Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Essentials of Islamic Spirituality- Self Reckoning and Contemplation of Death
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the concept of "arrogance" and how it can be used to improve one's life or career. They emphasize the importance of considering one's life and career in order to plan for the future and not just reflecting on the past. They also discuss the benefits of all Jacobs' deeds and the importance of contemplation of death, as well as the concept of seeking forgiveness for any bad deeds or mistakes. They touch on the grounding idea of contemplation of death and how it can develop comfort and humility. Finally, they discuss the importance of reading books and taking on a subject of matter to become more aware of one's deeds.
AI: Summary ©
As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh I
think we're on page 34 of this about
self-reckoning.
Muḥasabah, which is a very important concept of
tasawwuf, you'll hear it many times, means to
take stock or reckon.
It comes from the concept of ḥisab and
ḥisbah, ḥasībah.
Here it means to take stock of one's
own deeds and activities, not others.
One should reflect over the entire day's acts
and deeds upon recording a noble act or
an act of worship.
So essentially it's almost like a defragging time
at the end of the day.
It's a time to reflect and say, mā
shā'a Llāh, I did all of these
good deeds, yā Allāh.
I thank you, I'm so grateful to you
that I've been able to do all of
these good deeds, and Allāh give me better,
allow me to do more, and forgive me
for my wrongs and my defects and weaknesses
in this.
So one should express gratitude unto Allāh Most
High and request for greater divine guidance and
success in enhancing virtue.
However, upon recording one's evil act or wrongdoing,
one should become regretful.
This is the daily muḥasabah obligatory upon the
seeker.
The idea is that if we can start
the day with dedicating everything to Allāh and
submitting everything to Allāh, some of our du
'ās tell us that.
For example, asliḥnā wa-asliḥ al-mulku lillāh.
So it's almost like a confession you do
at the beginning of the day and if
everything I do is for you.
So in that regard, there's a verse in
the Qur'ān which is, inna ṣalāti wa
-nusuki wa-mahyāya wa-mamāti lillāhi rabbil-'ālamīn.
If you can write that somewhere, that you'll
see it every morning.
So what that would help us do is
to dedicate everything we're going to do in
the day.
And remember, this is only for those who
kind of are advanced in this regard, who
really want to get connected to Allāh.
So to remember this and to think this
way is only going to be for somebody
who's serious about this.
All my ṣalāt, all my other rites that
I do, in fact my whole life and
my death, anything, everything is going to be
for you.
That's amazing.
All my work that I'm going to do
today, anything that I'm going to do to
assist others, the study of the deen that
I do today, the prayers that I do,
all the other little worships that I do,
the assistance I might give to somebody else,
all of that is for you.
So that is reinforcing ikhlas and sincerity and
literally consigning matters to Allāh.
So the benefit of all of that is
that once we're saying that Allāh, yeah Allāh,
even when I go to work today to
earn money and to earn a living, and
when I go to do shopping and everything
else, all of that or any business that
I do, I want to do it for
you.
That means you'll get barakah because famā kāna
lillāhi yabqā.
Whatever's going to be for Allāh will have
endurance, will have benefits, will have sustainability.
So it's a really good thing to do
in the morning.
May Allāh give us the tawfīq to do
that.
But then we end the day with this
muḥasabah by saying that all of these good
deeds, we kind of go over it and
say, oh al-ḥamdu liLlāh, I've got that.
So when we've done shukr for it, Allāh
would give us tawfīq to do more.
And we don't do it obviously in a
boasting way because we're doing this for ourselves.
We're not saying this to anybody else.
And then any bad deeds or wrong deeds
or mishaps or mistakes or slips or blunders,
we seek forgiveness for that and we make
tawbah for the sins.
That's a great thing, way to start your
day and end the day.
Now we move on to the next section
which is contemplation of death.
This is muraqabatu l-mawt, very important, muraqabatu
l-mawt, absolutely a very grounding idea, a
very grounding thought, a very sobering idea.
Anybody who keeps remembering their death often will
probably be able to rectify their arrogance, rectify
their wasting of time, rectify their laziness to
a certain degree and will be able to
develop humility and so on.
This means to contemplate, to think about the
oncoming event of death, reflect about the pangs
of death.
So don't just reflect that I'm not going
to be here anymore.
You have to reflect on more than that
to make this effective.
If you just think, oh I'm not going
to be here anymore, you have to take
that somewhere for it to be effective.
I'm not going to be here, let me
just enjoy my life.
But rather think about every stage.
So firstly, think about the final word.
Think about the pangs of death.
May my soul and spirit be taken easily,
not like a cloth that's got caught in
thorny bushes and you're trying to pull it
out.
Then we talk about the questioning in the
grave, the plane of resurrection, the reckoning on
the day of judgment, the presence in the
court of Allah, crossing the bridge and so
forth.
These are the sobering thoughts, the different stages
of the hereafter.
All this has to be contemplated and then
a pledge is to be made that one
will not venture close to sin in the
future.
100 times a day the request for forgiveness
should be made to Allah.
Istighfar.
This can be made as follows.
It's just a powerful formula.
You can do any istighfar.
Here what you're doing is you are saying
words which Allah loves.
They're very weighty.
So you're invoking Allah's rahmah and mercy and
love towards you already and then you're seeking
forgiveness.
You're just putting the istighfar in between, you're
sandwiching in between.
And then you say la ilaha illah wal
hayyul qayyum.
So that's the ismullahi al-'azim wal hayyul qayyum
and Allah.
So transcend is Allah and all praise be
to Him.
Transcendent is Allah Almighty.
I seek forgiveness from Allah Almighty.
There is no God but He, the living,
the self-subsisting.
Thereafter that consider yourself to be most inferior
so much that if you observe with your
own eyes and never indulging in the worst
of vices then too you shall not despise
that person nor shall you consider yourself no
better than him.
As you might because what your focus is
always on is not what's happening right now.
Yes based on what's happening right now you're
better than him but that doesn't matter does
it.
That's not the real arbiter in the hereafter.
What really matters is what's going to end
with and if I end up in a
worse state than this and he ends up
in a better state than this then he's
better off than me in the long run.
So always think about it from that perspective.
On the contrary one should fear and bear
in mind that it is very possible that
the perpetrator of the vice may resort to
sincere repentance and tauba and become a person
of high piety.
That's an absolute possibility isn't it.
I always think about this that when you're
going to a masjid there's people that you
might not even recognize someone who's got no
beard but they're always in the first saf
of the masjid.
I'm thinking I can't get the first saf
of the masjid that guy can be closer
to me.
I can't consider I might know more than
him but that person might be closer to
Allah than I am.
They say that one of the qurat from
Egypt must have come to bin muri town
when allama bin muri was alive.
Some people complain his kibas darini doesn't have
a full beard or whatever.
He says well it looks like his outer
is messed up but his inside is better
than yours and your inside is messed up
and your outer is better than yours so
you're fine together.
Maybe it works so we can't compliment one
another.
Yes if they want to do this islah
there's a way to do that but just
to complain.
So it says here that while the one
who despise the sinner may become ensnared god
forbid in the meshes of the lower self
and satan and then be diverted from worship
and a heathens one has no certainty regarding
one's end therefore one has no basis for
regarding another with contempt.
This is the first step in seeking surah
without taking the step the path of the
soul remains closed.
The first part is to get your mind
right that's what he's saying.
The first part is to get your thought
process right.
Then after that he speaks about the spiritual
struggle inshallah we will do that next time.
The point of a lecture is to encourage
people to act to get further an inspiration
an encouragement persuasion.
The next step is to actually start learning
seriously to read books to take on a
subject of islam and to understand all the
subjects of islam at least at their basic
level so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us and
that's why we started rayyan courses so that
you can actually take organized lectures on demand
whenever you have free time especially for example
the islamic essentials course that we have on
there the islamic essentials certificate which you take
20 short modules and at the end of
that inshallah you will have gotten the basics
of most of the most important topics in
islam and you'll feel a lot more confident.
You don't have to leave lectures behind you
can continue to leave you know to listen
to lectures but you need to have this
sustained study as well jazakallah khair and assalamu
alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
The point of a lecture is to encourage
people to act to get further an inspiration
an encouragement persuasion.
The next step is to actually start learning
seriously to read books to take on a
subject of islam and to understand all the
subjects of islam at least at their basic
level so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us and
that's why we started rayyan courses so that
you can actually take organized lectures on demand
whenever you have free time especially for example
the islamic essentials course that we have on
there the islamic essentials certificate which you take
20 short modules and at the end of
that inshallah you will have gotten the basics
of most of the most important topics in
islam and you'll feel a lot more confident
you don't have to leave lectures behind you
can continue to leave you know to listen
to lectures but you need to have this
more sustained study as well jazakallah khair and
assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh