AbdelRahman Murphy – Thirty & Up Treasury Of Imam Al-Ghazli #14
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Okay, salamu alaykum.
Bismillah, bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wassalamu ala rasulillahi
wa ala aalihi wa ashabihi ajma'een.
Welcome home everybody.
It's good to see you, alhamdulillah.
Welcome back to our reading of the passages
of Imam al-Ghazali, where we talk of
different points and different reflections about the purification
of the soul and the tethering of one's
soul back to faith in Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
If you have any questions, slido.com is
open and you can type in 30 and
up, inshallah, to get to the Q&A
and send your questions, inshallah.
Tonight's topic is one that I think is,
you know, some might deem it as like
a controversial topic, some might see it as,
you know, there's many different ways that people
would label this topic, but I think that
more so than the topic itself, the way
in which Imam al-Ghazali handles it is
its own class, its own demonstration.
So, Dr. Mustafa Busuai, he titled this topic,
listening to songs or music, right, a treatise
on music.
And so, if you know, you know, music
is one of the things that the Muslim
community, along with meat, marriage, mortgages, music, and
then I forgot the last one, but there's
like the five Ms that are just the
obsessive topics of every question and every conference.
You know, if you want to have a
well-attended program, you pick one of those
five things and you talk about them.
And when it comes to the topic of
music or when it comes to the topic
really of any controversial topic, I want to
go back to, not Imam al-Ghazali, but
I want to go back to a hadith
of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in
which he actually, I don't want to say
he prophesizes it because that makes it seem
like it's kind of, you know, vague, but
he actually teaches us, you know, he alludes
to a reality that all of us are
going to come to.
This hadith is narrated by al-Nu'man bin
Bashir.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, said in
a narration that the halal, those things that
are permissible, are abundantly clear and the haram
are also abundantly clear.
And he says, He
says, and between those two categories of the
things that are permissible and abundantly clear and
the things that are impermissible and abundantly clear,
there are things that are in between those
two categories that are ambiguous.
In English, you know, we say like the
gray area.
There are things that are ambiguous.
They're not abundantly clear.
They don't have a direct and clear answer.
And he says, A lot of people, the
majority of people will not have a clear
understanding or a clear resolution when it comes
to these issues.
And then he says, He says, and
whoever wants to, whoever protects themselves, okay, and
doesn't do the things that are from these
vague gray area matters, he says this person
will have successfully protected and fortified both their
religion, their faith, and their honor as a
person.
And then he says, He says, for a
person that goes into the doubtful matters, he
says, At some point, inevitably, after spending enough
time in the gray areas, they will eventually
fall into the impermissible.
Okay?
And then the hadith gives a longer metaphor
about a grazing of an animal.
And if you graze an animal, if you
take an animal out to graze in an
area that is public, unless you keep very
close watch and attention over that animal, eventually
it might go over to someone's private property.
And so he says that the animals that
shepherds take out, the sheep that they take
to graze, if they're not careful, they might
go from the public, you know, grass that's
okay for them to take from, and they
might end up going into the property of
the sultan, of the king.
And they might start grazing there and eating
from there if the shepherd's not careful.
Okay?
Another hadith that I'll quote before we read
from Ghazali, because again it's important to build
this foundation, is the Prophet ﷺ, so from
that first narration we learn something really powerful,
which is what?
That yes, there are things in Islam that
are abundantly clear.
And there are things in Islam, meaning their
permissibility, and there are things that their impermissibility
is abundantly clear.
And then the Prophet ﷺ says there also
will be things that will not be abundantly
clear.
So what does that mean?
Number one is that his prescription, his advice
ﷺ is, peace be upon him, if you
can stay away, just stay away.
That's his advice.
If it's something that doesn't affect you, if
it doesn't impact you, if it's not something
that calls to you, then just don't force
it.
There's no reason to do it.
Right?
Like, this is 30 and up.
If I hear a single question about Halloween,
we're done.
Professionally, we're done.
Okay?
It's not calling to you, just give it
up.
Okay?
Just give it up.
So that's the Prophet ﷺ's advice.
His advice is that.
Okay?
He's not saying, by the way, that the
gray area is definitely haram, because then what
would it have been?
Would there be three categories or two?
There would just be two.
He's not saying the gray area, it's all
haram.
Because then there would be no gray area.
It would be al-halalu bayyinun wa al
-haramu bayyinun.
That's it.
But he clarifies that in life, and this
is again the wisdom of the Prophet ﷺ,
there will come times in which certain questions,
certain matters, certain whatever, it will not be
abundantly clear what the ruling is.
And so for the majority of people that
don't know how to figure it out, how
to navigate these questions, your best course of
action in that moment is just to stay
away.
Okay?
Just to stay away.
Another narration that the Prophet ﷺ, we have,
is narrated to us by Wa'bi Sattah
ibn Ma'badin.
He came to the Prophet ﷺ, and he
asked the Prophet ﷺ, or I'm sorry, the
Prophet ﷺ said to him, qala li.
The Prophet ﷺ said, Do you have any
questions?
Or have you brought a question?
jitta bilbirri wal-ithmi.
Or what was su'al al-birri wal
-ithmi.
Did you come to me with a question
about what is good and what is bad?
Basically someone had tipped the Prophet ﷺ that
this person was coming to ask this question.
So he says, Are you the one that's
coming to ask me about what is good
and what is bad?
And Wa'bi Sattah, he said, Yes, that's
me, I'm here.
So his question was basically, Ya Rasulullah, how
do we decide in a moment where we
don't know?
How do we determine whether something is permissible
or impermissible?
Okay?
Now, pause.
We know that the way in which we
determine permissibility and permissibility in Islam is through
the sacred sources.
Okay, what does the Qur'an say about
it?
What does the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ
say about it?
What do his companions say about it?
Okay, his family, his companions, what do they
say about it?
What do the people who learned from those
people say about it?
So if you have the Prophet ﷺ, you
have his students and their students.
We're talking like direct lineage.
You know, if someone says, Oh, I learned
how to make...
There's a place in Dallas called Tatsu, sushi.
Have you guys heard of this?
No?
Okay.
If you have, then mashallah, we need you
to sign up to be a sustainer at
rootsdfw.org slash sustain because this place is
bonkers expensive.
Okay?
I only went as a guest.
Okay, just relax.
Everyone relax.
So this guy, the reason why he is
so sought after, his setup is wild.
Eight chairs, two dinner services, five nights a
week, sold out months in advance.
Okay, eight seats, only eight seats available or
ten, I forget.
Four nights a week, five nights a week,
two dinner services, one at six, one at
730.
So you have like the white people dinner
and then you have everyone else's dinner, 730,
right?
You have supper and then you have dinner.
Okay?
And he does this and mashallah, he is
sold out months, months.
I think they open up service one month
and then for 45 days it's booked out.
Why?
Because he is trained by, there's a man
that they made a Netflix documentary on called,
I think his name is Jiro, Jiro Dreams
of Sushi.
It's like a famous documentary.
He's one of his students.
And so we, particularly as human beings, give
a lot of reverence and respect to those
people that are trained by the masters, right?
So if the Prophet, peace be upon him,
had students, then their opinions also matter.
Now they're human beings but their opinions are
very heavy, heavier than ours, right?
Because they're the best of generations.
And then their students and their students.
That's how Islamic law is developed.
It's developed through the robust decoding of evidences
and their rankings and their positioning and their
extrapolations based on context, language and other factors,
okay?
So once that process has happened, guess what
you end up with?
You end up with sometimes a difference of
opinion.
It's true.
What should I do?
Should I do this or that?
Should I pray with my hands here or
here or here?
Should I, when is Eid?
In what way?
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to trigger you.
How do we determine when Ramadan starts and
ends, right?
Do we use calculations?
Do we do moonsighting?
If we do moonsighting, is it global?
Is it local?
There's a cute word, glocal.
Is it one that is more longitudinal?
All of these come from the questions of
difference of opinion.
Now there are people in this room that,
again, because we grew up on the sort
of Boolean principles, the empirical principles of right
and wrong, one and zero, when we hear
difference of opinion, we think that this is
a weakness.
If Islam were true, then why is there
a multitude of different correct answers?
But you know why?
Because it's not math, it's religion.
Math has a clear right and a clear
wrong.
It's exactness is what you use it for.
Mathematics is the science of exactness.
Religion is the science of guidance.
And so in the path of guidance, there
could be a multitude of answers.
I'll give you an example.
In the prayer, there's a position in the
prayer called Jalsa, where you're sitting, and you
say, أَتَّحَيَّاتُ لِلَّهِ وَالصَّلَوَاتُ وَالطَّيِّبَاتِ Okay?
Do you know that in the masjid of
the Prophet ﷺ, in his masjid, during his
life, there were over ten different versions of
this supplication, this invocation that were read behind
him.
Ten different versions.
All of them either taught to that person
by him or by one of the companions.
Ten different versions.
Now somebody might walk in and be like,
Wait a minute.
Why was there not just one version?
If there's ten different versions, that must mean
that there's an incorrectness somewhere.
No.
No.
The Prophet ﷺ, another example.
How many of you pray Asr a little
bit earlier than your desi friends?
You guys know the Hanafi Asr versus the
rest of the Shafi'i and the Maliki
and the Hanbalis?
Yeah.
So, you guys know on your app, there's
like a thing for Asr timing?
There's the one that gives you more time
and less time?
You understand?
Okay.
So, where did that even come from?
How do we understand?
Well, there's a difference of opinion on how
to interpret a piece of evidence.
And this happened even during the life of
the Prophet ﷺ.
There was a group of people that were
given a command not to pray until you
reach your destination.
The Prophet ﷺ told this group of travelers,
When you travel, travel and do not stop
to pray until you reach your destination.
They had got delayed and they were about
to miss or about to come across the
ending of the prayer time.
And so they said, look, we have to
stop and pray.
Half of them said, we have to stop
and pray.
Half of them said, no, the Prophet ﷺ
told us, don't pray until you reach your
destination.
So, they came to a conflict.
Okay.
One of them was like, no, we have
to listen to him exactly.
The other ones, you know what they said?
They said, that was the Prophet ﷺ encouraging
us to go quickly.
That was his way of telling us that
we have to move.
Come on, go and don't pray until you
get there.
Meaning what?
Go fast.
That was their understanding.
So they did their thing.
Half prayed there and then the other half
prayed when they arrived at their destination.
So naturally, when you live in the time
of the Prophet ﷺ, when you have a
difference of opinion, what do you do?
You go back to the source.
Who was right?
So you got the two different groups going
back to the Prophet ﷺ.
Ya Rasulullah, can you believe what those guys
did?
You said, don't pray until we got there.
They stopped and prayed.
Alright.
And then the other ones, Ya Rasulullah, you
told us obey Allah under all commands at
all costs, never ever disobey Allah.
The time preparer came, we prayed.
Aren't you proud of us?
The Prophet ﷺ, then they came and said,
which one was right?
Those of us who delayed or those of
us who prayed?
He said, you're both right.
You're both right.
So understanding that our religion has a robust
legal system, it's not a cop-out.
It's not some sort of like, oh yeah,
this is a way to get out of
this.
No.
This is how human beings need their legal
systems to reflect their differences.
One of my teachers said that the rulings
for water that you can make will do.
They differ because the venue and the geography
of the world is different.
Those people that have rainforest access have so
much what we would consider to be pure
water.
And those people who live in the desert
are having to make do with such little
amounts of water that what makes water pure
and impure, the ruling can change helping those
people in the desert because the people in
the rainforest got luxury in terms of their
availability of water.
All this is to say is that whenever
you come to a question in Islam and
you hear the person that you're asking say,
well, there's a difference of opinion, please do
not exhale on our face.
Number one, if you had garlic that day,
we know.
Number two, you're underappreciating the power of the
legal system that you are seeking help from.
You're underappreciating it.
We are going to witness tonight how Imam
Ghazali handles this.
Imam Ghazali, a lot of people know him
as a purification of the heart specialist.
Actually, his most effective and powerful text was
called Al Mustasfa, which was a principle of
legal theory.
He's a Shafi'i scholar.
So let me give you the rest of
this hadith and then we'll dive into the
book inshaAllah.
So he says, this man came to the
Prophet ﷺ and he had been trying to
navigate through permissibility, impermissibility, halal, haram.
What is the deal?
What is the deal?
Just give me the answer, ya Rasulullah.
So the Prophet ﷺ, he says this very,
very powerful answer.
He says to him, he says, you came
to me.
جئت تسأل عن البر والإثم قلت نعم Yes,
I did.
قال, he says, he gathered his fingers like
this.
He made a fist.
I just translated Arabic so poorly.
He gathered his fingers.
No, he made a fist, okay?
He made a fist, okay?
فجمع أصابعه He took his fingers and he
gathered them together and made a fist.
فضرب بها صدره He struck his chest like
that.
You know how we do that when we
went like that.
وقال استفت نفسك He said, ask your soul.
استفت قلبك Ask your heart.
And then he said, يا واصبة He said,
oh wasiba.
He said three times.
يا واصبة ثلاثا He said, ya wasiba, ya
wasiba, ya wasiba.
And then he said that البر piety ما
أطمأنّت إليه النفس When you make a pious
decision, it is what settles your soul into
a state of let's call it religious tranquility.
You know that this is the right thing
to do.
It may have caused your body and your
mind anxiety, okay?
But your soul feels good about what you
did, okay?
And then he says, والإثم And he says,
وَالإِثْمُ مَا حَاكَ فِي نَفْسِ The sin is
what irritates and puts tension in your chest.
وَتَرَدَّدْ فِي الصَّدْرِ And it's like bouncing all
over your chest.
It's like echoing, it's like reverberating inside of
you.
وَإِنْ أَفْتَاكَ النَّاسُ وَأَفْتُوكَ Even if you ask
people and they gave you permission.
He said what is wrong is wrong even
if people gave you the thumbs up.
And what is right is right even if
people are telling you no because you know
what's happening inside of here.
Now the scholars say that this hadith has
one condition and that condition is a pure
heart.
Because if a person's heart becomes impure, then
seeking an answer from an impure heart is
like seeking direction from a broken compass.
You're not gonna get true north.
So if a person is already compromised morally
and spiritually, they're gonna say, yeah, no problem.
Yeah, no issue.
Yeah, no issue.
And they won't feel the reverberations.
You know the heart is like a siren
but if you ignore it long enough, the
volume decreases, decreases, eventually becomes mute.
And the things that you promised yourself you
would never do now, no problem, right?
So these hadith give us the parameter of
how we use and understand these different, I'm
gonna say this very carefully, loopholes in Islamic
law.
There are no loopholes but human beings can
make a loop wherever they want to.
Now let's read the actual text from Imam
Ghazali, inshallah, in order to give this a
little bit more substance.
Not from the hadith of course, the hadith
are most substantive, but for tonight's conversation about
music, to add some substance to it, okay?
So he says that listening to music, السمع
قد يكون حراما محظا وقد يكون مباحا وقد
يكون مكروها وقد يكون مستحبا He basically listed
all the five rulings in Islam.
He said, or some of them, he said
that music can be impermissible, it can be
reprehensible, it can be allowed or it can
be praiseworthy.
Okay, now he's gonna say something here that
I think is very important for us to
understand.
He's not including in this categorization like Cardi
B.
Just wanna get that out there, like before
we move forward, and everyone is like feeling,
okay, okay, permissible, praiseworthy, I think, let's just
all be adults for a second, okay?
He's talking about musical instruments here, and there's
one disqualifier from the get-go, which is,
and he's gonna describe it, but I'm just
giving it to you, if the quality of
the content is such that it is devilish
and immoral, it doesn't matter, nothing else matters.
You know, you can't listen to or watch
things that are haram and try to make
them haram.
You can't rob a bank and build a
masjid with the money.
You can't do that, right?
You can't make iftar with poisonous food or
pork or alcohol, you can't do that, okay?
So he says, as for the person, now
don't think of this as rulings, think of
these as people.
As for the person that music for them
is not permissible, he says, لأكثر الناس من
الشبان He says, it's young people, subhanAllah, a
thousand years ago.
He goes, who is music impermissible for?
Young people.
It's like young people have always been impressionable.
It doesn't matter, a thousand years ago or
now.
And it's true, right?
Do you guys remember like being a lot
more attached to music when you were younger,
maybe than you are now?
Like it's true, they make fun of boomers,
no offense, right, if you're a boomer.
We're all there, we're almost there.
Oh, the music is so loud, it all
sounds the same.
Like in popular culture, they frame it as,
oh, this music nowadays is so lame.
Back in my day, we had good music,
right?
So people's attachment to music is typically also
characterized by their youth.
Like when you get old and boring, you
start listening to podcasts, right?
You're like, I'm going to listen to this
instead.
I want to learn, I don't want to
just listen.
So he says, لأكثر الناس من الشبان ومن
غضبت عليهم شهوة الدنيا فلا يحرك السماع منهم
إلا ما هو الغالب على قلوبهم من الصفات
المذمومة He said that.
The one who, for them, music is impermissible
is the one that when they listen to
it, it interjects or it injects in places
thoughts that are immoral.
It stirs up their inner being, right?
It makes them kind of like have this
deep intense desire for the world.
And when they listen to it, all it
brings about within them are negative qualities.
So they listen to the music, and there's
nothing praiseworthy coming from that.
There's no reflection.
There's no thought.
There's nothing virtuous or moral.
It's just what?
It's base desires, right?
Money, *, all these things that are just
base desires, okay?
Nafs, thinking about yourself, putting yourself on a
pedestal, all of these things, okay?
And then he continues.
And he says, وَأَمَلْ مَكْرُوهُ And for the
person who it is disliked, not haram.
So for the first person, he says, you
can't listen to music anymore.
Turn it off, right?
Get your podcast going.
No more music for you.
Because you can't control it.
The introduction of this into you, it affects
you.
So those narrations and rulings that talk about
impermissibility, guess what?
Ding, ding, ding, you're the winner.
It's impermissible for you.
Then he says, وَأَمَلْ مَكْرُوهُ He says, for
the person who it is makrooh for, he
says, فَهُوَ لِمَنْ لَا يُنَزِلُ عَلَىٰ سُورَةِ الْمَخْلُقِينَ
وَلَكِنَّهُ يَتَّخِذْهُ عَادَةً لَهُ فِي أَكْثَرِ الْأَوْقَاتِ عَلَىٰ
سَبِيلِ اللَّهْوِ He says, as for the one
which it is not quite impermissible, but it
is absolutely reprehensible.
It's like a waste of their time and
their life.
He says, it's for the person that when
they listen to music, it doesn't have the
power to project these human desires into them.
They don't translate the music into sin.
It doesn't quite have that power over them,
but it takes up all of their time.
And it's almost like they can't function without
it.
They're not necessarily being motivated to haram by
it.
They're not being pushed to these lustful, desirous
things.
They're able to hold themselves back that much.
But when they're not listening to music, they
find themselves like turning it on.
Like just putting it on.
Hey, turn on some music.
Hey, turn something on.
It's like a pacifier.
It's like an adult pacifier.
I need it.
I need it.
It's like white noise for them.
Okay?
And he says, for entertainment.
They listen to it as a result of
their need for entertainment.
And he says, for those people who it
is permissible, He says, He
says, for those people that music is permissible
for them, number one, it does not motivate
them to have this lustful desire.
Number two, it doesn't become a pacifier for
them.
They don't need it all the time.
Number three, in their listening of it, it's
not an addictive property.
It doesn't push them in the wrong direction.
And when they engage with it, when it's
there, they simply just comment and they reflect
about how beautiful it is the voice that
Allah gave this person.
So they're able to connect it back to
what?
Reflection.
It's a reflective experience.
So you listen to someone's voice and you're
like, you know, there was an imam one
time that I'll say something.
He was like, If Adel called the Adhan.
And again, we laugh because it's kind of
humorous and really actually in some way blasphemous.
But the point is, able to bring it
back to a reflection about Allah's creation.
Right?
We've always been a culture, Islamic cultures have
always been a culture that reveres beauty and
loves the beauty of voice.
Okay?
And even of, in some opinions, instruments.
So he says, that is okay.
Now, who can listen to music and that
music actually becomes a means of good deeds
for them?
Obviously they have to, they have to qualify
all the first three qualifications.
So you can't let it push you to
be doing bad things.
You can't let it become like a pacifier.
And you don't just stop it reflecting on
the beauty of the person's voice.
He says, for the person who for them
it's mustahab.
He says, فَهُوَ لِمَنْ غَالَبَ عَلَيْهِ حُبِّ اللَّهِ
تَعَالَىٰ This person listens to something and it
brings in their chest this love of Allah.
Okay?
وَلَمْ يُحَرَكَ السَّمَعُ مِنْهُ إِلَّا أَصْفَاتِ الْمَحْمُودَةِ He
says, and it does not move them, the
music does not move them at all, except
in praiseworthy things.
Like it motivates them, it pushes them to
do the right thing.
I know that it's tough because when we
think of like music, and Dr. Mostafa, he
actually writes about this, which I think is
really powerful.
He says, centuries ago, the culture of music
was that people would basically go to special
places and it would be the primary form
of entertainment.
It would be like a concert, you know,
live, unplugged.
You would go and you would listen to
somebody and they would sing, sometimes they would
have a drum, sometimes they would have a
string instrument.
Certain instruments were prohibited by the Prophet ﷺ,
so those were avoided.
And a lot of times the conversations on
music, the prohibition was attached to the effect
that it had on people, and the association
that that music had with the actual act
itself.
Okay?
So he says, centuries ago, people would go
to these places and listen to songs.
They were not available all the time.
He goes, what do you think?
He writes this, he says, what do you
think Imam al-Ghazali would have said if
he knew that in the future, literally millions
of recorded songs would be stored for people
to listen to readily at any time?
So what do you think his response would
have been?
He said, Imam al-Ghazali's first concern, this
is as a legal scholar, was about the
content of the music which might lead people,
particularly young people, to a psychological sickness of
projection and fantasy.
Right?
And subhanAllah, it's actually, if we're going to
be very honest, when I was a high
school English teacher, one of the projects that
I did to talk about the effect of
persuasive writing was I took music like songs,
like lyrics, and I separated them from the
instruments, and I made the class read them
and talk about what the persuasive argument was.
Right?
So I took Jason Derulo's song, where he's
trying to win his love back after he
cheated on her.
And we read it.
They read it.
Sorry, I didn't do anything.
I made them read it.
And it's funny because in the song, he
literally admits to his cheating, he admits to
his infidelity, and he tries to repair it
by saying, I will buy you whatever you
want.
There's no, like, admission of guilt.
There's no, like, I'll work on myself.
I'll go seek counseling.
Like, you know, I understand if you don't
want to take me back.
There's none of that.
He's like, I'll buy you whatever you want.
Just take me back.
And it's funny because when we did it
without the music, I asked the students, what
do you think about this argument?
They said it's weak.
Like that's not enough to convince somebody to
take you back after committing such a horrible
thing.
But I said, when you listen to it
with the instruments, what do you feel?
They're like, we just feel moved.
Ajiv, huh?
The presence of that music changed their whole
perspective on what the message of the song
was.
Now, the opinions that the scholars had differed
between whether or not instruments were permissible and
permissible.
A strong majority of scholars actually mentioned that
instruments themselves are not necessarily impermissible.
Hans Zimmer is okay.
Okay?
But the effect that it has has to
be considered.
And this is what Imam Ghazali is teaching
us.
Now, let's go back to the hadith that
we read.
What did the Prophet ﷺ say?
He said, the halal is clear and the
haram is clear.
And between them there will be questionable things.
The best route for most people is just
leave them be.
But if this is something that impacts your
daily life, now let's go to the second
hadith.
What did the Prophet ﷺ tell that man?
He said, goodness, virtue, good deeds are those
things which when you do them, your heart
does not feel anything but rest.
And bad deeds are those things which, no
matter how much you have an argument supporting
your opinion, it makes you feel unwell.
Imam Ghazali is doing the same thing here.
He's saying, if you want, you could present
yourself as any type of person listening to
anything.
But you know, you know what this stuff
does to you.
You know that if you listen to certain
things, it changes your perspective.
You know.
And by the way, music is not alone.
Let's talk about movies.
Let's talk about TV shows.
Right?
I don't want to say it.
I'm going to say them.
I went to a wedding recently, mashallah, a
beautiful wedding.
But it looked like Bridgerton.
What?
I don't even watch that.
How do I know that?
Because it's so, it dominates the discourse.
Right?
I see way too many Muslims posting about
Love Island.
Or whatever it's called.
The Habibi edition?
What is it?
Love is Blind.
Yeah, whatever it's called.
See?
I'm officially becoming uncool.
I love it.
I'm letting the warmth of lameness wash over
me.
I'm seeing way too many Muslims.
Hey, after Isha, do you want to...
Relax.
You just prayed Isha.
Don't ruin it.
You're pouring vinegar into the milk.
Don't do that.
Right?
Look.
What does consuming these things do to you?
If we're so careful about food and drink
and air purifiers.
Our home has organic food and air purification.
And HVAC, HEPA filters.
And this, we drive EVs, save the environment.
And then we watch garbage.
We're taking care of the body and we're
killing the heart.
You're better off.
You're better off.
If you had to choose.
Both is best.
But you're better off preserving this and letting
your body die.
It's going to die anyways.
You're better off.
May Allah protect us.
So then Imam Ghazali says.
That was his first concern.
He said, people color what they hear through
their own desires.
It actually changes.
There was a young guy who got dumped
by his girlfriend one time.
And he told me he can't get over
it.
I said, what are you listening to?
He said, John Mayer.
I said, stop that.
That's why you can't get over it.
This is like sad white dude playing guitar.
Like, of course, man.
You need to listen to like, I don't
know, Creed or something.
Like, just like get you pumped up.
You know, Nickelback.
Like in the most Caucasian of ways.
So then once the content in itself is
problematic, it becomes prohibited.
There's no question about it.
There's no discussion.
There's no, oh, let's dive in.
Let's figure interpretively.
No.
No one wants to interpret that stuff.
But then he said the degree of prohibition
becomes more severe.
And probably would have become more severe if
the scholars knew about how explicit and lewd
the content is today.
It's everywhere.
And while there are songs today that might
be considered positive, because they motivate people to
overcome challenges and do something good, there are
dark songs, dark theme songs that entertain wrong
behavior.
If you want to do a test of
this, just see if you would listen to
the music you listen to in front of
your young children.
And see.
Or your friend's young children.
Even more embarrassing.
And see.
See how you feel.
Does it cause any sort of disturbance in
your soul or not?
He says, once the song is devoid of
any problematic content, according to the Islamic traditions,
and the listener does not have any ill
thoughts, but only listens to it by way
of habit for extended periods, it's not haram,
but it becomes makruh.
Al-Ghazali, he says here, is concerned with
wasting time.
As with any type of extended activity.
It's not just music.
Any type of extended activity.
Have you guys ever heard before that chess
was haram for a while?
Do you know why?
Historically, chess was haram.
Because some people would sit there for hours
and play a game.
They got like family at home.
They're missing prayers.
Right?
And then for those going on, they're like,
check.
You know?
Oh, you got my rook.
Check.
You know, like, get up and pray.
So it's not just music.
He was saying that a waste of time
with extended activity that does not generate any
personal or public good.
We're not talking about exercise.
We're not talking about reading.
We're not talking about going on a walk.
Right?
We're talking about things that are just, as
they say in Urdu, time pass.
Right?
Things that are just there, which I know
is two English words.
Right?
But when you put them together with the
accent, it becomes Urdu.
Okay?
He says, no material or spiritual benefit.
Listening here then becomes a distraction from the
purpose of your life.
The music becomes a distraction.
Same thing with scrolling on social media.
Just take it and apply it.
It's not necessarily haram, but man, it's close.
It's getting there.
It is interesting that the synonyms of entertainment
include, in the dictionary or in the thesaurus,
diversion and distraction.
It's interesting.
I had a friend who was getting her
PhD.
She's actually my wife's very good friend.
She got her PhD.
I forget in what exactly the category was,
but her thesis was on how Bollywood was
a mechanism that was used to divert and
give people this escapist experience from the difficulties
politically in their own life.
And so the government entities actually prop up
Bollywood and dramas because they serve as an
opiate for the masses.
They allow people to forget about, for example,
the politicians are not taking care of you,
but that doesn't matter because it's on tonight.
I got to watch it.
We got to see if Shagufta and Sheheryar
finally get married.
And that's not specific to that part of
the world.
It's also here.
If you see how they use media to
try to distract us from the real issues
that we're experiencing as people.
And so Imam Ghazali says, entertainment is oftentimes
a synonym for diversion and distraction.
The third category is when listening to songs
is simply permitted.
Here the listener enjoys the beautiful voice and
the melody.
There is no transgression in the content and
it is done only occasionally.
Maybe it's when a person exercises or when
a person goes on a walk or when
a person does, even though there's other things
you could argue, but it's not to the
point where it pacifies them.
And he says the fourth category is when
listening becomes commendable.
It is for those whom the love of
Allah has occupied their entire heart the whole
time, their emotions and their actions.
They are the opposite of the first category
for once they hear a song about any
beloved, they think of Allah.
The song in their case becomes a tool
that helps them bring forth their soul in
the best of ways and their character as
well.
This passage, subhanAllah, is how Islamic law works.
There's always going to be the mathematics of
it and the arithmetic of it based on
evidences.
You can't ignore that for logical and feeling
extrapolations.
We can't do that.
However, every Islamic scholar, Imam Ghazali being the
foremost amongst the Shafi'is in terms of
his usool, every Islamic scholar, when they take
a ruling from the arithmetic and they have
their work, when they apply it, it has
warmth and feeling to it.
It doesn't mean that a person has to
always feel and understand the warmth in order
to get the ruling and follow it.
But what it means is that even in
the absence of that warmth, it's still there.
So when you hear things from scholars saying
things like, don't listen to that, don't watch
that, love is blind or whatever.
It's not just somebody trying to take a
shot at your plans.
It's not just someone trying to tell us,
hey, you know the other day I was
having a conversation with somebody about going to
sports events, Mavs games, Cowboys games.
The Mavs are owned by like the Zionist
of all Zionists, literally.
She is probably the worst human being in
America.
She is the wife of Sheldon Adelson who
is like the primary funder of all Zionist
politic.
And she owns the Mavs.
And we're talking about, you know, not going
to the games and this and that.
And then someone else brought up, yeah, I
also don't like how during commercial breaks and
halftime, they have cheerleaders come out and they're
dressed inappropriately and there's beer everywhere.
And one time someone spilled beer on my
kid.
And I said to myself, subhanallah, you don't
need fiqh to figure out if you have
to go to these things.
You really don't.
Like you don't need to go to a
scholar and say present to me the daleel
from the Qur'an and sunnah about whether
or not I should go to a Mavs
game.
Like if you do the math, you can
figure it out.
If you look at how Imam al-Ghazali
approached it, you can figure it out, right?
That's not to say that entertainment is worthless
and is problematic, no.
But if it affects you and if it
puts you in an environment where you know
that Allah is not pleased with, right?
Maybe watching the game is different than going.
Maybe that's a different experience because you're not
surrounded by that.
You don't see the lewdness on the court.
You don't have the alcohol flowing around you.
You don't put yourself in that position.
Maybe watching the Cowboys is different than going.
They're going to lose both ways, but maybe
going there and watching them is different, right?
So these decisions, now again, if I said
this on Monday night, it's going to be
a challenge, right?
But here, we're in a place collectively as
a group here where you have to start
thinking differently about the decisions that you make.
There's no more hand-holding.
Your spiritual health relies on you.
Like it relies on me.
My spiritual health is my choice.
If I am not finding myself growing spiritually,
I have one thing to look at and
that's the mirror.
Can't blame anybody else.
If a friend is asking you to do
something that you know, you know that it's
causing you issues, then it's your job to
say, you know, I don't think I'm going
to make it.
You don't have to be like kafir, right?
Dirty kafir, like no.
You can just say, I don't think I'm
going to make it.
I don't think I can make it.
Why?
Why not?
I'll get your ticket.
No, no, it's okay.
You know what?
I'm really exhausted.
And then if they keep pushing you, then
you can say, I just don't feel comfortable.
I don't feel comfortable.
I'm not judging you.
I don't feel comfortable.
It's a me thing.
It's not a you thing.
Right?
I'm not judging you.
It's a me thing.
Maybe you can go to that game and
it doesn't affect.
Look what Imam Ghazali said.
The young person who can't control how the
music makes them feel, they have to check
themselves.
But they may be friends with somebody who
is like, what?
What music?
Oh, there's music playing?
I don't even hear it.
So the ruling changes based on what?
The people.
You have to know yourself.
And you have to know how these things
affect you in order to apply these things
correctly.
May Allah give us Tawfiq.
May Allah allow us to always choose that
which is best for us and best for
our relationship with Him.
May Allah give us the clarity in the
decisions that we make.
Ameen.
Let's go ahead and do some questions, inshallah.
Isha prayers in 15 minutes, correct?
Yes?
8.30, I believe.
Let me just check quickly.
What a shame it would be to listen
to me and miss Isha.
I know we're changing times soon.
Yeah, we're good.
Okay, 8.30. All right.
First question.
If, oh man.
If five daily prayers equals 50, if I
pray five times a day for a year,
will it make up nine years of missed
prayers?
So, let's talk about this.
So, the general understanding of missing a prayer
is that if a person misses a prayer,
they have to make it up.
Okay?
So, if I missed dhuhr today, I have
to make it up.
Okay?
That's the command, that's the hadith of the
Prophet, peace be upon him, that if a
person misses a prayer, they have to do
what's called qada.
I feel like I've answered this before in
this class.
Okay.
Now, if a person has, for whatever circumstance,
as many people do, a extended amount of
missed prayers, like we're talking like an amount
that becomes quite a lot, and it's very,
very difficult for them, there are some scholars
that give the opinion that you should be
making up prayers in chunks, like every prayer
that you pray, just pray three more, and
have that be your, you know, fulfilling your
debt of the salah.
There are some other scholars, ibn Taymiyyah, who
actually mentioned some other solutions.
My personal conversations with my teacher, Shaykh Abdul
Nasser and others, is that to do the
ritual act of praying five dhuhrs at every
dhuhr, because you miss dhuhr for five years
or ten years, it eventually makes that act
a very, very dry and cumbersome, and eventually
like makes it basically a pointless act.
Okay?
So, ibn Taymiyyah, rahimahullah, what he says, what
he mentions is, that if a person misses
a prayer, or if they miss prayer for
an extended period of time, due to their
own negligence, their own circumstance that they put
themselves in, etc., what can they do to
make it up once they come to their
spiritual path, their way, is, ibn Taymiyyah says,
just do every single nafl that you can,
do every single supererogatory prayer that you can
for the rest of your life.
Basically, stop missing your prayers, start praying, and
then you better not miss a nafl for
the rest of your life.
Right?
And the hadith that he uses, is he
says, because the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ
says on the Day of Judgment, the first
thing that Allah Ta'ala will look at
is the person's salah, and if it is
good, then everything else will be good, but
if it is bad, then Allah will look,
if it is incomplete, then Allah will look
at the nafl prayers, and then He will
take the nafl and He will fill the
gaps of the person's fard, through their nafl,
through their supererogatory.
So, this is kind of, this is admittedly
not the majority opinion, the majority opinion is
that you have to make them up, but
there are people that I've met who have
come and have shared that, you know, I'm
like in the thousands of missed prayers, I'm
in the thousands, okay?
And so, if it's overwhelming and daunting to
you, my advice is just start praying, just
start, don't think about what you owe, just
start, right now.
Tonight, isha.
And then, pray your sunnah.
And tomorrow, pray fajr, and pray your sunnah.
And keep going, okay?
We're not going to talk about five, at
five times a day, 25 prayers, we're not
going to get into that, okay?
Wallahu alam, Allah Ta'ala make it easy,
inshallah.
Oh, another great one, great, this is awesome.
How come, do you guys hear the sarcasm?
How come guys can marry non-Muslim girls,
but girls can't marry non-Muslim guys?
Seems like a dumb rule in this day
and age.
I didn't add that part, they did.
Okay, so, alright.
So, it is true that the only eligible
spouses for a Muslim woman is a Muslim
man.
But did you know that according to a
large amount of companions, those who are close
to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and
others, that it is only permissible for a
Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim woman,
in specific, very specific circumstances, number one.
And number two, some of them even put
the condition that she would have to convert
after marriage.
Number three, if there was any doubt about
what the spiritual path of the children would
be, the marriage is invalid.
So, this is an example again of understanding
fiqh and actually applying it.
Like, look what Imam Ghazali did for music.
Now, let's do this with marriage, okay?
So, you have a guy, he's Muslim, he
meets a girl who's non-Muslim, and he
wants to marry her.
You have to go through the entire, you
have to go through the flowchart.
Okay?
Is she actually someone who's considering becoming a
Muslim?
If she does, problem solved.
There's two Muslims getting married, no issue there.
Okay?
But, if she's not, and she's like, no,
no, no, we can make it work, I'm
just going to tell you from over a
decade of Imam experience, everyone who tried to
make it work, it's not worked.
They may have been able to extend it,
but it has not worked.
Okay?
There are some cases where the person does
become Muslim, again, problem solved.
Problem solved.
Okay?
I'm talking about a person saying, I'm going
to be Christian for the rest of my
life, or Jewish, or whatever, atheist.
And the other person, I'm going to be
Muslim for the rest of my life.
It has not worked.
Eventually, you get to a point where your
morals and your virtue and your vision for
your own spiritual future comes to the surface
of your perspective and has now conflict.
And that's an important thing to understand.
Okay?
So, the real question that I'm answering here
is, why should a person who is Muslim
not even consider marrying somebody who is not
Muslim?
Well, I don't know how a person could
enter into a lifelong companionship and union with
somebody who doesn't believe that the Prophet, peace
be upon him, was the Prophet.
I don't know.
I don't know how that's possible, that I
would have to teach my child about Allah
and His Messenger, and they wouldn't be able
to go and seek the same questions and
advice from the other person.
And I'm not trying to sound mean or
harsh, but at some point, like, the weathering
of being an imam just kind of shows.
And the amount of people that I could
line up here next to me, on my
right and my left, that would beg everybody
to not even consider this, because they've gone
through it and they've gone through the destruction
that it causes, it's beyond what I could
fit up here.
Okay?
But, at the end of the day, it's
not my choice.
Well, kind of it is.
I don't do niqabs for this.
So, if somebody's like, can you come?
He's white, he'll do it.
No, I'm not.
I don't do that.
Right?
They're like, we have a friend who has
a friend.
They want to marry a non-Muslim.
We heard that you're pretty cool and Roots
is, well, I'm like, yeah, Roots is welcoming.
I'm not.
So, I'm like, I'm not about that life.
Like, we're not going to do that.
Right?
Because there's too many eligible Muslim women for
a Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim
woman.
I'm just, I'm sorry.
Like, I'm just, you know, if you had
to go and find somebody at work, and
you couldn't come to the masjid and find
somebody, like, I can do this all night.
My shoulders, my traps are, you know, ready.
Wallahu a'adam.
Don't do it.
Just don't do it.
It's not going to be worth it.
I'm telling you.
What do you think is beautiful as well?
Like, you don't think Iman is beautiful?
You don't think faith is the thing that
makes someone beautiful?
Like, that's it?
SubhanAllah.
Okay.
It's the same on both sides.
I know we go out for men, but
women are doing it too now.
Just, let's cut it out.
I know it's tough.
Let's work on actual solutions that are not
going to cause future destruction.
Right?
Temporary solution, future pain, not worth it.
Deferred pain, future inshallah solution, worth it.
Inshallah, inshallah.
May Allah make it easy.
Okay.
Okay, let's do one more.
What do you count as bad content for
music?
Is it ever silly like Ariana Grande?
Break up with your boyfriend.
I'm bored.
Ariana Grande's makeup artist liked the Last Roots
video, by the way.
She them did.
I'm not joking.
If we look at lyrics in detail, all
music is inherently bad.
I don't know if that's the case.
I don't know if that's true.
I wouldn't even say artists are categorically wrong.
I think that their songs, like Lupe Fiasco
has some songs that are really, really bad
and some songs that are really, really fine.
But I would say, yeah, generally speaking.
I'll share with you what Dr. Uckrum said.
When I asked him about music, I said,
is there any sahih and sarih evidence that
prohibits instruments?
He goes, no.
He goes, it's not definitively impermissible to listen
to music, but who has time?
That's what he said, which I love, which
I love it.
And I was like, you know what?
You're right, man.
You're right.
So, I mean, bad content should be fairly
obvious and evident.
Ustadh, what about clean Korean drama?
Okay, that's where we close.
That after finishing keeps you hanging in the
ambiance but helps you set standards for the
guy you want as a partner in your
life.
Two emojis.
The bar is too low.
K-drama keeps me grounded.
This can't be real.
Is there any specific dua you can help
that will get you a job or interview?
I am desperate and I have bills coming
up.
May Allah make it easy.
There's a hadith I'll share with you and
then we'll conclude.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, he said,
مَنْ لَزِمَ الْإِسْتِغْفَارِ يَجْعَلَ اللَّهُ مِنْ كُلِّي دَيْكٍ
مَخْرَجًا وَمِنْ كُلِّيهَا مِنْ فَرَجًا وَيَرْزُكُهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ
لَا يَحْتَسِبُ He says, whoever makes istighfar a
part of their daily regimen.
مَنْ لَزِمَ الْإِسْتِغْفَارِ Like, it's part of your
routine.
He says, Allah will do three things for
you.
Number one, He will يَجْعَلَ اللَّهُ مِنْ كُلِّي
دَيْكٍ مَخْرَجًا He will take every constricted moment
in your life and He'll give you an
exit.
وَمِنْ كُلِّيهَا مِنْ فَرَجًا And He will take
every grief that you feel, every anxiety you
feel and He'll give you relief from it.
وَيَرْزُكُهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ And He will
provide for you from places you never thought
possible.
There have been so many, subhanAllah, people that
I've shared this hadith with and they've made
istighfar a part of their daily, like coffee
in the morning, istighfar.
You know, fajr, istighfar, coffee.
And they've added it.
And after just even a few days or
a few weeks, they've come back and said
it's completely changed.
Number one, like their perspective, their outlook, their...
And they said they've also noticed the barakah
that Allah Ta'ala puts in.
Why?
Why istighfar?
Because sins stop barakah.
So sinning takes barakah away.
When I do riba, when I do this,
when I do that, it cuts the barakah.
So if I'm doing what's cleaning the sin,
then naturally it's opening the doors for blessing.
So istighfar, istighfar has the immediate benefit of
like repentance and like clearing your books, but
it also has the tertiary benefit of the
fragrancing of your life with blessing, right?
So istighfar is what I would recommend.
And then, of course, du'a.
Make du'a that Allah Ta'ala gives
you.
And make du'a by his names, right?
Al-Razzaq, Al-Kareem.
The ones where Allah Ta'ala will shower
you with his generosity, inshaAllah.
May Allah make it easy.
I know it's very, very challenging, subhanAllah.
You know, my dad, subhanAllah, my dad got
laid off in 2008.
And, you know, he's unemployed.
Kind of back and forth, and, you know,
we lost...
Our house got foreclosed on, and we lived
in different apartments.
Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah.
And there was a time when my brother,
my sister, and I were paying the rent
for our family, like working, I worked at
the Apple store.
My brother was teaching MCAT courses.
By the way, big bucks.
And my sister was, you know, she was
working at, I think she was at a
non-profit.
And, subhanAllah, like those moments, you go through
them, and you're literally going to sleep waking
up, and you're like, it's never going to
end.
And, subhanAllah, you know, it's crazy to look
and think like 15, 20 years ago, even,
that this was our state, how generous Allah
is.
You know, we go through tough times, but
Allah ta'ala will always be there.
Just stay committed, inshaAllah.
And Allah ta'ala help us.
BarakAllahu feekum.
Okay, everybody, inshaAllah, we're going to break for
isha.
If you can help me with the backjacks
up here, with the chairs, if you can
fold them, put them on the dollies.
And then if you sat on any furniture,
just turn it back around to the way
it is.
And then inshaAllah, I'll see you guys in
the masalah.
We're not going to take any questions up
here now, because I want to make sure
that we all get to prayer on time.
And if you have any questions, you can
telegram me.
Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.