Finding Balance

Salam Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Taala wabarakatuh, my dear brothers and sisters, in Islam, my dear brothers and sisters in humanity for all of you are great welcome to tonight's Facebook live with your brother own Islam, abdur-rahim green Alhamdulillah. Today, we're going to be talking about finding balance a very, very important topic about being balanced in your life, and how important being balanced and finding balance is. So first of all, of course, all of you.

You know, thank you for joining me, please share because sharing is caring, you want to get as many people here benefiting from this as possible in Sharla, to on

Alhamdulillah, let us start in Sharla, by

let us start by just thinking about this this concept of balance, or let's think about its opposite imbalance. You see, most people, brothers and sisters, the reality is most people are attracted to extremes. This is the reality people are and this is the big plan of our big enemies shaytaan shaytaan will always try to make us go to one extreme or the other extreme. And so either he wants us to go to the extreme of you know of being

of being very lenient in our practice of our religion, he wants us to be not care about practicing our religion, or actually che Tom will also try to take us to the other extreme, to make us fanatical to make us practice to actually be extreme in the practice of religion. And some people may think, you know, is that possible? Is it really possible to be extreme in the practice of religion? And I think part of what the issue is with everybody is what does that mean? What does it really mean to be an extremist? And this is a word that is bandied around a lot now. And of course, we have to realize that for many people who have no religious values, or very, very shallow

religious values, or for those people who are on the extreme of being very liberal, and very lax and relaxed about practicing their religion, when they look at people who practice their religion seriously, from their perspective, those people who practice the religion seriously look like extremists. Okay, and so for those people who practice their religion, other people look like extremists. So where's the balance? Where is the balance between these two extremes? Now, if you've been looking on my Facebook page, you will have noticed this idea that I mentioned on I put up this idea, which I was just reading today in the Quran Subhanallah today I was going to do a Facebook

Live on this topic And subhanAllah I came across this surah in the Quran. So, I will just give the translation of the surah Inshallah, it is Allah, who sent down the book in truth, and the balance by which and in brackets meaning the explanation of that is by which to weigh conduct, and, and,

and what will make you realize that perhaps the hour is close at hand. So if you want to check it out, this isn't the 42nd Surah of the Quran, which is Assura Assura, which very interestingly Assura is the concept in Islam of consultation that is very interesting, because in the whole realm of balance, how do you achieve balance in your life,

this is very important, these are very important concepts and what will make you realize that perhaps the hour is close at hand. So, this is very deep, it is a very, very deep every eye of the Quran is extremely deep is extremely profound, this is knowledge from Allah subhanaw taala. But when we are talking about this question of balance in whatever realm we may think of, but particularly the realm of religion, what is religious extremism? It is Allah who sent down the book and the balance by which the way conduct so the criterion that we must use in order to understand what is the balance point, right? So if you, if you look at a pair of scales, right, a pair of scales, a

pair of scales has a balance point it has something from which the scales hang, right, just hang on a sec. I'm coming back in a sec, right. Okay.

So I have here

I have here a balanced board, right? So it this is you practice balancing on this, right? And so what do you do is you stand on this balance board. So here it is right here is the balance board, and you stand on it here and you stand on it there. And this thing here, this is the pivot point. Okay, this is the pivot point. And just to make it harder for you, it moves around on the floor and stuff like that, it's pretty hard to use it. And actually, brothers and sisters, it's like getting balanced in your life getting balanced in your life is very hard, it is not easy to get balanced in your life. And in order to be balanced, you have to have a strong core, this is key, you have to I

mean, this is in terms of physical fitness, you have to have a strong core, but it's the same thing. If you are going to be mentally balanced, you also have to have a strong core, your basic fundamental ideas, your understanding, the way you view the world, it has to be sound, it has to be sound, if you have an irrational, crazy, warped, distorted lens through which you look at the world and the universe. You How can you ever be balanced? How can you ever have balance, right? If your core is weak, you will never be able to use that balance board. Now the point is there is that pivot point that's what I was showing there is the point in which everything pivots. So if you don't have

this point, if you don't have something on which to pivot, then how will you ever have balance? So the point being here, that what Allah mentions the meaning of witches in the Quran, it is Allah who sent down the book in truth and the balance and Amazon that is the word that is used, okay. Okay, who Allah Who? That is Allah who sent us 10 Zilla al Kitab, Bill Huck, who sent down the book in truth, while me Zan and the balance. So Allah sent the book and the balance now the book and the balance, you may say that the balance is the Sunnah. It is the it is the Sunnah it is human intellect as well. Okay. So the the point being the point being here, brothers and sisters, is that

you need a criterion, you need some means by which you can know where is the balance point. So if we take this ongoing discussion about religious extremism, okay, now, of course, like most people, most people would not like to be accused of being a religious extremist, I certainly don't like to be accused of being religious extremists. And it's something that I have been accused of. Now, the thing is, any one of us at any time in our life may fall into an extreme, it's inevitable. No human being no human being, it is impossible for a human being to constantly live a permanently balanced life, I do not believe it is possible. And that's just because the nature of human beings, we are

fallible, we are limited. We make mistakes, as the Prophet Muhammad said that the son of Adam sins by night and sins by date, sin, by definition is being imbalanced, it is being imbalanced. So this is the reality, we are always going to fall to one degree or another. Now, that way that we fall, maybe a little or it may sometimes be a lot. Okay? So that's the first thing no one is everything they say, and everything they do is not always going to be balanced. A person is always at some times going to make mistakes fall to one extreme or another extreme, but nobody more or less Nobody that I know of likes to be accused of being an extremist. Now, the thing here is that the criterion

in Islam, for who is an extremist from the Islamic perspective, is not what Theresa May may say, or Donald Trump, or any other philosopher or thinker or girl builders, for example, or, you know, or someone who may be more balanced than those people. It's still not their decision, right, it is still not their decision, who is balanced and what is balance. Even we have to say that amongst ourselves as Muslims, who is the one that decides what balance is, it is the book that is fundamentally what is the pivot point, the point that determines what is balance is Al Kitab, it is de m. And it is of course, the actual example of

of the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him.

And not just that it is not only the book, and it is not only the example of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace and blessings be upon him, but it is also we have to look at the behavior and the understanding of those people who surrounded the Prophet Muhammad. So this is the beautiful thing we find. So may God's peace in Salallahu Alaihe Salam. So we find that in Islam, we have these layers of interpretation, because one of the things you find people say, Oh, it's all a matter of interpretation, it's all a matter of interpretation. You know, religion, it's all a matter of interpretation. Well, in some respects, that is true. That's not completely false. But it's not

completely true either. Because interpretation in Islam, you have to understand the Quran, the book, the book of Allah, which has been sent down in truth. Allah sent this book God the Creator, Allah sent this book to be understood. It's a book of understanding it's a book to be understood. It is a book of guidance, barely kilkee Terrible law, right. Bothy hood, the little motor train, this is the book delicate look without doubt, it is guidance, it is guidance for the upright people. So the Quran is a book of guidance, it's there to be understood. Now, of course, the Quran was revealed in Arabic, and according to our tradition, according to our scholars, and as far as I know, no one

differs about this, that the Quran is only the Quran in Arabic. So the first or you could say the first way we have to interpret the Quran is by understanding the Arabic language. What did these words mean in Arabic? And not only brothers and sisters in Arabic? What did that word mean? In the time of the Prophet Muhammad salah, because we know words changed their meaning, right? So what did it mean in the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Because peace and blessings be upon him? What did this word mean? What did this concept entail in the time of the Prophet because maybe the meaning has shifted over time we live now 1400 years later, the meaning of the words in Arabic

may have changed. So an Arab, even an Arab reading the Quran now could get a meaning from that that is not the intended meaning maybe those words and those concepts are somewhat different. So this is the first thing. The second thing is the Quran is understood and explained by the Prophet Muhammad and Allah himself in the Quran appointed the Prophet Muhammad to be the one who explained the verses of the Quran, Allah appointed the prophet to be the one who explained the verses of the Quran, this is actually in the Quran. And the Quran tells us again and again to refer to Allah and the messenger, and that we should make the messenger the one who judges between us in our disputes. But

not only that, Allah also refers us to the Seville of the Seville of the movement in which means the way of the believers the understanding of the believers, and those are primarily as we know, as well from what the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam said, they are the companions. Now, when we look at this, all of these things, we bring it together, then we have a balanced, we have a balanced viewpoint. So it's something actually this is really make sense. And I often ask people, Who do you think, understood the religion of Jesus the best, the people who lived with him? The people who were his disciples, the people who learn from him directly? Or people who came 567 100 years later? Well,

nearly everybody will say, Well, his disciples, well, how about the Prophet Muhammad? May God's peace and blessings be upon him or Prophet Moses? Or in fact, any teacher, any professor, any, you know, master, who is teaching people, Surely his immediate students are going to be the one who are not only going to hear his words, but see his actions, understand his behaviors, all of these things. So this just makes complete sense. So when we talk about religious extremism, brothers and sisters, right, we have to be very, very careful, because we may jump on this bandwagon accusing people of being extremists and say he's an extremist, and she's an extremist. And, okay, it's bad

enough that you may be slandering and attacking and maligning your Muslim brother and sister unjustly and you may be committing injustice to them. And by the way, this goes for any human being. Right? We should be careful what we say about anybody. We should be careful. What we accused people of even to be honest, even Trump, even our prime ministers, our rulers, you know, I'm very reluctant to believe what

newspapers say what the media says. Because my experience of them has generally not been a very good one, my own personal experience has not been a good one. So there are lots of lies going out there, it's very, very hard to know what to believe. That is why it is we are so lucky, we are so fortunate that Allah has given us this book, this criterion. And this means Zahn, this balance, Allah, God, the Creator has given us the balance, the balance is this criterion. It's what we can know what is the right way to behave, and what is the right way to behave. Now brothers and sisters, one of the things I really want to please implore you,

I want to ask you, please, don't be judgmental, don't be a person who is judging everybody. It is very easy to listen to this talk. And think of everybody and think of everyone except yourself. And this is often how it is, when we hear talks like this, when we hear a talk about how the husband should treat the wife and how the wife should treat the husband. Usually the husband is listening to this talk and thinking, you see my wife doesn't treat me like that. And the wife is listening to the talk and thinking you see my husband doesn't treat me like that. And the kids are listening to the talk about the parent child relationship. And the kids are thinking, Oh, my parents, they don't get

treated me fairly. And the parents are thinking, Oh, my kids, don't treat me fairly.

You see, really, it's sad, because what we should be doing is concentrating on ourselves. Because at the end of the day, it's going to be you, as Allah says in that one idea. And what will make you realize that perhaps the hour is close at hand?

What does that mean? It means your death, because the hour, the day of judgment for you is the day you die, the day of judgment for me is the day I die. That's the reality, the actual day of judgment, when the world ends, it could be in 40 years, who knows maybe the jewel is on his way already in the next 10 years. Who knows, we don't know, we can talk about that. I'm sorry, for those of you who missed that dog, we'll have another one sometime. But the point is, we get obsessed, the man is coming is is coming that the doll is coming, the end of the world is coming the science and you know, for good reason. The Prophet told us about these things, we should think about them, but

probably much more immediate. But on the other hand, it could be 1000 years, it could be 2000 years, it could be three it could be 10,000 years in the whole of human history. 10,000 years is still not long.

But your day of judgment is definitely going to be very soon. Because the day you die will be very, very soon the day I die and the day you die is going to be very, very soon. Some brothers and sisters, please think about this. Being mindful of death is very important. If you are constantly realizing and thinking and remembering that you could die today, you may die in your sleep tonight, however young you are, you may be 17 You may be 25 You may be 33 You may be 60. You don't know maybe you will die tonight in your sleep, maybe you have some fault in your heart, you have something you don't even know and you will die. You may be like this poor woman she was in Wolverhampton and some,

you know, the wind gusts of 90 miles an hour,

you know,

blew something and hit her and killed her. I was watching some horrific YouTube video of some guy just walking down the street and this tire comes shooting across the road and smacks It was horrific. I feel sick. Literally this guy was just literally just walking along the road plan like that. We don't know when death is gonna come. We don't know how long we've got. So maybe as Allah says, what will make you realize what is going to make you understand that perhaps the hour is at hand, your hour is at hand. My hour is at hand. Now if you think like that, how will you live your life seriously, if you really think today is my last day.

And then I'm going to meet Allah

to be honest, even if you're not a Muslim, and you're listening to me, right? Even if you don't believe in Allah, and you don't believe in in, you know, a day of judgment, which is most certainly true. But even if you don't still thinking about death, gives your life immediacy. It makes you appreciate the reality of the now. You see brothers and sisters, a lot of us we get carried away, either worrying about what we did in the past, Oh, if only I had done this and if only I'd done that. Or we get obsessed about our future. I want to do this and I want to be like that. And you know we worry so much about the future and we might worry so much about the past. We forget to live

in this exact moment.

On this present moment,

I wonder how many of us are even doing that right now. I mean, I'm not because my brain is way too busy just thinking about what I'm going to talk to you about. But I wonder how many of you who are listening, your minds are wandering here and there in the past and into the future. And you're not really focusing on concentrating and benefiting on this moment, right here right now.

So brothers and sisters, this issue of balance is very, very important. Maybe what is going to make you realize if you live in this moment, and you live in this present, and you think about now,

then hopefully, you will really make an effort to behave in the best way. But what is the best way I go back to this very important question, what is the best way? What is the balanced way? Well, if you are not familiar with the Quran, if you're not familiar with what the Prophet Muhammad taught,

you are not you're going to be lost, you are, you're not going to be lost, but completely, but you will be very, very disabled in this regard. And I was thinking about this, I think this is actually why any religion, you see what you will find in the Quran, is that why does Allah give the people of the Book, the Jews and the Christians a special status, there's no doubt if you read the Quran, you will find that Jews and Christians have a special status within the Islamic system within the Islamic governance system, they are allowed to follow their own laws have their own laws?

And why why why are they given a particular place? Why does Allah talk about them in a way that he does not talk about, say, for example, the pagans, the pagan Arabs? And I think a big reason to do with that is that the Jews and Christians have a book, that's why they call a halal kitab. And because they have a book, they have a clear criterion, a clear criteria, and that teaches them about right and wrong, how they should be and how they shouldn't be. What are the limits of behavior? What are the laws through which we should live? This is very, very important, because think about it, how will you be balanced in your life? How will you even know what the balance is, if you don't have

some criterion like that, and if the criteria is just one you make up for yourself, the problem is, the reality is the reality is it will change constantly, all the time. Brothers and sisters, just a proof pause, brief pause here, please share, if you haven't shared already share this video, who knows who might benefit from listening to this talk in sha Allah, we have amazing stories of people who, you know, someone shared the video with them, someone shared it with them, and Alhamdulillah they were about to commit some sin and they stopped or something, you know, bad thoughts were coming to them and they cheered up. So you never know the benefit, you just press a button that says share,

someone listens to this talk and Alhamdulillah in May Allah inshallah give you big rewards. So brothers and sisters, I want to move on a little bit, I think I've talked very clearly about the importance of the criteria and the pivot point the book in the summer as a means of balance. But one of the things I wanted to talk about just to think about ourselves, so my main point was, please think about yourself, don't use this talk as a thing to judge other people. It's for you, it's for you to change your life. And in reality, if you find balance in your life, if all of you who are listening to this and Alhamdulillah like for example, in the last last Facebook Live that I did

50,000 people have watched it master if 50,000 people if 50,000 of you actually really implement and practice these things in your own life and you try to find balance in your own life, then what is humanity humanity is really just a gathering of lots of people. And if all the people have balanced humanity will have balance. So we need to focus on ourselves and the reason is an A very important thing is this. Every one's balance can be slightly different. Every one is different.

Okay, this is very important to understand.

So this is very important. And if we look at the companions of the Prophet, for example, let's look at Abdullah bin Omar. Abdullah bin Omar ibn Al Fatah. So he is the son of Omar bin al Khattab, Abdullah Omar was known for his strict adherence to following the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace and blessings be upon him and he was very, very attached to Ibadah and to making worship and to praying so much so that his

Father did not consider him a suitable person to be a ruler over the people. And the reason was because he was too attached to his worship. Now you could say, well, Abdullah, even Omar was imbalanced? Well, maybe in the from the point of view of needing to be a ruler and a governor over the people, you have to have a certain particular type of balance in your life. But for Abdullah ibn Omar, this is the balance that he needed. This was the place that he needed to know he needed to be for him self. And this is very important. We're all individuals, what may be balanced for you, in some things is not balanced for somebody else, your own work life balance, Dean dunya balance may

not be the same as somebody else's. So it's a real problem, when we start to impose our idea of what being balanced is upon everybody else. You know, of course, we advise each other, and when wrong is clearly being done, we should try to forbid it. And we should try to encourage good. But primarily, we have to focus on ourselves. And we need to always realize that what is balanced for you may not be balanced for me. And which may not be balanced for your kids and your family. And for what people in England need may be different from what people in Pakistan need and so on and so forth. It goes on and on. And on. My main point being brothers and sisters this week too preoccupied with judging

everybody. Honestly, if most of us stopped looking at everybody else's faults and picking on everyone else's faults, and spent more time concentrating on ourselves, the world would be a whole lot better as a place. So that's my advice, brothers and sisters. Right. So I'm gonna go through some notes. Now, one of the things that I saw one of the things I mentioned, one of the things I put down in my notes, is some examples of imbalance. This is for you and me brothers and sisters, let's think about this. Do you talk about things in absolute or extreme terms? For example, do you say things like, that's terrible? That's awful. I hate it. I hate him. I hate her. I love them. I love

this thing. I love that person. I adore it. I worship her. I'm in fact, you know, I'm crazy about it. Do you say things like it's absurd? It's filthy. It's despicable. It's a disgrace. I'm going to kill him, I'm going to murder her. Do you say things about yourself? I'm betrayed, I'm abandoned. I'm lost. I'm nothing. I'm starving. I'm dying of thirst.

Okay, do you find yourself saying to people, you never do anything for me, you never treat me nicely, you're always like this. And you're always like that. And you always say this. And you always say that. All of these types of phrases, and I'm sure you can think of lots of others, they are extreme. They're all exaggerations. They're all extreme ways of talking. Now, why is that important? That is important because for any of you who have done my any of you studied psychology, any of you have done my seven pillars of willpower course gone to mastery classes.com You sign up for my course you know one very important thing, what you occupy your mind with it gets good at. If

you occupy your mind with thinking sad thoughts, you get very good at singing, thinking sad thoughts. If you occupy your mind with being conscious of Allah, you get good at being conscious of Allah, if you if you talk a lot in exaggerated terms, you that that connects to your mind. Okay, and your mind becomes exaggerated you think in an exaggerated way. And then you will inevitably behave in an exaggerated way. This is what you will do. So you may find a person who talks like that also behaves like that one day, they will be smiling one minute, they will be smiling at you the next minute, they're looking at you like what did I do wrong, and it may just be some little thing, like,

you know, you drank from their glass of water, and they look at you like with dagger eyes, like they're gonna kill you. This is extremism. This is imbalance. And you'll find often that a person who behaves like that talks like that, too. They talk like that. Now I can understand in a world where it's so hard to be heard. It is hard to be heard. There are so many things competing for everybody's attention. You know, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, even what social media platform they use, or like all of them, and the TV and music and books and films. And you know, it's it's very easy to put on a drama, because when you're dramatic, you don't like them being dramatic now so I

can get your attention. You get people's attention, which is perfectly understandable. But at the end of the day, why do you want people's attention? Really? What do you want? What do

You want from everybody. You see, this is the beauty when you live a life that is centered around pleasing Allah, pleasing people is not important to you, what people think about you is not what is really important. What is important is pleasing Allah, and whether people like you or they don't like you, you know you only care about that in respect or in. How can I say you only care about that, within the context of what will people's image of Islam be? Right? So the Prophet Muhammad, may God's peace and blessings be upon him. He didn't want to harm the hypocrite, he knew that he knew who the modern African were, he knew who the hypocrites were. But people said, Well, why don't

you get rid of them? Why don't you you know, why didn't you kill them? Or why don't you lock them up or whatever, right. And the Prophet Muhammad said, I don't want people to say Mohammed hurts his people, Muhammad Hamza is people. And that is because he didn't want people to have a bad image, the wrong image of Islam.

Islam is a religion of tolerance and mercy, it's inclusive, this is what is very, very important. And the Prophet Muhammad wanted people to understand that. So of course, what we say in the way we behave, we do need to think about that, in respect to the image people have about Islam and Muslims. And that's something I would really ask all of you brothers and sisters to consider, to consider very, very seriously expect, especially those of you who are living in America, in the USA, who are living here in England, in Europe, in the West, actually, all over the world, it doesn't matter how we behave as Muslims is very important. If we behave badly if we give a bad image of ourselves and

we give, if we if we have, if we give people a bad impression, they will have a bad impression of Islam. That's the reality. Now I was just reading about what this good builders were saying. And he's saying, Oh, he's cool, calling Moroccan scum. And he's saying we're going to ban Islam, we're going to ban Muslims is going to close down losses. And this is what he's saying. This is what this guy is saying. And people are voting for him and people are supporting him. It's shocking. And it's sad. It is really sad. And what does he say? He says things like, well just look at those Muslim countries. Look at them. They don't respect the rule of law. There's crime, they disrespect women.

And he mentioned the list of things. The sad thing is the some of the stuff that he's saying is actually genuinely true.

Right? Do Muslims respect the rule of law? in Muslim countries? Do they respect the law? Really? Do they respect the laws?

I don't know. Brothers and sisters. It's this is the problem, right? And we forget that when we behave badly,

we give a bad image of Islam.

Okay, so now I want to talk about some extremes in our behavior. Right? So I've got here enjoying good and forbidding evil. Right? So how can we? How can we have extremism in enjoying good and forbidding evil? Of course, enjoying what is right and forbidding what is wrong is absolutely essential in Islam. You've probably heard me going on and on about it. Tao how important Tao is. However, it's one of the characteristics. It's one of the characteristics of this ummah. But another characteristic of this are my brothers and sisters. Okay? Another characteristic of this OMA is what Allah told us in the Quran. What Calverley kar Jha come on Mattoon was satin.

This is what Allah said about us. That we are that Allah has made you a justly balanced community. So this is one of the characteristics of this ummah, one of the characteristics of the Ummah is we are supposed to be justly balanced just And subhanAllah justice and balance they are, they come together. In fact, every imbalance is a type of injustice. If you think about it, think about it. Every imbalance is a type of injustice and every injustice is a type of imbalance. Because true justice means giving everyone their true rights and not depriving anybody of their rights. When you deprive someone of their rights. You have oppressed them and you have been unjust to them. When the

child does not give the right to the parents, they have oppressed their parents. when the wife does not give the rights to the husband, she has oppressed her husband, she's been unjust. When a husband does not give his rights to his wife. He's been unjust when the ruler does not give the rights to the ruled It's injustice. And when the rule do not give their rights to the ruler, it's injustice. Even if you treat an animal in the wrong way, if you give if you have a camel and you give it too much to carry, you have a horse and you treat it you know you give it you

You write it too long to exhaustion. It's injustice. It is injustice and injustice is very, very, very serious. The Prophet Muhammad said it will stand as darkness on the day of judgment. And this characteristic brothers and sisters of being of being the automaton was Alton, right? The omoton, Washington was was upon the this justly balanced among this is something a characteristic that was manifest in the sahaba. It was this was the companions of the Prophet, they had this characteristic. This is why people would write to the Muslims, they would write to the Muslims. For example, there was a letter written to Omar bin al Khattab by the Christians of Syria, saying, Come, please come

and liberate us from the rule of the Byzantines. Though, even though the Byzantines are Christian, they are our brothers in faith, they are unjust to us and we know that you will be just the reputation of the justice of the Muslims, even in the very earliest days of Islam had become renowned they were known for that justice. So this is a characteristic brothers and sisters, you need to work very, very, very hard on yourself to be just to be it is so important. When we are unjust it is imbalanced and imbalanced, by definition is injustice. So this topic of enjoying the right and forbidding the wrong, okay? It is not absolute in Islam, this is very important. You see,

our objective is always to achieve the maximum good and forbid the maximum evil. If you are trying to prevent an evil but you create a worse evil, then you've created imbalance then you have been imbalanced in your application of enjoying what is right and forbidding what is wrong? Okay? So the idea that whenever you see a wrong you have to change it, every single wrong that you do, you have to know you do have to change it, but not always with your hands not even necessarily with your mouth. Sometimes there is an evil, but even the Sharia even the guidance of Allah, the Sharia is Allah's guidance, it is the way we live our life, right? That it prevents us. So for example, if

there were Christians living in a Muslim land, and these Christians had alcohol,

generally they are permitted to have alcohol. If you went to their house or you went into someone you smashed their alcohol, then would this be allowed. This is not allowed for you to do that. This is not allowed. So even though the alcohol is evil, there's no doubt it is evil. And it is a big, big wrong, and it is a cause of great harm. But still you are not allowed to change that evil in that way. Do you understand? So we can be extreme in our application of the rules of enjoying enjoying the right and forbidding the wrong? So we hear lots of stories about this. And maybe some of them are true, maybe some of them are false. But the point is, and sometimes it's just sheer

ignorance. Now give you another example, from the time of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi. Salam, there was when they went out for an expedition, one man got wounded with a sword. And in the night when they were sleeping, he had a wet dream. So he went to some of the companions. And he said to them, I have this wound in my head and I had a wet dream, do it should I do I have to take the hosel? And they said, Yes, you have to take also it's you can't pray without muscle. So it took also water went inside the wound, and he died from this. So when he when they came back and the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam heard about this, he was very angry. And he said to these

people, he said, You killed him, may Allah kill you. You killed him. May Allah kill you very strong words. Yes, the prophet can use the law as a very strong words. And the Prophet said, If you don't know, ask those who don't know. You see, so this is a wrong understanding of how to enjoin right and forbid wrong, it's a wrong way of giving advice. It's having limited knowledge, based upon your limited knowledge, you force something upon someone and it causes a worse harm. So, this is very, very important, we need to be balanced, we need to be balanced in our whole approach to enjoying what is right and forbidding what is wrong, we need to be balanced in our approach to doubt.

Also, how about this famous you know this often thing that is mentioned Dean and dunya? Where is the balance between Dean and dunya? This is, this is quite this is a very important topic. Now when I say Dean, I mean our religion where is the balance between our religious life and our worldly life? Now some people unfortunately, use this as an excuse to do haram to do forbidden things.

That is not what is intended here.

The balance between Dean and dunya Well, the religion first of all we have to understand our deen is means a way of life and it is all encompass

Seeing and it covers everything. In fact, really a Muslim is trying to do everything in their life in a way that's pleasing to Allah. Whatever you do, whether it's your work,

whether it's even your play, how you relax, everything can be with the right intention, something that is pleasing to Allah. And that is actually something that we should try to aim for. But generally, when we talk about this, deen and duniya, we think about a person's religious life. Now this happened in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, may God's peace and blessings be upon him. There was a particular woman and one companion, someone was talking to this woman, I don't remember exactly who it was or the thing I can find it. Okay. And he he was complaining, how is your life with your husband? And and she was saying, yes, he's a very good man. I can't complain about him.

He's very pious, but this person realized that no, there was something wrong. So he kept pressing to find out well, what is this? What is that? What is the you know, what is the issue? And she said, Well, he spends all his time praying. All his night, he is praying every time he is fasting. So what is she saying is that he has no relationship with her. He's not being intimate with his wife. He's praying all night. He's fasting in the day, there is no time for him to be with his wife. So he is so busy and worship so busy in these things, he's not giving his wife her rights. So this one companion went to this other companion and he took him aside. And he said to him, Listen, your body

has a right on you. Your body has a right on you. So you need to sleep sometimes and you need to pray as well. It's not all pray you need to sleep. And your wife has a right on you. Everything has a right you have to give everything its rights. It can't all be Pray, pray, pray false. passpost if you are married, your wife has right she has needs you have to give her those rights and needs

your body as well. Don't you don't damage and destroy your body. fasting and praying and all of these things. You need sleep, it's necessary for your health for your good functioning of your mind. This is the right of your body. So brothers and sisters, this is what we're talking about the balance between the deen in the dunya. Also, in terms of giving Allah tells us a warns us in the Quran. When you give charity don't give so much that you leave yourself with nothing. Don't give so much that you leave yourself with nothing and that you leave your family with nothing. This is what the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he warned us about its better a man when he dies,

he actually forbade a person from giving more than a third of their inheritance in charity. Why? Because the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa salam, why do you want to leave your family on the street, you die and you leave them bereft? You leave them with nothing, you leave them begging? This is not correct. This is not right. This is imbalanced. And this is why you see Islam as a beautiful balance. Religion is all about balance. But then on the other hand, there's the other extreme, of course, the other extreme is, you're so busy with your world with your dunya you're so busy working, you're so busy playing you're so busy with everything you forget your prayers you don't pray at

night, you don't do any extra files. You don't read Quran, you don't study Islam, you have no way of building your knowledge of your religion. You make no effort on that all the time. It's Facebook, its Twitter, its Snapchat, it's

you know, hanging with your friends, you know, playing partying, whatever. Working. How many people Oh, I don't have time to pray. I'm so busy working. What nonsense what absolute complete rubbish and nonsense. Oh, I have to feed your family. Yes, you have to feed your family, but you have to pray. There is a balance and you find that most people fall into one extreme or the other extreme. So this is what we mean about having a balance between your deen and your donate dunya it does not mean doing haram. So sometimes you find you find people that have a wedding and in this wedding, people are not wearing hijab. It is mixed there is music. It's not segregated. You know, it doesn't follow

really the rules of Islam. Okay. And they say well, you know, don't be extreme. We have deen and we have dunya this deen and duniya And so no, this is it's not an excuse brothers and sisters to do haram things Deen having the balance between teen and dunya does not mean that you do haram. That's not what it means. Okay.

So brothers and sisters, this is very, very important. Okay.

So, there's another thing that

knowledge and action let's talk about knowledge

seeking knowledge is very, very important. seeking knowledge is something that is very important.

seeking knowledge is something that is very, very important. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Allah subhanaw taala in the Quran has told us about the virtues of knowledge, the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has talked about the virtues of seeking religious knowledge. So how could we be imbalanced in that, while we could be imbalanced in seeking knowledge, when we fail to implement and act upon that knowledge?

Right, this is very, very important. This is very, very important, even in the time, when the Hadith were flourishing and the knowledge that in the knowledge of the narrator's of the Hadith was something that a lot of people would spend a lot of time searching into this and looking into this.

There are scholars who had real issues with the fact that a person spent so much effort and so much energy and so much time trying to find the shortest, isn't it? So every Hadith has two parts, right? It has the matter, which is the text, which is the thing the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, in normal, in normal male or Bibliotek, this is an example, virtually every action is judged by intention. So this is the text and then you have the isnaad, you have the chain of narrators. So you know, maybe, for example, this person heard from that person who heard from this person who heard from Abu Huraira, or from a shell from Abu Bakr, or

whoever it may be, I believe in a bass or whoever, who heard from the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam. So now, people were always trying to find the shortest, isn't it the shortest route to the save on the Prophet, because the shorter it is, the less the less people in between, then the stronger the hadith is, right? The more you know, the closer it is to the prophets. Awesome. So people spend a lot of time trying to find these, these Hadith the short is not and traveling everywhere. But some scholars noted that there were people so obsessed with this, they didn't even seem to care what the Hadith said, this is a saying of the Prophet. The Prophet is saying something,

and he's telling us something, and a person is so obsessed with finding the shortest. It's not, they don't even act on what that hadith is say. So knowledge is for action. That's the reason we seek knowledge, we seek knowledge in order to be able to translate it into action. That's the purpose of seeking knowledge. So extremism in seeking knowledge is when we're just seeking it. And why because we want more and more and more information. That's what it is. It's like we love to have encyclopedias in our head books, Razor rows and rows and rows of books. But we don't act on that knowledge. This is extremism.

The other extremism is action. Without knowledge. This is also an extreme action without knowledge. And this is a big disease amongst us, unfortunately, a lot of action without knowledge, thinking we are doing things that are pleasing to Allah, that in fact, they are innovations, they are new things, they are things that were never taught in Islam, this happened this is this is a very, very big problem. This is a very big imbalance. And this is, this is another issue, doing acts thinking that they are pleasing to Allah, their acts of worship, but they are not supported by the Sharia, right, this is the other extreme. So we need to find the balance, the balance is to have knowledge

and implement that knowledge and to act upon what we know and to make sure that what we do is based upon sound knowledge, this is the balanced position that we so you see balances very important brothers and sisters and everything. Okay? Now, this is something general you know, a lot of these things by the way, even if you're not a Muslim, this all of this stuff may apply, you can just apply it generally, actually, generally, to any field, not just religion. So another thing is that the balance between intellect and emotion. Now a person may think intellect is all good, but no, emotions are very important. Emotions are very important. Love, even hate, fear, they're all useful

and they are beneficial hope,

trust, Reliance or reverence. These are very, very important things, especially when it comes to our worship with Allah subhanaw taala. This is something that scholars have talked about a lot. And again, what we find is that if a person in their, in their approach to Allah approaches Allah with love, and only love, then it is quite possible that a person who is connected to Allah with love and that and that is imbalanced than they may actually have a tendency to not take certain prohibitions

seriously because they, their focus is that Allah is merciful. Allah is forgiving Allah as loving allies kind. It doesn't matter. Allah is merciful. It doesn't matter. Allah is forgiving. It doesn't matter. Allah is kind.

And all of that is true. Allah is merciful. No one is more merciful and more forgiving, a more kind than ALLAH that is true. Right? But Allah is also shahidul apoB. He's also the severe and punishment, and no one will punish more severely than Allah. No one's punishment is worse than Allah's punishment. No one you cannot imagine a punishment worse than Allah's punishment and you cannot imagine a bliss and a goodness and a happiness more than Allah's happiness. So Omar ibn Al Kitab, he said, What did he say? Okay? He said that I, you know, that if I was to stand in front of Allah, I, and with with no good whatsoever, I would still hope that Allah would forgive me and if I

stood in front of Allah with so much good, I would still be afraid that Allah was going to punish me. So this is the thing we need to have balance the balance between fearing Allah and loving and hoping in Allah. Of course if we the other extreme, You're just afraid of Allah. Allah is going to punish you and it's gonna put you in hell hellfire, hellfire, sin, sin sin, then this person can have two things. Maybe this person may fall into despair. They may despair of Allah's mercy, they may despair of Allah's forgiveness, or they may be so strict, so strict, as if you know you do one haram thing. One thing that's it, you're finished, you're in help. Okay, this is extreme. Both of

these things are extremes and we need to be balanced Brothers Sisters balanced so what we're looking for balance, okay.

Another thing a general issue we can have is between haste and delay, right? Doing things too quickly. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said haste is from Shaytaan, accepting a few things haste is from Shaytaan generally being hasty and hurrying to do things and doing things in a haste and being in a hurry. And really, you find a lot of the modern world is Hurry, hurry, hurry, haste, haste. Haste is one of those things we actually have to fight. You know, really? We've lost that, unfortunately. Okay, so this is one issue. Always being too hasty doing things too quickly. It's very hard to find this balance in life, brothers and sisters, that you need to try and find the

balance. So what's the other extreme is delaying procrastinating?

Yes, we need to take our time, we need to consider things we need to pause and plan. That's that is really what willpower is all about pausing and planning, the ability to pause and plan to delay your gratification, and to think about the consequences of what you do. But on the other hand, the other extreme is procrastination, you delay and you delay and you delay and you delay and then you miss the boat altogether, like those companions, if you remember the story of those companions, who were left behind in one of the battles, because they were just delaying and delaying. And yes, I'll get ready tomorrow, I'll get my stuff ready tomorrow. Of course, in those days, they'd have to prepare

everything, they have to get their horses, their provisions, get everything ready.

And they delay and they delay in the delay and then the day comes and nothing has been done. The day comes and nothing has been done. So this is procrastination. And that can lead to destruction as well. If you procrastinate about your prayers, if you procrastinate about your acts of worship, where will you be, you'll be destroyed. So you have to find the balance you have to find the balance between haste and procrastination and delay. How about being scrappy and being tidy? Right? Where is there a balance is it like yes, of course there's extremes there are extremes the prophet the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Woe be to the worshiper of the dinar, and the Durham will

be to the worship of the the finely embroidered clothes. So this is something very dangerous that a person who is so obsessed with fine clothes, as if you know, wearing all these amazing clothes is the key to happiness in their life. And if they don't have nice stuff, they're miserable. So yes, it is good to be tidy, it's good to be nice. It's good to be clean in Islam, that's very, very important. But you can take it to an excess you can be excessive about that you can be extreme. Even the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam didn't encourage the men not to encourage not to comb their hair all the time, not even every day, to let leave your hair some days not always to be brushing it

not always to be you know, pampering yourself and making yourself look so beautiful and this and that. For women. It is different, of course, but for men, they shouldn't do that they shouldn't have this obsessive type of

obsession with how they look. On the other hand, you shouldn't be so scruffy You look like a shakedown. Right? You look like some devil. Right? You stink like a devil. You look like a devil right now. This is the other

Extreme. Islam is the balanced way, you know, you need to find the balance brothers and sisters you need to find the balance. Okay? And again, the balance between being clean and being dirty. Now of course In Islam there are rules of cleanliness. There are things you have to be clean from nudges, filth, impurities, but some people take this to such an extreme and they go so far. So for example, they have a house and the carpet is perfectly clean but they have to put another carpet on top of their carpet before they play on it pray on it, even though it's perfectly clean. Why? You know people have you know, it's may surprise some people that the in the time of the Prophet Muhammad

sallallahu alayhi wa sallam the Prophet they used to pray with their shoes on they used to pray with their shoes on and the Prophet told them sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to pray with their shoes on so sometimes we have an excessive type of idea of cleanliness what it really means and we forget that Islam is very practical, you know, when you know something is dirty, remove it. But generally for example, there's a famous you're maybe not famous enough when the Prophet SAW son was walking once with Omar ibn Alpha tub and someone threw something from a roof and in those days when people threw things from roof it could often be the urine and you know, because they would have like basins they

would you know, go to the toilet and and they would throw that unfortunately in the middle of the street. So Oh, my look almost sent to that person. What was in that because it splashed on his clothes. And the Prophet said, don't reply to that person don't reply any turn to Omni said, what you don't know when it will not harm you. So meaning you don't in Islam, we don't go out of our way to find out if you know, you know, if you know, this is not just you know, it's not just if you really think there may be some nudges fine, but you don't go out of your way. You don't be excessive this way. Other way you be open to the whispering of shaytaan you will always think oh, I'm dirty.

I'm not just I'm this and that. So Islam, again, it's all about balance brothers and sisters. Yes, cleanliness is half of Eman. But don't go to extremes. Don't be extreme in this. Some people are really extreme. You know, they won't they won't walk in the mud because I don't know they have something mud is like dirt. Mud is you know, you make tire move on dust when you can't have water. How can it's not nudges. Right? So people are so extreme, this is a wrong thing. We need to have the balanced way brothers and sisters, okay.

Another thing that we need to find is a balance between being passive and aggressive. Right being passive and aggressive. Sometimes we can be too passive, too peaceful. Sometimes we can be too aggressive,

too quiet and too loud.

You can love too much. And you can hate too much. You can work too much you can play too much. So, brothers and sisters, what I'm saying is we have to find the balance and Alhamdulillah. When you study Islam, when you study the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, you will have a really, really good insight into the balance. Now. I'm just going to finish now brothers and sisters. Okay.

In a few minutes, but one of the things that I really, really wanted to

concentrate on, are there some things that there is balanced doesn't exist?

Yes, I think there are other some things that can you be too generous? Can you be too caring? Can you be too loving? Can you be too honest? Can you be too kind? Can you be tolerant, too tolerant? And I think the answer to some of these things is yes and no. Right? It sort of depends a little bit on how you interpret these things. Can you be too generous? Yes, you can. If being generous leads to your to damaging yourself or to damaging others in your own family. You could be but generally being generous as a quality that you should have as much of it as possible to caring. It's the same problem, right? But really being generous. If you think about it here. Why am I saying yes or no,

because if you're really generous, you will also be generous to yourself, you will also be generous to your family. Okay, do you understand what I'm saying here? So, with these things, it's more about implementing that quality in the right way. Being caring, being loving, being honest, it has to be in itself in a balanced way. Now, there's some things as well, I wanted to mention about being optimistic. Okay, can we be too optimistic? Yes, I think although the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam generally told us to be optimistic. Can we be too optimistic? Well, yes, I think if the optimism optimism becomes unrealistic. So for example, the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa

sallam said, A man came to him and I love this very, very beautiful saying, I mankind you said now I'm a Muslim, and I believe in Allah. Can I can I leave my camel and trust in Allah, meaning I don't tie my Camel Up. I just leave

Have it and trust in Allah. And the Prophet said, no trial, tie your camel, and then trust him a lot. Now, it isn't being pessimistic to say, Oh, if I leave my camel, my camel might walk off and it might go away. If I'm like so optimistic that I say, Yeah, I can just leave my camel. It's not a problem. I'm not even gonna think bad things, you know, no way will my camera even walk up this is an unrealistic impractical type of optimism. Right? So again, it's about applying these things properly. It's about a balanced approach. Okay. Ken, okay, so can you be too courageous? Can you be too brave? Again? I would say in some ways, no, not really, these are qualities that are totally

good in and of themselves. But again, it's about applying it in the right way. If your courage and your bravery leads you to be rash, and impulsive, and to do things that are rash and impulsive and dangerous and damaging in a non positive way, then it could have that implication. So again, it's it's about being balanced. How about self control and willpower? For example? Could you have too much self control? Could you have too much willpower? Well, I suppose sometimes it's good to be spontaneous. There are occasions when it's good to be spontaneous, it's good to do things with some spontaneity.

So again, it really depends about upon how you you apply these things. Now, finally, I want to mention some things where balanced does not apply, the more of it you have, the better there is no limit to how good these things are, there is no balance. So one of the things is you can't be too just you can't, because justice by definition, if you've been listening to me, justice, by definition is being balanced, right? So you can't be too balanced. You can't be too just justice. And being balanced by definition is what you're aiming for. So the more just you are, the more balanced you are, the better there is no way you can be to just

can you be too knowledgeable? No, you cannot be too knowledgeable. You can have an imbalance between knowledge and action, but you can't be too knowledgeable. Knowledge is all good. Knowledge is all good about how you apply it is a different thing. Can you be to write well, again, the proviso here is you can be arrogant about it. But you can't be too Right. Right being right is what you're aiming for. Okay, not being deluded. And that's a whole different topic. We might cover that another time how people think they're right when they're wrong. And this is a psychological problem a lot of people have, can you be too pious? Can you have too much Taqwa of Allah? No. You cannot have too

much Taqwa of Allah. You can never have enough Taqwa of Allah, you can never be conscious enough of God. God consciousness is itself something that there is no, you want as much of it as you can. Okay?

Can you love a lot too much? Well, we mentioned that already. We mentioned that already. It needs to be balanced with other things, realizing that we should fail a lot, and so on and so forth. But generally no, can you be too strong? No, it's good. All strength is good physical strength, mental strength, material strength, again, we can be imbalanced in the way we try to get those things, but they're good qualities in and of themselves. Can you be too wise? No, that's like being too just or to being too. Wisdom is really just like balance. And justice. It's the same thing. Wisdom is something that is good in and of itself. Can you be too Excellent. Can you have too much, Sam? No,

you want to be as excellent as you can be, of course, there is a problem that you may try to be excellent and in trying to be excellent, you be imbalanced, and you don't get things done. So some people have that they have a problem with being a perfectionist, but that itself if you think about it as not truly being excellent, right? True son means you will have balance in your essay. Right? You will not be a perfectionist. Right? And this is a problem. So some people can have that mentality, but that itself is, you know, not truly excellent. Can you have too much email? Can you have too much email? No, you cannot have too much human. Can you be too sincere? You can't be too

sincere. You can't have too much glass. He can't. It's one of those things, there's the more of it you can have the better right? And finally, can you have too much? towaco can you rely upon a lot too much? Yes, you can have false Tawakkol you can have wrong to occur you can miss understand what relying upon God means. That is possible but then that's not true to walk them through tobacco through reliance on Allah through trusting Allah, trusting and Allah subhanaw taala you can never have that

Brothers and sisters, I hope all of this is a little bit of an indicator how important balance is. And I'm sure you can understand that this is your lifelong jihad. This is your lifelong struggle to find balance in your life to find that point where you are in the right place. And ultimately, the only way you are truly going to be able to man is one of the characteristics brothers and sisters, to be a Muslim. You are part of an ummah that is supposed to be justly balanced, or maternal or certain were supposed to be a justly balanced nation, it is supposed to be our characteristic to be just to be balanced, and that justice and that balance is only known by being familiar with what

Allah teaches us by being familiar with what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam the example had he had in his life. And as well, the example through the companions and our Alma, throughout the ages have helped explain this to us. So brothers and sisters, may Allah bless you, I have no idea what I'm going to be talking about next week. If you've got questions, and you've got comments, I will be doing my best to answer them. Inshallah, don't forget, sharing is caring. Do not forget that sharing is caring. Please, if you haven't shared this already, please share it. So brothers and sisters, one more thing I want to mention, if you haven't checked out, mastery, classes.com mastery

classes.com Please do that. I'm going to have some very, very special exciting and important announcements. Also, if you haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel, yet, you should do that. I am very soon going to be putting up a free mini course on willpower a free mini course on willpower. I did say that, you know, within time, everything that is in my willpower course, you know, it is going to be out there. I'm not hiding anything from anyone. But for those people who want a structured breakdown, and they want lesson by lesson and they want to be guided in a really, really structured way. I really you know, I only did it because I think it's so important. So that's the

Seven Pillars of willpower mastery. classes.com For those of you I've got some very exciting news coming up in maybe the next two weeks really exciting stuff in Sharla that I plan to make some stuff available to you. In the meantime, subscribe to my YouTube channel I will have the mini course on cat counter ambush training how to deal with being ambushed by you know by unexpected impulses How do you deal with that? How do you fight your desires and when so anyway, that's going to be I'm going to put that up real soon inshallah and I'm going to be working on more and more content for my YouTube channel so if you haven't subscribed, please please do that. Brothers and sisters thank you

so much for joining me I will be with you next Thursday inshallah at 9pm GMT Greenwich Mean Time. That's English time. Every Thursday insha Allah with your brother Abdul Rahim green, Facebook Live and on YouTube I do broadcast this on YouTube as well if you prefer that let people know that's it for me for tonight. May Allah bless you May Allah guide you may Allah have mercy on all of the amount of Muhammad May Allah forgive the believing men and the believing women Allahumma Salli ala Muhammad Anguilla live sabya Salam, Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh cats