AbdelRahman Murphy – Suffering And Divine Wisdom
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AI: Transcript ©
salatu salam ala
Sayidina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He was
the dean.
I mean,
how was lunch?
From the law? Everyone's got that like post lunch, like,
the pizza, sleeping pills.
So this session is talking about a interesting topic. And the reason why I say interesting is because it's something that is not exclusive to the Islamic narrative or context. It is something that all you know, faiths in general have been asked about and have to answer the question of, and that is the idea of suffering. Right? Have any of you ever been asked questions about suffering in your face? Mm
hmm. Okay, so it's a very difficult kind of, like, question a lot of people philosophically, struggle with answering this question is that essentially, there's four premises, right, that people present number one is that God is good. Do you guys agree? All right. Number two, is that God Almighty? Do you agree?
Okay.
Third premise
that justice, injustice happens in the world, you guys agree?
So the fourth premise, then is
that God is either not Almighty or not all good.
So that's the sort of conclusion of these premises, right? Because if God was Almighty and all good, then why do bad things happen? Because he's omnipotent. He's all powerful. And he's all good. So the idea is that this is the argument that people present. Okay. Now, there's a couple flaws with this argument. There's a couple of flaws with the conclusion, because there's an inherent flaw with the argument. And that is that the terms being used, Almighty good, are
flawed. They're actually relative, like, what does it mean to be good? What is it what's a good thing?
In the story of my iPhone screen crafting, for those of you who are here, like when it happened, that was obviously very much a bad thing, right? It's my iPhone screen cracked. But I go to the store, and they fix it for free. So had I had any other perhaps like scratches or whatever on that screen, now I'm getting a brand new one. So the thing that I had interpreted to be such a bad thing happening to me, within 24 hours actually ended up being a big blessing. And in that, like frivolous example, we learned something very interesting about our condition as human beings, and that we are inherently limited. This is something that you have to write down rememorize understand and
internalize that humanity is an inherently limited creation. And in that vein, when a limited creation tries to understand and process, the limit lists the infinite, then it's like a glass of water, trying to understand what it's like to be the ocean. Right? Although it has similar properties, that the water in here is wet, and the water in the ocean is wet, they are two very different things. Okay. So the idea is that a person presents that argument, and they're really trying, like, what they're trying to understand is why they can't completely comprehend. Number one, Allah subhanaw taala himself. And number two, the rationale that Allah subhanaw taala has for doing
what he does. Now one of the things that philosophers talk about, and I'm just going to open this up a little bit philosophy, philosophical, and then we're going to go to like more practical, right? One of the things that philosophers and Islamic thinkers talk about is the idea of language. I know I brought this up in the previous talk, but that is that every experience that we have, has some sort of linguistic experience that's coupled with it. Right? So what we call food food, like what do you call food? If you don't call it food? And is it What? grub Okay, what do you call it? If you don't know anything? any language? No, no, you're still using words don't understand, right? yet.
Now you're using different kind of language sign language, right. But the idea is that we are limited, then this is the proof of our of our limitation is that we are limited and understanding things by their language. And that's why I lost pasado he created Adam, what did he say? He taught Adam all of the
akula all the names because that's how we identify and understand and process things. Think about something that you don't know the name of.
Or even like a description of it.
You can't you have to at least be able to describe something. So this is a lot using language. Now. The Koran is a linguistic miracle, to show us what we need to know. But it does not show us all of knowledge. Right? And even in the Quran, we learn what when they ask about the rule, they say tell us about the soul. They went to the Prophet it tells about the soul. Allah told the prophet to respond back to them. What this
From the mood or the element of Allah, it's from the affairs of Allah that we know, but very little. So we don't even know a lot about the soul in general. So the point number one of this talk is understanding and internalizing your limited Miss, you are limited, okay? And Allah smart Allah is limitless. Once we can agree on that premise, then this conversation becomes a lot easier. But the minute someone has the idea, or the notion or the, you know, sort of feeling that I should be able to comprehend a lot in His entirety, right, Jen nawada. How that, however, that may be entirety is another word that's, again, has flawed definition, then that person if they keep believing that
they'll never quite understand. And what this is actually all related to spiritually from the man's perspective is humility. Is that do you and I have the humility to grasp our limitedness? If a person doesn't have humility? I mean, what did shaitan suffer from a disease of envy and arrogance? What did fit out and suffer from a disease of arrogance? What did the quarter I suffer from diseases of arrogance, the opposite of humility, whereas the Prophet Muhammad SAW said them, you know, one of his Hallmark traits was his humility is overwhelming. It is overwhelming humility, to where people would walk into the gathering where he was sitting and say, Yoko Mohamed, like which one of us
Mohamed, because he was so overwhelmingly humble. Okay, so humility is not just a public, a, you know, outward trait of being humble and dressing modestly and think humility is actually a very internally, Imani spiritual trait that people have to have in order for your man to grow. Now, from a Muslim perspective, we believe there are certain virtues to trial and tribulation, and suffering, but we also believe there are certain causes, okay, the first cause is that they are the result of our misdeeds or actions. Okay, so we've made mistakes. And we've then now brought on this trial onto ourselves. And there's a couple of reasons for that. Okay. I don't see anyone writing on us, you
guys writing. So number one is because when you go fishing, right, what do you do? You bring your fishing rod and you go hunting. Probably not a lot of you go hunting, okay. When you go eat, you bring like your utensils, alright? Many of you go hunting anymore. When you hunt for pizza, you bring your fingers, okay? So when you come to class for knowledge, make sure you bring a pen and paper, that's how you're going to retain your knowledge inshallah. So, number one is that we bring it on to ourselves, and that's not like a fatalistic, sort of like, oh, destructive, cynical view. But it's more of a check a reality check that as human beings when we make mistakes, the residual
effect of that mistake is another mistake. It's kind of like a pile up, right, like on the highway. Like if one car is texting the drivers texting and doesn't look up in time, it's the car in front of them. They don't they don't only risk hurting themselves, but they risk hurting the person in front of them and behind them. And if those people don't react quickly enough, the chain reaction could be a lot of cars piled up on the highway. And so our misdeeds tend to bring on difficulties on to us we learned this from Lakota and when I lost Parramatta, he says, in many different verses, one of the verses says that oppression is a reward for the oppression that you used to do. A law will put
sometimes oppressors over other oppressors for the oppression that they did, right? And oppression is when we were here versus like this, we tend to fall in this big disease of the heart, right? Whenever the Profit System describes, like Hippocrates, or this or that, we start thinking about what Oh, I know someone who does that. Right? Or when Allah says oppression, we're like, oh, I know, an oppressor. We're all thinking of like, you know, the typical oppressor, like Michelle said, like all these people, but do we ever put ourselves in the shoes of being an oppressor? So heinola right, when oppression is something that's very, very possible for us to do, and we have to be very careful
with that we have to make sure that we're not oppressing people and not being the volume on people who are receiving that. So number one is that it is a source of ourselves. Number two is that it is a source of the societal difficulties. There's a hadith is very famous called the Hadith of the ship. Okay, so you guys remember those big old ships, they used to have multiple levels, and the people on the top level, they would just kind of chill, eat, hang out, the people on the bottom level? What was their job?
What
was it building? I don't know what that means.
Okay, is it so like, if they were rowing, essentially, right? Can I say that? Okay, rowing Alright, so for the rest of us who didn't study ships or ship or eat right, Mashallah, they essentially the job of the humans on the bottom was to be like a human engine to move it forward. Okay, or to direct it, drive it cetera. So what happened was in this Hadeeth, the puppet system was trying to describe the dynamics of society. He was trying to describe the dynamics of, of community. Have you guys ever heard or felt it's my problem, you don't have to worry about it. That phrase like maybe someone
is being corrected or when we're making a mistake, we tend to pacify our own guilt by saying what? Well, it's my issue. I'm not affecting anybody else. Right? So the problem was when he addressed this, this is an erroneous belief, actually, we're all in this together, the sum number law is that when he created humanity, he made us a group. And part of being in a group is that the action of one affects the actions of the rest, either good or bad, right? So if the action of one person is that, you know, they, you know, they get a great job that has a lot of their family's going to be the beneficiary of that. But if the action of one person is that they do something dumb at work and get
fired, then unfortunately, their family's gonna have to deal with that struggle as well. This is just a son of life like, this isn't. So why do we treat differently any other way? So the the ship is that the Prophet Mohammed Wilson has given this example, this analogy. And he says there are people on the top level, and there are people on the bottom level. He says, the people on the top are eating, drinking, enjoying themselves. The people on the bottom are working really hard, they get hot, when you get hot, and you're working really hard, you get thirsty, when you get thirsty, you want to drink some water. Very good, right? So what do they do? They actually one of them
proposes and says we should just go to the top and get some water from the top level of the ship. And the others have a very noble intention. They say no, no, no, we don't want to disturb them. Why don't we just get water by drilling a hole here in this wood and water will come through, we can drink from that what happens when you drill a hole in the bottom of the ship? Great, none of us need to have studied ship or in order to understand that, okay, so when you drill the hole in the bottom of the ship, it's gonna sink. But the thing was, their intention was actually good. They didn't want to disturb the top. But the decision of a few affected the entire reality of the of the group. And
this is how we have to view ourselves as an ummah. So when we, when you hear a shake, or an Imam or a teacher or a shaker, or somebody say, you know, the oma will be successful when people start to
write the mo be successful and people stop backbiting, when people treat their parents Well, this isn't just like sensationalist rhetoric, this is founded in our in our books, that our actions will have a positive or negative effect on the oma of that we bought that with that which we belong to, right. So when you're doing something, either good or bad, that's something that you should have in the front of your mind is that if I'm doing something that's actually negative for my own soul, that I'm standing against myself, I'm oppressing myself, that I actually am risking causing this adverse effect on my community. Right. So it's actually it adds a lot of responsibility now to the decisions
that we make, okay, that we have to be very, very conscious that we are part of a group a team effort. So we ask Allah subhanaw taala to give us protection, I mean, so now this suffering now is something that is clearly number one. It's part of molars wisdom that we cannot fully comprehend. Number two, is that it is oftentimes brought on by ourselves. Number three, it can be brought on by the group dynamic that we are a part of, right, which is why things like
you know, encouraging good and prohibiting evil. They aren't just things about my own self. It's we're trying to help each other as a team, right. And that's what happens like when LeBron can't get his team to work together on the Cavs. That's why now they're like fifth in the East which is horrible, right? And that's why when you guys get rid of Josh Smith, Josh Smith is a great example of why no light are you have you guys lost the game since you traded them. You have like one game or two games running. There was a URL like a nine game win streak by getting rid of one player. Do you see how one person by the way and Josh Smith is supposed to be like this All Star basketball player,
they got rid of one player and they went from losing like every game to winning like nine games in a row or something crazy. That's what this is. This is the Sunnah of Allah we affect one another, we cannot run away from that. We should embrace it and instead work on ourselves to become strong gears in this in this sort of machinery inshallah Tada. So what are some benefits of suffering, right? What are some benefits of suffering? Now the difficulty is obviously we can cover the difficulty first because one of the difficulties of suffering is that it tests people's emotions. There's a heavy emphasis on love. In the book The Art of writing of shallow Leola definitely Rahim Allah where
he says that
poverty can lead to comfort basically, right? That someone being poor in this life is like a way or a path for them to disbelieve in Allah spawn Tada. And so we that's why it's very important for us to be active members of our community in terms of Zakat in terms of South Africa, because the prophets teaching us in this howdy that your mundane reality has an effect on your spiritual reality. Your reality in this life, when you guys get a good grade, are you more encouraged to pray on time? Like if you guys just aced an exam, your final exam, you got all 100 and I said, hey, let's go pray. They'll hurt the machine. Would you be like yeah, let's do it. Right. Let's give our money
away too. Right? You just you'd be so happy. And the adverse side when you get into a fight with somebody, are you in the mood to pray? Are you in the mood to make draw? If you are, that's good. But if you're if you're not, that's very natural because humanity is asleep.
is a existence of conditions. And in that condition when you just fought with somebody, we just argue somebody's been put through that test that trial, you may not feel super spiritual super in the mood, right? But inshallah The idea is to train yourself to always feel that way. But that's, you know, steps in Sharla. So the point is that the prophets teaching us here that trials can affect your belief in Allah.
Does that make sense? Everybody? trials can absolutely affect your belief in Allah. That's why it's important to know the virtues of trials. So number one, is the expiation of sins.
The most important one is the clearing out of a person sins, that when they go through a difficulty, and they bear it with patience, that Allah subhanaw taala uses that as an excuse, or a means to clear out their sins. An example that you and I may have gone through before. Have you guys ever gone to a restaurant and had the order not come out what you wanted, or had to wait very long or something? And if the manager is really good, what they'll do, they'll give you the whole meal in the house, right? That's an idea of how suffering can be an exploration of your sins. And the virtue behind it has happened to me recently, actually, I went to a restaurant, and they we ordered a
desert and the desert they baked plastic into it.
measure how good that tasted right? They baked plastic, like this saran wrap plastic, he said they put it they accidentally left it on. So we took a bite and I was like, This tastes like garbage. Right? So we told the manager and have the law. He was like, okay, you know, I'm so sorry. You know that your meal, your check is taken care of. It's on the house, right? So my wife and I were like, dang, dude, we should like try to order more plastics next time. So we don't have to, like, pay for dinner. But the idea is that bite was so disgusting to me. And it was so like, annoying, especially because I love that dessert. It was even more disappointing because I was anticipating like this
really delicious dessert. But in the end of it all, when when my wife and I were walking out the restaurant, I was like, You know what? One bite, we got a free meal. 100 a lot right expiation of sins. So when you go through difficulties, your perspective needs to be shifted. And don't think that you can't control your perspective. Human beings. Alfred Adler, a very famous psychologist, he said something profound. He says you do what you want to do.
A lot of times we view ourselves as humans as being under the control of our own desire, out of the control of ourselves like we are under the control of our desires. That's not true. You control your desires. Think about Ramadan. Think about the ability to stop eating from from dawn till sunset. Think about how much power that takes how much self discipline that takes you control that. And so when you're going through a trial and tribulation, it is up to you as to how you view it. Do you view it as this is an exploration of my mistakes? Or do you view it as this is Allah punishing me? This is Allah He so unfair? What are the beloved this is this is this right? Which is unfortunately,
the way that shaitaan wants to take us. Number two, is that it makes your path in the next life easy challah. It makes our path in the next life very easy.
The difficulty in this life acts as a sort of,
you know accelerator for someone's ease in the next life. Which is why the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad SAW Selim, one of the explanations of it, not all of it, one of them is that the first people to enter agenda will be the people in this life who were the
oppressed or poorest? Right? The people with the least amount of wealth will be the first to enter into paradise. One of the explanations, there's one that says that because they have let the least to account for meaning that every penny we spend, we're gonna have to answer for that which we know to be true. But another explanation of the Hadeeth is that what that because they went through so much difficulty in this life alone will remove the difficulty from their path in the next slide, right? And so when you go through difficult times, it's almost as though Allah is teaching us to embrace those difficulties. And to d value this highest of dunya. Right, one of my teachers, he says
something beautiful, he said, Your Eman is directly related to the amount that you view everything around us as dirt. I said this last night, the auto show the guys were like, shut up, right? I was like your Emad is directly related to how convinced you are that this stuff is just dust, right? It's a different kind of dust or dirt. It's been chemically reinforced and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, this doesn't mean anything, okay? It only means the amount that it brings you close to Allah. And so when someone tends to view this hatha dunya in a way where it's not that important to them, then all of a sudden now, the trials are less damaging, less painful, less
hurtful. And this is why you see people Subhanallah How many of you have been here before anyone been to Mr. Hodge? What's the most like, for those of you who have not gone we asked a lot to invite us all. I mean, what for those of you who have gone What was your most What was your impression of like the cleaning crew? Have you guys seen the cleaning crew of the hot I mean,
especially the Kaaba, so they do, they have to clean this floor, okay, because there's 1000s of people literally walking on it.
So one of the things they do that's pretty amazing, is they set up like this big group of people, and they have these squeegee mops. And then they'll have like this, this big thick band, this cloth band that goes around an entire group of like 30 of them, they look like a big Amoeba. That's just like cleaning the Kaaba floor. Right. And it's interesting because you talk to those people, and a lot of them have been through a lot of trial and tribulation, if you've ever talked to them before. Anybody know, talk to them next time you go to them or up, talk to the cleaning staff, ask them about themselves. Say, Tell me your story. One of them. He told me that he came there from
Bangladesh, right? And he said that he basically makes 100 and something dollars a month. 100 and like 50 US dollars a month. That's all he makes. On top of that his family's still in Bangladesh. So he'll take a little bit of money for himself, but then he'll send the rest back to his family and Bangladesh. Okay. Is that difficult? Anybody who wants that job? I can get it. I'm a recruiter. I can get you there. Anyone want it? Do your parents will be proud and I'll be happy. Right? Difficult, right? That's trial. Like if that's not trial, tribulation test that I don't know what it is. It was so difficult that even hearing it I couldn't believe it. Like that's your life. What kind
of phone you have.
He was like what phone? Right? They don't even like they have such dip. But then Subhanallah he was smiling the whole time. And I asked him, Why are you smiling? Like what's, what are you smiling about? And he said, Look at my job. He was I get to clean the huddle.
Like the Prophet Muhammad SAW and pray janazah on a woman who cleaned his Masjid, what is a lot going to do for the person who cleans his house? That was his perspective. Right? And again, I'm not saying that every single person that the prophet SAW Islam was a businessman, Abu hanifa Rahim Allah was a businessman. He magmatic was very wealthy of men, but often, but then you also had Abu hurayrah. These people, they didn't invest, even though they had wealth, they weren't so invested into this life. Our response to trials and tribulations will be directly related to how much we love this world. You meet people's Paula, they're like, you know what, whatever Allah gives me 100 Allah,
you meet people that if they get a Lexus instead of a Mercedes, they get upset with Allah. There was the one video that went viral on YouTube with a girl who got a car that she wanted for her birthday, but it was the wrong color. You guys see that? It was read or something. And she was she was she's like, and the parents were like Happy birthday. And she's like, How could you do this to me and she ran back inside by hashtag first world problems. The reality is, we all have hashtag first world problems, we just have to realize like they're actually more like hashtag dunya problems. And we have to get over that because our trials and tests will not be as damaging then to us. The next is
this philosophical principle that you only appreciate the light when you've been in the dark. You only appreciate ease. When you've been in pain. You only appreciate you know, food when you've been hungry. You only appreciate warm when you've been cold. Right, Michigan, Can I get an amen? Right? You only appreciate like a sunshine when it's been cloudy. All these you appreciate the existence of a thing by the existence of its opposite. Right? And if you if you want to know what this means, think about why you love something and why you don't like something else. And oftentimes, you will think of the contrast between that thing and the absence of that thing. Right? So you're like, I
love this restaurant. Oftentimes we think and relatives were like this restaurant is better than this restaurant. Why? Because it has this this this this if you didn't even know that those could exist, then you wouldn't have been appreciative of it as much right so hon Allah so when Allah gives you a trial, part of the wisdom in that the scholars have written is that you begin to appreciate the absence of trial
that he redirects you that you worship a lot and much as much in times of good as you do in bad because it's easy to worship a lot in times of bad is it not? something bad happens what do you do?
Pray not just pray you pray on time you make well do you pray sooner? You make it you make it through that night you will like apricot fruits of her family. Will you wake up for Federer you drive her neighbors to the message they're not even Muslims are like, what are you doing? I want to sleep. Right? Yeah. When you when you're going through tough times, man you turn to like superduper Muslim. But the minute that things start going well, what happens?
Start to delay a little bit. I prayed officer yesterday, I got a two for one deal, right? Like, that's what happens. Comfort makes us apathetic. It does. There's a reality. And this is part of the reason why, like you know, in Michigan, for example, you guys obviously are very intimate with this story. The idea that they were going to shut off water for how many people
312,000 people were going to get their water shut off.
Imagine that this isn't like Egypt or Pakistan, right? This isn't like, oh, it'll be on in three hours. No, this is like they're gonna get shut off. But the problem is that people who live in the suburbs don't care, because they're comfortable. Right? When we have comfortable begin, we begin to get apathetic. So occasionally in our life, we will be introduced to the hills of difficulty, so that the valleys of ease become much sweeter. Right, and that we don't lose focus of our relationship with Allah. When we're in the valley of ease. Ask yourself, do I worship Allah with the same intensity, the same intention, and the same passion and love when things are going well? Or do
I only do that when things are going bad? Right, and you find the Pocahontas asylum. This is one of his beautiful characteristics was that he was solid all the time, even though difficulty bombarded him left and right. When he was in Mecca and Medina, you find the worship was the same quality, right? supanova. So we asked a lot to give us that. So you get to see suffering as a sign of joy. Suffering enhances your joy, right? We talked about prayer and draw, and we talked about triumph. Hello. Okay. So the idea is now I don't want to make this too long. But the idea is that yes, suffering exists. Yes, it is seen as a trial. But we are number one limited beings. So we cannot
give the end all be all reason as to why suffering exists. We can do that with fasting. You know why Allah says we fast? Why do we fast? What's the reason why we fast?
To gain taqwa Allah said Lala from taco and very clearly, that you fast you can get up what are there are a lot of other reasons why we fast. What are some of the reason why we fast?
removing comfort, like we just said, because when we're when we're full of food, we're empathetic to those who don't have food. But when you're hungry, you think to yourself, how does it like to do this without a choice? Right? What is it like to be like this 365 instead of 30, or 29? Or in some cities? 28 or 31? For some reason, right? What is it? That's a little inside joke? So the idea is the idea is like, yeah, that's a wisdom. But is that the reason? No, because I lost a lot of the contents accumulated wisdom in suffering. We know the wisdoms, but we don't know the exact reason why. And that takes humility. So that's point number one. Number two is that suffering is oftentimes
brought on by our own misdeeds, right. And I lost my father says this on multiple times. He also says that he won't change your condition of a people until they change it themselves. So again, giving you autonomy. And the third thing is that there are actually benefits to being through trial and tribulation that we experience. That makes sense. If they're not achieved in this life, then that's why I did the Africa benefits first because this life does not mean anything. 80 years. What's anything over infinity? Zero. Very good. So 80 years, 90 years, 100 years? Doesn't matter how long you live, dude, this dunya over infinity is zero dunya over alpha is zero. Doesn't matter how
long the dunya is assigned, whatever variable you want, still going to be? Zero. Thank you, math majors. Michelle. Okay, so now what I want to do inshallah is open it up to questions and answers. For the rest of the time, we have about 3540 minutes inshallah for q&a, and I know a lot of you had questions, there's some that you asked already that I'm going to address inshallah. So we'll take one minute, I have a question that I have that I've been asked that I want to talk to talk about. Yes.
If you have like a, is it bad for someone to?
To which death?
Gotcha. Okay. So the first is that like, if comfort can make us apathetic, okay? But also remember that trials without ease can also make someone lose their email, right? So it's, you know, it's the hills and valleys metaphor is purposeful, that when you drive to places that there's uphills, and downhills, okay, there's inclines and declines, you want to make sure you don't do too much of either, okay. But the idea is that and some scholars have written about this, like imams or Nugent hanafy. In his book document with Ireland, he said that part of the practice that you should have is to purposely, voluntarily fast because you're putting yourself in a bit of discomfort, okay? So the
advice that I give to my students is like, don't strive for 100% comfort all the time. Because that is an unhealthy way of living, right? You need to be put yourself in a little bit of discomfort. Exercise is a great metaphor to use that somebody
When they exercise, it's difficult, like you have to get up, get ready, go to the gym, then actually do the exercise itself. Come back, you know, you might be sore might to take a shower and get out like that whole process is difficult. And you voluntarily kind of submit yourself to that, right? Because the benefit overall is better for you. So voluntarily fasting, although it might be like, Well, I have food in my fridge, it's delicious. It's from Allah. voluntarily fasting is a difficulty that you sort of put yourself into, just so you're not like 100% comfortable all the time. Right, the Prophet Muhammad SAW Selim, he never ever like accepted like the kingdoms and the riches that
were offered to him. He stated this mode of modesty of balance, right? He used to sleep on a straw mat. Right when the kings are in armor one time he saw this one time they saw it and they cried. And they said yeah, this will law like the Kings that are sleeping on like cushions and mattresses and stuff with feathers and whatever and you're sleeping on this because there was markings on his side from the straw mat you know when you like you said on the carpet for too long and you get up and there's like all the carpet marks and the problem how muscles tighten them essentially responded saying they have in this life we have in the next right. So the idea is like the dounia This life is
not meant to achieve the ultimate comfort the pinnacle of of you know relaxation, as much as we think it is. Right and that's why no matter what your goals, our aspirations and a career what in a career way or career sense. Don't ever Aspire just to be one not that 1,000% comfortable. be okay with difficulty be okay with a little bit of stress, okay? It's okay. it'll, it'll motivate you to keep working and keep getting better inshallah. The second is, should you someone wish on themselves that they have difficulty? No, you should wish that Allah Spano. Tata always keeps you connected to him and whatever way he needs to. But always ask Allah to make it easy. So don't make it easy,
right? Make it make it Don't make it too difficult on me make it easy on me, right? But never, ever always pray that Allah keep you in his proximity. Right? Because when when a person is distant from a lot, it's not because Allah moved is because the person moved. Right? So you pray a lot to put you back in his proximity to allow you to come closer to him. Right and not make it too difficult on you, Charlotte? Okay, good question.
So there was a question that someone brought up, which is sort of related to this, but also related to the previous topic a little bit. And that is, how to forgive somebody, or what to what to do when someone has wronged you, or someone close to you, and how to forgive somebody.
And what that feels like what that looks like islamically and also in a sort of mental health kind of way. So there in Islam, we are taught that there are certain sins where a person actually has to go to another person and seek forgiveness before Allah will complete that forgiveness for them. So for example, backbiting is one of those sins. If someone has back button against somebody else, then part of the process of Toba is that the person actually has to be given forgiveness, forgiveness from the person they have oppressed before Allah will put the seal of approval and the stamp of approval on that Toba. Okay, now, this is important because this is where it's gonna come in to us
like how do we forgive people? And can we forgive them? And does forgiving mean forgetting? How many of you think forgiving means forgetting, like when you forgive someone you're supposed to completely forget. Right? This actually Subhanallah is actually not found in the CFO, we actually find the opposite, that the Prophet was able to forgive but sometimes wouldn't forget. The story of washi is actually a very famous story, or why she was this person who was sent by hynd to kill Hamza, the uncle of the Prophet Mohammed Al Salaam, who they say had the most likeness in physical features to the prophet SAW some he looked the most like him. And so actually, one time it was in the battle.
Afterwards, he so he killed Hamza on the lawn, and afterwards he converted to Islam. So when you convert to Islam, what happens to all of your sins? They disappear, you're forgiven. Okay. So we know that why she doesn't have like, this sin hanging over his head like you killed the prophets, Uncle, you call this a hobby? What you know, what are you thinking? But when he meets with the prophet SAW Selim, the prophet actually weeps and cries. And he actually asks washy, he says, I need closure, you guys know closure is in a mental health perspective, sometimes using closure from a situation, right. So he goes, I need closure, essentially, tell me the story of how you killed my
uncle. Right? So why she tells the entire story. He says, I was hired by this person. I did this I snuck around the back of the battlefield. I had my spear, I speared him, and then he disfigured his body. What are the billet unfortunately, but then he converted to Islam, the prophets crying the whole time. you imagine that? Right? The prophet SAW them tells him, you're, you've been forgiven, you're my brother. But when we talk to one another, don't stand like directly in front of me. Like stand a little bit off to the side. So instead of standing like right here in front of me to where we're like we're face to face, just kind of stand a little bit off to the side. Because he said,
When I see you, I see my uncle and it brings pain to me.
But when you stand a little bit off to the side, and it's not as in my it's not in my face, not as in my face, literally, you know. And so now what are we saying? Are we seeing the Prophet symbols and forgiving? No, of course he was, he forgave him. But this also shows us the human condition of the Prophet Mohammed so sudden, and he teaches us that the heart can sometimes hold on to things for a while.
Right? Why she actually Subhan Allah, he was so motivated after this experience, that when the False Prophet was Salem, Al COVID, when he came about after the prophet SAW, Selim, actually took that same spirit that he killed Hamza with or the electron, and he killed him. And when he when he did that, they asked him why he said, If I killed, the person that was closest to the problem is less than them, the least I could do is kill the person that was, you know, trying to imitate or debase the Prophet Muhammad sauce on them in a battle. Now, obviously, for the CIA, that's listening, we're not teaching this, right. We're just saying that this is a historical story. And this is sort of
like the him mad that he had for the muscle cell. So the point is that it's very natural to not fully forget something when you forgive somebody very natural. And sometimes they say that what only heals wounds time, right, you need some time, you need some, you need some sort of some time to get over it. Right. And so Allah spawn Tada, He created us as human beings to where we sometimes hold on to these things, let time go. One of the ways that I do this with myself, just to share some some, you know, some pointers with you, is the whole idea of the thought of Alma where he said, Give somebody 70 excuses for why they do something. When you can give somebody 70 excuses for why they've
done something, it becomes very easy to forgive them. Very easy, right? And when I mean, 70 excuses, I mean, start counting 70 like, say one community because of this to the time you get to four, you're gonna bet, Okay, I'm done. I don't care anymore, right? Like, just, I'm done. I don't care. I'm not hurt by it anymore. Write the story for you. I there's a sister that is on my Facebook network. She's a Facebook friend of mine. And she always used to debate always, like, I could be like, oh, today's a good day. She's like, No, it's not. Where's your proof? Show me. Right? Like, I'm just what I thought this is to do. That meal was good. I don't think so. Right. I think that's a
that's an erroneous claim. Right? I was like, why are you debating all the time? Right. And so I found out she's a lawyer, okay, which explains a lot. Then I found out that one of her relatives was wrongfully imprisoned,
you know, back in their country, whatever was wrongfully imprisoned, and she became a civil rights lawyer to try to, you know, and humanitarian, you know, activist, because that inspired her that motivated her. And she's always like, basically focused on trying to get this relative of hers out of jail. Right? And so I slowly like realize, like, Subhan, Allah, maybe she's like, has this debate habit, because that's like her passion, because she's being driven by the fact that her relative was unjustly put in prison, and she's trying to get him out. You know, when I made that excuse, and it might not be true, it might be totally false. She might just be a debater. Right. But that when I
made up that excuse, it became very easy for me to not worry about it anymore. Whenever she started debating, I said, you know, what, Subhanallah Look at her her relationship with her family that she's so motivated, that like she debates, everybody, as they were all the prosecution, right? So, you know, but it became very easy for me. So try to come and it's not a very far fetched reason, excuse. make excuses for people, right? When they've committed wrongs against you. And also give yourself some time. Don't force yourself to forgive right away. Sometimes you need time to sort of process what happened to think about it, if you need to speak to a therapist about it. Absolutely.
Speak to a friend about it. Absolutely. You just speak to the person about it. Sure. Sometimes you won't get closure until you tell the person that they've hurt you. And Subhanallah when you told the person that you'll find yourself somehow a lot done with it after that. But when you keep holding on, you don't have closure, you don't know what they feel, you don't know how they felt you don't know their side of the story. And Subhanallah you might just hold on to that forever, and grudges or something that can actually withhold you from Paradise. You know, we know the story, the famous story of of the love and menos or the laquan Houma where he spent time with somebody, Allah said
that this person said that this person is resolute metal agenda. He's a man from the people agenda. So the law became very, you know,
he became very curious. So he said, let me go spend some time with him. So he went to him and he said, Can I spend a few days with you? The guy said, Sure, right. Because when they noticed him, they're like, You don't look any different than us. You just look normal, right? So he goes and spends time with him, and he's narrating the time. He said, I spent time with him. He didn't really do anything special. You know, we ate at the same time we pray at the same time. He's actually said he didn't even do with the extra things that we normally did. He didn't fast extra. He didn't pray extra in the night. He was just a typical Muslim. Like what's so special? So he became frustrated by
the third day. He told him he said, Okay, I'm gonna leave now. The guy's like, okay, so long, right? So he's like, he's like, super nice. And I was like, man, why are you so like, What? Why are you so special? You guys like? So he tells him what the law says. You know, the prophet said about you?
Really interesting said what? He said the profits of the year guaranteed paradise year from the agenda. And the guy answers was such a frustrating answer. He said, I don't know why he would say that.
The law became even more frustrated. He's like, okay, fine, I'm just gonna go It's pointless, as hopeless. As he's leaving the door, the man says, there might be one thing I do a lot turns around. He says, every night before I go to sleep, I make draw to Allah. And I say, oh, alive, forgiven. Anyone that's wronged me today, please remove grudge from my heart.
If that drop every night was enough to gain him genda then imagine what with holding someone a grudge against them can do for our aka, it's very dangerous. So encourage yourself to forgive become a forgiving person. And don't hold on to things. And like I just said, you can train yourself to be forgiving. You can train yourself to let go things you can train yourself inshallah.
Good question. Anyone else have any other questions?
about anything, it doesn't have to be about suffering or anything.
Any questions about marriage?
We all have a question. For sure.
Oh,
yes. Okay. So
recently.
So I was
like, you know, my mom was very,
she didn't want to hear it like, like, Yeah.
Like, what are some ways that you like, tell her?
Without like telling, like, verbally?
This answer is actually relevant. This question and the answer are relevant for everybody. Because even though brother Jeff is a Muslim, who convert to Islam, and some of us may be Muslims who are born into Islam, we all are going to have to, at some point, have a conversation with our parents about, you know, our religious practice our faith, and perhaps they'll be happy with it and Sharla perhaps they won't be right. And so this answer is very relevant, because you're all gonna need at some point, in a method in order to convince your parents about what you're doing, right, whether it's who you want to get married to, or where you want to go to school, or what kind of car you want
to buy just whatever, right there's certain ways that are much more potent in convincing people then other ways. So for Jeff, the, the answer that I would give is that I know Mashallah, you're probably like an amazing son already. I can tell just by your character, your manners, Mashallah. And your cool Neff hat. But the other thing your Neshat Yeah, the other thing I would say is that you want to show them what Islam is not tell them Allah says Lima Hakuna Matata, falloon. Allah asked a very powerful question in the Quran, he says, Why do you say that what you don't do. And so the emphasis here or the value on action is equal to if not higher than statements. And you find that the Prophet
Muhammad SAW said him and his Dawa and his teaching of Islam, especially in the early days, was very focused on experiential Dawa, giving people the experience of what Muslims are, like, not telling them what Muslims are, like, you know, because right now, I'll be honest with you, what Allah teaches us in the Quran and the properties and his Sunnah is to sell them is very different than how Muslims act. Right? So it's very difficult to make
linguistic or literature based claims without backing them up. So become an amazing son. If you take the garbage out with your mom asking you once, take it out without her asking you. If you know if your parents want you to, you know, clean your room, and they ask you every weekend, do without them asking your parents want this. Just basically the key to parental success is to do things they want before they say it to you. If you can master that, if you can sort of write down on a notepad what your parents expectations are, and I will tell you, we're like it changes every day. Yeah, we've all been there. I know, right? But when you can write down your parental expectations, and take care of
it before they've prompted you to, because once your parents have prompted you to do a chore, it's like driving that new car off the lot for the first time, the value of that chore goes down like 50%. So once your parents have said like, Can you do this? You've lost 50% of that reward. Are there any parents in here? Anyone? Yeah, you know, I'm talking about right anyway. Okay, so if you're a parent, you know, if your kids do it before you ask, so while you're like, Smit with him for the rest of the day, so become like super Jeff, okay, like, I want you to become like super Muslim child, Jeff, who converted to Islam that way, and especially given the fact that you convert it in
such a recent period. That way, any good you do, they're gonna have to attribute it to your conversion. Like any logical person would be like my son, I used to have to wake him up and tell him to wake up. Now. He's already awake. I used to have to tell him to do this. Now here he does it. What's different about Jeff? Oh, he's super Muslim converted Jeff. Okay, like, and that's the best way to tell them. So then they're gonna start prompting us
Questions like, what is this? What are you doing? Like what is this faith? Right? And then you tell them Well, my faith teaches me to be good. My parents, my faith teaches me in a Hadith, even though it's a little bit weak my faith is You mean the Hadith that Paradise is under your feet mom. My faith teaches me this, you know, I'm saying then the conversations start, but until you have the actions as an impetus for conversation, it's very difficult to get them to focus on that, right.
You're welcome. You guys all agree with me? Oh, thank you. Okay, so yeah.
Maybe Jeff right. Oh, my God. I've been calling you Jeff this whole time?
No, I'm not. Oh, my God, Jeff. I mean, Joe correct me next time.
I feel horrible. Now. I think I just saw that commercial for 22 Jump Street. 20 times.
No, Joseph soheila.
Pen. you embarrass me in front of everybody. Jeff. Okay.
No one call him Jeff ever in his life. Otherwise, I get that bad dude. Okay, Joe. Sorry, Joe. You're super Muslim Joe. Okay. Are you sick? Okay. How are you?
Any other questions? That was a very good question, actually.
Yes.
aside, how do you forgive someone and not hold a grudge? But like, understand your limits?
Know your limits with that person, but also not duds?
Yeah, so I mean,
a good example might be if somebody has a habit of doing something that affects you, let's say somebody borrowed your car. And they like wrecked it or did something against it. Okay, like they heard it in some way.
You can forgive them for that. But then still ask them not to drive your car again. That makes sense.
Yes. And that's the toughest part is because the car right called Allah ban the Arabic language actually means to flip. And so like, that's why we say yeah, mocha libelle. Kuru like oh, Turner of the hearts. Right. So the heart is very difficult. It's kind of slippery. But you can train it. Right? You can train it through reading the seat on studying the son of the Prophet. And I'm studying how you handle these things, reading code on getting the recommendation from Allah, once you are able to do those things, you will forgive somebody but you don't necessarily have to forget necessarily, right? You know, I'm saying, if you can forget, that's even better. Right? If you can
say, you know what, it's as if it never happened. No worries, that's fine. Right. But at the same time, the idea of forgiveness does not necessitate that you have to basically act as though it never happened. Okay. So a good sign to see if you forgiven somebody is do you get upset with them when they're in your presence? You know, I'm saying so if somebody who's in your presence and you feel this, this pinch in your heart, you may have not fully forgiven them yet. Make sense?
From Thanks. Yeah.
What if it's not a person? What if it's like a larger system? Like with everything going on the world today? How do you handle that? Interesting. So how do you forgive? Like, like,
what are you saying like capitalism?
Okay, okay. Bashar says, Okay.
I mean, I, so forgiveness in the sense of like,
this is a good question. Like if Bashar Assad came in this room and made Shahada.
Yeah, that would be an interesting occurrence. Right? It'd be tough. And now you can see why the Prophet systems told you to stand to the side right. Now you can see why because he's like, if you're Muslim, that's fine. But stand over there. Right, because it's tough. So forgiveness, essentially, what forgiveness means is that on the Day of Judgment,
you will not back into Allah to you know, you will not expect their deeds or want them to have bad deeds on the day for them. Forgiveness means you you've removed their accountability to you. You're like, Okay, I'm not like when you forgive somebody, it's a serious thing, actually, because you're kind of holding them hostage for the Day of Judgment, not hostage CIA not like that. I'm sorry. What I mean is, they are they have to answer to you on the Day of Judgment, like when someone backed by somebody else, they have to show up to you want to say sorry, okay, so you forgive somebody, you're essentially removing that responsibility from them. That doesn't mean that you have to agree with
their behaviors or their existence or their what that means that you've forgiven them
with things like systems Yes, upon a law
with things like you know, oppressive systems, you know, I could very much see
and this is this is, this is
can be tough for people to understand, I think but just hear me out. This is where you have to hate the sin and not the sinner.
Right.
It's tough, but you think of like, a person like Bashar Assad. Still a human being, maybe not by much. Still is right. And we hate his oppression. We hate his murder. We hate his this we hit is that we use that.
But he still
has the ability to make Toba.
We'll accept it. See, this is where this is where dunia we and Katie have different ramifications. So when someone makes Shahada, we treat them like a Muslim. They don't have to prove it to us. You know, I'm saying the only Allah knows if they're truly Muslim. So I'm saying. So if somebody asks for forgiveness from us, it's our duty to forgive them a lot. It's up to the rescue a lot. Right? It's so difficult to even say these words. Like it's, you know, you understand like the difficulty, but I'm just giving you a purely textual answer. I'm removing all humanity from it. Because the minute you add some humanity to it, it's like nearly impossible to even think of forgiving somebody
like him. But that's why the process is so great. Think of what happened with EAD, who killed Sahaba. Like he didn't just kill Muslims, he killed Sahaba in awkward people who took place in the battle better, could have been with he was responsible for that. And he ended up becoming one of the closest companions of the Prophet Hassan.
stuff, it makes you appreciate the opposition a lot when you learn about like that ability. Because even thinking about forgiving someone, like the sharp said to me is like, it's very difficult for me to even think about that, let alone actually even contemplate doing it somehow. Blah, blah, blah, say in the moment. Okay, next question. That was a very good question.
Yeah, we have mark. Right. Okay. Good.
We're all familiar with the concept of a legend. No, I just inserted one lesson. But then it was also whenever the concept of wells were actually
sold, then discern between what is this?
standard? Is there a system?
There's two that I've heard from my teacher number one is, so you guys hear the question. Question is if our own actions can bring difficulty to us, but we also know that Allah test those whom we love, he loves that. How do we discern how do we distinguish those two? I think it's similar to the other bonus question earlier, is that there's two ways that my teachers taught me number one, is that you look at, like I said, to him your pattern of behavior in the previous right, if you find that you are slipping, you're trending downwards, and you're a man, then you can use this as a wake up call and say, perhaps a lot is responding to my evil with tests to wake me up. The second that my
teacher told me, and I actually love this, because it's again, it's very humanist, is you know, the famous heavy losses I am is my servant sees me. So it depends on how you view those tests. If you view those tests, as Allah is testing you because he loves you, right, then that's the case. That's a scenario, right? Because that's how do you how do you code See, right? But if you view those tests, as Allah is always on your back, always punishing you, then you're that's what that's what the reality will be that you'll be getting that. So a lot of it is transactional, like you as a servant of Allah have the responsibility to be to view a lot in the positive light. And that will
then make your perspective positive. So I'm saying that the Hadith is very, it's tough for us to grasp because again, it gives us a lot in the relationship with a lot, but at the same time, he's giving us that amount. That's what he's telling us that I am is my servant sees me.
So does that help? Okay.
Okay.
I've been asked in the past relative to suffering. What about people who haven't committed any wrongs? like children born with terminal illnesses? Yeah, this is actually a very good question. And this is where two things come in, you guys understand the question? Like what happens when somebody is killed? You know, and they're, it's not due to their any, you know, sins or anything like a child who was born, and they might be born with some sort of a previous addiction, something from them, or a condition from whatever, for whatever reason, or they're, let's say they just they're born, and they pass away very shortly afterwards. Right. So the idea is, this is where we have to understand
two things. Number one, the first thing that I talked about was that good and bad are relative, they're loaded terms. My iPhone screen cracking as much of a frivolous example as that is, it's a good example to use as much as I thought that was a bad scenario. 24 hours later turned out to be better than before my screen cracked, so good and bad or relative, it can change based on your perspective. Okay. So for example, you know, this question is asked in philosophy classes, and it's very difficult to ask this question because you have to kind of remove the humanity again, but if a child dies in a war, if a child dies from like a infant infant illness in a war torn area, would you
rather have them die from that disease or
From the war like a bullet, right? And the idea is it's not I don't I'm not making you choose the ethical dilemma, but the idea that good is relative because people will have different opinions on that. The second is that and this goes back to the other point I made about dunya value, right? The dv the duty of Halle that you have your DB que de Nevada kosher quotient, your dunya value will then make that easier to understand in the sense that Allah says at hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa commanded Rahim. Okay, he mentioned the best mela. So this this, this suta so far is overwhelming with mercy right. Bismillah R Rahman Rahim, Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil aalameen. Right, Rahim. And then
you have Maliki Ahmed Deen. So you have tons of mercy and then you have medic Yama, Deen. The Quran actually used to ask the Prophet when they heard the first three verses, they would say your Lord is so merciful. Why do people die like this? Why do people suffer? They would actually ask that question. He says Maliqi human being
that the actual real,
you know, sort of assessment, the real existence is the next life. That's why like shaving cream. Yeah, here here in Michigan. You guys have a Mashallah he says things like he calls this life the fake life is called by heard that once he was like, yeah, in the real life. And I was like, What do you mean in the real life? And he was like, but in this fake life, and I was like, What does he mean? And I asked him, and he's like, yeah, this is just fake. And I was like, Subhanallah, that's very powerful. Right? So the idea is, when people who have you know, suffered or died, we, you know, that is obviously a way of recognition that this life is not as valuable as we had anticipated. And
really, it's all it's all relative, to be quite honest. If you look at it from a relative scale, you'll see it's all relative, we'll
have you respond to people who agree or argue that others who are born with disabilities or in poverty are being unfairly treated by God. Yeah, I mean, it's all relative. Like there are people with disabilities who are millionaires, there are people with fully abled bodies who are who are very poor. So the idea is like, everyone has struggles, literally every single person has struggles that are unique to them. And for some people who are born with millions of dollars, but they suffer from crippling depression or anxiety, they're not able to benefit from those millions of dollars. I've actually I have a client actually who's literally a multimillionaire, and he has crippling
depression, and anxiety. Like, I actually have a counseling client that I see in my clinic once a week, where the clinic that I work with, and he is a multimillionaire, and literally, people come to me and they say this phrase, you ready? Why is he depressed? He has so much money.
And I'm like, so hot, like the Muslims are so far removed from mental illness? Why is he depressed? He has so much money, right? And I say, Well, you know, that's, that's just his test. Meanwhile, I've met people who are extremely impoverished, like the janitor at the bottom, extremely poor, doesn't seem to have much anxiety or depression, right, at least from my initial conversation with him. So these things are relative, again, you can create scenarios, but remember, that allows us to see that they exist in context. Remember that trauma, okay? We can create this scenario for the most difficult existence on earth and ask a lot why he's not merciful. For that existence is it doesn't
it's hypothetical. Other than interest, what did you mean by consuming hot on? Oh, this is good. Consuming heroin you consume with your eyes, do you? Not?
You do actually. Right. So looking at things are hard on you consume with your ears, do you not? So Nicki Minaj might not be the best to listen to, you consume with, you know, what you take in your thoughts? Like, intellectually, what do you accept? What do you reject? So it might be good to reach out to make sure that you're intellectually grounded in your faith before you start to read about challenges or atheist things and stuff like that. Right? So consumption in general, is an overall process of taking something from the outside and putting it inside, not just your stomach, right? Not just your wallet, but also your heart, your eyes, your ears, okay? We believe that Islam, the
word Kudu doesn't mean to eat, but it means to consume. So be careful consuming interest. Also, people who clock people who don't clock out for lunch.
You have on all those people, right? Or people who leave work early, when they're supposed to stay till this time, and they're on salary. That's that's upon a law who knows what their money is how, you know, amount, because Abby, by the way, do you guys have meat? xebia meat fights here in Detroit?
You do, right? VMU fights anybody? VME battles? zombies. No. So we have those in Chicago, right? where I grew up, where it's like, people would literally come to my house and be like, Where's your meat from? And I'm like, get out. Right? So because you shouldn't ask another Muslim where their meat is from you should just unless you have like, overwhelming evidence, or that they don't, right? Like it's coming out of like a Miller light box. It's like okay, where do you what do you marinate that in? Oh, nothing. All right. So that's like, if you see them and even then it's upon a lot like you should just give
has never done but if you have like overwhelming evidence, right like they have like a pig farm in their backyard and you're like, are these pork chops with chicken? So that's kind of like you know, but remember Sally when he wrote about how raw meat you know he was talking about he wasn't talking about the Bihar Naqvi. He was talking about if someone bought the meat with hot on money.
Like what do we put our emphasis on? Some of the people that I know who are the biggest would be health warriors. That's not a term CIA's just as a slaughter method. Right? Some of you might know who the biggest is if you have warriors. Listen, you guys are laughing. I don't want to use it here. Okay, so, some of the biggest Biharis I've ever met, don't report accurately on their taxes.
I don't know. You know, you got to make sure that all we consume is not just our food.
What if forgiveness is viewed as an act of weakness? I would like to keep forgiving people who wronged me but I keep doing but if I keep doing this, I'm not going to get the respect and they do not change. That's a very good.
Very good question. And this goes back to the point that I was making with the sister up here, Mashallah, was that when you forgive somebody, remember the focus of the forgiveness the Allah like, the purpose of it is to forgive on the Day of Judgment.
doesn't mean you have to forget. Okay, like the prophet SAW them. He forgave. But he, he made an adaptive behavior for watchi. Right, so as so as to let him know that it hurt me that you killed my uncle. Okay. So if someone is hurting you repeatedly, you can forgive in your heart and say, I'm not gonna hold this against you on the Day of Judgment, but you're still allowed to give to not talk to them for a while? Absolutely, you're still allowed to not hang out with them when they call you. That doesn't mean you haven't forgiven them.
Because you've forgiven them on the Day of Judgment. But you've just told them, I don't enjoy your company, when you treat me like this, I forgiven you, but I don't enjoy your company.
It's power. Like that's a that's actually even more powerful than not forgiving them and being angry with them. When you have the ability to forgive somebody and still adapt your behavior or change your behavior to let them know, that's a very powerful reminder. And to them, it's showing them that you're not holding it against them. It's just how they make you feel. Right? Remember forgiving somebody is all about the asset. It's not about right now, if you can do it for both unzila the more important one is not you don't want them to come to you in the day judgment begging you for forgiveness, right you want to get rid of that before now. And but by doing so. Oh, what's so what's
the reward forgiving people sorry. Whoa, crazy. Totally should have brought this up cuz I was like, why do I?
Why can I just hold a grudge? What's the reward for you for forgiving somebody? You guys know the story of how diesel if you've ever heard this before, so I shot a deal on had the wife, the wife of the prophet SAW silent at the time. There was a rumor about her that she was not faithful to the Prophet was at the villa. Like a really disgusting rumor about her. Okay, and this rumor was started by Abdullah bin obey who was a leader of the hypocrites in Medina. Basically what happened was they were on a journey. And Ayesha, she goes to use the bathroom and she actually said that this was before that this is earlier in my marriage. So I wasn't like heavier, anything. I was very light
still. And they used to carry her on a camel and one of those giant like tents. So she went to go use the restroom. And they left without her. Because she was so light. They didn't notice she was on the camel. So they went without her. And basically, they left but the problem so sudden he was smart on caravans, he would always leave one person has a trailer on his own horse. So that person was go and circle back and make sure no one left any like, goods, babies, right? In this case, the wife of the Prophet sells on them. So the person goes circles back and he finds her and she's she's playing. She's laying against a rock. He thought she died. He said in illegible alien audio.
Right? He was like, What have I discovered? Right? So he without even like, you know, saying anything, he just gets off of his horse to ask her to get on she gets on. And he walks her back to Medina, as they're walking back in the love and obey sees this. And he makes this rumor that these two stocks are a lot. Right? This hypocrite.
You know what's interesting about that, when this rumor started, there's a so I wish I give a whole talk on this Have you studied is so amazing the virtues from it. Number one is that this rumor actually caused Russia to fall ill physically ill. And when we talked before about bullying and salting how it can affect somebody. So much so that Allah had to console the Prophet, not even a human being to console him a lie to console him. When you start or I start or propagate rumors. It can literally cause them to fall physically ill think of the wife, the wife of the prophet SAW them
Number two, is that the Prophet when he heard this rumor, think about this. He didn't know if it was true or not.
He did not know if it was true or not. Until I lost that revelation, exonerating her, he did not know if it was true. By the way, I she was so special to Allah, that Allah Himself exonerated Ayesha.
Maryam on insulin was exonerated by who
is a very good use of was exonerated by who?
The the woman Yeah, exactly. She said, yeah, it was me. Right. So a person first Prophet usif.
Her child for medion how beloved was Ayesha to Allah, Allah Himself exonerated her, he could have made us all the love and obey said, Nah, I made it up. Right. So anyways, so the Prophet didn't know at the time the professor was like, I don't know, he treated his wife. So well. He was such an amazing husband, that after the whole story, she said, I didn't know that he was upset with me. The only reason I may have had an indication that he was upset with me, and that he thought that this happened was that he normally treated me so well. Like I was receiving gifts and showering praise and love that instead of like, being at a 10 he was like an eight.
Like, what would a normal husband do with this accusation happened actually happen to my community once the husband like left? It wasn't true of the law. He was an idiot, right? But he left he just dipped. He's like Peace out. Right? And I was like, some heinola You didn't even you know, the prophet SAW sent him instead of saying things like, how was your lovely morning? my beautiful wife? He would just say, how was your morning? my beautiful wife? Like just take us? Like that's all hypothetical. That didn't actually happen. But I'm saying is like, just take it down one notch a little bit. Right. That's how good of a person he was. I saw that. SubhanAllah so what reward do you
get when you forgive people? What happened was this is a story about Abacus today can I promise I'm done with this. This is a story of Abacus a dip? Oh, what was the deal was the father who is a very good so whose daughter is he? Whose daughter she?
Very good. I kind of did a little flip on you guys. Okay, so it says the daughter of a book was the deal. Okay. She has a cousin His name is Mr. Okay, Mr. Literally spelled like Mr. Okay, Mr. Mr. The mother of Mr. was one day with Ayesha as I was sort of like confused as to why people aren't talking to her and like, she didn't know the rumor. So Mista had been propagating this rumor unknowingly as a cousin you know, he's one of those guys like you would happen someone said that I was just like, oh, like all these like terrible things. You know, so this also tells you something festive a new in Jacqueline festival and being up in front of it. You know, Allah says, if a person comes to you with
news, especially that person is a sinner, then verify it before you start talking. Right? So omnistar is walking and she trips on her skirt. And I don't know why this this was like a weird kind of insult or weird like thing that would say it already happened once I told you the story of prayer she when she tripped she said May May I lose Mr.
Like that was like you know how we say Oh darn it or something? Right like back in like the 30s Oh gee willikers right like she said May I lose Mr. It's kind of a I don't know it's a strange Hello. So I she said don't say this. Like don't say that like even she felt weird about it. She was like Don't say that. It's not nice. So on the staff was embarrassed she said why you didn't hear it Mustapha saying about you.
Girls are like I know exactly what that moment feels like right? I've been at that dow or that anti NATO. So actually, what do you mean? Almost off says he'd been saying this this this this that you were you know, in the desert and you came back with this man and we are the villa.
You know, good luck. I'm not gonna be paying you anymore. I'm not going to pay you any more money spatola he held this he was so upset at Mr. Did you have a right to be upset? Even if I didn't do it? Did you have a right to be upset? Of course he did. Because Mr. Has saying this stuff and not knowing you know I love this story also as well. It shows you because Mr. Has it's a hobby. It shows you the Sahaba also had struggles just like us, just like us. Right doesn't mean that you can't be a great Muslim because you made a mistake. So Mista did this study says he cut him off Allah subhana wa tada response to the book was to do in the in the in the Quran. He says when he asked for the US
for who he says and for pardon him and forgive him. Then he says this is the why you forgive people guys ready
to have boonah a federal law helico
he goes Wouldn't you love that Allah forgives you.
So he says what he asked for what he asked for who Allah to him buena para la Lacan. So when you forgive somebody in this life, you are gaining credit for Allah forgive you in the next slide.
So that's the reason why we forgive. When I'm like, Look, you have to forgive people. We have to forgive people. You and
I both got to forgive people. And you're saying why? why what's the benefit? For me? The benefit is when you have inevitably and I have inevitably wrong somebody on the Day of Judgment, Allah will then intercede for us. And what more could you ask for? right because we've made so many mistakes in this life. We've made so many that we don't even know how many we've made. We've made a lot that we don't even know if we've made them so Pinilla we made a lot of mistakes. So that's why we make a lot of it's too far. When you forgive somebody Allah forgives you. That's the best reward if you get to this chocolate. Well, Adam, we asked the last one except I want to end inshallah here. We're gonna
be doing one more short holiday I think inshallah, but I want to thank you guys for being such great students, Mashallah. To sit here and gain this knowledge we asked last month how to accept one of the brothers Mashallah so graciously came in he gave me a little bit of advice and I wanted to take it I think it's a good idea. In my previous talk, I said one of the biggest injustice is against Allah is that people see him as a vengeful God. What I should have said in clarity was Allah Spano Tata, he people can commit injustice against themselves in their relationship with him. But Allah is not a victim of injustice right? Like I lost my thought is above all that so I was hoping that when
I said it, it didn't come across that way. But in case there was confusion, I wanted to clarify inshallah tada so I didn't mean that I was a victim of injustice what I the villa? What I meant was that in the relationship with Allah, we commit injustice by saying he's a vengeful angry god that's waiting to punish Okay, so we asked a lot smarter to accept exactly okay done. So panicle often will be handed in La La Land now still fit according to wait forever.