AbdelRahman Murphy – Thirty & Up Treasury Of Imam Al-Ghazli Class 17
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The segment discusses the three stages of Islam, including the belief in the third stage, which is when everyone experiences the fruit of their actions, avoiding mistakes, and regretting regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret regret
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum.
Bismillah, bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillahi 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.
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 it was going to start
tonight late, so.
That was a little joke, clearly not funny.
Alright, 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.
Your life can be broken down into three
stages.
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 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, 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, 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 radiyallahu anhu.
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's
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 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 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
remember to repent.
And think about those mistakes that escaped your
consciousness before you remember 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 remember, 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, hadd al-taubati.
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 innaha zawabanul
hashalima sabqa minal khata' 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 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 nadama, 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, اَوْ 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 التَّرْكِي 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 tark, 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 subhana 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, 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 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 Qur'an 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 on to somebody what Allah Himself
has not put on to 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
is 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'noom, like it's ma'roof, 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, 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?
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.
No, 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 creation, 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
Qur'an, 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 Qur'an 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 Qur'an, 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 كَلِيمَاتٍ
فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ Adam was given some words from
his Lord, and as a result repented.
فَتَلَقَّ آدَمٌ مِنْ رَبِّهِ كَلِيمَاتٍ فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ Allah
Ta'ala 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.
That's how we...
we're petty.
We're like, you want this?
Ask.
Can I have it?
No, you can't.
That's petty, that's human behavior.
Allah, He sets you up for success.
So He gives Adam, peace be upon him,
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 أَنفُسَنَا وَإِلَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا
لَنَكُنَنَا 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 أَنفُسَنَا وَإِلَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا And
if you do not, forgive us and have
mercy on us.
So now what's Adam, peace be upon him,
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.
You know, we say Astaghfirullah and then 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.
Semicolon, right, dot, semicolon.
If you don't, what happens if you don't?
لَنَكُنَّنَّ مِنِ الْخَاسِرِينَ 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 du'a?
My du'a 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.
And 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.
Dig deep.
What is your greatest hope?
Even people say, oh, I want to get
married.
But what?
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 Quran.
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 مِنَ 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, 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.
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?
He'll say, I didn't do anything.
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.
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, he's the
accursed one.
We know that Shaytan has no favor with
Allah, we know this.
But on that day, Allah 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 HeartWork
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 or 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've 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 behavioral catalysts
for sins, 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's
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 a 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 live 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.
We all, you think that, it's natural.
If I lived in Medina 1400 years ago,
man, 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 live
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, 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, drinking alcohol
in Medina, a neighbor of the Prophet, peace
be upon him, drinking, that when the person
says, May Allah'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, peace be upon
him, 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.
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.
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.
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 is 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 definitely felt, right?
It was definitely 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 of it 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.
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.
Now I was really hungry.
It's okay.
You know, 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 ﷺ, 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 ﷺ.
And there were two of them.
And the Prophet ﷺ, 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, من أنتما?
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 ﷺ, he turns around,