AbdelRahman Murphy – Thirty & Up Treasury Of Imam Al-Ghazli #5
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
I
think we're good. I think we should be
good, Michelle.
Okay.
Okay.
Welcome home, everybody.
Welcome back to our Tuesday night
13 up reading
from
the Treasury of El Ghazali,
which is a book that was compiled by,
doctor Mustafa Abu Suway, who's originally from Jerusalem.
May Allah
relieve the Palestinians of their oppression
that they're experiencing,
And he is someone who gathered together,
a collection of passages from the works of
Imam Al Azali
to discuss,
some of the key points,
right, out of all the works of this
great author, this illustrious author,
to discuss some of the key works
as to how to build,
you know, a cogent Islamic
consciousness,
spiritual and practical and religious and all of
the above.
So we've talked about for the last few,
4 weeks now,
different sections. He talked about introspection last week.
We talked about seeking
happiness, etcetera.
And
now
this week
we're discussing
the 5th chapter,
which he titles,
a really, really tough question, which is if
you pause and think about it, it's obviously
going to be a challenge. He says the
title of number 5, chapter 5 is do
your good deeds outweigh or outnumber your bad
deeds?
And he calls this chapter or he he
names this chapter this because
Imam Ghazali,
he writes about
one of the measurements of deeds that we
oftentimes overlook.
So naturally, as a person, when you do
something,
we typically measure things quantitatively,
meaning how many. If we want to know,
like, how experienced somebody is, we ask them
how many years have you been doing this.
Okay. So if we want to see, like,
whether or not someone's qualified,
we'll look at their work history typically in
terms of how long they've been doing something.
If we want to know, you know, how
successful somebody is, typically there's a measurement for
that. Also quantitative.
So quantity
typically drives a lot of our understanding
as to what is something that is
good or bad, successful or not, and so
forth.
Now in the
spiritual paradigm, in the Islamic paradigm,
quantity
is
a fraction of the importance of quality.
That is that the amount of something is
not nearly as important as the substance of
that thing.
And this is why when Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, when God Almighty describes
the day of judgment,
he talks about not
counting your deeds.
Right? When you present your deeds, both good
and bad, it's not that they'll be counted,
but that they'll be weighed.
And the reason why the measurement of weighing
something is
more profound than counting is because something can
have
a very, very small footprint.
Like a nugget of gold
can weigh more than a giant sack of
feathers.
And so the substance of the deed, according
to our religious tradition, is much more important
than the number of the deed. A person
can do something over and over and over
again for years years, but if they lack
the substance that's required to make that deed
something that is worthwhile,
then all of those instances are going to
measure
not anywhere close to even one moment of
sincerity that a person might display.
So when he says, do your good deeds
outnumber your bad ones, he's not simply talking
only in the measurement of numbers,
but he's saying, do your good deeds outweigh
your bad deeds?
And there's a statement actually that Imam Ghazali
has in another book in which he actually
asks this question.
And he says, for the person
who reaches the age of 40, which if
you're at this halaqa, that's probably you.
Okay? Or if it's not, then you're there,
almost there. If you're not there
in numerically,
right, we talked about qualitatively, you're there. Your
knees are there.
Okay? Your lower back is there. Your sleep
needs are there.
So he says Imam Ghazali says that if
you're if you reach the age of 40
and you're good, your portfolio of good does
not,
overtake your portfolio of bad in terms of
spirituality.
He says,
then prepare your seat for the fire.
And it's a really strong statement.
And we we believe, obviously, that hold on.
Wait a second. How could this person tell
someone to get ready for the punishment of
the * fire? Allah is all forgiving. Allah
can forgive someone in an instant. We believe
that's true.
If a person asks Allah for forgiveness,
that moment, that sincere moment would be enough
to wipe out a lifetime of mistakes of
sins. Of course, we believe this. It's part
of our theology.
If you actually don't believe that, then the
belief of Islam that you have is not
correct. We believe that Allah can forgive 100
years of mistakes in one second of sincerity.
Right? And we need that.
But here's what he's saying. He's not saying
that Allah can't forgive, but he's saying what?
He's saying old habits die hard.
He's saying that at that point,
if you haven't gained the perspective to understand
what kinds of actions and statements and behaviors
and patterns should be priority for you
by the age of 40,
then he says good luck trying to change
yourself.
There's a reason why
when people are, like, pouring concrete,
they try to shape it and change it
and flatten it before it dries. Because once
it dries,
altering dried concrete is infinitely harder than just
altering it as it's wet.
And as your years pile on to one
another,
your actions and behaviors and thoughts and the
parameters under which you operate, they start to
dry out.
And the things that you say that you
once one day will stop doing, it's so
much more difficult to stop and to start.
And SubhanAllah,
Allah even created our bodies physically,
like metabolically,
to represent this difficulty in change.
When you were younger, you could stay awake
all night
and go to school the next day and
function. You could pull an all nighter studying
for exam.
You can go take the exam, and you
could still live your life.
Now
if Isha comes in at 10:12,
it's tough on us.
Right? You get to a certain point where
you're like, man, I gotta I gotta move
north. You know? I can't live this close
to the equator. Like, Isha's too late.
When you're younger,
injuries, you recover,
you know, you you roll your ankle.
My daughter actually rolled her ankle last night
really bad, subhanAllah. Like, we thought it was
fractured.
So I ran home after heart work and
she's in pain. She's a tough
tough kid. She shows no pain.
No indication of discomfort usually.
My son on the other hand,
the thought of getting injured makes him cry.
Right? My daughter no. He's tough too, but
she's really tough. One time, I was like,
Nuna, you're a tough cookie. She goes, I'm
not a cookie, but I'm tough. That was
her response.
She's really tough, but she was she was
in pain.
And
literally, I mean, the noise when she rolled
her ankle, there was a crack.
And so we all thought like, oh goodness.
So I'm texting,
you know, the Muslim Ummah. All of your
parents forcing you to go to medicine, we
thank you. Us non doctors,
we thank your parents. It may have been
traumatic for you but it was helpful for
us. So,
you know, I'm texting all these friends of
mine who are in healthcare and I'm like,
okay, this and this and that's. And alhamdulillah,
we were able to get an x-ray and,
you know, it wasn't fractured. Which
is a really really bad sprain.
But she went from last night, I'm not
joking,
she's in bed crying and she goes, I'm
gonna die. I don't wanna die.
And I'm like, no. I don't think anyone's
died from a sprained ankle.
But that was her mental state to now
we just came from swim class
and she was in the pool swimming.
If you roll your ankle at age 5,
it's only a matter of hours until you're
doing the backstroke. Like,
it's just give it a couple minutes. Okay?
And those rubber band ligaments will come back.
If you roll your ankle at age 30,
you're, like, writing retirement letters.
You're resigning from your position at work. I
need to take some time physically and emotionally.
So Allah has created
an indication spiritually in your physicalness,
in your physical state. It represents.
When you're younger, you can change quicker.
That's why the hadith of those who are
under the shade of the throne on the
day of judgment,
they include
young people who are attached to Allah.
Young people who are attached to Allah into
the house of Allah because those people, those
young people, in a moment where they could
decide to go here, there, anywhere, they decide
to commit themselves to Allah. But there's there's
there's less
of
a mention of the person who's older
because it's almost like you're forced to go
that way.
Right? You're forced to go young people, it's
actually impressive when you meet a young person
that's focused on their deen.
But when you see an older person that's
focused on their deen, it's just an inevitability,
but it's still difficult.
So this question of do your good deeds
outnumber your bad ones is not is not
meant to be like a,
it's not meant to be like a literal
question. You're not meant to look at it
and say like, oh, let me count.
Although that act that exercise can help some
people. It's a form of journaling, muhasaba.
But really what this question is indicating is
when you think about your day and your
life,
are you a person who on average
performs more virtue than you do vice?
Do your actions tend to incline or direct
towards what is pleasing to Allah or not?
If you have to say something, if you
were to take account of all of your
words in the day, are most of those
words pleasing to Allah or are they not?
That's what this section is about. So let's
go ahead and read it. And he's gonna
say, subhanallah, something very interesting.
He describes
a person and he says, quote,
if this person performs an act of obedience
when this person performs an act of obedience,
he says,
he says
that he this person remembers it.
Like, they he he,
or sorry. He, like, preserves it. He, like
you know, when you put something in a
glass case.
So when this person does a good deed,
he does a good deed and then he,
like, preserves it and puts in the glass
case because it's so valuable and he wants
everyone to notice it and see it. Okay.
And this person becomes so proud
of it.
Yet,
this person can be reminded of the times
that they may have sought forgiveness from Allah
with their tongue,
meaning they may have repented to Allah or
glorified Allah at night or during the day,
100 or even 1000 times. Ready?
Really virtuous person, really pious person, we agree
so far.
And then he says, but then this person
backbites Muslims
throughout the day
and utters that which displeases Allah.
So
what he's saying here is that if this
person were to fall in love with the
the numerology of their deeds, they would think,
you know what? I just did a 1,000
tasbih, like, I'm good.
I said, Alhamdulillah,
1,000 times.
But
the hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam,
when he one time was teaching
one of his family members who had mentioned
something negative
about another person
said something that was displeasing
about another person.
He said that if your words that you
just said that were negative were taken and
placed
into the bodies of water and the earth
would have corrupted them.
Just those words. It would have corrupted them.
And so, it doesn't matter the body of
work that a person has
in quantity.
What matters is
sometimes the stuff that is really, really heavy
is unfortunately the stuff that is negative.
And the stuff that is good is very
light, and so they don't match when they're
weighed on the scale.
So he continues
and he says,
this person only pays attention
to the good that they do and they
forget about all of the damage that they
cause.
And they remember
all the narrations
that talk about the reward for the good
deeds but they don't think about all the
narrations that talk about the consequences
of the bad deeds.
He said this person
is immersed
in the greatest form of delusion,
And
they are this way
because they have forgotten
that protecting oneself from disobedience
is more
beautiful
than engaging oneself
in glorifications of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This
is the quote from Al Ghazali, Rahimullah. Now
Doctor. Mustafa, he comments on this and I
love reading his commentary.
This class, by the way, has just become
like, adult story time.
I just come and sit here and read
to you guys. So which is fine by
me.
He
says, is fully aware of the contradiction between
healthy acts of worship and vice.
As exam an example is a person who
repeatedly seeks Allah's forgiveness day night all the
time yet does not control their tongue when
it comes to backbiting people.
People remember their own good deeds and take
pride in them
while they, at the same time, have no
reservations
about all of the bad behavior that they
are engaged in.
This means that people are immersed and filled
with pride but they have no shame.
Right? See, Islam, it's very interesting.
The spiritual,
imperative that all of us have that Allah
tells us is that, yes, you should feel
good about your good deeds.
When Allah Ta'ala gives you a Niama, you
should proclaim.
You should feel proud about your good deeds.
Right?
The prophet said, if a person is made
happy by their good and sad by their
bad, then they're a believer.
But that's the key, the balance. You can
be made happy by your good, but you
cannot
defer or even completely deny the guilt and
the regret that comes with negative actions.
Those things balance each other out
and they serve as fuel and motivation to
increase
in doing the good.
Allah's mention of his mercy and his and
his favor is so great because when a
person does make a mistake, which happens,
we all make mistakes. Nobody in this room
should walk away from any gathering of knowledge
feeling I have to be perfect. That's not
what's asked.
That's not what's demanded ever. What's demanded is
when you do slip
to get up,
to wipe yourself off with toba, and to
keep going.
But the easier route, the the route that
the NEFS wants
is to just completely ignore
and disengage
because the the soul never likes to be
corrected.
Never likes to be corrected. Whether the soul,
you know, whether that person is is usually
pretty honest or not, delusional or not, no
one likes to be told that you're wrong
even if they know that they truly are.
So he says people
take pride in their good deeds while having
no reservations about their bad behavior. Then he
asked this beautiful question.
He says, if people only thought and they
asked themselves this question, it would shake them,
which is how can my tongue
be used in the remembrance of Allah and
also in something that he hates so much?
How is it possible that I can use
this tongue to read Quran or to remember
Allah or make dua, but then I can
also use it to do something that's so
displeasing to him?
Which is it reminds me of something my
mom always said to us growing up, which
was be careful never to use the blessings
of Allah in a way that makes him
upset
because that is grounds.
And I know that this is going to
trigger a lot of us because we grew
up maybe where we were told these things
and it's not completely true, but think about
it. That's completely grounds for taking it away.
It is. As a parent, I can confirm
this.
If
your child takes something that you gave them
as a privilege
and they use it in a way that
is destructive,
the first thing that you do as a
parent is you remove that item.
And you don't remove it because you wanna
cause them pain. You remove it why? Because
you wanna reform them.
Listen. I gave you that toy and you
just hit your sister with it.
I need to now teach you without the
toy in your possession
what it means to be given something
and what it means to listen when I
tell you not to do something like that.
So now translate that example to us.
You know, we have privileges. Allah is so
kind. He gives us more than we ever
deserve. And then at times we stray, we
use those things against him and then they
may actually be taken from us. We may
have like a period of dormancy.
Right. So we're given health
and then we fall away from Allah and
then we become sick and then we start
making dua again.
And the cycle then returns us back to
the original state. Oh, Allah, make me healthy.
I promise I'll never forget you again.
Allah returns our health to us.
For a while, we carry on with that
passion, that devotion, and then the cycle repeats.
This is the nature of the human being.
And the beautiful part is that Allah continues
to forgive as long as we continue to
come back. But think about the nature of
the person
that cannot
understand the value of the privilege until it's
taken away.
We call that childish behavior.
Right? May Allah give us that awareness.
So an elite person spiritually,
elite,
everybody is allowed mistakes, but the elite, the
person who really, really understands
is the person
that is as motivated
to please Allah through gratitude as they are
through regret.
They don't have to be punished every time.
They understand, you know what? I'm in a
good place. I'm not gonna let this good
thing take me to a bad time.
I'm not gonna give myself that. So he
says think about that. The tongue that Allah
has given you, the tongue that Allah has
given you to extol his praises
should never be used in the form of
hurting
anyone else's dignity and honor by backbiting or
lying or speaking badly.
And then he says this, abstaining from sin
is the priority in the life of every
person.
Takes precedence
over doing any good action.
After the obligations of the 5 prayers, staying
away from sin is actually the obligation.
And the the reason why is because it's
entirely possible for a person to stop sinning.
It's very easy. You just have to not
do it.
You know, very famously, I think I say
this a lot, like, just take a nap.
Just do something else. Like, it's really, really
a lot more simple for a person to
strategize. How can I stay away from sinning
than it is for a person sometimes to,
like,
get the energy and courage to get up
and do something? Like, fasting on Mondays Thursdays
sounds great, but it's tough.
Right? It is.
Because you have to, like, do that. You
have to, like, actually get up and do
it. Like, giving charity is tough. You have
to get up and do it.
You actually have to process the transaction. That's
tough.
But, like, not lying is easy. Just be
quiet.
If if you just close your mouth, then
you won't lie.
Or if in this era, like, if you
also stop your thumbs,
then you won't lie.
Okay? So the priority and the precedence really
for every believer is
before looking at what good things can I
do, what can I pile on, look at
like what can I actually
erase, what can I expunge from my record?
Because we call that in in our common
language, addition by subtraction.
Right? You can try to make more money
by making more money or you can make
more money by not
spending as much.
And if you reduce
cost, you just gave yourself a little raise.
It's the same concept even more beautifully with
spirituality.
I can try my best to try to
become somebody that's so pious all the time
and may Allah bless you if that's your
goal. But
the beginning of that, according to the geniuses,
Imam Ghazali and others, as they say what?
Start with removal instead of addition.
That will give you the strength, the courage,
the consistency
that you're looking for. May Allah make it
easy. And oftentimes,
the the thing that holds us back
from these
habits that we're trying to develop
are in fact the sins that we carry.
So when a person gets rid of those
things,
there's obviously, like, the the concrete,
you know, like, I have more time. I
have more wealth. I have more this. You
know, Imam al Ghazali, one time in his
book in Ihia, he wrote about the vices
of overeating.
It's almost like he saw
Western culture in 2000. But
the vices of overeating, he wrote an entire
section of his book on the problem with
food.
And he talked about, subhanAllah, look at what
he said. He said, overeating
can cause, like, health issues.
And then he he said spiritual stuff too,
but you know what else he said? I
love it. He said, also, you go broke.
He said, when a person eats too much,
you have no more money.
So he said, if you like to make
more money,
then stop spending your money on food.
Our parents were right, man. Just come home
and eat.
You don't got to go out and eat.
Just come home and eat. There's food at
home.
Right? There's food at home. So some of
these practices
are not just practical. They're also spiritually
beneficial.
Okay?
So then he says,
to be truly a person of god consciousness.
What does it mean to be a person
that is truly aware of Allah?
And I love that doctor Mustafa is doing
this because why? Because
a lot of times, spiritual language is very
vague.
You know? Oh, I wanna be a traveler,
a seeker.
What does that mean?
I wanna be this and that. That's good.
It sounds very nice, but what does that
mean practically? So he says, you wanna be
god conscious?
Someone says,
You're like,
Okay. I will. I'll be god conscious. What
does that mean? He says that
the first step of being god conscious is
that you recognize that whatever good you have
performed, it is because of the divine guidance
of Allah and whatever negative things you have
stayed away from. It is because of the
protection of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That's the
beginning. That's the asl. That's the foundation of
God consciousness.
Whatever good I have
you know, last night I don't know if
he's here. I hope not. Okay. He's not.
Last night,
there was a brother Arturo
who accepted Islam
after 2 years of coming to to heart
work.
And he was like, yeah. And he was
like, you know, smiling and I was like,
dang. It took me 2 years of lectures
to get you.
Like some people, they just you look at
their face and you want to take Shahada?
I'm like, you had to withstand my face
for 2 years.
Like, how bad am I? You know? SubhanAllah.
No. Hidat is from Allah, alhamdulillah. So I
didn't I didn't take it too personally. But
he said he's been coming for 2 years,
2 years. And then last night he's like,
I want to take Shahadah.
So we're sitting in my office
and I'm just asking him, like, explain your
process.
I'm not interrogating.
I'm just curious. Just talk to me a
little bit.
And he starts to say, SubhanAllah. He says,
you know, I was I was born raised
Catholic.
It never really made sense. It never really
clicked to me.
He goes, then I was at work, and
one of my coworkers is Muslima.
And he said, we were talking about religion,
and I asked her about Islam.
And she started explaining Islam to me.
And I know what you're all thinking. It's
not like that.
She started explaining Islam to me
and
it start it it made a lot of
sense.
And then I started asking her questions
and she's like, I don't know I don't
know that much.
Like, I like, I can tell you, like,
you know, this and that, but I can't
tell you all of that, like, the deep
questions. So then he goes, where can I
where can I find out more? And she's
like, well, I go to this thing called
The Roots. You should come. And then that's
when he started
attending. And then he said, and this is
exactly what Doctor. Mustafa says.
I said, so when did you know in
2 years
between interest in Islam to like now I
think I really do believe in this stuff.
And he said, when I started to look
at everything as being from Allah,
I knew that it was time.
And I was like,
I don't even think, like,
I don't even think the majority of the
Ummah can say that that's how they operate.
And this person who doesn't know how to
pray, literally, I was like, you want to
come pray? I'm all good. He's like, I
don't know.
I was like, you only got that excuse
for a while, buddy. I was like, you
gotta lock in. Right?
No, no. He was like, I don't, I
don't know how yet. Right? Doesn't know how
to pray.
Knows no Quran.
Doesn't probably know the difference between a verse,
an ayah and a hadith. Doesn't know, you
know, how many rakah are in maghrib or
fajr. None of this.
And and if you look at his
if you measure his knowledge quantitatively,
you're like, oh, this guy, you know, he's
he's very, very beginner.
But then look at this incredible thing that
he says.
He goes, I would always see Allah in
every moment.
Like, I would like there would be a
nice breeze. And I would just say that's
from Allah. And he goes, I caught myself
saying it to myself.
You know, he's like, I felt crazy.
And I was like, no, I think we're
crazy actually. No, really. We'll lie. I think
we're the crazy ones.
So I think you're normal
because you get it
and you get it so much
that nothing that you see or experience passes
you except that you attribute it to your
creator.
Amazing.
Right? May Allah give us that faith. So
he says to be truly God conscious
means that you recognize
whatever good you have, whatever good you do
is from Allah And it's only from his
guidance and whatever
wrong deed that a person does or that
they avoid, sorry, is because of his protection.
Now he says there are a few problems
associated with doing good or evil.
The first problem
with doing good is that you attribute it
to yourself rather than seeing yourself
as purely the person who was guided to
do good and who carried out the action.
Right? So
a lot of times people stumble over this.
Well, I prayed Fajrut Alhamdulillah.
And then it sounds like the author is
telling you, no, don't take credit. You didn't
do anything. You didn't pray. Allah allowed you
to pray.
It seems a little bit
disparaging,
but think of it this way. How many
people in your life, when you look at
the position that you sit at right now,
what's your life like? How would you define
yourself? What good things
are you constantly
immersed in at this moment?
Your, your, your job,
your position in life, your family. Just start
thinking about your blessings.
And now
think about
how many of those things truly,
and I know I'm not saying this to
be mean, I'm saying this to be honest,
you don't deserve them.
Nothing you did
really
merited you getting those things. It was just
somebody
in your path along your way that opened
a door for you.
Starting with, like, your parents, for example.
Like, you didn't do anything to deserve to
be born.
Right? And and and to be born where
you were born, in the position you were
born, in the situation you were born, with
access to things that you have,
whether it's education, whether it's healthcare, whatever. There's
no difference between you as a baby and
a baby in another place in this country
or on the other side of the world
or wherever that did not have as much
privilege as you.
There's none. There's no difference. You did nothing
to deserve that. Allah gave you that. And
now you just follow that line. Cascade the
blessings down.
Right? What people open those doors for those
people?
Who gave your parents the opportunity?
Your boss who gave you the job, who
gave him that job or her that job?
And then you realize that you are sitting
at the basin
of like millions of tributaries of blessings that
flow down from Allah.
And you're just sitting here with this beautiful
water of blessing. You're like
and you become actually like overwhelmed.
Like what?
I lived in a time and a place
and a situation where I'm the recipient of
all these things,
and I can't explain why?
It just is?
Now all of a sudden,
when your mindset changes
and when you think of it that way,
like, any challenge,
any
temporary
or
micro removal of a blessing or any difficulty
that's introduced in the obstruction or obstacle,
it pales in comparison to the blessings.
It's like sitting in the
in at the base of a beautiful mountain
with this incredible body of water and there's,
like, a tiny little stick floating in it.
You wouldn't even notice it.
You'd be looking at the clear blue,
incredible water that's in front of you.
So he says, don't attribute it to yourself.
Attribute it
to the one who gave it to you.
The other problem he says with only seeing
the good deeds and not the bad ones
is that
you may consider yourself to be in a
better position.
The analogy I like to give is at
the end of the month when your credit
card bill comes in,
payday hits on 15th. Right? And 30th
or the 1st 15th or whatever it is.
So you feel pretty good on the 1st
15th.
You're like, I'm good. We're gonna go out
to eat. We're gonna do DoorDash.
I'm gonna tip extra well. This driver works
hard.
It's hot outside. You take care of yourself.
On payday, you feel good. And then when
the credit card bill hits on the 24th,
you're like, I need serious help.
I need to call in every favor
that I can. How much is this worth?
Can I sell it right now? What's the
marketplace going for this thing?
Right?
At the end of the month, when you
have to balance your accounts,
you don't feel so strong anymore financially.
It's it's unless you're in a really, really
good position. If you are rootsdfw.org/sustain,
we need you to visit
tonight and make that your home page. Okay?
Insha'Allah. If you're in that type of position.
But for most people,
when their
payroll hits their expenses,
the residual that's left over, right,
is is is,
less than inspiring, let's say.
Okay? You feel really strong on payday and
then you feel, you
know, Allah gives you a humble, a slice
of humble pie when you got to pay
off the things that you owe.
Now imagine that being with your good deeds,
right? When you focus only on the good
that you do
and you don't allow yourself to understand that
there is also
the negative consequence of the deeds that I
may do that are not good, the person
feels overly confident in the same way that
they do before they get their credit card
bill.
But imagine now, like the bill that you
get is on the day of judgment.
So the smart person, what they do financially
is they look at their expenses throughout the
month
and they try to make sure, like, I
don't want this to go above a certain
amount.
Because if I wait,
if I wait until the end of the
month,
I may not be in a good position.
It's the same thing with your life. The
smart person makes morakaba, muhazaba
every day.
Because when they
come to the point of death,
there is no more earning
to cover the deaths of sin.
And so you have to be again, not,
it's not meant to be
paralyzing or just, or demoralizing.
That's not the goal.
If a person looks at their sin and
scholars, subhanAllah, they said, if you look at
your sin and you become demoralized,
you
need to remember who Allah is. He's the
most forgiving. You're forgetting that big part of
the equation.
But they say you still need to go
through the process
of balancing your spiritual self
so that you're not surprised on the day
of judgment. May Allah make it good for
us on that day. So he says,
if a person someone's phone is found, hamdulillah.
So if a person
only looks at their good and they don't
look at their evil, then the person can
become overconfident
in the good that they have done.
It does not actually construct the image. This
is the the more important side,
is that they don't actually get a true
indication of who they are.
You know, because the sins and the good
deeds are just really representations of what's in
the heart.
If I only look at the good I
do, I'm going to believe that I'm a
lot better of a person than I really
am.
If I can't come to terms
with the negative things that I do and
say and think,
I'm going to actually feel like I am
much better,
spiritually
healthier than I really am.
Right? You have to be aware of your
good and aware of your flaws
so that you can actually have a true
road map to get to where you want
to go. The hardest part is stepping on
the scale.
The hardest part is coming to terms with
reality.
The problem with doing evil, he says, or
mistakes is not taking responsibility
for them or taking action to correct them.
It's not about not doing them.
Take responsibility
and correct the action. While mistakes are inevitable,
repentance should always be
immediate
and sincere. Now these two qualifications, we know
sincere. Sincere, of course, makes a lot of
sense because you think about it. Nobody likes
to be apologized to informality. Like, no one
like, oh, I'm sorry.
Sorry you feel that way. Sorry that your
feelings got hurt. Right? Those are all insincere
apologies.
A sincere apology is when you take ownership.
I'm sorry. I should not have done that.
It's my fault. I take responsibility.
Right? But the first part is the interesting
part, immediate.
Why is there a recommendation
when you come to terms with your mistakes
to try to
make haste
to rectify?
If you look at it from even the
lens of psychology, right,
behavior and patterns of behavior
only really take hold
when the behavior is not rectified and is
given a chance to sit in the consciousness,
in Islamic psychology, be the heart and the
consciousness of a person's,
existence.
Right?
It's like a stain. That's why Allah uses
the word stain for the heart.
He says that the rust,
Right? If you have a cast iron pan,
I had a friend one time that was
doing a really nice favor for me. He
washed my cast iron pan
and let it dry in the air,
which for those of you, I'm not getting
enough of a reaction. I'm getting like one
reaction, masha'allah, from the brother.
Okay. That's ruining it. Basically, it rusts because
it's not seasoned. It's not covered. It's not
coated.
And so the the the lesson with cast
iron pans is that you rarely should wash
them. And if you do wash them, there's
a certain way and you have to dry
them with heat. So you put them back
on the stove and you turn the stove
on or you rebake it. Right? You bake
in the oven to dry it and season
it.
I'm also thinking about recipes right now, the
cornbread and stuff that I can make cast
iron pan. Okay.
So he he was doing something really nice.
He washed it. He let it dry. And
And then I come home and my cast
iron pan, which is usually like slate or
black, it was orange. It was covered in
rust. And then I had to go through
the process of, you know, derusting it. Covering
it in, like, baking soda and lemon juice
and all citric acid and all this stuff.
And then I just I spent, like, $40
on all these materials to derust it. And
then at the end of the night, I
just bought another one.
Because that's what every person does when they
can't do something. Right?
And
but I'll tell you this.
I learned that night what Allah meant when
he says
I learned.
Maybe my friend ruining my cast iron pan
was just to give me tafsir of that
ayah.
Allah says,
means rust.
On their heart
because of what they used to do.
When Allah describes the effect of a sin
and a sin that's not repented for, he
doesn't describe it in a light way. He
says, it is a rust that penetrates.
And the beautiful thing about that example is
that if you dry
the the moisture quick enough, it won't rust.
If you clean the moisture off, it won't
rust.
Repentance, toba, is that process.
But if you let it sit there,
if you let the effect of the sin
sit
on the heart, on the raw,
unrefined material that is the heart, it will
sit there and it will rust. And it
is so much harder
to get rid of that rust
than it is just to dry it in
the 1st place and to clean it off
in the 1st place. We ask Allah to
give us tafik.
So this is an example like imam Ruzali
says. So what do we take away from
this passage? There are a lot of things,
but the one that doctor Mostafa Abu Sway
really focuses on is understanding not just the
number of deeds, but the quality and the
impact of them.
Not just the number of things you do
but the quality of those things. The weight
and the impact
of those deeds. We ask Allah to make
it easy for us to be able to
practice everything that we've said and heard.
Let's do some q and a, inshallah. Alright.
Number 1. I go to work late and
leave early. Is my income haram?
How do I fix the haram money that
I earned? This is a good question.
Everyone is nervous laughing right now. They're like,
Wow. This is crazy.
Who would ask such a thing?
Okay. Look.
Our lives
our lives are are guided by a concept
called Amanah
Amanah.
You know,
the prophet
said, for the person who has no Amanah,
there is no iman. It's a hadith.
It's a statement. If there's no imanah. Amanah
here means
a responsibility
and a trust. If a person doesn't have
amanah,
there's no iman for that person. There's no
faith.
We operate
this is such a bad callback.
Do you guys remember the Kosher Hot Dog
Company, Hebrew National? I know it's a sore
subject right now. But,
you know, they they their tagline used to
be we we answer to a higher power,
which is genius. Right? It's genius given, like,
that I mean, kosher okay. Never mind. Obviously,
I'm impressed by it. No one else is.
But to borrow that line, like we operate,
we report to something different.
We report to something different. So look,
there's not a, there's not a hard and
fast answer for this. The default answer is
that what's based in your contract, what you
agree to, you have to honor that.
You have to.
Okay.
That's the default answer. If you agree to
something in your contract, that's that's that's an
agreement
and that you signed it. And if you
didn't want it to be that way, you
should have changed something.
Okay? So if you accepted it, you have
if it's a 30 minute lunch, it's a
30 minute lunch. It doesn't matter if everyone
else does it. It doesn't matter if it,
no, you you agreed.
Okay. Now
culturally, I'm aware, right?
I worked in different
professional and corporate settings as well before this.
Like I'm aware that there are some cultures
where people that are your supervisors, people that
are managers,
they allow. There are concessions,
right? We don't start with the concessions. We
start with the default. The default is we
have to honor our contracts.
But there are concessions in a lot of
industries
and in a lot of different companies
that allow for
like, project based work completion as being the
metric for how much you work.
So for example, like there's some doctors that
I know that if they finish rounding on
their patients, they can do their charts at
home.
Right? I've even seen some doctors now checking
in patients from home.
I don't use those doctors
sitting in the waiting room and they're like
watching the game. They're like, Yeah.
Ibuprofen.
No. Right?
But look, if that's the culture, if that's
what's allowed,
then that is what
the people who you're responsible to are allowing,
then that's fine. That's no longer impermissible. The
permissibility, haram, haram, is not dictated by this
universal constant. It's an agreement.
It's an agreement. So if your manager tells
you, hey. You know what? You know, every
every Friday, you can work from home. Even
if you're the only team that can do
that
and everyone else has to stay.
That agreement now, no matter what it says
in your contract, if you get that
concession,
then that means that that is what you
are bound by. Or if they tell you,
you know what, every now and then it's
okay if you want to go home or
do this or take a long lunch. It's,
you know, your manager might tell you things
like this. Hey, you know what? If you're
if you're running late, it's no problem. Just,
just let me know or this and that.
Those are, again, concessions that are built in.
But the default
when it comes to our wealth, when our
income, is that we operate under the premise
of Amana.
It's a sacred trust and,
responsibility.
And the real reason why
is that you don't want to take your
money
that is not permissible
and feed you and your family with it.
It becomes in the eyes of Al Ghazali,
that food becomes as impermissible as pork.
He says
that the person
that does not honor their financial agreements, their
money
to purchase even vegetables and fruit, those food
items become haram for them
because they were purchased with stolen money. You
can't take stolen money and you can't rob
a bank and build a masjid.
It's it's it's that's why that's why it's
really, really important. Okay?
So just remember the imana,
is
a part of what it means to be
a Muslim.
Okay?
And if you have special things for you,
then that's cool.
I've reduced my music consumption and avoided family
parties.
Is it okay to listen to good songs
inspired by Rumi's poetry,
and
and sung by deceased artists?
So may Allah reward you. There's there's a
there's a variety of opinions on the permissibility
of music.
I I would say musical instruments.
You know, like
music itself is is a is a tough
industry to to listen to. But musical instruments,
avoided family parties because of it, I'm assuming.
Is it okay to listen to good songs?
The answer is yes. It's haraul.
Inspired by Rumi's poetry and sung by this
I'm I'm guessing like kawati or or things
like that.
Along those best the opinion that I take
from my teachers is that, yes, it's permissible.
I also think, you know, the opinion that
I take and that I hold with regards
to musical instruments is that, they are not
in and of themselves forbidden. And this is
a question that I asked Sheikh Hakram,
Nadawi,
and I said to him, you know, is
is the musical instrument prohibited?
And he says there's no clear evidence that
prohibits it. But then he said very beautifully,
but who has time to listen to music?
Which is makes sense. That's a good answer.
So I think if a person feels like
music is distracting for them and takes them
away from the remembrance of Allah, then they
should stay away from it. Absolutely. You should
do it with anything.
You know, anything, even if it's permissible. If
it takes you away from Allah's remembrance, you
should stay away from it.
But this is more so, I think, the
question that talks about maybe music that's that's
damaging
things with bad lyrics or that it's performed
in bad places,
or that has bad overtones and undertones to
it.
I moved to Dallas for the Muslim community.
I recently found my place here at Roots.
Now Allah has willed for us to move,
plus I'm sad. Oh, I'm and I'm sad.
How can I accept this qadr?
It is tough. It is tough to accept
things that you don't want to accept.
Tonight, we talked about, you know, focusing on
the good,
the reason why you maybe you're you're being
you're moving,
really taking those things in. Also, the temporary
nature of this life is that nothing is
permanent.
A person I've I recently
met somebody who moved back to Dallas after
leaving for a few years. So if if
a person's goal is to be somewhere and
listen,
to a certain, you know, you know, gathering
or or school of thought, etcetera, then they
wanna come back, then maybe Allah will bring
a person back and Allah knows best. I
mean, just try to focus on the positives
as much as you can and and and
take it, inshallah,
as best as you can. And obviously, time
is,
time is is the healer of of most
things.
Can I cut ties with my in laws?
Oh, boy.
Who slandered oh, who
slandered me,
who slandered me, I'm guessing, after my husband's
death. Their actions have led me to seek
therapy. I have not done it with a
Muslim therapist. So cut ties.
So
in Islam, a person is allowed to make
boundaries.
There's no cutting ties with any Muslim,
meaning that the what it means is that
the the bare minimum tie that we have
to have with every believer is the salaam.
You cannot exist in a world where you
don't say salaam to another Muslim.
As as painful as it is,
as painful as those people are. And
and take it, okay, take it this way.
Instead of being like, no, it's not fair,
this the greeting
that Allah has commanded you to give is
more important than your feelings in that moment.
It doesn't matter how much somebody has hurt
you, and that's the true definition of submission.
Right? It doesn't matter how much this person
has hurt me. I'm gonna wish them salaam
because this is one of the commands of
Allah and his messenger is that I have
to give salaam to a person that believes.
Right?
So cutting off, I don't like that language
because the implication of it is like, you're
dead to me.
So at the very minimum, salaam.
Salam is the requirement.
But boundaries,
without a doubt, you're allowed to have boundaries.
Without a doubt, if a person is is
But I wouldn't establish those boundaries based on
your own assessment.
You need to have other people that that
that you consult with. Otherwise,
to you, everyone's toxic. Everyone's a problem.
No. Maybe you are also contributing to the
toxicity. It's important to go to an arbitrator
or a therapist or somebody that can help
give you perspective. Or a really good friend
that can tell you like, Hey. Maybe you're
actually part of the problem.
And maybe you can change your behavior in
this way and that might rectify certain things.
Again, it's not it's not fun.
It's not fun being advised.
But if you really want to grow and
get better, that's that's the cost.
Right? That's the cost that a person has
to go through. But boundaries are something that
are there. I would do it in consultation
with people that love you and that can
give you advice.
What does it mean when a Muslim guy
tells you that there's no spark upon the
first time meeting?
Meeting for the intention of marriage. May Allah
make it easy. This is a challenge.
I mean, generally speaking,
I don't,
yeah. We could have, like, a whole session
on on these questions, but
I think just
just take what people tell you.
Don't overthink it.
You know,
hold your head high. Be dignified.
If a person tells you no spark, be
like, I didn't even want to spark with
you.
Just I mean, like, just walk away. You
can't fire me. I quit. Like, just
carry that energy. Okay? If it doesn't work
out.
Okay?
Wasn't meant to be.
Right?
I think just let people like, don't overthink
it. If somebody tells you, like, you know,
unless they're being
purposely confusing,
then you can say, you know what? I
don't this is wrong. Like,
stop stop stop giving me one story on
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and one story on
Tuesdays, Thursdays.
Right? And call them
out. Right? Both sides, by the way, everybody.
I'm feeling a lot of energy right now.
Okay?
But I think everyone should just, you know,
be dignified,
be honorable, be be cordial.
And if somebody says to you, like, you
know, I'm not really feeling it or, you
know, I really I I appreciate the conversation,
but I don't really see a future. Just
say, yeah. You know what? Me either.
May Allah give you what's best and keep
me in your duas.
Not those duas though. The last 10 night
duas. I saw a really funny meme. They
were like, What person did you waste your
last 10 night duas on this year?
Okay. Here, this one. Last one. I try
to avoid backbiting and slander. However, if you're
feeling wrong by somebody, is it okay to
vent to somebody close to you to avoid
the backbiting and slander? Yes. This question is
important.
Is there
a space for a person
to share experiences,
to talk about things
in a in in an effort
to
be constructive?
Yes. Yes.
Backbiting, the goal is destruction.
Right? Backbiting, the goal is destruction. I'm saying
this. I'm trying to destroy this prayer. I'm
doing this, this, this, this. I don't wanna
accomplish anything. I just wanna destroy.
Seeking advice might include
you talking about something that happened.
Now what are the protocols?
As much as possible, keep it anonymous.
Okay. If it requires
identification,
then as much as possible, give excuses.
If it if there are few excuses to
give an identification necessary, then as much as
possible,
keep the details
as general as possible.
You still the reason why is because
you wanna preserve the dignity of this person.
One of my teachers said something very strong.
He said, when you, when you talk to
somebody
in an effort to seek advice and counsel
about a situation,
remember that you might forgive the person that
you're asking about, but that person's not going
to forgive them.
And especially spouses in here, remember this.
You might tell your spouse about somebody
that is really bothering
you and out of love for you or
parents too, by the way, siblings, parents, everybody,
family. Out of love for you, they've sworn
that person as an enemy now for the
rest of their lives.
A year later, you're like good friends with
this person. And they're like, I hate this
person
because they've never forgot because they don't have
that relationship that you have.
So you can't,
for the terminology that our era is used
to, you can't trauma dump on somebody and
expect that person not to take on secondary
effects of that.
So protect the dignity of the person that
you're talking about
by if as anonymous as possible, if they
have to be identified,
then try to give them excuses.
And if the action is basically definitive, it's
not speculative, like it is what it is
and they are who they are, then try
to get try to keep it as vague
as possible. You don't have to give all
the nitty gritty.
Right? And at the end of it all,
the question that needs to be asked is,
was this a constructive conversation or not?
Did we accomplish something by doing this? Was
there any sort of tangible growth, or was
it just us
lighting things on fire and walking away?
That's going to be the distinguishing
factor that makes it something that is,
not allowed versus something that is more, you
know, nasiha oriented and nasiha based.
Everybody.
Has come in, 1 minute ago. So I'm
gonna go ahead and wrap this up. May
Allah accept from us and bless everyone for
attending tonight and give us all the reward
of our attendance here.
If you sat on a chair, we'd really,
really appreciate if you could help us by
folding the chair and putting it upon one
of those dollies that you see. And if
you sat on one of these back jacks,
if you could help us by lining it
up in the front, we'd appreciate
that.
I'm gonna take a couple questions, and then
I have to run to as well because
it's it's an obligation upon me too.