Adnan Rajeh – Reduced Concepts #04 The Rituals
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of reducing the understanding of Islamic values and practicing self-reflection to reflect and contemplate the future. They stress the importance of learning to handle negative emotions, finding peace in the mind, and reducing distractions. The importance of finding peace in one's mentality, praying, and embracing challenges is emphasized. The speakers emphasize the need to address one's beliefs and accept them as opportunities, and to recognize and embracing one's successes and challenges.
AI: Summary ©
Alright.
Today is the 4th episode of the 7
episode series Reduced Concepts. And today is the
the main course of this series. It's kind
of what I
when I when I when I thought about
this topic to begin with, this was what
I had in mind. And this is what
I was hoping to, to achieve by talking
about about these topics. And then as I
looked into the issue a little bit more,
I found that,
the issue itself or the the the topic
itself is much more,
widespread and much more profound, and it and
it affects it affects societies all over the
world, and it's been affecting societies all
over the world for a very long time.
And it's not just about rituals, but so
I built it kind of but really, the
main course was to talk about to talk
about our rituals and talk about our Islamic
Islamic values. So this lecture here and then
probably a lecture
before the end as well. We talk we
talk about specifically Islamic concepts, things that that,
the sahaba received from the Prophet and
they were taught early on within their Islamic
development, their Islamic education,
that made a huge difference in the way
they lived their lives. It wasn't just the
way they behaved, it was also the way
that they thought.
And this and this is what I think
we should be trying
to retrieve or reclaim, is figuring out what
exactly
did these values or these concepts do for
them differently than what they're doing for us
because we we have to this is where
you have to draw the distinction really.
They're human, and we're human. Yes, they had
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in their yaniyah,
and had his presence amongst them, so that's
yaniyah. That's a difference there, but
there must be something else that allowed them
to live their lives in a way that
when we read the stories we feel it's,
you know, we're very impressed by it. We
find it to be extremely beautiful, but then
we don't feel like we have the ability
necessarily to emulate or to do that same
thing. And so we just end up staying
in the, the category in in the box
or the kanyani that we put ourselves in,
and we just stick with it.
And my biggest problem with the with the
with this issue, with the reduced concept, is
that there has been we've come to a
point where we accept it. We're okay with
it. Like we're just okay with with concepts
being
as reduced as they are. Like we don't
They're limited, we're happy with them limited. We
don't want to actually do anything different. We
have we have, you know, we have made
peace with the fact that our our values
have been reduced to something that is no
longer functional.
And forgive me, they're no longer functional. They
may, you know, they may still have some
shell of an existence or a skeleton that
may have something in it, but but really
the substance is lost and we've just made
peace with that. We're okay with it. And
I think that's the biggest problem because look,
as long as you have not given up,
you have not lost.
Like, there's still there's still hope of gain
as long as you haven't kinda tapped out.
But once you tap out, once you stop
fighting it, once you stop, you know, working
or striving against something that you think is
is incorrect or wrong, that's when there's no
hope anymore.
As a Muslim, this is like a a
golden rule. As long as you're trying as
long as you're you're trying even if, you
know, let's say your intentions if your intentions
aren't very good, as long as you're trying
to make them better, as long as you
acknowledge that they're not good and you're trying
even if your, you know, your your attempts
are are not very good, even if you're
not making a you know, gaining a lot
of ground, you're not getting anywhere with it.
But as long as you're trying and as
long as you acknowledge that what you're doing
right now is not good, then there's still
hope. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will accept.
He will accept from you, Subhan. It's when
you give up. It's when you decide that
the way it is is what it's going
to be, and I'm and I'm satisfied with
that. And if he's not sat well, he
has to be satisfied as well. And if
not, then I have nothing else to offer.
That's that's a problem. That that mentality, that
attitude doesn't doesn't work.
You're you're that it's funny because when I
say this,
it it kind of draws a different,
paradigm for what what, what what it looks
like for us, and it helps you understand
how Islam functions actually and and how Allah
subhan looks at us. So if you have
2 people, one of them is, you know,
way ahead of the other, way ahead in
terms of the quality of their of their
good deeds, for example, the the purity of
their intentions. They're very different. One is maybe
10 steps ahead.
But this person here has given up. This
is as far as they they have no
interest of being any better. They're no longer
holding themselves accountable. They're no longer they don't
they no longer have insight. They don't do
self assessment anymore. They're not self aware. They're
not trying anymore to be any better. And
someone who's 10 steps below,
their intentions are completely messed up, but they're
trying.
This person is end of love better than
this one because of just that one's piece
piece of the fact that this individual is
still trying. Like, you have not given up
yet. The moment you give up the moment
you give up, you've lost the bottle. No
matter how no matter how far ahead you
are, no matter how close to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala you are, the moment you stop,
the moment you stop trying, you're not assessing
anymore, you're not you don't have self accountability.
You don't have self awareness. You're not striving
against the the the urges of of the
nest. You're not aware then you've already lost
immediately. This isn't how like, the it's just
the fall will be will be more, yeah,
tremendous, more splendid.
It's just a more impressive fall because the
splat will just be huge because you're falling
from so high.
But then you're like but then the question
is, well, then why do I even work
myself up? Well, it comes back to the
same problem. If you're if you don't work
yourself yourself
or your way up, then you just that
means you're happy with where you are, which
is the same problem again. So the only
choice that you have is that you continue
to be self aware. You continue to push
yourself and try to be better and wherever
that takes you wherever that takes you. It
may take you a few steps. It may
take you a lot of steps, but you
don't have the, you know, the the, the
luxury of saying I'm done. This is as
far as I go. There's no such thing.
One of the nicest stories that kind of
captures that is the story that we have
about, Imam
alayallahu
anhu, Ahmed ibnhammed. Before he died, I or
on his deathbed, he would wake up and
he would say, layi sabad, layi sabad. Not
yet. Not yet. So he asked what what
do you what did you see? Then in
my dream, Iblis came to me, and he
told me,
You made it from me. I I wasn't
able to capture you.
And you made it. I wasn't able to
to hold hold you down. I wasn't able
to, to to drive you astray.
No. Not yet. You're not gonna fool me
with that one. Not yet. I'm not dead
yet. I'm still alive. So not yet. Not
yet. This is this is a trick. You
want me to to feel like, I made
it. I mean, you're you're still alive. You
haven't made it yet. Once you're dead and
you're told you've made it, then you've made
it. Before that, you haven't made it. So
it really plays this trick a lot. Like,
oh, you you know, you you're on this
you've done well, especially if you're older or
especially if you went through a really big
difficulty and you persevered, then he wants to
give you that illusion of of achievement and
accomplishment because that like, he knows. Because once
you do that, you you know, you sit
down, you stop trying, you fall. The moment
you sit back and try, that's a it's
a simple trick. Right? So this is what
I I think is important for us to
understand that this ongoing
striving is really the piece that we have
to keep in mind. So when it comes
to our rituals, what is it that I
this is my this is my these are
my ongoing rants, and these are these are
my pet peeves when it comes to understanding
Islamiyah and Arden. So let's start with the
first our our rituals, are they a fuel
or are they a burden? And And unfortunately,
most of the time we see them as
a burden. Like there's something that we have
to do, that we don't like to do,
we don't want to do. We feel you
know, they tire us and they take away
from our time, and they're they're inconvenience.
They're inconvenience within our day. We have to
I have to pray. I have to stop
and I have to pray. That mentality
is
my in my opinion, one of the problems.
Because really that's not what salah is for.
Salah is in saliam and zakah and Hajj
and all the other rituals and dua'at, which
everything we're gonna talk about today and many
other things that we may not have the
time to talk about within this, Yani, the
the series. They're designed to be a fuel.
They're designed to be a fuel if you
study, Yani, when these surahs were revealed to
the prophet
and they were talk talked about salah, for
example. You find them to be some of
the earliest, in your revelations.
Was told to pray all night
all night. If not, then half of it.
If not, a bit less, a bit more.
But do as much as possible and recite
the
We're going to bestow upon you a very
heavy message. It's very heavy. It's a lot
of work. So you need your prayer. Now
you need your prayer. That's the idea.
It's a change. I know it's just a
semantics for many of us. Meaning, I'm just
playing around with the words from.
So it's a it's a issue of semantics.
But but what I'm trying to actually get
you to see is that
it's it's actually a a a change or
a a difference in in in perspective and
mentality.
It results in a difference in semantics. It's
not enough for us to be happy with
that. We're just gonna change the way we
say things. I know that's how this, you
know, this day and age works where if
you just change the way you sit talk
about something, suddenly
it's different. It's not. It it doesn't work.
It it's never worked. I don't know where
who came up with this idea that if
you just change the way you talk about
something, then suddenly it'll change. No. You have
to change the way you think about something.
You have to actually reflect and contemplate
and and engage in deep thoughts, profound thought
about something. And then you have to, I
need to draw parallels and you have
to exercise an example and and
and give and put yourself in examples and
and run scenarios. Yeah. To come to conclusions.
That's how you figure something out. It's not
enough just to
I'm gonna start talking about it differently. It's
a good thing, but it doesn't change it.
It doesn't change it. It doesn't make it
go away or so So we have to
kind of think about burden versus versus fuel.
So let's start talk by talking about salah.
Salah, probably the most important of all rituals,
if not the most important of all rituals.
The, the pillar of of our deen is
the first thing
after after you're asked about if you if
you
spilled blood or not, you're asked about salah.
My teacher used to say it's like the,
a siddur. You know, in in any if
the Middle East, when you bring,
fotor or you bring, Asha, it comes on
a siddur. It comes like on this big,
metal
holding thing, and you put all the small
food and you bring it, you put it
down. Right? So that's he said your
the bigger it is, the more stuff you
can put on it. The smaller it is,
the less you can fit on it. So
if it's small, you didn't do a lot
of salah, then you can't really fit all
of the other goods deeds that you've done.
Like, you have a lot of good deeds,
but you can't fit them because it's you
have a big one. You can fit everything
that you want on it. So that's how
that was his analogy, and I thought it
was always interesting that he looked at it
that way. But, Solan, I think
it's been reduced to a lot of things.
It's been it's been totally been reduced to
mechanics.
It's totally been reduced to mechanics.
We we and and and again, remember that
everything that I say a value or a
concept is reduced to is not necessarily the
thing that is reduced to is wrong. It's
very important. I've I've said it like this
is the 4th time now. I'm hoping to
Allah that
people understand that they don't take
they don't decide to go ahead and say,
no. He's saying it's not it's important. If
the impact if the impact is important, you
have to know the mechanics. You have to
study. We teach, like, 2 courses of every
semester here, like, in different. So that you
know, you have to know how to do
it. You have to know what the, what
the conditions are. Now you have to know
what the,
what the what what what is wajib is,
what is what is sunnun, what is what
is, Mahdur, what can invalid your you have
to know these things. You have to know
how to make udud properly. Understand how to
stand towards the movements and what to say
during those movements and the timings for it
all. You have to learn the mechanics for
sure. Without the mechanics, the salah is invalid
immediately.
And it's invalid as far I can even
give you that ruling. But I can't give
you the ruling on whether it's invalid from
a spiritual perspective. Like from from a connection
perspective, I can't. If you come and tell
me, well, I I I honestly wasn't thinking
about God at all. I can't tell you
it's invalid.
I can't tell you it's not going to
be accepted. I can tell you, well, would
you have a do? Yes. Were you standing
in front of towards the Yes. Did you
recite? Yes. Did you do
Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. It's permissible. I can't
tell you to repeat it. Like, I I
don't have that, you know, my my job
is to judge the the mechanics.
But salah is not just the if you
reduce it to mechanics, it becomes becomes extremely
it
it doesn't do anything for you. And it
becomes tiring and it becomes a burden for
sure. And it becomes like, how do I
make wudu, and where am I going to
pray? And and it becomes a merit yani.
It becomes a it becomes a 100 yani
meter sprint prayer where you're trying to break,
Bolt's world record and and how quickly you
can do it,
which is what but it's been reduced to
a lot of places around the world. And
if you, you know, if you go to
to certain places, is a the whole endeavor
is, like, 15 minutes. 15 minutes is just
there for you to, you know, help them
to get your digestive system working, do some
up and down and up and down and
down and up and up and down. And
we're just moving up and down, kinda keeping
ourselves moving and doing, like, semi push ups
with our sujood and doing it's it's not
what, what salaw was designed for by by
any means. And if it because so
kids or younger people who don't commit to
salah is because that's how they've been taught
it. It's just a it's mechanical. It's mechanical.
A logical mind, a rational mind,
will not see the value in doing
a something 5 days a day 5 5
times a day religiously that is just mechanical.
Like, the human brain doesn't feel the value
in that. Like, what what why? What is
he what what is this? Why am I
doing this? They don't feel it. So
and and I and we're lucky that they
do. Like, we're lucky that younger people actually
question these things or else because because if
they didn't, then then this series wouldn't exist
and it'll be and we would just be
okay. Would it be be happy with the
status
fact that salah is is now merely, just
a mechanical movements that have no essence to
them. And that's not what salah was designed
for.
Your prayer is what's going to hold you
back from and from munkar, hold you back
from sin, hold you back from from mistakes.
It's designed to do that. But it's not
doing that, you have to start asking questions.
Why is it doing? Why does Allah want
me to make this to do this small
aerobic,
yani exercise a couple of times a day?
And why do I have to do it
on time? Why do I have to yeah.
I need to do it before it because
because there's a connection piece to it that
that that we've that that we've missed.
We've missed the interconnection that we're we're supposed
to have with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Is
the opportunity that you have to speak to
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. It's an opportunity. It
is a privilege. It's a privilege to speak
to the king of kings subhanahu wa ta'ala
5 times a day. He he's telling you
that if if this is going to work,
meaning if you're going to be a Muslim
and a Khalifa and you're gonna make it
to Jannah, I need to check-in with you
multiple times a day. You have to check-in
with me you have to check-in with the
boss 5 times a day. You have to
check-in. If you don't, then I don't really
want whatever you're doing. What you're doing, you
can keep it. You can do it for
whatever reason you want to do it. If
you want what I'm offering you, if you
want this deal,
If you want this deal,
deal, you want this deal? Then I need
you to check-in. I need you to check-in
a number of times a day. It's not
really nothing aside from you explaining as you
go along what is it that you're worried
of, what you're afraid from, what you're hoping
to do with your life, that you continue
to
understand who I am so that I may
grant you and respond to your supplication. This
is the point of salah. Salah grants you
that that
divine connection with the divine himself throughout
your day. For you to refuse it is
is is honestly, it's not saying borderline rude.
It's actually beyond that. Because who is it
that has the opportunity to speak to the
ruler of the universe and will not?
Granted that Allah Subhanahu Wa'ala does not speak
back to you in the same form that
you speak back to him, but he responds
to you all the same. He responds to
you all the same. It's it's not there's
no
you're not you're not doing this for for
no one. You're doing it for him subhanahu
wa ta'ala and he is listening. Then he's
watching. The hadith of the prophet
And when disturbance stands in prayer towards
and begins his salah, Allah
faces him with his face in a way
that suits his majesty. And we do not
draw
any analogies or parables
to to to time or space or people
within it. But Allah's faces you. And then
and that and when the servant,
meaning he get distracted. Doesn't necessarily mean meaning
physically, but spiritually you get distracted thinking about
something else. Your lord asked you,
are you being are you being distracted by
someone who is better than me or more
beneficial to you than me? And then he
leaves you subhanahu wa ta'ala for the for
the for the rest of your prayer.
Building this connection, understanding how it is almost
every act of,
of tazgih that exists
historically within the discipline is designed to help
you improve your salah. That's the point of
it. The point of every exercise that that
that we're taught was so that you can
improve your prayer. So that your prayer becomes
more meaningful to you. So that you actually
feel that this is something that's worth my
time because, because it's doing something for me.
It's actually affecting me. I I I find
peace. I find serenity. I I find
calmness.
I find that, I find I find it
in my heart that is there. And when
the guy came into the messages, for example,
and prayed and it was up and down,
up and down, up and down, we gave
him sat with the prophet, alayhis salatu, was
saying, he told
go back and pray again. You didn't really
pray.
So he does the same thing. So he
comes back. He tells him the same thing.
He goes. He comes back. He tells him
the same thing. And that at that point,
the man comes to his senses. He said,
Here's all I know how to do.
Teach me. Father the prophet, alayhi, sallam, will
go through the long hadith that we have,
explained to him how to pray, and he
would use this word, like, time and time
again.
Until
you come, you're calm. Until
you're in a position or state where you
have calmness. You're calm. You're not It's not,
that calmness is what you're looking for. Well,
how do you achieve that? Well, there's a
bunch of things you have to do. You
can't walk into you can't enter salah with
the same train of thought that you had
before. Like, if I'm thinking about things and
Allah, but I'm just the thoughts are gonna
continue. Yes. The tongue is saying in but
the mind is still running through the same
stuff that it was running through right before.
No. No. So now you have to see
you have to hit the brakes. I actually
have a a specific
note in my on my phone that is
for that. Like, I have a specific thing
of notes where where I'm thinking about something
and I'm going through it. Of course, once
it's once it's working, it it won't shut
up. It has to keep on going. So
I don't
wanna lose my this train of thought, so
I actually write it down before salah. Like,
I I this is what this is where
I stopped. This is where I ended with
my train of thought. So you can so
you can hit a hit hit pause. Say,
okay. I'm gonna stop. We'll come back to
this later. And then you centralize for a
moment. The the the advice that we were
given to pray is that before you pray,
you you take a second. Take take a
few seconds
and just,
and you kinda center yourself,
before you pray.
It's it's what basically intention is. Right? The
the concept of niya.
What niyyah is is just you're you're you're
coming up with an intention. Why are you
doing this? What is the point of this?
What is the purpose of this? Who are
you speaking to? What do you want? And
this is the plan. The plan of what's
what's what's going to come. So I know
we we reduced that just to saying that.
We go. It's just words that that we'd
memorize. You said that a 1000000 times, so
they don't have any meaning to them. But,
really, let's actually figure out why these things
are there. It's allow you to to to
stop the train of thought, all of the
worries and the anxieties and the problems of
life. Just put them aside for a second
and then turn to Allah And
you can actually bring them back in your
dua. Like, it's no problem. You can bring
them back in your dua to ask Allah
for support, ask Allah for relief, for ease,
for aid, whatever it is that you want
from him, But for the moment being, for
the, you know, in that second, when you
stand and you do and you start saying,
you wanna be in that position where you
kinda put that all just put that on
pause for a moment.
Salah, in its essence, is a mechanism for
uprise. It's a mechanism for achievement. That's why
he uses, subhanahu wa ta'ala, the wording
or.
Right? Where in the Quran does he say,
The only time we have is when Allah
is telling the prophet
to make du'a for us. So he used
the word.
Right?
But it's not he's gonna go pray for
us. No. He's going to make du'a for
us because salah is connection. The meaning of
salah is salah. Salah is connection. Something 2
things connected. Salah is the epitome of connection.
That's what it is. Now
its meaning, its nomenclature within Islamic law is
the 5 prayers that we do. But the
meaning of the word is is connection. That's
what it's If it doesn't have that in
it, then what's the point of it? You
know what I mean by reduced concepts? If
salah itself that means connection has no connection
in it, then what exactly is it?
The am I am I making sense to
you? Like, if it turns into mecca just
a bunch of mechanics, just a few actions.
And the word itself is salah, which means
to establish a connection.
And there's no connection in it.
That means that this is this is why
I think this we have this problem. We
reduce this value to something that, yes, you
need the mechanics. Yes. For sure you need
the mechanics. You can't just a lot is
not acceptable without it. But you but but
you've, emptied it. The substance of the connection
is not there anymore. Now this connection, if
it's there with the mechanics, it actually goes
to beyond beyond that. Like, we're missing out
on something important.
It does iqam iqam
from the concept of qiyam which is the
an uprise. Salah is there to allow you
it's a fuel to allow you to do
your job. It allows people to to function.
It's strength. It gives them the the courage.
It gives them the confidence
to stand up and to take a stand,
to do to do qiyam. The concept of
qiyam when you when you say the word
Again, the word itself is to take a
stand, it's not to stand up.
Is to stand
up. Stand up.
Is different.
Is not stand up, it's take a stand.
You can it can be it can be
used to stand up. No problem. Like, in
the Arabic language, you can you can figuratively
use words to mean certain things. But the
actual meaning of the word, is not to
stand up. It's it's it's to take a
stand. So when we talk about qiyamul layl
for example.
Yeah. And just how he how he how
he uses this word subhanahu wa ta'ala and
describe and give things for us. So that
the salah itself is in its own essence,
in its
own own merit, taking a stand.
You are taking you are you are taking
a stand of what you believe in and
what causes you are willing to live for
and what what direction you have and where
you're going with your life. And that's what
Salah is designed to do. It's, you are
establishing, you are proving that you stand for
something and your life stands for something and
that's why you pray. And if you don't
if you don't see it that way or
or or practice it that way, then, yes,
it becomes very, very boring. And it become
which is why Ramadan is so important interesting
to a lot of us because deep down
inside we know that there must be more
than this.
You can hear the stories. We hear the
stories of the prophet
going 5, 6 hours in.
We hear the
the the the almost,
unlimited unlimited
number of scholars in Sahaba who would recite
the full Quran in 1 in 2 rakas,
Read the whole Quran in one night as
they stand in prayer. That discipline doesn't do
that. There's not enough discipline under the sun
to do that. That's love. That's different. There's
something else fueling that. That that it's not
discipline. You can do things with discipline
and you can do it.
I read the Quran once and one night.
It was the day of Arafah 2,009.
That was probably the most the longest night
of my life. It's extremely difficult. It was
extremely, extremely difficult. I did it once. I've
never done it since.
It's it's very hard. You can you can
do things with discipline once, maybe twice in
your life. But to do something on an
ongoing basis, that requires love. That requires a
connection that's that's different. It's different in nature.
Right? And and if you don't add that,
then this becomes difficult.
Salah is a mechanism for uprise. It's a
mechanism to achieve. It allows Muslims to be
confident and courageous and to feel that they
have
they speak to Allah everyday. They don't feel
alone. They don't feel isolated.
They don't feel lonely. They don't feel that
they're in they're in this world on their
own and there's no one watching over. They
speak to God everyday. Imagine if you explain
to some explain to a non Muslim friend
just for the fun of it fun of
it. Just talk to a non Muslim friend
about about the fact that you you pray
you you speak to God 5 times a
day. Say it in English. Just hear yourself
say it.
When you hear it, you're like, oh, I
must be a very spiritual person.
I must be very spiritual. I speak to
god 5 times a day. The person in
front of you will say, wow. You must
be extremely spiritual, like, 5 times yeah. Five
times a day every single day, like, not
once a week or anything. No. No. Every
single day. I speak to god 5 times
a day, at least at least 5 times
a day.
You'll become the you're the most spiritual person
in the room. And then you look at
yourself, I ain't I ain't spiritual at all.
I don't feel this.
I don't have that at all inside of
me. Well, because because again, we reduced this
amazing amazing ritual, amazing concept, amazing value to
something that is a shirk, a slither of
what it once was. It's a skeleton of
what it once was and it was beautiful.
And the Sahaba,
Imagine that that's how he saw it. You
know? That's how he felt.
The the the cool of my eye is
is in. I I enjoy it. The rabbi
felt the same way.
Abu Bakr, you couldn't hear him when he
you couldn't understand what he was saying.
They couldn't understand a word when he when
he prayed imam. He would rarely pray pray
imam because people didn't want you couldn't you
couldn't hear anything he's saying. He's just he
he was sobbing the whole time. When the
prophet
on his deathbed, he he
said,
Tell Abu Bakr he'll do it. And they
say, no, Abu Bakr, He can't and he
doesn't he got upset, alayhi salatu wa sallam.
Then he said, yeah, he told the women
to stop stop talking. Aisha herself or her
the daughter was like, no. Don't talk. My
dad do it.
We stand there. We can't hear a word
that he's saying. But alaihis salam insisted because
really really he knew, I'm sure, alaihis salam,
that at some point, salaam was going to
be reduced to something much less. So he
we needed to have these examples so we
knew that that no. It was way more
than that. It was much more meaningful than
that.
And I'll end with that, Yani. I can
this is a topic I can go on
on for a very long time. And I
hope my my goal of all the of
of this series is not really to,
I need to to
share information.
My goal is to
provoke some thoughts. To put
you on a on a path of a
thought process where you analyze
a lot of the values that you were
given. A lot of the values that you
believe in when you open the Quran and
you read the sunnah of the prophet alaihis
salam. But values that you carry in your
life and you say I'm kind and I'm
merciful and I'm generous. And you say you
say these things to analyze them really. What
do they mean? Are they real?
Is it a is the value nice and
full? Is it juicy? And does it have
everything all the bulk of it is in
it? Or is it as it shriveled down
to something that's that's really not what it
was supposed to be? Because if you if
you just do that, if you analyze that
in your life, then you will you don't
really need me to do this for you.
You will figure it out by yourself on
your own, and you'll start making some decisions
and changes. You'll start researching a little bit
more, and you'll start to make making some
decisions regarding your own life. Srian, for example.
I mean, Srian,
I'm I'm not gonna spend too much time
because we spent maybe the bulk of the,
the 2, 3 weeks before Ramadan where I
just I I say the same stuff every
year. I can see people yawning in the
middle of it when I do because they're
used to it. But the reason that I
tried to talk about Siam a lot before
Ramadan, I point out that this is not
something simple. It's over 8% of your life.
It's over 8% of of the time that
you spend on this planet. You're fasting. That's
what Ramadan is. Ramadan, the concept of siyam
is here to to help you learn the
difference between what you need in your life
and what you want in your life, and
they're very different. That's a very important distinction
that if you make, it'll be meaningful to
you. Because if you if you don't know
the difference, then your nafs has has has
overcome you so powerfully that it completely
blocks your insight to see the difference between
what is required and what you just desire
because you because you desire it. Because it's
it then wants everything and it wants as
much of it as possible. And it wants
less for everyone else and more for itself.
And if you've lost the ability to distinguish
between that and this, then then you're so
far down that so so far off that
I don't know if if you're gonna find
your way back. So, Suleyan forces your hand
that, you know, you have to you have
to acknowledge after 30 days that you you
could you could survive on much less food
and drink easily.
Easily.
Like, you're not eating from to to 8
o'clock,
and you're surviving. You're fine.
You don't you don't die at the end
of the month. You you make it. You
go to work, you you do you you
write your essays, you you get a lot
actually, most people who who, you know, who
find out doing sean, you get more done.
Because you're less distracted. There's there's nothing to
plan. Food takes a lot of out of
our day, by the way. Like, the thought
of food and drink and relationships, it takes
a lot of our out of our day.
Like, it it really does distract us. So
removing that just allows us to gives us
clarity. It allows your spirituality to be heightened
a little bit because you're not distracted by
physical materialistic stuff. Here, let's remove, you know,
food and and and sexual stuff. Take them
all out. So what's left? You're like,
that's like the bulk of my joy. Like,
I don't know what else what else what
else am I going to do? They say,
if you take out those 2 things, then
what exactly is left for me? Yeah. Then
you find out, oh, there's a there's a
there's a voice
there's something on the inside. There's this voice
that's been, you know, hushed down for a
long time that become background became background noise
you don't even notice anymore. That maybe listen
to it a little bit. There's there's a
rule on the inside that that has desires
and needs, and it has a lot to
offer you and you have a lot you
can do with it. And within it, you
find the true meaning of fulfillment and true
peace and love and and love is found
within that connection that you have with your.
And that's what Siam does.
It helps
you figure out the difference between your potential
and your real your reality. The easiest day
of work for me is the 1st day
I go back after Ramadan. Honestly, I I
I am in an irritatingly happy to people
around me. Like on the 1st Monday, people
are actually are physically bothered by how how
perky and happy I am. Because I I'm
gonna have tea at 12 o'clock today and
something to eat. Like my wife packed me
my lunch. I'm gonna open it up at
12 o'clock. I'm gonna eat something. I don't
know what you're all what you are all
upset about. I I don't know why you're
not all happy because you got to you
know, you I did this for for the
majority of of the month with no food.
Doing this with food, a piece of cake.
No problem. All I see during my fasting
more patience than the physician that I'm working
with who's, you know, wolfing down a ham
sandwich of some sort.
The difference between reality and your potential like,
you think that your potential is limited and
then you spend 30 days not eating all
day long and going to work and going
to school. And you were able to do
it, you're like, well, then I must be
able to do more then. So it's no
longer the question is no longer is do
you have a potential? No. That you've established
that. The question, are you going to reach
it? Like, are you gonna push yourself? Can
you do more? Can you actually produce more?
Can you be more efficient and effective in
your life? Or you're happy with where you
are? Because we can lead ourselves to believe
this is as far as we can go.
I get this quote. The number question number
one question I get, oh, how you do
all this?
Yeah. I mean, it's really it's really not
it's not that impress impressive. It really isn't.
And I'm sorry that if you if you've
been led to believe that where you are
right now is as far as you can
go. Like, I'm just sorry that if if
for some reason you think, oh, this I
can't do more than this. I'm no, you
can totally do it more than that. Your
potential you haven't even you haven't even began
to tap into it. Like, it's not that
difficult. Just manage your time a little bit
more and hold yourself accountable and raise your
your
your your the expectations of yourself, and you'll
see it's not that difficult. So Ramadan proved
it to you. You can do more. So
the question is not can you. The question
is will you. It gives you healthy habits.
You you eat less.
You eat less, and
eating less is just, generally speaking, good.
As long as you're taking in enough
nourishment for your body, eating less has been
scientifically proven over the last 6000 years to
be healthier for you. Not only did the
prophet teach us that, every single renowned philosopher
throughout history has said the exact same thing,
that you just eat less, you're healthier. You
live longer, you live better, you're more productive.
And it teaches compassion. It teaches empathy. It
allows us to feel the suffering of others.
It allows us to because feeling hungry is
not a nice feeling. It's not it's not
enjoyable. If you're thirsty, you you wanna drink,
or you're hungry, you wanna eat, it's not
something you wish upon anyone that you love
or you don't love.
It's it's granted you that ability to have
that compassion and that empathy. That's what Siam
is for.
And it's it's for sure not this.
That's it's definitely not what this is. It's
not just the ability to,
pack all that which you didn't eat throughout
the day all in one meal.
Or you eat until you fall out, yeah,
and you fall over. And then you, yeah,
you can't move anymore because you've eaten so
much or you can't breathe anymore because you've
eaten so much. That's not what this is
about.
I I had this I there's a comedian
and he, who you know, in his stand
up routine.
He was saying, I don't mind being Muslim.
I like to eat. Right? I don't mind.
That that was his, I don't mind. I
I I don't mind being Muslim. I love
Muslims.
Who doesn't like eating at night?
That's what it that's what it kinda seems
like we do. Right? It's not overeating at
night, and it's not allowing yourself to be
more irritable
and less, compassionate throughout the day because you
don't have food. It's the opposite. It calms
you down. It heightens your spirituality. It allows
you to feel more compassion, empathy. It allows
you to to be less distracted.
And, of course, we're all, you know, enjoying
this within this month, and hopefully hopefully, you
feel it. And, hopefully, you continue to fast
maybe once or twice a week once or
twice a month. Maybe once or twice a
month. Once or twice a month where you
continue to, you know, engage in this habit,
and you find it to be meaningful,
for you and it and it gives you
a perspective of yourself that
you ever thought about the fact that the
1st Ramadan, they went out for a battle?
Think about that. Like, that's the 1st Ramadan.
Like, the first ever. Like, on record, the
1st Ramadan was in the 2nd year of
his ilaha illa
Right?
Since then, every year there's a Ramadan, but
that's the first one.
Goes back so it was 1445.
So 141444
Ramabans
so far, if you think about it. That's
it. Just just, something for you to think
about. Like, that's a number of Ramabans that
we've that lived. The first one had the
most important battle within Islamic history in it.
The the most important one.
Badr, nothing comes close to Badr. Even though
the numbers were small, but it was the
first and it established the entity of the
Islamic state. It established the ability of the
for the pro of the prophet
to stand their ground,
Like and then the the radio was never
the same after Badr. That's why it's called.
The day of the differentiation of
happened during fasting.
Right?
Imagine
when they're when they're hearing about this. What?
We can do what? We're not gonna eat
all day?
No. You're it's it's optional. Right? Recommended sunnah?
No. No.
But, you know, you do you are aware
this is the the the desert.
Right?
We all work during the day. We can't
work we have to animals don't graze at
night. I've taken out during the during the
day.
We we barely survive with, you know, with
can you fast at night maybe? No. You're
not fasting today.
Under the sun with all that with all
with all of it, and we're gonna go
out and fight.
And we're gonna put our swords in their
sockets, and we'll walk out
and go we're gonna go we're gonna claim
that which is righteously ours. If that means
we have to stand our ground and fight,
then we'll stand our ground and we'll fight.
And they stood their ground. They fought an
army that 3 times their numbers with 4
times the preparation.
Preparation as in when you look at the
cavalry,
I mean, 300 versus 2.
This is the this is the breakdown. 300
people on horseback versus 2 on horseback.
So it wasn't even
there there was no equivalency at all. It
was in Ramadan.
And I think that happened in Ramadan for
a reason. I mean, just before the Ash'ul
Akhir, 17th, just before the 10 night final
nights. They finished but they're they went home
and they enjoyed the last 10 nights of
Ramadan in the Masjid al Atikaf
With their wounds and with their I think
it's something worthy of, of contemplating for us
as Muslims. Hajj Hajj.
Pilgrimage. That's what it means.
If you take out the Islamic context, then
tahj is for you to,
embark on a on a pilgrim. You're going
somewhere. You're a pilgrim. You're not you're embarking
on a pilgrimage. You're going somewhere.
Somewhere that there's a destination that matters to
you, and you're willing to go through any
difficulty to get there. That's what the word
Hajj in Arabic means.
You're going, nothing will stop you from getting
there. And this place is a that is
very dear to you and is very valuable
to you.
When you when you look at it, if
you don't understand the symbolism within it,
right, it's reduced to
you wear the white cloth,
you walk around a big rock, then you
walk between 2
middle sized rocks, then you take really small
rocks and throw it on a large tall
rock,
and you sleep around rock and then you
come back home.
And that's that's hedged for you.
That's if you want to be literal about
it, that's all that's what it is. It's
just all you're doing. It's not really what
it's this is about. This is my problem.
Like, I've I've I've lived in Mecca for
for 2 years for 3 years.
And, yeah, we we were at Al Makkah.
So for us, Hajj was much easier because
in mid the nights of Mina, you can
go sleep at home. You don't have to
sleep in Mina. You can go sleep at
home because you're in Al Makkah. So we
were able to go sleep back, Yaniyah, at
our house.
But during the time I was going as
a kid observing people perform Hajj, I I
realized that they had no idea what they
were here to do.
Like, most the majority of Hajj had no
idea what they were doing here or why
they were here. They just knew that, yes,
forgiveness of sins wipes the slate.
You go back to the day like your
your parent your parents forgave you outside of
people's by the way. People don't realize that.
They give you still that doesn't, Hajj doesn't
fix that one.
You know, if you killed someone or if
you harm someone or the the the of
people, the rights of people that does not
is not is not wiped out by Hajj.
Everything else is, but but that that stays.
But they're going they don't realize that Arafah
is where Adam and Hawa were reunited after
they made the mistake in Jannah in in
the garden. They were kicked out. And they
got lost on the planet, and it took
them a while to reunite. And they were
united in Arafat where they saw each other.
And Muzalaba Muzalipa is where they were united
physically in in Mina.
And the word Mina,
it it means, hopes
from Umniya. It's a hope or a dream.
Mina or hopes is where they is where
they planned how they were going to live
their lives after they lost everything,
after they lost each other for a while,
after they lost Jannah and each other, they
were they were reunited again It's Zelafu. So
they came close together and they forgave one
another. And then they decided, okay, we lost
everything, but we have a chance to go
back to it. It's gonna take longer. It's
gonna take a long time. It's gonna take
a lot of work. It's gonna It's gonna
take a lot of dedication. We have to
make a lot of choices here and decisions
that are different, and they decided that that's
what they were going to do. And that's
what you're going. You're going back to the
to the
to the beginning of the story.
Like you go back and you and you
go back to the to where the story
began.
The first moment of it all. As far
as we're concerned as human beings. Because we
don't understand how the evolution of it all
came together and where exactly the agenda is.
We don't know all that stuff. We just
know where our story began. Our story began
when our parents came together, and they figured
it out. Figured out what they were going
to do with their lives. And then they
made a decision. That's what that's where that's
Arab and Muzani, that's where these
that's where you are. But what if you
go and you and you establish the fact
you that you are in unity with the
universe, everything
circumambulates
around its center counter counter clockwise. Everything does.
Everything from the from from the atom and
its and its electrons to the to the
center of the universe and all the galaxies
around it that are it's it's all the
same things. Exactly the same system wherever you
look. And you go there on and you
just to
be in harmony for a few minutes with
everything else, like, around you that you're doing
right now exactly what everything else in the
universe is doing. And this is your that's
why Tawaf is equivalent to what?
Anyone know when you go to what is
it what is it equivalent to?
It's salah. Right? You have to have you
have to have a wudu. You can't do
Tawaf for the wudu. And you don't
do You don't go and pray. No. You
the Tahit Masjid may be here. There you
go do tawaf. That's your Tahit Masjid. So
it's equivalent to salah. It's equivalent to prayer.
It's just a prayer that comes in a
difference.
It looks differently. It comes it's what everything
else is doing.
It's what everything else is doing, so you
go ahead and do that as well.
Because of the sayyid.
You're you're you're embodying
what Sayidah Hajar alaihi salam did.
The concept of of of of of putting
in your effort, of side. The word side
means to try your best to to put
your to to start on a journey where
you may not get to where you want
to go, but you know where you're going.
You're trying to get there, and you'll draw
you'll die trying. That's what Sahih is.
All you get is what you are working
towards, what you are working towards in life.
You may not may not have achieved it,
but you will get what you are working
towards. Let's say you you have always wanted
to know the memorize the Quran. I'm giving
this as a simple example. There are much
bigger things that you can you can strive
towards or work towards that you'll get Hajj
report. But this is a simple one. You're
like, I have a really bad memory, but
I I'm going to every day sit down
and memorize a line because that's the best
I can do. And my goal is to
memorize the whole Quran. And if you die
with the consistency of everyday align with only,
like, 3 pages, you end up your
You you're resurrected as a Hafl. Because Allah
grants you the reward for that which you
work towards, not that which you achieved in
Duniya. It's a very different thing. It's very
different. You go and you walk between she
why was she walking back between these mountains?
It's useless. It was useless. It didn't do
anything. Allah, subhanahu, had sent Jor home already.
Yeah. He had sent, the the kabila, and
he had sent, Jibril. Her walking between the
was
completely useless. It didn't do anything, she did
it anyway.
And she knew it was gonna do anything,
but she did it anyway. It's all she
could do. It's all she could do. All
she could do was to walk from one
minute to one to the other and call
for help. That's all she could that's all
she had at that moment. She didn't have
any tools.
She didn't have any tools. She didn't have
anything in her hands to do to to
save her baby and save herself, but she
tried her best. She gave it her best
shot. And that's what we're supposed to do
in your life. Do your best. What's your
best? What can you do? What can you
offer? Offer it. Even if it seems useful,
it doesn't matter. Just do it. It. Do
what you can. Do what you can. Allah
will
decree whatever he wants. He said, Jabir, he
hit the ground, and Zamzam came out. Jerkum
came.
Life thrived.
He thrived.
Married and had children, and most people sitting
here are descendants of Ishmael one way or
the other.
One way or the other, almost impossible, Yani.
The, the intermarriage throughout the last 1400 years
or or before that, almost everyone here. Just
one way or another is connected to Ishmael
alayhis salaam. So he thrived. Everything thrived. But
she out of everything, you would think maybe
we'll go and, I don't know, sit where
Ishmael sat and, you know, pound the ground
like Jibril as as an active sim. No.
Go walk between the 2 go do the
useless thing. Go walk between the mountains as
as Hajar did. And remember that you are
required to do your best. This is the
symbolism of these actions. Understand? It's a life
changing journey.
Well, life it's a life changing experience if
you go and you're and you understand that
there are 3 layers of it. There's the
the layer of the beginning of time with
this with Adam and Hawa. Every step you're
taking is a step that Adam and Eve
took. And then there's a layer of Ibrahim
alayhi salaam and his wife Haja and his
son Isma'il. Every step there is also emulating
things that they did. And then after that
the 3rd layer, the layer that Muhammad salallahu
alaihi wa sallam did. The story of his
hajj is the most documented part of his
life.
How he sat, how he prayed when he
slept, how he moved, everything. And you get
to actually tell his story of his Hajj
in detail because everything is documented. So when
you go perform Hajj, you can choose at
which level on which level do you want
to enjoy this Hajj this year. Do you
want to focus on the level of Adam
and Eve or Ibrahim Hajj al Isma'i or
Muhammad It
doesn't matter. You can do all 3. You
can do it. But to go and do
none of it
if you go and do none of it
none of that exists, then this is not
a life changing experience. It's not because because
the question becomes why is Hajj so important?
Like, people who are logical, who don't understand
why they're doing something, I wonder why is
Hajj? Why is this even a thing? Why
am I doing this? What's the point of
this whole endeavor? Right? Because it seems so
mechanical. It's all just rocks and so a
if you imagine you're gonna pay how how
much money you paid today to get the
ticket to go there. Yeah. You could pay
like like if you pay that much money
to go to Europe, you would see every
major natural natural
beauty within that region. You will be yeah.
You'll be driving amongst these green mountains. You're
gonna pay all that money to go to
a place that literally
is yeah. What
I say anything now, someone's gonna get offended.
Have you seen the landscape of Mecca?
Outside of Makkah, have you got around and
see the drive from Makkah to Midian. Where's
the landscape?
What is there to see? There's nothing to
see. Where's alafa? What is there? There's there's
no falls.
There's no water. There's no green. There's no
animals. There's nothing. It's just a mountain. Just
a mountain.
The value of it is not the the
mechanics. The value is not the material.
It's what happened here once. Once upon a
time, what occurred here. The symbolism of this
of the spot that you're in.
And if you don't understand that and that
you don't allow you don't you don't absorb
it and embrace it and allow it in,
then you don't really benefit from this. And
Hajj
has
been been reduced
just to
you you do you do the mechanics quickly
and you come back haleq and we have
the,
I mean, the the the
you know, in in in the Middle East,
if you remember, they they they the poor,
you know, pine trees
in Hajj, they suffer so badly whenever there's
Hajj season. We had to chop them all
down and make, the thing in Hajji. Now
you're Hajji. Now we don't call you.
If someone calls you something, no, I'm to
you. I am a
and if you feel It's been reduced to
something. It's more status and it's more than
this is a life changing experience. For people
to do it only in their old age
is is so counterproductive.
It's so the opposite of what Hajj is.
Old people should not be doing Hajj unless,
for some reason, they weren't able to do
it when they were younger. Aside from that,
most of
the younger people should be doing it for
them. Hajj is a is a physical experience
that requires people who are young, who can
persevere. When the majority of people who bring
Hajj are old, yeah, at that point, what
how how much is how how much of
a life changing experience is go is it
going to be if you're in your seventies
or eighties? I'm not saying it can't. It
will. But how much of it is going
to be? And how much are you going
to be able to enjoy something where it's
a lot of walking? You stand and a
lot of it is walking. Think about it.
The majority of it is standing and walking.
For us to reduce it, we said, okay,
you're young. Don't do Hajj. No. Do Hajj
when you're young.
When you're done, you're undergrad and and and
and you're ready to you work for the
1st year and get married, take your wife,
go do Hajj.
Don't wait until you have kids, by the
way. Don't make that mistake. Make sure you
go before you have kids. Hajj with kids
is a is a true experience
of human,
perseverance and patience.
It's the true it is the ultimate experience
of human patience is going on umrah or
Hajj with children.
If you manage to do it with oh,
yeah. If you go with 4 kids and
come back with 4, you didn't leave it,
then then I'm sure Allah will accept it
from you. Talk about dhikr. The the concept
concept conceptual remembrance. That's how I talk about
it. Conceptual remembrance.
Conceptual is not just
we reduced it to
again. Okay. Same point.
I teach people to do this. I do
this myself.
You have to have a word. You have
to do a 100, 200, 300, 400 times
a day. You have to. You absolutely have
to. You have to say, You
have to do this. But if you reduce
remembrance to that only, then you'll miss out
the you you miss the bulk of what
it's supposed to be.
And this is what I'm trying to bring
for you then. No. No. You're supposed to
do a a 100, a 100,000 times. I
have teachers who would do
4 1000, 5000 times a day.
They love to say his name love to
say that. They they found joy. It was
like it was like it was like having
a meal.
The joy they felt from saying
it was something that they found actual joy
in saying. They love to say it. Like,
it's like they couldn't stop saying it. It's
like almost like a Tourette syndrome. They couldn't
stop
saying
They couldn't he would sit with him sometimes.
He'd get into it, and he would just
keep on saying it. You're sitting there. I
don't understand. You were in the midst of
a you have a conversation and he just
spends like the like 3 or 4 minutes
in a row.
Because he found joy in saying the word.
There's there's there's this
this beauty and this and this and this
fulfillment of just saying his name
saying the prophet's name
And this is what this this comes from
a certain degree of love that and a
certain
conceptualization
of what invocation and remembrance of Allah
actually is. Not to belittle not to belittle
the importance of doing a good, not at
all.
But understanding what they mean, what hamd is,
is to praise
and what that means and what tasbih has
to exalt and takbih to magnify and and
to acknowledge his oneness subhanahu wa ta'ala.
You have to you have to have that,
mirrored,
involvement of not just the tongue, but involvement
of the mind and involvement in the heart
so that it starts meaning something.
You start by you start by just saying
it. But then with time, you have to
start, okay, maybe I engage myself. Now my
tongue knows it really well. I can say
it. No problem. I can do a 300,
400 note problem. Now I try to engage
my mind, engage my heart in understanding this
stuff. Alhamdulillah. What is it? This is a
this is a Islamic concept.
Yes, it's a it's a It's a zikr,
it's a word,
it's an invocation, it's a way it's a
pray you know, praise Allah. But what does
it do? It it brings upon optimism. You're
forced if you are if you're saying Alhamdulillah
that means by you have to be seeing
something good. Good. There has to be something
positive.
There has to be something positive. It forces
you to see something positive. In any given
situation, this must be a positive. That's where
you're gonna say
The the known the known scholar when he
went and he visited the a friend of
his and and on the way there,
he would, he would,
cut his foot and it would get, and
he'd get infected. And and they ended up
having to to to saw his foot off.
And then his son, who was who he
had taken with him, was playing in the
stables and the horse basically trampled over him
and killed him. So within this journey, he
lost he had, you know, 4 children and
he he's so
they they weren't sure what to do. Like,
people were very scared to talk to him
about things because, yeah, he's now he's now
disabled. He can't he's not gonna walk
properly ever again, and he just his son
just died. Like
so they weren't sure what to tell him.
And then when they finally told him,
Dear Allah, I had 4 limbs. You took
1, you left 3. You left more than
what you took, so
I had 4 children. You took 1. You
left 3. You left me more than you
took.
Alhamdulillah forces you to have some optimism. No
matter how
horrible the, yeah, I'm not gonna listen to
you. No matter how difficult the situation is,
you're still gonna see something positive within it.
It the attitude of a building, of doing
something, alhamdulillah, it pushes you to go and
do something. Go and try again.
What what's left? Everything is broken. Everything is
destroyed. We we rebuild. We rebuild. That's why
the people of Gaza keep on rebuilding. That's
why Muslims keep on rebuilding. No matter what
happens, we keep on finding a way. No
matter what you do to us, we we
pop up somewhere else. We build a masjid
and we do it again because that attitude
is there. Alhamdulillah. We try again. Alhamdulillah. We
push ourselves yet again. We never lose hope.
You just never lose hope. Hope. Having gratitude.
Living with gratitude is very powerful. Even if
you if you leave the realm of religion
and you go and you just study psychology
just for the sake of
People who have gratitude in their hearts, people
who are grateful, they live longer, they live
better, they're more productive, and they have less
mental health problems.
If you just If you if you learn
to have
a a mentality of of being grateful
of always seeing the good stuff that you
got. Not focusing on the the the missing
pieces. There's always gonna be something missing. There's
always something I want that I don't have
yet that I want to give me. But
it's already giving me so much and if
I'm losing sight of all of that, I'm
focused on the one thing that he hasn't
given me that I'm I'm not living it's
not a healthy way to live.
And give me a million, and there's one
thing I don't have. So I don't have
it. So what? I have all this other
stuff. Why is it not not not why
is that not enough? And it gives you
that confidence in life.
SubhanAllah,
self criticism. SubhanAllah means you're exalted.
I do not blame you for anything. You're
flawless. There are no I I refuse for
there to be any imperfection about you, which
means when I don't like something, I turn
to myself and I wonder what I should
have have done. I don't see someone starting
and say, yeah. And I blame god for
not I say,
and then look. Maybe I should have done
something. Maybe I could have done something. Maybe
I could have helped that. Maybe I could
have eased that pain. May maybe I could
have eased that suffering.
Someone is passing away from a horrible disease
at a young age. I don't turn to
God and say, oh, why is I say,
subhanAllah, maybe maybe this is maybe I should
be the person who who
who embraces this this other individual and stands
by them and and and eases their their
their
way out and helps their family cope because
the decree of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, is
the decree of Allah. We may see the
wisdom, we may not see the wisdom, but
we're there to do. That's what that's what
means. Forces you not to instead of sending
blame upwards, no. You you you take a
look at yourself and see what you can
do. It gives you acceptance of the world.
You stop you stop, yeah, trying looking for
no. Just you accept it as it is.
Now that actually allows you to see its
beauty. You can't see its beauty if you
don't accept it. Yeah. It gives you that
resilience. It gives you that sincerity because there's
no one else aside from no one's like
him. Subhanahu wa ta'ala. No one's similar to
him. Why would you care about anyone else's
opinion if it's only
that no one like him?
No one comes even close.
Why
do
you
care?
Civilize repentance.
Now your is
is
is designed for us to build our our
our nation. That's what it's designed to do.
Think about istaghfir.
What it means is that you're acknowledging your
mistakes. If you're acknowledging your mistakes,
that means you
when you say istaghfirullah, you have an intention
of not doing them again. It's taghbar, if
you do it correctly every day, that means
every day you get rid of something bad.
Every day you acknowledge a bad habit or
a a mistake that you made. That means
every day you improve. And if every day
you improve, then it's only a matter of
time before the the level that you're at
is going you're gonna be on a much
higher level. Just naturally by just doing this
tawqa every single day. Unless this tawqa is
empty. Like you're just saying it and you
don't acknowledge your sins, and you're not looking
at them, and you're not trying to change
them, you're just saying the word. You have
no intention of making any differences to your
life.
But it's still far if you if you
do it appropriately, that's why the
All
the time in in in the Quran, whenever
it comes, it is accompanied with things will
work out. The sky will will rain more,
the earth will give more, you will build
higher. Things will work better because you continue
to acknowledge your mistakes and you you have
self regulation.
You come up with plans for change, and
it gives you that humbleness. You stop seeing
yourself. You you don't you're not arrogant because
you're focused on your own sin.
I'm not I don't care about your sin.
That's your sin. You just care about that.
I care about mine, and I know mine
well. I know them really well, so I'm
focused on them. So I have no reason
to think I'm better than you because I
see all of my sin. I'm always trying
to fix them. I do a stuff for
I don't know what you're doing. It's the
right business.
Stafar fixes that. It gets rid of that
that that that lethal
problem of arrogance where we where we allow
ourselves to feel superior to other people. Stafar
removes it. Imagine imagine if if if if
was serving his purpose. Imagine if it wasn't
reduced from this to just
but it's actually a meaning.
You you utilize this tool in your life
to to change how you, like, how you
you function.
Dua, I think we run out of time.
I I said I wasn't going to go
over 55 minutes and already have there are
2 more pieces. I wanna talk about Dua
and I wanna talk about
talk about.
These are the 2 things I was gonna
talk about. I'm gonna give you a quick,
quick understanding. Dua
is the conversation you have with God. It's
not the Aladdin's lamp illusion. This is my
it's an Aladdin's lamp illusion with Dua, where
we think it's I want this,
oh, and then he'll give me what I
want. That's not what this is. That's not
what this is. He he will respond to
you. He He will grant you that what
you want or that what he wants. He'll
grant it to you now, grant it to
you later, grant you something better. He'll withhold
it and give it back to you. He'll
remove a difficulty coming from your way. He'll
do whatever
Du'a is the ongoing conversation you have with
God. It shows that you care. It shows
that you take your issues to him first.
You are showing him what you're hoping for,
what you're scared of, what you're worried about.
That's what he cares about, subhanahu wa ta'ala.
You're you're explaining yourself to him. You're explaining
what you're about in your life. That's what
dua is.
That's what its value is. As you speak
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you
express your pain, express your agony, your suffering,
your difficulties, your fears, your hopes, your dreams.
You express them to him, subhanahu. Who else
are you gonna talk to? No one cares
aside from him. So talk to him, subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And ask, you know, if I
want this, and if it ask give it
to me, If it doesn't have khair into
it in it, then give me something else
and allow my heart to find any peace
by not having it. And that's how you
go by these. And Ramadan is is designed
for dua. That's what it's for.
Please utilize
or capitalize on how Ramadan teaches you to
make dua so that you continue to do
it all year round. People don't make dua.
I need the the
you know?
We're gonna skip the exercise for today. And
then practical closeness, kushor. That's what kushor is.
Kushor is not always crying. It's not always
not everyone can can produce a tear. Not
everyone can for different reasons. It would be
nice if they could, but not everyone can.
Some people have been through their life experiences
deprive them from the ability to to do
that sometimes. And that's alright. For sure, this
is the definition that I've given. This is
my yani coin definition. It's an emotional response
to the mental agreement and the intellectual acceptance
of the commands and and and teachings of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
It's it's an emotional response that comes from
you being at peace with what he's teaching
you Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. That is the example
I give. Right?
The example I give.
Your wife tells you
in the middle of the night you need
to go
to Shoppers and you have to get something
now.
And you're in your pajamas, you're in bed,
you're beyond tired, you know, you already have
a sleep, you have to go get it
now.
Now you're gonna go get it whether you
like it or not you're gonna go get
it. But there's 2 ways of doing this.
Either you go and you're upset and you're
disgruntled because you don't think this is needed
now. You don't think that this is the
right time to do it. So you go,
you get it done, but you are completely
upset the whole time and you think it's
a waste of time, so it's not important.
She's,
yeah, unreasonable. This is or you see that
this is actually you're right. This is we
need this for sure. And I don't know
how we missed it, and I'm glad you
reminded me. This is for sure something we
we should do I have to get right
now. Either
in either scenario you can go and do
it. But you do it with a different
attitude in both scenarios.
And this is what Laidm Adar Ally is
a simple one. If you don't agree with
the command, you'll do it, but you don't
agree with it so it doesn't mean anything.
And you're doing it, you're disgruntled, you're upset,
so it doesn't really benefit you. But if
you agree with it, then you do it
with a different attitude altogether. Khushur is that
attitude. It's the fact that you agree, yes,
yes, you told me to do this. It's
that's what I should be doing.
You you told me to do this. Because
if you didn't, I wouldn't have noticed and
then I would have missed out and I
and I would have harmed me. But like
that you you commanded me to to pray
and to fast and to perform Hajj and
to
take care of people and to only eat
halal and to only speak the truth, like
alhamd this is all helpful for me. Or
you can do it and you believe this
is all wrong, but I I'm scared of
jahannam, so I'm not gonna do it. Khushur
you'll do it either way. Khushur is just
you'll do it. It's an you'll you'll feel
emotionally attached. You have this mental agreement. You
have this intellectual acceptance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This
is right. This is the right thing to
do. This is 100% the right thing to
do. That's all huzoor is. That's all it
is. Try that.
When you're praying for the rest of the
month, try that. That's what you're looking for,
that this is where I need to be.
You're standing there in salah. This is where
I
should be. This is where I need to
be. I am grateful that I am here.
There is no other place nor situation nor
state that I would have that that I
should be in aside from the one that
I'm in right now. This is the best
case scenario. Like, alhamdulillah, you put me here.
I could have been anywhere else, but you
brought me here to where I need to
be. That on its own will bring out
within your heart something that you didn't even
know existed
Because that's what is. If we reduce it
if we reduce this value to a tear,
right, and you're sitting there
trying to get something out of your face
and everyone else is trying to then you
reduce the yes. Yes.
The concept of is beautiful. It's important, but
that's not what it is.
The value itself, the bulk is my you're
missing out on the actual point of this
whole of this whole action.
Not everyone can cry. That's okay. Alright with
that, inshaAllah
yesterday, the and if you want to ask
questions, you're welcome to stick around and ask
some questions.
Otherwise, we're done in your