, all of us would say, oh
man, this is like a huge indictment against
Islam.
Because if you assume that the Prophet is
a Prophet of God, then he has to
be absolutely, his opinions have to be absolutely
correct 100% of the time, every single
time.
Yes or no?
That's the natural thought.
But remember, his job, ayatollah sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, is that he's a human being but
he's a messenger.
And so Allah is teaching him and giving
him the milestones of messengership along the way.
And one of those milestones is preferring the
truth over yourself.
Preferring the truth over yourself.
Imagine, the Prophet ayatollah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
not picking the right answer immediately.
What a shot to the ego that would
be.
What a shot to the ego that would
be.
When somebody makes a mistake, the first thing
they want to do is cover it up.
Oh, that's not what I meant.
Oh, I was mistaken.
Oh, this and that.
The Prophet ayatollah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when
the answer came down and it corrected his
original opinion, he didn't establish it, he was
thinking about it.
But when it redirected his original opinion, whatever
Allah says, I'm going to uphold.
So this is the next step.
And if a person can't do this, no
amount of advice is ever going to work.
No amount of relationship is ever going to
work.
The person themselves has to be willing to
admit that this is the truth and I'm
going to submit myself to this truth.
If you look at all of the other
tribes and other people and other nations that
rejected Prophets, no matter how clear the miracle
was, could you imagine?
We live in a time where people doubt
the existence of Allah, they doubt the existence
of God, the reality of Prophethood and Revelation.
Could you imagine if there was a Prophet
ayatollah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam amongst us and
he pointed at the moon and it split?
Would you believe?
Yes or no?
Of course.
Everyone here is like, ashhadu an la ilaha
illallah, you're already Muslim, you're fine, don't worry.
Of course.
You see these visual miracles and you're like,
oh my goodness.
If you were in the battle of Badr
and you saw angels coming down from the
heavens, fighting in the battlefield, taking, you know,
murking these fools, like what would you, how
would you react?
You'd be like, I believe, I believe, amantu
billah.
Isn't it crazy, subhanallah, that these people were
so truthphobic, patent pending, okay?
They were so truthphobic that they would actually
visually witness something.
You know, we're in a time where we're
not visually witnessing it necessarily.
They would visually see it.
They would experience it.
They would be able to look at the
Prophet himself ayatollah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and
watch his miracles real time.
But their addiction to their opinion was stronger
than their ability to see the truth.
And this is why we make the dua.
You guys repeat after me.
Allahumma arini alhaqqa haqqa warzuqna tiba'a.
That dua is so beautiful.
Oh Allah, allow me to see the truth
as truth, that's step one.
And oh Allah, give me the good provision
of being able to follow it.
Because just knowing truth doesn't mean that you
follow it.
How many of us know how many times
a day we have to pray?
Say it out loud.
How many times a day?
I'm not gonna ask the second question.
How many of us struggle?
Don't raise your hand but think.
How many of us struggle?
We know five times a day.
But when it comes to certain times, we
struggle.
So knowing truth is not enough.
Warzuqna tiba'a.
And then we say Allahumma repeat.
Arini albaatila baatilan warzuqna ishtinaba.
Oh Allah, grant me the ability to see
falsehood as what it is, as a lie,
and give me the good fortune and glad
tiding of being able to stay away from
it.
This is a prophetic dua.
The Prophet ﷺ himself would pray for this.
Another dua that we make is, you don't
have to say this one, Allahumma arini haqiqatal
ashya kama hiya.
Oh Allah, let me see things as they
really are.
Because this life, this dunya, as Allah ta
'ala described in the Qur'an, when he
says maa gharraka bi rabbikal kareem.
What has confused you?
What has tricked you?
This life is nothing but trickery.
This life is nothing but delusion.
No offense if you're from certain parts.
When people ask me, I would go to
like Southern California.
You go to like this place like Irvine,
you go to like Rodeo Drive and all
these things.
It's crazy because you see all of the
beautiful...
I'm trying to think of an example in
Dallas.
We don't really have much.
You go to North Park Mall and you
see the beauty of North Park Mall.
And then you go to Denton.
You're like, oh, this is the reality of
Dallas.
No, it's all jokes.
But you go to a place like Irvine,
California.
You see Beverly Hills.
You see all these places.
You know what's crazy?
You see the storefront and the amount of
money they put there and the product and
the window shopping.
But then you go to the back alley
and you see the dumpster and you see
the garbage and the rats and the trash.
The smart person is able to know that
that piece of earth, that area has no
inherent value more than the area in the
middle of Iowa or in the middle of
Kansas.
No inherent value more.
It's just what we've made it to be.
So we ask Allah, Oh Allah, allow us
to see things as they are.
Don't make us become people that are so
confused and so intoxicated and so impressed or
so impressionable.
Like, oh wow, everything is so nice.
SubhanAllah, everything is made from dust and dirt.
Everything, if you reduce it to its base
particle, is the same as you.
The thing that makes everything different and special
is people's attachment or things reference point to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
That's why the masjid is nicer than any
other establishment in this place.
That's why the most beautiful place on earth
is known as Makkah al-Mukarramah.
That's why the most peaceful city on earth,
Madinah al-Munawwara.
Even though it's in the middle of a
desert.
If you drive 30 minutes outside of Madinah,
30 minutes outside of Makkah, you know what
it is?
Nothing.
Desert.
And for some reason, baboons.
I don't know why they're indigenous.
I'm not joking.
When you see it, you're gonna remember me
now.
You're welcome, right?
There are tribes of monkeys.
And all you see, subhanAllah, in between these
two cities, when you go there for Umrah,
may Allah grant us, you see barren land.
And one of my teachers says something really
powerful.
He said the reason why Allah placed Makkah
and Madinah in the most barren of land,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says what?
بِوَادٍ غَيْرِ ذِي زَرْعٍ He described it in
the Qur'an.
In a place with nothing.
Nothing grows in Makkah.
It's just rocks.
The reason why Allah put it there is
to show us that in the middle of
nothing, Allah can place the most important thing.
And the middle of what we think is
so important, Allah can show us that it's
actually nothing.
Right?
You go to these places and you realize,
I've had it switched the whole time.
So Allah, may Allah show us the truth
is truth.
So here Imam al-Hasibi says, if you
don't recognize the truth, eventually Allah takes your
ability to recognize it away.
If you don't recognize it, Allah takes it
away.
Just like you don't appreciate what you got
till it's gone.
So he says, whenever you see the truth,
respect it by recognizing it.
Even if you're not perfect.
Even if you can't follow it exactly.
But don't ever deny that it's the truth.
Don't ever say no.
Say, I'm not there yet.
But this is the truth.
Islam is the truth.
The sunnah is the right way.
The Prophet ﷺ is the best example.
I am a human being who's flawed.
But Allah and His Messenger are exactly what
I know that I should be following.
Don't ever ever discount that from yourself.
And then he continues.
And he says the next step.
And this is what we're gonna focus on
tonight.
Is he says, be careful.
Well, let me share what he says exactly.
He says, honesty leads to righteousness.
If you're honest, if you're an honest person,
internally honest, and also with what you say
and how you speak, then that leads to
righteousness.
And righteousness leads to Allah's pleasure.
Lying leads to a complete disregard of everything.
And that behavior brings about the anger of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I started the talk tonight by talking about
how Imam Muhasibi's roadmap is one that is,
you know, definitely it's comprehensive.
But in no way, shape or form is
it incredibly difficult.
This is a perfect example.
On his list of things to worry about,
Imam Muhasibi says, be truthful and don't lie.
Be a truthful person and don't lie.
Now, I know all of us, to some
degree, we consider ourselves to be truthful people.
But if we were to be honest, right?
No pun intended.
If we were to be honest, if we
thought about deeply, how easy it is for
us to lie.
Or how simple and how smoothly we bend
the truth.
Things that we don't even consider lies anymore.
What's a lie that we tell that we
don't factor in or consider a lie?
Anyone share one?
Okay, I'm going to assume it's your friend.
How about that?
What's a lie that your friend tells?
I'm on the way.
There we go.
I'm on the way.
Right?
Why don't you share your location?
Ah, my battery's low.
Alright, I'm on my way.
I just left.
Okay, what else?
That's very good.
What else?
What else is a lie that we tell?
Yeah?
Yes.
Your haircut looks fine.
Are you talking to me personally or what's
going on?
Your haircut looks fine.
Yeah.
We'll talk about some of the exceptions for
lying.
That actually might qualify, right?
Okay, what else?
Yes.
I'll pay you when I get paid.
Oh wow, we got a little personal there.
If anyone owes him money, right, that is
a, you just got hit by a stray.
Not so stray, okay?
I'll pay you when I get paid.
What else?
What else?
What's a lie that we have accepted as
not a lie?
It's just we think, oh, it's normal.
Everyone says it.
Cheating in school.
That's nervous laughter.
That's not funny laughter.
Cheating in school.
Absolutely.
ChatGPT.
Ah, there we go.
Everyone's like, Ya Rabb.
Can you imagine?
Like you did everything well in life and
ChatGPT is the thing that took away your
good deeds?
Okay, so listen to this.
This is an important section.
Why?
Imam Ghazali, he very famously said when he
described the thing that will take someone to
hellfire.
He said a lot of people live their
life looking for the big boulder, the big
boulder sins.
These giant sins that are easily identifiable and
easily recognizable.
He said 99% of the people going
to Jahannam, to hellfire, may Allah protect us,
99% of them are not going to
go to Jahannam because of the big boulder
sins.
Those are not the ones that are going
to pull the most people in.
He said the ones that are going to
trip people up are the tiny pebbles that
aggregate and that accumulate one after another.
And this is a beautiful analogy because the
big boulder is obviously a lot more recognizable
and when you recognize it and when you
do that sin because it's so big and
recognizable you make Tawbah, you repent for it.
But the small sins are the ones that
we do and we forget that we've even
done them.
One dua my teacher said that gave me
goosebumps.
He was making dua one night Ramadan and
we were all in class and we were
making dua with him.
He said, O Allah, forgive us for the
sins that we've forgotten that we've committed.
Forgive us for the sins that we've forgotten
that we've even committed.
Because every mistake, every sin that we've committed
requires repentance, whether it's specific or general.
Imagine.
Imagine being a person that's committed so many
small sins that we became desensitized and we
forgot.
And we forgot.
I don't know if anyone here has ever
like counted your calories for the day to
see what they've eaten.
Or I don't know how many of you
like watch your spending and log into your
credit card or your bank account to see
your transactions.
There's a common phenomenon that happens and that
is, tell me if this is correct, with
credit cards, with calories, with anything that you're
trying to count, you tend to underestimate how
much you've spent until you see what you've
spent.
And then you realize and you look when
you see that big number on your credit
card balance, you say, what is that?
And then you go and you go and
you filter, do this, filter the transactions by
the amount.
No, Wallahi, listen, I'm not joking.
This is a really, really important example.
Filter by the highest amount and look and
see what you find.
You're not going to see a lot.
If the total bill is a few thousand
dollars, you're not going to see one transaction
for a few thousand dollars.
You're going to see one for a few
hundred dollars, another for a couple hundred dollars,
a few for one hundred dollars.
And then you're going to see a lot
under those, a lot.
And those added up.
And when you combined all of those, it
presented you with this massive debt that now
you have to figure out, can I pay
it?
And the only reason why that debt even
accumulated like that was because we underestimated the
effect of the small spending, the small purchase.
It's the same thing with sins.
Every glance of desire that we make to
the opposite gender, every word that we utter
that is backbiting or untrue, every single time
that we say something that is hurtful to
somebody, every prayer that we delay for no
good reason, I'm not talking about good reason,
I'm saying no good reason.
Everything that we, it all adds up.
And this is not, by the way, Allah
does not exaggerate bad deeds.
He exaggerates good deeds.
You do some small good deed, Allah treats
us like I treat my kindergarten daughter.
Wow!
Mama, good job!
Exactly, hang the painting up.
Allah does that for us.
We sit here, we're like, Alhamdulillah.
Allah is like 3,000 good deeds.
We don't deserve 3,000 for saying that
once, but Allah is so kind.
But if we sit here and say something
that's reprehensible, Allah is so merciful, He only
counts it once.
This is a special mercy upon the Ummah
of the Prophet ﷺ.
That Allah multiplies the good, and Allah Ta
'ala does not multiply the evil.
But even that being the case, there's so
many small things that we might do, that
the aggregate of all of them could topple
us over.
One of those things that's very, very difficult
is being truthful and not lying.
And these are the things that are very
critical.
I'm gonna share with you some narrations.
The Prophet ﷺ, he said in a hadith,
let me share with you some of these
hadith to show us the power of what
this dishonesty can do.
The Prophet ﷺ, Aisha, his wife, she narrates,
she says, مَا كَانَ خُلُقًا أَبْغَدَ إِلَىٰ رَسُولِ
اللَّهِ There was no trait that was more
detestable and more hated to the Prophet ﷺ
مِنَ الْكَذِبِ More than lying.
To what degree?
Are you ready for this?
Now the Prophet ﷺ, by the way, he
forgave people very quickly.
That was his general disposition.
Somebody would do something, I mean, he was
so kind.
You know, there was one time a person
came to him, he had just received a
new garment, a new shirt, a new shawl,
and he walked out of the shop.
I want you to imagine you just went
shopping, you just hit up a sale, you're
walking out of the store, and somebody goes,
what did you buy?
You said this.
They go, oh, I really like that.
And they look at you like dot, dot,
dot.
Can I have it?
That happened to the Prophet ﷺ.
He just received a new shawl, a new
gift.
And a person saw him and said, Ya
Rasool Allah, I really like that.
And the Prophet ﷺ took it off of
his shoulders and put it onto his shoulders.
Gave it to him.
So kind.
There was no trait.
That kind of behavior for us is like,
you know, you're like smiling, you're like, enjoy
it, you know?
Oh, I'm so hungry.
You're like, me too.
And they're like, do you have food?
You're like, I do have my food, yes.
And then you have to share.
And you're like, it's like pulling teeth.
And afterwards you feel good about it, but
in the beginning you were a dirtbag.
One hundred percent, right?
You don't want to share those fries, right?
The drinks weren't free refills.
The milkshake, no one refills those.
So the point being is, listen, this is
very critical.
The Prophet ﷺ was very easygoing.
He forgave everybody for everything ﷺ.
But listen to this.
Aisha رضي الله عنها, she says, there was
no deed that he hated most, more than
lying.
وَلَقَدْ كَانَ الرَّجُلُ يُحَدِّثُ عَنْهِ النَّبِي ﷺ بِالْكَذْبَةِ
He said, if there was a person that
would speak a lie in the presence of
the Prophet ﷺ, and the lie would be
established.
He says, فَمَا يَزَالُ فِي نَفْسِهِ The Prophet
ﷺ, his soul could not rest.
حَتَّى يَعْلَمَ أَنَّهُ قَدْ أَهْدَحْذَ مِنْهَا تَوْبَةً Until
he knew that that man who told the
lie repented for the lie that he told.
The same individual that would let major aggressions
against himself go with no thought, not even
remembering it, hiding it from everybody so that
nobody would make this person feel bad.
Somebody would come up to him and treat
him poorly, and within a second the Prophet
ﷺ would let him go.
But if a person lied, if a person
told a lie in front of the Prophet
ﷺ, he would literally ask, did you repent
yet?
Did you make tawbah?
The person would see him and say, did
you go to Allah and ask for forgiveness?
Because lying is no joke.
Lying is very serious.
Another one, and to show you again.
There was food that was brought to the
Prophet ﷺ, and he was surrounded by some
companions.
Amongst them was Asma'a bint Yazid ﷺ.
The food was presented, and the Prophet ﷺ,
as was his practice, when people gave him
food, he would pass them around.
He would never eat from it first, right?
So he presented it, and everybody was hungry.
But people, out of deference to the Prophet
ﷺ, out of respect, they would pass, they
would say, no, no, please, please, you go
first, right?
In Urdu they call it what?
Takalluf.
So they'd be very takallufi.
Is that a word?
Okay, so...
Did I just whitewash your language?
Okay, so...
So this Subhanallah, this hadith says, أُوتِيَ النَّبِيُّ
ﷺ بِالتَّعَامِنِ فَأَعْرَضَ عَلَيْنَا فَقُلْنَا لَا نَشْتَهِيهِ That
it would be presented to us, and we
would say, we do not want it.
We don't want it.
We're good.
We don't want food.
And they were like really hungry.
The Prophet ﷺ said, لَا تَجْمَعَنَّا جُوعًا وَكَذِبًا
It's already bad enough that you're hungry.
Don't join the discomfort of hunger with the
discomfort of lying.
Like just keep it real.
Don't lie.
Now, I know some of us are like,
wait, but they were lying in a good
way.
But this was not good.
This behavior was not good.
The behavior of passing up on some food
when you're really hungry.
For the sake of what?
For false piety?
No, eat.
The Prophet ﷺ is giving you food, you
eat.
The guest's responsibility is to take what the
host gives them.
If the host gives you water, don't be
like, I don't want it, no thanks.
I already drank some on the way here.
How much of a front is that to
the host?
And so he says, don't put together food,
your hunger, and lying.
Another narration.
On the Day of Judgment, Abdullah ibn Mas
'ud, he narrates that the Prophet ﷺ says
that for every person on the Day of
Judgment, there will be a banner above their
head.
And they will describe what kind of person
they were.
You know, we just had the Olympics that
we saw in the summer.
You got the opening ceremonies, a little weird.
But generally, when they're introducing the countries, you
have the banners, right?
The announcements, what country they're coming in, right?
And so on the Day of Judgment, each
individual is going to have their announcement, their
banner.
This person fasted, this person prayed, taraweeh, this
person gave sadaqa, etc.
But it's also gonna work the other way,
in which every person who was treacherous, every
person who thought they got away with it,
this is lying, it's very specific.
Every person who thought they got away with
it, it's going to be announced that their
sin is there.
And on their banner is going to be
every single person that they lied to.
All of their treachery, all of their betrayals
are going to be announced.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us.
And the last hadith that I'll share is
that we all know fasting.
Can you guys believe Ramadan is six months
away?
I know this because at roots we're planning
for it already, right?
Six months, may Allah give us Ramadan.
It's such an amazing experience.
Ramadan is six months away.
We know that fasting, that Allah ta'ala
said, assawmu li wa ana ajzeebi That fasting
is for me and only I can reward
it.
So we know that the status of fasting
is very high, right?
Did you know, and fasting, it clears away
all sins.
Like if a person fasts, all the sins
get wiped away.
Right?
Like a scrub daddy.
Like it just cleans it up.
Like that Don Power Wash.
It just cleans it up.
Okay?
But, there are two things that even fasting
gets affected by.
The Prophet ﷺ said, As-siyamu junnatun ma
lam yakhrikuhu Fasting is a shield for the
one who does not damage their shield.
Qeela wa bima yakhrikuhu ya Rasulullah How is
it possible for somebody to damage the shield
of fasting?
The Prophet ﷺ says, bi kadhbin aghibatan That
if a person lies or if they backbite
somebody, as powerful as a good deed as
fasting is, lying and backbiting can destroy it.
Okay?
Now we'll talk about, the scholars have written
a beautiful explanation of why lying is so
problematic.
I'll give you the first one, and then
we'll go next week with the continuation.
Lying, a lot of us think, there are
so many sins that are worse than lying.
Murder, stealing, zina, like all, we can think
of so many.
Right?
And the answer is yes.
In terms of the actual sin, there's no
doubt, that lying on its impact is less
than some of these sins.
There's no doubt.
But the effect of lying is worse because
we don't take it seriously.
If somebody commits murder, it's very serious.
If somebody commits zina, it's very serious.
Somebody steals, it's a serious crime.
We take it seriously.
But if somebody lies, I'm on my way.
Right?
I already left.
Let me borrow your lab.
Let me copy this.
I have to write this thing.
Chat GPT.
I'm not feeling good today.
I can't come in.
Right?
All of these, because we don't register them
as heavy, they're very heavy.
The first thing the scholars say that it
does is it makes a person lose the
ability to appreciate that lying itself is a
negative thing.
Thus, they become what?
We say in English, we call it a
pathological liar.
Do you guys remember when you were a
kid and you first lied for the first
time?
You remember that?
No?
Mashallah, you pious children.
You don't remember your first lie?
You don't remember when you like took something
and you weren't supposed to and they're like,
did you take it?
And you're like, no.
You blamed on your sister.
Wow, that's messed up, by the way.
Okay?
You remember when your sister lied?
Okay.
So when you lied for the first time,
I'll tell you what happens when you lie
for the first time.
Okay?
And for those of you who haven't lied
yet, may Allah bless you.
It's an honor to meet you, Angel Gabriel,
all right?
So, when you lie for the first time,
because lying, subhanallah, you guys ever seen like
a lie detector test?
It's basically like an EKG, right?
They hook it up to you and they
see the irregularities in your heart rate and
your rhythm and your beat.
Allah has programmed inside of every single person's
body at a cellular level that lying is
something that is detectable.
Meaning that, outside of religion, they can base
it on your heart.
They can read literally your heart and see
that you're lying, subhanallah.
When you lied for the first time, your
body probably went through a series of reactions.
There was probably a heart rate increase.
Your pupils, my son says pupils.
That's why I said pupils.
My pupils, when you lie, your pupils dilate,
right?
You may have started to sweat a little
bit.
You may have started to feel cold.
You may have become hypersensitive to like noises
and sounds.
You may have become a little bit, you
know, concerned, anxious around you.
Okay?
All of these are the psychosomatic reaction to
lying when you know that you're not supposed
to be lying.
Subhanallah.
When you're a kid, it happens.
And then the more you do it over
time, you lose those reactions.
And then subhanallah, as we find in the
story of Yusuf a.s. with his brothers,
the lies become so frequent and so common
that not only do you not have reactions,
but you can no longer detect whether what
you're telling is a lie or whether it
is the truth.
And then you start to believe your lies
as if it were truth.
So the scholars say that this is the
first indication of why lying is so problematic.
On its face, sure.
It took three seconds.
What's the big deal?
But what it does to you over five
years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, what
it does to you, the damage, the irreparable
damage is something that can be considered much
greater than even some sins that are much
greater than it.
May Allah Ta'ala protect us.
Okay, we have prayer in two minutes, inshaAllah,
so I'm going to answer one question, inshaAllah.
And then we will head over to the
musallah for salah.
Okay?
Oh man.
How to deal with people who hurt you
and spread narratives about you but you know
the truth in your character.
I feel alone sometimes.
May Allah Ta'ala make it easy.
This is a very difficult situation for a
person to be in but I'll tell you
the good news.
The good news is that you are in
the company of the prophets of God.
If somebody spreads bad news about you, you
are in the prophet's company.
Meaning that, if you look at all the
notable characters from the Qur'an, from the
hadith, that trait is something you share with
them.
As long as it's not true.
Right?
Because theirs were made up about them.
If you look at Maryam A.S. in
the Qur'an, if you look at the
righteous women of the Qur'an, same thing.
So, number one is you're in good company.
Number two is that Allah will vindicate you
and He will honor you as long as
you remain patient and as long as you
remain principled.
You don't have to defend yourself.
Against an onslaught of lies, the truth is
enough to defend its own self.
As long as you remain firm upon it.
And the last thing is, if people are
spreading things about your truth and your character
and things that are untrue about your character,
your responsibility is to protect yourself.
And sometimes what that means is reconsidering who
you spent time with.
If the people that are doing this are
people that are in your circle, doesn't mean
you have to make a big deal about
it.
But you should genuinely reconsider who you spend
time with.
If the people that you are close with
and investing your time with are hurting you
and hurting your character.
May Allah Ta'ala make it easy.
May Allah Ta'ala give us the ability
to always remain truthful and to always avoid
telling lies.
May Allah Ta'ala grant us the ability
to protect ourselves even from the small white
lies that we tell.
Ameen, Ameen, Ya Rabbil Alameen.
InshaAllah, we're gonna go ahead and skip the
question line tonight and head straight to the
musalla.
Next week, this is important, next week we're
gonna be having heartwork after maghrib.
Maghrib is gonna be at 7.15, 7
.20. So we're gonna be having heartwork after
that inshaAllah.
Suhba up until maghrib and then we'll have
heartwork after.
Jazakumullahu khairan.
Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
If you sat on a chair, please do
us the favor of folding it and carrying
it through the hallway and putting it on
the dollies.
If you sat on the backjack, please help
us by lining up the backjack in the
front.
Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
See you guys in the musalla for maghrib.
Wassalamualaikum.