AbdelRahman Murphy – Thirty & Up Treasury Of Imam Al-Ghazli Class 20
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of words and phrases in describing things and protecting oneself from negative behavior. They also address the "harvest on the Day of Judgment" and the "harvest on the Day of Judgment" before moving on to Isha's prayer. They stress the need for realistic expectations for finding a friend, even in difficult relationships, and advise parents on how to handle difficult situations in their homes. The speakers also suggest meeting people through friendships and creating realistic expectations, even in difficult relationships.
AI: Summary ©
And you're like, hey, where are they?
It's like, I forgot, oh my God, I'm
dead.
Imagine having to explain that to somebody 100
years ago.
They'd be like, why would you refer to
yourself like that, given that trial, right?
So the language we use, as light as
we think it is, and as fleeting as
we think it is, it does, it matters.
It shapes the way that we think about
things, right?
And people, Ali al-Dilhahran, he once said
something very beautiful in this regard, where he
said, when you make friends, don't love them
too much.
And when you hate somebody, don't hate them
too much.
And they asked him why, and he said,
because that friend could become your enemy.
Like, it's possible.
And that enemy could become your friend.
And so keep everything within the range of
normalcy, right?
Even the expressions that we use to describe
things, keep it in the range of normalcy,
inshallah.
The next session that the book has here
now is titled by Dr. Mustafa Abu Suay.
He calls it a plantation for the hereafter,
right?
A farm, a garden for the hereafter.
And it's a long passage, so we'll just
go straight to the English, inshallah.
By the way, if you have any questions,
you can go to slido.com and then
just type in 30 and up, one word,
30 and up, all words, and send it
there, inshallah, and we'll do it at the
end.
So it's a long passage, and the passage
refers to a very popular Qur'anic metaphor.
And the Qur'anic metaphor is that of
agriculture.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Qur
'an will very commonly refer to an agricultural
process in order to demonstrate the idea of
faith, right?
Even the trees that we have surrounding us,
the reason why we chose it besides it
being nice is the Qur'an says, alam
tara kayfa daraballahu mathalan kashshajaratin tayyibatin, right?
asluha thabit wa faruha fissamat.
Allah ta'ala, he says, have you not
seen or has the example not come to
you of the example of a good word?
Being like a beautiful tree.
Asluha thabit, its roots are firm.
That's where the name comes from, right?
Surah Ibrahim.
Its roots are firm, wa faruha fissamat, and
its branches reach toward the sky.
So in the Qur'an, there's a lot
of this agricultural or like plant or even
like farming motif.
You see it a lot.
When Allah ta'ala describes the effort of
good deeds, he describes the act of farming.
And when he describes the bad deed, right?
The disobedience of a person to Allah, he
describes a negligent farmer, a person who doesn't
farm correctly.
They use their energy and they use their
effort, but they don't do it well.
So the Qur'an is filled with this
theme, this motif.
So Imam Ghazali, he takes from all of
those instances and he combines now into like
one passage, this really beautiful image and this
advice.
And he says, the scholars of the hearts
knew that this world was nothing but a
farmland for the hereafter.
So, you know, we talked about definitions.
Let's define like what we are.
Let's define where we are.
We are in a situation, we are in
a position where our reality is that we
realize that this is a place that is
not our final goal or destination.
When a farmer looks at the farmland, it's
necessary, they have to make sure that it's
fertile, they have to make sure that it's
taken care of.
But at the end of the day, the
goal is not the actual soil itself.
The goal is what?
It's the harvest, the yield.
So if a person's growing something, they care
about the soil only so much as that
it allows them to benefit.
But the soil itself is secondary, okay?
So defining our terms is really important here.
You know, we all have aspirations and goals.
Everybody here, mashallah, you know, your LinkedIn's are
very impressive.
I'm very proud, okay?
All of your certifications, they matter, right?
So, you know, all of this is part
of the norm for all of us.
Like we all have aspirations professionally, personally, spiritually,
financially, whatnot.
But Imam Ghazali would say, it's just your
farmland.
It's just your farmland.
Your accolades are only as important as they
open up doors of opportunity for you to
access resources that would then give you a
chance to go to Jannah.
But if a person has all the accolades
and opportunities and resources in the world and
they don't use it for Allah, then it's
like a farmer that has the most fertile
soil and they grow, they have the opportunity
to grow the most incredible crops but then
they don't.
They would be looked at as foolish.
They'd be looked at as wasteful.
You know, as ignorant, as an imbecile.
So he says, the people who mastered the
heart, the scholars of the hearts knew that
this place is nothing but the sandbox, the
construction ground, the farmland for the akhirah, for
the hereafter.
And the heart of the believer is their
own personal plot, their own personal soil.
This is the one thing that you have.
Sometimes when we talk about dunya, it's like
a big concept.
We talk about dunya, it's like, oh, be
in the dunya as if you are a
traveler and everyone's like, how?
They're sipping on your matcha, how?
I just bought more veal escarves, how?
But instead of making it like a macro
challenge, make it micro, like bring it closer
to home.
Everybody has their own personal farm right here,
right?
This is it.
And you control, you, nobody else, you control
the health of this soil.
That's it.
Not a single person around you can take
credit nor can they be blamed for what
can grow here.
That's you and me.
And faith, he says, iman is the action
of planting your seeds.
So the soil is only important, the heart
is only actualized, it's only reached if iman
is present.
If iman is not present, the soil is
what?
Pointless, it's nice, but it's not being used.
So he goes, your faith is like sowing
seeds.
And acts of obedience, worship, prayer, dua, fasting,
right, dhikr, doing good deeds.
All of the good deeds that we do
is like working the land and clearing the
land.
It's like irrigating the water sources to come
and bring water to the land itself.
So he says basically all of these are
part of this motif of understanding.
Then he says, this is beautiful.
As for the heart that is careless about
this world while being absorbed in it.
So the heart that is full of ghafla,
like doesn't think about Allah, doesn't really care,
and they're just absorbed in it.
Every single day is just another day in
the rat race.
Every single day is another opportunity to indulge
in my desires.
Every single day is just another chance for
me to get access to something that's gonna
disappear anyways.
He says for that person, their piece of
land that their heart represents is not fertile
soil.
It's not the lush soil of California that
can grow beautiful fruits and vegetables.
It's not the fertile soil of Jerusalem and
Palestine which grows the best olives and peppers.
And it's not that.
He said it's the swamps of Florida.
May Allah protect us.
He didn't say Florida, I added that, okay?
No, because I didn't know about Florida yet.
But he alluded to Florida, right?
I apologize if you guys are from Florida.
I apologize on your behalf because that must've
been really tough.
So it is like a salt swamp where
no matter how much work you put in,
your seeds will simply not grow.
SubhanAllah.
Now let's bring the metaphor back to the
forefront.
The seeds are faith.
The seeds are iman.
The seeds are the actions of your faith.
So what does that mean?
It means that both the heart, well, the
heart has to be in a certain way,
in a certain state in order for this
stuff to work.
And Allah actually talks about this in the
Quran very early actually in Surah Al-Baqarah.
I think it's in the 20s.
I forget exactly which number it is.
Allah Ta'ala actually mentions he said, look
at how shaitan works, by the way.
On my laptop right now, a notification just
came from Amazon.
It said, your cart is calling you.
Look at the dunya, man.
The middle talking about how much of a
transient place this is and Amazon's like, yeah,
but you really should spend more money here.
SubhanAllah, right?
Okay, I have to check out soon.
So the heart is that that piece of
canvas that you have.
And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la,
he says that interestingly enough, not every act
of faith works on a heart that is
not healthy enough or ready for it.
And what this means is basically like sometimes
a person has done so much negligence to
their heart that the same thing that would
benefit a healthy heart would not benefit this
heart.
The heart is gone.
And the ayah that refers to that is
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, he
says that, يُضِلُّ بِهِ كَثِيرًا وَيَهْدِي بِهِ كَثِيرًا
وَمَا يُضِلُّ بِهِ إِلَى الْفَاسِغِينَ When Allah Ta
'ala talks about in the Quran, there's an
example he gives about the fly or the
gnat or the mosquito, ba'uda in Arabic,
small insect.
And when Allah gives that example about the
small insect, the kuffar, the Quraysh, the disbelievers
at the time, they challenged it.
Well, actually it was in Medina with some
of the Bani Israel as well.
They challenged this idea and they said, مَاذَا
أَرَادَ اللَّهُ بِهَذَا مَثَلًا What does God intend
by this type of example?
Basically saying like this example is pointless.
What a bad example.
If God is trying to establish belief and
faith, wouldn't God bring up like creation that's
much more, I don't know, like intimidating?
Wouldn't God talk about the lions and the
elephants and the tigers and the wolves, right?
Because that's, you know, back then, what did
they know from a non-microscopic era?
What did they know about flies?
What did they know about mosquitoes?
But now you think about malaria, right, dengue.
And you think about how much destruction can
be caused by this tiny little insect.
And we only know it now, why?
Because we have the tools that Allah gave
us to be able to uncover these scientific
realities.
So the Kuffar were very short-sighted.
They would see the example of the fly
and they're like, what kind of God uses
a fly to demonstrate his greatness?
And then now you pop on a documentary
with a beautiful voice of David Attenborough, right?
And that beautiful Husky British accent, I'm not
gonna try.
And he's talking about, again, like in a
very agnostic way, because they don't ever, ever
want to put forth the idea of a
creator, but they put forward in agnostic way,
this very passive voice talking about this intricate,
even they don't even wanna use the word
design because design means that someone had to
be designing it.
But they talk about this coincidental harmony that
somehow found its way into the genetic makeup
of an insect, subhanAllah.
And we now can appreciate this.
Back then, the Kuffar were like, what do
we talk?
What is this?
And even the believers were like, we don't
know.
But Allah used it as an example.
And if Allah said it, it must be
a good example, right?
So that's why after this whole discussion about
the fly, when they said, maadha aradhu allahu
bi hadha mathala, what did God intend by
this?
Allah says, yudhillu bihi kathira wa yahdi bihi
kathira.
He says, some people are, a lot of
people actually are misguided by it, while others,
a lot of them will be guided by
it.
wa ma yudhillu bihi ilal fasiqeen.
The only people that will be misguided are
those who are wrongdoers.
Those who do fisq.
Fisq in Arabic means the one who does
sins unrepentant.
Another word, flagrantly.
Like a flagrant foul in basketball is like
a serious, a serious violation, right?
It wasn't an incidental thing.
You intentionally did that.
So a person who lives their life sinfully,
flagrantly, like I don't care, that person's heart
is being like strangled and is being suffocated,
dehydrated.
A dehydrated land, it doesn't matter what kind
of seed you throw on it.
It won't work anymore.
It's done, right?
It has root rot.
It's done.
And subhanAllah, I say root rot because I
recently bought a plant and we overwatered it.
And subhanAllah, man, the analogies of the Quran
are just so mind-blowing because when you
think about the effect of rotting roots and
what it does to the tree and how
it spreads, literally, you know what they said?
They said when you trim the leaves because
there's some spots, it's a fungal infection.
You have to trim it.
They say have a cloth with rubbing alcohol
because you need to actually wipe down the
shears in between each cut because if you
spread it from leaf to leaf, it spreads.
Look at how Allah Ta'ala is telling
us your heart and my heart, just like
this tree, evil things can spread very quickly.
Look at how easy it is to hit
the share button.
SubhanAllah.
So the plant's doing okay now, by the
way.
So he says, it's like a salt swamp
where seeds do not grow.
On the Day of Judgment, which is the
day of harvest, Allahu Akbar.
You get that?
Every farmer looks forward to what?
The harvest.
I mean, you work so hard.
You take care of your soil.
You prep it, basically, in the winter.
Then in the spring, you get ready, you
till it.
Then in the summer, you plant it in
the spring.
In the summer, you meticulously water it.
You keep the bugs and the pests away.
You start seeing the growth.
And then come the fall, right?
End of summer and the fall, then you
get excited for harvest day, right?
And that's, again, for us, we're so far
removed from this entire process because of how
industrialized we are.
But if you have ever gone to an
agricultural economy and seen how this stuff is
life or death, not like being facetious, if
a harvest does not work, that family is
not gonna do well.
And if a harvest works, it is like,
it's like a celebration for them.
When you understand the importance of harvest, you'll
get this analogy.
He says, on the day of judgment, which
is your harvest, then he says, each will
harvest whatever they have planted.
So a farmer can't be upset if nothing
is there, if they didn't do anything to
prepare and to protect and to propagate what
they were planting.
So he says, where no plant will grow
except for the one who sowed the seeds
of faith, of Iman.
He says, faith will hardly benefit while one's
heart is impure.
Now, how do we know that the heart
is impure?
He says, you know that your soil is
bad if you start to see these negative
characteristic traits in your character.
That's a sign.
Allah programmed all of us so that whatever
is inside, it shows on the outside.
A person can't hide.
You can only hide for a short amount
of time.
You can only really trick people for like
a really, really short amount of time.
Eventually, who you are will show, right?
For better or for worse, by the way.
For better or for worse, people will discover
all the beauty that you have if you
try to hide that because you're shy or
you don't wanna kind of like capture any
attention.
People will eventually find out how amazing you
are, mashallah.
And likewise, if a person is holding on
to these negative things and they're trying to
hide them, it's only a matter of time
until they become apparent.
May Allah protect us.
So he says that while the heart is
impure, one's character traits become bad just as
seeds do not grow in the salt of
a swamp.
The servants hope for forgiveness.
Okay, now this is it.
Because every farmer, the Quran gives the example
of the farmer relying on hope.
It's not a mathematical experience.
Like farming is more of an art than
it is a science, although it's very scientific,
right?
And for those of you who have ever
tried to like grow a plant, you know,
think of COVID.
Or like start a sourdough starter or like,
you know, bake your own bread.
You realize that there is science, but there's
also like an alchemy.
And the alchemy is like the meeting of
the art and the science.
And there's a part where like, you don't
know what you did wrong.
If you guys have ever like made cookies
before and you thought you followed the same
recipe, but then some of them ended up
really cakey and gross like crumble.
And then the other ones ended up really
flat and crispy like tates.
I'm a cookie connoisseur, by the way, if
you can't tell by my general physique, right?
So, and you don't know, like what, you
know, what did I, like, what did I
do differently?
I thought I did everything differently.
Or if you tried to make pizza and
then you go online and there's some guy
on Reddit who's like, what was the humidity?
And you're like, you, sir, have too much
time.
You know, what was the humidity of the
room?
What was the hydration of the dough?
I'm like, you're a problem.
I'm gonna call Grimaldi's.
SubhanAllah, the art and the alchemy of all
of this is really important.
And for us as believers who are working
on the field of our hearts, the alchemy
that we're experiencing is the alchemy of belief
and hope in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
the hope of Allah's forgiveness.
So you do what you can.
We all are just trying and none of
us are perfect.
And that's okay in the sense that that's
what defines us.
It's like, we're not angels.
So we will have struggles.
And there will be days like the farmer
who misses a day of watering or the
farmer who forgets or the farmer who, whatever,
there will be thunderstorms that you're gonna have
to figure out.
There will be insects and pests that come
and eat some of your crops.
That's just part of it.
So you have to have a deep level
and sense of hope.
And he says, the servants hope for forgiveness
should be analogous to the hope of the
farmer.
So how does a farmer hope?
Well, let's learn.
Here's what he says.
Says, the one who takes care of their
fertile land, they sow their seeds well.
They make sure that the seeds are neither
rotten nor infested.
And they supply it with what it needs,
which is irrigation at specified times, i.e.
salah, prayer.
Performs the weeding, right?
Protecting it from the invasive weeds that will
come, which is like cleaning yourself from sins.
Removing thorns and all the grass that prevents
the seeds from actually manifesting and growing and
destroying them.
Then that farmer sits down after doing everything
that they could and doing it right, waiting
for the favor of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la to keep away the thunderbolts
of fires, the corrupting diseases until the plants
are complete and eventually reach their purpose.
Then that is called true hope.
So he starts with the ideal.
So our analogy is, number one, are we
sincere?
A sincere heart is a fertile heart.
Like, do you wanna go to Allah or
not?
A lot of us don't wanna go to
Allah.
We want Allah to come to us, which
means that we don't wanna change.
Like, I want spirituality, but on my terms.
There was a clip recently that I was
watching that someone posted where it was describing
another wonderful podcast, when I say that in
all sarcasm, we need to have a serious
moratorium on podcasts just in general.
Everyone who has this in front of them,
as soon as they post clips, everyone takes
it seriously.
And that person's a jahil, just like anybody
else.
So this guy is sitting there, and he's
like, what's the deal with religion?
He starts going off on religion.
He goes, you know what the best religion
would be?
And he's like, creatine.
No, he's like, he starts talking about a
religion that makes me feel good.
What?
That's called hedonism.
That's called like a cinnabon.
Like, a religion that makes you feel good?
Like, what are you talking about?
Like, oversleeping, overeating, not working?
Like, yeah, sure.
But when was that successful?
A religion that doesn't make me feel guilty.
Instead of projecting all of those feelings onto
the religion, why don't you just introspect and
figure out that there are things that are
objectively good that make you feel that way
because you're deficient?
And again, just owning that.
Instead of saying that somehow, some way, this
religion is deficient.
Alayhubillah.
So many of us, as much as we
see that as being nonsensical, the reality is
shaitan does work that way.
Shaitan tries to make us think that it's
reasonable for us to expect things to bend,
and not break, but bend towards us.
You know, can this curve towards us?
Can we bend the arc towards our desires?
Can we find the loopholes that we're looking
for?
How haram is it?
You know, how bad is it?
As opposed to just saying, like, okay, it's
haram.
Like, samayah nawatana.
I'm not perfect, and I'm gonna work on
it.
But I'm not gonna try to change it
because that's not right.
That's not authentic.
That's not academically honest, not spiritually honest.
So he says here, basically, that this is
the intention of a sincere soul, that their
heart is fertile, that they have faith, which
is the planting of the seeds, that they
have the irrigation process, which is all of
their deeds as best as they can.
And then once they've done all of that,
then they sit and they wait.
And that's the stage of a person on
the Day of Judgment.
You know, you show up, you show to
Allah, and you say, oh Allah, I did
my best.
And I really did.
Like, I tried.
You know, I didn't pray Fajr every day,
but I set my alarm.
You know, I didn't give as much charity
as I could, but I tried.
You know, I said, I had a subscription.
I did it monthly.
I gave to this, I gave to that.
Oh Allah, I didn't control my tongue all
the time, but there were moments when I
was driving home and I felt bad, and
I sought your repentance.
Oh Allah, I know that I made mistakes.
That person, their hope, is actually what Allah
is talking about.
Qul, Ya ibadi alladhina asrafu ala anfusihim la
taqratu min rahmatillah.
That's actually what Allah says.
Oh, my servants who have wronged themselves, never
ever lose hope in the mercy of Allah.
That's what Allah says in the Quran.
Inna Allaha yaghfiru dhunuba jami'a.
Allah can forgive everyone's sins together.
Innahu ghulafur raheem.
He is the most forgiving, the most merciful.
So we know that there's a place for
someone like that.
But never ever trick yourself into believing that
that gift, that forgiveness, that beautiful, encompassing, massive
gate that Allah has said is open for
people who want forgiveness, it's open for everybody
who wants it, but that doesn't mean everybody,
everybody.
There are some people that do remove themselves
from the eligibility of that very, very encompassing
group.
How do they do that?
Well, he continues.
He says, but if the person spreads the
seeds in a salty swamp or in a
heart that is diseased, a heart that is
dry, a heart that is not remembering of
Allah at all, where water does not reach,
there's no good deeds.
There's no good deeds to speak of.
There's nothing there.
Does not even attempt to care for the
seeds.
Just throws them down on the ground and
walks away.
And then, sits there and waits for the
harvest.
Imam Ghazali says, his waiting is called hamaqa,
stupidity.
Imam Ghazali is very sharp.
You know, he's very sharp with his words.
Ghurur, delusion.
You're crazy.
What kind of person thinks that that's how
you plant?
Have you ever planted anything before?
You can't plant anything like that.
You're throwing, you're basically taking seeds and throwing
it on a parking lot.
No water, no nutrients, no fertility of the
soil, not providing anything at all.
So now, switch the frame.
I want spirituality, I want faith, or at
least I say I do.
But I'm not willing to prepare myself.
I'm not willing to repent, nor am I
willing to pray, nor am I willing to
do anything that Allah asks of me, nor
am I willing to change any of my
bad traits.
I just want to be who I am
and accept, I want Allah to accept me
exactly as I am.
And then at the end of all that
I say, oh Allah, why am I not
experiencing the tears in my face, the tears
out of my eyes in Ramadan?
Why when I read the Quran, do I
look at somebody next to me and their
Quran is filled with notes and underlines and
they're really feeling it.
And I look at mine and it feels
like every other word is like a brick
wall.
Why?
It's the same as the farmer.
If a farmer came to you and said
that this is how they operated, you're like,
I don't know much, but I know that
that's not how it works.
Okay?
May Allah protect us.
And he says lastly, if a person sows
seeds in a fertile land, and this is
what I love about Al-Ghazali, is like
he doesn't operate in binaries.
He'd be popular nowadays, I'm joking.
I just have to, I have to run
it through here first.
Okay, so, he doesn't operate in like extreme
binaries.
He's not the kind of guy that's like
this or that.
He likes to give degrees of understanding because
that's kind of how human beings are.
Like you have the ideal, hopeful, repentant person,
may Allah make us amongst them.
And then you have like, this like Voldemort
type individual that he just described.
He's like a horrific individual.
May Allah protect us.
But hopefully we're neither, hopefully we're not there,
right?
But maybe we're on the other side.
But maybe we're the third kind.
And let's, you know, let's talk about this
person.
He says, there are people that have faith.
They sow their seeds in fertile land.
So their heart is pure.
And their faith is sincere.
But they lack the water.
They don't nourish it.
You know, they have it.
It's like just hanging on.
Like a plant that's like just barely staying
alive.
And all it would need is consistent watering
and consistent sunlight.
But this person is not able to commit
to that schedule.
They're just not there yet.
But occasionally, even though this person doesn't water
it, occasionally it rains.
And there's some kind of thing that happens,
right?
Your friend pulls you to a halaqa.
Your friend just says, hey, I'm gonna pray.
Come join me.
Let's pray.
Even though you don't normally pray, you're like,
all right, fine, I'll pray.
Right?
And so there's like a random surprise of
water that shows up, of nourishment for the
heart that shows up when there usually is
not rain.
But then he says, this person, due to
their inconsistency and due to their conceding, they
conceded.
He says, when they wait, it's not hopeful
waiting like the first one.
It's not stupid like the second one, but
it is wishful thinking.
Tul al-amal, they say.
Lofty hopes.
It's not really how this works.
It's like banking to win the lottery.
Sure, it happens.
It's haram, by the way.
Sure, it happens, but that's not really how
you wanna anticipate your financial plan.
That's not how you wanna operate.
You don't wanna live your life constantly flying
on standby.
Like that's not how, spiritually, we don't wanna
go there.
We wanna have a confirmed seat to Allah.
Like we don't wanna be like, am I,
am I not?
No, we wanna know that I'm definitely going.
And so he says, that's not hope.
That's wishful thinking.
Now, Dr. Mustafa Abu Suay, he writes here
a little bit and I'll share with you
and then we'll go to Q&A.
He says, there are two kinds of hearts.
One heart is the fertile land where planting
is very promising and it is logical to
be hopeful.
SubhanAllah.
Remember that line.
When is it logical to be hopeful?
Once you've done everything that's necessary.
Then it's logical to be hopeful.
There are times where it's logical.
There are times where it's actually illogical to
be hopeful.
That's wishful thinking, tul al-amal, as he
says.
He says, it's logical to be hopeful and
anticipate good crops.
If one takes care of the land and
tills it, if one fails to irrigate the
plants or nurture them, even when the land
is fertile, even when the heart is sincere,
it is considered wishful thinking to expect any
harvest.
The other heart is like a salty marshland
whereby it is sheerly stupid to even think
of anything that can be planted there.
This goes against the very nature of things.
He says, for the person that's kind of
like flagrant, he says, you're not even living
in the real world.
That's not how anything historically has ever happened.
Every human heart is good and fertile land
at the moment of birth.
Allah gives us all a head start.
He gives us all the chance.
Allah did not deprive a single human being
from an opportunity of knowing him.
This is one thing, by the way, that
when you look at Muslim theology, right?
It's a question that is very powerfully contrasted
with Christian theology.
That when I speak with my friends across
the aisle of faith when we talk, the
idea that, I say, what about the billions
of people that have existed historically that weren't
able to come to know Jesus, whether being
before him or not?
See, now, Muslims, if people say, well, what
about people born before Muhammad, you say, well,
there was a religion before him, but it
was always Islam.
There was a revelation before him, and as
long as they subscribe to the prophet before,
then they're good, right?
So Allah has made it so that every
single individual, no matter who or where or
when they're born, kullu mawludin yuulidu alal fitra,
the prophet, peace be upon him, said, they're
born on this thing called the fitra, which
is this innate, genetic, spiritually genetic DNA that
allows a person to know that they were
created.
Every person has that.
And he says, all children remain in that
state until their parents and their social environment
start to corrupt the goodness inherited in their
hearts.
He says, but a fertile land does not
help much if the seeds themselves are rotten.
Decaying seeds may be likened to immoral or
ungodly thoughts and statements that one might accommodate
in one's heart in violation of the good
natural disposition that one was born with.
If you look at kids and when they
start to have moments that contradict their inherent
purity, it's so ajib when you observe people,
these children, and they start to say things
that they've learned at school.
And it goes against everything that you know
them to say.
For those of you who are older or
you have kids or nieces or nephews, you
know.
My daughter, whenever we have discipline, like consequences,
or we have to, no, okay, movie's done,
time to go to bed, brush your teeth,
she looks and she goes, do you hate
me?
What?
So she said it once or twice and
I was like, where'd you learn that?
I was like, no, of course I don't
hate you.
And she's like, well, I feel like you
hate me when you stop us from having
fun.
And I was like, this is gaslighting, actually.
This is literally gaslighting.
So she did this once or twice.
And then I have a friend who's a
child psychologist, by the way, best friendship you
could ever invest in is one who's a
child psychologist.
So I have a friend who's a child
psychologist and I go, hey, and he goes,
that sounds, he goes, if you've never said
that kind of language around her or whatever,
that sounds like something she maybe heard from
somewhere else.
And so he goes, I would head in
that direction.
I would start talking to her about those
questions.
Like, hey, did you hear this from somewhere?
And lo and behold, she heard it from
somewhere in her social environment, right?
But the reason I'm sharing that is because
it's interesting to see how much of who
makes us who we are kind of pushes
up against that inherent natural fitzhah, that purity
that we have.
The things that we feel that they don't
represent us, right?
And we don't want them to represent us,
but they're still a part of us.
And we're trying to extricate ourselves from them.
And it's very, very difficult.
And the longer that you let it sit,
the longer that you dormantly just wait, the
longer it takes for you to remove that
filth, right?
To scrub it out of your heart.
May Allah protect us.
That's why the Quran says, kalla dhal rana
ala kulubihim ma kanu yaqsiboon that they have
rust on their heart because of the things
that they used to do.
So these things have effects.
And he says, the good seeds of moral
behavior are found in the Quran, are found
in the life of the Prophet, peace be
upon him, in obeying Allah, performing good deeds,
continuously cleansing your heart with the remembrance of
Allah, peace be upon him.
The heart is the field where one sows
the seeds of life while the harvest is
reaped in the hereafter.
Those who positively seek forgiveness should be like
the farmer who sows healthy plants and weeds
them to prevent them from being interrupted by
the sins of his life.
May Allah Ta'ala give us Tawfiq and
make us those that are constantly like the
farmer, watchful over the plant of Iman and
the fertile soil that he has given us.
May Allah Ta'ala protect us from all
of the negative traits and the negative outside
elements that can affect that.
May Allah Ta'ala give us Tawfiq and
allow us to harvest a beautiful harvest on
the Day of Judgment.
Ameen, Ya Rabbil Alameen.
Jazakumullah khayran.
Let's go ahead and go to the Q
&A inshallah before we head over for Isha
prayer in about 10 minutes.
Okay, the first question, bismillah.
How does forgiveness work from Allah when it
comes to addictions?
I am afraid, I am insincere.
This is a great question.
I really appreciate you asking this.
So there are, when we understand addictions, let's
talk about it in two ways, right?
There's like the clinical term, addiction.
And then there's different types of addictions, right?
There's chemical, there's behavioral.
So let's go ahead and address this kind
of down the middle path, where we say
how does forgiveness work when a person has
a sin that they chronically return to?
Here, whether it's like clinically addictive, whether it's
chemically, whether it's behaviorally, those are all details
that are left up to like professionals.
Okay, but let's just talk about the spiritual
side.
That on the outside, how does Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, how do we,
what do we know about how Allah handles
sins that are chronic, that are repetitive, that
a person repeats and comes back to?
The bad news is, I'll start with the
bad news.
That's the kind of person I am.
The bad news is that everybody will have
a sin that sticks with them, right?
The Hadith says that there is no son
or daughter of Adam except walahu thamd.
There is no son or daughter, except they
have a sin that it just sticks with
them.
And that sin, by the way, doesn't have
to be the same one throughout life.
But the Hadith is saying that they have
this struggle and it can change depending on
the era of life they're in.
So let's say, for example, in the initial
stages of life, the sin is something like
not praying.
And then let's say you get prayer done,
but you struggle with backbiting.
And then let's say you start, you stop
backbiting and you're still praying, but now you
think that you're better than people.
You know, so arrogance is it.
So it's just that there's different sins for
different stages of life.
And that's really, subhanAllah, how it goes.
Depending on the stage of level of devotion
you are with Allah, the temptation is very
different, okay?
So just because you don't, that's why I
love the statement when they say, don't judge
people that just sin differently than you.
Because the reality is like, everyone is struggling.
So if you look at somebody who dresses
a certain way or doesn't dress a certain
way, or talks a certain way or doesn't,
like the reality is like that person might
be struggling with A, and you're struggling with
C, and this person's struggling with X.
There's a variety of challenges.
So that's point number one, which is that's
the reality of being a human being.
Now, point number two is, how does Allah
deal with chronic failure?
And the reason why this is such a
very difficult thing to understand is because as
human beings, we interpret a repeat offender, a
chronic failure, as a definitive sign that a
person is insincere.
And that's what the question says, I'm afraid
I'm insincere.
So think about this for a second.
A chronic repeating of failure to the human
being is a sign of insincerity, a sign
that a person is a loser, like, oh
no, don't trust them anymore.
To Allah, it's half of a sign of
sincerity.
The other half is that the person comes
back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la, and the person repents to Allah.
As long as the person remembers to come
back and repent, it actually doesn't matter how
many times.
And the Hadith was clear.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in
the Hadith Qudsi says, they sinned, they came
back to me.
They sinned, they came back to me.
Enough times to where finally Allah says, let
it be known that I have forgiven them
for whatever sin they have done.
Doesn't matter, because they keep coming back.
So the sincerity is not about the sin,
it's about what you do after the sin.
Does a person seek forgiveness from Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la after the sin,
or do they let the sin win?
Do they concede, right?
Do I believe that the sin is greater
than Allah's mercy?
Because if I believe the sin is greater
than Allah's mercy, I won't go back to
Allah for forgiveness.
And that is a huge mistake.
That actually is a big problem, right?
So the key of success with regards to
chronically failing is realizing that Allah is not
human, and nor does he apply human standards
to us.
He has a divine standard, different than anybody
else.
Allah's standard is what?
If you come back to me, I will
answer.
That's it.
Human beings, you have one, maybe two chances.
Then after that, it's like even your own
loved ones will be like, look, I don't
know if I believe you anymore.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, as
long as you're sincere and you come back,
he'll take you every single time.
May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
give us Tawfiq, inshaAllah.
Okay.
Do sins block acceptance of your du'a
or future blessings?
So the bad news, so the answer is
kind of two-sided.
Du'a is not like, it's not linear
like that.
It's not linear.
It's not like do this, and this will
happen.
Do this, and that will happen.
Du'a is the comprehensive mosaic.
It's an amalgamation of an effort.
Okay, it's a project that you're submitting to
Allah, and you want to be in the
best possible state as you're submitting it.
That's the whole idea.
So that's why scholars say when you make
du'a, you should do good deeds leading
up to it.
You should make repentance leading up to it.
You should give charity, because it's about coming
into the meeting in the proper, with good,
I want to say vibes, but it's about
coming into the meeting with a proper approach
to your proposal.
So some people will say, oh, my du
'as are not being answered and someone will
say, what sins are you committing?
It's not that simple.
So the answer is not quite, but the
answer is definitely, yes, it can affect it.
There's no doubt.
There's no doubt.
Like we learn that a person's sins can
affect their du'as.
Okay, but again, what does it mean to
sin?
It means to do something with no expression
of remorse.
That's a sin.
So if a person sins and does not
express any remorse or any regret, absolutely, the
hadith is very clear that that can be
an obstruction in your du'a reaching Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la.
So what do we do then?
Well, we can't stop sinning.
We covered that in the previous question.
That's part of who we are.
We make sure that with every sin that
we know that we commit, we meet it
with tawbah, because that's gonna clear the path
for our du'as to make it to
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la unencumbered.
Okay?
Allahu akbar.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and like
de-gender this because it's not specific to
the gender itself.
And that's how we are here.
No, I'm joking, we're not.
So my sister is verbally and emotionally, ah,
I didn't do it.
My relative is verbally and emotionally abusive to
my spouse.
And I even cursed, oh, and, oh, sorry.
Okay, we need to use commas, inshallah, okay?
I'm not laughing at the question.
It's a very serious question.
I almost read it wrong.
My sibling is verbally and emotionally abusive to
my spouse and I, comma, and even cursed
at my spouse, because it made it seem
like, and I cursed at my spouse.
Am I allowed to cut my sibling off
because my sibling is not reasonable?
Okay.
So, salatul rahim, the Islamic ethic of family
is a very important ethic.
Like, family ties are not a negotiable conversation
within the realm of Islamic ethics and how
we behave, okay?
That's the general rule.
What that means is that every family situation
is going to have disagreements.
Every family situation is going to have drama.
Okay, every family situation is going to have,
you know, discord, but there are two types
of disagreements, drama and discord.
There are those which are functional and those
which are dysfunctional, okay?
So functional disagreements are disagreements where it is
possible for these two people to be able
to work it out, agree to disagree, and
keep moving, or simply table a conversation, right?
Put a pin in it, all right, and
just move on, and both rise above the
inability to come to an agreement about that
thing, okay?
The dysfunctional side would be people that use
this as an opportunity to destroy the relationship
and they make it destructive, and in the
destruction of this, or in the pathway of
this disagreement, they use it as a means
and as a mechanism of hurting one another
and oppressing one another.
So the reason why I wanted to frame
it this way is because I don't want
everyone walking out of here being like, I
knew my family was toxic, or I knew
my family was toxic, because most scenarios, most
people in their families, they're not dealing with
toxic family members, they're dealing with normal family
members, okay?
But the Quran does share more than a
few stories of genuinely toxic families, right?
You have Sayyidina Yusuf with his brothers, Sayyidina
Ibrahim with his father, Sayyidina Lut with his
wife, and more, you have Sayyidina Nuh with
his son, you have the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam with his uncle, and really, by
some means, like uncles, like relatives.
You have a lot, you have a lot.
So what does that mean?
Well, the Quran does not deny that it's
possible that there could be relationships that are
family that are actually destructive.
The Quran actually doesn't only not deny it,
it actually puts it on the table and
says, yeah, it's possible.
So now the Quran tells us, okay, how
do you deal with these?
How do you deal with these?
And Sayyidina Luqman, he says, in his advice
to his son, that the, and if you
look at all of how they dealt with
it, all the prophets, the general rule is,
you deal with these people reasonably, reasonably.
Meaning, you wish them well, you keep them
off of your tongue and out of your
heart and mind, and you let them exist
without affecting you as much as possible.
Which means that you are allowed to have
boundaries and barriers, you are allowed to protect
and put up in order to protect the
one that you are responsible for.
You know, if I see one of my
kids beating up the other kid, I can't
be like, well, we're family, and Islam says,
no, I have to pull them apart, and
I have to reprimand and give consequences, you
have to.
So then when I look at other family
scenarios, when I look at, you know, in
-laws, or siblings, or cousins, or uncles, whatever,
the reality is that if there's a transgressor,
if there's an oppressor, and if it's clear,
then I have to address it.
I have to address it, okay?
My advice is to try to have it
be as much as possible done in an
arbitration that is not he said versus she
said, me versus you.
My advice would try to be as best
as possible to institute some type of third
party that can be objective and can give
you some kind of objective read on this,
right?
Otherwise, it's gonna end up being just like
a individual versus individual thing, and those never
go well.
Just in my experience as an Imam for
15 years, like, I've never seen two people
be like, yeah, I said, and then she
said, and this and that.
It doesn't go well.
You need to have somebody who's there to
able to have a level conversation.
But to answer your question, generally speaking, you
are allowed to create boundaries.
We don't believe in cutting off.
In Islam, we don't believe in that.
Like, cutting off means what?
It means even if the person is repentant,
and even if they want a second chance,
we say, no, you've been cut off.
So we don't do that, right?
But we are allowed to build walls because
walls can be destroyed.
So you're allowed to build a wall and
say, look, here's a wall, there's a door,
it's locked.
The minute you change, we'll unlock it, okay?
But if you continue to do this, we
gotta keep this boundary between us in order
to protect the wellbeing of myself, my family,
et cetera.
Alhamdulillah.
My spouse cheated on me, and I'm struggling
to navigate the situation Islamically.
Please, what guidance can you provide me to
move forward in a way that pleases Allah
subhana wa ta'ala?
I think, you know, number one is that
this is an important, this is something that
needs to be dealt with in a variety
of realms, okay?
So there's obviously the Islamic advice about how
to handle these things.
But if you, the Islamic advice will not
give you like, okay, how to move forward
legally, like custody if you have children, or
alimony, or child support.
Like all of those things are not gonna
be done by a sheikh, like, and nor
should you seek them from a sheikh.
Like, and a good sheikh would tell you,
go and hire a lawyer, and go and
get a counselor, and go and get somebody
who can help you navigate through this, okay?
They would not try to be a Walmart,
no offense if you shop there, a one
-stop shop to fix everything.
That's not how this works.
So my advice to this person is, immediately,
like, you know, this is like a person
who gets into a horrific accident, they break
a limb, and then they have a broken
arm, and they're like, what can I do
Islamically about this?
And my response would be, go to the
ER, let's get this thing casted, let's get
it fixed, let the orthopedic person see it,
then you and I will talk about how
to make wudu.
You get my point?
Like, it's not that Islam can wait, but
it's that some of the conversations are like
acutely micro, right?
They're like acute, like you have to figure
them out right now, and then some of
them are a little bit more macro, like,
okay, we can talk about sort of how
to understand this, inshallah.
So my advice to you is to try,
you know, as Allah Ta'ala says, to
go and seek counsel from those who know,
to try to make as much progress there
as you can, and then inshallah, once you
have those things lined up and kind of
those ducks in a row, then I would
say that there's definitely an opportunity for you
to come and speak to a sheikh that
you, you know, or a teacher, male or
female, that you trust, who you can kind
of open up to and explain the scenario
to a little bit more specifically, to get
more specific advice on how to begin healing,
inshallah, and Allah make it easy.
Is makeup allowed?
I've heard different opinions.
Believe it or not, I actually don't wear
any, so I don't know.
I know it's hard to believe.
I don't wear any, so what I would
advise is to ask one of our wonderful
female scholars here at Qadam, Sada Fatima, she
teaches on Sundays, Sada Khadijah, Sada Samreen, et
cetera, as those who are more intimately aware
and familiar with makeup, what their thoughts are.
We'll do one more, inshallah.
How do you make friends in your 30s
when you're single in Dallas?
Most events at Roots are for the youth.
This is called 30 and up.
My knees are hurting.
I'm sitting in a chair.
No, I think look, look, community is community,
and I think in reality, okay, I'll give
a couple pieces of advice, and then I'll,
this is where I close laptop.
Try the Salams app?
Friendship one, okay, yes, very important distinction.
Because there is a friendship one, okay, so
good.
Okay, good, so you guys met on a
Salam friendship app.
Excellent, so we have a truth, you know,
a testimonial here, inshallah.
I would also say, look, number one is,
what are you expecting?
So first of all, what does it mean
to be like a friend?
Okay, so I think a lot of people
are still trying to figure out like the
definition of friend, okay?
Are you looking for like a sibling replacement?
No, so I'm being 100% serious, because
some people are simply, some people really need
to see somebody regularly, and some friends are
really overwhelmed by the idea of seeing each
other every day or every other day.
So the first thing you have to do
is you have to first come to terms
with, okay, what am I looking for socially,
number one.
Number two is quality over quantity.
Like one or two good friends is much
more beneficial and better than having like 20
people that you know.
So being satisfied with, like everyone that comes
to me, I always laugh when we have
a Q&A, some people come and line
up after, and they'll be like, I'm just
having trouble meeting people.
And they're surrounded by like six people, and
they're all like, yeah, us too.
And I'm like, what do you want me
to do?
It's like, the bread is here, the peanut
butter is right there, the knife is right
there, the jelly's right there.
So I do think that a lot of
people, when they say, I wanna meet friends,
they're coming out of like Ottawa, and they
just saw a group of like seven people
like ruffling loudly about some joke.
And they're like, I want that, okay, but
you need to build that one by one.
Like go to Ottawa with one person and
laugh together.
And then you'll meet another person, and these
will compound, these efforts will.
So don't, no, I'm being 100% serious.
Everybody needs to have realistic expectations when it
comes to number one, what they're looking for,
and number two, how many people they need
in their life.
By the time you get to this age,
you really only need like five or six
people in your life, besides your family.
You really only need like, I mean, genuinely,
the amount of people that you will genuinely
be like, you are my friend, is like
five or six people.
And then you have people that you're friendly
with, then you have like acquaintances, okay?
And that's not an insult, because again, it's
just not, we are not capable, nor are
we, it's not possible.
And don't let social media numbers trick you.
Just because somebody has 1,000 people that
they follow on Instagram, doesn't mean that they
have 1,000 friends.
And I think the numbers, we've seen like
such an inflation in numbers on social media,
like the likes that are gotten on a
picture, you know?
I posted a picture of myself on my
Instagram the other day, and I got like
16,000 likes on it.
And I'm like, okay, relax, everyone's like, I'm
just gonna relax, okay?
But there are nights where like, I'm sitting
at home alone, I'm like, what do I
do tonight?
And my wife's like, I'm gonna sleep.
My kids are like, us too.
I text a couple of friends, they're like,
we're busy.
I'm like, okay.
So how do you negotiate that paradox?
Like, really, like this many people like my
stuff, but then at the end of the
day, I can't even call one guy to
hang out with, okay, hold on, I'll just
go now and eat and go to sleep.
Because food is a good coping mechanism for
that.
So the point I'm trying to make is,
had it not been for the advent of
this social media, I think our expectations would
be a lot more realistic.
And we would be able to cope with
and say, you know what, I have three
or four people that I'm really close with
and that, alhamdulillah, gets me and I'm okay
with that.
So, excuse me.
So not trying to shame the questioner, that's
not my intention, but I think if you
don't have the right parameters, you're always gonna
think you're failing.
So let's first define the parameters.
What type of person are you looking for?
How many do you really think you need
to be happy?
What does that relationship even look like?
And then, bismillah, start to engage with people
in community spaces.
And I am deeply offended as a 36,
almost 37-year-old that you're like, Roots
is looking for kids.
What are you talking about?
Right, in that voice specifically, right?
I think people can meet people here, bismillah.
We try to facilitate these kinds of meetings
and conversations, inshallah Allah will give it to
you and give you good friendship.
Even if it's not 10 or 20 people,
but he'll give you good friendship, companionship.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, only made
a hijrah with one person.
So just realize that, inshallah, okay?
One or two good friends is way better
than 30 or 40 acquaintances, right?
May Allah give us tawfiq.
And the Salaam's Friend app, apparently is a,
once you've defined all that stuff, it's a
good place to start, okay?
All right, isha is in three minutes, inshallah.
And I do have to, unfortunately, depart right
after isha, so I wanna go pray and
then head out.
So jazakumullah khairan, barakallahu feekum, everybody.
We'll see you, inshallah.
If you sat on the back jacks, if
you just helped by lining them up here
along the wall, and if you sat on
some furniture, if you could just help by
turning it around, we'd really appreciate it.
So that might work a little bit.