AbdelRahman Murphy – Heartwork Guided Steps To The Path Of Allah #22
AI: Summary ©
The conversation discusses the " sin" and "rd choice of people's desire" as real "come to stop" and "rd choice of people's desire". The "rd choice of people's desire" is the "rd choice of their desire." The "rd choice of their desire" is the "rd choice of their desire." The "rd choice of their desire" is the "rd choice of their desire." The "rd choice of their desire" is the "rd choice of their desire."
AI: Summary ©
Okay, assalamu alaikum.
Alright, assalamu alaikum.
Bismillah.
Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wassalamu ala rasoolillahi wa
ala alihi wa ashabihi ajma'een.
Welcome home everybody.
It's good to see you, alhamdulillah.
Welcome back.
We're happy to have everybody here at Roots.
We're going to be, inshallah, continuing.
And we're trying something a little bit different
tonight.
So I have over here a slide on
my left.
So on this side, and I think for
those in the flex rooms, it's on my
right.
We're going through a text that has a
lot of good advice, like really, really important
things.
And Imam al-Hasibi, his lists are long
and they're comprehensive, but they're really important.
And so I've been, you know, this whole
time just kind of reading them out and
kind of tossing them there and then moving
forward.
But I figured in order for us to
be able to kind of have the highest
quality experience, to be able to learn the
best, then we got ourselves a little fancy
slideshow.
So just to have the points up there.
So for those of you who are like
writing, you can write.
If you want to take pictures, you can.
I'm at the age where I like to
watch every show with subtitles now, even if
I can hear it.
So I figured I might as well extend
the courtesy to everybody here, inshallah.
So he's been talking and we're kind of,
we're closing the end of the year with
this book, inshallah.
We probably have about four or five sessions
left, including tonight.
And he's now gone through the entirety of
this process of spiritual development.
We talked about things that we need to
watch out for.
You know, last week or not last week,
we had the weather, Dallas weather, which is
like it's going to, the earth is going
to end.
Everyone go to Walmart and buy water and
bread and eggs.
And then, you know, as soon as you
get home, it's like sunny and the birds
are chirping.
So that was last week.
But, you know, the rain was definitely a
concern.
So we didn't have last week, but the
week before we had our discussion on anger.
And he spoke about the dangers of anger
and how anger is not just something that's
like a temperament that people can make excuses
for.
Oh, I get angry.
Oh, you know, I've always been hot tempered.
That's not something that is excusable.
You know, according to Islam, anger is a
very serious pathway to damage and destruction.
It's not something to take lightly.
And we don't consider it just like a
personality trait.
We think of it as being a very
serious spiritual vulnerability, that if a person cannot
control their anger, they cannot control themselves and
they become overwhelmed with anger, that that is
something that will impede their journey to Allah.
And it's not, that's not, you know, making
light of it.
That's a very serious thing.
So he spoke about that.
And right after speaking about that part of
the journey, he talked about the ability to
control one's desires.
And the joining together of these two points,
what does anger, controlling your anger, have to
do with controlling your desires?
Like I just walked out from the office
and someone left a tray of sweets, like
right by the door.
You know, like Rice Krispie Treats and, you
know, amazing things, wondrous things, right?
And there's also a burger in a box
and a box of biryani.
It's basically like a little Jannah room right
there, right?
Biryani, burgers and sweets, okay?
So these are the moments where you have
to think twice about, you know, how strong
am I and how can I say no
to myself when I'm shopping for something, when
I want to buy something.
And like al-Ghazali says, it's not the
things that you can't afford because you can't
afford them.
So you don't really show much restraint buying
something that you can't afford.
Although nowadays with credit cards, you know, there
is restraint there.
But he's saying the stuff that you can
afford, the stuff that you can actually genuinely
say, you know, I can afford this stuff.
He says that's really the great test.
Or let's put a different perspective on it.
Let's say that somebody wronged you and they
are wrong.
Like you have concrete, definitive, you got the
receipts, you got the text messages.
You know, they said they were going to
do this.
They never did it.
They said they were going to meet you
there.
They never did.
And in that moment, it's your job to
decide, you know, do I want to hold
this person accountable?
Is that really, right?
Is this a serious matter?
If it is, then go ahead by all
means.
But if it's not, then am I going
to be petty and hold their feet to
the fire for something that's virtually not that
important?
And maybe they have a good reason.
Maybe they have a reason for their weakness
and their moment of weakness in this time.
So the chapter that he begins now is
about how to control your desires and how
to say no to yourself.
One of the great business minds that I
was reading recently said, you know, the path
to success for every individual person is just
the ability to say no.
You know, can you say no to yourself
when you know that you should?
And so we learn this from many different
realms.
So Imam al-Muhasabi, he begins with this
statement that you see over here.
Beware of the flame of indulging your desires.
And he uses his words very carefully.
Alright, so beware of the flame.
The reason why he invokes the image of
fire here is because fire is not always
like a big explosion.
It's not always something that is so obvious
and apparent.
It starts small.
And that's how desires start.
Ibn al-Qayyim, he actually writes in one
of his books the pathway of how a
sin, how it's conceived in the heart of
a person.
And then eventually how that sin grows.
And he says first the sin grows from
being an idea.
It's just like this fleeting thought that a
person has.
And then after the person kind of entertains
that fleeting thought for a moment, then it
becomes an intention.
It becomes like irada, he says.
It becomes like a person's desire.
And then from there it becomes like strategized.
Okay, how will I do this?
How will I get away with it?
What will I do if I get caught?
What are the consequences?
Am I willing to deal with those consequences?
And then after the fleeting thought, the intention,
the strategy, then comes the action, whether it's
the plan, the statement, whether it's the coordination,
the collaboration.
So the sin really, Ibn Qayyim says, if
you try to stop it in the later
stages, you're going against a lot of momentum.
You're kind of setting yourself up against this
boulder that's already running downhill.
He says the real place, the real place
to stop the sin is at the moment
of that impulsive thought.
When it first just flies across your consciousness,
when you first sense it, that's the moment
Ibn Qayyim says when you should be careful.
It's like in the motif of fire, of
the flame.
What is he saying?
If you see sparks, if you see embers,
if you see this red burning ember that's
laying on dry grass, don't walk by it
and go back into your house and say,
oh, it'll be okay.
I don't know how many of you guys
have barbecued, right?
You got anyone here barbecue, you grill?
Okay, like before you watch the Cowboys lose?
There's no Cowboys fans in here anymore.
Or if you are, you're just quiet.
You're just faking it, right?
Okay, so when you grill, if you use
charcoal, like one of the things that you're
supposed to do, especially if you use like
in your backyard or a public grill, is
you're not supposed to let the charcoal keep
burning at a flame.
You're supposed to keep an eye on it
until you know that it's safe because if
that thing tips over or if the wind
blows and one of those openings, the vents,
lets the embers flow out, it could actually
be really dangerous.
And so some people even just pour some
water on it.
They spray it with water just to take
care of it.
Why?
Because the thought that you might have, that
little opening that you may have left there
might lead to destruction that's simply not worth
it.
So Imam al-Muhasabi says when you're dealing
with your desires, don't try to fight later
on.
Don't say, I know myself.
I'm good.
I'm strong enough.
Don't do that.
Stop it in the early stages.
Because you don't want to fail and suffer
the consequences of falling short in your defense
against your desire when there's a lot on
the line.
When there's more than meets the eye that's
waiting for you there.
Everybody who does something, a major mistake, a
tragic error, they always have the same emotion.
And the day of judgment, Allah brings up
one emotion more than any other.
You know what emotion that is?
Regret.
That's the emotion in the Quran that's brought
up more than others.
Ya hasrata.
The people will call out, why did I
do that?
Why did I do that?
Ya laytani kuntu turaba.
I wish I was just dust.
I wish I was nothing.
The Quran talks about the dialogue of the
people on the day of judgment.
And they say, if only, law kunna nasma
'u aw na'qilu ma kunna fi ashab
al-sa'id.
If only we listened and we thought, then
maybe, just maybe, we would have been people
that would not be in eternal punishment and
damnation.
May Allah protect us.
All that goes back to everybody is that
initial stage.
Are you willing to take the chance and
let the fire burn?
Or are you smart?
Are you strategic?
Are you thoughtful?
And saying, you know what, I'm not going
to let this get any further.
I'm not going to let it get any
further.
Then he says, indulging in your desires.
And this is, you know, there's scholars, they
talk about this.
Not every desire is bad.
Not every desire is wrong, right?
Like, I'm definitely going to have some cheeseburger
and biryani after this, right?
Like, you know, if I walk back through
those doors.
Not really, but, you know, you can.
It's okay to have a delicious meal.
It's okay to have coffee and matcha and
tea.
It's okay.
These are good.
There are some desires that are absolutely okay.
So you don't have to be a person
that's like, it's not from Islam to say,
I have no desire.
That's actually not accurate.
The Prophet ﷺ even taught people, these young
men that were so zealous about trying to
mute what was human about them.
The Prophet ﷺ said, that's not the way.
That's not the way to do it.
He said, some days I fast and some
days I don't.
Some parts of the night I sleep and
some parts I stay up and I pray.
And he talked about, he said, I don't
deny myself the desire of wanting a companion,
a spouse.
I got married.
So there's no piety in trying to be
a person that goes the opposite extreme.
You know, there's two extremes, right?
Indulge in every desire.
And then there's a person that's trying to
repress themselves to a point that takes away
their humanity.
Islam is so incredible, in that Islam allows
for every desire that a person has within
a parameter.
If you want to make money, good.
Make halal money though.
You know, there's a hadith of the Prophet
ﷺ, a lot of times we talk about
money as being like inherently evil.
And people think that, oh, if I'm spiritual,
then money is evil.
That's not actually the case.
Money is very, very risky.
Wealth is very, very challenging.
It can be dangerous.
But the Prophet ﷺ said in a hadith,
what a good wealth for a good person.
And he was saying basically, if a person
is good, then their wealth will be good.
Look at all of the good that has
been done by people like you who donate,
who give.
Look at all the meals and the shelter
and the medicine that's going to people in
Gaza from your hard-earned wealth.
Look at the masajid.
Look at the institutions that are built from
the wealth of people who donate.
Wealth is not bad unless the person's bad.
And so desires are really all about measuring
and seeing what desires are reasonable, what desires
don't challenge my faith, and what desires are
those that I know are not going to
be healthy for me.
And so every person, and there are some
that we all know, they're haram for everybody,
right?
Drinking, smoking, fornication, all these things.
We know, nobody can say like, no, you
know what, I'm actually a really low-key
guy, so I can have a drink every
now and then.
No.
You can't change rulings based on who you
are.
When the things are haram, mutlaqan, they're haram.
It is what it is.
But what is he talking about here?
Because those aren't up for debate.
What he's saying is, if you have the
desires that lead you further away from Allah,
how many of us like staying up late
with friends?
Any cambio people in here?
Cambio, cambio, I don't know.
I just see people playing.
I haven't played yet.
No one's invited me.
Subhanallah, right?
Okay.
We got the Netflix bingers, right?
We got the movie watchers.
We got people playing 2K.
We have the kahwa house crew, right?
Make some noise.
No, don't.
You should be embarrassed, right?
Okay.
We have the kahwa house crew.
We got the Yemeni coffee shops in Dallas.
In Dallas, there's actually more Yemeni coffee shops
than trees at this point.
MashaAllah.
Okay, which is good.
Alhamdulillah.
May Allah give them all barakah and success
in their business.
Ya Rabb.
Everyone has...
You know, I don't want to say the
American...
We all say like everyone's got their vice.
But in the spiritual talk, you can't say
that term because it literally means a sin.
But everybody has their thing.
Everybody has their thing.
And your mission in your path to Allah
is to see whether or not your thing
is something that encourages you to Allah or
hold you back from Allah.
And sometimes, in some amounts, it can encourage
you.
But in some amounts, it can hold you
back.
And so you, the mature adult, you, the
person who's doing your own heart work, you
have to know.
You have to know what is reasonable for
you.
If you indulge, ask yourself, what is reasonable?
If I'm eating a plate of food, is
it reasonable to have another?
Or is that not reasonable?
Now, your nafs is always going to be
telling you to keep going.
And that's what this ayah in Surah Yusuf
tells us.
Yusuf a.s., when he's mentioning the nature
of the soul, he says this verse which
is so, it's so enlightening.
Because a lot of people don't understand how
tricky the nafs is.
I think there's a lot of trust.
A lot of people think like, I got
this.
I'm good.
Like, I have this.
But the reality is that, as Aisha a
.s. has said, the wife of the Prophet
a.s., she said something very beautiful.
She said, there was once a companion that
came to her.
So I don't know if you guys know
this about her, but she was known to
be very, very sharp.
And very strong, even with her words.
Okay?
She kind of had that disposition.
She had that personality.
And so, a companion, a sahabi came to
her.
And this is after the death of the
Prophet a.s. And he said, I have
a question.
She said, okay, go ahead and ask.
He said, I'm worried that I'm a hypocrite.
It's like a really serious self-indictment.
I'm worried that my faith is not real.
I'm worried that I'm not actually sincere in
my iman.
You can imagine the vulnerability.
Have you guys ever gone to somebody and
opened up?
You can imagine, in that moment, what do
you want?
What do you want from them?
You're like, hey, you know what?
I feel like I'm just not good.
You want the person to be like, no,
you're great.
Put the arm around the shoulder, like, you
are it.
You're him.
You want that.
You know what she said?
She said, good, you should be scared.
And he was like taken aback.
He like, like the hadith says, like, I
was shocked.
I came to her saying, like, I feel
like I'm a hypocrite.
She goes, yeah, you should be.
As if she knew something.
Imagine, like, as if she's like, yeah, I
know.
Imagine what he's thinking.
Like, did the Prophet tell you something before
he died?
Like, do you know something about?
She puts this fear in him, and then
she clarifies.
She says, anyone who's not afraid they're a
hypocrite is a hypocrite.
Wow.
Wow.
Anyone who's not afraid that they have some
hypocrisy, that person is most likely a hypocrite.
So, now, okay, I saw everyone's face just
go to a dark place.
Everyone just looked at me, and they're like,
okay, let me explain how to understand these
statements, okay?
This statement is not a prescription.
It's a description.
She's not giving a ruling.
Every day you have to wake up and
you say, I am a hypocrite.
That's not how you apply this statement.
What she's saying is, describing the people of
piety is that they never think that they
have it all perfect.
They never think that they're good.
They never think they have it.
The moment you think that you have everything
together is the moment you're probably going to
slip.
It doesn't mean that you walk around in
this spiritual paranoia.
Oh, Allah will not accept anything from me.
No, no, no.
Because Allah tells you, I will accept it.
Allah tells you, call upon me, I will
answer.
Allah says, repent, I will forgive you.
You don't deny Allah what he says.
That's not piety.
That's foolishness.
But when you are operating, when you're moving
in this dunya, never ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever feel safe.
Never feel like your faith is signed, sealed
and delivered.
And think about it.
You and I, when we do things that
are important to us, we have our own
anxieties about the safety of something.
If you're shipping, man, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, subhanAllah.
Allah in this dunya gives you many moments
of these tests.
I have never, ever, ever in my life
had a moment of tawakkul, like pure trust
in Allah than when I went to hajj.
Everyone thinks about the same stories.
It had nothing to do with minnah.
It had nothing to do with the tents.
It had nothing to do with walking.
It had nothing to do with all of
that.
When you land on the first day for
hajj, there is a 12-year-old Saudi
boy with peach fuzz, who says passport, and
he keeps it for 20 days.
He has a sack of rice, like an
old, not, there's not rice anymore.
It's just like a burlap sack, and he
goes, passport, passport, passport, passport, passport, passport.
Down the bus, and you and 48 people
are giving this newly pubescent kid your thing
that will get you home.
And then he takes it, he goes over
his shoulder, and goes away.
Who was that?
Everyone's like, I don't know.
What was his name?
Does he have a phone number?
Nobody knows.
Tawakkaltu alallah.
That's it.
You have no choice.
Wallahi, anyone who's been to hajj, you know
what I'm talking about?
You hand over your passport.
They don't let you keep it.
I don't know if things have changed recently,
but they don't let you hold on to
it.
Right?
Because there's a chance that you might lose
it.
So they give it to somebody who is
definitely more capable of losing it than you.
Right?
So the point is, it's always good in
some ways to be on your toes.
It's always good.
Not to the point where you doubt yourself,
not to the point where you reject the
good, the khed, no.
But you always want to finish every prayer
with a sense of, I hope that was
accepted.
I hope that was accepted.
Not like, ah, look at me.
You guys know the famous Nick Young meme
where he shoots the shot and turns around
and he goes like this and the ball
hits the rim and bounces out?
Look it up.
It was Nick Young, right?
Yeah, yeah, everyone knows.
Okay, so type in, Nick Young misses shot.
Watch it.
Okay?
He shoots, he turns, the ball is still
in the air and it hits the rim
and bounces out.
That's what we look like when we think
we're all good.
We turn around, we're like, we got this.
And subhanallah, shaytan hits us at that moment.
So he says, Yusuf a.s. is saying,
وَمَا أُبَرِّئُ نَفْسِي I do not free my
nafs from any responsibility.
Okay?
إِنَّ النَّفْسَ لَأَمَارَةٌ بِالسُّوءِ The nafs, the default
disposition for every inside compass that we have,
is that there's always a potential, there's always
a propensity to push towards the wrong things.
إِلَّا Except for مَا رَحْمَ رَبِّي Except for
the one that Allah Ta'ala has sent
His mercy upon.
That's why you ask Allah for His mercy.
You ask Allah for His mercy because through
His mercy, your nafs will not be able
to overtake you with those negative thoughts.
You will experience this courage, this strength, this
fortitude.
You'll be able to do the right thing.
You'll be able to lower your gaze.
You'll be able to hold your tongue.
You'll be able to return the money.
SubhanAllah man, I saw a video yesterday.
A cab driver in like I think Dubai
or something found a crazy amount of money
in his cab.
I wanna say like it was like $2
,000 or something.
Which for him if you think about it,
$2,000 for that cab driver, right?
Probably from Bangladesh, probably from Pakistan.
That's probably 24 months of salary for him.
Knowing the horrific labor conditions there.
The actual slavery that's happening in those places.
And subhanAllah, listen to this.
He contacts the guy who dropped the money
in his cab and gives it back to
him.
That's to me is like...
And the guy if you look at him,
like if I asked you describe how he
looks, you probably think like, oh man, probably
a koofy, a beard, maybe tasbih, super...
That guy, all he had on his face
was a mustache.
And he's like, assalamualaikum.
You know like just...
You would not interpret if you met him
that this man is a wali of Allah.
But that behavior, that behavior is like saint
-like.
To find that much money and to turn
it back in is not normal behavior.
How many of us can claim that we
would do the same thing?
In theory, in theory you're like, yeah I
would do it.
I've seen some of you get a second
cup of chai without paying.
You're not turning back $1500 that you find,
right?
It's okay.
Enjoy it.
I'm not gonna hold it against you on
the day of judgment.
I had to think about it.
Alright, okay.
The point being, the point being is it's
a lot more difficult than we think.
So that's why the Quran is giving us
the disposition.
This stuff is tough.
It's tricky.
Except when Allah Ta'ala gives mercy.
Why?
إِنَّ رَبِّي غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ Allah Ta'ala is
the one who is most forgiving, most merciful.
And He gives you the ability to overcome
yourself.
Okay.
Now there's another type of desire.
So there's one that comes from the side
of like this burning desire, right?
It's almost, I wanna say intentional.
It's strategic.
It's thought out.
You know in like criminal law, like the
premeditated, the one that was thought out, that
was actually planned.
But there's another type of sin as well.
There's another type of chipping away at your
heart as well.
And that is the careless sin.
That's the careless sin.
It's not that it was strategic.
It's not that you thought about it.
It's not that you like kept it going.
What was it?
It was the fact that you simply just
didn't cover your bases.
You didn't protect yourself.
You didn't do the bare minimum that was
necessary to make sure that nothing would be
able to penetrate your heart and to get
in.
So he calls this whimsical desires.
Like these are things that you look back
and you say, What was I thinking?
What was I thinking?
What a dumb mistake.
You know there's some mistakes that you say,
Man, that was tough.
Like I was in a tough spot.
What was I supposed to do?
But there are some where you say, I
wish I could have had that back.
I would not have made that choice again.
So he's saying that there's one solution to
both of these.
And that is having God consciousness.
If you are conscious of Allah, then you're
able to dismantle the intentional sin and you're
able to protect yourself from slipping with the
whimsical sin.
So then Hassan al-Basri, he says, and
this statement is important.
He says, you have to realize one thing.
This is the beginning of your journey.
Your greatest enemy is not out there.
Your greatest enemy is not out in the
world.
Your greatest enemy is right here.
Hassan al-Basri said, between your two sides,
meaning like it's in between you, your shoulders.
That's your greatest enemy.
And think about it.
Every single person in this dunya, every single
person on the face of this planet goes
through similar tests.
Like everyone deals with desires of their own.
Everyone deals with constriction.
Everyone deals with opportunities.
Everybody.
What makes some people winners and others losers?
What makes some people successful?
And what makes others fail?
We're not talking about business and money.
I'm talking about spiritual failure.
What makes people fall short and commit those
sins that make you wonder, subhanAllah, how is
that possible?
You look at something and you're like, how
is that even possible?
Well, it has nothing to do with what's
out there.
What's out there is available to everybody.
It's what's in here that matters.
Inna fil-jasadi mudgha.
The Prophet ﷺ said, in every single person
there is an organ.
There is a piece.
Itha salahat, salahal-jasadi kullu.
If it's okay, everything else will be okay.
The whole body will be fine.
If this piece is good, the arms can't
disobey.
The eyes can't disobey.
The tongue can't go rogue.
Wa itha fasadat, and if it's corrupt, fasadal
-jasadi kullu.
Everything will be corrupt.
Meaning what?
You cannot fix a spoiled ala wahi al
-qalb, heart.
You can't fix it.
You can repent and repair it, but you
can't fix the behavior that's coming from a
rotten core.
I remember when I was studying in Mecca
when I was younger, and they brought us
a box of oranges.
I know that sounds like, okay, but when
you're living in a hotel in Mecca for
four months, and you're like 13 years old,
fried chicken gets old quick, right?
So you're like, I need something not cooked
and sweet and natural.
So they would bring us like fruit, and
they brought us a box of oranges.
I forgot where they imported from.
Oranges are not local to Saudi Arabia, believe
it or not.
They bring these oranges, and I remember, subhanAllah,
the fragrance when they brought it into the
hotel and the floor, it smelled like citrus,
and I was so excited, and they gave
us all these oranges, and we were just
like peeling them and eating them, and it
was good.
It was really, and subhanAllah, the first orange
that I peeled, I peeled it, I opened
it, like cross section, and there was a
juicy fat worm right in the middle.
And I'm thinking to myself like, did this
worm come from Portugal as well?
Like that's crazy.
This worm doesn't even know where he is
right now.
You know, like that's nuts.
He applied business class, you know?
That's not what I thought.
I was like about to gag.
I was like, ugh, I don't want to
have, and of course, like you're desiring this,
you want it, so then I'm like, did
anyone else get a worm?
They're like, no, and then everyone's like, that's
yours, you got to eat that one.
You got that one, religious guy's like, you
can't waste in Mecca, right?
So I ended up not eating it, but
imagine the disappointment.
Imagine.
Now, that disappointment is nothing, is nothing compared
to the disappointment of when you look at
yourself, and you can't stop doing this sin
even though you want to.
It's nothing.
You ask yourself like, why can't I stop?
There's a point.
There's a point.
I know that in the journey of trying
to work on ourselves, there's a point where
there's like the anticipation, the enjoyment of the
sin, but there's a point with a behavior,
with a sin, where you say, okay, enough's
enough.
I'm done.
I don't want to do this anymore, and
then subhanallah, it's not that simple because you
start to go against yourself and you realize
that your behavior, your thoughts, your life, everything
has programmed you and given you this disposition,
this preset, and now that you decided that
you wanted to change, that's the beginning.
That's not the end.
The decision to change is the beginning, and
may Allah give everyone strength.
I mean, but it's not that simple.
My teacher one time said, imagine digging a
hole for 10 years, and you're standing in
the hole and digging it, and then after
10 years, you say, okay, I'm done.
Can I get out?
He said, no, you got to climb now.
You got to climb out, and climbing out
is repentance.
You dug that hole for 10 years.
You committed that sin for 10 years.
You think your body is just going to
forget what it was like?
You think your mind, your desire is just
going to, yeah, wipe it clean.
No, that's not how that works.
That's why may Allah Ta'ala protect us.
That's why you got to stop it in
the beginning.
So he's saying, the soul that is unconstrained,
right, that is running wild, that is the
most dangerous thing that you have.
Forget everything else.
There are people that are so pious, subhanAllah,
that they can be in an environment that
is so filthy.
They can be in an environment that is
so like deplorable, but they don't see any
of that.
I'm not saying that you should put yourself
there, but I'm just saying there's people that
their hearts are like that.
They could literally be driving and seeing billboards
for this and this for this and that
for that and they're just like making dhikr,
chilling.
And there are some people that can be
in the haram in Mecca and can commit
crimes.
It's not the place that makes you holy.
Right?
If anything, think about it.
Everyone is like, how could that happen in
Mecca?
Where did Abu Jahl live, by the way?
Like where did Abu Lahab live?
Where did all these guys live?
Where did they attack and torture and harass
the Prophet ﷺ?
20 feet from the Kaaba.
The Kaaba does not guarantee that it makes
you into an angel.
If anything, subhanallah, it's a testimony of power
against the evil that's inside.
That's why when we go there, we say,
oh Allah, don't reveal to me like my
evilness, like purify my heart.
May Allah take us to Umrah to his
house.
You want to get pure because you're like,
this is my mirror.
The Kaaba is your most powerful mirror.
It shows you.
It's like a microscope mirror.
It shows you exactly who you are.
So people can see.
Look, I got my shoes stolen in Mecca.
Absolutely did.
And I know they were stolen because I
had a backup pair and those got stolen
too.
It was not accidental.
You don't accidentally take some nice, you know,
shib-shib, some shupples.
No.
Right?
But then in my heart, I said I
forgive that person and I hope that they're
enjoying, you know, whatever bathroom they're in with
my sandals.
Right?
I forgave them.
It's fine.
Clearly I forgave them because I'm talking about
it now like 10 years later.
But the point I'm making is what?
Is that place, Mecca and Medina, may Allah
Ta'ala bring us there, as holy and
as incredible and as sacred as they are.
There are munafiqoon lived with the Prophet ﷺ.
They tried to kill him.
Like we don't ever think that a place
or a position or a status or the
fact that somebody is Muslim or they're a
qari or a teacher or this or that.
We don't think that that preserves anyone's faith.
Not by itself.
No, no, no.
Otherwise, Abdullah bin Ubay, the hypocrite in Medina,
would have been non-existent because Medina would
have changed him.
But instead, in his foolishness, he makes up
lies of infidelity about our mother Aisha.
How could you do that?
In Medina.
In Medina.
Right?
We go to Medina and we're like floating
to the masjid.
We feel so pious.
But there were people there that were absolutely
evil.
There were people there that were evil.
And so, the difference between those people, the
difference between Abdullah bin Mas'ud and Abdullah
bin Ubay, or Abdullah bin Mas'ud was
a great companion.
Abdullah bin Ubay was the leader of the
hypocrites.
What's the difference?
The soul.
The soul.
It becomes your most dangerous enemy when you
obey it.
When you obey it.
We obey Allah, we don't obey ourselves.
I remember I was talking to one of
my teachers one time and I asked him,
Dr. Akram, I asked him, I said, Sheikh,
what happens when you're praying and you're just
not in the mood to pray?
You're just not feeling it.
You know?
And I was kind of embarrassed to ask,
but as soon as I asked, all the
other students put their pencils down.
They're like...
So sometimes, we all have problems.
And that's okay.
You're human.
I'm human.
Right?
But we have to seek remedies for these
problems.
So I asked him, I said, what happens
if I want to pray?
I'm praying, but I'm just not feeling it.
The khushu is not there.
I'm barely hanging on.
And he said, I'll never forget his answer.
He said, this prayer, the prayer where you
force yourself to get up and pray might
be the most sincere prayer that can be
offered.
I was shocked.
I was like...
Because he kind of has an accent, so
I was like, did I understand him correctly?
And then I go, Sheikh, I said, I
think I misheard you, Sheikh.
I said, did you just say it's sincere?
And he goes, yes, of course.
I said, Sheikh, I'm not understanding.
Can you help me understand?
Because I don't understand.
He said, to get up and pray when
you don't feel any motivation to pray is
truly worshipping Allah.
It's the truth.
Like, that's why when you pray after Allah
has given you what you've been making du
'a for, that's a really sincere prayer.
Because it's kind of easy to get up
and pray at the prospect of begging Allah
for something.
Okay, let me go ask Allah for this
promotion or marriage or this.
Let me go ask Allah for curing, for
shifa.
Let me go ask Allah.
When you have that, it like launches you,
right?
But then after he gives it to you,
after you get what you've been praying for,
and everybody here, by the way, I don't
want a single person to sit here and
say, oh, I haven't had that.
No, you do.
You have.
You've prayed and gotten something.
Take a second and think about it.
You've prayed for something and gotten it.
It may not be everything and that's okay,
right?
That's okay.
But you've prayed for something and gotten it.
Think to a time in your life when
you were begging Allah for something, health, happiness,
family, job, college, whatever, and Allah gave it
to you.
How did it affect your devotion afterwards?
Sometimes you become negligent because all the motivation
has been now, it's been achieved.
Like I got what I needed, right?
I got what I needed.
So my teacher, one of my teachers, Sheikh
Akram, he said, when you get up and
pray, in the absence of that motivation, you
are worshiping Allah.
He said, we don't worship feelings, we worship
Allah.
You don't worship your feeling.
You don't say, okay, I feel like I
want to pray, I'm going to pray.
No, you worship Allah.
You pray, even if you have no motivation
to pray, you get up, you make wudu,
the water is cold, right?
There's people, you're in public, it's not comfortable,
it's not ideal, the carpet smells, right?
You do it.
So anytime you're listening to a khutbah and
you can't understand or anytime you're in a
masjid and you're like, man, or anytime you're
in a situation that it's not fitting you
perfectly, remember that your worship of Allah in
that moment is the most sincere worship.
You're sticking it through.
You're doing it for nothing else.
There's no side reason.
One weekend, so on Fridays here, for the
kids, so this should not apply to anybody
here, we give cupcakes and juice boxes.
But I know times are tough and you
guys are on your lunch break and a
calorie is a calorie, right?
So subhanAllah, we give cupcakes and juice boxes
and I think one week, we like messed
up or something on the order and it
didn't show up in time and this dad
was trying to explain to his kid.
His kid was super disappointed and that's like
the worst.
I think I gave khutbah because I made
the announcement too because I thought it is
on autopilot.
Like we do Instacart.
It's here.
Alhamdulillah, we're good.
And I made the announcement.
I was like, there's cupcakes.
So the kid, of course, like ran.
I didn't even give salam in the prayer
yet.
I was like, I just hear like, you
know, kids running.
And then the kid comes back and he's
like, you know that angry cat face?
And I'm like, and the dad's like, it's
okay, it's okay.
And he's like, no.
He said, and the kid calls it cupcake
masjid, this place.
Sounds like a Mario like location.
Let's go to cupcake masjid.
So he calls it cupcake masjid.
He was really upset.
And his dad was trying to explain to
him.
The kid's like five.
The dad's like, we don't come here for
this.
And the kid's like, I do.
Like you come here for something else.
Like this is why I come and deal
with this stuff.
I don't want to listen to Hagrid talk
for 30 minutes.
Like I want to have a cupcake.
So in that moment, and it's tough, you
know, because when you have kids, teaching sincerity
is very difficult, right?
Now the dad was embarrassed, but no one,
no one's judging the dad.
Like this kid's five.
You know what I mean?
Like the angel is not writing for a
few more years at least.
And so, and so no one's judging, but
we laugh because it's cute.
But how many of us fight that same
struggle?
We're just better at hiding it.
Like as an adult, you're like, yeah, let's,
let's still go.
Do you want to go?
Or are you like negotiating inside?
Right?
Do you want to pray first?
Or do you want to, yeah, I guess
let's pray.
Is that like the most sincere way to
approach that?
Let's get it over with real quick.
Let me, let me just do it now.
Right now.
I'm not talking about praying on time, praying
early, right?
Isha now comes in at like 640.
Alhamdulillah.
You know, like it's nice.
Of course, it's good.
As-salatu ala waqti.
Hadith says pray on its time.
But sometimes the way we approach it is
very, even if we're doing something that looks
good on the outside, it's still very nafsical.
It serves like a ulterior motive.
Right?
So don't obey your nafs.
Work on that.
Work on saying no to yourself.
If you want to stay up late, go
to bed early.
If you want to go to bed early,
stay up and pray.
If you want to spend on yourself, spend
half of what you thought you were going
to spend and give the other half to
charity.
If you want to eat, if you're excited
because you ordered food and it's going to
be good and you're, it's coming and your
roommate is there or your friend is coming
over and you're like, I'm going to eat
before they get here, right?
I want to make sure I have this
burger to myself.
Take the knife out right there, cut the
burger in half and put out two plates.
Just defeat yourself.
Conquer your nafs.
Before your nafs has a chance to defeat
you.
Get yourself used to the idea of conceding.
Because then it becomes normal.
We're all so impressed by the Ansar of
Medina.
You hear the story of how the people,
the Muslims from Mecca moved to Medina.
And you hear these amazing stories.
Like one of them was like, you know
what?
Here, take half of my wealth, take half
of my business, take one of, take half
of my house.
And there's a part too that's a little
bit tricky culturally.
So we're going to, I'm going to say
it quickly and move on.
He's like, I'm married to two wives.
I'll divorce one, marry one of them.
Not culturally my cup of tea here.
But, they were so in this mindset.
They were so in this mindset of like,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
That he was like, I will give you
half of my life.
And the brother, by the way, he said,
I'm good.
You know, he's like, I'll get married on
my own.
I'll get my own business.
I'll get my own house.
I appreciate the gesture.
Thank you.
But, you know, may Allah reward you.
Okay.
Again, different culture, different time.
So he said, SubhanAllah, the Ansar of Medina,
they were so attuned and so used to
being those that gave.
وَيُؤْثِرُونَ عَلَىٰ نفُسِهِمْ وَلَوْ كَانَ بِهِمْ خَصَاصًا They
were like, so used to it.
That that was part of their disposition.
But they only got there because they had
already, they had already defeated their nafs.
It's not an accident.
It's not a miracle.
Right?
It's hard work.
The miracle is everyday when you work on
that.
May Allah Ta'ala give us Tawfiq.
So then, he says, what's the path to
get there?
Number one, in every situation, in every matter,
where the truthfulness of this matter is not
clear to you, if you don't know what,
what the right way is, then you have
to go back to the Book of God.
You have to go back to the Qur
'an.
And you have to go back to the
Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, his life, his
example.
And to those people, the righteous forbearers, the
companions, and those scholars that we have.
You know, everything that you've learned, every secular
science, every point that you have digested in
your school, in your college, in your university,
everything was gathered and compiled and delivered to
you by people that came before you that
worked hard.
And it's the same with religion.
Like, nobody here discovered medicine.
Nobody here discovered law or journalism or teaching.
We are all the recipients of generations that
came before us.
We study the theories and the work of
those that built out these sciences so that
we could work on them, refine them, perfect
them, and practice them.
It's the same with religion.
Religion came through the Book of Allah.
It was delivered to us by the best
of all teachers, the Prophet ﷺ.
And then his first cohort, his class, the
people that took from him, the Sahaba, were
the best of those who modeled how to
live this life.
So if we have a confusion on anything,
and this is a very important point because
the nafs will tell you like interesting things.
Oh, you live in Dallas.
It's 2024.
Like, what does Amr bin Khattab know about
Dallas?
I mean, in the summer, Dallas and Saudi
are pretty similar, right?
And Medina.
But what does he know about living in
Dallas as an American?
What does Abdullah bin Masood know about me?
You know, 2024.
Like, what does he know about that?
No.
We believe that, yes, some rulings were built
to adapt with time to fit with certain
issues.
But the core of our legal system is
for all times.
It's universal.
It's classic.
It doesn't go out of fashion.
It doesn't go out of style.
It's always there.
So we go back and refer back to
those things.
And then he says, if it's still unclear,
let's say that you've gone and asked and
tried to figure it out and you still,
your heart, you know, the hadith is ما
حاق في نفسك Like, your heart is still
like rattling.
It doesn't feel comfortable.
He said, then go to the person that
you trust.
That their faith and their intellect, it's good.
You like it.
It satisfies you, right?
So you have a teacher, you have somebody
that you look up to.
They understand you.
This is also, by the way, I want
you guys to know something.
Whenever you ask someone a question, you're like,
hey, I have a question.
Okay, what is it?
Okay, so my sister and her cousin, which
is also my cousin, and her husband, they
have a dog.
Really cute.
And the dog, and you go out on
this long path.
And they're like, is it halal?
By the end I'm like, the dog?
Is the dog halal?
No, no, no.
Is my job halal?
I'm like, where did the dog come in?
They're like, oh, it's a quick question.
Okay.
The answer that you're going to get from
somebody miskeen like me, because I'm not really,
but someone like a scholar, is going to
be very, very vanilla.
It's going to be very, very neutral.
Because they don't know you yet.
Right?
And that's why whenever a teacher says like,
hey, why don't you send me some details
so I can kind of get a better
lay of the land?
Can you email me?
Do you mind emailing me some of the
finer points here?
What's your relationship like with your work?
Do you have the ability to quit your
job?
Some people are like, should I quit my
job?
I'm like, I don't know.
I don't like it.
Should I quit?
I'm like, I have no clue what your
situation is.
One girl, may Allah bless her, she's hilarious.
She goes, I can definitely quit.
I'm good.
I was like, okay.
She's like, so you think I should?
I was like, I think you think you
should.
I'm not saying anything.
I'm just going to hit that ball right
back to you.
She's like, I'm good.
I'm good.
Like financially, I'm set.
Like Baba's got me.
I'm like, okay, Baba's got you, then just,
but there are some people that Baba doesn't
got them.
No, really.
I mean, I'm saying that very seriously.
Some people are like, should I quit?
I'm worried.
And the first question is, will you be
okay?
And if they're like, no, then it's like,
okay, we have a different plan for you
then.
So then you go and tell your friends,
oh, I heard this.
Oh, he didn't tell me that.
Oh, she didn't tell me that.
Fatima didn't give me that answer.
Well, because you're different people.
Fatwa is like, and this is not Fatwa,
but giving answers is, it's a custom fit.
Like my clothes.
I'm joking.
Custom fit, right?
I had to.
Listen, he's watching from Turkey.
Wallahi, every time I don't wear his stuff,
he sends me a picture of the Moroccan
thobe.
He's like, why are you, I can make
this for you.
And I'm like, I'll wear your stuff, man.
Wallahi, I'll wear your stuff.
Okay.
He's amazing.
Okay.
It's not a flex.
It's actually very cheap, by the way.
So, don't think that I'm impressive.
Okay.
But the point being is, answers in Islam
are custom fit.
Okay.
They're custom fit.
If it's unclear, go and talk to somebody,
and get the opinion of that person.
They have to be trained, by the way.
You're not going to be like, hey, I
have a question.
The person has to be trained, just like
any other field.
They have to be certified, licensed, with a
sanad, with a teacher, going back to the
Prophet, peace be upon him.
And then you explore the question.
Let me give you some details.
Wallahi, the people that take the time to
give details, concisely, and they say, this is
this, this is that, here's my situation, here's
my family dynamic, here's my job situation, here's
whatever.
Those people, those brothers and sisters, they get
the best answer for the situation.
And it fits like a glove.
It's perfect.
Everyone feels it.
May Allah make it easy.
So, always seek out counsel.
The lesson here is to seek out counsel
in these scenarios.
The steps to taqwa.
We're going to go through the first couple
and then we'll do a Q&A, Inshallah.
Number one, always make sure that you're acting
according to what you know.
It's, I think this is enough, honestly.
I mean, if you acted according to what
you knew, what does this mean?
You have to give yourself some credit.
You know, we all, Alhamdulillah, we know enough
to be good people.
We know enough.
Like, if you're in a scenario, I mean,
the reason why we feel guilty and the
reason why we feel remorseful when we make
mistakes is because we know better.
You know that phrase, like, I know better?
That's pretty true in a lot of scenarios.
Like, you know better.
If you don't know better, then guess what?
Allah doesn't even hold you accountable.
Allah Akbar.
Allah doesn't, if you didn't actually know better,
then Allah lets it go.
Allah only holds you accountable in the scenarios
where you didn't act according to what you
know.
If I didn't know that it was time
to pray, if I didn't know, then I'm
not held accountable until I come to know
that it's time to pray.
Does that make sense?
So, whatever you know, don't sell yourself short.
Allah has given you a good base of
understanding.
When He put Iman in the heart of
a person, that Iman comes with, like preloaded,
right?
Comes with a general moral compass.
Most of the decisions that you make on
your day to day, you probably would get
the answer if you chose the answer, you'd
get a hundred percent on the quiz.
Should I say this?
Should I do this?
Should I watch this?
Should I?
All those things you probably know.
Should I watch Game of Thrones?
You probably know that you shouldn't.
Right?
You probably know.
Now, you might do it and that's what
he's saying here.
Saying all of us live in this really
difficult space.
It's like this awkward space between acting based
on what we know and doing things that
we know we shouldn't.
And the truly pious person, let me give
you the makeup of a pious person, okay?
A pious person, number one, they try to
act according to what they know is right.
Number two, they do their best to stay
away from what they think and they know
is wrong.
And number three, when they make mistakes and
they do make mistakes, they immediately repent as
soon as they come to their senses.
They repent to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
They go back to Allah.
Now, this is for individual indiscretions, like individual
sins.
If I miss Fajr, right?
If I do, if I sin against Allah,
that's different.
If I commit a sin against somebody else,
there's obviously recourse, right?
There's ramifications.
But this is talking about your day to
day, okay?
If I listen to something or said something
or did something or watched something, those are
my individual sins.
So make your actions according to knowledge.
You can never become a person of taqwa
if you don't start acting based on what
you know.
Islam can never remain theory.
That's one of the issues with like studying
Islam in the universities.
Universities are the bastions of theoretical knowledge, right?
That's why after you get a degree, you
have to go to school more to get
trained because undergraduate degrees are just like theory.
And then you go and you get your
training, your internship, your fellowship, your, you know,
the internship at your job probably taught you
more than college, yes?
Because it's like applied, right?
The medical school taught you one thing but
then you went and you did your thing
or the education and then you went and
student taught.
Student teaching for a year teaches you way
more.
I'm a teacher, I know.
I got my degree in education.
Student teaching in the south side of Chicago
for one year taught me way more than
going to college for four years.
We sat there and talked about PJ and
Vygotsky and I'm like, who?
Right?
I know who they are, right?
But I was half asleep.
So the point being is all the theoretical
stuff won't work.
All the theoretical stuff won't work.
You know, there's that famous saying that, you
know, everyone's tough until they get punched in
the mouth kind of thing.
Like, everyone thinks that they're good until they
have to apply what they know.
Until they have to apply what they know.
May Allah protect us and give us success.
The next, if you're having trouble which we
all do, right?
The makeup of a pious person is three
things.
Doing what you know, staying away from what
you know is bad and making mistakes and
then repenting, okay?
So in that third category when you're repenting,
how do I, okay, how do I stop?
Or how do I at least lessen that?
Like, how do I lessen that?
How do I change the way that I
move?
How do I change the way that I
talk?
The way that I dress?
The things that I do?
How do I do that?
I want to do that.
Good.
MashaAllah.
May Allah give us success.
Number one, you have to think about, right?
Do what you know.
Number two, you have to always remember how
close Allah is to you.
You know, one of the ways Allah describes
himself in the Quran is close.
I think that's very interesting.
It's interesting because proximity changes behavior.
Proximity changes behavior.
Now, we know that Allah is not like
us.
So like, I'm close to the brothers right
now.
Like physically close.
I'm closer to you than I am to
like Oscar, right?
And Ayman.
I'm closer to you.
That's a human experience.
Allah's closeness is different than that because he's
not bound by time or space.
Allah is not bound by any limitation.
So his closeness never changes.
Meaning Allah does not become less knowledgeable.
Like for example, I can see very clearly
what Madak is wearing.
But I can't see quite as clearly what
Ayman is wearing because my proximity is different.
But Allah's knowledge doesn't change.
He knows everything about everybody, everywhere, all the
time.
And with that knowledge, behavior changes.
If I can see something up close, then
the person that I can see, they act
like it.
They know.
They're not gonna slouch, right?
The people who usually, why do all classrooms,
the front row, like there's people standing and
there's still three seats here empty.
Because people don't want to be in close
proximity because it demands a little bit more
change of behavior, right?
Okay.
But if you remember that Allah is always
watching, your behavior will never ever dip.
Your behavior will never dip.
One of my teachers, Sheikh Ehab, he said,
if you ever wanna do something haram, he
said, before you do it, it was so
funny, he said, before you do it, and
he was kind of being cute, he's like,
yeah, you wanna do that?
And we're like, and he's like, before you
do it, just say Allah is with me
and go.
And we're like, Sheikh, that's really awkward.
He's like, exactly.
He said, that's taqwa.
He said, the person that remembers that Allah
is watching them and can still go, that
person has very, very serious problems with their
heart.
Sometimes you just have to imagine.
One of my other teachers, he said, imagine
that Allah is watching you.
One of the students actually said, Sheikh, I
struggle because Allah is not human, and I
know He's merciful and forgiving, and so I
struggle.
And then he said, okay, imagine on the
day of judgment, you presenting this deed to
the Prophet himself.
I committed this sin, I give it to
the Prophet.
Ya Rasulullah, I did this.
You taught me not to do it, I
did it.
And my classmate said, okay, that's enough for
me.
I don't want to do that.
I don't want to present to him that
I did this.
Right?
Was it worth it?
So remember how close Allah subhana wa ta
'ala is to you.
Number three, taqwa.
Remember, that when you prefer Allah, Allah will
prefer you.
If you choose Allah, Allah will choose you.
What does this mean?
Taqwa is about giving up circumstances that you
want.
Like you want that, but I know, and
because I remember Allah, I'm gonna hold myself
back.
When you, like, figuratively decide, I'm not going
to do this for the sake of Allah.
You know, you just entered now into a
contract with Allah, and Allah's contract is never
broken.
لَا يَخْلِفُ الْمِعَادِ He never breaks His promise.
What is Allah's promise?
That He will give you better.
When you give up something for Allah, when
you do that, as soon as you commit
to that, and you say, no, you've now
signed on that dotted line.
Allah says you're gonna get better.
And wait, and watch, and watch.
I was talking, subhanAllah.
Man, I love when, like, my life just
feeds into hard work.
I was right there, literally on that carpet,
standing, talking to a brother on Saturday night.
And, trying to figure out how to frame
this.
Okay.
So, this brother, non-biological brother to me,
he has a biological brother.
Okay.
So this brother was telling me about his
brother.
And they were having a conversation.
And his brother is doing really well.
His brother, mashAllah, at work is like, I
mean at work, he owns the company.
His company is doing very well.
Okay.
They are, mashAllah, like blowing up.
Figuratively, for the CIA that's listening.
They're blowing up.
Okay.
They're doing very well.
Killing it, for the CIA that's listening, metaphorically.
Okay.
So, and then, he made a very, mashAllah,
generous contribution to the purchase of this building.
Very early on.
And, since then, we're friends on Instagram, like
we, you know, and in real life.
I should say that first.
We're friends in real life.
But I also follow him on Instagram.
So I see these, like, achievements.
And I see these, like, posts and whatever.
He's getting awards.
He's giving keynotes.
He's doing all this stuff, mashAllah.
Okay.
May Allah increase him.
And I'm sitting there, and I haven't thought
anything by the way.
I'm not sitting there and I'm like, hmm,
you know, I'm just kind of like, hey
man, good.
You know, sending him like the fire emoji.
Like, fire, fire, fire.
You know, 100, 100, 100.
Two hands clapping.
Hands praying.
Dua hands.
So, I'm just like the emoji, you know.
And his brother, the younger brother, says to
me, he goes, you know, I was talking
to, you know, he says his name.
He goes, I was talking to him.
And we were talking about, you know, Qalam,
and whatever, and roots, and da, da, da.
And he goes, it's been, you know, two
years since we've, you know, been blessed to
help, you know, be able to get this
property, et cetera.
And he goes, I can't help but think
that after my brother made that contribution, all
of these good things started happening to him.
And he goes, I told him that on
the phone.
He goes, don't you see?
All these awards.
You wrote a book.
You got, you're on the advisory committee for
this.
You're on that.
You're on that.
Your business is, he goes, don't you see?
And the brother was like, what?
He goes, you only got that after you
made the donation.
Like he made that connection.
You preferred Allah.
And that made me remember something very powerful,
and that was we were at a corner
bakery.
The donation was very large.
And I don't want to make a big
deal out of that because everyone's donation counts.
It was, if it's large to you, it
matters.
That's all that matters.
But his donation was considerably large.
Okay?
We're talking like half a million.
MashaAllah.
We're in the corner bakery.
Okay?
You know what he says?
He's on the phone with his financial advisor.
And he goes, hey, I need to make
a wire.
Donation for the CIA that's listening.
I need to wire, you know, $500,000.
It was so large that they had to
do it across two days.
He goes, I need to wire this much
money.
Financial advisor is like, what are you doing?
I hear him, by the way.
He's like, he's not Muslim.
He's like, what are you, can we talk
about this?
This is not projected in your budget for
this year.
Da, da, da, da, da.
You know, he's probably some like IDF reservist.
And so he goes like, and so he's
like, please, you know, let's reconsider.
And the donor, the donor, I'm trying to
not say his name because Mashallah, he's very
private.
The donor says, no one has ever gone
broke by giving charity.
Allahu Akbar.
And I'm sitting there and I'm like, takbir,
brother.
Like, like that's a khutbah.
Like he literally says that.
maa naqasa minal maal as-sadaqah.
The Prophet said, no one ever lost wealth
through charity.
You believe in the promise of the Prophet,
peace be upon him?
Do you believe him?
I mean, do you think he was a
liar or truthful?
He's truthful.
We never say he's a liar.
If you prefer Allah, Allah will prefer you.
How many times have we seen this story
play out?
How many times?
And the beginning of Allah preferring you is
that you feel the pleasure of knowing that
you chose him.
You feel it.
You know, you might be driving away from
something that all your friends are doing, but
you feel different.
You feel fulfilled.
And you know that three hours later, had
you gone and come back, you would have
felt empty and vacant and horrible.
When you're driving away and you can still
hear the excitement and the voices of their
plan, but you know for you it was
better not to go, that feeling of winning,
of beating your nafs, you can't replace that.
You can't replace that.
May Allah give us Tawfiq.
Okay, we're going to do some Q&A
inshaAllah.
There's a few more steps, but I don't
want to rush through them because they're each
very, very important.
So, we'll go ahead and close up for
now.
We have about five minutes before we're going
to break for Isha inshaAllah.
So, I'm going to open up the Q
&A.
It's not open yet, so give me just
one second.
If you go to slido.com and you
type in...
Sorry, one second.
Let me open it.
I know, I know, I know.
Give me one second.
We'll do a rapid fire round inshaAllah, four
minutes of questions.
Okay.
Go to slido.com and type in the
code heartwork.
Okay, it should be working.
Bismillah.
It should be working.
Type in heartwork at slido.com.
Okay, we have four or five minutes inshaAllah.
Quick raise of hands.
How many people the slides helped?
Did the slides help tonight?
Alright, we have a lot of visual learners.
Okay, good.
Me too.
Okay.
Alright, Bismillah.
Question number one.
What two Islamic books...
Why two?
So interesting.
What two Islamic books would you recommend for
mental health and self-improvement?
So, we're gonna just assume that the Quran
is number one.
So, I'm not gonna...
I'm gonna assume that that is the foundation.
So, I can give you two more.
Right, so the Quran.
And I mean the Quran in a couple
of ways.
Obviously, the content of it but also the
blessing of it.
The blessing of it is very, very real.
And so, make sure that you have some
daily regiment with Quran.
You know, they say get your steps in,
get your sunlight in, get your this in,
skin care, da-da-da.
Get your Quran in.
Get your daily Quran in.
Number two, I would say there's a book
by Dr. Jinan Yusuf called Reflecting on the
Names of Allah.
That book is low-key a banger.
MashaAllah.
She put together one of the most beautiful
compositions about the summary of all the 99
names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and
their explanation and their daily practical application.
Jinan Yusuf J-I-N-A-N Yusuf,
I think it's Y-O-U-S-S
-E-F.
I think that's how she spells it.
But if you look on Amazon, it's there.
It's called Reflecting on the Beautiful Names of
Allah.
That one is amazing.
She did a phenomenal job.
So, she's obviously MashaAllah, still you know, she's
contemporary.
Classical There's a lot to choose from.
Classical books are tough because you should always
read them with a teacher because the understanding
and the language is a little tough.
I'll give you another contemporary one.
So, we read it in Ramadan in the
early hours by Khurram Murad.
Really good.
So, these are good for like self-improvement,
mental health, both very good.
Okay.
Someone said, please, no more marriage questions, y
'all.
Thank you.
I'm going to pin that one to the
top.
Alright.
How do I know I made the right
choice after Istikhara?
Great question.
Istikhara is the dua that you make and
then you move forward believing that whatever happens
is what Allah has chosen for you.
So, there's really no like, oh, you know,
sometimes people wait for something like a dream
and it's possible but the default for Istikhara
is you move forward.
Okay.
Which one should I choose?
Oh Allah, you make the dua and Istikhara
you make the whole prayer and then you
wake up and you make moves.
Whatever ends up happening is what Allah Ta
'ala facilitated for you and that is what's
khair.
Allahu A'ala.
Can a haram relationship become halal if stopped
to become halal?
Yes.
Yes.
Absolutely.
If you have a relationship that is currently
not according to Islamic values then the best
thing you can do for that relationship is
reassess it with an Islamic values lens.
Okay.
And that means, okay, because maybe your compatibility
in the haram status would not do well
in the halal status.
That's a really tough but honest conversation.
Maybe what brought you together in the pre
-halal phase is not what's gonna make you
succeed.
Okay.
So you first have to assess.
It's almost like you have to act like
you don't know each other again.
Okay.
That being said, it is possible.
Is it guaranteed?
No.
Because again, the values are shifting here.
The values are shifting.
Okay.
So you have to kind of like give
it an honest discussion about, okay, what do
we want?
What is my relationship with Allah?
And I will be very honest with you
and frank here.
It's not always easy.
And if one is way more on board
than the other, it's not a great sign.
Okay.
And I know that it's tough.
But remember, remember this.
It's better to deal with the difficulty on
the front end than later on the back
end.
It's much, much better to deal with the
difficulty on the front end.
May Allah Ta'ala make it easy.
Is it permissible for you to have a
dog as a pet?
For me, personally, no.
So dogs are not haram themselves.
Dogs, there's a little bit of complication.
As a pet, I think we have to
define what you mean by pet here.
The general ruling for dogs as pets is
that it is anywhere from impermissible to not
advisable depending on the legal school, generally speaking.
So that's where you're kind of living.
Now there are some concessions that are given
for certain things like protection, like hunting, like,
you know, maybe like someone that's helping someone's
quality of life or like a service dog.
Those can be made.
Those are concessions though.
Just because they're cute, you have to be
very, very careful because of the amount of
impurities that they carry and what that can
do and how it can affect your prayer.
That's really the big thing.
So what I would say is if you
don't have one, don't get one.
You can still like sponsor them and you
can go play with them.
Like that's fine.
Right?
As long as you wash up and stuff.
Just don't get one if you don't have
one.
If you have one, then come see me.
We'll talk, inshallah.
Okay?
And we'll figure it out.
Don't see me today because I have to
run but see me at some point, inshallah,
okay?
How should you deal with parents that are
always negative about you?
Okay.
So Martin Luther King Jr. said that whenever
we deal with transgression or oppression, we always
first have to ask the question, am I
responsible for this?
Right?
And that's Martin Luther King Jr. saying that.
Meaning there is probably no greater residue of
oppression than the Civil Rights Movement of the
United States.
But he's still saying, I have to ask
myself, am I responsible for this?
Of course the answer in his case was
no but whenever you deal with any aggression
or transgression or oppression, you have to ask
yourself that question.
How much have I contributed to this?
Am I contributing to it?
If the answer is yes, then first rectify
yourself.
If the answer is no and you're not
going to be able to determine that all
the time, sometimes you got to have an
outside party do that and I tell you
like yes or no.
If the answer is no, then you should
have a conversation whether it's one-on-one
or facilitated and arbitrated by somebody else to
try to work on that.
I think generally speaking, most parents, most situations,
they want to love their children.
They want to give love to their children.
It's just a communication gap.
It needs to be bridged.
May Allah make it easy.
Okay, last one.
Make the slides not black and bigger font
please.
Sorry, that was like the aesthetic designer in
me.
Can you please teach these men how to
men?
I didn't know that was a verb.
MashaAllah, our brothers, I'll say this.
The brothers that I see here, mashaAllah, that
are attending every Monday, that are here, that
are coming, that are learning, that are setting
up, these are men, right?
Hom-rijal, mashaAllah.
They are men, okay?
And I don't like any of the gender
like making fun of each other.
Oh, women are this, men are that.
I don't like that stuff.
That's not how the Prophet ﷺ carried himself
in Medina.
That's not how he raised the greatest of
generations.
He didn't do that.
He didn't talk down to one another, okay?
So I would say that all jokes aside,
what we should do, and again, we don't
have to be like, like I don't want
sisters walking and be like, hey, king, like,
you know, yeah, go pray Isha, king.
Like, you know, thanks, queen.
Like I, that's, for some of us, but
I'm not trying to encourage like we don't
need this, you know, we want to keep
obviously a good barrier of gender, but at
the same time, we also don't have to
be disparaging.
Like that's not Islamic whatsoever.
Okay, that's not Islamic whatsoever.
May Allah ﷻ protect us from that, okay?
Okay, let's go ahead inshallah and break for
Isha.
Jazakumullahu khairan everybody.
Barakallahu feekum.
May Allah accept.
I do have to run because my wife
is coming here for class.
So I do have to ask for Q
&A to be held off because I got
to go because she has to make it
here in time.
Barakallahu feekum everybody.
Jazakumullahu khairan.
Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.