AbdelRahman Murphy – Thirty & Up Treasury Of Imam Al-Ghazli Class 3
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AI: Transcript ©
Alright. We're good? Alright.
As always, if you want, you can hop
on the Slido. We have our q and
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and you can type in, 30 and up.
We're in our 3rd week of reading this,
great summary text by doctor Mustafa Abu Suway.
May Allah preserve him, protect him.
A Palestinian scholar and one of the foremost
thought leaders when it comes to the works
of Imam Al Ghazali,
somebody that really, masha'Allah, is such an incredible
person. And this particular week, this chapter, this
this quote that he picked is one that,
is just so satisfying. Because, again, sometimes
and this is something unique with the Tuesday
night class that we're able to have these,
like, frank conversations.
It's something that's so practical, but so spiritually
satisfying because it gives us the ability to
look for
growth and for closeness to Allah
while still
giving us some tangible concrete things to take
home. Sometimes spirituality can can can feel like
it's a little bit kind of vague or
floating out there, but doctor Mustafa does a
great job of translating Al Ghazali into the
practical
realm, for us here.
So this chapter is called seek felicity or
seeking happiness.
And,
you know, this is one of the purposes
of life. Right? It's to to seek some
form of happiness or felicity.
All of us are looking for joy even
even in the small moments.
We're looking for those opportunities that bring us,
you know, satisfaction
and happiness, put a smile on our face.
Something as simple as your morning coffee with,
a pastry
or, you know, buying yourself,
something new,
from the store or getting off of work
30 minutes early. Like, all these things are
moments that give us that sense of happiness,
and we seek those things.
But what's interesting is that if a person
doesn't have the ability to kind of keep
themselves
in a state of perspective,
in a state of constant reflection,
then the seeking of happiness,
although it's part of life, can become a
person's entire life.
So while we admit as human beings, Allah
Allah even says
that if you experience something good, if you
experience a pledge you know, a a blessing
of Allah, then you should proclaim it.
Allah says and with this, we should, you
know, celebrate. So the Quran tells us and
references for us the idea of happiness and
celebration and moments of of joy.
But all of those moments of joy and
all those moments of happiness come in the
context
of something greater than themselves.
Meaning,
we do not lose, as they say, the
forest for the trees. We understand
that every moment that we seek that is
filled with joy is a moment for us
to get closer to Allah, which is ultimately
the goal. If we sell ourselves short
and we chase happiness and joy for the
sake of happiness and joy, then we actually
end up in this
strange cycle
where we don't have that ultimate perspective. So
here, he quotes from Imam Ghazali,
and he quotes from,
his book which is called mizan al aamal
or mizan al aamal.
And
he,
which means the scale of deeds.
And he he quotes this beautiful passage, and
we'll read it
and then we'll read some of the commentary
that doctor Mustafa gave.
So he says,
I'll read some of the the Arabic because
it kinda gives a nice
translation. He says
He says,
the
felicity or the happiness,
right, the happiness that a person looks for,
that is
that is otherworldly.
So
even the title that Al Ghazali gives is
so powerful.
He says happiness
the happiness that you're looking for, the joy
that you're trying to find is something that
can only be found in heaven.
Human beings
in this dunya
are chasing
things that cannot be fully attained
qualitatively or quantitatively.
So Allah put
the appetite for joy within us,
but the only satiation or fulfillment of that
appetite is going to be in paradise. May
Allah grant us that.
So
the the most important step is understanding that
and realizing that,
that you cannot achieve that happiness here. And
then listen to how he describes it.
He says,
the everlasting
happiness
that people want that has no end.
So part of it is that we want
happiness all the time. Nobody ever wants to
be hit with trial or affliction or calamity
or test.
We want everything to be easy and smooth
and joyful all the time.
And then he continues, and he says,
He says, and
pleasure
with
no
challenges.
We wanna have constant smooth sailing.
Right? This is accurate. Nobody wants nobody wakes
up and goes to their
car in their garage or in the on
the street and sees a flat tire and
says, good.
Nobody celebrates that. Right? We just we we
factor it in. Another thing on my list.
Another thing that I have to do. Another
bill that I have to pay now. Right?
It's not something that we look for.
And then he says,
and happiness
with no grief, no sadness whatsoever.
And needlessness
and wealth
with absolutely
no semblance of poverty or struggle whatsoever.
He's describing and when he puts it in
this way,
it almost starts to sound absurd.
Because if you start to look at, like,
what a person would describe a perfect life
as,
the more we go down this list, the
more we start to realize this is quite
literally impossible.
This is quite literally impossible. But doctor Mustafa
Busway, he gives a great analysis.
And we want everything in life to be
totally complete
with no deficiency whatsoever.
He's
the the the human being is one of
the most difficult creatures to please.
You know, if we compared ourselves
to other creatures, think of like a cat
or a dog.
There's a scholar that wrote a book about
how dogs are always so happy. And he
says, if only servants,
human beings, servants of Allah, could be as
happy as dogs.
He basically was praising dogs.
I think the book
is
called,
like,
or something. Like, the virtues of dogs over
those who wear clothes.
And he was basically trying to make the
point that, like,
dogs, sometimes, they outdo you
in their gratitude. And the examples he gave,
I remember reading it one time with a
Maliki teacher, of course. He said
he said the author said something like to
the effect of, like, when the dog when
the when the master comes home, the dog
is always smiling, wagging its tail.
And when the and when the master needs
help, the dog is always there. And and
when the master is tired, the dog is
loyal. And, basically, just started listing all these
great characteristics about dogs.
And then sort of like the unsaid portion
was,
but human beings lack in this, and we
look down upon creation other animals, but we
don't realize that we're actually worse than dogs
in some ways
in this. May Allah give us all the
good traits that are out there.
So
all of these things,
if you look at them, they start to
describe sometimes the pettiness of the human being.
We could have the most incredible
we could have the most incredible
meal or the incredible,
item or incredible opportunity or vacation or something,
and it's almost
against what we think to be is, like,
our honor and our pride to give that
thing a perfect score.
You know, somebody has a bite of something.
Somebody has a we were earlier today, we
were taste testing 1 of the bakers, that
Mashallah, he bakes for us. He does the
Dubai chocolate now. We're selling it. I don't
know if you guys saw it.
Yeah. We're gonna sell out now. Oh, yeah.
So he got us these Dubai chocolate bars.
And he used dark chocolate instead of milk
chocolate, which is you know, it's good for,
like, coffee pairing and stuff. And if the
filling the pistachio is sweet, it's nice. It's
very nice. I liked it. So we're trying
it, and some people in the group were
like, ah, it's okay.
And and I looked at them. I said,
why are you such a hater, bro?
Just enjoy it. Just enjoy it. It's sugar.
It's cream. It's chocolate. Like, we are biologically
predisposed to enjoy that. And I don't even
like chocolate, but I I enjoyed it. But
I feel like sometimes
depending on our mood, depending on we kinda
feel like, you know what? I don't wanna
give this person too high of a score.
Why? Because
I don't wanna get their ego too inflated.
No. If you enjoy it, enjoy it.
But the reality is that we become very
critical. And this is a good example.
Like, we wanna we want things to be
absolutely perfect with no
deficiencies whatsoever.
We want everything to be honorable and majestic
with no
humiliation or vulnerability whatsoever.
You know, we wanna be able to have,
like, the nicest house, but we don't wanna
clean it.
We want the best garments, but we don't
wanna do laundry
because we wanna be we wanna be people
that have their but we don't wanna experience
any humiliation.
Even getting clothes out of your dryer is
very humiliating.
You're, like, bent over, 30 and up, your
back's hurting. You're like, oh, god. Just start
dumping stuff into your and then you let
it sit there because you can't fold it
because you're biologically predisposed to not folding it.
Right? And then you start you know, your
parents are like, why don't you fold it?
We used to fold laundry all the time,
and then you feel even more of that
shame. So you have all these nice fancy
clothes in your laundry basket that's clean, but
it's not folded. You feel like a humiliated
person.
Okay?
So he
says
and He says in a sentence
he says,
to summarize, it is everything
that can be conceived or sought after and
be sought in totality or that thing which
can be desired
or that thing which can be enjoyed
undiminished
by the passage of time.
And he says that's what human beings want.
But then he clarifies
and he says, indeed,
if the whole world was full of gems
and every 1000 years, gems started to go
missing.
Then he said, the gems will start to
become exhausted in this world while the everlasting
world, the akhirah, would not be diminished by
one bit.
Think for a second
of when there's, like, a new development in
a in in a society or when you
a new area that gets built or a
new building or something exciting.
You think for a moment that this is
so beautiful. This is so trendy. This aesthetic
is so nice. And then a year passes,
2 years pass, 3 years pass, and the
entire
experience, the aesthetic, the environment starts to become
a little bit, what, messy, dirty. Things aren't
as nice as they once were. The corners
aren't as sharp. They're a little bit rough.
Even the things that we admire as being
perfect eventually become imperfect.
And so doctor Mustafa Abu Suway,
listen to this, his lines, subhanAllah, no matter
how plentiful anything is,
the good and enjoyable things in this world
are finite.
No matter how
plentiful they are, you might see something as
being absolutely
you know,
you cannot deplete it.
I remember a couple years ago when they
announced that there was a shortage of avocados.
And all of us were wondering, like, what?
You know? Avocados? What about guac? Avocado toast?
What's gonna happen?
You think that something Allah just sends these
messages to you. There's depletion in this, depletion
in that.
You know, there's people that think, for example,
that financial opportunities and freedom through the stock
market. Look what happened this week.
Right? Cryptocurrency. It's never gonna fail. That's what
they said about the Titanic.
Literally, everything in this world
is designed to have a vulnerability.
Everything. Nothing is perfect.
Nothing.
And so he says everything is finite. In
fact, the bad things are finite too.
He says, this is why we often conflate.
We confuse
worldly pleasures with happiness.
We convince ourselves that if I just have
this worldly pleasure, I'll be happy
without realizing that the worldly pleasure, once it
disappears, will bring us sadness.
The very thing that we thought was gonna
give us joy, and it did,
when we realize the joy is temporary, it
causes us sadness. So we're actually
you ready for this? We're more disappointed
in the fact that something is not permanent.
That's actually what hurts.
You know, they talk about, for example, when
you get something new, you have that beautiful
new car smell,
and then you have to bring
some desi food to someone's house,
and it's gone forever. Right? Or you get
a new pair of shoes or a new
outfit,
and you either get a scuff on the
shoe or a crease on the New Jays
or a stain on your shirt.
That shine, right, that nostalgic
feeling of newness,
it disappears in an instant. And that very
same thing that you were so careful with,
that you were so particular about, you wouldn't
let anyone borrow it or touch it because
it was new. The moment that it loses
its perfection,
now it becomes
for the common folk.
Yeah. You can have it. It's fine.
You can do it. It's fine. The 1st
week I owned it, nobody could even look
at it for longer than 3 seconds.
But now that it's been stained or it's
been scratched or it's this and that, yeah,
take it whatever you want. I don't care
anymore.
And that's the the attachment that we have.
So he says,
even when there are wholesome and there is
nothing controversial about them, the joys that we
experience,
he says, they are always going to be
incomplete and lacking. And I love the example
he gives.
He says, material fulfillment is temporary in its
very nature.
It's defined by its temporariness.
So in order to be happy from the
beginning of a moment of joy, you have
to remind yourself that this will not last
forever.
You don't have to be the negative person
announcing it to everybody.
You know, you step on the plane for
a vacation. You're like, guys, just think we're
gonna be back here in, like, 4 days.
You can live in the moment, but internally
yourself, you have to be the person that
says, I'm going to enjoy the blessing as
it comes, and I'm not going to grieve
it when it leaves.
And we'll talk about some amazing stories, okay,
of this.
Listen to the example. He says,
even
one cannot eat continuously.
For example,
even if food is plentiful and delicious.
Because,
he says,
someone has to be concerned about their health
issues.
But even if they're not concerned about their
health issues, eating continuously is simply not sustainable.
If anyone in here has ever experienced, like,
a day where they're so hungry and they're
craving something,
and they all day are thinking about enjoying
their favorite food.
Okay. Let's say you're fasting or let's say
you just haven't eaten, and you're thinking the
whole day about your favorite food.
Then the moment that that food is in
front of you, you have
that moment of just what you think is
the complete, the ultimate climax of your day.
This is it. I've been hungry. I've been
waiting. I'm here. It's fresh. It's delicious.
And then you eat it. You have your
serving,
and then maybe you have a couple bites
too much.
And the very same object of desire that
you just spent hours and hours thinking about,
it actually looking at it makes you feel
a bit nauseous.
So if you ate too many of them,
you're like, I can't.
Right? What's the famous the adage? Get this
thing away from me. Get these things away
from me. Yeah. A person looks at something.
I I I when I read this line,
for some reason, I thought of those biscuits
from Red Lobster. You guys know what I'm
talking about?
You go to Red Lobster and you have
2 of those biscuits, you're like, these are
good. By your 6th one, you're like, who
am I?
I'm disgusted with myself.
The very same food, Subhanallah,
that you think about all day actually becomes,
and I don't mean this offensively, it becomes
something of such
you're you almost feel like you can't look
at it. It's too much. I've had too
much.
Right? Because when we indulge ourselves,
the the capacity for food, we eat too
much, and now our body is actually telling
us, no. Anything, food, drink, dessert, doesn't matter,
is going to make you feel sick. Get
away. Right? Leave.
Leave. The plan is to exit. No longer
to enjoy anymore. So he says eating continuously
is not sustainable.
Everything that somebody builds
will inevitably wither away in time.
Everything that is built will wither away in
time. You know, we we recently went to
Spain,
and we
saw this city called Madinat al Zahra.
It's just outside of, Cordoba Cordoba.
And it is
really, subhanAllah, when they describe it, it is
one of the most beautiful
constructions
of a city that you could ever think
of. I mean, it's under the hills
of southern Spain. There's the mountains. There's the
olive groves.
They have orange trees.
It it literally reminds you of paradise. I
mean, you think about jund on earth with,
like, olives and oranges and the fragrances in
the air, And the temperature was amazing, and
it's under the shade of the mountains and
the trees. And they built this beautiful city
there,
And they invested so much into the architecture
and the infrastructure
and the renditions and the designs of it
inspire you. And, actually, like, to some degree,
some of the floating ceiling tiles that we
have in here in our designs were inspired
by some of the construction on this trip.
You know how long that city lasted?
I think it was, like, 87 years.
Lasted 1, maybe a little bit more. One
generation, a little bit more, and it eventually
it it it gave way. And the teacher
that was there, the tour guide that was
there, he said something very interesting.
He said,
this city was actually built at the height
of
Andalusian,
prominence
and providence. They were the wealthiest at that
time. So they invested
so much
into the construction of this beautiful city.
But one thing, they changed. They followed all
of the cultures and norms and all of
the historical
traditions of how they built their cities, the
architecture,
the arches, the alternating tiles, all that. Right?
They followed all those principles, but there was
one principle that they changed.
And he said, and there was really no
clear reason. They didn't document why they didn't
do it this way, but they changed it.
And that was in every city that the
Muslims built in southern Spain,
the center of the city was the Masjid.
And he goes, this city
because that way no matter how much it
expanded,
it was still
by a radius distance, it was still close
enough to everybody to make it to the
Masjid to pray.
He said, but this city, if you look
at it from an aerial view, you'll notice
that they built the masjid, but they built
it on the far corner of the city.
And then they expanded the city the other
direction.
And so what happens? Think about this. What
happens when a person,
even in their civilization,
in their society, when the masjid becomes a
focal point of their life or a center
point of their life? They come to pray.
At least once a week, they'll go to
Jummah,
or they'll go pray maybe once a day.
And when you go to pray, it is
a physical
practice of being reminded
that I'm leaving all the dunya behind, and
I'm going just to worship Allah. And it's
a reminder whether we admit it or not
that this is all temporary
because I could be doing something else. Every
time of prayer is an opportunity to do
something else. At Fajr, you could be sleeping.
At luhr, you could be eating. At Asr,
you could be working out. At Maghrib, you
could be hanging out. At Isha, you could
be sleeping.
And every single time that you could be
doing the same, you choose Allah over all
of that.
And if you make it to the masjid,
you're like, oh, Allah, I'm choosing you and
I'm coming to your house instead of doing
anything else that I could be doing. I'm
delaying all that for you. That's a that's
a reminder to the person that all of
this is temporary. It's all gonna go away.
And even when we begin our prayer, what
do we do? Do it with your hands.
We do this. Right? Some of the scholars
when they talk about the prayer and the
wisdom of the movements of prayer, they say
that when you say Allahu Akbar, God is
the greatest, and you put your hands like
this, they say you're taking all the dunya,
and you're just throwing it behind you.
And you're facing towards the and everything behind
you is worthless.
So prayer is a functional practice, and it's
a therapeutic practice of what of disconnecting from
the distractions of this world, realizing the temporary
nature of this world.
You, you read stories
of some people
during battles,
during war, during tribulation. I mean, look at
Gaza right now. May Allah uplift them. Look
at how in their state, in their situation
as it is, they're still having Jum'ah prayer.
It's it's it must be the most demoralizing
thing to some of the the IDF
generals and army that they see after bombing
a masjid.
The imam of that masjid finds any piece
of rubble and stands on it, and he's
like, call the adhan
and starts giving a and those are fire.
I've listened to some of them. He's telling
an entire community of people don't lose hope
in Allah. Allah is with us, and they're
sitting there with no ceiling over them
because prayer to them is a way for
them to remind themselves that all of this
is temporary anyways.
All of this is not gonna last as
it is. So he says,
even something as simple as eating is not
sustainable. Everything that you build will eventually wither
away in time.
All of those that you love
will eventually leave you or you will leave
them.
There is nobody here that can look at
somebody that they love and say we will
be together forever in this life. That's not
the nature of this life.
Just as every accumulated penny of wealth will
disappear, big or small,
one day you will leave behind everything that
was given to you. One day will be
the last day that you live. You know,
yet last week on Wednesday morning, we got
the news of a wonderful person, sister Sara
Vauda, may Allah TA'la have mercy on her,
she passed away.
And
her if you knew her, she was a
regular roots attendee. She would always come whenever
she came. Her smile was so big. She
was light up the room. She would always
ask to help, always be around her and
her husband, Yousef, and their beautiful son, Musa,
may Allah make things easy for for them.
You know, but you can't help but wonder,
subhanAllah,
about
the moment of when a person leaves this
dunya
and not for that person because we have
good hope in Allah that Allah will receive
her with mercy. But what about the people
that have to keep going after her?
Right? Whenever you lose somebody and if you've
lost somebody, you know this experience.
If you lost your parents or your sibling
or your grandparents or your children, you have
to keep going.
And you have to look and think about
all the artifacts that those people have, all
the belongings that they've collected, everything that we
put so much value in.
Now the moment that your soul leaves your
body, it's worthless.
It's completely valueless. It has no purpose anymore,
no meaning.
Nobody can wear it. Nobody can drive it.
Nobody wants to nobody wants to live in
that house anymore. People move.
Because that entire
meaning was
eradicated the moment that this person left.
So why would we
put all of our purpose in something that
will eventually forget about us?
We invest so much of our energy
and who we are
into something that is material and eventually leaves
us.
Some people, it's their job.
Some people, it's their car. Some people, it's
their house. Some people, it's their wardrobe.
And we put so much effort into it.
And one day,
when your soul leaves your body, all of
those things will not come with you.
So he says,
it is foolish
to prefer what is finite and perishable
to the everlasting life.
Perpetual happiness and infinite reward where no effort
is required.
And this is why, subhanAllah,
one of the practices of the righteous people,
if they felt themselves getting too attached to
this life is they would start reading descriptions
of the afterlife in Jannah
so that they could find themselves
feeling so disconnected from this life. So let's
read some, because I wanna share with you
some of these things that are amazing.
One of the most powerful narrations
and a cinematic, Radiullah, he says that the
prophet
said, and this narration is found in Sahih
Muslim.
He says that the most privileged people of
the world
he says, those people
who were given the most in this life
from the people of the hellfire. So the
people who are given the most in this
life, but they were evil
and they did not repent.
So they were people of the hellfire.
They will come on the day of judgment,
and they will be dipped into the fire
of * just for one moment.
Then they'll be removed from it,
and they'll be asked, oh, son or daughter
of Adam,
tell me, did you see any good in
your life? Did you experience any blessing whatsoever?
And the person will say, no. I never
experienced
any good ever in my entire life. This
is after one moment of being dipped into
the hellfire. May Allah protect us.
Really, for those very evil people that don't
repent to Allah, that's what the destiny of
theirs looks like. Then the hadith continues and
says, the most miserable person in this world,
the one who had the most difficulty. I
want you to think of the one who
had financial trouble to no end,
medical issues that seemed constant,
job after job after job, laid off, laid
off, and lost, family drama,
in law issues,
parents fighting, siblings battling. Everything was the worst.
The most miserable person.
Then they'll be brought, but they did not
lose faith. Then they'll be brought on the
day of judgment.
And Allah will command that this person be
dipped in heaven just for one moment.
Right? Just like you dip something into a
glass of water, dipped in heaven just for
one moment.
Once they're removed from Jannah, they'll be asked,
oh, son or daughter of Adam, tell me,
in your life,
did you experience
any challenges,
any difficulty whatsoever?
And the person will say, oh, Allah,
I did not experience even a second of
difficulty.
Now the hadith,
it's very clear what happened, but the commentators,
they actually expound upon this.
And they say,
what must it take
to cause a person that had nothing but
ease
to forget
the ease that they had? And what must
it take
even more
for a person that lived difficulty
day in and day out? Every second of
their day was a challenge for them to
forget about the challenges that they had to
where they genuinely by the way, this is
not rhetorical. They're not like, I'm gonna give
the right answer here. Allah is asking me.
They genuinely did not remember a single moment
of difficulty. What must
be in Jannah? It has to have been,
think about it,
not just the opposite, which is relief in
such a quantity,
in such an amount
that it actually erased their memory.
This happens to us in this dunya.
You get one flight delay on the way
to your vacation. You're immensely frustrated.
Gosh. I knew I shouldn't have flown American.
Right? Or you fly southwest,
and then you're sitting and everyone has to
pick their seat, and there's one seat next
to you. It's the middle, and you're just
looking at every person walking down the aisle
like, don't you dare.
Keep moving. Right?
And, like, you start sneezing,
start announcing, I can't taste or smell anything.
You know? You just start
anyone have a COVID test? You just start
because you're just trying to you know? And
you have difficulty. You're sitting on the runway,
2 hours, 3 hours. The plane is hot.
Everything is difficult.
The whole journey is miserable. Then you land
and you're able to go on your vacation
or you see your loved ones.
You
the the object of your of your aspirations
are met. You're sitting there enjoying
your meal or you're with your family. You're
reunited.
And in that moment, because you're there, you
don't remember the difficulty.
You forgot about it because
Allah gave you blessings that overcame
and conquered the difficulty
that you experienced. And this is the extent
of just one moment. Imagine an entire lifetime.
And then we're told the prophet, Iso tasoolam,
about the other descriptions of Jannah.
He says
that a person in Jannah
will never have to put forth any effort.
And he says that in Jannah, when a
person attains paradise,
because we're so used to putting forth effort
here,
we can't imagine what it must be like
there. So the prophet gave us an example.
Okay? Because for me, for you, like, what
does ease look like? Ease
is probably like we don't have to work.
We get to retire early. Think about what
retirement is. Retirement is just a fancy word
for I saved up enough
to die. Like, basically, that's what it is.
Like, I saved up enough to just coast
until the end. You know? That's essentially what
retirement is. So it we we we imagine
retiring early. Right? We imagine,
you know, not having to worry about things
like food and
our home and, you know, being able to
afford utilities.
That's what ease looks like. Hey. You don't
have to work anymore. Everything will be taken
care of. Right? If somebody told you, like,
hey. You don't have to work anymore,
but and you'll have groceries, but can you
cook them? You'd be like, yeah. I don't
have a job. I I got all the
time in the world I'll cook. I love
cooking. Right?
But imagine now if somebody's like, don't worry.
You don't have to cook. We'll get you
a private chef. You're like, wow.
They're like, but you still have to clean.
You're like, that's okay.
All the time I would have spent cooking,
I can clean. Now imagine they're like, we
actually got you a service that'll clean your
house,
but you still have to drive around. I
love driving. Now we got you a driver
too.
And they start eliminating
every element of work. I'm not even talking
about, like, work that there's stuff that you
even enjoy. They're like, don't worry. We'll take
care of it. You know, you don't even
have to go to the gym anymore. We'll
just get someone to lift your leg.
Right?
We'll get someone to work you out. Right?
You could just stay asleep, and they'll just,
you know,
everything.
The prophet, a sashal sallam, to emphasize what
this experience will be like in paradise
and how even in this dunya,
nothing can
nothing can match this. He says, in Jannah,
a person will be sitting
and enjoying the breeze and the gardens of
Jannah under the most beautiful trees. Right? Think
of, like,
Northern California. Right? Joshua tree. Think of, like,
the beautiful huge oak trees
and the shade. It's 70 degrees, and the
wind is blowing, and it's just perfect.
The sky is blue. Not a care in
the world. You're sitting there in paradise, and
you're enjoying this atmosphere,
and you're feeling this on your skin, and
you feel nothing but contentment.
And then you look up and you see
on the tree that's above you
what looks like the juiciest sweetest fruit you've
ever seen.
And you can't tell what it is. Maybe
it's a mango. Maybe it's an orange.
Right? And you just look and you say,
man, I really wanna try that.
And it's within reach. You can stand up
and reach it, but the moment you think
that you wanna try it, the branch actually
starts to bring it to you.
The prophet said this. He said that the
person will not even have to reach for
it. It will be brought to them.
And then think about it. If it's brought
to you, it's not gonna come with, like,
a bowl and a knife. It's like you
gotta peel it.
Right? Or your mom is there and a
dacy, auntie, and she's like, I got this.
Right?
No. It's peeled. It's pitted. It's ready. You
won't even have to pick up the fork.
It's fed to you.
In the Quran, when Allah describes Jannah, he
says,
Says Jannah will be brought to you. I
want you to imagine this. When you get
entrance into Jannah, when you get your ticket
stamped,
congratulations.
Welcome.
Enter in peace.
You actually won't even have to walk
Jannah will be brought to you. How, SubhanAllah?
You're gonna be standing still and the angels
will be bringing Jannah to you. It's like
standing on those moving walkways at the airport.
You don't have to do anything. You just
get to relax. Why? Because the message is
clear. You did your work here.
You did your work here. No more work
for you.
No more.
And, subhanAllah, the food that you enjoy,
you take a bite and the bite is
instantly restored.
And there's no feeling of fullness,
but there's also no hunger.
There's no feeling of being so full you
can't eat, but there's also no feeling of
hunger. Every feeling you have is comfort.
There's no loneliness.
There's constant companionship.
You're reunited with the ones that you love
and even the ones you didn't love, Allah
changes them to make you love them.
Right?
There's no sadness.
There's no argumentation.
There's no backbiting.
There's no being left out.
There's no FOMO.
You never ever see anyone else enjoying anything
except that you're there too.
This is paradise.
And when a person
thinks about that and compares it to this
life,
well, Lawhi, this life is not it.
And that's why when you see videos of
you hear stories
of people,
and
they're, like,
passing on.
They're on they're they're in the hospital or
they're at home, and they're about to pass
on. And you see and I've seen this
as a chaplain and imam. I used to
go visit people who were in the last
stages of their life, and they look like
they had no stress.
And you look at them and you're expecting
to be stressed because they're
worried and they're not worried.
They almost look relieved.
They look like
I'm happy that I'm gonna enter into a
place that has no difficulty.
This is what Allah promises us.
Allah says, this is what you've been promised.
For the one who is repentant and who
protects himself.
May Allah grant us that.
And so doctor Mustafa, he says,
this is why it is foolish to prefer
this life over the next.
Imagine the person who doesn't get all of
that
and more.
Says whatever you want is there.
Whatever you want. You know, someone
this little girl, man.
Kids ask the hardest questions. This little girl
goes,
will my will my will my pet be
in Jenga with me?
Will my cat be in Jenga with me?
And technically technically and I've heard scholars answer
this way, and I just wonder, like, who
is your teacher?
A scholar is like I've heard one time,
he's like, well,
animals are not judged. When the trumpet blows,
they just turn to dust, and that's it.
And I was like, you're literally
the, like, negative Nancy Shaykh. Like,
what were you thinking? So this little girl
told me that. She goes, yeah. Like, this
I watched this YouTube video or, like, my
dad, we looked it up, and the dad
clicked it, and the guy was like,
good question. Actually, there will be no animals
in Jannah. And I'm like, what are you
so then then this is Shahid al Nasr,
my teacher. He goes, no. Tell her,
Allah says, in it will be whatever you
desire.
If you desire your pet, you'll get your
pet. In Jannah, there is no such thing
as no.
Right? And so that's why doctor Mustafa, he
says, it is so
it is so silly.
It is so foolish
for a person at any given moment to
prefer this life to the next.
Don't sleep through Fajr. You'll rest there.
Don't have lunch through Lohr. You'll eat there.
Don't worry about skipping Asr or Maghrib, you
will have all of your activities and fun
there. Don't sleep again through Isha, you'll be
able to chill in Jannah.
Do your work here, and on that day,
you'll have to do no work to get
there or enjoy any of it. He says,
an abode where there is no striving or
toil, where all joys are eternal, you never
have to worry about the expiration
of your happiness
without any negative negativity associations
that we have in this worldly life. He
says it is important then
to not confuse wealth with happiness.
It is important to not confuse wealth with
happiness.
Let happiness be happiness without wealth.
Let wealth
be separate from what makes you happy. Let
happiness be from contentment with what you already
have.
Material wealth does not translate into happiness, for
there are many people, he says, who are
comfortable financially,
but they have miserable lives.
Many of them end up committing
suicide perhaps due to lack of meaning,
yet material wealth does not necessarily preclude happiness
nor could it be an automatically considered antithetical
to fulfilling a spiritual life. It all depends
on what is going on in the heart
of the person
and not on what is available in one's
bank account.
The heart might be obsessed with material wealth
to the extent that this prevents one from
tending to one's spiritual needs. So material wealth
is an opportunity for a person to get
closer to Allah if they use it in
a way that makes them happy.
Buying gifts for others. You know, we we
we oftentimes rush to charity.
Charity is good and it's a low hanging
fruit. All of us should be charitable. But
remember as well that you can use your
wealth
in good ways. Do you know the the
the day of Ashura that just passed?
The day of Ashura,
it is actually from the prophet a
sunnah to spend on your family
on those days.
In fact, there's a hadith. I'm about to
ruin it for a lot of people. There's
a hadith where the prophet he said,
the in fact, the spending
upon a person's family,
it is measured for them as sadaqa, as
charity.
Anytime
a person buys something for their children, it's
considered sadaqa.
Or for their parents, it's sadaqa. Or for
their this is a hadith
narrates
this. So if a person spends wealth
on somebody, it's charity.
It doesn't mean that that person is is
in need of charity, but it's it's recorded
for them as charity.
So being having wealth is not bad,
but hoarding it, being stingy with it, letting
it become your the dictate of your life,
that's not good.
Enjoy wealth by enjoying what happiness it brings
to other people because that's not wealth making
you happy. That's other people's happiness making you
happy. And wealth is simply the tool.
It's the byproduct of it. It's not the
it's not the end goal. It's just a
means to get there. He says, Muslims, for
instance,
are told to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca
and to visit the Kaaba, the first house
established for the worship of Allah. This pillar
of Islam is required once in their lifetime
if they are capable financially and physically.
Yet
many choose
to go and make the law in malls
and marketplaces time and again, often buying unnecessary
things or walking around as if time is
not the most precious commodity.
Window shopping,
just walking.
There's actually only one thing more humiliating than
shopping in the mall, and that's coming out
with nothing.
If a person goes to the mall
and walks through crowds of people
to look at what stores have and then
leaves,
well, Lawi, just save yourself the dignity and
buy something.
Right?
What is life if not the sum of
this time that were spent wasting, subhanallah,
whether utilized properly or not.
But leading a purposeless life is not about
time. It is about the path that one
uses during that time. Not using this time
properly is the ultimate act of ingratitude towards
Allah who has gifted one with that life.
Is death not the end of that gift?
Is wasting time
not a kind of death before death?
Why then
does one lament
and feel a deep sense of sorrow
for the former form of death, but not
for the deep sense of sorrow for the
latter form of wasting their life.
This
is why the prophet, a sasam,
would constantly seek from Allah
Barakah in his time,
not wasting his time. He would ask Allah
to give him
time that was filled with remembrance of him.
Allah.
Oh, Allah, make me somebody that remembers you
and that my remembrance of you is good
and that I'm grateful to you and that
I worship you in a beautiful way. And
this is why the prophet
said,
be in this life, exist in this life
as if you're a traveler,
as if you're someone who's just on a
path.
Don't consider yourself
so plentiful with time or opportunity
that you waste it when you have a
precious moment in front of you.
The prophet,
he said, I consider myself to be a
person,
that I'm a person who is just riding
an animal on a journey,
and I go and sit.
I go and I sit under a tree
and I take my rest and I leave.
In that in that analogy, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam was saying, this entire lifetime
that we have is just resting under a
tree.
That's all we're doing. We're taking our rest
and taking our breather, and then we're leaving.
Ibn Umar he
used to say,
if you survive to the evening,
do not consider yourself making it to the
morning.
And if you wake up,
do not consider yourself to make it to
the night. And he says,
he says, and take from your health
for the time that you're sick.
And from your life for the time that
you will eventually pass away. Basically,
use your time in this life to the
best of your ability. May Allah give us
this perspective
and allow us to benefit from these precious
words.
May Allah give us the ability to find
happiness
truly in him and our contentment in obeying
him and not in the temporary nature of
this world, but that our focus is on
the permanent
reality of the afterlife.
We'll go ahead and do, some of the
q and a now. So if you want,
you can go slido.com,
and then the, the password or the code
is 30 and up. All words.
Is having a dog as a pet haram?
You know, you say one tangent in a
lecture and a person just grabs on.
Okay.
The answer is,
we have to define what it means to
have a pet.
If it's like something that's inside your house
that you cuddle with, that sleeps with you,
then a dog is probably not possible.
Dogs in and of themselves are not problematic.
They're not like pigs. You know, pigs are
what's called najasurayin.
They are actually impure in and of themselves.
Meaning, like, pigs are still creations of Allah.
They should still be respected. They're animals, but
they are impure, like any part of it.
The skin, the hair, you know, if they
make hairbrushes out of boar bristles, it's impermissible.
If they make shoe
insoles out of pig hide, it's impermissible. Like,
all these things are impermissible. So can't eat,
can't play with, like, pigs are just considered
impure. Right? Let them be. They exist. Let
them be.
Dogs are not nudges in that way.
Dogs have some elements of najasa according to
the the majority of the schools of thought,
when it comes to the moisture around their
snout or their mouth. So their saliva or
the moisture on their nose,
contains impurity.
As such, if a person touches that, then
they would have to wash themselves.
You know,
traditionally, they would do it with some kind
of soil or dirt, but we can do
it with soap.
They would have to wash themselves or wash
their clothes or whatever that got on. They
would have to wash it,
before performing prayer.
Okay? Because you cannot pray either in a
place that is impure or with something impure
on you. Okay?
As such,
is it permissible to have a dog?
In some situations, it's possible if you wanna
get it for protection or for,
hunting.
You know, that's that that's a different story.
But it's
regardless how you're able to make it work,
it is very difficult for sure to have
a dog living in your house if you
wanna pray.
It's difficult.
So there are some ways that I've seen
people do this.
You know, they have, like, a shed in
their backyard that has an air conditioner in
it,
or they have a room in the house.
But, again, it's it you have to wonder
if that's if that's even humane for the
animal, if that's the way the animal wants
to live. So it would just be easier
in all senses to not have one,
you know, or you could
look into the MedHab that allows for you
to have one.
But it would be very interesting for you
to change your legal school just to find
that concession.
If you already have a dog and now
this is, like, ruining your Tuesday, I'm sorry.
Just we can figure it out.
Okay? But
there's steps. If you already have one, then
you don't have to get rid of it
right now. We'll figure it out. It's case
by case. You can come talk to me.
If you don't have one, though, don't get
one. That doesn't apply to you.
Just just just get a cat.
Okay. Well,
Laura Adam.
Any guidance for a sister who doesn't want
to introduce a suitor to her father before
she starts
talking or meets in person?
She will only do so as a final
step after deciding to marry. He wants to
at least talk to her wedding first. Okay.
So a little bit of a this is
obviously a good a good question. It's it's
it's a good problem to have.
I think what's what's important here is to
note that as long as a person is
speaking with,
the permission of her father and trying to
find somebody and seeing if there's a basic
level of compatibility
first. Because in some cultures,
bringing the
suitor to the father is a big deal.
And a lot of times,
sisters don't wanna do all of that
before they've at least, like, had one conversation.
And so the you know, in in a
lot of families, I know that fathers have
given their daughters the blessing to at least
meet somebody
and have what would be considered a reasonable
cordial conversation.
Right?
Who are you? What's your name? What do
you do? What do you work? What do
you like to do? What are some things
that you enjoy?
What's your life like, etcetera?
Right? Brief conversation, again, public, right, purposeful, limited,
all that. And then if there is a
base level of compatibility, maybe 1 or 2
conversations, again, nothing too long, nothing private,
nothing, like, at 10 PM, like, make it
a professional,
interaction.
Then if there is that potential, then what
they'll do is bring it to their families
as an introduction. Because like I said, for
a lot of people and a lot of
cultures,
once you introduce to the family, it's a
big deal. And if you do that and
this person doesn't have any compatibility,
it will be seen as sort of like,
a large,
waste of time. Okay? So,
I would recommend that the sister
explain it in this way instead of just
saying, like, no. I don't wanna tell my
dad yet. That seems a little bit shady.
Right? But you should say, you know what?
I'm, I'm I'm
more than happy telling my dad, more than
happy bringing my family into it, but I've
been you know, I've had this conversation with
my parents before. And before we get to
that point, I just wanna make sure that
there's some compatibility here. Right? Again, very simple.
Don't be awkward. Okay.
Easier said than done. Okay.
How does it look to truly forgive someone?
Someone hurt me and ask for forgiveness. I
told them that I forgive you,
but I still feel a lot of pain.
Yeah. You're absolutely it's possible to forgive someone
and feel hurt still. That's actually to be
honest with you, that's probably the most sincere
form of forgiveness. I mean, it it it's
so impressive to forgive
while being hurt.
Absolutely.
So
don't doubt whether or not you've truly forgiven
just because you feel hurt.
Right?
That's like doubting your love for someone just
because you don't want to do something, but
you do it. No. Actually, if I don't
want to do something, but I still do
it
and I still try to make it fun
or enjoyable for that person, right, my son
wants to go and do something, and I
really don't wanna do it, but I do
it, that's called being a good dad.
Right? As opposed to being like, no. I'll
only do it if I want to.
A lot of times, we judge the quality
of an action based on if it aligns
with what we want to do.
Be a person that's okay doing things you
don't want to do. You didn't wanna forgive,
and you forgave. That's actually one of the
most powerful versions of forgiveness.
Right? That's a prophetic trait,
to forgive even though it hurts still.
And, you
said, you still feel a lot of pain.
Ultimately,
the pain part of the process of healing
from that pain is the forgiveness piece.
When you start to forgive, you start to
allow yourself to let go of the pain
that you're experiencing. And hopefully, inshallah, Allah will
reward you for that and give you the
catalyst to be in less pain and eventually
be in no pain from that.
How do I use my faith to overcome
bouts of loneliness?
Yeah. I mean,
so there's a couple advices. I mean, the
law knows best. This is a,
this is probably a topic of its own.
I would say, number 1,
you have to, in some way, shape, or
form, be involved in community.
There's a reason why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
he ordains and commands for us to be
together.
Right? The prophet he
said, be in the jama'a, be with people.
Even something as simple as going to pray
at the masjid
and meeting people who are praying there
and connecting with them for no other reason
besides the fact that you prayed next to
them
is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
There are people that I only see here
in the Musalla when I come here to
pray.
We have not gotten food together
and we haven't even had the conversation of
we should get something to eat, because we
know it's not gonna happen.
We're both just super busy. Right?
So we just let this be what it
is.
It's 20 minutes, 30 minutes every night at
Maghreb, which is honestly more time than I
get with a lot of people. 20 minutes,
30 nights after Maghrib, after a shot, we
sit, we catch up, we go, we have
water if the cooler's full of water. If
it's not, I get upset at the staff
here.
We we walk to our cars, and it's
a wonderful catch up. And over the course
of 3, 4, 5 days, we get to
spend a couple hours together.
Right?
And, that's the beginning. That's one of the
first steps that I would I would encourage
people to do.
And then, you know, I would also
and this is obviously something
it's it's different per person, but I would
really, really commit to
no screen time.
I think that
time online as Imam Suhayb Webb says, time
online is time off of life.
And if we
continuously find ourselves
scrolling and addicted to the screen, we are
only removing, again, time, Mustafa Busway, We're only
taking away all those opportunities to actually meet
somebody,
right,
and actually spend time with people. So one
thing that I try to recommend for people
to do is try to disconnect from the
phone and and from the social media to
make plans to spend time with people.
It's it's it's helped a lot. So may
Allah's taught to make it easy.
I mean, get up.
If one missus Fajr and makes up after
waking up at 10 and they put the
emoji.
That's really cute. Is that permissible?
So
it's kind of
a two sided question.
Of course, missing Federer is not permissible, so
that's not the part that I'm answering. But
is it permissible?
Yes. What you've done is you've done. You've
made it up, and that's actually the ruling.
The ruling is if you do miss a
prayer
out of your control,
or if you missed it in your control,
which is not good, but if you miss
it out of your control, then you should
perform it as soon as you can.
So if you wake up and you missed
your alarm or you wake up and the
sun has already come out,
don't, don't just, like, chalk it up and
be like, oh, okay. Another day. No. Get
up and make we'll do it and pray.
Pray fajr. Every day still deserves fajr and
the Lord and Asher Mahat
even if you're not able to do it
in the time for whatever reason. Okay?
The beauty of this is that if you
regularly make fajr and then you happen to
miss it, you know, once in a while,
which happens to everybody,
the hadith of the prophet, alaihis salatu, salam,
says that Allah counts it for you as
if you made it in the time.
So if you have a good habit and
then you break you you just for some
reason, something happens.
You're super tired. You had a long day.
You overslept. You hit the alarm. Whatever. It
might just be, who knows? Allah counts it
for you as if you never missed it
because that's how merciful he is, Subhanah.
Is it more rewarding for a woman to
attend Jumah Khuddah or pray at home? Jumah
Khuddah.
It's not mandatory, but, of course, you're doing
what's not mandatory.
It's not an obligation for you to come
to Jumah and but you're doing more than
what's required. Of course, you're gonna get rewarded
for more.
What to do if everything in your life
is going wrong,
besides reading the they wrote?
So, normally,
if I was answering this question
again,
you asked on Tuesday, so I'm gonna be
a little bit more real.
You really need to start, like, looking at
things in your life that are going right.
You have to. You have to.
I mean, if people in Gaza can can
can smile,
you have to. And and I'm not trying
to be that guy that's like, oh, you
don't have it that bad. But, really, I'm
saying that. You don't have it that bad.
You know? And and
it's interesting because the people who have it
so bad
in every form
are the ones that somehow are able to
say, you know what? It's not so bad.
But then when Allah gives us something and
then he takes it away from us,
it's, like, so difficult for us,
to
process through that. So I'm not taking away
the feeling of life is tough. It is
tough. Listen. You hear you heard it here
first. Okay? Tweet it. Life
sucks. Like,
it is not easy. Right?
He
says this. We created you in this environment
of just constant work.
It is tough.
You get these brief moments of just, like,
ease, and then you go back to, like,
difficulty, and you're just like,
paid one bill. You feel good. Next bill
comes. How is it high or what?
Guess I'm eating ramen again. You know? It's
just like,
that's life. That's the dunya. But the way
you get over that is you think about
the akhirah, and you're like, okay. I was
never meant to be here anyways. There's some
hadith narrations that are a little weaker, but
they say that this dunya was meant to
break you anyways.
Allah made this dunya so tough so that
you wouldn't fall in love with it. Because
if he made it all easy, you would
never wanna leave.
But at some point, you're like, I kinda
wanna leave.
Right? I kinda wanna head out.
Okay? So
not forcefully, but you're like, when it happens,
oh, Allah, make it easy. Okay?
So I would start looking at the positive
things in your life.
Okay?
The adhan for Maghrib just came in right
now, 820, 821. Yeah. So we're gonna conclude
here. May Allah accept from us. May Allah
give us all the that we've sought in
this gathering.
We're gonna head to the for prayer. If
you sat on any of the chairs, can
you do me a favor and just turn
them back the way they were?
If you sat on any of the black
chairs that are folding, there's some,
dollies that are out. If you could just
walk them over and stack them on there,
that'd be very helpful. And for the backjacks
in the front, if you don't mind just
lining them up along the front.
And, I'll see you guys in the masala.
I'm gonna head there to pray my as
well.