AbdelRahman Murphy – Heartwork Guided Steps To The Path Of Allah #23
AI: Summary ©
The importance of patient and avoiding actions of abused is emphasized in the conversation. forgiveness is a decision made by the Prophet salGenerationu alayhi wa sallam, and finding the best person for a marriage is crucial. cultural struggles and struggles with emotions are also discussed, and a special guest is taking a class to give a recap of the class.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum, as-salamu alaykum, as
-salamu alaykum everybody.
Okay, everyone go to slido.com, slido, okay,
and type in HW quiz and then the
number one.
So HW quiz, one word, and then the
number one.
We're going to do a quick poll.
So you need to rank these.
You guys see it?
Oh wow, okay.
Okay, so we have question number one.
In its best iteration possible, so we're talking
about the best version of each.
Okay, rank the list of foods from your
favorite, number one, onwards, two, three, four.
So we have burgers, pizza, tacos, and sushi.
Alright, quick, we have one minute.
If you want to take this quiz, you
got to fill this out.
We got another question.
Huh?
The password, so when you go to slido
.com, it's HW quiz one.
HW quiz and then the number one.
Slido.com, HW quiz one.
Okay, burgers are in the lead by a
considerable amount.
Alright.
Okay, timer, we got 30 seconds left.
Burgers, pizza, sushi, or tacos?
Oh wow, sushi just overtook tacos.
Texas is crying tonight.
Oh wow, okay.
This is like a happy election.
You know the election night coverage?
This is like a happy version of it.
We're just all talking about delicious food.
I purposely left out the crowd favorites of
biryani, nihari, matluba, shawarma.
Oh wow, we have, guys, 160 votes.
I'm impressed, but we can do better.
It's true, voter turnout is the problem.
That is the issue.
Alright, 15 seconds.
Alright.
Alright.
Okay, so we have, mashallah, the winner for
the best food in its best iteration is
burgers.
And then pizza, sushi overtook tacos.
That was actually a really exciting thing to
see.
I'm surprised that sushi didn't get higher.
Really close to pizza, look at that.
Okay.
Alright, next one, are you ready?
Okay, which superpower would you choose to have?
Number one being the most, and then two,
three, and four onwards.
Wow, okay, we got a creep right here
already.
Mind reading.
I'm joking, I'm totally joking.
Teleportation, mind reading, flying, and super strength.
And invisibility, so there's five here.
These quizzes are always so tough.
I see people fighting, arguing, friends becoming enemies,
enemies becoming friends.
Okay.
Alright, ten seconds.
Teleportation has a strong lead.
That's actually crazy.
I know, mind reading had a strong early
lead, but then kind of fell.
And then we have super strength.
Alright, five, four, three, two, one.
Okay, mashallah, we have teleportation with a commanding
victory over invisibility.
Flying and invisibility tie.
Oh, flying just overtook, subhanallah.
Wow.
And now they're tied, alright.
Oh gosh, they keep going up and down.
I didn't put one.
I know everyone's superpower would be to destroy
Zionism.
I didn't put that one because I knew
that that would just be number one automatically.
I have to make these jokes before Trump
gets inaugurated because then it'll be illegal.
Okay, bismillah, next one.
What is your dream vacation or dream vacation
spot?
Like what is your dream vacation?
Number one, tropical beach.
Number two, mountain cabin.
Number three, quiet countryside, big bustling city, or
a road trip across the country.
Okay, bismillah, here we go.
After this
exercise, I'm going to sell all of the
data to Google.
And your ads are going to be compromised.
Alright, 20 seconds.
This is pretty intense.
Oh, wrong one, sorry.
Alrighty.
Okay, mountain cabin, mashallah.
A clear winner.
Makes sense, you know, when you live in
Dallas, the flattest of the flat.
Then you yearn for something that you don't
have.
Tropical beach.
Number two, quiet countryside for the hopeless romantics
amongst us.
Bustling city for those Plano kids that want
to go to New York for six months
and then move back to the suburbs.
And then road trip across the country as
if Texas is not big enough.
Okay, alhamdulillah.
I just thought it'd be nice for us
to kind of get to know each other.
Who's in the room, right?
Like kind of get an understanding.
Maybe if we do more of these, we
can make them a little bit more serious
and more thoughtful.
But, you know, it's always good to kind
of have a lighthearted moment.
We do have also our Q&A open
right now.
So if you go to slido.com and
you type in heartwork, inshallah, then you can
get access to our Q&A.
And you can ask questions, bismillah.
Okay.
Let's go ahead and get started tonight.
All right.
So we stopped here last week.
Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wassalam wa ala rasoolillah.
Welcome home, everybody.
It's good to see you.
Alhamdulillah.
Welcome to Roots.
We're reading through Imam Mohasibi's text, Risalat al
-Mustashideen, which is his spirituality playbook, his spirituality
guidebook on how to get closer to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala in a practical way,
to be able to follow the steps and
climb the ladder toward the best version of
yourself.
And we're currently going through one of his
lists.
Towards the end of his book, right, he
kind of was building us up the entire
time.
You know, scholars talk about the importance of,
you know, to empty oneself out and then
to fill oneself up, right?
They say that there's a process of cleansing
and then there's a process of filling.
And so Imam Mohasibi began his book following
the process of cleansing, that he talked about
all of the blameworthy traits that people carry.
And he mentioned that some of these traits
are things that we have, right?
Anger, backbiting, you know, suudhan, having negative suspicions
of people.
These are all examples of things that we
struggle with.
And really they, you know, the tragedy about
these things is that they hold us back.
They hold us back from having, maintaining real
relationships and being people that we want to
be.
And so we, you know, we wonder why
we struggle with friendships, but then we don't
challenge ourselves with how we behave ethically in
those friendships.
You know, we don't tell the truth and
we wonder why people don't trust the things
that we say, etc.
Okay, so he first focused on the process
of cleansing and emptying out.
And then now he's turning the corner in
his book and he's saying, well, this is
now that you're clean, now that you are
pure, this is how you fill yourself with
good substance, right?
The scholars kind of also gave an example
of the heart being like a glass.
And that glass, in order for you to
appreciate it and to drink from it, you
have to first make sure that that glass
is clean, right?
And so they did the purification and now
we're climbing this ladder towards Allah by filling
ourselves with some good nourishment, some virtue.
So he's going through the steps of taqwa.
And he has a long list, but it's
some consolidation for us to keep it brief.
We went through the first couple.
We talked about making your actions according to
your knowledge, right?
The big takeaway here is that most of
us, right?
Most of us in most scenarios, sorry, I'm
gonna get my iPad.
Most of us in most scenarios, we know
what is the right choice and the right
decision to make and we know what is
the wrong choice and the wrong decision to
make, right?
There's a reason why when we do something
wrong, we look over our shoulders.
There's a reason why.
Because we're aware.
When you make a genuine mistake, genuine, sincere,
you don't know.
In that moment, you're not really concerned if
people see you because you don't feel the
impending guilt of the action.
But the fact that when I do something
and I'm concerned about being noticed or I'm
concerned about being caught or I'm already trying
to formulate in my mind the excuses and
the lies about why I do these things,
that's a sign that you know from the
get-go that this is not the right
path.
And this is why the Prophet ﷺ, when
one person came and asked him, Ya Rasulullah,
how do I know what is right, what
is wrong?
Obviously, we know that the religion tells us,
the Qur'an gives us guidelines, the Hadith
give us guidelines, right?
Islamic law, Sharia give us guidelines.
But the Prophet ﷺ gave an interesting answer.
He said, whatever disturbs your heart, whatever rattles
you, مَا هَاكَ فِي نَفْسِكَ whatever bothers you,
because that's not to say that everything that
disturbs you, that's not the litmus test for
halal, haram, that's not it, right?
The litmus test is legal interpretation, Qur'an,
Hadith, etc.
But the Prophet ﷺ was telling the guy,
look, you know.
Like you know, you know, when it's Fajr,
it's time to pray, and your alarm wakes
you up, and you're super tired, and you
reach over and you hit the snooze button,
and you know, like, I know that this
is not going to lead to a good
spot.
I know that if it comes from, if
it's coming to me wanting to pray my
Fajr prayer, I know that this is not
going to get me success, right?
But in that moment, the desire to sleep
overtakes the desire to be close to Allah.
And that should be something that bothers us.
We know that it's not the right thing
to do, right?
So there are moments where we can catch
ourselves, and that's why it's not about necessarily
gaining an infinite amount of knowledge, and becoming
an encyclopedia.
The idea that knowledge will save you, Imam
Ghazali actually wrote an entire book called Ayyuhal
Walad, he wrote it to one of his
students, and basically the first half of the
book, he said, if you think knowledge alone
will save you, you're going to be very
surprised.
You're going to be like a very, very
intelligent sinful person.
You'll know a lot of stuff, but you
won't have the discipline to be able to
stop yourself.
There's actually a funny story, I love telling
this story because it just shows the realness
of the companions, of the Prophet ﷺ.
There's a companion by the name of Khalid
ibn Walid radiAllahu anhu, which many of you
maybe have heard his name before.
Khalid was a master military leader.
He was a general.
Unlike whatever history might have to offer in
terms of military generals and strategists, Khalid is
a legend.
He's so much of a legend that he's
actually in video games.
There was a video game, I forgot what
it was, Age of Empires?
Long time ago, I'm 36.
There was a video game called Age of
Empires, and one of the characters you could
pick was Khalid ibn Walid, right?
And that just shows you, this video game
was made by some mainstream tech company.
That shows you that he was respected for
his military strategy.
So Khalid ibn Walid, and on top of
that of course, beyond that, he was an
incredible companion.
He was a dutiful companion to the Prophet
ﷺ.
He was a wondrous, I mean really, one
of the greatest stories about him is that
after the death of the Prophet ﷺ, when
Khalid was leading the expansion, the expedition of
the community, he was given a notice.
He was given a notice from the Khalifa
of the time to basically step down.
And without complaining, without arguing, he figuratively and
probably literally just put his sword away.
And when they asked him, like, why would
you do that?
You know, you're undisputed, you're the number one,
like, we need you.
He corrected and reminded that person and said
that, I am just one of the servants
of Allah.
And if I'm used, if I'm asked to
be used, I will do my job.
But if I'm asked by my leader to
step down, I'll do that too.
So imagine being like the best at what
you do, and being asked to take a
seat, and watching those that are not as
good as you, step up and fill your
role.
And imagine the potential arrogance that could be
inflamed in the heart of that person.
I mean, for those of you who watch
basketball, like, you see, they bring a superstar
onto a team, and they mention, like, are
you okay coming off the bench?
They start laughing, right?
They're like, bench?
I didn't come here to come off the
bench, right?
Because they don't want that.
It takes a lot of humility.
It takes a lot of humility to not
be part of the starting five.
Okay?
So Khalid, he had that.
So you would assume, with that kind of
spiritual strength, the ability to kind of, like,
shut it down and just be, fade into
the background and not be the main character
anymore, you would assume that Khalid probably had
a lot of knowledge, right?
He was probably one of the most knowledgeable
of companions.
Well, Khalid, there's an interesting story, and that
was that one time he was leading an
expedition, and it came time to pray.
And they were deciding who should lead the
prayer.
And because he was the general, because he
was the leader, you know, the people behind
him kind of, like, pushed him forward.
And he was hesitant.
He didn't want to do it.
And then they said, no, no, no, you're
our leader.
You have to.
So he went up there, and he led.
He started leading.
In the first raka'ah, like many of
us, he read, قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ وَلَمْ
يَكُنْ لَهُ كُفْوًا أَحَدٌ That was it.
He read Surah Al-Ikhlas, one of the
short chapters, right?
For those of us who don't know it,
one of the short chapters in the Qur
'an.
And he led with that.
And then he went to Ruku.
He continued his prayer.
He got up for the second raka'ah,
finished Surah Al-Fatiha, right?
وَلَا الضَّالِينَ آمِنُوا بِاسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ قُلْ
هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ وَلَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُ Some of
you are like, wow, I feel so seen
right now.
You know, like him and me, neighbors in
Jannah, right?
He read the same chapter twice.
It's basically the story.
And this was the first time that these
companions had ever experienced that before.
Exactly the same passage.
And so they finished the prayer, and they're
all kind of like, man, we definitely should
not have pushed you up to lead, right?
They're regretting it because why?
Not because they didn't know if what he
did was okay.
Is it allowed?
I mean, some of you might not even
know.
Like, is it allowed to read the same
thing twice?
In the first raka'ah and the second
raka'ah?
Can you do that?
I don't know.
I see some people nodding.
Some people are nodding, like, aspirationally, like, hopefully.
Like, yes, please.
Otherwise, I have a lot of stuff to
make up, you know?
I see some people shaking their head no.
Like, no way, that's cheating.
They're angry, right?
Strong sense of justice in the room.
So this is the same feeling that they
were having.
They were kind of debating.
And Khadr was embarrassed.
He was embarrassed because this was all his
fault.
So they actually go back to the Prophet,
peace be upon him, right?
As Allah in the Quran says, رَضُّوا إِلَى
اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ Take it back to Allah and
His Messenger.
Like, if you have a question, go back
to Allah and His Messenger.
So they went back to the Prophet, and
they asked him, يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ You know,
Khadr was leading us, and he read this
chapter in the first rak'ah, and then
the second one, he read the same thing.
And the Prophet, peace be upon him, he
said that this is okay.
It's permissible.
It's not a problem.
It doesn't invalidate the prayer, right?
Some people are fist-pumping right now.
And now, that is not a prescription.
It is a description.
But listen to what Khadr said.
This hadith so far, by the way, the
reason why you, I know this is because
you study this in fiqh when you're studying
the book on prayer, one of the questions
that comes up is, is it permissible to
read the same thing in the first rak
'ah and the second rak'ah?
So they use this hadith as evidence that
yes, it's okay.
But the end is so heartbreaking.
It's so heartbreaking.
You know what Khadr says?
He says, I only did that because I
don't know anymore.
Isn't that so profound?
Because he said, I only, I am out
there defending you.
He was talking to those companions.
He's like, you guys get to spend all
of your time sitting in the masjid of
the Prophet, in Medina, studying and learning and
memorizing.
And he said, I envy you.
I envy you.
But he said, my job is to go
out there and protect my community, right?
We don't have a standing army.
You don't have the military.
I have to go out there and make
sure that people that are trying to invade,
people that are trying to come conquer, that
we push them back.
Why?
So that we have a place called home,
a safe place called Medina.
And so he said, I read this because
this is all I know, because I haven't
had time to sit and study like you
guys have.
So thinking about all that now, who would
ever make the claim that Khadr's faith was
weak?
We know he didn't have a lot of
knowledge because he said it himself.
But would you ever say that his faith
was weak?
No.
That would be the foolish, most foolish thing
a person could say.
So what we understand is that a little
bit of knowledge can go a long way.
And if a person can act on what
they know, they're better off.
But if a person knows nothing and acts
foolish, that's not good.
If a person knows everything and acts foolish,
that's also not good.
If a person knows something modest and they
act on it, that's the best case scenario.
And the more you learn, the more you
act.
Okay?
There are kids that memorize the Quran, the
whole thing, in like two years, sometimes even
under two years.
Right?
Somalis in the house?
Anybody?
Right?
Under two years.
Okay?
And they can commit to memory the entire
Quran, mashallah.
Eighteen months.
It's serious.
That's a serious thing to do.
Abdullah bin Umar radiyallahu anhu, the son of
Umar, he took eight years to memorize Surah
Al-Baqarah.
It's a long surah, but it's the second
surah.
But imagine, eight years to memorize the whole
thing versus some Pakistani kid in Buffalo, New
York, memorizing it in like 16 months.
Okay?
Why?
What's the difference?
The difference is that when they asked him,
why did it take you so long to
memorize it, he said, every verse that I
memorized, I refused to memorize the next one
until I acted on what I memorized.
There was once a story of a companion
that he came to the house of a
person and he knocked on their door.
And as the person came to answer the
door, he got upset.
He said, God!
The person answered the door like, you knocked!
Why are you upset?
And he said, there's a verse in the
Quran where Allah tells us that if you
knock on the door and they don't answer,
then turn around and go away.
And he goes, I want to act on
every verse in the Quran and you ruined
it for me.
Wallahi, it's sahih hadith.
He used to go down and try to
like knock on the doors of companions so
that someone would not come so that he
could walk away and say, okay, now I've
acted on every verse that I know.
That's how they understood the Quran.
That's how they got it.
Like it wasn't just a book that was
hanging from their rear view mirror in a
print that is illegible or something that they
held over the heads of brides and grooms
as they walk out of the hall, right?
I told you guys one time I did
a nikah where they were like, they were
doing the exit and I did a nikah
and I'm just sitting there and they're like,
they came running to me.
Do you have a mushaf?
Do you have a Quran?
I said, no.
And they said, how can you not have
a Quran?
I was like, it's a crazy assumption to
make of all imams that we just walk
around.
I said, first of all, like we all
have it on here, right?
I was like, what do you need it
for?
They're like, we have to carry it over
their head.
I said, you don't have to, but I
said, I understand in your culture if you
do that, but I said, don't say you
have to.
And I was like, can I just open
the app and we just float that above
their head?
They're like, no, it's not the same.
And then they were like, what do we
do?
And I was like, ask the DJ.
All right, he's like, they found one in
someone's car.
But the sad part, by the way, these
are all true stories.
Anyone who thinks I make stuff up, like
I'm hurt.
Like this is all true.
I could show you so many, SubhanAllah.
We'll get there.
The reason why I'm telling you these stories
and we're not laughing at people, but there's
a sense of bizarre understanding when we turn
the Quran into something beyond what it is.
Revelation from God is meant to guide.
It's not a decoration.
It's not meant to be, we have it
over here.
We have it, but these pieces, these art
pieces, we have an intention to put, InshaAllah,
plaques underneath them that explain them because that's
the real purpose.
They're beautiful, but they're so much more beautiful
if you understand it.
And the beauty of understanding, it makes the
actual art itself seem so much more, I
guess, not as important once you understand what
the actual verse is saying.
Okay?
So make sure that you act according to
the knowledge that you have.
Focus your soul by remembering how close Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is to
you.
Anytime you feel your soul wavering, anytime you
feel, have you guys ever been on a
boat before?
Anytime you feel yourself drifting away, make sure
that you know that your anchor is out
there.
Your anchor is Allah.
You want to make sure that you're anchored
to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la.
Make sure that you know that.
We did this last week.
And we finished here.
Know that whoever gives preference to Allah, Allah
prefers this person.
Right?
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will
prefer this person.
There's an incredible, there's an incredible line that
one of the scholars mentioned about preference.
And he said that whoever obeys Allah and
gives up something for the sake of Allah,
he says that the scholars say that Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will never
ever, if a person sincerely gives it up,
there's a big if here, but whoever gives
up something for the sake of Allah, the
Prophet peace be upon him said that Allah
replaces it with something better.
Okay?
This is a promise.
And the scholars elaborate further and they say
that Allah will never cause pain in the
heart of a person for giving something up
that they did for the sake of Allah.
Okay?
Now, there's some people in the room nodding.
There's some people in the room looking very,
very skeptical.
Now let me explain to you something.
Okay?
I understand the idea that a person can
feel pain by giving something up that they
want.
I get it.
Right?
Like this is like saying that the person
who fasts in Ramadan, they don't feel hunger.
It's not exactly true.
Right?
You feel hunger.
Like we all feel thirsty.
We feel hungry.
The first couple of days you have the
headaches, you miss the coffee and all that.
Okay?
But what the hadith is saying here is
this.
When you truly commit to giving something up,
that commitment fills the void otherwise that the
pain would be filling.
That commitment fills it.
Have you ever done something for somebody that
you really loved but the action itself is
a painful action?
Have you ever done something for somebody that
you really loved but the action itself in
isolation, like you remove all the characters, it's
a painful thing?
Like for me, like I let my daughter
jump on me.
Okay?
So today she jumped on me.
It hurt.
A lot.
Like she's not, you know, she's powerful.
Right?
She literally, I was laying down with my
son, we were reading and hanging out and
then all of a sudden she goes, and
she just comes in and jumps on me.
It hurt a lot.
But the laughter was more pleasurable than the
pain.
Right?
Do you understand what I'm saying here?
Like the person that's standing up, the Prophet
peace be upon him, he tells us, there's
a hadith of the people that they got
caught in the storm and the boulder came
and moved, the boulder came and blocked their
exit and they made dua to Allah, oh
Allah, I did this one deed sincerely, if
I did it, please move the boulder and
the three of them all had sincere deeds
and it moved.
One of them was what?
The guy that stood there at the bed
of his parents while they were sleeping because
they fell asleep early with food waiting for
them, staying up all night tired while his
kids, right, his wife and his kids were
like, they're sleeping, let's just eat and go
to sleep and he was saying, no, I
have to stand here and wait till they
wake up.
And he stood there all night not listening
to the plea of his wife and kids
saying, just let us have it, let us
have it.
And he said, no, they need to make
sure that they have food if they wake
up.
What if they wake up hungry and they
have nothing for them?
And at the end of it, he said,
oh Allah, if I did that for your
sake, move this boulder and Allah moved the
boulder.
Because why?
Because the pleasure of serving his parents in
that moment, it overtook the pain.
This is what it means when you give
something up for God.
When you pass something up, you are allowing
yourself to experience the pleasure of submission in
lieu of the pain of indulging your nafs.
Right?
Now here's the trick, okay?
Because I know a lot of us are
still like not sold on it.
Here's the trick.
You have to ask yourself, if you are
sort of lost on how this feels or
how this is possible, ask yourself one thing.
And the hadith uses a very specific word.
You can't give something up unwillingly.
You have to commit.
You have to commit to it.
If you give something up begrudgingly, none of
this works.
It doesn't work.
Giving something up begrudgingly is like forgiving somebody
begrudgingly.
I forgive you, but I still hate you.
Right?
Yeah, I'll never forget how you treated me.
Is that really forgiveness?
Is that really forgiveness?
Yes or no?
No.
That's petty forgiveness.
A person does wrong, you say I forgive
you, but the next time you see me
say, never forget I forgave you.
I know we're all experiencing trauma from our
parents, right?
Never forget I forgave you.
Every time you bring up your forgiveness, you're
proving what?
That you haven't actually forgiven.
Because when you forgive, part of true forgiveness
of somebody is what?
You behave and act in a way that
you forget even that it happened.
Right?
You forget.
The person feels shy, they feel upset, they
feel maybe a little bit remorseful, but you
walk in the room the next day after
the forgiveness, and you are like, let bygones
be bygones.
Like we're good.
Right?
The Prophet peace be upon him, when he
forgave people, they would come up to him
and he would completely, almost act as if
he had this like forgetfulness.
But he knew, but he would forget.
No, no, no, it's fine.
We're all good.
It's the same thing with committing.
When you commit to give something up for
Allah, when you prefer Allah and you give
something up for His sake, you can't hold
on to it.
You can't pull something that you're giving up.
You have to throw it.
You have to say, I'm done.
And only once you've committed to it, فَإِذَا
عَزَمْتَ فَتَوَكَّرْ عَلَى اللَّهِ You get rid of
it.
And then you trust in Allah.
You don't know where, how, when, why.
Any of those questions are still to be
determined, but you know what?
I'm in good hands.
I'm in good hands because I believe that
Allah will fulfill His promise.
That's all I need.
That's all I need.
You have a good friend, hey, come over.
I haven't eaten dinner yet.
I got food.
Don't worry about it.
Are you like, what do you got?
Send pictures.
When'd you order it?
Is it cold?
Right?
No.
That shows that you're not that close.
You're not that close.
The minute someone says, what you got?
You're like, okay, nevermind.
Don't come over anymore, right?
You're not close anymore.
But if someone says, come over.
I haven't eaten.
That's okay.
I got food.
You're like, I'm at the door.
That's true friendship.
You walk in, doesn't matter if it's cold,
hot, doesn't matter if it's what you wanted,
what you did, That's true friendship.
May Allah give us true friendship with him.
All right.
The next is to realize that in every
scenario, you have to seek help with Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
There is a baseline level of weakness that
we all struggle with.
Okay?
Everybody in here is weak.
And from time to time, like Allah gives
us reminders of that.
Okay?
Have you ever had to use the bathroom
really bad?
My mom always told us growing up.
She would, when we struggled, right?
On road trips and stuff.
I have to go to the bathroom.
I have to go to the bathroom.
We'd stop and she, she would always tell
us, she said, look at how weak you
are.
Not like abusive parent.
My mom was always pontificating about Allah.
She says, she goes, and then she would
kind of like make it, she would kind
of make it general.
She's like, how can an atheist exist?
And I'm like, is this some kind of
Egyptian riddle?
Like, I'm like kind of trying to figure
out.
No, listen to her logic though.
She goes, she goes, you are a slave
to something because you can't even control your
body from needing to use the bathroom.
She's like, when your body has to use
the bathroom, you cannot even think straight.
Even the most, even, even the most like
desirous, luxurious, indulgent opportunity.
But if you had some medium rare chicken,
right?
Or if you really need to use the
bathroom, you're like, I can't, I got to
pass up.
I got to pass up on this.
So my mom used to say, how is
it possible that people can't believe that they
are a servant of something when they can't
control themselves?
You can't control even the most basic of
your functions, right?
Now, no one who has to go to
the bathroom is going to get up and
go.
They're all like, right?
So part of that lesson for us is
to seek help in Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala with every single thing that we do.
It's acknowledging that we're weak.
Say it.
Say, I'm weak.
See, only half the crowd said it.
The rest of y'all are arrogant, right?
Say it.
I'm weak.
There is something very liberating about saying, Oh
Allah, I'm weak.
Say, Oh Allah, I'm weak.
Very liberating.
Very liberating.
I still see some people not saying it.
I'm not calling you out.
I am, but I'm not.
But I am.
But, it's because, it's to demonstrate that it's
not as easy as you think.
We don't like to admit it.
Oh Allah, I'm weak.
You know, if you struggle getting emotional in
your du'as, just add this to the
beginning.
See what it does to you.
See what it does.
You've never ever asked or made a request
of anybody assuming that you have it all
put together.
The moment you have to start begging for
help is when you understand and realize that
I actually can't control this.
I have, and that's where we usually turn
to Allah when all of the avenues close
one by one.
All the doors are locked.
That's when we're like, Oh God.
Right?
And we go back to Allah humbly, embarrassed,
lowly.
We say, Man, I thought I had it
figured out, but I don't.
And that's where we have to come to
terms.
Now, what he's saying here is, if you
can just admit this in the beginning, it
makes the whole thing easier.
If you can just understand this from the
get-go, it makes the whole thing easier.
This understanding of, Oh Allah, I am in
constant need.
Right?
You are the one who is free of
need.
Allah has no needs at all.
And we are the ones, Oh Allah, that
we are drowning in need.
Every single moment, I need to breathe, my
heart needs to pump, my liver, my kidneys,
everything needs to work.
I don't know if I told you guys
this, but like six weeks ago I had
a kidney stone.
Right?
Allahu Akbar.
Man, and when they told me how small
that thing is, and how incapacitated I became
as a human being, I'm not joking.
I was at the gym that morning, dead
lifting and squatting, and then on the ground
that afternoon, sweating and crying.
Literally, going to the ER, sitting there, and
I'm like, what can we do?
Okay, this is modern medicine, 2024, you ready?
Solutions for everything.
Modern medicine, are you ready for this?
I go, doctor.
I literally take out my credit card, I
said, whatever you can do.
You know that TikTok?
Right?
Like, I was like, whatever, what's TikTok by
the way?
Uh, whatever you can do.
There's a point where you're like, I will
figure it out.
Right?
You have your friend starting a GoFundMe, look,
you're like, I will figure it out.
Right?
I'm not making fun of, by the way,
that scenario, but I'm just saying like, there's
a point of pain where you're not thinking
straight.
And I go, what can we do?
And I'm assuming she's going to say something
like, we have this shot, it's called the
kidney stone blaster, right?
Instant relief.
I'm assuming this.
You know what she says to me?
Well, she looks me dead in the eye,
she smiles, she goes, nothing.
I said, nothing?
She goes, you know what?
All you doctors are phonies, right?
I'm like, what do we do?
She goes, you just wait.
I said, and what?
She goes, I'm going to fill you with
fluids and then go to the bathroom, right?
That was it.
I said, this is the best we got
for kidney stones?
She said, at this point, you're in the
midst of it, you just got to deal
with it.
I said, subhanAllah, Allah, I'm weak.
I'm weak.
Like, what do I do?
And then I go, how big is this
thing?
Is it a bowling ball?
Like, how big?
She goes, it's smaller than half of a
grain of sand.
I said, Allah, I'm weak.
Allah, I'm weak.
And everyone here who's laughing, chuckling, just wait.
When you have yours, I'm not wishing it
upon you.
I'm not wishing it upon you.
If you have one, you'll remember this story.
You'll remember it.
And you're going to say, oh, Allah, I'm
weak.
Oh, Allah, I'm weak.
So seek help with Allah in everything.
It's very, very difficult to do this if
you don't come to terms with your weakness.
Okay?
Embrace it.
It's okay.
It's okay to ask for help.
It's okay to be there.
It's okay to seek help from Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Okay?
The next step, stop trying to reject what
Allah has facilitated for you.
This is a very interesting statement.
Okay?
Because normally, we chase things that Allah has
not facilitated for us.
So we put ourselves constantly in the search
of things and we hope and pray, oh,
Allah, give us this, give us this, please
give us this.
Right?
And we're constantly looking for those new things.
Sure.
Right?
There's an element there, and dua, and trust,
and hoping, and aspirations, and yearning, but you
know what else?
There's a very important step to taqwa that
we don't talk about often, and that is
understanding that what Allah has put us in,
there's a reason why we're there.
There's a reason why we're there.
You know, one of the jokes that I
make, which is not really a joke, but
it kind of helps lighten the mood a
little bit.
Whenever something goes wrong, you know, you miss
a flight, or I told you guys about
my water heater that exploded, you know, last
week.
All of these situations, I jokingly slash not
really jokingly tell people that are there, you
know, this is why Islam is so amazing
because we believe in Qadr.
You know, and I believe that there's nothing
that I could have done to stop this.
And submitting to that point is something that
gives me so much, takes away all my
stress.
Right?
Because the biggest, the biggest inceptor of stress
is what if.
Law.
The Prophet ﷺ, he said that Shaytan lives
in the nucleus of the phrase if only.
If only.
Shaytan loves that phrase.
He uses it as frequently as he can.
He wants us to be afflicted with the
disease of law.
Right?
Because he knows that if we can start
questioning if only, what if, if only, what
if that the next step, the unspoken, the
unsaid of that statement is, why did Allah?
And that's a question that Shaytan is very
good at.
Right?
Why did you command me to bow to
Adam?
خَلَقْتَنِ مِنْ نَارُ وَخَلَقْتَهُ مِنْ طِينٍ That's Shaytan's
fatal flaw.
Why?
Why Allah?
Why?
And in that rejection of Allah, Shaytan found
his destruction.
So he says here in Muhasibi, he says,
if you want to be successful in your
relationship with Allah, you have to have a
response to two things.
Number one, is you have to be able
to understand and trust that whatever Allah has
not given you, it's okay.
You're allowed to work for it.
You're allowed to put yourself there for it.
But subhanAllah, at every point, you're gonna face
rejection.
You have to be able to have something
to remind you that this is okay.
It's fine.
Okay?
But there's the other side of that coin
and that is that there will be moments
and times where Allah will put you in
situations that you wish you were not there
for or that you wonder what is your
purpose there?
Right?
Why am I here?
And subhanAllah, you might, in your yearning to
change, you might be missing the point of
your existence in that moment.
Right?
There are some people, for example, that are
working jobs right now that are like, I
don't want to be there.
There are some people that are going to
grad programs or schools that are like, I
really don't want to do this but I'm
just doing it for my parents or whatever.
Right?
Or I don't really want to do, be
a part of this.
And Allah has facilitated this for you.
In fact, other people might actually be making
dua for this.
And Allah opened the door for you to
have that.
And instead of saying, okay, you know what?
I'm gonna understand Allah's divine decree here.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna submit to it and
I'm gonna do the best that I can.
Instead of that, the person says, no, I
don't want this.
Ibn Ata'illah, he says that this statement
of pushing away Allah's decree is almost as
bad as questioning why Allah didn't give you
something.
Pushing away what Allah gave you is almost
as bad as questioning why Allah didn't give
you.
So any situation you find yourself in, if
you're sitting at your desk on a Tuesday
morning and you're saying to yourself, man, why
am I even here?
Right?
This existential question, this dread that you're suffering
from, and you're looking, you're scrolling on Instagram
and you're seeing your friends, right, in Tulum
and you're like, wow, and this person lives
in Denton, so they really upgraded, right?
And you're just, like, sitting there and you're
filled with just this feeling of, like, man,
I wish, or you see your friends now
going to Umrah next week, or do you
guys remember the summer of Turkish weddings for
non-Turks?
Do you remember that?
Where every American Muslim went to Turkey to
get married?
I don't know if you guys remember that.
Okay, luckily, you guys have good friends.
Anyways, all of my friends, right, who got
married, and you look at your life and
you're sitting in Dallas, Texas.
It's 107,000 degrees outside and you look
at the sun and you are frying and
your friends are saying, and you're saying to
me, man, why did I do it?
Subhanallah.
Allah puts you in a room with air
conditioning, with a fridge with food in it,
with cold water, and you're questioning why you
have this.
Allah has given you more than most people
even have or will have in their entire
life.
Don't reject what Allah has facilitated for you.
Instead of complaining, instead of looking at what
if, what if, look at what I have
and give yourself the reminder that Allah Ta
'ala has facilitated this for you, okay?
Let patience accompany you in every situation.
This should be step number five on the
list.
Let patience accompany you in every situation.
All of these steps require a person to
be able to bear patiently with things that
they don't like.
This is really the path of taqwa.
If you could summarize, this is why Allah
in the Quran, He says, استعين بالصبر والصلاة
He says that seek your assistance in life
in any scenario.
All of your assistance is going to come
with two things.
Number one, patience, and number two, prayer.
You have to be a person of patience
before prayer.
Isn't it interesting by the way how Allah
Ta'ala put prayer after patience?
You would think like, okay, maybe Allah would
say, استعين بالصلاة والصبر Wouldn't that make more
sense?
Yeah, you would think, okay, prayer and then
patience.
Maybe prayer leads to patience.
No.
Well, the order for this is very unique
because why?
Because in order for a person to be
able to submit and humble themselves to pray,
they first have to be a person that
is willing to persevere.
You have to.
Otherwise, while you're praying, your heart's going to
be rattling all over the place in agitation
and frustration.
Be a person of patience.
Let things marinate.
If we walk out of here with one
lesson about patience, and I always love talking
about patience to a mixed demographic audience because
why?
I always see older people nodding their heads
and I see young people looking away.
Young people don't want to be told to
be patient.
I can tell you this.
I'm 36.
Ten years ago, someone says, be patient.
I'm like, get out of here.
Right?
Because patience is naturally difficult.
It doesn't land well on a young soul.
But the older you get, the more you
realize that patience is actually the only way
to become successful.
You can't become successful by rushing things.
You can't have delicious food without waiting for
the marination and the process and the cooking.
Restaurants that want to sell you on a
delicious meal don't say we cook this in
30 seconds.
They say this was cooked for 24 hours.
This marinated for three days.
It was brought here from the waters of
Lake Minnetonka.
It was this and that.
It's the journey, the distance, the time.
That's all part of the currency of the
experience.
When people tell you it took so long
for this to get here, what they're telling
you is what?
We had to have a lot of patience
for this moment.
But then you pull up to a Whataburger,
which I don't think is permissible, by the
way.
No one brags about having Whataburger.
No one's like, what did you have tonight?
Oh, I had the good stuff.
What?
Have you been to Whataburger?
Open anytime.
It's not something you brag about.
No one goes to Taco Bell and posts
about it.
Have you guys ever been like, oh, phone
eats first over a chalupa?
Like, no.
You do that when you have a very
nice dish, nice sushi, something, whatever.
You have Taco Bell.
You're eating that in the dark so no
one knows.
And then going to sleep quickly so you
forget, right?
Waking up, why you're wondering why my stomach
feel this way, okay?
So all these analogies, they bring us back
to that point, which is what?
If you can't be patient, you're never going
to have good things.
An impatient person will constantly struggle.
They'll always ask why, why, why.
Patience, subhanAllah, the scholars say, مفتاح الخير If
a person wants to open the doors to
goodness, they'll be patient.
And they'll wait and they'll see.
May Allah Ta'ala make us those who
are patient and be gentle with us.
Alright, this is a big one.
We're almost done, by the way.
This is a big one.
Avoid the acts that you hate in other
people.
This is tough.
This is tough.
I'm going to let this one kind of
sit for a second.
Avoid the acts, don't behave like how you
hate to see other people behave.
You know, one of the spiritual principles, like
the spiritual maxims that we have in Islam,
is that we tend to see things that
we recognize.
Okay?
So the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, how
many stories have we told of his beautiful
soul?
SubhanAllah.
How many stories have we told where the
Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam saw objectively, objectively,
this is not my interpretation, this is objective,
he saw the most horrendous of people.
And everyone around him, everyone around him, saw
this horrendous individual, but something within him saw
something good.
You know, the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam,
he used to make dua to Allah, he
used to say, Oh Allah, bring honor to
Islam.
Or is it Islam?
بِأَحَدِ الْعُمَرِينِ By one of the Umars.
And here, it was a dua asking for
the conversion of one of two people, Umar
ibn al-Khattab or Umar ibn al-Hisham,
who was also known as Abu Jahl.
Okay?
So he was asking for the conversion of
two people, one of two people.
Oh Allah, bring honor, like strength, to this
community.
If you let one of these two guys
convert, we're good.
Right?
Meaning like, it will support us, it will
give us strength, it will save us from
the harassment that we're suffering from, the oppression,
the tyranny at the hands of Quraish.
When he made this dua, literally the companions,
their jaws dropped.
They figured to, Oh Rasulullah, at least, you
know, be reasonable.
You know, ask for somebody else that actually
has a chance.
No seriously, that was their response.
There was one time, subhanAllah, there was a
companion, a sahabiah and her husband, they were
leaving, and Umar, he ran into them.
He ran into them.
Actually, the story goes basically that they were
making hijrah, and the husband, you know, and
the wife were on their way out, and
he ended up forgetting something, so he left.
So then Umar, he went, and he saw
this random woman standing in the middle of
like the outskirts of town, right, think Denton,
okay, and he goes to her, and he
says, What are you doing here?
Like she's just standing there with like a
donkey, and like some luggage, you know, like
some bags or whatever, maybe some supplies, and
she's just waiting, and she doesn't know what
to say, because like, he's like a Muslim
abuser, like he kills Muslims, like, this is
like what, they hunt Muslims in Mecca this
time, this is not like a joke, like,
if you tell this person like, I'm Muslim,
it's like, oh, you know, your life is
at stake, so, but she just felt so
fed up, she was so fed up, that
she couldn't hold it in, she said, you
know, we're leaving, we're leaving Mecca, this is
their home, right, they've been here for like
decades, we're moving, he says, why?
She says, because of people like you, just
calls him out, right, and he's like stunned,
and she just goes off on him, the
narration says, she's like, you know, you don't
let us worship in peace, and this and
this, and just goes off, okay, and he's
just standing there quiet, and he responds to
her, the first words out of his mouth,
is, may Allah be with you on your
journey, because the Quraysh still believed in Allah,
but they believed in Allah with other idols,
so he says, may God take you on
your journey, right, Allah ma'ak, And then
he leaves her alone.
She's standing there kind of like, I can't
believe I just defeated the bully.
And her husband comes back and she goes,
you're not gonna believe what happened.
He goes, what happened?
She goes, I was standing here and Omar
came and he goes, oh my God.
Because again, he's like a Muslim hunter.
And then she goes, yeah.
And he goes, what did he say?
And she said, well, he asked me, what
are we doing?
And he goes, what'd you say?
She goes, I told him that we're leaving
because we're Muslim.
And he goes, why would you do that?
Because he thought that he's gonna come back
and hurt us now.
And she goes, no, I like yelled at
him.
And I told him that we're leaving because
of people like you.
And the husband's shocked.
And then she goes, you're never gonna believe
what he said.
And the husband goes, what?
And she goes, no, no, you're not gonna
believe it.
And he goes, no, no, try me.
And she goes, he actually said, may God
take you on your journey.
And the guy starts laughing.
He said, Ibn Khattab said that?
Ibn Khattab said that?
She said, yeah.
He said, man, I knew you were crazy,
but she goes, no, he said it.
And he says, Ibn Khattab's donkey will become
Muslim before he becomes Muslim.
Which in English sounds a little bit kind
of flat, but in Arabic, it's a banger.
Trust me, okay?
The Himar Ibn Khattab would accept Islam before
Ibn Khattab, right?
All the Arabs would drop their tea.
That's hilarious, okay?
So the thing that's crazy about this is
that the Prophet, peace be upon him, was
able to see this in him.
It's really profound.
He was able to see the goodness in
him.
He was able to see the goodness in
people that couldn't even see the goodness in
themselves.
Like they were self-deprecating, maybe low self
-esteem, low self-worth, right?
The famous narration of the Prophet, peace be
upon him, going up in the middle of
the marketplace and covering the eyes of a
companion who was known to be not very
attractive, okay?
He kind of had some physical attributes that
were not going in his favor.
And the Prophet, peace be upon him, says,
Mayash shariha thal abd, who wants to buy
my servant?
Who wants to buy my servant?
And the guy started kind of freaking out
because he's like, oh my God, I'm being
sold into slavery.
And the Prophet, peace be upon him, he
said that I looked up and I saw,
the man, the Sahabi, he said, I looked
up and I saw the Prophet smiling and
I knew it was a joke.
And then so he said, he says, Nobody
would see me as valuable.
He goes, look at me.
Nobody wants to buy me.
Prophet, peace be upon him, said, With Allah,
you're priceless.
People can't see your value, but with Allah,
you're so invaluable.
People can't even put a price on you.
Allah Ta'ala has you in such a
high status, high maqam.
Understand that people can only see what they
have.
Why was the Prophet able to see, peace
be upon him, goodness in everybody because he
was nothing but good?
So now ask yourself the tough question.
Why is it that we see so much
bad in other people?
Why?
This is not talking about seeing bad in
objectively bad things, right?
Like no one's sitting here saying that we
should see wrongdoing and say, it's not a
problem.
No, the Prophet saw something called out wrong
when it was wrong.
But I'm talking about in the neutral space,
in the gray zone.
Do you typically assume the worst or the
best of people?
Which way do we go with that?
If it's a coin toss, why did somebody
do something?
Why did they say something?
Why did they not say salam?
Why did they walk past me?
Why did they not include me?
Why, why, why?
If those questions in your life typically end
up in the negative side of interpretation, that
might be an indication of something.
That might be an indication that there's a
problem there because you only can see what
you have.
That's why the most beautiful people see beauty
in the ugliest things.
And the ugliest people, all they see is
ugliness in the most beautiful of things.
May Allah Ta'ala make us beautiful.
Because if you are beautiful, all you see
is beauty.
InnaAllaha jameel wa yuhibbul jamaal.
Allah is beautiful and he loves beauty.
May Allah Ta'ala give us the ability
to be beautiful and to see beautiful things.
So avoid the acts that you hate in
others.
Don't become a witness against yourself.
Don't be a person that looks at somebody,
says, why do they do that?
And then find yourself doing something, the same
thing.
In fact, this is a promise of the
Prophet of Allah.
He said, peace be upon him, that if
you mock somebody for a sin that they
do, the mockery of that, Allah promises that
you will not die until you've done the
same thing.
Because you're not allowed to deride or ridicule
somebody for a mistake that they make.
When you see a sin, there's a couple
options.
Number one, you try to figure out, okay,
what's going on.
Number two, you make du'a for the
person.
Number three, if it's something that you can
help resolve and solve, you do it.
And if it's not, then you try to
advise that person if you're in that position,
but if you're not, then you pray for
them.
Maybe try to find a solution outside of
yourself.
Maybe you're not the right person.
Maybe you advising them is not the right
way.
Maybe if you brought it to them, it's
gonna make them defensive, but there's somebody else
in their life that you know that they
respond better to.
So you go to that person, not backbiting,
you say, hey, I saw this person struggling
with this thing.
I think it's best if you address it
with them, but do it in a way
that doesn't put them on edge.
And then see how that works.
We need to be as patient and as
creative with people that are struggling as we
are with people that are not.
May Allah Ta'ala give us that.
Constantly undertake those acts that you would wish
to meet Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la with.
My mom used to be, you guys know
my mom by now, right, all the stories,
but my mom used to be a little
bit intense with this one, but it was
good.
She would always ask me, Abdur Rahman, wherever
you go, just ask yourself, if you die
there, would it make me happy or sad?
As your mother who has to pray janazah
on her son, would I be proud to
tell people that he passed away in this
state, or would I have to hide it?
She would always tell us that.
She would say, never ever go in a
place that you would pass away and you
would hate to be resurrected in that state,
because we know, according to the Prophet, peace
be upon him, that we all will be
resurrected the way that we left.
I remember the Christchurch, New Zealand shooter, right,
one of the lives that he took, all
of the martyrs that he ended their life
with his violence.
I remember one of the most beautiful stories
was when the mother came, there was like
a parking lot full of cars that no
longer had owners, subhanAllah.
And the mother of the son who was
praying Jummah, she came and she turned on
the car and Surat al-Kahf was playing,
because he was going to Jummah.
And she said, like, this was the only
thing that gave me comfort in losing my
son, was knowing that he was lost, he
was taken from this dunya, but he was
in a good state.
So always ask yourself, like, what am I
doing?
We had friends growing up who passed away
coming back from nightclubs, and we had friends
passing away in Ramadan coming back from the
masjid.
Both of their lives ended.
But one of the janazahs, I dare say,
was almost like a sad celebration versus the
other being a very somber, quiet, burial.
The one who passed away coming back from
the masjid, there was this nur that was
in the building where, as much as it
was tragic, the understanding was, subhanAllah, Allah took
this person in such a state.
And there was this, I don't want to
say jealousy, but there was this yearning that,
man, when it's my time to go, because
we all have a time, guys.
No one in here should hear about death
and say, like, I wonder.
No, you are gonna go.
I'm gonna go, we're all gonna go.
All we say is, oh, Allah, just take
us in a good way.
Like, when it's my time to go, just
let it be in a state that's good.
Let it be in a position that's good.
Because the loss of being, the loss of
losing your soul to the angel of death
and going to meet Allah in a position
that you're not proud of, it's not a
good start to the day of judgment.
May Allah ta'ala take us in a
good state and give us husn al-khatima.
Oh, wow.
Copy and pasting error.
Okay, we'll do some Q&A inshallah now,
and we will conclude before Isha, which is
in about 10 minutes inshallah.
Let me go ahead and open up the
Q&A.
Okay, bismillah.
First question, not about marriage.
Congratulations, yeah, I know, I'm tearing it off.
Okay, bismillah.
If I escape forgiveness, will that be held
against me on the day of judgment, even
if it's to preserve myself?
I'm not sure what this question's asking.
Maybe if you can resend it inshallah.
If I escape forgiveness, will that be held
against me?
I'm trying to figure out.
Allah knows best.
I'm not sure what the question's asking.
It got 59 upvotes, so if anyone can
explain it, that can help, but.
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
So perhaps it means that if a person
passes away and they haven't been forgiven, like
if you wrong somebody and you're seeking forgiveness
and they don't grant it to you, what's
the state?
Well, the reality is that every single person
in here, if you wrong somebody, you have
to seek forgiveness.
That's what's obligated upon a person.
You have to seek forgiveness, okay?
If that person forgives you, that's ultimately their
decision.
And may Allah make it easy.
I know it's not an easy thought to
have, but your job and the job that
you have alone is to seek forgiveness sincerely.
You can't force anybody to do anything.
You can't change what's in their heart, and
they might have a lot of difficulty.
Forgiveness here also, by the way, doesn't mean
that things go back to the way they
were.
It also doesn't mean that you become best
friends.
That's not what forgiveness is.
Forgiveness is what?
It's one thing and one thing only, that
on the day of judgment, I will not
hold this against you.
That's what forgiveness is.
If a person can say, look, on the
day of judgment, I'm not going to hold
this against you, then that's forgiveness.
It doesn't mean that you're going to be
best friends or all of that.
That's secondary, that's tertiary.
I'm divorced and want to get married again,
but people are so quick to judge.
How do I get past this issue and
be seen like a normal person already?
May Allah Ta'ala make it easy.
It's very difficult, subhanAllah.
I think that there's a couple cultural struggles
that we have in our community.
One of them, of course, is marriage, and
then also not just marriage, but the way
that people are perceived given their circumstances or
their life experiences.
It should be enough to know that the
Prophet, peace be upon him, married women that
were formerly married.
I mean, this is an example that that
should not be seen as any sort of
negative trait at all, okay?
And so if somebody finds somebody that they're
compatible with on every level, and they are
turned down simply because that they were previously
married, then you're turning down somebody that the
Prophet, peace be upon him, would not have
turned down.
And I'm not sure how you're going to
be able to talk to him on the
Day of Judgment knowing that that was the
reason you did it.
So I think that there is a valuable
lesson here, which is that we should look
at people for who they are.
And the Prophet, peace be upon him, advised
us to look at people and to seek
out the best from the traits of piety
and from the traits of compatibility, okay?
And everybody has, subhanAllah, a life that they
are dealing with or have dealt with, and
that should not be something that disqualifies them
in these conversations, okay?
How do we deal with comments about being
picky when looking for a spouse versus the
idea of settling?
Don't be picky and don't settle.
It's that simple.
I will say this, okay?
I'm just debating how much trouble I want
to get into.
Okay, if you are obsessed with the conversation
about not settling, you're probably too picky.
I've been doing this for a long time.
If every conversation that you have about marriage,
the topic about not settling is the thesis,
you probably are too picky.
And it's okay.
By the way, everyone's allowed, everyone, the air
just left the room, everyone, look, everyone, every
single person is allowed to want what they
want.
That's the beautiful thing about Islam.
Like, in Islam, there's no like, there's no
hukum shari' that says like, okay, three rishtas,
and then after that, you have to accept
the fourth one.
It's a hadith, like, no, no, no, no,
like, that's not there.
If you are like, no, this is what
I want, and this is what I want,
and I'm not going to marry anybody unless
they fit these criteria, like, you are more
than welcome to have that and to hold
that line, right?
But you also have to deal with the
reality that you might not get married then.
You have to hold that reality.
You have to hold both sides of that,
right?
If a person, if a guy is saying,
I want to marry a girl that's like,
this, this, this, this, this, I can't find
anybody.
I mean, look, I don't know what to
tell you.
Like, you might have to switch it up
a little bit.
You might have to ask, you know?
This is why they oftentimes, when they talk
to couples, or not couples, when they talk
to people that are looking to get married,
they'll say like, okay, name 10 things that
you need to have, and they write down
10, they say, okay, cross out the bottom
seven.
It's like a really, it's like a really
jarring experiment.
But the fact that a person can even
name 10 things is kind of insane, right?
It's kind of an insane thing.
Half of you are smiling, half are like,
hiding your list of 10 things, like, okay.
Five, five, okay?
So look, you're allowed to keep your standard
wherever you want.
That's your right.
Allah Ta'ala has given everybody that right.
But you are gonna have to come to
a point, if you can't find somebody, and
it's been a long time, you're gonna have
to come to a point where you start
to understand and think about, okay, maybe I
am, maybe I do have to rethink some
of these conditions that I have.
Allah make it easy.
And that doesn't mean that you settle for
things that are against your spiritual health.
Okay, that's the other thing.
You should never sacrifice your relationship with Allah.
I'm talking about preferential things.
Talking about the secondary, tertiary things, not the
base.
Right, we don't make concessions here, okay?
Muslim, et cetera, we don't make those concessions.
I'm talking about the preferential things, right?
Things that people are obsessed with.
Those are the areas that we can start
to knock down a little bit, okay?
We'll do one more and then prayer.
We'll go to Isha, inshallah.
We have a really, really special guest tonight
taking shahada with us tonight, inshallah, with her
family.
So we'll head over to prayer, inshallah.
How do you know someone is your naseeb?
You marry them, and then that's how you
know, okay?
Barakallahu feekum, everybody.
Take care, inshallah.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
We can have everybody line up the back
jacks in the front, inshallah, and then chairs,
yes?
Chairs will leave, inshallah.
We'll stack after, but we can head to
the musalla for prayer, 8.15. So we
have two minutes for iqamah.
Jazakallah khairan, wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.