Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Heart of a Believer
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Alhamdulillah Hamden cathedral for uban Mubarak and fie Mubarak and
it come on your headboard of Buena where Jalla Jalla who are a
mineral or salatu salam or Allah say you didn't have evil Mustafa
SallAllahu Taala either he was the he also be odaka was seldom at the
Sleeman Cathedral on Eli Yomi Dean A Man
Called a loan to Baraka with the IRA filled Quran in Mudgee, the
will for carnal Hamid
Lavina Manu Fatuma in Nakuru boom basically Allah, Allah basically
Allah He taught to me in Morocco lube,
we'll call it the IRA. Yo, Mala Yun federal man what a balloon in
love and at Allah has been Salim
My dear respected brothers and sisters, Salam alaykum
Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
The topic of the heart is quite an interesting one. Because despite
all of the progress in studies of the brain, human behavior, human
understanding and intelligence, surprisingly, in the West study of
the heart, as anything beyond the physical organ of the body, is
quite lacking.
So, in cardiology, there's been, you know, great studies of the way
the heart functions and you know, they do the bypasses, and they've
figured out a lot of many aspects of the heart when it comes to the
heart being the major organ of the body, the central organ that feeds
the rest of the body. However, when it comes to what Allah
subhanho wa Taala speaks about in the Quran. We don't really see any
correlation as such, we don't really see any studies to that
effect. Because for example, if you look at just the Quran, you
see that the heart has been described in a number of different
ways. The heart has been described as a heart with feeling. In fact,
in our common parlance in our common
statements we make we speak about the sick heart we speak, we speak
about taking somebody's heart, we speak about breaking somebody's
heart, yet. science hasn't really studied it from that perspective.
So for example, Allah subhanho wa taala. He speaks about a holy
we'll call the one who is harsh in heart, the harsh heart he speaks
about Allah subhanho wa Taala speaks about finding the WHO Earth
him and Kalibo the one who the sinful heart. So we've got a
sinful heart. We've got a harsh heart. We're called boohoo,
motorman. innum. Bill Iman, the heart which is secure in faith. So
the secure heart then we've got an alpha culpa, who, the one whose
heart we have made heedless. So all of these things have to do
with the, with the heart itself, not with the behavior or anything
else of that nature. Then we've got, as in the verse that we just
read 11 at Allah Habib colbyn Salim, we've got the sound heart,
we've got the sound heart, then we've got where Allah subhanaw
taala says yet where Allah who either couldn't call will be
multicap bit in Jabbar, which basically means that he then seals
over every heart, He seals over every heart of an arrogant tyrant.
That so there's a concept of sealing over the hut, then there's
ohata Morales, some he will call will be the opposite Kulu boom,
then the hearts became hard.
Now, clearly, this is not talking about from a biological
perspective, necessarily, I mean, clearly not.
Then we've got coluna whole as the kuffaar uses a Kullu gonna hold
that our hearts are wrapped up. They can't accept any guidance
when he talked to me in Nakuru Bukom so that your hearts can be
reassured. So there's a great focus in the Quran and the hearts.
And yet, we hardly see any studies in universities zoning, but in the
last 20 to 30 years that this, there's been some breakthroughs in
the subject, when you look at the fields of social sciences.
And psychology maybe. So this is a new study that has just been very
recent, yet it's such an ancient study when it comes to Islam, that
it's called neuro cardiology. Right? So it's speaking more about
trying to understand the brain of the heart. What's been discovered
is that
The cells that we have in our brains that makes it intelligent,
there are actually those kinds of cells that have been discovered
within the heart itself. And now there's a debate as to what in the
western sun, there's a debate as to whether it's the brain that
informs the heart or the heart that informs the brain.
So it's a very interesting disk. That's not what we want to focus
on today. That's from a medical perspective, it wasn't even on the
agenda, I don't think. But I thought that since we're in UCL,
and I think many medical students here, you should be looking into
this because when we look in our history, starting right from the
Quran, we're speaking about the heart being of various different
ways. The sick heart, the heart, heart, how does the heart become
hard? Well, we know that when you put too much fat in the right and
there's too much cholesterol, well, we know that, but that's
from a biological perspective. What about from a spiritual
perspective? You see now, the hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam related by both Imam Bukhari and Muslim the famous
Hadith I'm sure every speaker will probably, quote, this hadith which
is Allah in the field Jessa de modo either side who had Salah
* Jessa Dooku, look at the festival festival, just a dokolo
that know that there is a piece of flesh. And yes, the Prophet
salallahu Salam did call it a piece of flesh. But that's in
terms of just showing that it's despite the fact that it's a piece
of flesh, that there is a major control that is taking place from
there, there is some real power in this thing, because this piece of
flesh, if it is sound, then your whole body will be sound, and that
hamdulillah both from a biological perspective is true. And also from
a spiritual perspective. It is absolutely true because it's all
about the heart. And if it is unsound, sick, if it is diseased,
then the whole body will become diseased. And likewise we know
that because when the heart when the heart cannot produce and
cannot function properly, both from biological perspective, and
also when it's under nourished spiritually from the vicar of
Allah, as Allah subhanaw taala says that well, the actual and
decree lie and Nikolai naka de la who shaytaan and for huella, who
Corinne that the one who abstains abandons, who stays away from the
remembrance of Allah, we will set on him a shaytaan, who will become
his close accomplice.
That's a serious state, that whenever we find ourselves in long
periods of no vicar, then know that shaitan is with us. Because
when the zikr goes away, the shaytaan comes. And you can
understand this in a very simple way, there's a hadith and Muslim
would say is that when every offspring comes into this world,
when any child comes into this world, a shaytan, is designated as
a special shape and there's many shades of shayateen right, he
believes as much progeny as he has abundant children, one is
designated with every single human being. And it whispers into the
suddenness as Allah says in the Quran, sudo sudo, into the chest
area, the breast area of of the of the of the human Hamdulillah. It
says sudo or not collude, because if the shaytaan was to whisper
directly into the collude, then we would have no volition of our own,
we would have no choice of our own because when it is a whispering
directly into the heart, then the heart has to respond. But it's
subdued in us, it's in that general area. Now it's up to the
heart to take it or leave it and that's our choice. Our heart
allows us to make that choice. If the heart is filled with good it
will make the right choice if it's not filled with good and we become
habituated to the wrong things, then our heart will very readily
accept the whisperings of the shaytaan especially when we
abstain from the Dhikr of Allah. One of the great things about
Ramadan and I'm sure we know this from personal experience, that
it's just much easier to be pious in Ramadan. And one of the reasons
is clearly that the shouting out of the way but number two, we're
also doing more thicker.
We're also reading more Quran and the Quran is one of the greatest
cures for the heart, the Quran reading the Quran, especially with
reflection, not just reading and this is something very important
that reflecting over our reading is extremely one that is that has
the greatest potential and that is many of us are missing out on
reflecting over the Quran. We read a lot. There's many people who
read a lot but they never reflect on any single chapter and that's
very important to reflect on what you read. We're not saying we want
to extract a jury you know God could juridical issues and Messiah
and and become more of these from that we're talking about just
reflection is the Quran is for reflection. May Allah subhanaw
taala give us the tofield.
Now,
when we look at
this area where we've got great scholars who've provided great
focus, I mean the ahaadeeth have great focus on this. And there are
a number of things that relate to this. Firstly, if we look at
Our dean, there's one very essential dimension of our deen
that relates to the heart. So one of the, one of the primary
dimensions of our faith is belief to get our beliefs correct to
understand what we believe, understand our purpose in this
world. And that is called Islamic beliefs. That's one of the five
dimensions. The second dimension is that once we figured out what
we're supposed to believe, then how do you worship Allah? Once you
figured out that Allah subhanaw taala? Is the Supreme Being the
deity one worthy of worship? How do you worship him? That's where
the second pillar, the second dimension comes in, in which are
the five pillars of Islam. Most people when explaining Islam to
us, they start right on the five pillars. And when you explain that
to somebody, they think well, is your religion all about worship?
Where's everything else gone? Is it just about praying, fasting
Hajj, right, but really, these five pillars that we know so well,
they only come into the second dimension of worship, they all
worship, then the third dimension is social etiquette. When we're
dealing with our neighbors, you're dealing with the young, the old,
and so on, the HUD is going to govern all of these aspects. Then
the fourth one is when you transact with people, when you buy
and sell, when you hire when there's marriage, divorce, etc,
etc, judicial, the judiciary, all of that comes under the fourth
dimension of Islam, and the fifth dimension of Islam comes back to
the heart. And that's very important. The reason is that if
the heart is sound as the prophets of the Lord Islam says, then
everything else will be sound. For example, if the person's heart is
sound, they will, if they're too fearful to go out and right, with
the rioters, and risk getting caught, right, there were people
like this, who couldn't go out themselves, right? Because they
felt they were respectable, in a sense, yet there were some
respectable, so called respectable peoples who also did that, because
the heart overcame them. But there were some people who thought,
well, we can't join in. That's not our thing. But they told people
that we're going if you've got anything to sell afterwards, we'll
buy it from you. That is also a sign of a sick heart. Because
you're still benefiting from it in an unjust way. How do you allow
your normal understanding of the fact that you would not want that
to happen to yourself? How can you go and offer that to somebody else
on somebody else's property that was taken without their hearts
satisfaction.
It talks about a sickness of the heart, the highest level of
sickness of the heart is, as Allah subhanaw taala says, feel Kulu be
him Murad, in their hearts is a disease. And that is speaking
about the hypocrites. The hypocrites, had the greatest
disease in their heart, in the sense that they could outwardly
profess Islam to benefit from being one of the crowds from from
being one of the other believers and taking the outward benefits of
that, and yet inside, they hated the faith, and they wanted to
adhere to the original faith, faith, whether it be faith or
whether it was a love of fame, and so on and so forth. What are these
other traits that we speak about when we especially when we go back
to this last dimension, again,
the whole aspect of this last dimension, which you could term
purification of the heart, you could turn test gear, you could
turn, son, you know, it's all the same thing. And if you want to be
bold about it, you can call it Sufism, if you want to, but you
know that that term, some people don't like it, but really that's
basically pure Sufism. It's just about the heart. That's what it's
it's just as clear that's what it's supposed to be about. I know
there's a lot of degenerated Sufism out there. But when we're
speaking about pure Sufism, pure purification of the heart, Teskey
Asafa Chol, then we're speaking about
in embodying or rather imbibing within the heart the praiseworthy
qualities and extracting the blameworthy qualities. And I think
that's what that is what is very, that is what is very important for
us to understand. The reason is
that if we were to look into ourselves and try to figure out
our heart, I don't I'm not sure. I mean, there are tests that you
could there are certain machines that you could put yourself on
stress tests, and so on to check the
the soundness of the biological soundness of the heart, what would
you call them, ie ECGs, and so on. Unfortunately, I don't think there
is any such instrument to determine the spiritual state of
the heart. The spiritual state of the heart, though, is very easy to
determine. You don't need a machine, you just look at our
actions. But the problem is that we, especially when it's a
diseased heart, we will hardly ever see any wrong within
ourselves, because we constantly tend to justify that I'm fine in
what I'm doing. They deserve it. It's okay to make clear about
them. It's true.
I've said it in their face before. These are all justifications that
we come up with, even when we're reminded we've already justified
ourselves away quite
comfortable. When we have a diseased hearts, we're quite
comfortable in making these in being envious, in being in having
jealousy for somebody in hating somebody in harboring enmity
towards someone in
not being content with what Allah has given us, we've got reasons we
give ourselves reasons. But even when somebody else reminds us, we
tend to say, but, and then we give these reasons.
It's very important that if we want to discover the state of our
heart,
and we can't do it ourselves. And believe me, the heart is a very
fine thing. It's a very delicate thing. And there are certain sins
of the heart, and Morogoro called sicknesses of the hearts that are
very difficult to determine the scholars of the subject, say, for
example, that you may be able to understand jealousy and envy.
Because clearly when you burn inside, because somebody else has
something that you do not have, you know, you're going to burn
inside and feel why don't I have that? I wish and why does he have
that? Why does she have that? How does she deserve it?
You may discover that you may feel that yes, that's a problem within
us.
Then, that might be more easy to discover. But how do you discover
within yourself that you're being arrogant?
Because there are some really hidden aspects of arrogance, the
love of fame ostentation, which are very difficult to determine,
especially for ourselves, you need somebody else to tell you.
The cures for these things will be spoken about will be will be
discussed by the next speaker. You know, we've all been given our
little areas to discuss just so that there's no much repetition
JazakAllah to the organizers for restricting us like that my Chava
is quite beneficial in a sense, right? But
when we look at, for example, greed,
greed, how do you determine greed? You love food? Is that greed or
not? Is that valid greed. You know, you love clothing. You love
to buy every new trend that comes out there is that greed or not?
Then there's a hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, there's a particular sahabi, who came to the
booksellers and he was concerned. He was, he said to the Prophet,
salallahu Salam, I love my clothing to be really good to be
excellent. Right above the rest, I like it to be really good. I like
my shoes, my footwear to be really good. Right? And you can see that
I'm very handsome, you can see what Allah subhanaw taala has
given me of beauty.
So he said is that Kibera? Is that arrogance? Is that pride?
So the prophets of Allah, Are you certain clarify that no, that is
not pride, what pride is, is that you reject the truth, and you look
down upon people. So if the same state of yours, where
you like all of these great things, it's causing you to look
down on others, you like flashing your stuff around, and you look
down upon people, then that is going to be a problem. But if you
just like it for yourself, then it's not necessarily a problem.
Though it's not superior to indulge in the world, there's a
different aspect to it. Because greed might come into it. It may
not be kibra, but it may be greed.
It may be going against contentment, going against
contentment with Allah. For example, if we look at the
different blameworthy treats, traits of the heart, we've got
greed, Allah subhanaw taala says, Do not raise your eyes towards the
glitter of the worldly life that we have granted to various groups
among them, meaning the unbelievers, well, Adam wood, then
nine acre Illa, Medina v.
So do not keep looking at those who have been endowed in this
world that oh, how we wish we could have that as well.
When it comes to the world, we're supposed to look at the younger,
the lesser, those who have less than us, so we can be thankful for
what we do have, because it's all relative at the end of the day.
Allah says, the prophets of Allah, some said, the son of Adam age
ages, a human ages, while two things in him grow younger, though
physically, biologically, we're becoming older. But there's two
things within us which are becoming younger. And what is that
greed for more wealth, and greed for more life?
That's an aspect that we have to deal with. So those something
might not be kibble, it might be greed. We're not saying that
that's the hobby had greed. But if we look at that hadith and we want
to do the same thing, we may be going into greed, because we don't
know exactly what shoes he had. We don't know. We don't know exactly.
Got clothing he had, of course beauty and handsomeness something
God ordained. So that's not something you can do anything at
well.
I mean, there are people who are greedy for you know, they they go
and they get their plastic surgeries and
then this courageousness
to give it everything to just covet everything new not be
satisfied with what Allah has given you, especially when it
takes you away from your main focus. And your whole focus is
just about acquiring. I mean, we've come to a period in our life
in this time and age where things are available. So abundantly and
at the touch of a button that we don't even get satisfaction in the
new gadgets we get. I mean, imagine the satisfaction that you
got when you got your first Nokia phone many years ago.
And nothing against noxious. But now you get your new phone, you've
had one smartphone, you get a new one. Well, it's the same old
system.
Right? You don't get the same kind of high level of satisfaction
anymore because the world is just so full of us. It's just so fully
out there that we don't feel the same kind of satisfaction anymore.
We're looking for a much higher level of satisfaction, the
conviction isness is really serious. Allah says follow not
Caprice for it will lead you astray
away from the path of Allah because your focus will be other
than Allah. The Prophet sallallahu sallam said a weakling is the one
who follows his desires, and has hopes for compensation from Allah
subhanaw taala as related by him, I'm dealing with it.
Then there's anger.
See, when you look at the heart coming to anger, when you look at
the heart
the heart manifests itself in terms of character character is
very closely linked to the heart.
Because
when somebody cuts you off when you're driving,
do you turn around and swear? Or do you be patient? Unless the
person really gets you going?
Do you immediately turn around, scowled at the person swear at the
person and want to do something back even though you know that if
it just makes somebody for five minutes, you will never see that
you will probably never see that person again in your life. Can you
imagine? I mean seriously, when somebody cuts us off in traffic or
does something strange like that? We're probably never going to see
them again. So if we just patient for one minute, or 50 seconds or
30 seconds we it's going to be over. But we have this habit of
turning around and doing something about it, venting our anger.
Clearly that has something to do with a disease hot. The Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is walking along, and this person
comes and pulls,
pulls his shawl off him his garment hard in a vicious stroke.
And he says I want to ask you some questions. Can you imagine that
happening with us? But the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam calmed
everybody else down, turned around and responded to him.
However, when it came to matters of faith, then he got extremely
angry if the if they were if the, the coke of Allah we're
contravened against. He knew exactly. And that's that's the
thing about being having equilibrium. It's to be able to
vent your anger in the right place and withhold it in the right
place. Because your heart you are in control.
There's many people you get, I mean, I must have had at least 10
calls since the beginning of the year. People who have just
divorced their wife three times I've had calls from the husband
and from the wife.
And now they're looking for a solution.
It was done in anger. I said,
normally what the case is that people do not divorce just like
that.
I know many people who who are angry all the time, but they've
never divorced their wife. They've never even uttered the term. So
why is it that certain people when they divorce and they go on to
three, not even one? Well, the reason is that there's something
that they're contemplating inside, it's this.
It's a plotting when next time she says this, this is what I'm going
to do next time he says this, I'm just gonna ask him for it. Like I
just got a call recently from a woman. And she's like, my husband
divorced me three times, but he didn't really mean it. I was
really forcing him I was the one who forced him to give it I said,
No, you must give it to me just give it to me. So then he gave it
but he was crying.
What kind of a weakling is that?
Right. You know, somebody's angry You don't have to succumb to
their, you know, their anger you need to act proper. I mean, the
wife needs to act strong and when the husband acts like that
because that's a very complementary relationship. But
it's all is all about the heart. Because at the end of the day, if
we focus on our heart, we will know not to miss judge we will
know not to vent our anger in the wrong place.
The way that Allah ma have explained it after studying this,
that the reason why the Prophet sallallahu sallam was so perfect
in his character is because he had equilibrium in all of his inner
faculties.
perfect equilibrium, his heart was perfect. Now, clearly the Prophet
sallallahu Radiosondes heart was washed at least three times, when
in the young age, when he was with Halima, when Saudi or the, Allahu
Allah, His heart is just was, was opened, and his heart was washed
by the angels, then again, it happened before he went up, before
he went to
up to the higher realms, which is during the ascension. And there
was another time that it happened as well. But the main thing is
that the equilibrium was perfect. The way that Allah might have
explained it is that when you have equilibrium in three main
faculties, which literally govern everything, and I'm sure you can
relate to this, one is anger.
Right one is called anger. The other one is desire. And number
three is wisdom and intellect. If you look at the anger aspect,
right, there are four types of people. One is the person who gets
angry very quickly, and comes down very quickly. There's another
person that gets angry after a long time, very delayed anger,
he's got, you know, make a lot of sub then eventually gets angry by
nature is honestly making somebody just just very delayed, very laid
back. Right? It's not necessarily a religious reason. It's just
nature, right? Each one of us has a different nature, and we all
have our own struggles.
And then, when he does get angry, takes him a very long time to calm
down.
Then there's the third person, which was a mixture of the two
gets angry very fast, and
takes a very long time to calm down. But you can expect that
person who's always going to be angry,
then you've got the fourth person who takes a very long time to get
angry, and then comes down very fast, if they ever do become
angry. Which one, are we? Right? Which one are we which is the best
one,
which one is the best one, it's actually obviously the last one.
If it's done on religious principles, that the doesn't get
angry, he or she doesn't get angry until something really major
happens. And when they do, they calm down very fast. Because the
worst one is the one that gets angry very fast, and calms down
very slowly. But regardless of where we are, we need to start
focusing on this anger. If there's too much anger, it leads to
tyranny. It leads to lashing out, it leads to violence, it leads to
murder, it leads to everything that we can think about that when
it's an overabundance of anger. That is why rulers can go in and
annihilate whole peoples, even in the middle of Ramadan, go in with
their tanks and just just indiscriminately kill innocent
people. That's all because of an excessive anger, somebody up there
is very angry, the anger is out of equilibrium.
If you've got too less of an anger, then it will lead to
cowardice. Because you won't even stand up for your rights. Not
because of a religious reason, you know, there's a religious reason
for abstaining from withholding yourself, then look, I can't
bother with this person. I know this is going to lead to a big,
big argument. So let me just restrain myself, that's fine.
That's prudence, that's intelligence. But a person who
just cannot get off for any reason is so laid back cowardice can't go
up and do their job. That's short, that's a shortcoming in our
aspects of anger, then desire is very similar. If somebody has very
less desire, they won't have the desire to get closer to Allah.
From a physical perspective. They won't have they won't fulfill the
husband won't fulfill the why would the wife's desire the wife
will not be able to fulfill the husband's desire in a permissible
way if you've got too much of a shortcoming and desire. If you've
got too much desire, what happens? It leads to kvetch us it leads to
greed. It leads to promiscuity, it leads to all of the other various
vices that we we hear about. It's all just an imbalance of desire.
And seriously, it is because it goes out of control. There was a
* about four or five years ago in America, who
he was discovered after the body of the girl nine year old girl was
discovered in some woods somewhere. And the thing is that
he was a repeat offender. He was already on the list is an old guy,
right? Really, really an old guy. And basically His thing was, I
couldn't help it. Because the equilibrium is out. It's off. So
it then governs you. And that's why Rob
Adan is so effective in dealing with these things. Because we curb
our desires, which is the biggest problem that most of us face.
We're not content with what's been made lawful for us. But we want to
go for variety, because that's what gives us more desire. So
that's desire, then we've got intellect, again, in intellect,
there needs to be enough so that we can run our worldly life, to
use our intellect to learn to study to research, to at least
learn the things to get by with our deen and our life in our
dunya. If somebody has to less of it, they won't be able to function
their deen the dunya will not function. If they have too much of
it, then they will go into realms that are not the domain of the
human intellect, they will try to understand like many of the
philosophers to go beyond and try to understand Allah,
His that his essence, whereas he is inconceivable in his real
essence, and his nature. And many other aspects like the prophets of
Allah Islam told us to avoid discussing predestination to a
deeper level.
Because it's something we're not able to do, we haven't been given
the feed for it. So when you look at these faculties, if they're in
equilibrium, or at least close to it, then the person will have good
character because the heart will be sound.
Give you an example.
There was a director of a major institution in India, a major
religious institution, he felt that he's got some problems with
his heart. There was another scholar who lived in a smaller
area. He went to him and he says, Look, I want to stay with you for
a few days, I want you to observe my practices. And I want you to
point out to me, defects that you see right now going to a scholar
who can do this, who's fought with his knifes, and has achieved some
kind of, you know, they've studied a lot of the deen, there's a lot
of the Quran and the Sunnah, that you'd expect them to know more
than, you know, your friend, maybe your friend knows you better, so
it'd be the best. But finding a friend who can be sincere enough
to tell us our problems is not always easy, because they fear
that your friendship will be lost. So when he when he went to this,
this great scholar, and he said, I want you to observe me.
After a few days, the scholar told him that I want you to straighten
the shoes of everybody that comes in for the prayer.
And this was a village. So you've got these Bedouins that are living
there. And they come with the scruffy slippers. And this Shea
who had gone there for this kind of
spiritual nurturing, you could call it. He was obviously from a
very,
you know, from decent kind of from a very upscale kind of background.
He found it very difficult to straighten these
these tatty slippers, but then eventually, he started doing it.
He is straight into slippers. After a few days, the Sheikh Said,
I see that you're only straightening, you're paying more
attention to the nicer slippers and the ones that are more tatty,
you're not doing that. So then,
he discovered that I've got still some kind of pride and arrogance
in me that I feed my self too high to be able to do that. So then he
said, when I started straightening those smaller ones, those more
Tatio ones, the dirty ones, the muddy ones, coming just from the
field, I felt that I had accomplished a great deal. I felt
I had recognized myself, pride and arrogance is one of the most
difficult things to take out of the hut.
It's very difficult because it's so hidden. It's just so in that
you don't you justify to ourselves. And what scares me a
lot is that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, that whoever
wants to be heard, we will make him to be heard. Whoever wants to
be known man, some might Osama Allah Hubei right, whoever wants
to be heard about we will make them to be heard. Which basically
means that just because we become famous for something, whether it
be a good lecture, a good recitation, whatever it may be
good medical practice.
We must not think that that is guarantee for our success, maybe
worldly success, but it's not spiritual success, because there
may be a lot of ostentation in there.
But again, these things are very difficult. Because sometimes
there's a hadith there's a hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu, which
says that if somebody is praised for something good that they've
done
in this world, and they have been trying their best not to do it for
anybody but Allah, then consider that to be an advanced glad
tidings for you in this world.
How do you determine when something is done advanced glad
tiding or is
Some something praise which is blowing up your ego.
That's why some of the scholars have said that the absolute
opposite the antithesis of pride and arrogance is to be moto
Schachter. The opposite of being moto Kabir is to be moto Shakira.
If a person does abundant sugar, and gray is has gratitude for
everything that he he or she has attained, they will never be more
with a color. The reason is that we will return everything to Allah
subhanaw taala.
Because when you're thanking Allah subhanaw taala for getting into
UCL one of the top universities I think it was, I don't know if it
still is.
Play with your ego but in it.
So as is better.
I guess the guys who made the rankings were from UCL, so they
put it up.
Anyway, so Ramadan, we shouldn't lie.
So
where was I know?
What a shocker. If you're thankful that look, because when you get
into a, you know, look at this experience, you go into a class,
there's some great lecture and you it was a complicated lecture, and
you understood it, and some of the others didn't, how would you feel,
but you feel elated, that your intellect has allowed you to grasp
these difficult discussions. So you feel and you think about
somebody else that doesn't know that and you think I know more
than them, you know, they would never be able to understand these
other thoughts that shaytaan brings into into our mind.
However, if we thank Allah that May Allah be thanked that I was
able to understand that you will never be arrogant, if you've got a
lot of wealth, because your father worked hard for it. He was a
clever individual. And he worked hard. And he's able to send you
to, you know, wherever he's able to give you whatever, right? If
you start thinking, there's two ways to think about this, you can
either think that he did it out of his own intellect, which he did.
He did it out of his own efforts, his own hard work, which he did.
But why couldn't Allah choose somebody else, to put that same
kind of hard work your uncle who's not as rich or as not as wealthy,
as not as influential, he could have chosen him over your father,
for instance, so when we thank Allah that he put me in the right
place at the right time, and he's the one who gave me that ability.
And he is the one who made my father wealthy, he's the one who
gave me all of this abundant resources that I have, he gave me
the intellect that I have, then that way, you will never be
arrogant, because you will never think that it's your own. It's
your own, you will be thanking Allah for every achievement that
you have made.
There's a great scholar who once went to, to the Soviet states
after the Soviet Union broke up. And he said that, you know,
because he's one of the newer scholars that had come. It was
very influential. He said, I used to get 1000s of people coming to
these gatherings because they hadn't heard a good religious
speech for years. You know, they they could even read the Quran. So
he said, after every speech now, obviously, you if somebody's 1000s
of people are coming to listen to you how you're going to feel
it hasn't it has an effect on your ego. He said, after every single
talk, I just sit there and make a stefarr that Oh, Allah, it's this
is only you're doing and if I allow this to get to me, then I'm
destroyed myself, then all what I have said has been in vain. May
Allah subhanaw taala give us the Tofik May Allah subhanaw taala
give us the ability to fine tune as much as possible these internal
faculties, if it's too much desire to curb it, if it's too much anger
to curb it with to less than to moderate it, so that you'd never
have any problems in the world. If that was the case. One of the
things that really helps is to always think about the other
person, that nobody should be harmed by me in any way, shape or
form that will help us to stop backbiting somebody from tail
bearing, from spreading rumors about somebody from basically
harming anybody, and will be content with what Allah subhanaw
taala has given us. May Allah subhanaw taala allow this Ramadan
to have its full effect on us of gaining the taqwa and the control
of our desires. May Allah subhanho wa Taala make it a blessed month
for us working with that one and Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen