Abdurraheem Green – Hope E-Reminders
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Yes brothers and sisters Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah Heba cattle. Okay, so
middle of winter Stein want to stop fiddle. Now the bIllahi min surely and fusina women saying
level film or dilla Loma, your little fella Howdy, hola. We're shadow in La ilaha illallah, wa shawanna, Muhammad and Abdullah, who were solo brothers and sisters, today I'm continuing with, you know, my series on knowing yourself. And we've really moved a little bit away from knowing yourself more to the whole realm of developing some very important characteristics.
That, yeah, character traits that we need. So today we're going to be talking about hope, hoping Allah and very, very simply,
really, there's two different types of hope. I mean, you know, we maybe we could say more, but there's really two basic types of hope, the type of hope that is correct, and the type of hope that's incorrect. And that's really it. So let's talk about, and this is where we're talking about hoping Allah subhanaw taala. But in reality, you could actually apply this same principles to anything, the principles apply to anything. And in fact, when you look through the books, of the scholars who talk about purification of the soul, you know, the development of the heart and stuff like that, right? The example they often give right, is the example of a gardener. Right, they give
the example of someone who is, you know, a gardener. And the example they give is, this is an in respect to Suresh, you know, the example is in respect to hope. You see, your heart is like soil. And imagine that you're a gardener, you're cultivating that soil. So what do you do, if you want the soil to produce fruits, if you want produce, if you want vegetables to grow, if you want fruits to grow, right? If you want to get something out of that soil and you want to grow something, if you want to harvest, if you want to sow a harvest that you are going to reap,
then what do you need to do? Yet? Now, unfortunately, most many of us have no idea because we don't do any gardening, we don't do any farming. And you know what, maybe it's something good to do just to understand this concept and appreciate it. And some of these things have really good spiritual, potentially good spiritual influences on our lives, right? So what is the gardener do they prepare the soil, and they prepare the soil to sow the seeds. And even then, when they've prepared the soil, the soil and they've sown the seeds, they tend to that garden, they water it regularly. Right? They take out the weeds, they do a whole series of things, in order to facilitate the growing of that
crop. So that the end of the end of it, you'll have something to eat. For most of human beings for a long time in human history. We've all had to do that. Okay. But it's the same with anything in reality is the same, whether it's investments, whether it's personal development, it's all of these things. Right? The point is very simple, right? This is where true hope this is the right type of hope. This is the correct type of hope, when you prepare the soil. And you do and you put everything in place in order to bring about a desired consequence. And then you hope that you're going to get the results. And you may even hope that the result you get is way more than whatever effort you put
in. Right. So this is a good type of hope. The false hope. The foolish hope, is the hope of a person who does nothing who prepares nothing.
Right? And then they expect to harvest that all prepare the soil, they don't even sell any seeds. And they expect that at the end of it, they're going to get a harvest. Don't you think that person would be foolish, don't you think that person would be really stupid
and this is
is the same principle when it comes to hoping in Allah subhanaw taala. Yes, Allah is merciful. No doubt. Allah is the Most Merciful. He is the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. He's the forgiving. He's the one who forgives us. He's a tow up. He's the one who accepts our repentance. He's the one who is patient with us. He is relenting over to us. So Hannah SubhanAllah. He overlooks so many things. But still,
you have to understand that what Allah wants from us is efforts.
In the Quran, Allah talks about the MaHA Judoon. And the unsolved Allah talks about those people who have emigrated in his course in his course, and have struggled in his Subhanallah honors course, he talks about those people he mentioned them, as for those who have emigrated and struggled, then these are the ones who have the right to have the hope in Allah Spinoza. These are the ones who can open Allah. Right? The point being here is that it is correct to hope and Allah, when you have sown the seeds, meaning here, the seeds of good deeds, the fruit is what you're going to reap, and the Asherah
and the seeds that you sow. Are those deeds that you want to see manifest themselves? You want to see the results of that when you meet Allah subhanaw taala on the Day of Judgment, right? You see, and then you hope that what you have done even though you have no idea really, whether your deeds have been acceptable or not. Have you really been sincere? Have you really had a loss in your new year? Did you really do the deed correctly according to the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Did you? Right? You don't know. You're never going to be 100%. Sure, right?
You see, but this Hope is what carries us this hope of Allah's reward this hope of others Jana, this hope of Allah's paradise, even though we don't deserve it, even though there is nothing that we can do, to actually earn Paradise because paradise is too precious. It is way, way too precious. We can't buy it with our deeds, but that's what Allah wants to see from us. What Allah wants to see from us is action is among is deeds. That's what Allah subhanaw taala he wants to see from us, goodness, whether that is a respect to worshiping Him, or whether that isn't respect to the good that we do to help other human beings, right? These are the things that Allah wants. And then this
is the right type of hope, the right type of hope, the correct hope, the hope that is the one that is approved off, is the hope that is done with those deeds when you invest that effort when you make that effort. And despite the fact that you are unworthy, despite the fact that you are lacking, despite the fact that yes, you have done good deeds, but you are also inevitably have done since. But you turn to Allah and you plead and beg for his forgiveness. You see, even when it comes to Yes, it is true brothers and sisters, that only the disbelievers despair at the mercy of Allah. Yes, Allah is loving. Yes, Allah is the most forgiving. But what is the reality you need to understand
the reality of the human condition. And this is really connected to everything we have been talking about for a year.
We keep on saying it again. And again. Don't be delusional. Don't fool yourself. Don't lie to yourself. Don't tell stories to yourself. And one of these lines and the stories that we tell ourselves is Oh, Allah will forgive us. Allah is merciful.
Right?
When we are immersed in sin and immersed in disobedience, Allah will forgive you if you truly seek forgiveness, no doubt Allah forgive you. But here's the reality of our hearts. Here's the reality of the human condition. That when your heartbeat and we've mentioned this before, when your heart becomes absorbed in sin, when you become preoccupied and you are full, your life becomes full of disobedience to Allah subhanaw taala your heart is darkened and it no longer
even understands or notices what is halal or what is haram? Don't you remember this hadith brothers and sisters? Right? If your heart is like this, then how are you going to make Toba? When you don't even recognize anymore halal and haram because you're just immersed
in following your knifes, you are just immersed in following your desires. So if you're immersed and lost in this quagmire in this swamp of disobedience, you don't see any more. You don't notice any more. You start to justify the Haram you are doing.
You try to justify the evil you are doing. You tell yourself stories in your head, you will look for every avenue to try and make you know in every fatwa to try and make the Haram you're doing make you feel better about yourself, then how will you make Toba? You won't make Tober because you will not even recognize any more that you are doing evil. Do you understand now, why this is a false hope. Because it is a failure to understand the reality of the human condition. It is a failure to understand the reality of how the matter of the heart works.
So
don't have this type of false hope. Don't be foolish like that.
And just expect that you know you're going to live a life of sin and disobedience and forgetfulness.
And then you're just going to hope in Allah's mercy that is somehow gonna overwhelm you know, there are people who came before us, Allah mentioned them in the Quran, the people who came before us, right?
They said, Oh, the fire will not touch us, except for a few number days.
You see, that's what they said, Oh, they said exactly this, you see the same thing that Muslims think, yeah, you know, I'm doing bad things. But if I go to *, I'll come out eventually.
The fire will not touch us except for a new few number days, right? But Allah admonishes them, it says they have no proof of this, they have this just that desires.
Right? There are people who commit sin and they think they have no obligation over people. They have no obligation towards them.
They are misguided, and they have lied about Allah subhanaw taala. You see. So this is a false type of hope, that we should be very, very, very careful about brothers and sisters because, you know, that is a path to real disruption.
And this of course, applies to anything. It applies to anything in life. It's not just in respect to you're hoping Allah subhanaw taala this true about everything in life, but we find so many people these days are delusional. So many people are deluded.
You see it, you hear about it. People in America I remember reading there are people in America who are working for Walmart's
and they have some delusion that one day they're going to be multimillionaires.
But in fact, people are drowned in debt.
This is like a delusion. This is like a false hope. I talked about it as a whole talk on this on my YouTube channel, which if you haven't subscribed to it rather than assisters please do subscribe to my YouTube channel.
After him green official, right.
I just type in my name Abdur Rahim greenlit for my YouTube channel in sha Allah.
And you can find a talk there called false hope syndrome. So I go into that whole aspects in a little bit more depth, but hope, the good hope the true hope is a very important. It is a very important characteristic to cultivate. That has many beautiful blessings and advantages. It is really one of the most important and beautiful characteristics that we can develop. And that hope is cultivated once again, by knowing Allah subhanaw taala by training by truly beginning to understand and to know your Lord and your Creator, right to know how merciful He is how compassionate he is, how kind he is how loving he is.
how forgiving he is.
So we've already talked about previously,
the importance of contemplating deeply on the beautiful names and the beautiful attributes of Allah subhanaw taala.
And so when we do that, one of the advantages of that is it cultivates within us hope. So this whole brothers and sisters is a type of optimism. And it's an it's an optimism based upon the fact that you know that Allah subhanaw taala has mercy is greater than his Roth. It is not that Allah subhanaw taala does not have Roth. Yes, Allah is angry with those who disobey Him. This is why Allah has created the hellfire.
Don't be delusional about that.
Allah has mentioned specific punishments for specific sins, may Allah protect us from them, I mean, your ability
Yes, but his mercy is greater. And this is what Allah has decreed for himself, Allah has decreed for himself that his mercy is greater than his worth.
And that whatever little effort you make, to move towards a loss of handler to Allah, Allah will reciprocate that many, many times every good deed that you do.
Minimum, Allah will reward you 10 times for that good deed. Allah does not just reward you a good deed with a for a good deed, not a love multiplies it at a minimum of 10 times.
And maybe it may be even more than 10 Maybe 10 700 times and Allah
His mercy will amplify it.
Even more than that,
right?
You have hope in Allah that when you fall short, sometimes not sometimes often we will fall short due to our ignorance due to our shortcomings,
right? Maybe based upon your ignorance and your shortcomings.
You fall short, you hope that Allah subhanaw taala, you hope that he will overlook those things you hope that despite
those shortcomings, that Allah will still accept your deeds, this is a good type of hope. But you're making the effort, right? You are making the effort you are doing the deeds, you're doing the work.
And you know that you're going to fall short because you're human. And that's fine. You know, that Allah subhanaw taala
is merciful. This is a type of Good Hope. Right? And this is hugely important for us that if Allah subhanaw taala puts this into your heart that you No, it does take effort, brothers and sisters, to develop this characteristic. And you know, this is very closely linked to the whole topic of positive psychology, it's very, very close. You know, if you understand about the whole area around, you know, improving your performance, I mean, generally living a better, happier life, right? Living a better, happier life does not come from you deluding yourself, about yourself, and having false hopes, because you will constantly get disappointed.
You will constantly find that life is gonna slap you in the face. Right?
Now, life does that, to be honest, anyway. Right? But it doesn't help when you've just built a whole load of false hopes. Like I, I talked to so many people SubhanAllah. And people ask me for help.
And they complain about the situation. But when I begin to look into their lives, and I begin to examine with them their lives, it doesn't take long, you can see that not many of these people have just totally unrealistic expectations,
believing that things are going to happen based upon nothing that has to do anything to do with reality. So if you build up all of these false hopes, and you haven't put the work and you haven't put the effort and you haven't put the time
then why would you expect a result? Why do you expect a harvest when you've sown no seeds? Why do you expect a garden full of fruits and vegetables when you've planted nothing?
Right. So you need to do the work brothers and sisters. And this includes even then when
You do the work cultivating that dimension of hope, always remembering and reminding yourself of what your ultimate goal is, you see. So it's very important to keep remembering and reminding yourself about paradise. Keep reminding ourselves of what is our goal. And what that really is our goal and our objective, nothing else really matters. The bottom line is, it doesn't matter.
Right? Maybe like me, you know, you want to, you know, you want to spread the message of Islam and you hope that there will be a Muslim in every hope make the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, it will happen, for sure, because the Prophet said it will happen. Right? But I may never see it.
I may never see it. Does that matter? It doesn't matter. Right? Because my objective at the end of the day, is not really that my objective is to seek the pleasure of Allah and I'm hoping that I will get to Paradise because if you are in paradise, nothing else will matter. It won't matter. What matters is that you are planting the seeds, what happens is that you are preparing that soil, which is your heart, cultivating it, so that when you meet alone, the Day of Judgment, right, it will bear fruits. And also making sure brothers and sisters, that you don't do things to ruin your harvest. Right, like abusing others, and backbiting and slandering, and physically abusing others, and so on
and so forth. Because this is a destroyer of your deeds. This is, you know, the people will come on a day of judgment with mountains of good deeds, but they will lose them because they will have to give those good deeds and hand them over to the people that they have abused and the people have they have mistreated, right.
So take care and take precautions, right? Don't just cultivate that garden, but protect it from the things that are going to damage it and destroy it. And if you do that, despite our weaknesses, despite our shortcomings, despite our failings as human beings, in sha Allah, we will find the benefit, waiting for us when we meet Allah smart Allah.
So, always have this optimism brothers and sisters, but build it upon a good foundation. Always have this good opinion of Allah which we talked about already having a good opinion of Allah. And of course, this whole matter of hope, is very, very connected. intimately connected to both having a good opinion of Allah and also another very important characteristic that when you need to cultivate brothers and sisters, which is the quality of Taqwa
that's a big topic, the quality of Taqwa and Inshallah, maybe we'll start talking about that. Next week, we will see maybe choose another subject altogether. So brothers and sisters, that's my little reminder for today. I'm sorry, I haven't seen you for two weeks for various reasons.
You know, I was not feeling so great one week and that's another we kind of got caught up in something else even today, to be honest, until I started I was so tired but mashallah, once I started this, I definitely perked up and hamdulillah brothers, sisters, may Allah bless you may Allah subhanaw taala you know, guide you to fill your life with good deeds and to tread the path of righteous actions. And also fill your heart with hope and optimism. You know, based upon those things in sha Allah, you have really good reasons to help. But lay those foundations prepare that soil, plant those seeds in sha Allah and we will reap the the harvest in the ash era Allahumma Salli
ala Muhammad Deen Well, early he was happy he was salam, which is o'clock was Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh