AbdelRahman Murphy – Heartwork Guided Steps To The Path Of Allah #16
AI: Summary ©
The importance of the Prophet's teachings and honesty in media coverage can lead to failure, success, and success in relationships. The speaker gives advice on managing one's life, avoiding false accusations, trusting oneself, and avoiding negative behavior. The importance of consistency and gratitude is emphasized, along with the use of words like "has been" to describe a person as a "has been." Anxprinting thoughts and fear can be a sign of faith, and anxiety is a human experience. The Innocence Project petition is encouraged, and individuals are encouraged to sign the Innocence Project petition to avoid giving out information.
AI: Summary ©
Okay, Salaam Alaikum, Salaam Alaikum, Bismillah, Bismillah walhamdulillah
wa salatu wa salamu ala rasulillahi wa ala
aadihi wa ashabihi ajma'in.
Welcome home.
Alhamdulillah, it's good to see everybody.
Our first post-Maghrib heartwork.
Alhamdulillah, I know we've been sliding the time
up, you know, every week by about a
few minutes.
But now, alhamdulillah, we're post-Maghrib.
Actually our time is coming in at 8
.45. We pray here at 9, so it's
going to be a little bit more time,
a little bit more comfort in terms of
Q&A and things like that.
Alhamdulillah, speaking of Q&A, if you want
to send your questions, slido.com, that's S
-L-I-D-O.com, and you can
type in heartwork as the code, and we
will get the questions inshallah here.
Please don't upvote all the marriage questions.
No, just joking.
You can do what you want inshallah.
Okay, bismillah.
Alright, so moving or continuing on now with
Imam al-Muhasibi's text, where he's giving us
now some of the secrets in terms of
growing our spiritual strength and coming closer to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
There's a large conversation that we're embarking on
right now, which is the importance of truth.
And truth is, you know, it's manifest by
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's revelation.
We know what is true and what is
false because of Allah.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala taught us through
the Quran the truth of ourselves, the truth
of the universe, of the world, and we
understand better how to recognize the truth because
of this wahi, because of this revelation.
And we understand how to replicate the truest
way of living because of the Prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So the big conversation now about truth, there's
obviously the element of recognizing it, being able
to appreciate it, being able to stay committed
to it, all of these are elements of
faith.
And the counter of truth, of course, is
falsehood, is lying or something that is untrue.
And so Imam Muhasabi now, he starts giving
us some advice about being people that are
truthful.
And one of the things that he mentions
that we left off on last week was,
if a person is not truthful, if they
lie, then they won't be able to recognize
the truth when they see it even within
themselves.
So we left off on this major point,
and we started to discuss and talk about
this idea of making sure that no matter
what, we prefer the truth in every single
situation that we find ourselves in, even if
that truth is going to make us uncomfortable.
We tell a lot of jokes, for example,
about wanting to know what the ingredients are
before you eat something, and how your nafs
has this internal battle.
Does it have gelatin or not?
If I don't read the ingredients, will Allah
hold me accountable?
The truth in that situation, or if I
ask the waiter or the waitress, did you
cook this with this, or did you mix
this with this, or is this actually halal?
You're like, I think someone told me it
was halal.
And it's like, where?
You're like, there was a comment on TikTok.
I was like, unfortunately, that is not a
fatwa, an Islamic law, right?
So all of these matters, you know, we
joke about them, but there are bigger matters.
There are, of course, much more serious matters.
And even in those serious matters, we have
to prefer the truth over what we want.
And we seek, and we ask Allah to
make our hearts yearn for the truth, even
if it's difficult.
We ask Allah to give us that.
Say ameen.
And so he says, prefer the truth in
every scenario.
That will mean that you appreciate good advice.
That will mean that you don't want to
spend your time around fake people because he
says that people who don't give you good
advice, they don't actually care for you.
People who ignore nasiha, they actually, without realizing
it, they're okay watching you fail, right?
Because people need truth in order to succeed.
And then he mentions that part of the
difficulty in being a person of truth is
when you are a person, or I am
a person, that frequently engages in telling lies.
And we talked about the dangers of lying.
We opened up the conversation at the end
of last week's session.
But I wanted to talk a little bit
about why lying is so dangerous.
You know, we mentioned last week like this,
I'm on the way, right?
I'm on the way, the famous lie.
I'm on the way.
One time, this is not an exaggeration, this
is 100% a true story.
Somebody told me I'm on the way and
I heard a toilet flush in the background.
They were in a public restroom, right?
And I didn't say anything because again, I'm
not trying to like, you know, I'm not
trying to ruin that person's, you know, just
self-worth in that moment.
Like what car has a toilet in it,
you know?
But again, a seemingly insignificant lie, okay?
Or, oh yeah, it's my work, like I
wrote it.
Or, oh yeah, I did this.
Or, oh yeah, this reference or this, that.
Lying is pervasive and it has become the
norm.
You feel like if you don't lie, then
you won't be able to get ahead.
You won't be able to make progress because
everyone else is lying.
And so if I'm gonna remain truthful, I'm
actually obstructing my own success.
But that's the fundamental misunderstanding of where success
even comes from.
Success does not come from you, it comes
from Allah.
And anybody who tries to seek success through
something that does not please Allah inevitably is
going to find failure.
And anyone who's afraid of failure because of
what they're doing to stay close to Allah,
no matter how apparent their failure is, they
will end up being successful in the long
run, right?
The person who stays principled will always win.
So the commentary here mentions that honesty leads
to the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, even in the most difficult situations.
It's one of the defining characteristics of the
believer.
We're gonna share a few narrations that are
interesting.
He said that the Prophet ﷺ mentioned, this
is amazing, the Prophet ﷺ, he mentioned, according
to the variety of ahadith that we have,
that the believer can struggle with many sins.
The believer can be many things, right?
We mentioned this even last week.
The believer can be a person, for example,
that struggles deeply with prayer.
They can struggle with substance abuse and addiction.
The believer can struggle with all types of
difficult personal, mental and emotional ailments.
That does not discount a person's belief.
If somebody says, I'm depressed, a person who
is Muslim, their depression does not remove their
Islam.
It's a struggle.
If a person has an inclination, for example,
to be impunctual or late, that does not
make them any less of a Muslim per
se, right?
Even the clothing that we wear, it may
not be the best or even approved in
Islam, but it doesn't make you a non
-Muslim.
But the Prophet ﷺ, he said very clearly,
that one of the things that a believer
cannot be is a liar.
He cannot be it.
He or she, if they become a liar,
their belief becomes incompatible with the lying.
It's like oil and water just will never
mix.
And if you think about the Prophet ﷺ
himself, what was the one thing, the one
thing amidst all of the things that were
said about him, the harassment, the abuse, what
was the one thing that nobody could ever
pick on?
Isa ﷺ.
The fact that he was the truthful one.
The fact that he was a sadiq and
al-ameen.
He was trustworthy, which by the way, not
lying is two-sided.
There's verbal honesty and there's also active honesty,
right?
A lot of us maybe are good at
like the whole verbal honesty thing, but then
we're like not trustworthy, right?
We're like not good with our commitments.
We tend to overlook things very, you know,
negligently.
So there's verbal and there's active.
The Prophet ﷺ was perfect in both.
And so I want you to imagine these
people that desperately, desperately want to prove him
wrong.
More than anything, that's what they're looking for.
And they have nothing in the department of
honesty and truth.
Untouchable.
You know, when you watch these presidential debates,
man, we are cooked by the way.
We are absolutely cooked.
I don't know if we're cooked.
Yeah, that's bad.
We are cooked.
If you don't believe in the Day of
Judgment, now is a good time to start,
okay?
Because it's just there's, okay, the inevitable, okay.
Anyways, just say the Shahada often.
Okay, so when you watch these debates, what's
the first thing they do, right?
The news commentators, the journalists, they do like
a fact check because they understand that lying
is a mechanism that is used to prove
and disprove someone's integrity.
And so all of these politicians, like when
they engage in this kind of, even the
ones that we support, even the ones that
we put all of our hope and dreams
behind, Bernie, right?
Even the ones that we thought, right?
We thought, we believed naively that this one
gets it.
They get me, right?
Even people reading khatms.
I remember there was a khatm for Bernie
Sanders, right?
As if there's not like a greater reason
to read the Quran for, okay?
There's a khatm for Bernie's nomination, right?
People didn't have wudu apparently because he never
got it.
So, but all of these, right?
And then subhanallah, you find out that even
the most truthful candidate that you thought was
truthful, they have their fair share of dishonesty,
subhanallah, as we all do.
May Allah forgive us.
So here's the point though.
The point is in the realm of disproving
somebody, you need there to be a hint
of them being a liar in order for
your effort to succeed.
With the Prophet, there was none.
Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Okay?
So think about that.
They disagreed with what he said.
They didn't like the message that he was
preaching.
And they made that very clear.
They disagreed and challenged him on the basis
of the message.
When they said to him, Surah Qaaf actually
says, it says, is it true that we're
gonna die and then come back?
هذا شيء عجيب.
This is a very strange thing, right?
إذا متنا وكنا ترابا ذلك رجع بعيد.
Are we gonna die, turn to dust and
then be returned?
What a very far off idea.
So they challenged the content of the message,
but they never ever could say, yeah, he's
not really trustworthy.
Because from day one, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
he was the most trustworthy.
So every Muslim that follows this messenger, peace
be upon him, has to adopt that.
Not every person that you know is gonna
agree with you, but they should never find
you to be a liar or someone who
is dishonest.
So he says, the commentator, lying destroys the
ethical idea that our religion is predicated upon.
Once truth is gone, then all actions that
are associated with good character and maintaining relationships,
they all disappear.
Think about it, in any relationship, what's the
one thing that's the hardest thing to build
back?
Trust, not just romantic relationship.
Oh, the Slido is popping off right now.
What if he's a liar, right?
Red flags, am I right, girls?
Okay, so, or she, right?
Oh, God, what have I done?
Any relationship at work, right?
Employer, employee.
If someone lies, if you're working on a
team with colleagues and somebody lies, the reality
is it's gonna be hard to have trust
in that person again when matters count, when
things are really important.
Are you ever gonna put something on that
person's plate again?
If they failed you the first time, probably
not.
So all of these are all predicated upon
the importance of not lying, of being a
person who's trustworthy.
Thus, he says, the Muslim cannot be a
liar and one who constantly lies has no
ethical standard.
All they look for is their own self
-interest.
Lying only makes sense to those people that
are narcissists.
That's why they can justify it.
Liars justify their lies by putting themselves in
the center of the universe.
I had to lie, why?
Because self-preservation.
I had to take care of me.
Why did you lie in your resume?
I need the job.
Why did you lie to your wife?
I can't get her upset.
Why did you lie to your husband?
Because the reality is, subhanallah, that lying centers
you as the person instead of centering Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
If lying serves to advance those interests, people
resort to lying.
And he says, this is the approach of
the hypocrites in their life.
The hypocrite is a person who then by
definition, are you ready for this?
Is living a lie.
Sounds like a Taylor Swift song.
Thus, we find that no one is more
subject to the anger of Allah, may Allah
protect us, than the hypocrites because they are
living a lie.
They are actually living a lie.
Why?
Think about, subhanallah, the people that are so
embedded in their lies that when they see
the truth of who they are, they can't
recognize themselves anymore.
Like they lay down at night.
Remember we talked about that?
The person you present yourself to be, the
person your social circle knows you as, the
person you think of yourself as, and then
the person you come to realize you are.
The distance between person A and person D,
right, 1 and 4, if that's huge, that's
a problem.
The gap between who you present yourself as
and who you really are cannot be that
big because that's one of the greater signs
of hypocrisy.
May Allah protect us.
That's why Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, He
said that verily the hypocrites will be in
the lowest level of the hellfire.
As a result of this, there's advice from
Ibn Abbas.
Okay, and we'll share this in a second.
Let me actually go to the other side.
Some of the great companions of the Prophet,
peace be upon him, they talked about how
important truth is.
In fact, if you look at these books,
there's literally this book called, it's a great
book, it's called Hayat Al-Salaf Bain Al
-Qawli Wa Al-'Amal, which basically means the lives
of those great companions, those great generations, from
their language, the words they used, and the
actions.
It's descriptions of them and their statements.
And there's a chapter literally called, Hifdh Al
-Lisan Min Al-Kathab, that protecting the tongue
from lying.
And so this is something that scholars took
very seriously.
Now I want you to appreciate some of
these statements.
The first is from Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq,
radiyallahu anhu, the best friend of the Prophet,
peace be upon him.
He advised people and he said, beware of
telling lies.
This is a khutbah he was giving.
He was on the member.
Beware of telling lies.
Why?
Because he says, ayyuha al-naas, iyyakum al
-kathab.
Why?
Fa innahu majanibu al-iman.
Lying, it pushes iman away.
Have you guys ever seen like how a
magnet repels when you have the charges that
are opposing one, or that are the same
charge towards each other, right?
How they push each other away?
Have you ever seen something that in the
presence of another substance, it runs?
I want you to imagine that when iman
is present in a vessel in the heart,
and the person begins to develop a propensity
for telling lies, the iman starts to run
away.
This is the statement of Abu Bakr Al
-Siddiq, radiyallahu anhu.
Another statement, and this one is very subhanallah,
very difficult to read, because every person has
to understand this with their own self in
the center of it, right?
Umar, radiyallahu anhu, who is a very very
tough person, but he was very soft in
his own way.
He says, it's kind of an interesting translation,
so I'll do my best.
He says, we love people until we see
something from them.
What he's saying effectively is everybody loves somebody
until they see the truth of something in
them, whether or not they qualify.
So it's like if I were to title
this, I would title it, Everyone looks good
from far away.
Everyone looks fine from far away.
So he says, we love people, people are
beloved to us until we see certain things.
So then he says, we love people when
it comes to the goodness of their name
and their reputation.
We hear good things about people.
What's the first thing that you hear about
somebody?
What's the first thing that you know about
somebody?
Oh hey, have you met Ahmed?
Yeah, Ahmed's a really nice guy.
Instantly in your head, you're thinking to yourself,
yeah, Ahmed, Aisha, they're good people.
You have this predisposition now.
You think well of them, he says, until
we see them ourselves, and then the love
is either proven or disproven.
Okay, thumma, and then he says the next
step, after we've seen them, and we see
how they move and how they act and
how they behave, he says, we love these
people until we get a really, really in
-depth taste of their character.
So think about it.
You met someone for the first time.
You know, first impressions are everything.
As-salamu alaykum, wa-alaykum as-salam, how
are you?
Masha'Allah, it's nice to meet you.
I've heard good things about you.
And in your head, you're already kind of
measuring this person.
You're like, oh, they're very nice.
Handshake wasn't too hard.
People who try to overdo the handshake, right,
I need you to relax.
Okay, I have strong hands too, but I
don't think anyone needs to prove it to
anybody.
Okay, so the handshake was very nice.
Masha'Allah, she has a veilah scarf.
Okay, rootsdfw.org slash sustainers, insha'Allah.
So we make these very surface-level assumptions.
And then you're going out to get coffee.
And you observe how this person orders their
drink.
So you see this person is ordering their
drink.
They say, yeah, I'll take an iced latte,
right?
And the person goes, you want a latte?
And in that moment they say, yeah, iced
please.
Very gentle.
Versus, I said iced.
I said iced.
Right?
And you witness that and you're like, you're
either just like in love with how gentle
they are or you're repulsed at how horrible
they are.
One of my teachers, by the way, SubhanAllah,
one of my masha'ikh, he said, you
can know everything you need to know about
somebody, whether it's like a future potential spouse
or anybody, by how they treat people who
are in the service industry.
He said, you can know everything you need
to know.
How do they treat people who work retail,
work at restaurants, are serving people on airplanes?
How do they treat them?
They say, you can see.
Because why?
Because in that moment that person is effectively
displaying how they treat the average person in
their eyes.
Everybody can treat people well if they think
of them as special.
But what about if they think of this
person as neutral?
How would they treat them?
So in that moment, Allah says, we think
so well of you based on your reputation
until we see you order coffee or until
we see how you talk to somebody or
until you pick up the phone and it's
someone from your family or your relative or
your friend and we see how you talk.
And then He says, by the way, this
is not judging.
Allah is not judging anybody.
This is just a natural read on people.
And then He says, subhanAllah, after that, He
says, and after we fall in love with
good character, after we fall in love with
your reputation and see good character, He says,
the last frontier of whether or not we
can love a person, a friend or anybody,
is when we see if their speech is
truthful and if they honor their responsibilities, their
amanah, if they keep their trust.
Again, the beginning of this hadith or this
statement, this athar, is basically what?
Everybody can be impressive from far away.
Everybody can.
Every single person can appear to be something
from far away.
The beard, the kufi, right?
The red thobe, no joke, right?
The thobe, right?
Everybody.
You can dress like a Turkish baker like
me.
You can wear the hijab.
Everybody can appear to be that.
You can have the khaz and qaz and
ayns and saws and daws and calves on
point.
But if you are a jerk, if you're
rude, if you're impolite, if you're not trustworthy,
if you don't keep your promises, all of
that stuff doesn't matter.
In fact, it's even worse.
Because now, the contradiction between what you look
like and who you are is so sour,
so burning, that for every single person that
gets to know you, they experience it, it's
like insult to injury.
May Allah protect us.
One of my teachers, he used to make
this dua.
I want you to remember this dua.
May Allah protect us.
He used to say, Oh Allah, do not
allow people to become disappointed with us as
they know us better.
And he was crying, crying.
Because for mashayikh, it's really hard.
For our teachers, it's really difficult.
Because everybody, of course, raises them on the
pedestal, and then you get to know them,
and you're like, Man, he's running late, or
this and that.
And the reality is, that's a huge burden
that they carry.
So he would say, Oh Allah, make people
not lose respect for us as they get
close to us.
Because we're just human.
And we should all make this dua frequently.
Because we're just human, subhanAllah.
But here, the key is trying.
Umar is saying that we all need to
make sure that we try our best.
Okay.
And then the last statement that Umar said,
and he said this in one of his
khutbahs.
كان يقول في خطبته He said that, in
his khutbah he said that, for a person
that is not truthful, there is no speech
from them that can be considered good.
And then he said, for the person that
lies, they will eventually commit sins.
They will eventually start to become unethical in
other ways.
Like a liar might lie in material ways.
Like stealing, right?
If a person lies with their tongue, eventually
they might steal.
Think about it.
If a person gets away lying in one
way, what's to stop them from furthering that
practice?
I mean, what is cheating in a relationship
besides lying?
It's just lying.
Actually, they call it unfaithfulness.
Right?
It's when a person doesn't have faith.
When a person is unfaithful, subhanAllah.
May Allah protect us.
So he says, if a person gets used
to lying, that lying will metastasize, and will
become uncontrollably big, and it will eventually spill
over into their character and their action, and
as a result of that, he says, it
will destroy them completely.
All beginning from one lie.
May Allah protect us.
This is why telling the truth is so
critical and so important.
Abdullah ibn Abbas, he says that, now, that's
the advice that we got from not being
a liar.
But then what about when you're in a
situation where you can tell that someone's not
being truthful?
Right?
Let's say that you're in a conversation and
somebody is not being completely honest.
Okay?
There is definitely an indication.
He says, do not talk about things that
do not concern you with people that are
not honest.
Abdullah ibn Abbas is very interesting.
If you're having a conversation and you can
tell that somebody is stretching the truth, he's
basically saying what?
It's your job to stop them.
But you don't have to stop them by
calling them a liar.
We once had a friend, we used to
say we would have to talk his stories
down.
So he would arrive at a gathering, and
he would say something, and then all of
us would kind of quietly be like, hmm.
You know?
So he'd be like, oh man, on the
way here I raced three Ferraris.
And we're like, and he's like, okay, they
weren't Ferraris, they were Hondas.
And then we're like, and he's like, there
was one.
And then we're just like, and he's like,
it was my mom.
You know, like it was, it basically had
to like talk him down from the story.
So he would come in with something very
crazy, and then it would become like slightly
more believable, and then it would become just
like completely uninteresting.
I.e. his life, right?
His real life.
Okay?
So Abdullah bin Abbas is saying, in those
moments when you can tell that somebody is
kind of not being the most truthful, your
best strategy in that moment is to what?
Don't push.
Don't make the person keep lying.
See, this is from the character of a
Muslim.
It's like if you know someone has a
weakness, it's not your job to exploit it.
And to make that, no, your job is
to what?
Change the subject.
So Abdullah bin Abbas says, don't talk about
things that do not concern you.
If the conversation is happening, just move on
to another conversation, something that's not a liable
conversation.
Okay?
And leave that which does not concern you,
he says.
And do not argue.
Do not argue with liars or fools.
Because when you do that, you're making them
dig their heels deeper into the earth and
setting their stance against you.
Okay?
So this is the end of this section.
Now, he begins a new section.
And we're going to talk about this, inshallah,
and then we'll go to some Q&A.
He mentioned here some of the things that
we need to be careful of.
And now he's going to give us advice
about what are the supplements.
So if the previous section was like what
to avoid, like the bacteria, and he was
giving us the antibiotics, now he's giving us
some of the nutritional advice.
This is what you should be doing.
This is what you should be eating.
Okay?
So he says, number one, if you want
to see yourself growing towards Allah, we gave
you the avoidance.
Now, he says, number one, be a person
that is no matter what constantly in a
state of thanks to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
Always thank Allah.
Now, this is easy.
In a good percentage of our life.
Because something good happens to you, and subhanallah,
you feel so grateful, and in that moment,
you're like so close to Allah, and you're
like, life is perfect.
My veilah hijab got delivered.
This is great, you know.
The temperature today, it's a high of 80.
Alhamdulillah.
Right?
This actually, subhanallah, I hate that I keep
bringing up my own like family stories, but
it's just so relevant, subhanallah.
And I hope, maybe by doing this, you
guys can see that this stuff happens all
the time.
So my son, I told you guys about
the Jordans he bought, right?
With his own money, I didn't tell you?
Okay.
He bought, he wanted Jordans.
I said no.
Because I went and got him from the
outlet store, I got him these really, really
cool, I mean, they're Kairis, but they were
very cheap, mashallah, mashallah.
Okay?
They were like $20.
Like every uncle and auntie in the universe
was so proud of me at that moment.
You know?
I think their original price was like $80.
I got him for $20 and they fit
him perfectly.
And he didn't know.
He didn't know.
You know, they're at the age where they
don't really understand or care.
You know, they just want something to be
nice.
But this is also the challenge, subhanallah.
And by the way, the reason why I
share a lot of stories about my children
is not because I want them to hate
me as they get older and listen to
this and be like, wow, you totally like
just, you know, made your entire class about
us.
I do this because in all of us
lives an example of that child.
It's called the nafs.
It's the exact copy of a child.
We're just better at hiding it.
Right?
Like they just might whisper louder than you.
Okay?
So, so, my son, after a couple weeks
of having these Kairis, which are really nice,
by the way, and Kairi is Muslim, so
there's just all this benefit to these shoes.
Okay?
He, his friend has a pair of Jordans.
And he's like, I really want Jordans, Baba.
And I, you know, it's so hard saying
no to your kid.
Like you just, you want to do it
so badly.
You want to give them literally everything they
ask for.
But you know that by doing that, you're
going to just destroy them.
Like by doing, yeah, he knows.
Right?
By doing that, you're just going to destroy
them.
Like, because why?
Because their expectation is going to be out
of control.
So you can't do that.
But you also can't deprive them of everything.
Right?
I see a lot of people nodding.
Okay.
I didn't mean to trigger.
Right?
You can't deprive them of everything.
So there's a balance.
Okay?
Much like the nafs, there's a balance.
You cannot indulge your nafs all the time.
But you also can't starve it.
Like if you want to get some tacos,
get some tacos.
Right?
You can tell I'm hungry.
So, he's like, I want Jordans.
And I tell, I'm about to go out
of town for a work trip.
And I tell him, Baba, we'll talk about
it when I get home.
I leave.
And I get a FaceTime call from my
wife.
And they're in the Nike outlet store.
And he goes, Baba.
And it's his face.
So it's my wife's name.
And I swipe.
And I expect to see my wife.
And I see my son.
And I'm like, where are you?
And he's like, I'm at Nike.
And he goes, Baba, I found them.
And I go, what?
And he opens the box and there's a
pair of Jordans.
And he goes, but don't worry.
I'm paying for them.
And I go, okay.
And that also kind of like hurts a
little bit.
Because your seven year old kid is like,
I got this.
You keep paying the mortgage.
I'll buy these.
You know?
You know, treat yourself this month, Baba.
So he like opens the box and shows
me these Jordans.
And I'm like, you really like them?
And he goes, yeah, they're a little bit
big.
But I'll grow into them.
And the sales guy's like, he'll grow into
them.
And I'm like, yeah, of course.
You're going to sell my son on this.
You know?
I'm like, get out of here, Josh.
Okay, so.
And then my wife just kind of looks
at me and she's like.
And I'm like, okay, fine.
Whatever.
Right?
Right?
It's usually reversed, by the way.
Usually she's the one saying no.
And I'm like, yeah, you have to do
it.
So anyways, then he comes home.
Or I come home, sorry.
That weekend he has a basketball game.
He hits a game winner.
And he's like convinced now that it's his
shoes.
He does it again.
And he's convinced.
He's like, Baba, it's his shoes.
It's his shoes.
Okay?
Now, why am I telling you this story?
For a matter of like three, four weeks,
nothing was more important than these shoes.
Nothing.
Doesn't wear them outside.
Only wears them in the court.
When he's done with his game, he takes
them off.
Puts on his sandals or his Crocs or
whatever.
Like really treating them so well.
Okay?
Basketball season ends.
And then we have a little bit of
a break.
And now basketball season is starting.
He goes to his friend's house.
His friend has a new pair of Jordans.
No, no.
I'm not making this up.
He comes home from his friend's house.
And he is quiet.
And I'm like, what's going on?
How are your friends?
He goes, it was good.
You know the good with the dot, dot,
dot?
It was good.
And I go, yeah, what did you guys
do?
He's like, we played basketball.
And I go, nice.
And I go, how was it?
He goes, good.
He has Jordans.
New Jordans.
And he's like, Baba got it for him.
And he has to make a hundred shots
and he gets them.
And I'm like, I make a hundred shots
every day.
Like, why don't you get me Jordans?
Every day.
Right?
Just ignore it.
It's okay.
It's not dangerous.
There's a small bug in your hair.
There you go.
Okay.
It's okay.
It's a creation of Allah too.
It has a purpose.
So listen.
So listen to this.
This is crazy.
But actually, Alhamdulillah, this shows you there's a
happy ending.
He's like, he has Jordans.
Why don't you get me Jordans?
And he's a seven year old.
So they don't have emotional regulation.
So there's tears.
He's like me.
He cries all the time.
So there's tears.
And he's really upset.
And he's really, and he's just you know,
and he goes, and then he says, oh
man, he goes, and the ones I got,
they're a little bit too big.
And I go, you're the one that told
me that that was a good thing.
With Josh behind you.
Giving the thumbs up.
So then I talk him down and I
say, look, every time you go to your
friend's house and you see something that they
have that you don't have, you cannot come
home like this.
Right?
And this is honestly a message for us.
Every time, you're still a kid Abbas.
That story was for you.
But this is for us adults.
You're welcome.
This is for us.
Every time you go out into the dunya
and see something that somebody has that you
don't have, don't you feel the same way
Musa did?
Every time you're scrolling on Instagram and someone's
on vacation and you're not, don't you feel
that same way?
It's a natural feeling.
It's a natural feeling.
And everything he displayed, if I have to
be honest with you, I feel the same
thing.
When I see that somebody has something that
I've been looking at or saving up for
and they've been able to get it.
There's a nefsicle component of every person that
becomes inflamed.
Right?
And it's your job to have the same
conversation with yourself that I had with him.
And the crazy thing, SubhanAllah, is after that
conversation, he went to go put on his
shoes to shoot around and he looks at
them and he goes, you know what Baba?
They're not so bad.
And he puts them on and he goes,
my feet grew.
They fit now.
And SubhanAllah, the realization he had was that
gratitude makes things more valuable.
In gratitude, ingratitude will make even the most
valuable possession completely worthless.
Think about not just gratitude for things.
Think about gratitude for people.
Think about parents.
Think about siblings.
Think about all these relationships, spouse, children.
Think about friends.
You could be surrounded with the people in
your life that are literally the things that
people make dua for.
You know?
Like complaining about, I'll never forget in Ramadan,
there was a session where we were talking
about complaining about children because children can be
really tough.
And I remember sitting right here in front
of me, there was a couple that I
know very dearly that has been unable to
have children.
And I saw them like crying.
And I thought to myself, how many parents
have uttered complaints against their own kids?
But if they met those amazing couples, those
powerful couples, subhanAllah, may Allah bless them, who
are unable at the moment to yet have
children, that those people would trade every struggle
just to have one day with that kid.
This is us.
We complain about the blessings.
I told you, just like me.
We complain about the blessings that Allah has
not given other people.
And they shed tears over wanting them.
And we have the audacity to complain about
them.
You know?
So he says here, Imam al-Muhasibi says,
be grateful, which is an easy enough advice.
And then he says, in all times, in
all times.
Imam Ghazali says, no matter what situation in
life, you can be grateful.
He says there's four scenarios that you're going
to be in.
Number one, when good things happen.
When good things happen, it's the most obvious.
Be grateful.
But he says, when bad things happen.
How are you grateful when bad things happen?
Well, he says, at least it happened here,
in this dunya, and not in the akhira.
The Salaf, the pious people with the Prophet,
peace be upon him, when bad things happen
to them here, they would say, alhamdulillah, because
they're like, man, it's better to have this
difficulty here than it would be on the
day of judgment.
I would much rather have a delay here
than a delay there.
And if the delay here means that I'm
going to be moving faster there, give it
to me.
I'll take it.
And then, he said, in the third scenario,
when you're obedient to Allah, be grateful that
He gave you the gift of being obedient.
Like, after you pray, you should feel happy,
but you should feel grateful to Allah that
He even made you a person who wants
to pray.
Like, thank you, Allah, for allowing me the
hidayah of prayer.
How many people on this earth tonight will
go to sleep without praying?
Alhamdulillah, very good.
And then he says, this is the one
that blows my mind, when you sin, he
says, when you sin, be grateful that Allah
gave you a chance for repentance.
Be grateful that you recognize that you're sinning,
and that you're still alive.
Because how many people have died without recognizing
that they needed to repent for the mistakes
that they made?
So he says, give thanks in every scenario.
The more that we give thanks, he says,
the more that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will increase us.
Allah says in the Quran, وَلَا إِن شَكَرَتُمْ
لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ If you are grateful, I will increase
you.
The scholars say increase in two ways.
Number one, you'll get more of what you're
grateful for.
So if you're grateful for something, Allah will
increase that.
But the second is that Allah will actually
increase you in gratitude.
Allah will increase you in shukr itself.
If you're grateful, the gratitude will actually compound.
Now, movies, you know, TV shows, even now
like social media, they've made like memes, or
like caricatures of the people that are optimistic
all the time.
And for those of us that are like
a little bit on the pessimistic side, a
little bit on the dark humor side, they
make jokes and humor out of people that
are trying to be you know, optimistic even
in the darkest situations.
That is a reflection of just how negative
our society has become.
That if a person is able to find
the positive in something, we see them as
being insufferable.
Right?
The movie will make fun of them.
The TV show will mock them.
Oh, come on man.
Right?
Be real.
The person's actually trying to be as real
as it gets.
A person who's being optimistic in a difficult
time is trying to keep everybody's heart alive.
It's really easy to succumb to negativity.
It's too easy to be a negative person.
May Allah Ta'ala protect us.
So the commentator here, he says, the more
we give thanks, the more Allah will increase
us.
Knowing this should keep your spirits high.
Find a reason to be thankful.
Like the kid in the Islamic school who
wrote White Blood Cells.
I tell this story like a million times,
but it's very powerful.
Ten years ago, I was in the Islamic
school.
There was a sugar chart outside the classroom.
It was like a second grade classroom or
something.
And they said, what are you grateful for?
Every kid wrote everything.
All the things that you would expect, right?
Video games, whatever.
One kid wrote White Blood Cells.
When I asked the teacher, I laughed just
like you.
When I asked the teacher, I said, that's
funny, White Blood Cells.
He goes, or she said, yeah, his cousin
has leukemia.
And he became like acutely aware of his
blessings down to the cellular level.
May Allah give shifa to everybody who's suffering.
So now, and think now, put yourself in
the position of a person that's witnessing a
genocide in Gaza and understand what this means.
You know, the test is not just for
one people.
The people of Palestine have their test.
The people of Lebanon, they have their test.
Our test is that when we see this
happening, like what do we do?
Are we able to have even a semblance
of gratitude?
Are we able in that gratitude?
And gratitude, by the way, you know what's
crazy about it?
Gratitude opens the doors to charity.
The more grateful you are, the more you
feel what?
I have more than enough.
I have more than enough.
A person who's not charitable is not grateful.
If a person is charitable, it's usually a
sign that they're grateful because they're like, I'm
content.
I'm giving money because I have more than
I need.
But the person who's not grateful will never
be able to open their wallet for sadaqah.
Because they're always thinking about, I need more,
I need more, I need more.
May Allah make us more grateful.
He says, knowing this should keep your spirits
high because we know that everything that we
do is from the blessing and the perpetuity
of Allah's blessing, the constancy of Allah's blessing
in our life.
Imam Muhasibi also reminds us here of the
importance of consistency.
Look, anyone in this room can be grateful
once.
It's easy to be grateful once or twice
or once a week.
But can you be grateful?
Can you force yourself to be grateful in
every situation that you find yourself in?
Can you absolutely find a way?
You have to be creative.
It's not always going to become apparent to
you right away why you should be grateful.
Sometimes you're going to look at something and
it's going to look like a pile of
dirt.
And you're like, there's nothing to be grateful
for.
This is literally nothing.
Right?
But then subhanallah, you realize that you have
seeds in water.
And that's exactly what you needed.
You have to be creative in your search
for gratitude to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So be consistent.
We should not only be consistent in giving
thanks but we should be consistent in all
of our actions.
The Prophet mentioned in a hadith that I
swear by Allah he does not tire of
your deeds meaning Allah.
Allah never tires.
He never gets tired of your deeds.
Rather, it is you who become tired.
The more grateful you are, the more grateful
and gracious Allah will be.
Allah never becomes tired of any person in
their moments.
So never ever think that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala will overlook and give up.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless us
and make us grateful.
Okay, let's go to some questions inshallah because
we have about 10 minutes before the adhan.
Okay.
How do I deal with a friend that
only talks to me when they need something?
You're like, P.S. This is about marriage.
No, I'm joking.
Okay, good question.
Bismillah.
So, one of the important things in life
that's going to be a very essential skill
for everybody in this room is learning how
to define titles.
Okay, learning how to define titles.
Social media has given us the impression that
every single person that we meet has become
a friend.
Okay, there are many people in your life
that you know that you love but they
are not the closest companions in your life.
And that's okay because realistically human beings don't
have the capacity to have like 100 best
friends.
It's not possible.
Okay.
At some point, the list has to be
manageable.
Okay.
So if this person is outside of the
close companion list, then for you, this might
be one of the tests that Allah has
put in your life.
And you just have to see how you
respond, whether or not you can be patient,
whether or not you can be a person
of service to this individual.
And that just might be the nature of
your relationship.
If it's just like an acquaintance, it is
what it is.
Okay.
But if this person is somebody that you
feel is one of those really close companions
and you've noticed that in your relationship it's
becoming pretty one-sided and that there's a
lot of take and not a lot of
give, then it's worth always having a conversation
with this person about how you feel.
Communication will always always be the best route.
You know, I read something the other day
that I thought was really powerful.
Can I read it to you guys?
I'm in my feels sometimes on social media
when I read these things.
The guy wrote, his name is Sahil.
Oh, maybe he's Muslim.
Hard conversations are a tax on deep relationships.
When you avoid a hard conversation, you're taking
on a debt that has to be repaid
with interest at a date in the future.
So basically he's saying if you have a
deep relationship with somebody, part of the prerequisites
of that is having a tough conversation.
That's just part of the nature of that
relationship.
You can't really be that close if you
can't have tough conversations.
It's a prerequisite.
So he says time does not heal anything
when it comes to relationships.
Time alone doesn't do anything.
Making the minor adjustments and repairs as time
goes on will help you avoid major repairs
later on.
He says your success in building deep loving
bonds is proportional to the number of tough
conversations you're willing to have.
So the first thing you have to do
in this scenario for this person is define
whether or not this person is a close
friend.
Are they someone of consequence in your life?
If they're not, then it's your decision if
you want to be of service to them,
if you want to draw your boundaries.
Obviously, the Prophet peace be upon him, he
said in a hadith that the person who
is the best of all people will be
the one that is at the most benefit
of all people.
So the point is, if you want to
take that opportunity and serve somebody, if you
have time, if you have opportunity, if you
have resources, bismillah.
But if this person is somebody that's very
close to you and you feel particularly hurt
by this, then that conversation should absolutely happen.
Trust me, you'll feel a lot better after
you do it.
May Allah ta'ala make it easy.
Am I obligated to reveal past sins to
a potential spouse?
For example, zina, and if not, how am
I supposed to answer if they ask that
question?
This is a really good question.
Okay, so the general understanding about sins is
that if Allah ta'ala has hidden a
sin, it is a gift for the person
and that nobody should undo the hiding of
Allah when he hid someone's sin.
So we should never expose another person's sin,
right, unnecessarily.
Maybe there's like a court case or something
that's different.
Legal stuff is different.
Generally speaking, we should not go around exposing
sins, including yourself.
You should not expose your own sins.
So if a person committed sins in a
previous, let me use language you understand, era
of their life, okay, and they have made
tawbah, and they have moved on, and that
is something that they deeply regret and they
want to forget about, then part of the
gift and the power of repentance is that
that person is not obligated to disclose anything
that they've repented for, with the exception that
that thing has lasting impact and will affect
the life of the person.
For example, if I have a child and
they say, do you have any children?
I cannot be like, I repented for that
relationship.
No, I don't.
Who's that?
You're not supposed to ask me about my
prior sins because there's something now, right?
There's something there.
Okay?
I tried to make it light-hearted but
there's other things you could think about.
There's other things, right?
Potentially health conditions etc.
Okay?
In that case, you have to disclose because
it affects this person.
You have to.
But if it is a sin that was
committed, no matter what, if it was a
sin that was committed and that sin has
no baggage or attachments, okay?
Mashallah, man.
I never want to hear anything about feminism
ever again after that reaction.
They're like, where are the guys who can
come kill this for us?
Right?
Okay.
There we go.
Mashallah.
Iman's going to take care of it.
Alright.
So let's get back to Q&A, inshallah.
It'll be fine.
I promise you it's not poisonous.
You'll be okay.
My dad used to say when we were
scared of bugs growing up, he would say,
just think to yourself, who's bigger, you or
the bug?
And that helped a lot.
So to answer the question, again to finish
because this is a really serious question.
Thank you, bug, for derailing.
Narcissist.
Okay.
You do not have to disclose previous sins
if there's no effect that is ongoing or
long lasting.
Now, again, this is tough because obviously, naturally
it's one of those things that's in the
fiqh books, it says one thing, but then
in real life, there's the nature of those
conversations.
So you're allowed to keep that between you
and Allah and that is what it is.
It's obviously your choice to disclose if you
want to and if you feel like that
is appropriate, but the advice from the Sharia
is not to disclose.
That is the advice from the Sharia, but
again, it's up to you if you feel
like the person would understand that it was
from a previous season of your life, etc.
But again, the Sharia says you do not
have to.
And also, as a result of that, this
also means that you should not pressure a
person if they give you an answer.
But if a person, for example, has some
kind of health condition or something that they
did not disclose, that is a major sin.
A major sin.
It can actually violate the entire contract of
the Nikah if they do not disclose, if
they have a health condition as a result
of that.
Okay?
So you can't hide those things.
Those are realities that you have to share.
May Allah make it easy.
Oh, man.
This is a really good question.
I just don't want to answer it.
Not like that.
I want to answer it, but...
Okay.
I have missed a lot of prayers for
many years when I did not pray.
How do I go about making those up?
Will all the missed ones be held against
me?
Okay.
Okay, so...
There are a couple different ways that the
Sharia handles this.
Okay?
The evidences that we have...
Notice I'm not speaking from my own opinion
here.
This is research that we've done.
The evidence that we have and the general
understanding from the major schools is that if
a person misses a prayer that they need
to make it up.
That's called Qadha.
So if I miss, for example, Maghrib, I
have to pray Maghrib.
I can't just be like, oh, well.
Another one, like there it goes.
I have to make it up.
Okay?
We understand that?
Okay.
Any of the five prayers, Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr,
Maghrib, Isha, you have to make them up.
Okay?
What the fiqh books don't talk about, and
this is a challenge for modern scholars, not
myself, but my teachers, is what if a
person has a decade?
Right?
So you do the math.
Five prayers a day, 365 days a year,
times 10.
We're literally talking about the tens of thousands
of prayers.
Okay?
And there are a lot of people in
that scenario.
A lot.
So it was actually at Roots a couple
times that this one guy came up to
me with his calculator app open, and he
showed me like 37,415.
And I'm like, what is that?
And he goes, this is the amount of
prayers I have to make up.
And he goes, how do I do it?
And I was frozen.
I was like, you know, that's a lot.
So then I did what anyone would do,
and I said, let me call Shaykh Abdul
Nasser.
So I called Shaykh Abdul Nasser, because I've
heard some opinions from others, but they're not
from my teachers, so I didn't want to
take them.
Meaning like I didn't understand the science behind
them, how they got to that opinion.
I've heard it, but I didn't want to
adopt it.
So I called Shaykh Abdul Nasser, and we
actually spoke to also Mufti Muntasir, who you
may have seen him during Ramadan here, about
this issue.
And what we found was, if we looked
at the narrations and hadith, we found that
there were no narrations that dealt with this
macro amount of missed prayers.
All the ahadith that we looked at, where
the Prophet, peace be upon him, commanded prayers
to be made up, were done in a
micro command, like the day of prayers.
And to be fair, it's also because the
companions wouldn't just skip like 10 years of
prayers.
But I digress.
So what Mufti Muntasir and Shaykh Abdul Nasser
and I discussed, and there is an opinion
from Ibn Taymiyyah, which I thought was really
interesting.
So going back to the classics.
Ibn Taymiyyah actually said something really interesting that
I think is helpful here.
He said, if you've missed a lot of
prayers and you find it difficult to make
up all the prayers, he said number one,
stop skipping your prayers now.
Okay, so start.
Like immediately start.
Number two, he said, try to pray every
Nafl or Sunnah prayer you can.
And number three, of course, which is really
number zero, it's the first, is make tawbah.
Repent for that.
And he said, because his opinion was that
if you miss a prayer, you cannot actually,
if you intentionally miss a prayer, you can't
make it up.
That was his opinion.
He was very strict on that.
But the point being is, when you look
at the amount, it is simply impossible.
And then there are some scholars, and again,
they're in their right to suggest this.
They say that you should make up with
every Dhuhr, you should pray like four or
five.
Here's the issue there, and this is what
Mufti Muntasir and Sharma Nasser brought up, is
that if a person does that, those prayers
become at some point performative and meaningless.
And the purpose of prayer is dhikr.
And so if a person is praying five
Dhuhrs every day, you know, you can bet
that by the ninth Rakah, they're going to
be like, you know, just, I mean, if
they can keep their wudu for the entire
time, it's going to be a performance.
So the opinion that I received from my
teachers for someone in this scenario, this is
not talking about, oh, I missed prayers today.
This is like, I'm coming back to practicing
Islam after years of being away and not
praying.
The opinion that I got from my teachers,
and Allah knows best, is the opinion of
Ibn Taymiyyah, where he says, make tawbah, start
praying immediately, and pray as many nafl as
you can, which means what?
Tarawih is not an option for you.
Like, it's an option for Muslims, but for
you, it is not an option, right?
And for me, for all of us, we
have to make up our prayers.
And tarawih is nafl, and that's one of
the best ways to do it.
Sunnah for your salah, don't skip on those.
Don't skip on your sunnah, right?
Pray those.
Because that is going to be the way
to make those up.
And the hadith that is taken from this
to prove this, is the hadith on the
Day of Judgment, the first thing that is
going to be looked at from all the
servants is their prayer.
If it is deficient, then Allah will look
at their sunnah prayers.
And that is the hadith that Shaykh Abul
Nasir quoted when he gave me this.
So, if you feel overwhelmed by the amount
of prayers that you have to make up,
we're not talking about a couple of prayers,
we're talking about like thousands, then you can
inshallah begin with the methodology that I gave,
wallahu alam, Allah knows best.
And I don't mean to discount any other
opinion that you've heard, this is not a
battle, this is not a rap battle.
This is just sharing an opinion inshallah, okay?
We'll do one or two more questions and
then isha is at 9 o'clock.
There are times when I trust Allah but
my anxiety spikes anyways.
How can you maintain your relationship and trust
with Allah during times of uncertainty?
Look, anxiety is a human experience.
It's part of your emotional palate.
Every single person is going to experience anxiety.
I mean, even the Prophet, peace be upon
him, you know, Allah Ta'ala says about
his ...
...
Allah says to him like, are you going
to like, basically, are you going to like
die as a result of the fact that
these people aren't listening to you?
They're not taking your message seriously?
Allah said this to him in the Quran
saying, just because they're not obeying you, just
because they're not converting to Islam, like you're
going to actually like end your life as
a result of that?
You're going to let the anxiety overtake you?
No.
So anxiety is something everybody experiences.
Everybody.
It's why we make dua for Allah to
protect us from huzan, from sadness, from grief,
from all these things.
So, does it mean that a person is
less of a Muslim?
No, it does not.
What is an indication though of your iman
is how ...
is not if you don't have anxiety or
do, but how quickly you can recover from
it.
That's the indication that we're working on.
Don't ever try to erase something that's natural.
You're going to end up, you know, like
a person who says, ah, I never want
to get angry again.
Dunya sucks, man.
You're going to get angry, right?
You are.
Something's going to happen.
You're going to snap.
And then you're going to say, I'm a
failure.
I'm not a good Muslim.
No.
Spirituality never asks you to not be human.
Ever.
All Islam asks of every human being is,
how quickly can you recover from that less
than ideal state?
How quickly can you bounce back from that?
Is it going to take you like two
weeks?
Is it going to take you a week?
A couple days?
A couple hours?
Maybe a few minutes?
And for those of you that have like
worked on yourselves, maybe there's something in your
life that you've worked on.
Being more patient, being less angry, etc.
You know what I'm talking about.
There are things that now, when they set
you off, you recover in like a few
minutes.
That a few years ago, you would be
obsessing over that for like days or weeks
on end.
That's progress.
That's the sign that your Iman is increasing.
So our goal is that our Iman, the
spiritual side of who we are, meets our
human side.
We just want it to get there quicker.
Don't ever erase the human side.
You can't.
Desires, anxiety, doubt, depressive thoughts.
All these things are going to happen.
They're all going to happen.
And they're all experiences that Allah created you
and I with.
The test is not to erase them.
It's to respond to them with your belief
in Allah.
So you mentioned, for example, I have Tawakkul,
but my anxiety spikes.
Good.
So far, so good.
Now you have to do is when your
anxiety spikes, you have to develop a game
plan with how do I use this Tawakkul
that I have to bring my anxiety down.
Do I remember previous instances in my life
where I had doubt, but Allah took care
of me?
Do I remember the stories of my friends?
Do I keep good company around people that
are going to be positive and tell me
that it's going to be okay?
I mean, literally, before I got here, one
of the reasons why I was a little
bit late was because my son was having
a lot of stress over his homework.
Second grade's tough.
And, you know, kids say weird things, right?
They say things that you've never said to
them.
They say things like, I'm so dumb, I'm
not smart, everyone else is smarter than me,
etc.
And you look at them and you're saying,
like, so I literally just had to hug
him because when he hugs my wife, they're
the same size.
So it just looks like two adults hugging.
Okay?
So I had to, like, hug him because
I'm the only person in my house that
can, like, like, bear him, like, you know?
And I just told him, I said, look,
is everything okay?
Do you have food?
Do you have a bed?
You have Jordans, we all know that, right?
Do you have this?
Do you have that?
He goes, yes, yes.
And with every question I asked him, I
was basically trying to explain to him, what's
the worst that's happening, Baba?
Like, what's the worst that's happening?
Again, I use the example of my son
because sometimes you need to do that to
your own nerves.
You're having this anxiety, this panic, you need
to sit down and say, am I healthy?
Do I have food?
Do I have a roof over my head?
Do I have, and if I don't, do
I have people that can help me?
Am I part of a community that will
provide for me?
I mean, if you go far enough down
the line, there's always going to be comfort.
Okay?
So, don't ever, ever think that anxiety is
a bad sign.
Of course, it's natural.
But know that where your tawakkul meets your
anxiety is a sign of your faith.
May Allah Ta'ala make it easy.
Oh, yes, thank you for reminding me.
SubhanAllah, subhanAllah.
In the rush here, I totally, totally forgot.
I did not forget but it slipped my
mind.
There is a brother in Missouri.
His name is Marcellus but I believe his
chosen Muslim name is Khalifa and he is
innocent of any crime that he's been convicted
of or accused of and he is set
to be executed unfortunately tomorrow.
There is, through the Innocence Project, there is
a petition and a motion.
I saw it on the news today, subhanAllah.
And I want everybody tonight to go and
search for his name, Marcellus, M-A-R
-C-E-L-L-U-S.
If you can do it right now, you
can.
Please, before Isha.
And I want everyone here to sign the
Innocence Project petition.
They're not even asking for a definitive innocence
plea.
They're just asking for more time.
Yes.
Marcellus, M-A-R-C-E-L-L
-U-S.
Yeah, Imam Omar shared it.
He shared the link.
I know a bunch of us shared it.
But please go and sign the petition.
All they're asking for is a stay of
the conviction in order to re-investigate because
now, subhanAllah, if you read the story it's
crazy.
Every political body in that process has said
that he did not commit the crime.
Except for this one obviously racist judge that
is upholding the sentence.
And so we're hoping, inshaAllah, that Allah Ta
'ala will descend His mercy tonight and will
give the Haqq and the truth to our
brother Marcellus.
We pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will save him from this terrible, oppressive fate.
We pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will make this something that will be a
lesson for all those who are oppressors.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to allow us
to see the wisdom in this trial.
Ameen, Ya Rabbi, Ameen.
But please, everybody go do that, inshaAllah.
Okay, last question then we'll end, inshaAllah.
When you get trusted with a secret and
someone else asks about it, how do I
avoid answering the question?
Because if I say I don't know, then
I'm lying.
I have a little bit of an unorthodox
way of handling this.
Very good, Muhammad.
Excellent.
Muhammad here is visiting us from, you're from
Tanzania, but you were from Saudi, right?
Saudi Arabia?
Yeah.
So he's visiting us.
I met him today.
He just said the right answer.
Just tell the person.
It's a secret.
I can't tell you.
I'm not obliged to tell you.
Sorry.
I'm not at liberty to tell you.
Right?
I think that, subhanAllah, in some ways, we
think about it.
When you're keeping a secret for somebody, your
priority is not the comfort of the one
trying to find out.
Your priority is the comfort of the one
that's trusting you.
If there's a person that's digging, trying to
figure it out, you're allowed to make that
person uncomfortable.
Like, I would turn it back on them.
Like, hey, why are you asking me this?
You know?
Yeah, the gaslighting?
Yeah, yeah.
I would gaslight them, right?
I would tell them, like, hey, it's none
of your business whether or not this person
is or is not or did or did
not.
It's none of your business, right?
And frankly, it's actually not my business.
They trusted me with a piece of information.
Let's just change the topic.
And you don't have to necessarily end a
friendship over it.
You're like, you know what?
No.
I'm leaving.
You don't have to do that.
But you can just tell the person, like,
hey, this person trusted me and just like
if you...