Adnan Rajeh – The Empty Space #05 – The Tools
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of du ease and serving oneself in various ways to improve one's life. They also emphasize the use of Qiyam al-layl for fixing heart-related diseases and practicing the movement for a long period of time to improve one's life. They also touch on the transformation from fasting to Fasting, which is not just the biology of the mind but also the biology of life.
AI: Summary ©
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful, and all praise is due
to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.
Allahumma Salli wa Sallim wa Barik ala Nabiyyina
wa Habibina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi
ajma'in wa ba'd.
Welcome to our fifth episode from the series,
The Empty Space.
Today, inshallah, I will continue what I had
started talking about yesterday.
I had given a number of rules in
order for us to be able to achieve
change.
We have to keep in mind a number
of rules, and I went through them in
detail yesterday.
And I wanted to talk about some tools
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given
us to achieve change, but time didn't allow
it.
So I'm going to talk about them today.
And then inshallah, we're going to start going
through a number of heart sins or the
diseases of the heart.
That you'll find in the books of tazkih
and tasawwuf and suluk.
And we're going to go through the major
four if we have time today, and then
tomorrow we'll go through as many as possible.
Each one of them, to be honest, would
require a full episode, if not more, to
talk about every detail regarding it, and all
the intricacies and all the tricks that the
nafs can play, and how to deal with
them all.
But really what I want to do in
this series is to put you on the
path.
Get a footstep into the doorway.
Open up the discussion regarding these issues.
Reminding people that talking about these things are
important and they're real.
It's not voodoo to talk about the nafs
and the problems that it has.
We're not supposed to just accept the fact
that we have these issues.
We're supposed to put up a fight.
We're supposed to try and change the nafs
and change its convictions and change our behaviors
and be better people and enjoy life more.
A really important point to remember is that
when you do all this stuff, you enjoy
life more.
These sins of the heart are actually obstacles
between you and between actually living life to
its limits and to its fullest.
So let's go through the tools first.
I counted the tools yesterday, seven tools that
I think are very important.
There's many more, but I'm just giving you
the seven that I think you should start
out with.
It's like the starter's kit.
Number one, dhikr.
The most important of all.
Allah says, O those who believe, perform a
remembrance of Allah as much as you can
in abundance.
Allah doesn't really use the word kathira when
he's talking about acts of worship except when
he talks about dhikr.
Remember me and I will remember you.
In other verses, And those who remember Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala in abundance, male and
female.
The Prophet ﷺ, when he was asked by
one of the sahaba, There's too many rulings
and too much in Islam.
Islam is huge, Ya Rasulullah.
I'm a simple man.
I can't seem to keep it all in
my head.
I can't seem to remember everything.
Give me something.
Just give me something to hold on to.
Something that I can depend upon to get
me through.
The Prophet ﷺ would say, May your tongue
stay moist in the remembrance of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
And there's multiple other hadith where the Prophet
ﷺ talks about the best thing you can
do.
It's better than going to war and combat
for the sake of Allah.
It's better than giving wealth.
It's better than praying and fasting.
He would say dhikr Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
If you just go to the books of
hadith and you go to the Quran, you'll
find that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and
the Prophet ﷺ continue to emphasize the importance
of this one action, dhikr.
And because of that, the scholars of suluk
and tasawwuf have taken the concept of dhikr
and have really worked on it.
And as the anchor tool that they have,
you see, in therapy you'll be doing a
lot of meditation, you'll do a lot of
self-encouragement, but they don't have dhikr.
It's the most powerful tool of all and
they don't have it because there's something between
you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that
if you utilize, the barakah of it you're
going to find within your life.
And what you're going to see as we
move forward today and tomorrow is that a
lot of the major sins of the heart
are cured by dhikr.
I mean dhikr is the cure for them.
But we have to understand how to do
dhikr properly first.
The scholars would commonly call it riyadat al
-ruh, riyadat al-nafs, riyadat as in practice,
as in when you play a sport, it's
called riyadat.
But it also means to practice.
You're practicing, you're making your nafs practice changing
and doing something that it's not necessarily used
to doing.
Out of the different types of dhikr, I'm
going to talk about three of them.
First one is dhikr al-lisan, is the
remembrance that the tongue will do.
And what I'm referring to is what you
do after prayers, for example, or before you
go to sleep and you do subhanAllah, subhanAllah,
subhanAllah, subhanAllah, or astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah.
So when you're doing that with the tongue,
this is the most common type of dhikr,
of invocation, of remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
And it's definitely probably the most important of
all to start out with.
What you should do is the following.
I'm going to give you maybe a plan
to think about of how you can start
working on this.
Start with a small amount of dhikr every
day.
Make it simple.
And of course, the numbers I'm giving are
for those who don't do this at all.
If you perform dhikr, then your numbers should
be a bit higher.
But you can use these as a kind
of a baseline.
Three hundred.
Do a hundred of istaghfar, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah.
Do a hundred of salah ala rasool Allah,
wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, wa salli ala
nabiyyina muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa
jami'in.
And a hundred of la ilaha illallah.
Do that every day.
Once in the morning, once in the evening.
Or just once in the morning if you
find it too difficult.
You do three hundred every day and you
stick to that for a long period of
time.
Now what's going to happen when you decide
to start doing this, inshallah, what you're going
to feel inside is this resistance.
You're going to feel like you don't want
to do it.
But it's not you that doesn't want to
do it.
You want to do it because you're listening
to what I'm saying and this makes sense
and you want to try.
You're actually like, yeah, that sounds great.
But when you start doing it, you're going
to feel like I don't want to do
it.
But you have to start differentiating.
Now this is the whole point of this
series.
You should be able at this point to
start seeing the difference.
This is not me that doesn't want to
do it, it's my nafs.
The nafs doesn't want to do it.
The nafs doesn't see any self-interest in
this.
It does not see any direct effect on
your survival nor does it find any joy
in it right now.
So those two things are out.
So it has no interest in doing this
whatsoever.
So you'll feel this resistance of doing 300.
So then you do the following.
You say, okay, we're going to do 400.
At that point, you'll feel the nafs.
You'll feel yourself, okay, let's go back to
300.
300 is fine.
So then you do 500.
You say, we're going to do 500 then.
It's like you're dealing with someone on the
inside, which you are.
You actually are.
You're dealing with someone on the inside.
We're going to be tender.
We're not going to do 1,000.
No, let's do 300.
That's the decision.
It puts up a fight.
400.
Okay, let's go back to 500.
Still arguing.
500.
And then do 500.
Do another 200.
Commit to it.
Don't just say it.
And then do that first thing.
Second day, start again.
Okay, we do 300.
You feel the resistance.
You make the same steps.
Until you come to a point where you
say, I'm going to do 300.
Just be able to do them.
And there's no resistance anymore.
The nafs has given up.
It's fine.
Go ahead.
Do 300.
Do your 300.
It's leaving you alone.
Good.
Take those 300 and stick to them.
Stick to them for a few weeks, maybe
even a few months.
Until you feel they become a part of
your day.
Until you feel that they have become embedded
into your day, that they're a habit that
you'll never ever leave.
Once you achieve that, that I'll never stop
doing these 300, start working on the afternoon
or the evening 300.
If you're not doing morning and evening.
And then do that for a couple of
more weeks or a couple of months even.
Once you feel that you're fully...
And every time you add something, you do
the exact same thing I just explained.
It's tarweed al-nafs.
You're managing your soul.
You're teaching it.
When we make a decision, when the mind
makes a decision to do something right, you're
going to fall in line.
You're going to do the right thing that
we decided to do.
You're not going to put up a fight.
You're not going to bargain.
You're not going to negotiate.
You're just going to do what we decided
to do.
We want the nafs to start listening, to
actually allow you to take control of your
life and your decisions.
Why is it that if you make a
decision to do something, you have to have
resistance?
You shouldn't.
If you believe this is a good thing
to do, then you should be able to
do it.
But if you're getting resistance and you're getting
a fight...
Someone's fighting back and making you feel lazy
and making you feel like you don't want
to do it.
You're pulling its weight to make it stop
doing it, then you have to change it.
And just keep on adding a hundred, a
hundred.
Choose whatever adhkar you like.
There's really no set way to do it.
There's different...
That's why in tasawwuf they call them turuq.
Turuq means different ways.
And it's just...
And the turuq are basically different ways of
doing this.
What do I start with?
What's the second one I add?
You can find...
But they're all similar.
They're all pretty much the same.
You can just choose whatever you like.
Whatever works for you.
You like saying, حَسْبِ اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ Say
that.
You want to say, لَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَةِ
اللَّهِ Say that.
You just want to say, الحَمْدُ لِلَّهُ Another
hundred times.
You just want to keep on saying, أَسْتَغْفِرُ
اللَّهُ Whatever works for you.
Each spirit has a different mashrab.
Each spirit will benefit and take from a
different source more than the other.
It's just the differences of who we are
as people.
So whatever you like.
That's the first type of dhikr.
Dhikr al-lisan.
Let's try and start that today or tomorrow.
How much time does it take?
It takes a very short amount of time.
300 tasbihah?
Nothing.
You build them up.
But if you build, if you follow the
rules we talked about yesterday, you're tender, you're
slow, you stick to it, you self-regulate,
you evaluate, you remind yourself of the niyyah,
all the rules, then you'll find that within
a year or two years, you're up to
a couple of thousand.
And that's barakah.
Because I knew scholars who would do tasbihah
30,000-35,000 times a day.
Easy.
No struggle whatsoever.
They looked forward to it.
It was the time that they enjoyed being
alone.
It takes time to build your own dhikr.
Don't parade it.
Just start doing it on your own.
Just build your ability.
The second type of dhikr is dhikr al
-aql.
Some people call it dhikr al-qalb.
It's a remembrance that happens in the mind.
It's contemplating and reflecting upon the meanings of
the adhkar.
This you don't need a specific time for.
This you can do all the time.
You're driving your car.
You're going on a ride somewhere.
You're sitting, you're waiting for iftar.
You're in bed before you fall asleep.
Whatever you're doing, as long as you're not
in the bathroom obviously.
Whatever you're doing, you can perform this.
It's where you reflect upon the words that
you were saying all day.
If you're saying, استغفر الله استغفر الله then
reflect on what that means.
By thinking of استغفر الله is asking Allah
for forgiveness for sins.
So you should be thinking about your sins.
You should be thinking about your shortcomings, your
mistakes that were made.
So that when you say استغفر الله you're
actually targeting something.
It means something.
It actually has a meaning.
You see, if there's no dhikr al-aql,
if the mind doesn't perform dhikr as well,
the dhikr of the tongue doesn't do much.
The remembrance or the invocations of the tongue
in order for them to actually have an
effect, you have to keep the mind moving.
You have to get your mind to reflect
upon these things.
You shouldn't find too much resistance when it
comes to that.
Because this is just reflection.
This is just thought.
You're just thinking about what الحمد لله actually
means.
All praise be to Allah سبحانه وتعالى.
Why?
Reminding yourself of why all praise due to
Him.
Thinking of all the blessings that you have
in your life.
Thinking of how little you've done to repay
Him سبحانه وتعالى.
Just these thoughts so that the words that
come out of your mouth are more meaningful.
So when you say استغفر الله it means
a bit more because you've thought about it
a bit more deeply.
الحمد لله means a bit more.
لا إله إلا الله You think about the
oneness of Allah سبحانه وتعالى.
That contemplation, that reflection upon the meanings of
what you're saying is what will actually start
cleansing and purifying the nafs along with the
words that are being said.
You see, if you think about it what
you're doing is you're playing on that cycle.
You're playing on what's going into the heart.
You're saying something.
So your ears are hearing it when you're
saying it.
So that's going through the ears into the
heart.
You're thinking about it, the heart right into
the mind.
The mind sends it right into the heart.
You're affecting your thoughts in that cycle.
You're affecting your feelings.
So you're actually on your own autonomously.
You're actually changing the movement of that cycle,
the direction of it.
And you're filling your heart with خير and
you're strengthening your spirit.
You're doing it on your own.
You're not waiting for something to happen on
the outside.
You're not going and seeking experience.
Because we said you'd have to seek experience.
Like yesterday we talked about seeking experiences that
give you good memories, getting good friends.
All those are things that are going to
require other people and help.
Dhikr does it on its own.
That's why it's so powerful.
It's an extremely powerful tool.
By far the most powerful of all.
And the third type of invocation of dhikr
is ذكر العلم.
It's the remembrance of Allah سبحانه وتعالى that
happens through knowledge seeking.
When you listen to someone on a daily
basis, you talk about Allah سبحانه وتعالى, remind
you of these things.
You may say, I want to contemplate the
greatness of Allah سبحانه وتعالى.
So when I say سبحان الله, it means
something to me.
But I need more information.
So you need to listen.
You need to find دروس that talk about
Allah سبحانه وتعالى, talk about the nafs.
And if you do that every day, do
the exact same strategy I gave you with
the dhikr of the tongue, you use for
ذكر العلم.
Every day make sure there's 10 minutes of
your day.
I still do this every day.
Religiously.
I have 10 minutes, 15 minutes, where I'm
either listening to a...
I have a series that I'm going through.
Probably what I'm listening to is going to
be boring for most people.
But there's always 10, 15 minutes every day
where I'm listening to something.
I'm listening to a دروس, a series.
I'm continuing what the sheikh was talking about
yesterday.
I'm learning something new.
Every day, every day, every day.
10, 15 minutes.
Start, if it's too much, 5 minutes.
And then build on it.
Like I said, every couple of weeks after
you feel that 5 minutes or 10 minutes
of listening to a دروس is easy now,
you enjoy it, add a minute, add 2
minutes, add 3 minutes, make it longer.
Try to get to half an hour a
day.
Try to get to half an hour a
day where you're listening to علم, especially if
you're building your Islamic knowledge.
Someone you enjoy listening to, the topics that
you enjoy listening to, something that reminds you
of Allah.
This ذكر, what you're doing right now, listening
to this دروس, it's a form of ذكر.
This is ذكر العلم.
If you're at home and you're listening to
this, or you're listening to it after it's
recorded, this is ذكر العلم.
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
You're listening to someone remind you of Allah.
Find someone you enjoy listening to, whatever the
language is, whoever the person is, it doesn't
matter.
Just find someone who's gonna give you good
information, obviously, and say the correct things and
has a decent mindset and perspective.
And then do that every day.
Make them small.
Make the amount of time that you spend
small at the beginning.
If you go really, like I said yesterday,
if you go really strong really quickly, you
get burnt out, the نفس gets bored.
Every day there's a دروس and it's long.
And so now the Prophet ﷺ made his
دروس sporadic.
He put them all throughout the week.
He didn't do it every day.
He didn't make them very long.
Because he doesn't want the صحابة to get
bored and tired of listening.
Obviously in Ramadan we do it daily, because
it's Ramadan.
Because we wouldn't do this outside of Ramadan.
Outside of Ramadan it's once a week.
And we درس once a week and that's
it.
But in Ramadan, because of the بركة of
the time and the fact that we really
want to optimize the utilization of the blessings
of these days, we're doing it daily.
And then if your نفس gives you some
resistance, do the same thing.
Same strategy.
Just increase.
Increase for a few days.
Keep on increasing until it stops resisting you
on the basic amount that you decided you
want to start with.
Once it stops resisting, go take it and
go with it.
Go with it.
Run with it for a couple of weeks,
couple of months.
Until you feel that you no longer struggle
to do it.
We would do that for kids teaching them
Quran.
Get them used to reading small amounts and
then build those amounts slowly.
So until they can read half a juz'
a day, no problem.
When they first start out, you tell them
you're going to have to read half a
juz' every day.
It's going to blow their mind.
It's impossible.
Never do it.
But they'll do it.
And then they'll do a juz' and two
juz' and no problem.
Because it just takes time to get the
نفس used to doing things.
It's just slow and gradual.
So that's the first tool.
I probably spent the most time talking about
it because it's the most important of all.
Dhikr.
This is going to be with you for
the rest of your life.
You're going to keep on building on your
أذكار until the day you pass away.
And the more dhikr you have, insha'Allah,
the higher your status yawmul qiyamah.
Before I move on, I'll just point out
one more type of dhikr.
There's the أذكار that the Prophet ﷺ specified
for certain times and certain positions.
Like when you get up in the morning,
when you get dressed, when you leave the
house, when you sit down to eat, when
you're done eating.
There's all these أذكار.
There's like a book Imam An-Nawyi wrote.
الأذكار.
He said this before this.
The Prophet ﷺ made sure every single thing
that he did daily had a dhikr before
it, had some invocation.
Start memorizing those stuff.
Go to the book of...
And that's maybe...
If you're going to perform dhikr al-'ilm or
you're listening and remembering Allah, maybe listen to
a series of duroos that talk about these
أذكار.
Because that can teach.
Because then you know.
الحمد لله الذي أحياني بعدما أماتني الحمد لله
الذي ألبسنيه من غير حول مني ولا قوة
So you know what to say every time
you get dressed, every time you leave the
bathroom, every time you enter your home.
And a really nice thing to start with
is with Imam An-Nawyi.
Imam An-Nawyi has his own set of
أذكار, his own set of invocations.
I remember I was taught these invocations when
I was a young kid.
And they would give us a sinad, give
us a chain of narration to Imam An
-Nawyi.
And it's just a bunch of أذكار that
he put together.
He used to say daily.
And you can just buy.
It's online for free.
You can just take and just read it
every morning if you like.
You don't have to read the whole thing
at the beginning if it's a bit long.
You can read maybe portions of it until
you build up to the ability to read
all of it.
And then you can just make it your
رد.
Or you can build your own أذكار.
And you can have a set of أذكار
that you say after Fajr before you go
to work.
Or you can say them anytime you like.
There's a lot of freedom in how and
when to say أذكار and what you're gonna
be saying.
Just make sure you start building your repertoire
of أذكار.
Just keep on building it until you have
a good amount.
It'll take a while.
It'll take maybe years.
But start with something simple and use the
strategies that I talked about.
The second tool is الدعاء.
The tool of الدعاء.
I'm not talking about the دعاء that we
treat like Aladdin's lamp.
I'm talking about دعاء that is a conversation
between you and Allah سبحانه وتعالى, where you
open your heart, and you talk to Allah
سبحانه وتعالى about your fears, about your anxieties,
about your hopes for the future, about what
you would like to see yourself accomplishing in
this life, about the problems that surround you.
This شكوى المناجى, this is the دعاء that
I'm talking about.
These are free therapy sessions.
To get a therapy session, you have to
book it in advance and it is pretty
expensive.
You want to get daily free therapy sessions
that actually have a very profound impact on
your soul?
دعاء.
Just do دعاء everyday.
Because you're speaking to Allah سبحانه وتعالى.
Who's listening?
The نفس is listening.
The نفس is hearing you.
The نفس is hearing you explain what you're
afraid of, what you want to avoid, what
you're worried about, what you would like to
see happen, the difficulties you're finding on the
way of achieving your goals, the obstacles.
The نفس listens to that every single day
and it starts to change its convictions.
It starts to learn, it starts to understand.
People, generally speaking, learn more.
This is a fact, this is a psychological
fact.
When they observe something indirectly, meaning if I
come to someone and tell them you have
to stop doing that, they're less likely to
stop doing it.
If I had spoken to someone else to
stop doing it and they were just listening.
If the criticism is not being directed towards
you, but you're listening and it's relevant to
you, you're more likely to change your behavior
than if someone came and told you not
to do it anymore.
It's just how we are as people and
there's a lot of reasons.
Ego is probably the strongest reason, but that's
a fact that we know.
A good way to teach kids, especially younger
kids, is to have a teddy bear.
Speak to the teddy bear.
Try it.
Speak to it.
Tell it that you should do it.
And the kid listens.
They feel less pressure.
They don't feel targeted.
They don't feel that they made the mistake.
It's the teddy bear that did and they're
more likely to listen.
Same thing goes if you have a teenager,
someone older.
They're making a mistake.
Don't point out the mistake.
Talk to your wife about another person.
Just make up a name who's making that
mistake and discuss the problems that they're causing.
Let them listen.
You're more likely to get...
The Prophet ﷺ used to say, مَا بَعْلُوا
أَقْوَامٍ What's wrong with people...
Some people...
And the person he's talking, sitting right in
front of him, he's not gonna point to
him.
He's talking about other people.
Other people who do this.
It's such a bad habit to do.
Instead of saying, my brother, this habit that
you're doing is wrong.
He would just talk about the third party.
It's easier for the nafs.
Du'a is a free therapy session.
You sit there and you...
You see, du'a actually tells Allah who
you are.
I'm gonna make a series, inshallah, after Ramadan.
Where I'm gonna study with you the du
'a of the Prophet ﷺ and the du
'a in the Qur'an.
Because du'a actually is the mirror of
the spirit.
It's the mirror of who you are.
You express yourself through du'a.
You explain to Allah ﷻ what you are
as a person and who you are as
a person through du'a.
If you're making du'a continuously about aafiyah,
that means you're someone who's scared of disease.
If you're continuously making du'a for children,
that means you're worried about your kids.
If you're making du'a for the ummah,
that means you have a bigger picture.
You have goals for the ummah.
If you're making du'a that you want
to memorize the Qur'an, it shows that
that's what you want to do.
Whatever you're making du'a about all the
time says a lot about who you are.
It says a lot.
And when you read the Prophet ﷺ's supplications,
oh, you actually learn more about his character
from that than anything else.
Than studying what he did and where he
went and what he said and how the
Sahaba said.
Just study what he said when he was
making du'a.
Because Aisha was listening and the Sahaba were
always listening to what he was saying ﷺ.
His hopes and his dreams and his ambitions
and his fears and his feelings and his
sorrow and his pain.
And it's all in there.
It's all in the du'a.
It's an art that requires practice.
You need to learn how to perform du
'a.
It takes time.
Ramadan is the perfect time.
There's no better time in the world.
There's no better time of the year than
Ramadan to learn to make du'a.
Start by doing five, ten minutes of du
'a every day in Ramadan.
Sit down, put your hands up and start
speaking to Allah ﷻ.
Don't necessarily ask for things even though that's
totally legit.
Asking for Jannah shows something about you.
Asking for education shows something about what you're
trying to do.
I'm talking about don't ask for materialistic things
a lot in this du'a.
Focus on your life, on your plans, on
your hopes, on your dreams, on your future,
on your fears, on your past, on your
mistakes, on your regrets.
Talk about these things.
Just like the people in the Qur'an
do.
I'm speaking to Allah ﷻ, the mother of
Mary.
Explaining to him, إِنِّي نَذَرْتُ لَكَ مَا فِي
بَطْنِ مُحَرَّةً فَلَمَّا وَضَعَتْهَا قَالَتْ رَبِّ إِنِّي وَضَعْتُهَا
أُنْثَ When she gave birth to a child,
she went, Ya Rabb, I gave birth to
a female.
Well, he knows.
And a lot of stuff you're gonna be
saying in du'a, he knows, subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
But who's listening?
There's a third party that's listening.
We don't want the nafs to figure us
out.
But it's listening.
The nafs is listening.
And the more you make this du'a
every single day, it's a therapy session that
the nafs learns from.
It's hearing, oh my gosh, he or she,
they're scared of this, they want this.
I'm always the obstacle.
I seem to be in the way of
all their goals and their dreams.
And the nafs starts changing.
The nafs just starts changing because it's listening
to the same stuff every day, the same
hopes and the same dreams.
You listen to them long enough, they become
your hopes and dreams.
That's the power of media.
It's the power of art.
When you're listening to music that is filled
with drugs and * and alcohol and extravagant
ways of life, it becomes your way of
life just by you continuously listening to it
every single day.
That narrative becomes your narrative.
Those thoughts become your thoughts.
It starts messing with your brain because that's
how we are.
We're creatures that can be influenced and swayed
easily.
So that's why you have to be very
careful.
What are you allowing through your ears?
What are you allowing through your eyes?
What are you allowing your brain to think
about?
Du'a.
Oh, the beauty of du'a.
Once you get used to it, by the
way, you'll never stop doing it.
You'll love it.
It'll become so close to your heart just
performing du'a because it's an outlet.
You can let out all of this stress
and anxiety and fear inside of you and
you're speaking to the one who wants to
listen to you, to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
It's the relationship.
Without du'a, there's no relationship between you
and God.
Prayer kind of encompasses all of that.
But du'a is specific.
Du'a is a very targeted action.
It has only one goal.
You're conversing with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Explaining to Him what you want, what you're
hoping for, where you're going.
And He's listening subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And He'll grant you everything you're asking for.
If not now, later.
If not in dunya, in jannah.
You'll find it all.
But the value that we forget about it
is the nafs, the nafs.
It will put up a fight when you
start doing du'a too.
In Ramadan, its fight is much weaker.
So start now.
And then after Ramadan, stick to five minutes
every day.
Where you're completely alone.
Completely alone.
Make sure there's no one there to distract
you.
Put up your hands and just speak to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Speak to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in
whatever language you're good at.
Doesn't matter.
Get used to it.
At the beginning, you'll feel very awkward.
You may sit there with your hands up
for a couple of minutes saying nothing.
That's fine.
Sit for five minutes saying nothing.
That's okay.
At the beginning, you can do that.
That's no problem.
Until you start getting the courage to speak
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And you start saying a few things.
Today, this happened.
I felt very, very, very negative about it.
And it hurt me.
Ya Rabb, ujbur khatiri.
I can't do du'a in English.
I don't know how.
I speak to God in Arabic.
Speak to God in whatever language you want
to.
It's fine.
It makes no difference.
It makes no difference.
There's no authenticity whether it's in Arabic or
English or in Urdu, in Bangla, in whatever
Somali, whatever language you're good at, Bosnian, I
don't know even the names of the languages
anymore.
Just whatever you're good at, just speak to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Five minutes every single day.
Do not cut the day.
And then start going up a little bit.
After you get used to five minutes, you're
happy, make them six, make them seven, make
them eight, make them nine.
Slowly build it up.
And then after a while, it comes naturally
to you.
And the nafs is listening.
These are free therapy sessions.
Wallahi, it takes away so much of the
anxiety and the depression that you have in
your heart when you speak to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala openly.
You express yourself.
You hear yourself expressing yourself.
You hear yourself speaking about your experiences and
your difficulties.
It's easier to talk to your therapist.
It's easier to talk to your doctor.
It's easier to talk to your family.
It makes a big difference in your life.
Dua is very important and the two strongest
tools.
Third tool is al-hizb or the amount
of Quran that you read every day.
You need an amount of Quran daily even
if it's just an ayah.
But there has to be an amount of
Quran that you read daily and that you
think about and you reflect upon.
Not just for tilawah.
Even though tilawah is good enough.
If you're someone who's used to reading a
juz of Quran every day, great.
If you're like, I don't read any Quran
every day, fine.
Start with something small.
It's the same.
You're gonna hear me repeat the same methodology
for everything.
That's why I gave the rule at the
beginning.
Just learn to do it tenderly and slowly
and then commit to it and you're gonna
be fine.
Take half a page of Quran.
I can't.
That's too much for me.
I can't.
Then fine.
Smaller.
An ayah.
Choose a surah you love.
Start with one.
Recite the verse.
Recite it as many times as you can
until you memorize it.
Until you feel that it means something to
you.
And then read translations and explanations so you
understand it.
So you can contemplate and reflect upon it.
Make sure you have an amount of Quran
daily.
Or a surah that you're reflecting upon throughout
a certain period of time.
And then that hizb should be built.
The Prophet ﷺ was so picky about the
hizb and the wird that he would tell
sahaba, if you miss it one night because
of...
Then you make up for it the next
morning.
And then you continue your frequent...
Then continue your habit.
So if something happens overnight and there's an
emergency and you didn't have time to sit
down and read it, make up for it.
Why would I make up for it?
It's not like an obligatory.
It's obligatory because you've made it obligatory upon
yourself.
Because the Prophet ﷺ, he valued the importance
of habits.
Of you making a habit and sticking to
it.
It's the only things that we know.
That the Prophet ﷺ would be very...
You must...
Around the dhuhr time, then read it.
Find time for it.
You need to make up for it.
That day doesn't...
It still counts.
You still have to make that...
Read that amount of Quran.
And it doesn't matter.
The amounts, like I said, don't need to
start with anything.
Please don't start with big numbers.
Please don't start with big amounts and get
too enthusiastic.
Well, at least I hope I'm able to
encourage you enough to become enthusiastic.
But don't start with amounts that you're not
gonna stick to.
That are gonna be too stressful upon the
nafs.
Start with something simple.
Just half a page or less.
And then build upon it.
Build, build, build.
That's what we do with kids.
We get them to do their revision of
Quran.
It's basically just getting them used to reading.
Getting...
At first, they can only maybe read a
few surahs.
Each surah, like maybe a couple of lines.
And then they can do a page.
And then they can do two pages.
And after a while, every day they're able
to do four or five pages.
And that means now they have the ability
to have a hizb.
They can read Quran every day, no problem.
It's not difficult for them to read.
That's barakah for them.
You're actually...
You're making their lives easier if you train
them to read Quran every day at a
young age.
Why?
Because when they listen to this series when
they're older, they already have one of the
tools in their pocket.
Yeah, no, Quran, no problem.
I memorized the Quran younger.
Oh, I used to read it every day.
I can read it every day right now.
I'm doing that right now.
Great.
You have a tool with you.
You can use that tool.
When you read the Quran every day, you
start learning to reflect upon the Quran.
Think about it.
Learn from it.
The goal becomes finding one lesson in those
verses that you're going to practice.
You're reading the Quran every day.
You read some verses today.
Yes.
What was the lesson that you learned in
those verses that you haven't been practicing that
you're gonna practice and you'll find it and
then you'll do it.
And that every day you have something new
that you're adding to yourself and to your
behavior.
So, al-wird, dhikr, invocation, dua, supplication, and
Quran.
There has to be an amount of Quran
in your life.
And the barakah of that, I don't need
to explain the barakah of that.
That is...
You will see it in your life if
you just make sure there's an amount of
Quran in your life daily.
And Ramadan is a little bit better time
than the month of Quran itself to start
with this habit.
Number four.
Al-khidmah, service.
Get yourself out of your comfort zone and
serve in ways that maybe you didn't.
We were taught this young.
And my...
I'll give you this example for me.
And I was completely uncomfortable doing public speaking.
I was not...
I spoke way too quickly.
I was way too loud.
I was way too direct.
I had very little...
I would say social IQ, meaning I didn't
really understand what would harm people, what would
hurt their feelings.
It was not for me.
Speaking publicly definitely was not something I should
have got into whatsoever.
But the lessons we were being taught by
our shuyukh walking down this road was that
you have to serve Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala and you have to do things that
you wouldn't necessarily do so that they're sincere.
Because when you don't want to do them,
then they're definitely much more sincere.
If you want to do them, that means
the nafs has found some self-interest in
it.
So do it.
It's fine.
There's always gonna be some self-interest somewhere.
But look for things that your nafs doesn't
want to do at all and then do
them because that means the nafs didn't find
any self-interest in it.
It's outside of your comfort zone.
So I started public speaking.
I didn't know I was gonna make it
into a career later.
But that's what happens.
If you do something, you do it well,
you keep on trying, you keep on serving
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, do something, He
opens doors for you.
I literally got into medicine for the same
reason.
I was not someone comfortable around blood and
pain and suffering whatsoever.
So I tried.
Let's do this then.
Just challenge yourself.
Do something that your nafs and your nature
aren't compatible with.
And you'll figure out that that's untrue.
It's just that your nafs didn't find self
-interest in it.
Or your nafs was under the illusion that
somehow that's not helpful.
And we end up missing out on so
many opportunities in life when we don't get
out of our comfort zone and do something.
And your soul is just gonna hold you
back for as long as you allow it
to from doing these things.
Serve Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through venues
that you don't feel comfortable serving Him through
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I went to a masjid.
This is the first time I met one
of my teachers, Shaykh Shukr Al-Luhati rahmatullah
alayh.
He was in his 90s when I spent
some time with him.
He was an old man.
Very old.
By the day I met him I was
taken by one of my teachers to a
masjid.
And we were sitting on the carpets and
we were listening to a durs.
And I was nervous.
I hadn't been in that setting specifically before.
And there was a man walking around and
he's pouring water and offering.
So he offers me a cup of water
and I say Jazakallah khair.
My Shaykh slaps me on the head from
behind.
He says, take the water.
So I took the water and I drank
and I thanked him.
I looked at him.
Why?
I wasn't thirsty.
Do you know who that is?
No, I don't know him.
That's Shaykh Shukri himself.
He's a qara, hafidh, qiraat al-ashr.
He was a scholar of Quran.
Mufassir.
He was a master of calligraphy.
He spoke four languages and he's one of
the students of the great scholars of Damascus.
Not to go into names that you probably
won't identify with.
He was a man in his late...
At the time he was in early 90s.
And he would do khidmah.
His khidmah, every time there was a dars,
he was older.
He didn't do public speaking.
At that age you kind of lose your
connection with people.
So he stopped doing it.
Let other people do the teaching.
He would go around pouring water for people.
And he would refuse anyone else to do
it but him.
He would wait for everyone to come into
the masjid and he would go back to
where the shoes are and put them all
in their places.
And those who didn't put the shoes in
their places, if you just came and you
threw your shoes, whatever, he would come and
put them in their places for you and
then pour water for you and make sure
you're comfortable.
It's just khidmah, it's service.
That's how you want to beat your nafs.
To serve Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Serve people in ways you're not necessarily comfortable
with.
It's not just enough to, you know, just
press an app and send money.
That's good.
الحمد لله و رزاق الله خير انفاق is
important.
You know, people are in need.
But you have to find other ways to
serve.
Ways that teach your nafs a lesson, teach
your soul to be more humble, to have
less vanity, to have less envy, to accept
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the
one in control and we are here not
to judge people but rather to serve them.
I remember...
I'll give you examples.
I'll talk about this more once we go
through each...
This series is turning into more than I
bargained for it to be.
We have to talk about each disease of
the heart and each one will have an
example where we can do something outside of
our comfort zone to teach us a lesson.
But I'll give you an example.
I remember my sheikh...
And they're very good at these things, these
scholars, rabbaniyin.
They're very good at figuring you out.
And one day he just asked me, who
don't you like in your...
We were talking about...
He got me talking about my family and
friends and he asked me, who's your best
friend?
Who's the person you don't like?
So I slipped and I gave him the
name of a person I didn't like at
all.
He told me, okay, your job is for
the next week is that you're going to
serve this person.
You're gonna go and you're gonna serve that
person.
The most difficult thing I have ever done
in my entire life.
I hated every moment of it.
But it was such a refreshing experience.
You learn so much from doing something like
that.
Just to go serve him.
Meaning, I asked the sheikh, what do you
mean serve him?
Serve him.
Whatever he's doing, go help him.
Make dua for him every night that Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la grant him
the best of dunya and akhirah.
That was hard.
Just doing that was difficult.
I didn't like the person at all.
For good reason, the person was mean.
He's a bully.
But I made dua for this person.
And I would go every time they had
something, go help them.
I would take them food.
I would just aid them.
You know what happened?
I learned something about myself.
My nafs, my ego shrunk.
It gave more room inside of me to
think and to contemplate and to enjoy life.
And that person became a friend.
Today, he's one of my closest friends.
I've known him for years now.
You have to get out of, you have
to do things you're not comfortable with.
If you're not ready to do things you're
not comfortable with in terms of service, because
we are servants, we're here to serve, then
you're going to walk down this path and
you're not going to be satisfied with your
result.
You can say, I've been doing dhikr for
years and I haven't felt well.
You have to utilize all the tools.
And we'll talk about that, inshallah, more.
With specific examples with each disease, how you
can actually perform khidmah, perform service in a
way that will offer you something, offer you
a difference to your soul and to your
heart and make you feel differently and behave
differently.
That's the fourth tool.
The fifth tool is qiyam.
And these are more simple because they're much
more straightforward.
Qiyam al-layl, I'm talking about.
The Prophet ﷺ emphasized this a lot, a
lot.
He emphasized the point of qiyam al-layl.
And what I mean by that is that
the Prophet ﷺ would rarely emphasize heavily an
act of sunnah.
He would emphasize the fara'ib, and leave
the sunnah to people, do how you want.
But when he spoke to the youth of
his community, he would always emphasize qiyam al
-layl to the point where, there's a lot
of hadith, I'll give you one example, where
they were talking about Abdullah ibn Umar, فقال
نعم الرجل عبد الله Great young man, Abdullah.
لو كان يقوم من الليل If he only
performs qiyam al-layl, he would have been
perfect.
And Abdullah ibn Umar heard that, and he
said, I never stopped doing qiyam al-layl
from that moment on.
Why?
Because the Prophet ﷺ said, نعم الرجل He
said, I'm a great guy.
That is a testimony that I can carry
on qiyam al-layl, but I just have
to meet the condition which is qiyam al
-layl.
The Qur'an قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا وَمِنَ
اللَّيْلِ فَتَهَجَّدَ بِهِ نَافِيرَةً لَّكَ عَسَىٰ أَن يَبَعَثَكَ
رَبُّكَ مَقَامًا مَحْمُودًا The Qur'an is filled
with qiyam al-layl.
Besides the actual prayers that you're doing, have...
Start with two rak'ah.
You're doing 28 or 11 or 20, whatever
you're doing at home.
I hope, inshallah, that you are.
If you're not following us, you're following the
other imams doing their virtual stuff, you're at
least doing at home with your family or
doing it alone.
Make sure that you're doing taraweeh and qiyam
al-layl in Ramadan.
The reason that we do this in Ramadan,
by the way, and you're gonna see how...
You're gonna figure out the beauty of Ramadan
on your own by the time I'm done
this series.
You're like, oh, that's why he has a
30-day course of fasting and qiyam and
dhikr and du'a.
Because this is how you change yourself.
This is how you do it.
In order for us to improve as human
beings, we need to do these things.
So, here's a 30-day course.
It's a boot camp.
You're gonna do dhikr every day.
You're gonna do du'a every day.
You're gonna do qiyam every day.
You're gonna do siyam every day.
You're gonna read Quran every day.
Aren't these the tools I've been talking about?
You're gonna be doing all the good deeds
and that's gonna...
If you continue them later, then your nafs
is going to change and your spirit is
going to elevate and your conscience is gonna
get stronger and your heart's gonna fill with
khair and you're gonna become a better person.
And that's gonna help you live life to
its fullest and that's the point of all
this.
Qiyam al-layl.
Even after Ramadan, just stick to two rak
'ah a night.
They can be quick.
They don't have to be long like the
ones we're doing in tahajjud and in talawiyah.
They can be quick.
Just make sure you do them every night.
Every night, do two rak'ah.
Your nafs is gonna do the same thing.
Do the same thing with it.
It tells you, no, make them four.
It says, go back to two, do six.
And then do that.
Until when you say, okay, the two rak
'ah of qiyam al-layl, we're gonna start
them.
It shows no resistance, then just stick to
two rak'ah.
And stick to that for as long as
you need to.
You don't have to increase the number of
rak'ahs.
You can just increase the time spent within
the two rak'ah.
Meaning instead of reading al-kawthar and al
-ikhlas and the rak'ahs and moving quickly,
you can read maybe the half page that
you were revising that day.
Or maybe just open the Quran and read
that half page if you didn't memorize it.
And then when you do ruku' you spend
a little bit more time.
When you perform raf' you spend a bit
more time.
And the beauty of it is that each
of these movements in prayer actually have an
invocation attached to it that fixes one of
the diseases of the heart.
How about that?
Each of the movements of prayer, when you
stand, you do hamd, when you do ruku'
you're doing tasbih, when you do sujood, you're
making dua, when you're sitting, you're doing istighfar.
Each one of these will fix a problem,
if not multiple problems.
This is why prayer is the anchor of
our deen because within it you fix everything.
You prepare yourself to live, to go forward
with life and with your plans.
So just hold on to a little bit
of qiyam al-layl even if it's in
haidat.
Don't let anyone know about it, not even
your spouse, no one.
Don't let anyone know about it.
Do it on your own.
That's an important point.
For years you have to do this completely
on your own until there's no way there'll
be any riyah in it which is rare
that it actually ever ends up happening.
But when it does happen then you can
start opening up.
But besides that, you keep it completely secret.
It's between you and God.
Why?
Because the nafs, if you let one person
know, the nafs will start helping you.
Because the nafs will be like, yeah, yeah,
now I find my self-interest.
It gives me a good reputation.
That will allow you to survive longer.
We're good.
You can go ahead and do it.
You don't want the nafs to do that.
You want the nafs to do it against
its will at the beginning and then change,
not accept it because it's found some way
to insert its self-interest in it.
So no one should know.
The sixth ru'man is suyam.
Fasting.
Fasting changes not just the psychology but the
biology, the physiology.
It changes how your body functions.
Your body becomes self-dependent.
It starts learning to...
Your body right now is learning to extract
glucose from different sources inside of you instead
of waiting for you to shovel down more
and process sugars.
It's going to figure...
And it's doing that right now.
Especially before maghrib, your body is...
Your liver is like, okay, we need more,
something to come...
Nothing?
Okay.
We have to then figure out use fat
cells, use whatever storages that you have in
the body.
The body starts becoming...
The body changes and the psychology of you
change.
You stop planning things around food.
Food stops becoming the goal.
Food stops becoming the only enjoyable part of
your day.
You're not looking forward to it because it's
not there.
You're not going to eat anyways.
That's why it's important during suyam that you
don't have a huge meal at iftar.
Have a regular meal.
Because if you look forward to a huge
meal at iftar and you keep on eating,
then it's not really fasting, you're just delaying
pleasure.
Delaying pleasure is not fasting.
Fasting is decreasing the amount of consumption that
you perform on a daily basis.
And the barakah of suyam, ask anyone who
does suyam daily or does suyam routinely after
Ramadan.
You've done it for 30 days, you're capable
of it.
Keep up at least a day a week.
The highest thing is day in, day out.
You can't do that Monday, Thursday.
You can't do that at least three days
a month, 13, 14, 15.
At least that.
If not all three days, at least one.
At least a day a month, just one
day.
It makes a difference.
It does.
Suyam is a way to purify the nafs
and to get it used to behaving in
a certain way and going against this world
because you're taking away from it the thing
it loves the most, the joy that food
brings.
That's the biggest, that's the anchor joy that
we have.
You take it away, you teach it a
lesson, you calm it down, you slow things
down for it.
The seventh and fifth tool is reading.
What I mean by reading is not just
reading books but reading life, meaning taking the
concept of iqra, which is the first word
the Prophet Alaihissalam heard from Jibreel, which is
the anchor of our faith in general.
It's built upon the mentality of iqra.
Take that and start practicing it.
Start benefiting from everything around you.
Look for the benefits in every experience and
everything that you come across.
You come across a person, they must have
some experiences that you don't have benefit from
it.
There's a book there.
There must be some information here that I
don't have that I could benefit from.
Read it.
There's a series that's being given.
I don't like the person who's giving it.
He's annoying and loud.
But he may have something that I don't
know.
I'll listen to it.
I may benefit.
Just learn to absorb information.
Learn to take experiences and absorb so that
you can generate wisdom, so that your nafs...
See, the nafs that is ignorant is much
more dangerous than nafs that is educated.
If you educate yourself, your nafs starts to
change because it's being offered information.
It changes its perspective.
Remember, we talked about its convictions.
How do you think the nafs convictions, your
soul's convictions are gonna change?
Information, ilm.
By reading.
By reading and learning, you're offering it more,
you're giving it more insights, more perspective in
the nafs.
It takes time, but it will start to
be convinced.
Yeah, that sounds...
I've heard that so many times from people
who are much more successful.
You see, the nafs wants you to be
successful.
Let it listen to someone who's successful speak.
The nafs wants to be on top, wants
to be the strongest, wants you to survive.
Let it listen to someone who's done that
before it, and then it'll start changing its
convictions.
It won't happen immediately, but through time.
That's why the deen was built on iqra.
You have to be someone who's able to
grow and learn.
If you're not someone who's able to grow
and learn and willing to grow and learn,
then you're not gonna go far with this
deen.
If you're not someone looking for the truth,
seeking al-haq, seeking new experiences, seeking new
wisdom, seeking new information, then you're going to
end up in a vicious circle.
You end up very closed-minded and tunnel
-visioned, and things are not gonna make a
difference.
I've already gone way beyond the time I
was supposed to take.
We're not gonna have any time to talk
about the sins today, but I hope the
tools that...
I'll probably change the episode's name to the
tools.
I didn't think they would require a full
episode, but they did.
So we talked about the tools today.
I hope these strategies, using these tools, made
sense to you.
Inshallah, tomorrow, I'll start with the four major
sins of the heart, and we'll try, with
whatever time we have, to talk about as
many as possible and give you some tricks
and some ways to deal with them and
start purifying yourself from them.
I hope that was beneficial.
Please put any comments you have on the
Facebook page video.
There's a place for comments.
You can just send us comments yourself if
you like, and we're happy to take the
feedback.
Within our Q&A session, I'll try and
answer as many questions as possible, and we
can come up with a plan for the
future in terms of how to continue to
do this, because you can't do this alone.
I kind of left out a little bit
of a caveat that you can't actually do
this alone.
You need support.
You need someone to walk you down the
path.
You need a group.
It's a group effort.
It's more than one person, but if I
get you to think about these things and
start making some initial decisions and take a
few initial steps, then, inshallah, we're in the
right direction.
I hope that was beneficial.
سبحانك الله وبحمدك أشهد أن لا إله إلا
أنت أستغفرك وأتوب إليك وصلى الله وسلم وابارك
على نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه جمعين جزاكم
الله خيرا مبارك الله فيكم السلام عليكم ورحمة
الله وبركاته