AbdelRahman Murphy – Thirty & Up Treasury Of Imam Al-Ghazli #17
AI: Summary ©
The three stages of addiction, including falling short of obeying Allah's subhana wa ta, losing their identity, and never admiting to mistakes are essential for addiction prevention. The importance of avoiding regret, setting boundaries, and avoiding bad language is emphasized. The need for forgiveness and working towards a good idea is also emphasized. The importance of avoiding overwhelming feelings and setting boundaries is emphasized, along with the need to be mindful of one's actions. The speaker encourages the audience to focus on their actions and avoid overwhelming feelings.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum.
Bismillah.
Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala rasulullahi
wa ala alihi wa ashabihi ajma'een.
Welcome home, everybody.
It's good to see you.
Alhamdulillah.
Okay.
Bismillah.
Sorry for the delay.
Really sorry.
I'm just finishing up some important conversation inside.
Lost track of time.
But alhamdulillah.
The good thing about being a Muslim is
that you believe in predestination.
So I couldn't have started any earlier.
Allah knew that I was going to start
tonight late.
So that's a little joke.
Clearly not funny.
All right.
We're number.
We are starting on passage number 17.
So we're about halfway done with our text.
So one of the key ingredients in anyone's
path to Allah subhana wa ta'ala.
We talked about this a little bit last
night.
We actually said that there's a categorization of
every Muslim.
You know, your life can be broken down
into three stages.
Right.
The first is when you are following and
obeying Allah subhana wa ta'ala.
The second is when you are falling short
of obeying Allah.
And the third is as a result of
falling short, you repent back to Allah subhana
wa ta'ala.
So there's basically three modes that every person
can be existing in.
So the first two are, you know, just
fairly, I guess you could say they're just
sort of existential in nature.
Like you're either going to be obeying or
not obeying.
But the third is really that the moment
of repentance is really the one where you
shine.
That's where every believer proves their mettle and
proves their worth with Allah subhana wa ta
'ala.
And that's where most people in the stage
of repentance, that's where they start to climb
the ladder back to Allah.
There's actually a book by a great scholar
and he actually titled it Hitab al-Awwabin,
The Book of the Repentant People.
And in it are just like, I think
300 stories, very famous narrations about moments of
repentance that began even during the life of
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, but then
also extended through his life and encompass some
of the Sahaba and then those other individuals
that came later, the righteous predecessors that followed.
And some of these stories are incredible.
And they talk about like, for example, you
know, the chronic alcoholic, right?
Or the person who was stealing from their
community or the person that was just completely
immoral.
And that person and their moment of realization,
their moment of when their heart turned back
to Allah subhana wa ta'ala.
On this topic in particular on repentance, it
was once asked of Sayyidina Umar radiallahu anhu,
they asked him, you know, who's better in
the sight of Allah?
The one who never makes a mistake, who
never sins or the person who makes a
mistake and repents?
And Umar, he responded and the narration said
he responded with quickness and with definitiveness.
He said, without a doubt, it's the one
who makes a mistake and repents.
So the person basically gave like a riddle.
Who's better, the one who never sinned or
the person who sinned and repented?
He said, without a doubt, it's the one
who repents, makes a mistake and repents.
So the person asking was like confused, caught
off guard.
Yeah, we know Tawbah is good, but how
could it be the case that that person
is better than the one who never made
a mistake?
And they were trying to make this argument.
You know, sometimes we have these debates, you
know, these ethical dilemma debates.
And so this is a similar one.
How can you say that the one who
made a mistake and repented is better than
the one who never made a mistake?
That person's perfect.
And Umar, again, look at the way that
these people, their minds and their hearts work.
He said, to make a mistake and come
back to Allah shows much higher strength in
faith than to never have to climb out
of the ditch.
Like a person who's never had to repent
in terms of like big mistakes, their faith
is good, of course.
May Allah give us that nice period.
But think about the one that had to
stumble, but had to get up and get
and keep going.
Like what type of courage, what type of
fortitude, what type of resilience, what type of
subhanallah strength that person must have possessed.
So Umar said that believer is way stronger
than the one who never had to deal
with the effect of making the mistake in
the first place.
So tonight's topic is on this virtue of
Tawbah.
What does it mean to be a person
of repentance?
What actually motivates repentance?
You know there are, my teacher once said,
there are some sins that we do where
we ask Allah to forgive us.
Like it's manifestly obvious that this is a
mistake.
You made a mistake, make repentance and move
on, right?
But think for a moment to yourself even,
of all the mistakes that you may have
made, that you actually forgot about before you
remembered to repent.
And think about those mistakes that escaped your
consciousness before you remembered that you made them.
And now if you had to like every
year in Ramadan, you sit there and you're
asking Allah to forgive you.
Imagine like doing an inventory and thinking about
all the mistakes you may have made, right?
The words, the glances, maybe the lies, whatever,
all of those things.
And my teacher said, never forget this dua.
He said, ask Allah to forgive you for
the mistakes that you forgot to repent for.
Like make this all encompassing comprehensive dua.
Oh Allah, forgive me for the mistakes that
I know and those that I don't know.
The ones that I forgot about and the
ones that I remembered, right?
Because we're human beings, we forget.
So there is a process and there is
a motivation to this act of tawbah.
It's not guaranteed, it's not given, right?
It's not an absolute that every Muslim is
gonna be a person that makes repentance.
No, there are some of us, may Allah
protect us, where we make mistakes and we
just move on.
And we think in our minds and our
hearts that, you know what, Allah will forgive
me.
He will and He can, but He told
us that there are steps along the way.
So Imam Ghazali, he writes here, and this
is taken from his Ihya as well.
He writes, حَدَّ التَّوْبَةِ What's the definition, what
is the actual meaning of the word tawbah,
right?
And you know Imam Ghazali is not going
like a dictionary.
He's gonna give you like a real nice,
like a beautiful sweet nectar of this word.
He says, tawbah is defined as, إِنَّهَا ذَوَابَانُ
الْحَشَالِمَةِ سَبَقَ مِنَ الْخَطَاءِ He says, tawbah is
the act of feeling the pain and the
ache of one's mistakes.
That's the actual fuel.
Like when I say, oh, Astaghfirullah, you guys
ever done that Astaghfirullah before?
Right, you say something like Astaghfirullah.
In the absence of the ache, there is
actually no repentance.
Isn't that interesting?
Like the words are empty.
Okay, think about this.
Yeah, think about this.
Hey man, we missed the whole thing because
of you.
Yeah, sorry.
You guys ever dropped a sorry like that?
Alright, I'm seeing spouses look at each other.
Don't do that.
Not now.
Once you leave, do everything you want, right?
Not here.
This is not therapy, okay?
This is personal therapy, okay?
So that apology is empty.
That apology, it echoes on the inside.
It's an empty vessel.
So he says, before we think about tawbah
as like, oh, what words can I say?
Oh, what dua can I make?
Oh, what charity can I give?
This is typically how people approach the act
of tawbah.
What can I do?
He says, no, no, no.
What can you feel?
What can you feel?
Do you feel anything?
This is why the Prophet ﷺ said, أَنَدْمُ
تَوْبَةٌ He said, nadam, remorse, regret is tawbah.
That if a person experiences nadamah, this emptiness,
you know, like you were really hungry, and
now you're not hungry anymore.
That's regret.
When a person feels that, that's a sign.
You know, tossing and turning.
Wondering what the person is feeling, what they're
thinking.
Did I hurt their feelings?
Do they feel left out?
How can I make it up to them?
These thoughts are actually the symptoms of a
person that is repenting.
Okay?
So, don't run away from guilt.
Don't run away.
Don't be consumed by it, but don't run
away from it.
Because remorse and regret and guilt are part
of the proof that you're feeling repentant.
Okay?
So he says, he says that, these are
the signs.
He says, أَوْ نَارٌ فِي الْقَلْبِ تَلْتَهِبُ He
says, or it is the fire that is
inside of the heart of a person.
Okay?
وَصَدْعٌ فِي الْكَبَدِ لَا يَنْشَعِبُ He says that,
or it's the crack in a person that
cannot be filled.
Basically, tawbah is fueled by a restlessness.
It's a feeling of incompleteness.
It's a feeling of an empty pit.
It's the emptiness in the pit of your
stomach when you see the person or the
eyes of the person that reminds you of
the mistake that you made.
It's the remembrance of the prayer that you
missed that morning.
It's the remembrance of the thing you forgot
to do.
And it's the feeling that you have in
that moment.
Okay?
He says also, it is when a person
takes into consideration, وَبِإِعْتِبَارِ مَعْنَةَ التَّرْكِ He says,
it is when a person starts to consider
and take into consideration the meaning of giving
something up.
You know, when you really love something, like
I have a friend, mashallah, may Allah increase
him in strength.
He has not had, willingly I should say,
he has not had, or intentionally is a
better word.
Willingly sounds like he's a hostage.
Intentionally has not had, like unnatural, like refined
sugars, I think in like three years.
So he has like things like honey, or
he'll eat fruit.
But he doesn't have like sugar.
Okay, like a spoon of sugar in his
chai, won't have it.
Okay, he avoids it.
He'll mix honey and that's fine.
But he's not, for three years.
Okay, so imagine like all the desserts left
over at his house.
Imagine people bring, you know, cupcakes, whatever.
He won't have it.
Okay?
Why?
Because he's committed.
He's committed to that.
He wanted to change his, he abandoned it.
So repentance is the act of tarq, abandoning
something.
It's when you give something up.
It's when you say to yourself, this is
it.
Okay?
So the consideration is when a person abandons
something.
And he says, it is also when a
person, the definition of repentance then becomes removing
the clothing of rejection and spreading out the
rug of loyalty.
Who's he talking about here?
He's talking about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He says, when a person commits a sin,
they're wearing a cloak of rejection of Allah.
They're basically wearing a uniform.
When I sin against Allah, I'm putting on
the uniform of not obedient.
I'm not obeying Allah.
I'm deciding, you know what, not for me.
Okay?
But he says, when a person repents to
Allah, what they're doing is like they're taking
off that cloak and they're taking out the
nicest rug they have and they're putting it
down.
Because the rug, especially in the classical Arab
culture, the rug was a sign of honoring
one's guest of a place where we could
sit in the majlis.
Right?
Because otherwise your home was dust.
It was dirt.
So you put out some nice rug and
you sat down on it.
So when a person makes tawbah, they're deciding
that I'm leaving, I'm abandoning this bad behavior
and instead I'm welcoming in now this what?
Loyalty, he says.
Commitment.
Back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Tawbah begins by a person abandoning and it's
achieved by a person recommitting back to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And he says, when a person puts out
that rug of loyalty, he then quoted a
beautiful statement of a person, Sahl ibn Abdullah
al-Tustari.
He said that he said, التوبة تبديل الحركات
المظمومة بالحركات المحمودة He said, tawbah is when
a person makes tabdeel, which means to flip
something.
When a person exchanges or replaces all of
their actions and movements that are blameworthy, that
are not good, that are looked down upon
and they try their best to replace them
with movements that are in fact praiseworthy.
So let's read the commentary here of Dr.
Mustafa and what he says about this passage.
Because Imam Ghazali is very eloquent.
He's very flowery.
I didn't do a good job translating.
But he does a very good job of
giving you this incredible vision, right?
Of what it must mean to experience this.
So Dr. Mustafa, he says, the Prophet, peace
be upon him, said that all of the
children of Adam, every single man and woman,
are in fact sinners.
This is like a defined principle.
Every single person makes mistakes.
You can't escape it.
Perfection is not an option in this faith.
If a person thinks they're perfect, then they're
delusional, okay?
So that expectation is never asked.
You'll never find the Quran where Allah says,
be perfect.
O you who believe, be perfect.
You'll never find that.
So that means, number one, we should never
have that expectation of ourselves, ever.
Number two, if we are in the responsibility
chair of someone's life, we should never have
that expectation of them.
And many people, and I'm speaking now, because
this is 30 and up, to the parents,
right?
Or to the spouses.
Or to any relationship in your life.
When you have a expectation of perfection, you
are putting onto somebody what Allah himself has
not put onto them.
And who are you and who am I?
You know, think of how, for example, we
think of, I don't know, like if somebody's
looking back and they're trying to do some
historical analysis of how their parents raised them.
This is kind of the age where we
do that.
You're 30, you're like, I don't know if
I agree with everything, right?
I love my parents, but they did make
mistakes.
You know, like those kind of like disclaimers.
Like think about where those disclaimers even come
from.
It's understood.
It's ma'aloum, like it's ma'arouf.
Like we get it.
Parents are not perfect.
We get it.
I'll tell you.
I'm a parent.
I'm not perfect.
Right?
This gentle parent died a long time ago.
You know what I mean?
Every day at around 4 p.m. I
lose my...
No, I'm joking.
Alhamdulillah.
But we understand.
And everyone who has like opinions about...
It's proof that they have not yet stepped
into the realm of that phase of their
life.
Right?
I always love when I hear people talk
about how they're going to be.
I take notes.
And then I show up when they reach
that stage and I'm like, wow, who's this
person?
Because I don't see that.
Right?
No screen time.
Your kid is a walking iPad.
You know what I mean?
Like...
And that's okay.
No judgment.
But look at how idealistic we can be
in the absence of reality.
Subhanallah.
How hypothetically perfect we think we are because
we set these expectations.
So here he says what?
Every son and daughter of Adam, all human
beings are all sinners.
The hadith of the Prophet ﷺ.
So don't expect people to be perfect.
Now, of course, there are some sins that
are transgressions upon others.
We don't excuse those.
We don't say, oh, it's fine.
Everyone's a sinner.
No, no, no, no, no.
If you wrong somebody, then it must be
corrected.
It must be corrected.
There's a difference.
But that's part of the exception.
The general rule in religion is every single
person makes mistakes.
We all do it.
But the Prophet ﷺ did not start, he
did not stop there.
Because if he stops there, we walk away
with this false sense of, okay, we're all
sinners.
High five.
Let's all sin together.
No.
He says, but the best of those people,
the best of those sinners are the ones
who repent.
The ones who can actually like walk with
a little bit of pride.
Not bad pride, but gratitude in Allah.
The ones who can walk with their head
up, right?
Not ashamed of their existence, but happy that
Allah has given them a second chance are
those people that when they make a mistake,
they go back to Allah.
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He says people sin because of their human
weakness.
They sin because of their shortcomings.
Not because he says that Allah ta'ala
has forced you to do so.
No.
He says people sin because of their human
weakness.
He says also in our religion, in Islam,
there's no concept of an inherited sin.
The original sin is not something that we
believe in.
We don't believe that human beings sin because
of the original slip, right?
We believe that human beings make mistakes because
of what we are, who we are.
We're creation.
The only thing that's perfect is the creator.
It's basic belief in Allah 101.
Allah is the only perfect being.
Everything else besides Allah has imperfections.
I don't mean imperfections like in design, but
what I mean is imperfections meaning that we
all slip.
Okay, that's the nature of our created being.
He says the result of Adam and Eve
eating from the forbidden tree in the garden
has nothing to do with our existence, right?
We don't inherit that.
In fact, the very first story in the
Quran, think of this, is the story of
the exoneration of Hawa from the burden of
being the first one to eat from this
tree.
The Quran exonerates her from that claim.
It exonerates from this idea that this is
something that has fallen down into the lap
of every human being.
The Holy Quran, when describing the mistake, when
describing the eating of the tree, uses the
dual pronoun.
It describes it as, right?
فَأَزَّلَّهُمَا It describes both of them, not one
of them.
It doesn't assign it to any one person
in that moment.
So, they were both tempted and they both
succumbed to the temptation and Shaytan was the
one who then caused their expulsion from the
garden.
But now here's the crazy part.
Crazy here in a good way, sorry.
When Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى When Allah سُبْحَانَهُ
وَ تَعَالَى asked Adam عَيْسَلَام or addressed Adam
عَيْسَلَام about this slip, there's a really interesting
kind of, there's a wording that's used that
you might skip over if you're just reading
it quickly.
So the story goes, Adam and Eve ate
from the tree and then they repented to
Allah and that's it, right?
Alhamdulillah, that's good.
But the way that the repentance was given
was Allah says, فَتَلَقَّ آدَمٌ مِنْ رَبِّهِ كَلِمَاتٍ
فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ Adam was given some words from
his Lord and as a result repented.
فَتَلَقَّ آدَمٌ مِنْ رَبِّهِ كَلِمَاتٍ فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ Allah
تعالى gave Adam some words and Adam repented.
The tafsir says that this means that Allah
gave Adam the dua of istighfar, of tawbah,
in that moment.
Up until then he didn't need it, he
never made a mistake before.
If Allah gives the dua for repentance, what
does that mean about what Allah wants?
What does that mean?
Allah wants Adam to repent because Allah wants
to accept the repentance.
فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ So Allah does not set somebody
else up to ask for something that he's
gonna reject.
That's not how He operates.
We're petty.
We're like, you want this?
Ask.
Can I have it?
No, you can't.
That's human behavior.
Allah, He sets you up for success.
So He gives Adam the dua and later
in the Quran that dua was taught to
us where?
What does it say?
Oh Allah, forgive us.
Adam's dua very famously is what?
رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنْفُسَنَا وَإِنْ لَمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا
لَنَكُنَّنَ مِنِ الْخَاسِرِينَ Oh Allah, we have wronged
ourselves.
Which is the first, by the way, step
in tawbah.
You have to admit it, you have to
own it.
You can't ever sincerely feel the pain of
regret if you think it was someone else's
fault.
It's not possible.
If you constantly have a way to point
the finger at somebody else, there's no way
you're gonna feel that ache that he's talking
about.
رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنْفُسَنَا وَإِنْ لَمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا
And if you do not, forgive us and
have mercy on us.
So now what's Adam AS doing?
Adam is entertaining, he's hypothesizing what's at stake.
He's talking to Allah.
Oh Allah, forgive us please.
But he's not just stopping there.
We say Astaghfirullah and we move on.
And then we wonder why we don't have
tears.
We wonder why our heart doesn't feel it.
Astaghfirullah, Astaghfirullah.
No, look at how he's asking.
Oh Allah, please forgive me.
Semi-colon, right?
Dot, semi-colon.
If you don't, what happens if you don't?
لَنَكُنَنَّ مِنِ الْخَاصِرِينَ We will be destroyed.
We'll be done.
We have no hope.
You know, it's only at the prospect of
the worst fear that you have that you
start to feel something.
The moment that a person starts to recognize
that your fear can come true is when
you start to feel that turning in your
chest.
That's why when people say, how do I
make dua?
My dua feels flat.
I say there's four things.
Number one, what you're grateful for.
Number one, what you're sorry for, what you
regret.
Number two, number three, sorry.
Did I say number one twice?
Number one, it's been a long day guys.
Number one, what you're grateful for.
Number two, what you are sorry for, what
you regret the most.
Number three, what your greatest hopes are.
Number four, what your greatest fears are.
And in the combination of these four categories,
if your heart doesn't move, it absolutely will
move.
If you spend time thinking about what you're
most grateful for or what you're most apologetic
for, to Allah, this is not for somebody
else.
This is for you and Allah.
What your greatest hopes are.
Think about what your hopes are.
I'm not talking about like the low hanging
stuff.
Although that's fine too.
You can include everything.
But try to think deeply.
What are your greatest hopes?
You know, a lot of people say things
like, oh, I want this or I want
that.
Almost treating it like an age shopping list.
What's your greatest hope?
PS5?
No, like what's really your greatest hope?
Okay, an Xbox.
No, like really, right?
Dig deep.
What is your greatest hope?
Even people say, oh, I want to get
married.
But what?
I want, instead of saying, oh, Allah, I
desire companionship.
What's your greatest fear?
To be alone.
Like think about the difference between my greatest
fear is never getting married versus my greatest
fear is being alone for the rest of
my life and never having someone to share
these moments with.
The difference is so stark, subhanAllah.
So the dua, like if I feel like,
oh, I'm not making dua, it's not hitting
me.
Think about how you're, are you investing any
time into thinking about these things?
Look at the duas of the Qur'an.
رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا Oh, Allah, I've wronged myself.
We've wronged ourselves.
The humility that must be felt from the
heart of a person that's admitting fault.
وَإِلَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا If you don't forgive
us, لَنَكُنَنَ مِنْ الْخَاسِرِينَ We're done.
We're done.
You can imagine the feeling in the heart
of Sayyidina Adam as he's saying these words.
Allah Ta'ala taught him the process of
how to seek forgiveness, how to repent.
And as a result of that, Allah Ta
'ala forgave him.
Allah Ta'ala, Adam received revealed words and
Allah forgave him.
And these words explained to Adam the possibility
of repentance as well as how to repent.
He says every human being is born clean
from any baggage.
And every single person is responsible for his
or her own sins.
One of the really, really scary passages in
Surah Qaf is when we'll be standing in
the court of Allah.
I want you to imagine this.
We'll be standing in the court of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And in that moment of standing, it will
be every individual in that moment will be
on their own in the court of God.
And the only thing, the only creature that
will be there is the shaytan.
And in that moment, the human being will
try to actually take all their mistakes and
blame it on shaytan.
They'll try to say, I didn't do it,
it was him.
He's the one.
الذي يوسف في صدور الناس He came, he
whispered to me, he's the one who pushed
me to do this.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will actually,
shaytan in that moment will say, I didn't
force you to do anything.
I didn't do anything to you.
He'll say what?
قَالَ قَرِنُوا رَبَّنَا مَا أَطْغَيْتُهُ وَلَكِن كَانَ فِي
ضُلَالٍ بَعِيدٍ I didn't do anything.
This person made the mistakes on their own.
I just gave them a little, like a
little nudge.
That's it, right?
That's why actually in the Quran, Allah says
the one who whispers into the chest of
humankind, not the hearts, because the heart is
the decision maker.
If shaytan put it right in your heart,
you'd have no choice.
Shaytan just fills the cavity where your heart
is, the chest, في صدور الناس because he
surrounds your heart, but your heart is the
one that decides yes or no.
And if the heart is strong, blocks it
out.
If the heart is weak, it seems tempting.
So shaytan will say, listen to this, we
all know Allah hates shaytan, الرجيم, he's a
cursed one.
We know that shaytan has no favor with
Allah, we know this.
But on that day, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala will say to shaytan, you're right, you're
right.
It's not your fault.
This person ultimately made their own choice.
This person made their bed, now they have
to lie in it.
That's the reality that's going to be on
the Day of Judgment.
May Allah protect us.
And so this idea, this thought, that oh,
I can get away from repenting just by
blaming somebody else or something else, it's not
going to happen.
It's not going to happen.
So he says, every human being is responsible
for their own sins.
And while it's most likely that people will
sin, they will make mistakes.
It is important that they learn about the
sins in order to avoid them.
We talked about this last night at heart
work actually.
Ibn Qayyim, he actually diagrams the whole life
of a sin.
And he says it starts with a faint
whisper in the mind or the heart of
a person, in the chest, like an impulsive
thought.
It continues on and becomes an intention.
It continues on and becomes a strategy.
It continues on and becomes a plan, like
a fully formed plan.
And then it becomes the action of the
words itself.
So Ibn Qayyim says, many of us try
to stop the sin and the last one.
Like we've already done all the work and
now we're like, no, I can't do this.
The momentum is really difficult.
The momentum is really tough.
So Ibn Qayyim says, if you really want
to stop the sin, you got to stop
it in the first stage.
As soon as you have that thought, as
soon as you have that flicker of sin,
you say, أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ You
change the entire landscape of the context of
where the sin is trying to plant itself.
You say, no, I'm not accepting it.
You're rejected.
I want to have nothing to do with
you.
Right?
This is why when people have like behavioral
catalysts for sins, you know, certain places, certain
times, certain things, certain challenges, it's important literally,
the Prophet ﷺ said, get up and leave
the gathering, get up and leave the environment,
get up and change your environment.
You can't rely on yourself to be strong
in those situations because we're not.
We're not.
If every time I'm in an argument, I
resort to bad language, don't expect yourself to
become a saint, all of a sudden the
next argument, person is arguing, you're like, that's
not you.
I'm sorry.
Everyone lives aspirationally.
Maybe one day I can be like this.
No.
Be smart.
Be smart.
If you know that browsing on the app
is going to make you buy some stuff,
delete the app.
Close it down.
If you know that scrolling is going to
cause you to look at something you shouldn't
look at, get rid of the phone, put
it in a different room, put it somewhere
else.
I mean literally, this is what, you know,
SubhanAllah, the * addiction that is rampant in
society, now you have, not Muslims, not even
religious people, you have physicians, doctors, pediatricians that
are saying what?
No screens in the bedroom.
Like atheists, no screens, why?
Because not God is watching, you know, like
I don't know, like they don't even have,
they just know that the only way to
accomplish that goal is by what?
Is by not putting yourself in the environment
where that behavior is common.
Don't expect that you can, and Ibn Qayyim
told us this thousand years ago.
Don't expect that you're going to be able
to conquer yourself in that moment.
Remove yourself from the pathway altogether.
So he says, learn about the sins.
Reflect on them.
What causes me to do these things?
If there's a certain group of people that
when you're around them, the topic is always
backbiting, figure out how to change that.
One should know that repentance is the way
out of a sinful life, and Allah Ta
'ala is the one who forgives because we
sin often.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, he once
reprimanded, this is an amazing story, he once
reprimanded one of the companions for drinking.
This story is incredible.
There was a companion that was caught drinking.
Okay, this is in the time after drinking
was prohibited.
Okay?
Can you imagine?
You know, how many of you have ever
thought, raise your hand.
Not yet.
It wasn't a command.
It was leading up to something.
Okay.
How many of you have ever thought, man,
if only I lived with the Prophet, peace
be upon him, I would be amazing.
Raise your hand if you felt that way.
Like if I lived there, none of this,
this garbage insan that you see right now,
no.
If I was with him, I would never
sin ever.
I would just be constantly in his company.
You think that.
It's natural.
If I lived in Medina 1400 years ago,
man, Masjid Nabawi, I mean, think about this.
You go to Umrah now and you're like,
I'm perfect.
I have no sins.
And by the way, that's the power of
that journey.
May Allah invite us all.
It's an amazing journey.
It really gives you a perspective of the
best version of yourself, Subhanallah.
You think to yourself, oh, if I lived
with him, I'd be perfect.
That's why these stories of companions are so
amazing.
Because there was a companion that got caught
drinking.
And when he got caught drinking, it was
a big shame, right?
But he had this struggle, Subhanallah.
And so one of the other companions got
so upset with him that while they were
administering the punishment, he screamed, the other companions
screamed at him and he said, لَا رَتُ
اللهِ عَلَيْكُ May Allah's curse be upon you,
you sinful person.
Right?
Just kind of like piling it on, you
know?
And you would think to yourself, in an
environment so pure, so prophetic, if somebody were
caught doing such a horrific thing, right, drinking
alcohol in Medina, a neighbor of the Prophet,
peace be upon him, drinking, that when the
person says, May God's curse be upon you,
all the other companions are like, yeah.
And the Prophet, peace be upon him, is
like, you know, shame on you, man.
You know what the Prophet, you know what
he did?
The Hadith says, that his face changed color,
which is the description that is given very
rarely, but it's given when he's very angry.
And one of the narration says that his
vein in his temple started to appear, which
also means he's very upset.
Isn't that interesting?
And he looks at the person who cursed
this companion and he said to him, take
that back.
Why?
Because he loves Allah and His Messenger.
Full stop.
Take that back.
Take the curse back because he loves Allah
and His Messenger.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, did not
display any anger at the one who was
actually caught drinking.
He didn't scream at him.
He didn't do anything.
The goal of the punishment was not to
affect a personal vendetta.
It was to change his behavior.
But the minute that it became personal, the
Prophet, peace be upon him, reprimanded that person
and said, don't ever curse somebody because you
don't know that their tawbah may have been
accepted.
And now you're cursing a person that's a
saint in the eyes of Allah is accepted.
He loves Allah and he loves His Messenger.
Dr. Mustafa says, this is not to encourage
the wrongdoing.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, is not
like winking at the guy like, you're good.
You know, that's not what he's doing.
But what he's doing is he's saying, you
have to show mercy to when a person
makes a mistake in their life.
You know, part of the reason why culturally
tawbah is such a difficult topic is because
think about how mistakes were taught to you.
Think about how we teach mistakes.
Mistakes, you know, in corporate, like in the
corporate workspace, mistakes are like, it's a learning
opportunity.
You know, and everyone's like, wow, that's so
refreshing.
I'm not in trouble.
No, what'd you learn?
You know, let's sit down, let's have a
one-on-one.
What'd you learn, you know?
And that's good.
That's actually something very refreshing because the person
is not utterly, deathly afraid of failing.
But when it comes to like personal, you
know, religious affairs, if a person makes a
mistake, it's like, you're done.
You're done.
I don't know about, you know, for me,
my mother's Egyptian, so the Arabs, they kind
of have a very interesting way of expressing
disappointment.
You know, like if I made a mistake,
if you're Egyptian, you know.
If I made a mistake, right?
My mom was amazing, by the way.
I just started earlier by talking about Naga.
Amazing, right?
But it's human.
I'll pick on myself next, which shows that
it passed down.
Anyway, so when I made a mistake, like
it was deathly felt, right?
It was deathly felt.
And then now, if your kids make a
mistake or if somebody makes a mistake, like
how do you make them feel?
The worst level is you let them feel
it, you let them simmer in it, you
let them sit in their mistake, like wallowing
in that.
But then for those of us who are
a little bit more sophisticated, we have like
the backhand.
It's okay, I guess.
It's tough, man.
Wallahi, may Allah help us.
Like we still want them to feel pain,
but we don't want to be the one
that's giving the pain.
We're like, that's fine.
No, that's okay.
I was going to eat that, but it's
fine, it's fine.
No, I was really hungry.
It's okay.
Taco Bell is open still.
Just laying it on, laying it on.
We don't allow for mistakes to happen.
And so transfer all of that experience now
over to Allah.
So then when a person thinks about making
a mistake or when they think about what
happens if I make a mistake, it's like
one mistake and I'm done.
And no one gives up faster on themselves
than a person who thinks that they're done.
Like nobody comes back from that.
This is why the Prophet, peace be upon
him, he was constantly that ray of hope
for people.
You know, there was a companion, there was
a person, sorry, that was the bounty hunters
that were chasing the Prophet, peace be upon
him, and there were two of them.
And the Prophet, peace be upon him, when
he engaged with them, they were trying to
capture him and kill him.
When I say bounty hunters, it sounds fancy.
They were trying to kill him.
And he turns around, he says, Who are
you?
And like kind of shakes him a little
bit.
Because they're expecting, you know, when you get
jumped, like the response that the person that's
attacking you is not expecting is for like
strength.
They're expecting like, please don't.
So the Prophet, peace be upon him, he
turns around, he says, Who are you?
And they're caught off guard, so they respond
with like truth.
They say, We are horrible.
Like he responded with strength, so they just
like, you know, they're like, Oh, we're garbage.
We're the worst.
Imagine now, like because they're thinking in the
ranks of society, like who are the people
that rob people?
You know, who are these people?
They're not respected, they're not appreciated, they're not
even given any concession.
You rob somebody, if you hold somebody up,
if you steal their wealth, it's like the
lowest of the low.
So they just, they level with him.
They say, Ya Rasulullah, like, I mean they
didn't believe in Islam at the time, they
said, We're horrible.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, Which
in Arabic is like, No way.
Don't say that.
He says, You are noble.
You're noble.
Right?
Allah says that we gave every human being
nobility.
You're noble.
He said, Just don't do this stuff.
He separated the sinner from the sin.
Don't do this stuff.
This stuff is lowering you.
That's what's making you despicable and deplorable.
Get rid of this and you'll automatically, like
in water, if you let go of the
weight, what do you do?
Float back up.
Let go of the sin.
Repent.
It's letting go of your baggage.
When you repent, you'll float back up to
the surface.
You'll be elevated again.
So the Prophet, peace be upon him, he
encouraged people to have mercy towards others.
Like I said, general rule, if there is
a transgression, then the right must be restored.
You can't wrong somebody and say, Ah, forgive
me.
You have to say, I'm sorry.
What can I do to make it right?
What can I do to fix this?
You have to repair it.
Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى will forgive everybody, but
He withholds His forgiveness from one person.
And that is the person that wronged somebody
else.
And He, عز و جل, grants the permission
of His forgiveness to the victim.
Think about how honoring that is.
Allah says, My forgiveness is unconditional, but I
put My condition of forgiveness in the heart
of the person that was wronged.
This person gets to decide.
So that's why we don't wrong each other.
That's why we make sure we don't wrong
one another.
The first step of repentance is to stop
doing whatever sin one is engaged in.
Stop it.
And to have a sincere intention never to
do it again.
And to ask Allah for forgiveness.
Those are the three steps.
To stop what you're doing, to make sincere
intention, a promise, and then to realize that
you need to go and repair your relationship
with Allah.
Think about your relationship with other people.
Think about how you apologize to those you
love.
You can't apologize if you keep doing it.
Right?
You can't apologize if you continue to make
a mistake.
You have to stop it.
And then, after stopping it, you have to
tell yourself, I'm not doing this again.
And then you have to what?
You have to have closure.
If you've ever gotten into a fight with
somebody, and then the next time you saw
them, they or you tried to act normal,
it's like double offensive.
Because you didn't resolve.
You know?
You're like, hey, what's up?
And they're like, did you not forget what
you said yesterday?
Things are not normal.
Things are not normal right now.
Right?
We have to first talk about what happened
yesterday.
We gotta patch that up before we move
on.
But then, subhanAllah, this is the nature of
forgiveness.
Forgiveness makes better than what was yesterday before
the wrong.
When you forgive somebody, your relationship actually improves.
If you work it out, if you talk
it out, and you understand each other, and
you empathize, and you mutually forgive, or if
one person asks and the other accepts, then
subhanAllah, Allah puts something into your heart that
actually makes it better than it even was
the day before, before the wrong ever took
place.
And it's the same, but with Allah, it's
even greater.
When you ask Allah to forgive you, you're
not like on the wait list for Jannah.
You know, there's like, oh yeah, those people
got in, I'm on the wait list.
That's not how it works.
When you ask Allah to forgive you, you've
actually grown far beyond where you were the
day before.
The sin opens up the door.
Ibn Ata'illah, he says in one of
his hikm, he says, the one who stands
before Allah crying because of their sins is
greater than the one who feels confident because
of their good deeds.
The one who stands before Allah confident, I'm
good, is not as good.
In fact, that person is kind of on
thin ice.
As compared to the one who stands before
Allah crying, why?
Because, oh Allah, I'm so bad.
I wish I wasn't this way.
I wish I didn't have this problem.
But that only can be attained by means
of expressing repentance to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
He says, what more encouragement does one need
than this verse in the Quran that promises
the sinner to turn their forgiveness, to turn
their sins into good deeds.
So this is an amazing, I want you
guys to write this down.
There's a chapter in the Quran called Surah
Al-Furqan.
And in that chapter, there's a passage where
Allah describes literally the worst of people.
I'm going to describe it to you so
we can go over together inshaAllah.
Hopefully no one feels like attacked.
Because this is pretty bad stuff.
Okay?
So Allah ta'ala describes, and He describes
these people, it's towards verse number 55 to
70 is the passage.
So if you want to write that down.
Okay?
So He talks about people, and He says
that there are those people that when they
are told to prostrate to Allah, they ask
in mockery, in jest, in disgust, who is
Allah?
When they are told to bow to the
Rahman, they say, what Rahman?
They make a joke about it.
And this pushes them further away.
And they are the ones that they commit
all of these sins like murder, like zina,
like theft, all of these immoralities, they commit
all of them.
And they have no repentance at all.
So Allah describes these people.
And He says for them will be a
punishment.
It will be an evil punishment that they're
going to have to experience, that they're going
to have to have.
And He even says, double the punishment for
these people.
And then He says, إِلَّا إِلَّا in Arabic
means accept.
Which is always, whenever Allah is describing like
evil things and says إِلَّا, it kind of
like opens up the chest of the, huh?
What's happening?
إِلَّا مَن تَابَ Except for the person who
repents.
وَآمَنَ And then they reestablish their belief.
وَعَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا This is the three steps.
Repent.
Remind yourself that you're a Muslim.
Remind yourself that I believe in Allah.
وَعَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا They do some good deeds.
But the grammar here means, even a small
good deed.
عَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا They do something.
Whatever they can.
Right?
You're walking.
You feel remorseful.
You have a dollar in your pocket.
You just give it to the person who
needs it.
It's not like a grand deed.
No, you wouldn't go home and tell your
friends, guess what I did?
One dollar.
You know, they call me the Kareem, right?
Like, no.
No one's bragging about giving a dollar.
But you know what?
On the scale of Allah, it doesn't matter
what people think is impressive.
You did something good.
إِلَّا مَن تَابَ وَآمَنَ وَعَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا فَأُولَٰئِكَ
يُبَدِّلُ اللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِمْ حَسَنَاتٍ Allah will exchange all
of their bad deeds into good deeds.
You know what that word exchange means?
It doesn't mean erase.
That's enough, by the way.
If Allah said, I will erase it, that's
enough.
He said, I will exchange it.
Imagine you show up to the bank, and
you're balanced.
You have a negative balance.
You're in debt.
$50,000 in debt.
And you show up, and they say, look,
we've cleared your debt.
Wow, no.
We haven't just cleared it.
We've cleared it, and we've given you $50
,000.
What kind of state would you be in?
What kind of grateful state would you be
in?
Imagine showing up on the Day of Judgment.
And Allah says that you were really cruising
towards Jahannam.
Your entire life was going that way.
Everything about you was just wrong.
And then you decided to change.
But when you changed, Allah didn't just give
you even ground.
He didn't just put you back on flat
earth.
No.
He put you on a mountain of good
deeds that were what?
That were made from the sins that you
had previously acquired.
That's the Qur'an.
This isn't me.
This isn't some flowery speaker.
I'm just reading the Qur'an.
The Qur'an says that when you repent
to Allah, He takes all the bad you've
ever done, and He turns it into good.
Why?
You're like, that doesn't make sense.
Well, it doesn't make sense because you're human,
I'm human.
Allah is more generous than any human being.
We're not used to this kind of generosity.
We're not used to that.
But this is what Allah has promised.
So repentance is the pathway not only to
recovering from the sin, but from, it's the
recovery and the addition of all of the
good that you may have missed out on
in the time.
Repentance makes good what was only bad.
May Allah Ta'ala give us the ability
to repent.
May Allah Ta'ala give us the motivation
and the feeling and the inspiration to turn
back to Him.
May Allah Ta'ala awaken the dead heart.
May Allah Ta'ala give moisture, spiritual moisture
to the dehydrated heart.
May Allah Ta'ala give us the ability
to reflect on what we're missing out on
by not coming back to Him.
May Allah Ta'ala give us the courage
to always run back to Him and not
to run away from Him.
Ameen, Ameen, Ya Rabbil Alameen.
Okay.
We're gonna go inshaAllah through some questions for
about five minutes inshaAllah.
Bismillah.
What...
Someone's asking about roots Ramadan or roots during
Ramadan, I guess.
Planning a trip so I don't have to
be alone during that beautiful month, subhanAllah.
Yeah, please come.
We have something every day.
Alhamdulillah.
Please come and visit us.
Whenever it's convenient for you, whenever you can
get your time off, we'd love to have
you.
A lot of people coming down to Dallas
for that time.
Okay, question.
Do we get sins for haram thoughts that
we don't act on or is it just
disliked?
Or are they just neutral?
This person's an engineer.
Okay, so...
You know what's amazing?
Again, it's one of those it's not gonna
make sense.
Are you ready?
It's not gonna make sense.
This is a gift that Allah has given
only to this ummah, the ummah of the
Prophet ﷺ.
There are three types of things that happen
when you have thoughts.
Number one, let's say you have a good
thought, a good intention, and you do that
thing.
So I wanna go give money, you walk
over, you donate money.
Allah rewards you not just one, not just
one.
Allah gives you one for the deed times
and the hadith say anywhere from 70 to
700, which by the way is not even
literal.
It is actually a way that Arabic uses
to express the innumerality of the reward.
You can't count how much you're gonna get.
It's like if I said I'm gonna give
you a ton of food.
I'm not actually giving you a ton.
But I'm giving you a lot.
You have no idea how much is coming.
So when Allah says that He will give
you this reward times 700, it's not like,
okay, Alhamdulillah, seven, zero, zero.
No, it's way beyond that.
It's way beyond that, okay?
Now let's say that you have a good
intention, a good thought, but you can't do
it for some reason.
You have a good intention, but you don't
fulfill it.
Allah Ta'ala gives you the reward as
if you have fulfilled it.
That's from Allah.
Okay?
Now let's say you have a bad thought,
a bad intention, and in the midst of
that bad intention, you stop yourself from doing
it or you don't even end up doing
it.
Something stops you, right?
Allah Ta'ala gives you a reward for
not doing the bad thought.
The only time you get a sin on
your book is when you have a bad
intention and you fulfill the bad intention with
a bad action.
And even then, the Hadith tells us you
just get one.
So when you intend to do good and
do it, you get 700 plus.
When you intend to do bad and do
it, you only get one.
Only one.
Allah Ta'ala, He weighs, He grades on
that curve and gives you all the good
that He can if you fulfill it, if
you don't, or if you hold yourself back.
But if you do make that mistake, if
I do make that mistake, we do get
one.
So having a bad thought is not indicative
of a bad person.
But carrying out the thought would be a
problem.
But if you have the thought and you
conquer yourself, that actually means that you're stronger
than you give yourself credit for.
May Allah Ta'ala give us Tawfiq.
Okay?
I make mistakes, I repent, but the guilt
is sometimes overwhelming.
What can we do to overcome this?
Okay, guilt is good.
But you should never be overwhelmed by the
guilt because in being overwhelmed by guilt, you
are doubting how merciful Allah is.
If I think my guilt, my sin is
greater than Allah, I have actually made a
huge mistake.
Like a person should never say, it's like
when somebody says, hey, do you need a
ride?
And you're like, no, no, no, no.
And you're like, the person's like, no, no,
I can give you a ride.
You're like, no, no, no, no, I don't
want to inconvenience you.
He's like, no, I'm asking, do you want
a ride?
You're like, no, it's, it's, you're, I don't
want, you can't.
It's actually more offensive.
You're trying to be polite, but you're being
what?
Deeply offensive.
You're like, hey, do you want some food?
No, no, no, no, you eat.
I know you need it.
Right?
Oh, exactly, oh, right?
You're trying to be polite, but you're coming
off as what?
Very impolite.
So when a person says, Allah can never
forgive me.
They're trying to be pious, but you're actually
being deeply impious.
Because Allah is saying what?
Allah can forgive anything.
يغفر ما يشاء He can forgive anyone and
anything.
Look at the lives of the companions.
You have those that came from like this
incredible origin of, you know, legacy and honor
and nobility.
Sure.
Abu Bakr Siddiq, who like never committed a
sin in his life probably.
And then you have those, Omar who was
on his way to murder the Prophet, peace
be upon him, drunk on his way to
kill him.
Allah can forgive whoever He wants.
By limiting Allah's forgiveness, you've actually started to
wander into a really dangerous zone.
Right?
And this person's like, see, I never get
anything right.
No, no, don't beat yourself up.
Right?
Don't beat yourself up.
But anytime you feel overwhelmed by guilt, remind
yourself that your sin is not greater than
Allah.
Your sin is never greater than Allah.
سبحانه وتعالى والله عالم Okay.
Man, you guys are asking really heavy questions.
No, it's too heavy.
Okay, so this is a really heavy one.
This is serious.
And I'm gonna give it, inshallah, and we'll
take it just so we can all learn,
inshallah, and we can make dua for this
person.
Okay?
I have had a same-* attraction for
30 years.
I've never acted on it, and I lower
my gaze, but it is so isolating.
How do I handle it?
I feel like Allah is mad at me.
First of all, this person, this person is
so close to Allah.
Look, I don't know if anybody can understand
because I've dealt with many individuals that have
had a very similar question, very similar issue.
Many of them, extremely pious people, extremely pious
people that they had this desire, and more
than anything, they wish they didn't have it,
and they've worked on it, and the conclusion
that they've come to is that I just
have to be strong.
And when I look in the eyes of
these people as I'm talking to them, these
brothers and sisters, beautiful people, subhanallah, they exude
this like piety that is, it's hard to
understand because when a person feels something that
is so essential to what they understand to
be their quality of life, but they say,
I'm gonna give this up, this quote-unquote
right that every person has, I'm gonna give
it up because Allah, my creator, has told
me that this is not what pleases Him.
That person has ascended to a level that
I don't know that I will ever be
able to get to.
May Allah ta'ala bless this person.
I've never acted on it, I lower my
gaze, but how do I handle it?
I feel like Allah is mad at me.
I think there is a reality here that
you know that Allah ta'ala is not
mad at you.
Allah ta'ala is never mad at anybody
that He tests.
Otherwise, the prophets, their lives have very difficult
explanations because they were tested the most.
So, by being tested by Allah for 30
years, you share a pathway, you share a
thread with the greatest of all of creation,
the prophets.
You are being tested and your success in
this test is an indication of your closeness
to Allah.
Some of the practical things that a person
can do with this or any desire is
to be a person that spends time and
energy and effort trying to focus their desires
and their energies towards other things.
If a person has same-* attraction or
if a person is a heterosexual but not
married, the reality is that these things, although
they have different outlets, one has and one
does not in our faith, the reality is
the same and that is that a person
has to work on conquering themselves and their
desires.
And that is true no matter who you
are.
And so, put yourself in gatherings and surroundings
where you feel like your ability to transcend
that desire, inshaAllah, is heightened.
Be close to Allah fast as much as
you can.
Try to read as much Qur'an as
you can.
Again, not to give you like the general
answers, but this is all for fortification of
the heart of a person.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to make it
easy.
Make du'a for this person.
Make du'a that Allah gives them strength.
We're gonna go ahead and conclude, inshaAllah, because
the Isha prayer has come in and the
Adhan is gonna be, the Iqamah will be
any minute now.
So I ask Allah Ta'ala to bless
everybody here.
I ask Allah Ta'ala to make us
those that constantly repent to Him and those
that when we repent, we don't return back
to our sins.
And even if we do, we repent back
again and again.
Ameen.
Ameen.
Ya Rabbil Alameen.
Subhanak.
Allahumma yuhamlik.
Nashhadu an la ilaha illa anta nastaqtuluk wa
antubu ilayk.
Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.