Abdullah Hakim Quick – New Muslim Corner – Realizing Ihsaan – A Practical Guide
AI: Summary ©
The importance of helping non-equipped people ask practical questions and get a balanced approach to critical issues is emphasized in Islam. The use of words like "bringing out" and "bringing on" is emphasized, as well as setting goals and guidelines for one's life. Conscious of one's actions and intentions is emphasized, and the need to be aware of one's behavior and intentions to avoid becoming a Bible-arian is emphasized. The importance of avoiding conflict and avoiding conflict-prone activities is emphasized, as well as setting boundaries in Sharia law.
AI: Summary ©
From the reliability Amin on Salatu was Salam ala Sado will be will have it in the Vienna Mohammedan. Allah Allah He was happy with Erica Salah how praise are due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and peace and blessings be constantly showered upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad, the master of the first and last, and his family, his companions and all those who call to his way to the Day of Judgment.
My beloved brothers and sisters are Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Alhamdulillah, we have another opportunity to reflect in our new Muslim corner.
And this corner or this class, is set up in a way to allow those who have recently embraced Islam, or those who want to revive their faith, to be able to ask practical questions, and to get a sort of balanced approach to some of the critical issues that we're facing, being Muslim. And that is so important to a non Muslim, because what happens many times is that the person accepts Islam. And they're embraced by so many different people. And they're, they're taken in and, and you know, without negative or bad intentions, Muslims tend to want to teach people from their culture.
So they say, brother or sister, you shouldn't do this. And you shouldn't do that. And you shouldn't do this. One brother told me he got 25 don'ts, what you shouldn't do, before he started to learn what you should do. So it see it was negative. And it's not supposed to be negative, it's positive. And whatever is negative, the don'ts are really positive, because Allah is sparing us from falling into some of the traps that people fall in, within a society. Those who do not have divine guidance. And so we're trying to look at this from a base perspective, because in the time of Prophet Muhammad, so Solomon's companions, you have the basic look at Islam, from Allah subhanaw taala, to
the messenger, and those scholars who are able to rise above their ideology, or their school of thought, or the ethnicity, that's what we're looking for.
We're looking for universal Islam.
And we looked at the three dimensions within Islam, based upon the hadith of Gibreel, Allah Islam who asked about what is Islam what is Iman and what is SN
and Islam of course is the five pillars of Islam and Eman is the Six Pillars of faith and we
You're looking at the area of Sn.
And this is an area that is a little more difficult to get some practical teachings, because people tend to
interpret what they believe is SN, because the Prophet SAW Salem left it open that righteousness that being as good as you can
is like worshiping Allah as though you see him or he sees you.
That's an open ended explanation.
And so we're looking for some practical guidance that come out of this.
And we looked at the teachings of Sheikh Usman dan Fodio Rahimullah, who was a great West African scholar, very balanced, whose teachings are still being followed today. And for the next
two classes, before we start into our special sessions on Ramadan,
we want to look at the teachings of another great scholar, who I would consider to be of the special quality of balanced
scholars, and that is CD Amazon book of FeS. Okay, so the teachings that we're going through, will be like a summary of one of his great books that he put out there that benefited so many people. And it's still benefiting people today. And that is under co2 cavea the complete advice on sincerity now, about the scholars and it's interesting to note, you know, the scholars themself, you see in people's life, the reflection of Islam, and sometimes you can relate to some of the things that the people went through. So this individual is known as Abu fuddle. She has a dean, Ebola bass, I've met him and I've met ibn Muhammad, Ibn Isa Al Fassi are brought in to see That's a long name right? You
have a problem with a passport. Okay, but he was known as CD Achmed. Azhar rook,
right CD Ahmed on Sandrock okay. And
CD in North Africa is the way they say say God. So say it is like your master. And so they they said they say cd, this is how it sort of comes out. And that's why it's written like this. Okay. As a rock some of the people say is because
his eyes were blue eyes. You know, so therefore, the rook is like, you know, coming from you know, the color blue. And, but his name actually is Ahmed.
Even Achmed father's I met my grandfather, ibn Muhammad ibn Isa. Okay.
Isa is his father actually. Telfair See, which means it comes from Fez in Morocco, and Varanasi is part of the description of people who used to wear this type of clock. So
he describes himself and he says, I was born on Thursday at sunrise 28th, and Wuhan as the first month of the Islamic calendar
846. So it's 1426. Okay, so this is when his time period, and he said my mother died on the following Saturday. And my father died on the following Tuesday. Okay, so he was an orphan, right?
But he said my grandmother,
on Melbournian Alpha Kia.
That means she's a female scholar. She was the one that took, she took care of me, to my 10th year. So the first 10 years of his life was his grandmother, who actually was responsible for him. And she was a scholar in her own right. And so she trained him and by 10 years old, he was ready and she gave him you know, to the scholars. You know, she still was like the mother near the family, but his time was with the scholars. Okay, but that's interesting, because that's a woman,
a woman with knowledge, who actually gives him his base of his understanding. And that's something serious because of the level of scholarship that he actually reached. And
he was blessed with a large amount of students and, and scholars, many scholars actually studied underneath him. He made hodgen, eight 73 after after the Hijrah, and he passed through Cairo. And so he spent a long time in Cairo, Egypt, because that was like one of the centers of Islam, Islamic teachings at that time and
He had 1000s of followers, and he returned to fests
and the neighboring areas in Morocco, and he died in Misurata. Misurata. Is Libya, what is prep present day Libya and 899. And some of his students, he muhammad shah Rouhani, Imam, Ahmed Hassan Al Bukhari. These are famous scholars in the Maliki tradition of North Africa. Okay, so that's a little bit about, you know, his life. But what is important about this individual is that he was given a title
that according to the other scholars, no other scholar before him, or after him was ever given this title. You don't see it in anybody else's
biography, and that is more testable. Allama will Olia
so he was the evaluator, the quality control manager of the scholars and the sofas.
Bar test. Yep. It can mean it's like the person, generally, they use it to mean the one who's the controller of the marketplace. So you'd have the market. And then you have somebody who controls the prices, and who makes sure everything is clean. You know, that's the motto, Jessup, like Quality Control Manager is like, if you have a huge factory, and before your vehicles leave, you have quality control inspectors, who will come and they will inspect the quality of the vehicles, they will go along the assembly line to make sure everything is doing things right, that that kind of thing, right. But this case, what is he he's the Quality Control Manager of the Alaba. Which means
the scholars who are studying fit, right?
Status scholars were studying fit. And you could say also, your email Aqeedah. Right, and those who's who were into SN. Okay, and we use the word Sufi, to make it clear what people are saying today, right?
So according to the description, is that he would compel the scholars to be more spiritual, because the scholars tend to be just book knowledge. So they tell you this chapter and that hadith and this idea, and they give you but they're not spiritual. There's no vibe, they're not giving you any love. Right? So he would compel them to be more spiritual, and
to improve their sincerity to Allah, right to make sure they were sincere. Right, and he would bring the Sufis back into the limits of Sharia.
So those who claim that they were dealing with SN, he would bring them back, remember what we said, there's saalbach, cautious to solve. And then there's other to solve, with some calls, or like drunken to so with, in the sense that they're trying to reach Allah directly. Right, and that one can get out of control.
And unfortunately, many people when you use the word to solve, or Sufi, they think it's only the drunken one, the one that's out of control, right. But this is a case.
This is a case of a person who actually combines both.
Okay, and he is the quality control manager of both. So amongst the Allamah, and it was Malachy Feck. At that time, remember the different schools of thought he was considered the top of Maliki?
So any question of Islamic jurisprudence, and things like this, he would be the supreme judge is the highest level of FIP. And amongst the Sufis, he was considered to be the highest level of dissolve.
And they have names for this kotoba and things like that was an attack.
So this is something special about him. And that's why I chose him.
Because he can give you a balanced outlook,
that really, you know, can give you a worldview. Okay. And the beginning of the text, I'm not going to go to details. His mind is like a computer. It's unbelievable. The level of his mind. He takes one term and he breaks it down into sections as sort of like a chemistry formula or something.
This is the way he used to think and the basis of the book
because the books name is analyse Hutto. cavea So this is the complete advice on sincerity.
This actually is the book.
And a few years ago, I translated this book. And I commented on it. And I've been teaching off of it for the past 20 years or so.
And so any of you who want the book, you can actually get the basic translation of the text. Because we don't have time to go into all the details of it. But at least the touch over because it's something you can go back to, over and over and over again. This is how amazing this work is. So he began with a famous Hadith of the Prophet SAW Selim. And that hadith is saying,
I'll pay Yes. I'll curious. Man, Dan, enough, sir. Well, homily, my battle mode. Well, MK men, not bad enough. Sahaba were two men that are loyal men. So what this means is L KS. KS is like, highly intelligent person
cutting to the point. It's a heavy word in Arabic. So l k is he's the one who controls himself.
Right? And he works towards life after death. So in other words, he's in this world.
He controls himself.
Right? And he works because he knows there's something coming. That's a really intelligent person. And Mark, Mark has also a heavy word in Arabic, it means that an idiot, a fool, right? The Fool is the one who makes himself follow his desires. And then he puts all his hope on Allah. So in other words, the fool in this world is the one who just does anything.
And he hopes in the end, Allah will forgive him. You know, Nike used to have a shirt. They said, Just do it. You ever seen that before? That's what Nike is saying, Just do it. What does that mean to you? If somebody says just do it?
What does that mean?
Don't think just don't think, just do what you want to do. Right?
That's the fool.
Because that person does everything gets does all kinds of problems, by ended up in, in drugs, they might end up in all kinds of things. And then at the end, they say, you know, toe by toe, Allah, please forgive me. But it may be too late.
That's a foolish person. And the case is the person. Right? Who looks at life
as a transition, okay, so we have the life of this world, you're born. And then you have your life. Okay? And then you die.
And then the grave and then the next life.
Okay, so you're still alive. But when you die, your soul is in the bizarre, it's in a different zone of existence. Okay, so if you look at the light, let's measure it together. The life of this world.
Some people live to be 40 years old, some 60, some to be 100 years old, 100 years old, considered, and these days to be a long life.
Okay, so we say 100 years, the next life. Allah said, Holly Dena, fie her Abaddon, they will live in the next life forever.
So you've got 100 years here, and you have eternal life there. So if you divide eternal life, divide 100 into that.
What's what's what's your result? If you divide 100 into
quintillion, your answer is
zero.
It's zero. When you compare the two is like, this is an illusion. You're only here for a short period of time. So the intelligent person is the one. You live in this world, you control yourself, you still have, you can have fun. You can earn money, you can live a decent life, no problem, get an education. But you also work toward the next life. So you start doing good deeds. You start doing things that's going to help you after you die. It's like putting away right. Like some people put away money because they say when I retire. I'd like to have a house. I'd like to have this they put it away, right? So what happens when you die? What did you put away? And see, this is the this is
the reasoning. This is how he starts off to remind people okay, then
he goes into another Hadith this hadith is the basis of our class tonight.
This is a very famous tradition of the Prophet SAW Selim, also. And it's dealing with sincerity because sincerity is the essence of what he's actually teaching in this class in his book, The teaching sincerity. And the hadith is a dino Naseeha
that religion is sincerity.
Okay.
Paul layman, ya rasool Allah.
So they said, Who is this sincerity is supposed to be?
Who is supposed to be sincere?
That's the Hadith. And the Prophet said, Lila, he will leave. So Lee, while at Tabby, he was the arbiter Muslimeen, our Casati.
Okay, so he said, You're supposed to be sincere, to Allah,
to His Messenger, to his book, to the common Muslims, and the specialize or the leaders. So if you want to be a sincere person,
then you got to be sincere to these groups. That's the essence of your whole religion. That's what this hadith is. So this is a serious Hadith. It's something that everybody should actually understand how to be sincere. Now, the word Naseeha.
As some of you may have heard this word being used, because we have some Arabic words that we use in English, right? So we say is a cat. And we say CRM. So we use it as actually the Arabic word so Naseeha people usually use the word Naseeha as
advice. Okay, let's see her.
But now see how it's deeper than that.
Because Naseeha also means to purify something, NASA.
So when you purify gold, or metal, you put it to the fire, and all the impurities come off of it, right? So that's NASA. Also with leather, you purify the leather, leather also. And then all the purities come after leather.
So not see her also means advice. Okay? To give advice, to get advice, it means sincerity. And it also means support.
Okay, so there's a lot of meanings for this, because you know, use the word Naseeha in this hadith, okay. If the word Naseeha means advice, it says, You should give advice to Allah.
Can you give nothing? How to Allah? No.
Can you give us the How to that? The prophet? No.
Can you give the c hat to the book?
No. Common Muslims you could and to lead is you could you see So really,
the deep meaning of this means sincerity. Because that's the real deeper part of the concept of nausea.
And your advice to somebody is supposed to be sincere right? When you're given a secret or somebody is supposed to be sincere sincere opinion to them as to what is happening.
So, the essence here now and again, this is yes. And now remember? What is spirituality Teskey at enough's. How can you improve yourself? Because if Sam means to do good, to perfect yourself, how can you perfect yourself? This hadith is considered to be one of the foundational deeds in Islam.
Amongst all of the Hadith, there's just a few of them that they consider Foundation, the one we took before with Hadith Jabril. That's a foundation Hadith as well. Right? The whole religions built off. This is one of the foundational habits. Okay, that's why we want to look at this. And we will continue to investigate this as we go along.
So this is sort of how he sets it up.
This is your sincerity. And that's your areas, right? You like chemistry charts, you like those type of things. Okay, your computer's see how you set it up? His mind he didn't even have a computer, right? His brain was like this. Okay, now, now he's going to break it down.
How are you sincere to Allah.
And he brings three things.
He said number one, it ba our MIDI. You follow His commands, if you're going to be sincere to
Wallah, then you have to follow his commands.
Otherwise you're a joker, right?
You're not serious.
Secondly,
nostra Dini, he,
you aid his religion.
Okay, you want to be sincere to Allah, then you got to do something for Islam. So sincerity is not just words, right? You have to actually do something now he's giving you practical advice now.
Okay. And the last one is a Tasleem. The hook means that you have to submit to the judgment of Allah,
you got to submit. This one is not easy. But if you really want to be sincere, and Allah will put all of us to a test, our tests are not going to be the same.
But Allah has got to put us all to the test. Right now.
He doesn't stop there, right? He's gonna break it down further for you. Right? See your charts?
Following his commands?
How do you? What are you sincere in following his commands? Now this there's some details in this that I'm not going to go into. But you have to follow all of the commands like for instance, purifying yourself, you know, and your prayers be serious about making your Salat. Right. Because when you say you establish prayers, it means it becomes part of your life. So you got to establish the law, not just make it when you get a chance. It's got to be part of your life. Okay, and then fasting, right, and that's where Ramadan has got to come in. And we'll be talking about that, that more in details. And then you have to follow the commands for zakat. Because there are many people
who are practicing Islam, and think they're good Muslims, but they don't pay zakat.
They have their wealth accumulated, they never give to the poor. Okay, so he is showing how serious this is. Right when you're not doing that, and next is Hajj. And that is you need to try to make pilgrimage to Mecca as soon as possible, when you have the ability to go, okay. And this is something which we discussed and we you know, we won't go into because of time, but the other one is interesting as well.
And that is how do you
come to the assistance of Allah's religion? No slug, Dini, he's
okay. One way you do that, is by calling to the good and forbidding evil.
Calling to the good and forbidding you now he's given you something. He's given you an assignment. If you really want to come to the aid of Allah's religion, then you call to the good and you forbid evil. You have to fight against evil, right? That's really being sincere as a Muslim. You have to struggle against an evil. Next is jihad.
You have to engage in jihad. Now, this is something today, the word jihad is being used as a negative thing with Muslims, right?
Because they say like jihad is holy war.
So Muslims have a curved sword, and they're chopping off the heads of the kuffaar. Right? I was in this one session with Dr. Jamal beggary some of you may know him. You're a great teacher of Islam. And we were in a big gathering and there was all this Islamophobia around and there even non Muslims there and whatever and he said,
the word jihad.
If you can find anywhere in the Quran, or in the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, where Jihad means holy war.
I will give you 1000 US dollars. I'm gonna give you 10 Ben Franklin right here is a US dollar bills.
We're gonna give you 10 of them.
He challenged everybody. Nobody could answer because there's nowhere where the word jihad means holy war. Number one holy war is not holy
wars ugly thing, right. It's an ugly thing. So it's not holy. We don't use the word MCAD this
year when we're talking about war,
okay.
And
the last one because we got to go back on the jihad point is you need to take steps to preserve the religion. How do you take steps to preserve it? That means you will help to the masjid or the community
You know, or you know, teaching, you got to do something to preserve the religion, you want to be sincere to it. Don't just say, Well, I'm a Muslim, that's not enough. If you want SN
right, then you have to do something to preserve the religion itself. Now, in terms of jihad, literally the word jihad is from jihad, which actually means to struggle.
So you can struggle to do a lot of things, you have jihad, enough's, what they say, is a jihad, which itself, right.
And so you got to struggle.
And we're making choices all the time. And sometimes is a jihad, not to do the wrong thing. You stay away from the wrong. So that is a form of jihad.
Okay.
As I said, it can be a struggle with yourself, or it can be speaking the truth, even if it's against your own interest and safety.
And that is, and they say the greatest jihad is when you stand up against a volume, an oppressor and you stand up, and you tell them the truth, that's the greatest yard, because he's going to come back on you, right? There's going to be some results to this. Now, the third form, and we're not shy to say it is to combat combat, to establish justice. So that is a form of jihad, where you fight by but the word fight is capital. C is different than the two words Jihad can be just, you know, am I going to drink? You know, you get on the plane, they say, Oh, Mr. Abdul, would you like white or red? You know, that means on a plane, you want white wine or red wine?
Right. So it's, it may be a jihad for some people. Then Mr. Abdul says, I want orange juice.
Right? So he won the jihad, right? He didn't drink too deep. It was it was a struggle in himself. That's not fighting anybody, right?
It's only inside of yourself.
Okay.
And Allah tells us in the Quran, fight in the way of Allah, those who fight against you. But Trent do not transgress the limits. Surely Allah does not like to transgress this, don't go overboard. Okay. Now, this is a long discussion. I just took some of it for you.
The Prophet SAW Salem, actually, when he sent people out in jihad, this is combat right. There is what is called in Modern Warfare, the rules of engagement.
Rules are they're supposed to be rules of engagement, even when you're fighting a war. That's the reason why it is it has been stated by the the international court, by the whole world and what the Israelis are doing in Palestine is a war crime, right.
And this is not just an anti semitic thing. This is a war crime because there are limits even if you're fighting that's been established internationally.
Things that you're not supposed to do. One of them is you're not supposed to punish collectively a whole population.
Now, long before United Nations 1400 years ago,
Prophet Muhammad so seldom when he sent his companions out, he said, Do not kill innocent people.
Do not torture, prisoners of war.
Do not kill animals.
Do not destroy crops or poisoned wealth. Do not mutilate the enemy.
Do not destroy churches or synagogues
do not kill non combatants.
He said always bury the dead from both sides. And you can see what's happening in USA Today. They have broken every single one of these and more in desecration, right? But this is 1400 years ago. So for those people who you know have this Islamophobic look at Islam. This is actually the way Muslims are supposed to evolve in combat.
That's what a true you know, Islamic fighter actually the mentality right? It's not destruction, it's not out of control. It's somebody who's in fully fully controller themself
okay.
And
so, this is the first section and that is
sincerity to you know, to Allah.
Right. And the first to follow is commands a does Dean. Now, the last one, the last section is submit to His will
Tasleem li hooked me.
Now, there's two parts to this. All of this break down here. That's Amazon hooks mind.
Right? Because he's trying to give you a practical way to practice your Islam.
Okay, so he said now, how do you submit to the will of Allah, He said there is what is called typography.
And there is tak LiFi.
Submission tartufi Is that you submit to Allah in that which is not in your control.
So, if the hurricane comes, you have to submit, if somebody dies, you have to say, in Allah, he were in our lair,
you got to submit. And that is one of the strong points of the Palestinian people today that you will see families who have lost 1520 members of their family, their children, and they're still turning to Allah, they are accepting it. That's not an easy thing to do. Most people, if somebody dies in their favor, they say, oh, where's God?
Like, they turn against religion, right? They become atheists.
Right? But that's the strong believer
to submit whatever the will of Allah is on you. Whatever Allah wills, you have to accept it, you got to submit to it, right? Deal with it. And the best way you can.
The second part is
to submit to Allah, in what you control, there's some things that you control
that you have some authority over. Okay, now, what should What should we do? In this case, Amazon rook,
you know, is, you know, going to break this thing down again. And he goes into detail again, you know, I've for those who you really want to go into this, I translated this book, right. So this book will be available to you. It's available online, but I brought some copies here in case anybody wants to actually have the text to follow. And, and basically, he broke it down to he said that human beings are in four conditions.
Okay? One condition is that you are in divine favor. In other words, Allah has blessed you.
Right, you're in comfort of a nice home, if nice meals. So when you're in that condition, what should what you what is it you're supposed to do?
Sugar is supposed to thank Allah,
You should be grateful to Allah subhanaw taala. If you have disfavor,
okay, another
condition, if you go to the right over is, you're in a calamity. So now you are in this crisis. What should you do? Saba, that's patience, right? You have to have patience, when the calamity strikes, whatever it is, you get sick, you get injured, you lose something, whatever calamity strikes you, you have to have somewhere in the States.
Okay, the next one
on the bottom, will go on the bottom left there.
Human beings find themselves in obedience,
obedience to Allah. In other words, some people are blessed with the fact that they're submitting to Allah.
This is a deep thought here. Because the fact that you just made Margarita salad
right, or you made with or you fasted Ramadan, that means that you're in a condition of obeying Allah.
Right? And in that case, you should recognize the fact that Allah has blessed you to be like this. This is a deep thought, right? You have to recognize Allah has blessed you to be in this. You could be some Friday night, right? You could be down on Yonge Street, right?
Right there smoking drugs. You'd be stealing.
Right? You have to thank Allah you have to recognize Allah chose you to be in this position.
And it is a blessing in these times, because it's coming more and more difficult to do what's right.
But the other position
is disobedience. So some people find themselves in
and disobedience.
Right, Marcia. And in that case, what we're supposed to do, we're supposed to do, Toba and that is repentance. We have to repent to Allah subhanaw taala.
Okay, and so he broke it down into these different sections. Okay, now, I want to open up the floor. Because I'm moving, you know, fast, This normally takes a long time to go through. And I want to open up the floor for any questions that anybody may have. This is a workshop
in terms of following along with this is SN now, how are you going to be sincere to Allah? How can you be sincere?
Okay, and somebody will want to know this and say, I'm a no Muslim, how can I be sincere? To have to grow a long beard?
To have to have to have a big hat.
How am I sincere to Allah
is showing you now in a practical sense, how to be sincere.
Any questions? Anybody has floors open.
Anything online, so far?
More about?
Yeah, so so the point about jihad, enough's, you and that is the struggle within yourself, that there is a good side, which is enough Salawa that your good side. And then you have your bad side, you have enough so amount of this,
here your bad side that commands you to do evil things. So it's a struggle that goes on an every individual, right. And so we literally have to struggle every day, you have to struggle with this.
And the best thing, or one of the most important things is to know yourself, you have to know your weaknesses. And we're going to go into this CDRWIN sorry, goes into this to show you how you can know yourself, right? Because a lot of us, we don't study ourself, we don't really know, our strengths, you got to sit down and know, say me, what are the things how am I weak? And how am I strong. If you know where you're weak,
then you have to strengthen yourself in that area there.
Right, and this is the jihad enough to is a Hadith, you know, where they, you know, it's not considered to be a strong Hadith
where they were coming back from one of the great battles. And the Prophet said, you've come from jihad to the greater Jihad and that's the jihad of yourself. But but this is actually not a strong Hadith. But really, the jihad of itself is a strong is a big one, right? It's a big one. And we're not taking away from the physical Jihad because the NGO put your life on the line. That's not an easy thing to do.
Okay, so that's the jihad, enough's, you have to know yourself, and we're going to get some teachings as to how we can know ourself as we go along to the teachings of CDM itself.
Now, any other general questions or online, anybody so far,
in terms of patience and calamity, right, apart from helping you deal with the situation? What are other benefits idea? To have sovereign? Yeah, because the sub or you could say that,
you know, we,
yeah, so the question is, what are some more ways of, you know, patients, right, besides just the calamity, right?
No, like in terms of what are the benefits of patients, other than dealing with a calamity? Right? Because, you know, Allah says, in the law, Mr. Sabreen, Allah is with those who have patients, patients will help you to overcome the calamity. Okay, because many times the calamity, you know, is something it's emotions involve. And the patient's means you persevere, that you hold on and that will strengthen you. And then you can overcome the difficulty that is in front of you. Okay, and, and so it's not just it, it means to persevere to hold on. It strengthens you, you will become stronger and stronger. That's part of what Ramadan does fasting. Fasting builds, in other words,
self control.
So the more patients you have, is the more self control you have. And that's a big thing in this world, because we have a lot of tests in front of us, right, temptations. So a lot of temptations is there. So you got to have self control. Because the self wants some of these things.
And right now with the cell phones and the movies is like temptation all over the place.
How can you control yourself now?
How can you turn off the screen?
Right, you got to control yourself. That's the big struggle going on, especially with the social media question. There's another one online. What's the best way for a new Muslim to clarify his beliefs? without falling back into the battles we see?
Yeah, so So what we're saying is, you know, to, to to purify your your beliefs, is really to be sincere to Allah and sincere to the messenger. This is exactly what CD Ahmed said, who is teaching you now because the basis of Arpita is Eman. Right It means our Eman our faith, right? That you believe in Allah. You believe in, you know, His Messenger, the last day, all the prophets is the six points of email. And so that means being sincere to Allah and sincere to the Messenger of Allah. That's the that is the way that's what we're going over right now.
And by doing this op ed, you see, we have to understand our feeder is not a subject like chemistry, like I'm going to study my aqidah now.
No, that's book knowledge, Islam.
And the time of the province of Salem is a pita is your beliefs. It's literally what you believe in Tawheed means we believe in one God, right. But you may have forms of shirk,
or polytheism, that's not bowing down to idols, you may bow down to money, you may bow down to fashions,
you made the bow down in a lot of things, right. So your toe heat is being tested.
You see, so this is practical. So what we're dealing with now is a practical way to build your Arcada
avoid, I would say for a no Muslim avoid here splitting arguments. And this is one of the points that checkers man dan Fodio, brought, we took it last week, maybe you weren't there. And that is you should avoid fighting over here splitting arguments, like the names and descriptions of Allah. Because there are some scholars who disagreed on some philosophical points,
the philosophical, and it's one opinion versus another. That has nothing to do with us right now and your practical life. That's not going to affect your practical life. But it's going to affect you, is what you actually do with your toe heat.
So what what do you do with your belief in Allah?
What do you do with your following Prophet Muhammad, Salah Salem, that's what's going to affect us. And for a new Muslim, that's the key thing.
And you know, some people, and this is one of the calamities that struck us in in, even in this past 20 3040 years, people came into Islam, and they learned scholarly arguments about philosophy.
And they didn't even know how to make salad right?
So they couldn't even make salad right? But yet, they could argue with a philosophical point.
Right about the names and descriptions of Allah. Check us man den folio says avoid this.
It'll kill your heart
isn't the shaitan will come inside of you. And you become so
negative like that, that you miss the essence of your Islam.
Any other questions are online.
So the last point here,
which is the key point and see the Ahmed spends a long time on this point. And that is if you are in disobedience, it's the concept of Toba
repentance. And I would say
that repentance is the secret weapon of the Muslims. That's our secret weapon.
Because we can go off the path and then come back again. And that's the reason why nobody can control the Muslim world. Because you think you defeated the people. You think you made them alcoholics, you think you destroy them and then you turn around and they're back again?
Why are they back again? Toba.
It's repentance. And what I call this here is self analysis and reconstruction, self analysis to know yourself
and reconstruction, rebuild yourself. That's the secret weapon of the Muslims. That's the reason why we cannot be defeated by earthly forces. Because we keep coming back. And even if the Muslims, many of the ideas that you want, you see go, no Muslims come.
And that's what's happened over the years. That's why Islam is still going.
Toba.
What is repentance?
Somebody is doing something wrong now as a new Muslim. You're coming into Islam.
You have committed sins, or the person is born in a Muslim family.
And they committed since they got involved with drugs. They got involved with lying and stealing in the society, and now they want to come back. That's Toba.
CDR Ahmed said
how do you make Toba?
He's given you a practical definition. The seven he said coming out of sin for Allah with three elements.
Fear is punishment.
Desire is reward
and love,
love Allah subhanaw taala. See the three things
you have to combine it, you have to fear is a punishment is *. * is real.
Right? Secondly, you have to desire, desire, the reward from Allah and it is real.
And third, that many scholars might not say, but he said, You need to love Allah subhanaw taala How can you love Allah?
If you think what Allah has given to us, breathing, Allah has given us our bodies. Allah has given us so many things, so many positive things in this world.
And the more you have muhabba you have this love for Allah. Right? It'll help you to get rid of the bad sins, because you're trying to wipe away evil Right? Like made mistakes.
He also said another scholar named Mel Kelby, he said, Ask forgiveness with your tongue.
feel regret with your heart and restrain your limbs. See the three things?
You say it, ask for forgiveness, regret it in your heart, and then control yourself and say that almost say yep, there's another great scholar. He said Toba is purification of your soul.
How do you purify your soul?
This is Sam. Right? That's the subject that we're talking about
the subject of ESL? How do we clean ourselves up?
So we feel positive about ourself. Okay, now, the elements of Toba.
There's a number of ll elements there and I want to
I'll just go to the complete this, this is the complete one.
Okay.
Number one,
the person has come into Islam.
They have sins, or the person is a Muslim and made sense. First, you have to you have to recognize that what you did was wrong.
You got to recognize it's wrong.
And then ask forgiveness from Allah subhanaw taala.
Okay.
And that's really important. Because I can recall, and I'll give you practical experiences, there are people who have accepted Islam, especially back
in the 60s, we know that when revolution was on. And so we used to say that, you know, so one person was stealing from the system. They say I liberated these goods. So he went to the store he stole, right. And he said, I liberated it. In other words, I freed this from the oppressor.
Right? liberation is good thing, right? But he stole it right? But he used the word liberation.
Muslim, you got to recognize what you did was wrong.
You got to record. So I'll give the example of this person.
You know, this person, Mr. Abdul, I'll just say because nobody has that name. You know, he,
he used to go to this. Seven elevens you know, to this convenience store. He used to steal all the time, he puts up ministering and he was still so he stole about 500
dollars worth of goods, because he lived right near the convenience store.
And but he said I'm liberating from him because he's no good.
Okay, now he becomes a Muslim.
So what do you have to do? The formula is that you need to recognize what you did is wrong.
Ask forgiveness from Allah. That's where your prayer comes in. And then you need to regret the sin.
So in other words, some people talk about their pet. Well, I used to do this. I used to be a bank robber. I used to be this and talk about it as though they're proud of it right.
You need to regret it. Regret the sins that you did. And everybody has sense. The third part is really important. It's called Read the medallion. And that means you need to compensate people.
Compensate.
Right, how do you compensate people? And I'll use the example of Mr. Abdul.
He stole $500 worth of goods from that shop.
He became Muslim. He so Allah forgive me, he owes the shopkeeper $500.
That's compensation. Your Toba is not complete until you compensate that person.
This is complete repentance. Now, it's not advised that you walk into the store. And you say, Mr. Jones, I stole $500 from your shop, he's or call the police.
You don't have to do that. What some people might do, they might they might put you know the money in an envelope and just leave it in the shop.
But you owe that person. Five, five, you owe that person $500. Okay.
And compensation, and the next point.
Okay, just to show you the complete one. After you've compensated, then you have to make an intention not to return to the sin.
So now you're a Muslim.
And you go by the convenience store.
And everything is telling you inside your bedside, just steal something.
But you got to make a strong intention not to return. If that person said, Oh, Allah forgive me. And the next week, they're stealing. That's not Toba.
It wasn't complete.
And the last part is to make a complete Tobor. Avoid unlawful deeds. In other words, you have to learn you have to know yourself.
And you have to learn how to avoid what is wrong. And I'm going to show you this one, Amazon route goes into this one so deep that it would take three sessions to really, you know, deal with but question. So for compensation, there's some sense like, one that comes to mind is like back. So you've sinned against a person. Excellent. To tell them what you said is going to just harm them.
Excellent question. This takes us on to the next point that we're dealing with.
How you do compensation.
Okay, I'm at zero mind. You see, he thought about you.
So he broke it down. He said you can compensate in financial affairs, right.
Okay, by giving the money back, but how do you compensate a person for the honor?
You said something about that person. Like you back? You were backbiting that person.
Right? You said that person's no good. How do you compensate that person?
And he said that you need to compensate that person.
You know, the Backbiting is there. I'll give you a practical example. This is a real situation that we faced. And this is in a city called cape town that I lived in South Africa. It's an amazing Muslim 250 Masjid it's it's a quiet kept secret. Okay. And the Muslims are so strong. You see what South Africans did with it with with the Court of Justice in Baca them or the Muslims in South Africa.
Okay, so
Muslims are so strong that the enemies have they wanted to destroy the youth.
So down by the lake shore, they built this building which was in the shape of an Ottoman Turkish mosque
and it was a nightclub discotheque you know, type of thing called dockside. It had seven levels. Like seven heavens, right, sir
runlevels dark side it's called. And so it looks like a masjid. Right. So the youth are out there, by the lake shore, whatever they see this place, dioxide, you go inside. And people are doing different things. They're dancing on one floor, they're eating on another floor. They're doing this and they're doing that, you know, all on this, this is what the test was. And it was really getting bad.
And so
to the point where it was making the US hypocrites, because some people want to hang on to their Deen a little bit, right? So they at that time, they were taking,
you know, some different drugs, they had a specialist drug, they're called tick, you probably don't have it around as like a form of speed like it makes you like methadone makes you like, nervous, right? Gives you like energy.
Okay. And so they were dancing around.
And then the purse, the Muslim goes upstairs, and there's a cafeteria
and he goes to the person have to dance and around and he's high on tick. And he goes to the content. He said, Do you have halal food
that you see what a hypocrite he is.
He's a hypocrite. That's what it was tearing the youth apart.
And so in the area I was living in. We had a great Imam, Sheikh Arafat Abrams dissolved, okay, he's still there. He was he was a practical Imam. No talk. He was business and he had a madressa and he heard that his students were in dockside.
So he drove down to dockside and all of the moms there they were a Jabba it's like a coach had a cap
right so he walked down the dark side and then he went he walked into dockside
Okay, and he went right to the dance floor, saw the students driving around, grabbed them by their ears, right from the dance floor and much them out right now, what is the witness here? Somebody's driving along and they saw Shekhar fan going into dockside.
They said stuck federal law. Look at this.
And they went home and they said you know what I saw. This is backbiting I saw check your fan you know and now it goes from one month to another month to another month. So by the time it gets to the end, the other side of the city check and fan was in the middle of the floor doing breakdancing
because rumors get bigger and bigger, right?
If they had known who he was and what he was doing, if they were for real they would have gone to him and said Chuck I saw you in Duck Seidman like what's happening you confront him with right and he would tell them they should kiss this man's hand
right if they were for real
now this is your this is your question
the Roomba is out
how do you compensate check air fan
you can't give him money right? You just do destroyed his image right you you destroy you put see the Amazon hooks that you have to now publicize the good side of checker fan.
What he actually did in dioxide and the good qualities of him so much that it wipes out the bad things
that your compensation and see. So he actually has a system of this and there's some things, you know, personal matters, there's taboo, you know, there's some these things when you real bad things are being said, you know about somebody sometimes, you know, if you scandalize somebody's name here in Muslim state you actually get lashes and stuff like that you know, but the religious matters also this thing called get better innovations. So you say this person does better an imam right. So, you start putting out these negative things that this Imam is a Buddha Imam whatever the compensation is, you know, to to you have to change that around.
Okay. So this is the compensation.
The intention, how do you intend
not to return to the sin?
Somebody might say, Okay. I just intend No, you know, Amazon is going to give you a program.
This is practical FM. What did he say? He said, continuous good deeds.
You have sins and you want to come
out of it,
do continuous good deeds. Secondly, you need to be aware of Allah in the secret and in the open. So some people when they're in the open when people are watching them, they make a nice salad and they're good Muslims, but when you're by yourself, how is your Salah.
So, you need to be aware of Allah secret and open three
constant instead of five.
You have to constantly be saying at different points in the day, you know iStockphoto Allah
and if you had done wrong, you have to say this a lot.
Three, increase Salawat that means that you need to you need to say, whenever you hear the name, Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
you need to be saying Salawat
right Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad. Now what is the logic and this? This is deep thinking he has his spiritual thinking.
The person has got like, your bad deeds is almost like filth. And you want to clean off yourself. The Prophet said, Men Salah Allah yawata sallallahu alayhi wa Ashara who ever sends Salawat to me one time, Allah will send it back 10 times. So every time you say sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the angels will bring 10 time back to you.
So if you're saying this constantly, right? You clean yourself up CL DPS. Like he's giving you a program. That's what people need today, not just words, right? We need some practical applications, and how we can actually, you know, make ourselves better Muslims. So that's the intention not to return to the same.
Okay.
I want to open up the floor for any questions are in this area.
This is the these are deep. This is the area which we can go into but floors open. anything online? Anybody have?
What about if you sincerely want to return to a sin end up falling back into
that you sincerely
want to quit?
And not go back to it?
Yeah, so So if a person is sincere, you know, they, they they but they fall back? Allah is Most Merciful? Because sometimes it's based on how much you try, right? Like, for instance, if a person is a drug addict.
In 90% of the cases, you can't stop taking drugs immediately. Because chemical right? It's exactly, you got to go through a system of detox. So you have to like you have to take drugs in lesser amounts, and substitute drugs until you can come off the drug.
Okay.
So so this is, you know, this is detox. So if that person maybe made Toba and then they took drugs, again,
it's a process, right? They're not necessarily expected. But somebody else, they just lied. You can stop lying, just stop lying.
That's something you have more control over it. Whereas the drug you may not have control necessarily over that.
So Allah knows the sincerity of a person.
Can you please elaborate on the risks of connecting directly to God? And what if we're able to do so within our control
within a controlled framework? So what is the first part of it?
On the risk of connecting directly to
what if we're able to do so on the risk, the risk of that, okay.
There's a thing called water to wood.
And that is, some religions believe that you can go directly into Allah's essence and they try to reach this level, okay. And within the life of Prophet Muhammad, so seldom, to be honest with you. He never did this. And none of his companions did this.
The only time is on what is called a straw and miraj that is when he was taken
up, and he came close to Allah. But he did not do exercises to do that.
He did that this comes from other religions.
Like the whirling and like, you know,
different things on your body and whatever. This is in Buddhism, it's in Hinduism. Zoroastrianism
and you'll see it there.
So this is dangerous.
And that if a person is giving you a form of coming closer to Allah, it needs to be within the boundary of Sharia. As long as it's within Sharia, the Islamic law, then it's okay. If it goes outside,
then you know, we are encouraged not to follow it. So yes, if it's within Sharia, it's fine. But if it goes outside of Sharia, no
question. So, this prayer as we're getting closer to a lot, yes, it is even stated that, you know, your prayers like the Mirage, it's like, our own connection with Allah. Because you're actually praying directly to the Creator. And especially if you can get up in you know, in the middle of the night, and you're by yourself, whatever. And then there's certain times of the year, the odd night 27th night of Ramadan. You know, there's certain times when you can come close to Allah subhanaw taala. There's a lot of it actually, within Sharia, without having to do exercises, and things that come from other religions. Not in the Sunnah.
It's not in the Sunnah of the Prophet Solomon, they've never, they never world around 10,000 times meant
to get close to Allah, they never did that.
And so if somebody's going to do that,
they're on dangerous grounds.
And it is safe, the cautious scholars avoided that.
They avoid that way, because now you're in an area that can lead you outside of Islam.
Okay, and that's the danger of those things.
And the last part,
it's called to avoid the unlawful deeds. Okay, and these are the deeds of your tongue and your ears and your eyes, and your private parts and your heart. You know, and your stomach, and we will be actually going into this in our teachings in Ramadan. It's going to come up in Ramadan. Okay, so we don't have to go into the details of this now, because we're going to go into this actually in Ramadan itself. Okay. And so this is, these are the actual ways of,
you know, the coming close, or submitting to Allah subhanaw taala. To be sincere to the Creator.
Okay,
the floor is open again, before the alarm goes off. At the end of our class question.
The compensation
or financial health to someone? Yeah, what was more
direct contact? More? Yeah.
Well, you know, again, it's, it's based upon you try to do it and you try to be sincere, maybe the person died, you know, maybe you're not in contact with them.
You try your best. And sometimes it's not possible to, to, to know the exact amount. But as long as you make, you know, you try to do as much as you can. Allah knows what's in your heart, that really the best that you can do.
So for more information on this, and I'm saying this, because you might want to follow this up. This is the books on the Seattle cavea. And I translated this book some years ago and commented on it. And you can get it online, but I brought some here, in case if you want to follow this up on your own.
It's $10, you know, for me to produce, produce the book. And you can get it online, but you'll have to pay to get it sent to you. Right, so I'll have these here in the class. Because this is complicated. This is something you're going to go back over again and again. And again. It's a useful framework. And what I actually did in this is set up like a flowchart
where all of these things are in one chart.
Right? So you can look at it.
And it's amazing the mind of this person. See the Amazon hook or himolla is amazing mind.
What he is very practical system of ESN. For us, any other general questions anybody has. I went for a new Masjid this past week, and for our program, and they were doing a lot of stuff that never seen before other mustards.
Nothing crazy but to me, it seemed like it was the first time seeing it and the performing the sheets, which I think is like
I don't want to say songs but things okay. And they were really singing their hearts out and it just seemed a bit off to me. Even though I was there with a friend. And I remember it remind me of a story you told about you went to a masjid in the States with your friends and you saw three warnings, but a barking dog and some
All
right, how do I know if I ever do go to a masjid where, you know, they're not doing things properly? Like, how would I be aware of that? Yeah.
Well, of course, you know, knowing the Sunnah as much as possible helps you.
They did in the sheet right off this a lot
later on long programs, I think was before, right. Okay, so, you know, there are some cultural things that Muslims do in different parts of the world. And Nasheed is something that is permissible in Islam. When the province of solemn went to Medina, de sang Talal bedroo, Elena, you know, especially it was allowed on
weddings. And on Eid day, they actually the Ethiopian dance with spears in the masjid in the prophet's mosque.
And he allowed,
right and the sheets, they even call for the answer singers on it. So it's okay. And in some cultures, they do this, say in the evening, like some people in Cape Town, they will do it on Thursday night or something like that. It's like an alternative to going out to a discotheque Hassan going out to a very, you know, a party. It's a cultural gathering. And if it's just, you know, nasheeds praise of the Prophet, something like that, you know, that there's nothing actually wrong with it. The problem is, sometimes it goes overboard.
Now, some of the groups they have a thing that called Hydra, that's where they start.
And they start doing this thing, you know, where they're actually like, panting and everything, and a friend of mine, you know, a scholar from the Comoros islands, you know, he went to one of these things, and they got in a circle and they were doing this thing, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah. And then one of them jumped on the ground, he was barking like a dog.
And the shark jumped back. And he stood in the corner.
And they were doing it doing it doing it for about, you know, half an hour straight. And finally they, they ended it. And then they brought out some biryani and nice drinks. And they enjoy that night. It was nothing like that.
Right? So like I say, there are cultural things that you will see in certain societies. There's nothing wrong with it, as long as it's not interfering with the salaat.
And the things that they're actually doing, but there are some cultural differences Muslims have
any other general questions? Anybody else?
Go ahead.
Foster patients with mindfulness practices such as meditation, do they have application within traditional
forms of meditation? What kind of meditation? Do they say?
Methods to foster patients such as with mindfulness, such as meditation? Yes. So I mean, there is we have our Tahajjud prayer, we have, you know, forms of vicar, remembrance of Allah, you know, that you do, you know, at different times. It's all within the Sunnah. There's a lot of things, the Buddhist form of meditation,
right, the Hindu form of meditation, that's something different. That's something different. And that is not necessarily within the Islamic framework. It's not to say that you couldn't do yoga, as you know, some people do yoga as an exercise. So something like that is okay. But in terms of Ebar die in terms of worship, you know, it would be you know, you'll see, we have meditation. You know, prayer, in a sense, is a form of moving meditation.
Because you're actually meditating when you make a salad, right? You're supposed to be connecting with Allah, you're not watching, you know, the other person next to you.
Right, so that's a form of meditation, and Tahajjud prayer in the evening. That's a form of meditation, but it's a moving meditation, right? The Hindus and Buddhists, they sit, cross their leg, and they do it in a different way. But as is more done with a moving meditation, with Tahajjud prayer,
I just say, to that question that they're talking about, like Western meditation, it's more about like emptying your mind. Whereas for us, it's always about connecting to a lot. So I think that's the difference. Yeah. So so they might say, empty your mind and you know, whatever. And, but, like I say, you know, this, this, there's some advantages in yoga. There's some advantages in Tai Chi. Right, which is a moving meditation to, right there's nothing wrong with that. But the problem is when it gets into like, worship,
when you start thinking about the creator and connecting and whatever, then you're going into another religious system, and we have to avoid them.
But the physical practices of Tai Chi, and of yoga, there's some good things in that. Good physical exercises in those things.
No question.
You mentioned Tai Chi because I'm actually taking school. Okay, good. Shoulder. I practice tai chi for three years. Yeah, I do. I do Tai Chi
respect the holistic views. And
the Tai Chi is the only thing. It depends on how rigid they are. You know, because some people get so rigid that they make you take a bow to your instructor.
So, so if you're bowing to the instructor, then we tell them we don't bow to anybody but Allah.
Right? So they start off and then you may, you know, but you don't make record to them. Right, but you can, you know, that type of thing. And exercises Excellent.
So, next week, inshallah we will continue with our class to complete CDM and Zooks
the CFO cavea And for those who want to book you know, it's going to be available tonight, the next week, I'll keep a couple of with me, you know, so you could have Inshallah, so we'll get prepared for salat wa salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh