AbdelRahman Murphy – Thirty & Up Treasury Of Imam Al-Ghazli #8
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The host of a Q&A session discusses various narrations and their meaning, including one about eating healthy and staying within a guidelines. They also touch on the importance of appreciation for everything in life, including eating healthy foods and avoiding waste. The segment emphasizes the importance of learning about the characteristics of animals and humans, including their behavior and characteristics, and the importance of balancing priority of one's life with blessings of others. The segment also touches on the negative impact of hyper-industrialized lifestyles on people's health and energy, including the loss of appreciation for food and the need for everyone to receive their blessings.], [The segment discusses the importance of being aware of the process of food and the importance of being aware of the characteristics of animals and humans. The segment also touches on the negative impact of hyper-industrialized lifestyles on people's health and energy, including the loss of appreciation for food and the need for everyone to receive their blessings. The segment also touches on the
AI: Summary ©
Oh, back-to-back, huh?
Back-to-back, inshallah.
As-salamu alaykum.
Bismillah, bismillah, walhamdulillah, wa salatu was-salamu ala
rasulullahi wa ala alihi wa ashabihi ajma'in.
There we go.
Okay.
Alrighty.
How is everybody?
Welcome home.
How are you doing?
Alhamdulillah.
It's good to see everybody back here on
this crisp, crisp fall evening in Dallas.
86 degrees outside.
I don't want to make fun.
It's been too nice, inshallah.
So we have, let me open up the
Q&A, inshallah.
We have about 30 minutes-ish before the
event for Maghrib calls.
So we are going to jump right in.
If you go to slido.com, you can
write 30 and up, those three words, and
ask your questions, inshallah.
Let me just open up the Q&A
for that.
Okay.
And you can send your questions, inshallah.
So we'll go over tonight's reflection from Dr.
Mustafa Abu Suay, and then at the end
of that, we'll do some Q&A, inshallah.
Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wa salatu was-salamu ala rasulullah.
So tonight's section, number eight.
Number eight.
It's the eighth week that we're going to
be going over this book by Dr. Mustafa,
which is a collection of Imam al-Ghazali's,
you know, what Dr. Mustafa considers to be
his premier passages from his anthology, his body
of work.
This one is called, Do Not Eat Your
Path to Heaven.
Do not eat your path to heaven.
So this is a longer passage.
So we're not going to read the whole
thing because it obviously has some substance to
it in terms of length.
But I'll give you some of the highlights
from it in Arabic, but we'll read the
whole thing in English.
Now, Imam al-Ghazali is very well known
for being one of those great luminaries and
scholars that wanted to and achieved the reflection
of connecting the ordinary to the extraordinary.
Right?
So the mundane into the spiritual.
And one of his goals, as he wrote
in his great book called the Ihya al
-Umiddin, it's nine volumes.
One of his goals was to cause people
to think and reflect about how they live
their life from day to day and how
those actions day to day were indicative of
their spiritual state.
And so whereas many of us would simply
factor things like our religious actions and then
we would factor our mundane actions.
We would keep those two things separate.
Imam al-Ghazali was a large proponent of
the idea of there is no separation between
deen and dunya.
These are one experience.
Right?
And as Muslims, his argument was sound, which
is that as Muslims, everything we engage in,
everything we do has some kind of implication
on us as a spiritual creation.
So, you know, whether it's what we buy,
how we earn our wealth and what we
spend our wealth on.
These are things that Islam advises us on.
Right?
The language that we say, the tone that
we use when we speak, the things that
we wear or don't wear, the things that
we choose to indulge in.
And even in this section, the things that
we eat.
Islam, one of the things that is remarkable,
and I was actually speaking about this yesterday
with somebody I forget, was that Islam remarkably
gives us very strong indications about dietary restrictions.
We're all familiar with what is halal and
what is haram.
We're all familiar with, you know, the things
like pork and the things like alcohol and
carrion, you know, dead meat, etc.
All these things that we should not and
cannot eat.
But Imam Ghazali takes the conversation a step
further, and he doesn't only talk about the
qualitative restrictions, but he talks about the act
of eating and how it can be a
detriment to a person's spiritual state.
So let's go ahead and read the passage
from Al-Ghazali, and then we'll talk a
little bit about Dr. Mustafa's reflection.
He says, the aim and the goal of
every single person who possesses a sound heart
and mind, every single person who is of
sound heart and mind, their goal is to
meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the
abode of paradise.
That's our goal.
Our goal is to do as much as
we can and to fortify our faith as
much as we can in order to meet
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in Jannah.
May Allah grant us that.
And he says, there's no way to get
to Allah except by learning and by acting.
So if you don't know, you can't do.
And if you don't know or do, you
can't make it to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
And he says, it's not possible to learn
or to act except without a body that
is healthy and that is functioning.
So he's trying to create this argument and
he's reducing us from a high level down
to the bare minimum.
He's saying, okay, we all want to achieve
the highest levels of paradise.
We know what is required.
We have to go on the straight path
of Sirat al-Mustaqim and we understand that
that requires that we have to learn and
we have to act.
But in order for us to learn and
to act, we have to be healthy, active
creatures.
We have to be able to get up
and move around and do things.
And that requires that our body be in
a good state, in a functional state.
And he says, a person cannot be healthy
and functional without food and drink.
This is the way Allah created us.
The actual law of our sustenance is that,
much like you guys are enjoying the drinks
and the empanadas and the pastries.
Why?
Because there's calories, there's units of energy and
those units of energy help you keep going.
So he says, this is why the scholars
famously said, one of the great scholars said
that, الأكل من الدين This is the relationship
that the scholar is tracing.
That food and eating, the action of eating
food is actually part of your religion.
Not from a halal and haram standpoint.
Not talking about bacon cheeseburger and red wine
and this and that.
No, that's not what he was saying.
الأكل من الدين means that when a person
eats, they are entering into a mode of
sustaining their body so that they can worship
Allah.
And then Allah in the Quran, he says
what?
He says, eat from the pure foods.
قُلُوا مِنَ الطَّيِّبَاتِ وَعْمَلَ الصَّالِحَةِ He says, eat
from the pure sustenance and then do good
deeds.
In the Quran, whenever Allah has two concepts
that are joined together, even if they're seemingly
unrelated like eating pure food and doing good
deeds, there's no clear tangible relationship.
But upon further review and reflection, you understand
that a person, the quality of their sustenance
affects the quality of their input-output.
And so, he says, Therefore, whoever approaches food
in order to assist themselves in learning about
their Lord and about doing good deeds and
strengthening themselves in piety, they should make sure
to not eat excessively like a grazing animal
in a pasture because that leads to corruption
in their religion.
And then he finishes by saying, Whatever leads
to a righteous illuminated religious path should also
have that same light of religion reflected on
it.
So what he's saying is basically, religion does
not stop illuminating when it comes to salah
and when it comes to zakat and all
of the things that are religious.
No, religion should illuminate all of our actions
including the food that we eat.
So let's read what Dr. Mustafa Abu Suayy
says in his analysis.
He says, Imam Ghazali brings forth the above
passage, the highest aim of one's life, meeting
Allah.
And he goes that this is something that
the most wise people understand.
And he says, Those who are not wise
are always distracted by things that pull them
away from this goal.
And he said that modern life is inherently
distracting.
So wise people know their goal, unwise people
are tempted to be distracted, and the life
that we live is an inherently distracting life.
And he says, But one should work to
make sure that every step they take is
a spiritually transforming step.
Every single move that we make should have
some impact on our soul and our relationship
with Allah.
Thus he said, If a person is wise,
every act they do can be for the
sake of Allah.
Every act that they do can have a
good intention.
This includes, he says, eating and drinking food,
not just to enjoy the food and enjoy
the drink, but to utilize that food and
drink to re-energize oneself and to worship
Allah.
He says, This would fulfill the Quranic verse
that advocates eating wholesome food and doing good
deeds.
Eating, therefore, he says, is considered a religious
act.
Eating food is considered a religious act because
it has good associated with it.
So with that, please go to sohbah, inshallah,
and buy more.
We should put this hadith up there, this
chapter up there.
He says, Refraining from eating to the point
of exhaustion is considered sinful.
Meaning refraining from eating to the point where
you can't fulfill your prayers or you can't
fulfill your responsibilities is actually considered sinful.
So it's, subhanallah, eating is considered a necessary
obligation but also is considered a noble deed
because it helps you keep worshipping Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
But he said that consuming food, Imam Ghazali
warns, should not lead to overeating just like
animals because everything that a Muslim does in
the picture that they're painting should have spirituality
involved.
The Prophet ﷺ practices us, or the Prophet
ﷺ's practice, I'm sorry, teaches us that nothing
that the human being fills is worse than
the stomach and that there is a proper
food amount that they should intake.
Now, let me share with you some narrations
and he finishes his analysis there.
Let me finish with some narrations of the
Prophet ﷺ that I think are interesting and
it's important for us to kind of center
this conversation, right?
This conversation is not talking about any person's
body shape or size.
Notice how Imam Ghazali did not talk about
people that are tall, short, this and nothing.
This is actually not a matter of a
person's body size as much as it is
a matter of what?
Them indulging in the action of eating, right?
Because there are many different types of people
with different sort of metabolic rates and abilities
to digest or abilities to process the energy
differently.
So this is not talking about that, meaning
he's saying this is more about an internal
desire more so than it is any external
indication.
So as I read to you these narrations,
I don't want you to think that this
is the prophetic proof for the keto diet
or something.
That's not what this is.
This is the Prophet ﷺ talking about what?
Controlling your desires, controlling the desire of eating.
He says that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ,
it was reported to have said that the
son of Adam, the human being, cannot fill
a vessel worse than their stomach.
Meaning that the filling to the brim of
one's stomach is one of the most harmful
and detrimental things that a person can do.
He then clarifies and he says what the
person needs to do is بِحَسْبِ إِبْنَ آدَمًا
أُقَلَاتٌ يُقِمْنَا صُلْبَهُ That all that the human
being should do is eat enough so that
their back is straight which means that they're
not keeled over from hunger.
But then he says فَإِنْ كَانَ لَا مَحَالَةَ
فَثُلُثُ لِلطُعَامِهِ وَثُلُثُ لِلشُرَابِهِ وَثُلُثٌ لِنَفْسِهِ That if
it's not possible for a person to stop
because they enjoy the food, if that's not
possible, then famously we've all heard there is
one-third for food, one-third for drink
and one-third that a person can breathe.
How many of you guys have heard the
one-third, one-third, one-third reference before?
Okay, so this is where it comes from.
But here's the interesting thing.
When you look at the hadith of the
Prophet ﷺ, he's not saying that one-third,
one-third, one-third is the ideal amount.
He's actually saying that that is the maximum.
If you need more, then have one-third
food, one-third drink and one-third for
breathing.
So this is the height.
Now what is sinful according to Islam is
to go beyond this.
And I think all of us can understand.
And we probably have stories of when we've
gone beyond this, when we've eaten too much,
okay?
And what it does, subhanAllah, is you notice
in this hadith, the third that's for breathing
gets removed, gets taken away.
And actually when a person eats to their
fill or beyond their fill, I should say,
when a person eats beyond their fill, they
actually lose the ability to breathe properly.
That's why most people when they eat too
much, they have to do what?
They got to go lie down, right?
They put on a pair of sweatpants and
they find the nearest couch.
And they're like, let me go, let me
go, let me go, I can't breathe.
Like I have to go lay down, right?
Now subhanAllah, it is so interesting that this
very same item of food that we enjoy,
that we look forward to, many of us
probably, maybe we didn't eat dinner yet.
We're like, we're like hungry.
We're exciting, we're excited to have food.
We're excited to eat.
Many of us as we look forward to
that, if we eat too much, that same
object of desire becomes like the most repulsive
thing to us.
Like you eat to the extent that now
you're like, oh man, I can't even look
at that anymore.
All within 30 minutes.
And so this is a demonstration again of
the temporary nature of this material, this substance.
Another narration that is mentioned.
So the first narration establishes what?
That we need to have some boundaries, some
guidelines.
And those guidelines should be what?
Eat as much as you need to be
able to function.
And if you want to eat more because
something tastes good or something, you know, it's
satiating you, then you can.
But don't go beyond the point where you
don't have any air left.
Your diaphragm expands and you don't have any
room to breathe.
Okay?
The next narration the Prophet ﷺ taught us
is that in order for us to understand
the value of food, it's not only about
eating it in the right quantities, but we
will eat things in the right quantities when
we understand the blessing of food.
I don't know if you guys have ever
had an experience where you may have ordered
a little bit, you know, not enough.
Right?
So you have people over or something, you
didn't.
And subhanallah, there's a hadith of the Prophet
ﷺ where he says that, you know, enough
for two is enough for three.
And enough for three is enough for four.
And there's this understanding that we have in
our tradition that food carries barakah with it,
that food has blessings.
Blessing meaning what?
That a little bit goes a long way.
Now, what makes a person think there's not
enough is actually not the food itself, it's
their perception of the food.
So if you order, for example, for two
people, and it's like a plate of rice
and some chicken or something, if both people
are hungry, what are they doing?
They're like, that's not enough.
Right?
I could eat all that by myself.
And so I don't know how this is
going to work.
The person is eating with their eyes.
They're not actually eating with their stomach.
And what they find is that as they
begin to eat and enjoy the food, they're
so appreciative of every bite that by the
time they get done with like a small
portion of it, they say, you know, I'm
actually good.
Like alhamdulillah, I'm actually full.
This happens miraculously in Ramadan when it's time
to serve iftar.
You have a small like samosa or like
some dates and water and a small pastry
or something, maybe some fruit salad.
If you're a desi, you put some spice
on that fruit salad.
Okay?
And then you go pray or whatever.
And then you come back and you're like,
I'm actually good.
And sometimes people like decide they want to
serve the food.
So they start serving the food.
And after they serve it, subhanallah, the unanimous
consensus from the people who serve is they're
like, I actually don't feel the desire to
eat anymore.
I'm good.
Alhamdulillah, I'm actually okay.
I'll wait till after taraweeh or something.
I'll have some food then.
Where does that come from?
Let's read this narration.
This teaches us something very valuable.
The Prophet ﷺ, he said, وَالَّذِي نَفْسِ بِيَدِهِ
This is him swearing by the one who
holds my soul in his hand.
This is speaking about Allah ﷻ.
He says that, النَّعِيمِ الَّذِي تُسْأَلُونَ عَنْهُ يَوْمِ
الْقِيَامَةِ He says that the blessing that you
will be asked about amongst the blessings, من
النَّعِيمِ الَّذِي تُسْأَلُونَ عَنْهُ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ ذِلٌّ وَبَارِدٌ
وَرُتَبٌ طَيِّبٌ وَمَاءٌ بَارِدٌ He says, there are
three things that Allah will ask you about
on the Day of Judgment, meaning you will
be questioned about how you handle those things.
Number one, ذِلٌّ وَبَارِدٌ The cool shade that
you experience.
I know now we're like transitioning from Dallas
summer to Dallas summer number two.
Okay.
But in the morning time, when it's like
60 degrees and very nice, or do you
feel that refreshing experience of like the coolness
of the air?
Or when it's hot and you get inside
or get under the shade, do you feel
the relief of ذِلٌّ وَبَارِدٌ?
Yeah, you do.
Many people, they overlook that blessing.
And so the blessing itself when mentioned in
abstract is like, oh yeah, shade is nice.
But the one who experiences it when they
need it most, they say, man, everyone underestimates
how beautiful this is.
The next one he says, ذِلٌّ وَبَارِدٌ He
says, وَرُطَبٌ طَيِّبٌ And fresh sweet dates.
Think about after a long day of fasting
in Ramadan.
Think about biting into that date, the first
bite you have.
The sugar that hits your tongue.
It's like a nice juicy plump date.
And you're eating it and you're saying, man,
this is the most delicious thing.
Even people who don't like dates.
Some people are like, I don't like it.
They eat it, they're like, this is really
good.
Because it's the appreciation that falls now.
And then he says, وَمَعٌ بَارِدٌ And water
that is cold.
Think again about the hot day and the
first sip of cold water.
After you went for a run or you
exercise, you feel so just exhausted and you
have that cold water.
Think about how that feels.
Now, subhanallah, how does this all tie together?
The more that we appreciate the little things,
the less that we need.
The Prophet ﷺ didn't say, you will be
asked about the mansions and the luxuries and
the palaces and the horses and the fine
clothes and the silk.
He didn't say that.
He said, you will be asked about shade,
water and dates on the Day of Judgment.
These are the blessings that Allah will ask
you.
What does that mean?
Allah will say, did you thank me for
these things?
Did you remember for these things?
In Grand Prairie last week, Grand Prairie is
like the opposite of Denton by the way.
In Grand Prairie last week, suddenly there was
a no water use order that was sent.
I don't know if you guys saw this.
So in the water in Grand Prairie, they
had a fire extinguishing like solution or something
that somehow some way subhanallah got into the
water source and they told all of the
residents in Grand Prairie, you can't wash your
hands, you definitely can't drink, you can't do
anything with it.
The only thing you can do is like
flush your toilets with it.
That's all it's good for.
Okay.
So now I want you to imagine that
you're staring at your faucet, you're staring at
your fridge which gives you cold water and
you're so used to it and then you
say to yourself, man subhanallah, like I can't.
It's gonna hurt me, it's gonna poison me
if I drink this.
The removal of that blessing all of a
sudden now becomes what?
Becomes perspective giving.
So my in-laws live in Grand Prairie
and so my wife mashallah, may Allah bless
her, she's like door dashing water bottles because
it's actually it's so far from us that
the door dash would get it there faster.
I know many of you are like she
should have gone.
Yeah, but you know what?
Door dash is super fast.
So we sent over like I don't know
how many gallons of water and then my
brother-in-law finds out he sends over
water.
So now my in-laws have like 3
,000 gallons of water and subhanallah, the feeling
in the home was what?
I hope that this lasts us because when
scarcity is a reality, it doesn't matter how
much you have, you feel like what?
This might not be enough.
Few days later, the city of Grand Prairie
tested the water, they said it's fine, you
can go to use it and then we
get a message from my in-laws, whoever
needs water, come pick it up.
You guys come get it.
When things are scarce, we appreciate them.
When things are plentiful and readily available, we
lose appreciation for them.
One of the things that makes us eat
way more than we should is the availability
of the food that we eat versus the
scarcity of the food that we eat.
That is a weird reality that can only
be fixed by changing your perspective.
Meaning, don't act and live and assume like
I'm gonna have access to food all the
time.
When you take your meal, when you take
your bite, maybe think to yourself like this
is the last bite that I'll have.
Abu Bakr as-Siddiq radiallahu anhu, the best
friend of the Prophet ﷺ, he used to
actually say Bismillah before every bite, not before
the meal, before every bite.
And he would say Alhamdulillah after every bite.
And one of the scholars was saying this
was a manifestation of his gratitude.
He was so grateful for every bite.
I used to work at an orthodontist office
and the lady, Dr. Tayyiba, is an amazing
person, very pious.
And she used to bring food for the
office.
And I remember that she used to bring
like, she was from Hyderabad, so her biryani
was Mashallah amazing.
So she brought her biryani and we'd be
sitting there in the office and we'd be
eating it.
And, you know, like I would eat and
I would clean my plate as best I
could.
And there would be like one or two
rice grains, just normal, not a lot, but
like one or two.
I'm not one of those kids.
The kids are like, I'm done and it's
like the whole sandwich is there.
So I would look at her and she's
like a very classy person.
Very, very Mashallah, like elegant, classy, like, you
know, she's...
And I would see her and she's literally
picking with her fingers, her small fingers, every
rice grain, eating it until there's nothing on
the plate.
It literally was like as clean you could
eat off it again.
So then I looked at her and I
think she caught me looking at her because
I was like, wow, you must be hungry.
You know, she's like picking every grain.
And she goes, no, I was taught this
by my parents and my grandparents because we
didn't have a lot growing up.
And so everybody has to eat whatever they
can.
Now, Mashallah, she's an orthodontist.
She's doing very well.
But she never lost this appreciation for every
blessing.
And then she said something that just absolutely...
Subhanallah.
She said, I eat every grain because I'm
not sure where Allah put the blessing of
the meal in.
And imagine that I'm eating and I throw
away the part where Allah put the blessing
of the meal.
Out of my rejection for His blessing, I
threw it away.
So she said, I take a little bit
and I eat every single bit of it
so I can ensure that whatever Allah destined
for my blessing, I got it.
And this comes from the hadith of the
Prophet ﷺ of appreciating every single blessing that
we have.
The Prophet ﷺ, he also said that the
food that we eat is not only important
when we eat it, but it's important before
we eat it.
Meaning, the animals that are consumed and the
fruits and vegetables and everything that we consume
should be respected even before it becomes dinner.
The Prophet ﷺ, he said, مَنْ رَحِمَ وَلَوْ
ذَبِيحَةً رَحِمَهُ اللَّهُ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ Whoever shows mercy,
even to the animal that they are about
to sacrifice, then that person will be shown
mercy by Allah on the Day of Judgment.
The believer is so concerned about what they
eat that they don't just see it as
a materialist reality or a biological phenomenon or
a transactional thing.
They understand that this animal is something that
Allah sent for me as a blessing, as
a provision.
And it's going to be sacrificed.
Literally, it's going to be...
it loses its life.
So that I can consume it and I
can have that energy.
You know, one of the things that really,
really caused our civilization as a whole to
lose an appreciation for food is the hyper
-production process of food.
That things are grown and things are raised
and things are processed and slaughtered.
And it's like no one even knows where
things come from.
I remember actually asking a kid when they
were eating a burger, I said, jokingly, I
said, Oh, do you like cows or chickens
more?
Like for burgers.
Do you like chicken sandwiches or do you
like meat like burgers?
And the kid goes, What does that have
to do with food?
And this kid was not like 4.
This kid was like 14, like 12.
And I remember like they didn't put the
two things together.
I said, Do you like cows or chicken
more?
And they're like, I don't know man, I'm
eating right now.
And I was clearly asking a question like,
Are you gonna have the chicken sandwich or
the beef burger?
The separation of understanding where all of this
comes from, it deadens the ability to appreciate
the process that is required for us to
even have it.
The people that have to raise the animal
from when they're young and care for them
and when they get sick, nurse them back
to health.
And SubhanAllah, a lot of people tell stories
about how like on Eid, maybe in their
home countries where they may have come from,
when they eat, when they have the goat
or the lamb and they're gonna like sacrifice
it, they have it for the duration of
Dhul Hijjah and then they become like attached
to the animal.
And then it comes time for the sacrifice
and all the kids, they lose their best
friend.
You know, as kind of bittersweet as those
stories are, if you ever hear them, there
is something woven in there and that is
what?
This person now appreciates every single element of
what it means to have that provision on
their plate.
But the moment that we lose that because
of this hyper-industrialized world that we lived
in, where it's not even, forget even slaughtering,
forget sacrificing and then forget the preparation of
the animal and forget the packaging of it
and all that.
Have you guys ever seen someone break down
an animal?
How impressive that is?
Forget all that.
Now it's, I don't even have to cook
it.
All I have to do is just go
and buy it.
Someone else takes care of everything else for
me.
It's like we've removed the steps along the
way that can make us grateful for that
thing.
The farmer who grows the vegetables or picks
the fruit from the tree, they didn't just
go to the store and buy that fruit.
They waited and they were patient and they
were resilient and they took care.
And at the end of months of waiting,
at the end of months of waiting, that
bite of that apple or that peach or
the berries that they're eating is a very
different bite than the person who simply ordered
it on Target Drive Up.
And I'm a Target Drive Up fanatic, by
the way.
If they had like an archetype customer, it's
me.
But I have to admit and we all
have to admit that we are deeply affected
in our spiritual capacity by the world that
we live in.
And we have to undo a lot of
these things.
If you've never been to like an orchard
or a farm to go pick fruit, go.
Go and witness the process that Allah has
designed in order to see how these things
happen.
So you can develop an appreciation.
If you've never been to a farm, at
least once to see the animals that are
grown and raised with love and care, mercifully
as the hadith says.
And then that animal is sacrificed with Allah's
name and then is broken down and then
is packaged and sold so that people can
have the nutrition of an animal.
Go.
Go and see that.
So you can develop an understanding of just
how complex the blessings of Allah are.
It's not as simple as just ordering a
dish or ordering something from Target.
It's much more than that.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to give us
perspective.
The last I'll share with you is this.
It's a narration of the Prophet ﷺ.
And he said that when a person loses
complete and total appreciation for any of their
blessings, for food, sorry, he says it affects
them beyond what they understand.
So we've talked a lot about making sure
we appreciate them, making sure that we don't
waste them, making sure that we also don't
eat too much of it because usually eating
too much is a sign that we don't
appreciate it enough.
When you appreciate something, when you love it,
you savor it.
If you brought back chocolate from somewhere that
you traveled or you brought back Hafez Mustafa,
the Turkish delights from Turkey, you're savoring it.
You're not going to eat all those in
one night.
You're picking one.
You're having it.
Then you close the, you know, you hide
it from someone in your house.
And you go and have a small bite.
You know, if you spend $25 on one
of those dumb Dubai chocolate bars, you have
one square and then you eat it and
you're like, that's so good.
You're not eating that joint like a Snickers.
A Snickers, you can pound through three Snickers
before the minute's over because they're everywhere.
But you get that Dubai chocolate bar, it's
different, okay?
Pistachio one.
So appreciation is part of how to regulate
the consumption.
So the Prophet ﷺ says, what happens when
people don't appreciate?
And we'll finish here because Maghrib just came
in.
So we're going to head over there.
They pray at 7.51. So we're going
to head over there, Inshallah.
He says that, okay, he says, some people
from my nation will spend their entire night
drinking and eating and socializing.
Like, you know, like socializing kind of aimlessly.
I guess partying.
I guess it's a good translation.
He says, but by the morning, وَيُصْبِحُوا Subhanallah.
That they will wake up in the morning
and they will be قِرْضَةً وَخَنَازِيرًا They will
be monkeys and pigs.
Okay.
Now, this hadith, when you look at hadith
commentary, by the way, you don't open it
up and you're like, they're going to turn
into monkeys and pigs.
That could be a prophecy potentially.
But when you look at Arabic literature, what
you find is that many times, animals are
used as indicators of traits of those animals.
So Imam Ghazali famously in other books, he
talks about the lion, he talks about the
dog, but he's not saying that this person
is actually a dog.
He's not your Egyptian mother.
No, I'm joking.
Calling your child, is a very self-inflicting
insult, by the way.
Because that's your child and you're the...
Okay, never mind.
So...
In Arabic means you son of a dog.
All right.
Who's the dog?
So anyways, so we're both.
Okay, so...
But what this is, is a rhetorical device
that Arab literature uses to indicate the trait
of that animal as being what?
As denigrating the human being.
Right?
You're becoming lesser of a human, you're becoming
more like an animal.
So when we think about monkeys and pigs,
what do we think...
What do they behave like?
Right?
When you think about monkeys and pigs, are
they like esteemed animals?
Are they like animals that are revered?
No, they're not.
When you see a monkey, no one's like,
wow, that monkey is, you know, classy.
Curious George is as good as we got.
Like after that, it was all downhill for
the ape, right?
Monkeys are not seen as being revered, esteemed,
classy, you know, respected.
They're animals, and that's okay.
That's how Allah created them.
I'm not trying to make fun of monkeys,
but a human being being called a monkey
would never be...
If you call the human being a lion
to talk about their bravery, or you talked
about their strength, that's a different way to
praise somebody.
But if I said, man, you're like a
monkey, man.
The person's like, why are you trying to
hurt my feelings?
And then a pig, even worse, right?
The indication of laziness, of sloth, of gluttony.
So the hadith, I'm not precluding the idea
that perhaps this could be a prophecy of
the end of times.
That's one thing.
But what we can take from it today,
right now, is that when a person spends
their time indulging in all of their desires,
food, drink, and partying, their following morning, right,
the food coma hangover, when they wake up,
they're virtually useless.
They're degraded.
They are not productive.
They are, in their own way, they're useless.
And they are reduced from the status of
an honored human into that of an animal.
And this is one of the things that's
very important for us to understand.
When a person misuses the blessings of Allah,
it actually reduces their honor in the eyes
of Allah.
Allah gives us so many blessings.
Our only job, we can never thank Him
for them appropriately.
You can never thank Allah reciprocally for what
He did for us.
You can never match what He gave us.
And He doesn't ask that.
You can never repay Him, jalla wa ala,
you can't.
There's no way.
All He asks us to do with His
blessings that He gave us is to not
abuse them.
That's it.
And one of the greatest blessings per the
hadith of the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam, is
the food that we consume.
The purity of it, the amount of it,
and the way that we respect it.
And that we understand that this is something
that Allah Ta'ala has given us and
that we should not take lightly.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to give us
tawfiq.
We ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to
make us those who understand the blessing of
our blessings.
And that we feel the weight of our
blessings and that we consume them, we enjoy
them appropriately, and we never let our blessings
become a distraction from Allah Subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
We're going to go ahead inshallah and do
some Q&A real quick.
We'll do lightning round because we're going to
have to head over for maghrib.
Oh wow, there's so many different questions.
Alright.
Is there a dua or something that one
can say in order to stay focused in
salah?
I just start making to-do list in
my head as soon as I begin.
Maybe make the to-do list before salah
and then pray.
There's a dua that I'll give you.
اللهم أعني على ذكرك وشكرك وحسن عبادتك Oh
Allah, aid me.
Oh Allah, aid me.
اللهم, everyone say it.
اللهم أعني على ذكرك وشكرك وحسن عبادتك You're
saying, Oh Allah, assist me and aid me
and facilitate for me that I am able
to remember you and that I am able
to thank you and that I'm able to
beautify and perfect my worship of you.
So say that dua constantly especially before you
pray and pray that Allah Ta'ala will
give you the ability to have good focus
in your prayer.
But also, look, don't go into prayer with
a preoccupied mind.
Take care of what you gotta take care
of and then do it as long as
you're not gonna miss the prayer.
So if it means you have to send
an email or make a phone call, even
there's a hadith about food, ironically enough.
If the food is ready and it's waiting
for you on the table and you're not
gonna miss prayer, you should have at least
a little bit of food and then go
pray.
Because now all you're thinking about during prayer
is food.
So the hadith of the Prophet peace be
upon him teaches us don't set yourself up
for failure with prayer.
How do you balance ambition and working towards
higher positions with knowing that our ladder here
on earth is only to Allah, Inshallah.
This session tonight hopefully serves as an example
that you can use anything to get close
to Allah.
People who are able to succeed, as long
as that success does not intoxicate them with
arrogance and all that.
People who succeed in their material aspirations, that
might allow them to be able to support
relief work or charity or building institutions, of
course.
Absolutely, there's no doubt.
So being successful in your work, career and
your...
There's no contradiction with that.
Some of the companions of the Prophet peace
be upon him were very successful, very wealthy.
But they never let that wealth or that
success take them away from Allah.
So you have to be hypervigilant to make
sure that, look, Allah gave me this position,
Allah gave me this platform, whatever you want
to call it.
I have to make sure that I'm not
letting this take me away from Him.
The moment that you start to feel that,
you just reconsider and you kind of re...
like a compass, you reorient yourself.
Okay, what are some things that I can
do to make sure that I'm not losing
my rope to Allah?
How's my masjid?
How's my prayer?
How's this and this?
Am I going to the masjid?
Am I listening to classes?
Keep yourself regimented on that, right?
But it's not a bad thing for a
person to be successful.
The last thing, wallahu alam.
How do you overcome feelings of rejection whether
it's a job or marriage despite this being
the thing that you consistently prayed for?
Realize that whenever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
takes something from you or withholds something from
you, He's got something better for you.
That's just the...
That's the situation for life.
Whenever Allah withholds, He has something better.
We ask Allah ta'ala to give us
what's best for us.
We ask Allah ta'ala to allow our
hearts to detach from that which is not
best for us.
We ask Allah ta'ala to bless everybody
here.
Barakallahu feekum, everybody.
Subhanak, Allahumma bihamdik.
Nashadu an la ilaha illa anta.
Nastaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk.
Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
We're gonna head over inshallah to the masalah.
So for those of you who can take
your chairs, the foldable chairs, we have the
dollies are in the hallway.
So if you walk through the hallway, you'll
see them.
You can just stack them on the dollies
there.
And then thank you for those of you
sitting on the backjacks for just lining them
up in front inshallah.