Adnan Rajeh – Towards a Modern Awakening #05 – Values and Behaviours
AI: Summary ©
The importance of honesty and compassion in modernity is essential, as it is the foundation of one's behavior and values. Honesty is essential for achieving the best of one's values, and it is necessary to practice compassionate behavior towards others. Visacity and transparency are key values in Islam, and it is crucial to avoid false assumptions and avoid negative behavior. It is essential to be open-minded and learn from one's values, and to be honest in one's language and language of choice.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, bismillahirrahmanirrahim,
walhamdulillahi rabbil alameen.
Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barak ala nabiyyina
wa habibina muhammadin wa ala ahlihi wa sahbihi
ajma'een.
Allahumma a'allimna ma yanfa'una wa anfa
'na bima a'allamtana wa zidna ilma.
Ameen, wabaad.
Welcome to our seven episode series of Towards
a Modern Awakening.
Today is episode number five.
I'll be talking about values and behaviors.
Al-qiyam wa-l-suluk.
And it's important right off the bat to
understand the difference between values and behaviors so
you understand why I'm talking about them.
A value is our foundation ability to judge
whether something is right or wrong.
It is a mix of our beliefs and
convictions and general life concepts that we assign
right or wrong tags to in our minds.
That's what a value is.
And the way values work is that values
generate ethics and ethics generate behaviors.
So really poor behaviors, all behaviors are the
natural consequences of our set of ethics that
come from our values.
So easily I could make this episode and
just call it values and that would have
sufficed.
However, I said values and behaviors.
First of all to explain that connection between
them is very important and also because behaviors
is what we see.
We don't see values.
You can't see my values.
However, you can observe some of my behaviors
and that's why talking about values is so
important because they generate the ethics and then
generate behaviors.
And that's why Islam is so big on
values.
He says Subhanahu wa-ta'ala Say
indeed my Lord has guided me to a
straight path, a religion that has a straight
path that is filled with values.
That's why if you go to Surah Al
-Bayyinah, Allah talks that what the Prophet will
bring is a book that has chapters that
are very valuable.
And in the middle of the Surah he
says, And this is the religion that is
based on values.
He says, So straighten out yourself and follow
the religion that is based on values.
The Prophet alayhi salatu wasalam explained that as
well in different hadith and one of the
nicest ones, the ones that I enjoy, he
says, He said at the beginning, People are
made of, they have certain colors.
They're made of certain, they're made of things.
It's minerals.
What it's talking about is talking about their
value set, their value system.
The best of them in Jahiliyyah will be
the best of them in Islam if they
learn Islam properly.
Why?
Because if you have a very good value
system, if you have an amazing set of
values, then if Islam comes and allows you
to rectify some of the mistakes within that
value system, you will behave in a better
way and you will be the best of
Muslims.
I'm going to give some examples so this
makes sense.
Today is going to be a bit different
in how I'm going to present all this.
It's going to be a couple of examples.
I need you to really listen to me
because we can change the world here if
you understand how this all works.
The value is honesty.
Honesty is a value.
It's just something in the mind.
You understand what it means and then you
assign it.
Is it right or is it wrong?
Now based on the depth of our comprehension
of sadaq, we will have an ethic.
Someone is honest.
Honesty is the value.
Being honest is the ethic.
Now whether you're honest all the time, whether
you're honest most of the time, some of
the time, seldom, is based on the depth
of the value of our comprehension of that
value and the number of simulations that our
brains have ran regarding that value because if
you're saying honesty is important, great, but that's
not how it works in life.
There are so many different variables that surround
circumstances that have honesty in it.
So if you're thinking about this in depth
and you're running all these simulations, you're granting
honesty a certain depth.
That's why the Prophet gave us examples.
He told us in war, I don't tell
the truth in war.
Well why?
Honesty is an absolute value.
Why wouldn't I?
Well because telling the truth in war and
causing the death of millions of people by
the enemy doesn't really serve the purpose of
honesty, does it?
Complimenting someone, a loved one, saying something that
was not necessarily true.
No, I have to be honest now and
say the truth that she doesn't look at.
No, that doesn't serve the purpose of what
honesty is about.
So you can see that there are certain
exceptions to this value based on the depth
of comprehension of what the value actually is,
how deeply you understand this value, which will
turn as I said into an ethic.
If you really understand it deeply and you
know exactly how to be honest, when to
be honest, then you'll be, your ethic will
be, you're an honest person who's honest all
the time or all the time with the
few exceptions that you shouldn't be honest in,
which will later on turn into a behavior.
When will it turn into a behavior?
When the circumstances allow.
When circumstances present themselves, we will act with
honesty.
We will tell the truth.
We will tell the truth in certain circumstances.
You know what this means?
This means that you could go through life
and never really have your values exposed.
Why?
Because the circumstances just never presented a scenario
where you needed to behave.
And what behaviors are, if you're understanding what
I'm saying, all behaviors are a reflection of
a set of values that exist.
So behaviors aren't really the problem when you
see something, when someone's behaving in a certain
way.
It's really not the behavior that's the issue.
It's the set of values that generated the
ethic, that generated the behavior.
And that's why this is so important.
So when you see your child behaving, before
you get upset with the behavior, you have
to figure out, okay, what is the value
that allowed this behavior to exist?
And before you got to the children, before
we start, you know, projecting this on other
people, let's start thinking about this about ourselves.
We have to learn this for ourselves.
We have to learn to observe our own
behaviors and figure out what value allowed that
to actually exist and manifest it.
Because all that values do is they manifest
themselves through our daily behaviors.
And that's really all it is.
Rahmah, for example, is a value.
Compassion is a value.
Depending on the depth of your understanding of
compassion, your ethic will be you're a compassionate
person all the time, some of the time,
most of the time, towards everybody, not towards
everybody.
It depends.
In Islam, compassion is a value that is
absolute.
You always treat people with mercy and compassion
regardless of who they are.
Even if it's your enemy.
You can't love your enemy.
You can treat your enemy with compassion.
Everybody deserves compassion.
Everyone deserves mercy.
So it's an absolute value that you should
be a compassionate person all the time.
And that should manifest itself in behaviors where
you're being compassionate and you're treating people with
mercy.
And if that's not the case, then it'll
be obvious within the behaviors that you're not
treating people with mercy.
So someone who lies, the problem isn't the
behavior.
The problem is a value.
Back there somewhere in their minds, they have
a conviction that honesty isn't that important.
That's why people lie.
People lie because they don't believe that honesty
is something I need to do all the
time.
Or they believe honesty is something I do
or I practice with my family members and
my friends, but not in my work, not
professionally, not while I'm trying to get ahead.
That's the value of honesty that they carry.
And that's why lying is happening.
So the problem really is not the behavior.
The problem is obviously the qeema, the value
that generated it.
I'm going to give you another example.
Ghadh al basr, when you lower your gaze.
Shabab who struggle with lowering their gaze and
not staring at haram.
Like, yeah, I'm weak.
No, it's not weakness.
This is an issue of a value, of
a conviction and a judgment that you've assigned
that conviction or belief, which is what a
value is.
If you actually look deep into it, the
reason that people struggle with looking at haram
and their gaze.
Yes, there's a temptation there, but because there's
a value behind it that if you actually
think about it, do you actually believe that
looking at haram is a problem?
Is something that is going to harm you
in this dunya and in akhira?
Do you actually believe that Allah cares about
whether you're looking at something or not?
And if you ask yourself that question, you'll
find that, yeah, I'm not 100% convinced.
And because of that, you're only 50%
convinced, which means that from an ethical perspective,
the level of chivalry and properness towards the
opposite gender is sometimes there, sometimes not, which
means that people will continue to stare at
haram because there's a defect in the value
system.
That's all behaviors are.
They're just reflecting what the value system is.
Someone who has a temper.
You have a temper.
Someone says, I have a temper, I get
angry.
The behavior of anger and having a temper
is just a reflection of not one value
set, but a number of them.
You see, the more values we stimulate, the
stronger the behavior is going to be.
And the fewer values that are stimulated, the
weaker the behavior is going to look like.
So if someone gets angry, let me give
you an example.
Your son came to you, you tell your
son, go memorize Quran.
And he tells you, I don't want to
memorize Quran today.
And you flip, you get really angry.
And you're asked why later, you do something
wrong, you cause harm.
Why do I have a temper?
Yes, you have a temper.
But why is it that you have a
temper?
Why were your emotions so strong?
Because all anger and love and hatred are,
they're just emotions.
What emotions are?
They are the result of stimulating a lot
of values.
A lot of values are being stimulated here.
I'm going to give you an example of
what this could be.
This man or this person, one of the
most important values in his life is the
value of family.
And the way he defines the value of
family is that my children never speak back
to me.
If my child speaks back to me, that
means that this family value I have is
crumbling, is destroyed, and I don't have it
anymore.
And that causes him to be very upset
because it's a very, very important value.
Another value it has is that I need
to raise my children properly.
If my child does not want to, does
not respect the Quran or want to, or
believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala perfectly,
that means I failed in taking care of
my family.
And again, the value of my family crumbled
again.
A third issue may be, if I don't
raise my family properly, then people will say
things.
I didn't do a good job.
And if the value that I have, or
if the value that exists is that people's
opinions really matter, they're important, well now this
poor goofy 10-year-old who just acted
as a child and said, I don't want
to memorize Quran for whatever reason, just stimulated
three very strong values in you.
And that's why you got angry.
So the problem isn't the anger, the problem
is you have to take your steps back
and figure out, are these values correct?
The value of family is of course correct,
but is your understanding of it correct?
Is saying that if my child speaks back
to me, that means I've done a completely
horrible job and family has crumbled?
No.
If my child at this moment does not
want to memorize Quran and has problems with
deen, that means I've failed as a parent
and they're not going to turn out good?
No.
Just like you struggled with Islam growing up,
they're going to struggle as well.
Why did you allow for yourself that struggle
but you're not going to allow it to
your children?
That's a defected value.
Carrying what people say about you is a
problematic value that you have to get rid
of.
The issue comes back to values that really,
it's really always someone who doesn't work for
the sake of Islam, or Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, they pray, they fast, but they're
not interested in doing the big stuff and
taking care of, well why?
Why is that?
What is the reason?
The reason is a value.
Actually, collectively as an Ummah, we have a
problem with one of the values where we
believe and we feel that nothing will ever
change.
Somehow it made it into our in our
subconsciousness that things will always be like this.
There's a big conspiracy against Islam.
They will never allow Islam to actually exist
in its proper form.
It'll never happen.
And we've looked at that value and said
yes, that is right.
There's a check mark that is correct.
Obviously the reflection of, the behavioral reflection from
that value is going to be we're not
going to do anything.
We're going to sit around, we're not going
to have himmah.
We're not going to really push for change.
We're not going to try and become better
because we don't believe things are going to
change.
It's a value that needs to be dealt
with.
It's a problem that we suffer with as
Muslims.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us an
example in the Quran.
The only person that harmed the Prophet alayhi
salatu was salam, whose name was used in
the Quran was Abu Lahab.
You don't find Abu Jahl, you don't find
Aqabah, you don't find Al-As, you don't
find Al-Waleed, you don't find their names.
There are verses that refer to things they
did but the name isn't there.
But Abu Lahab is.
Why is Abu Lahab?
Because Abu Lahab is the example of someone
who had an ultimate value.
His ultimate value was wealth, his money.
Everything came after his money.
The ultimate value that he had, the infinite
value, the value that he cared the most
about, that he was willing to sacrifice everything
for, was money.
And that's why he harmed the Prophet alayhi
salatu was salam.
Because you look at it, he loved the
Prophet alayhi salatu was salam.
He was the happiest man in the world
the day the Prophet alayhi salatu was salam
was born.
He had both his sons get engaged to
both the Prophet alayhi salatu was salam's daughters.
That's how close he wanted to be to
Sayyidina Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
So why was he continuously harming him?
It was just a reflection of the value
system he had.
The Prophet alayhi salatu was salam's dawah, it
threatened his business in a way that you
can go back and study and understand.
Tawheed meant that Mecca, Quraysh was going to
lose a lot of the strength and power
they had and the authority they had over
Arabia, which meant that his business going back
and forth, Damascus wasn't going to be as
safe and he's going to lose a lot
of money.
And he's okay with everything, just don't touch
his money.
How did his wealth help him?
The problem of a defected value, a value
that needs to be changed.
What we're missing today from an Islamic perspective
is our ability to instill values.
We're looking at Islam all wrong.
We're looking at it from the wrong angle.
We start by talking about behaviours, we start
by talking about actions, appearances, details of practice
before we talk about qiyam, before we talk
about values.
And teaching values doesn't do much either.
What I'm doing right now, teaching doesn't help.
It needs to be instilled, it needs to
happen through experiences, through mentorship.
That's why mentorship is so important.
There has to be people there observing and
then saying, okay this is, that's why the
Prophet did that a lot.
He would always say, what caused you to
do this?
You may say, well you know, if you're
talking about values being so important, why are
we punishing people who are making mistakes?
It's just a behaviour.
Sometimes you have to punish the behaviour to
force the person to revise their value system
again.
And the Prophet always asked that question, why
would you do this?
Think about it, figure out what caused you
to behave in the way that you behaved.
And that to me is extremely important.
You can ask yourself, you know, if you've
ever cheated before in an exam, well you
can ask yourself that question, why did I
cheat?
The reason that people cheat in exams is
very simple.
It's a value set.
They believe in honesty, just not when it
comes to getting ahead in academics.
Values exist like that.
Some people's values could be, I need to
be the most successful.
That is my value, that is the most
important, that's why I'll do anything to get
to become more successful.
What rules I break and what laws I
break on the way doesn't matter.
That's my value.
So if you see someone acting like that,
it's just, it's the manifestation of a value
that needs to be changed.
If I asked you, well what are the
values of Islam?
If you're saying you instill the values of
Islam, so what are the values of Islam?
Are appearances the values of Islam?
Is a haircut the value of Islam?
Is fasting a value of Islam?
No, fasting is not.
Rituals aren't values of Islam.
What do rituals do?
Rituals, they are generated by the values of
Islam and they positively reinforce the values of
Islam.
That's the beauty of rituals.
Inna as-salata tanha 3ani al-fahsha'i
wal-munkar.
See prayer, it helps us stay away from
fahsha' and munkar.
That's what prayer does.
It positively reinforces our value system and is
generated by around 50 values.
When someone tells me I can't pray and
I try but I can't pray.
No, it's not that you can't pray.
Your value system regarding prayer, there's a problem
there.
Your understanding of prayer, your convictions and beliefs
regarding prayer need to be revised.
You're not thinking about them properly.
Because there's at least 50 different values that
are generating why we have to pray.
Knowing that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created
everything.
He is the supreme being in this existence
and he wants to talk to us every
single day.
Knowing that without a relationship with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, our deeds don't count and
we cannot become closer to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
Knowing that if we don't do this then
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will not give
us reward.
Knowing that if we leave prayer then we
will be subjecting ourselves to punishment.
Knowing that when we pray, really what we're
doing is that we're fueling our souls so
that we can continue to carry this message.
These are all values, convictions.
If you have them and you believe them
and they're a part of your value system,
then prayer is really easy.
You'll never leave it.
You can never leave it because if one
value isn't working today, the other one will
be.
But if none of those convictions, so when
your child doesn't pray every day, the reason
isn't because they're just lazy, even though laziness
is a problem on its own, it's because
the value system has not been properly instilled.
It hasn't been explained to them clearly how
it is that, why it is that they
need to pray, what values are they upholding
when they perform prayer.
So if you go through the values of
Islam, righteousness.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says I only
created the cosmos and the earth based on
the value of righteousness.
Fairness and justice.
Always uphold justice.
Always treat people in front of you with
justice.
Incorruptibility.
Those who say our Lord is Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala and then they're incorruptible in
the way that they behave.
He says, say I believe in Allah and
then do not allow corruption into your life.
Honesty.
Trustworthiness and being trustworthy.
The Prophet he taught values through example.
Remember when he left Mecca to Medina on
his way out, he had to leave Ali
ibn Abi Talib in Mecca for a reason.
He told him you have to stay here
because I have in my house all these
trusts, all these merchants, all these possessions for
people that they left with me, they entrusted
with me as they traveled and we need
to return it to them.
The people who were actually forcing him out
of his own country to which he would
never actually return again.
He would never actually live in Mecca ever
again which is the place that he was
born and all his ancestors back to Ismail
lived in.
Yet he still has the value of trustworthiness.
We need to return these.
It's unbelievable.
I mean in this example, put yourself in
his place.
Wouldn't this be the okay time to throw
a match on whatever existed in that room
as he was being forced out of Mecca
by the people whom were leaving their possessions
with him.
I mean Abu Jahl himself who was forcing
him out, who was persecuting him and his
family, had left with him a possession in
his home.
It makes no sense when you think about
it but to the Prophet, there was of
course obviously I'm going to return the amanat
because it's a value.
This is an absolute value.
It will never change and that's why his
behaviors always always reflected that in his life
as he said Show compassion to those on
earth and the one in the sky will
show you compassion.
Not causing harm.
This actually, this value became so strong that
it turned into a jurisprudent law.
You do not harm yourself, you do not
cause harm for others.
You withhold of causing harm to others and
that is a sadaqah for you.
Bravery.
Being brave, courage is a value that Islam.
All these are values of the deen.
If you go and you study Surah Al
-Alaq for example, after he says, you find
that the rest of the verses are explaining
a number of values that we're supposed to
have.
Someone who refuses anything new just because it's
new.
Refusing the new just because it's different to
you, just because it's foreign to you, that's
a value, that's a problem.
Being close-minded like that.
Do you not have the ability to give
someone the benefit of the doubt?
Is there no objectivity in the way we
deal with others?
Being objective is a value that we need
to hold on to.
Being open-minded, being objective.
When you see Al-Haqq, you stand by
it.
If you were wrong and somehow at some
point what was right appears to you and
now you can say I was wrong, you
need to immediately return back to Haqq, that
is a value.
Following evidence, following evidence is a value.
These are values in Islam.
Study the beginning of Surah Al-Qalam, you'll
find all these ethics that Allah explains to
the Prophet.
Now you know ethics are generated by values
and ethics cause us to behave the way
that we behave.
This is a very very important continuum within
life and within Islam itself that we need
to properly comprehend.
The Prophet would teach ethics and he would
never get upset with mistakes and behave as
much as he would if he felt there
was a defected value behind it.
When the Muhajireen and Ansar fought at some
point, different times in the Seerah, something would
happen and then people would get very emotional
and they would call upon their group to
come and defend them and suddenly there was
this two groups, the Muhajireen against the Ansar
and the Prophet would come out not even
properly dressed saying Da'ooha, leave this, stop
these words you're saying, Muhajireen, stop saying Da
'ooha Fa'innaha Muntina, this is disgusting.
What you're saying is, he would use that
word Netan which is a very offensive and
aggressive word from him but he's trying to
explain this is a horrible value, racism, tribalism,
collective arrogance, difference generalizations on groups, this is
disgusting, you have to leave this immediately.
When Abu Dharr got upset with Bilal and
said something he shouldn't have said and called
Bilal a name because Bilal was from He
called him a name and the Prophet came
to Abu Dharr who was one of the
earliest Muslims that we have on record and
told him the values of Jahiliyyah still exist
in you.
How could you say something like that?
Abu Dharr of course took this very much
to heart and immediately went and apologised because
this is not a joke.
When you study for example in Surah An
-Nisa when a Dira' or a shield was
stolen, Allah can go study those parts of
Surah An-Nisa and the story is telling
about someone from Khazraj who stole a shield
and some food from a person from Aus
and once they were caught they took the
shield and they buried it in the backyard
of a Jewish man and they accused him
and the Prophet, I'm looking at all the
evidence, was almost going to judge that this
Jewish man actually stole and the Qur'an
would come down and
explain
clearly that this man is being treated unjustly
and unfairly even though he's from a different
faith, even though now that this Khazraj person
was stolen from this Aus person is going
to make the difficulties between these two tribes
even worse.
It doesn't matter because fairness and justice is
an absolute value in Islam, it is something
that is undebatable, it's undisputed and that's what
it means to carry values.
I think that it's important to understand that
values are constants, they are not variables, they
should never change.
A value doesn't change based on circumstances.
Surah Al-Balad talks about that.
The Surah tells you you should go and
you should overcome the obstacle.
What is the obstacle?
The obstacle is during the time that you
are poor to still grant freedom to those
who are in need or captivated, whether they
are enslaved or whether they are under a
lot of debt.
Even though you're poor and you're still helping
people to get out of their own debt
or out of their shackles because that's the
value that you carry, you help others.
It's not you help others when you have
money and when you don't have money you
don't.
It's not I'm kind when I'm in a
good mood and I'm unkind when I'm in
a bad mood, that's not a value anymore.
That means the value that you have is
defective, it's a superficial value that doesn't have
depth to it, it doesn't mean anything.
Having a value means I will always behave
like this, when you're going to feed, you're
someone who feeds those who are hungry.
You'll do it at a time where you're
just as hungry as they are.
Someone actually needs it because your values are
not variables, they never change their constants.
How do we insert values?
Inserting values or instilling values in ourselves requires
deep thought, requires us to be aware and
mindful of our behaviors.
We have to watch ourselves.
When I act in a certain way, when
I say something, when you fight with your
spouse or you find it difficult to talk
about something, you say, well that's just how
I am.
That's our, especially men, that's our answer.
That's just how I am.
Okay, but the reason you are like that
is because of a value that you haven't
revised yet.
Go back and take a look.
Why is it that you struggle to express
emotion?
You have to figure this out.
If you understand what I'm saying today, you'll
save a lot of money on therapists, I
guarantee you.
Your life will become much better if you
just understand how to look at these things.
When you come to Jumu'ah and you
find people parking in spots they shouldn't park
in and stealing parking spaces and you find
shoes all over the place, this is a
behavior.
We don't like it.
The reason that behavior exists is because of
a value.
You have a problem with values.
The value that we struggle with is that
fact that other people's need to come to
Jumu'ah is equal to mine.
Their right to be here is equal to
my right.
That I don't have more right to be
here than they do.
That I don't have a special situation that
allows me to break the rules.
I am just like everyone else.
I am equal to others.
Just like I expect people to follow rules,
I have to too.
My life is not more special than theirs
and my problems aren't more special than theirs.
That's a value.
The value of keeping places clean.
It's a value.
You actually value the Masjid and think that
it's your obligation to keep it clean.
If you do then that will show in
behaviors.
If you don't then you'll throw things all
over.
It really comes down to our values.
As Muslims we have the values that we
used to have, have been slowly taken out
of Islam, just picked out one by one.
What we're left with is this skeleton of
incoherent behaviors and practices that don't make any
sense at all.
How is it that I fast all day
long trying to feel the suffering of others
so that I can become more compassionate and
then I overeat at night and don't give
any Sadaqah.
How does that work?
How do these things even come together?
How is it that we turn the night
of Ramadan that should be filled with Salah
and Taraweeh and Quran to a field of
Musalsalat and you just want the Imam to
finish and if the Imam reads an extra
couple of verses that's the end of the
world.
Because there's an issue with the values.
They're not aligned anymore.
The value system of Islam and the behaviors
that we are following, they're just not aligned
anymore.
Here's the problem.
If we don't revisit these values and generate
them again and actually make them proper values,
you will lose the behaviors.
Because I told you values generate behaviors.
You'll only pray for so long without values
before you stop praying.
If Allah gave you the blessing that you
pray your prayers, make sure you go back
and figure out why it is that you
do what you do and strengthen those values
and make them strong and clear so that
you will continue to pray for the rest
of your life or else it will be
a scary thought.
I can go on and on on this.
To be honest today's action plan is the
most important of all action plans that I
talked about and I will talk about.
We have the time right now.
We are granted this pause period where I
just pressed pause on the world and everything
stopped.
You have that ability to reflect upon yourself
and observe your behaviors.
Observe the way you're treating certain things.
Observe how honest are we, how respectful are
we, how tolerant, how trustworthy.
Start observing these behaviors and don't panic.
Just track them back to the value that
generated them and then think about that value.
The way you change a value is that
you think about it constantly and you learn
about it and you ask questions and you
recite the Qur'an that is filled with
values so that you can build something that
is strong and steady so that you that
will turn into an ethic.
Like I said, you have to believe in
honesty and that honesty is an absolute value
so you can be an honest person ethically
and then in any given situation you'll always
tell the truth and you won't be coming
looking for a way out of being honest.
If you're going to choose an action plan
to stick to this month from these seven
episode series, please do this one.
I did it myself.
I still do it.
I do it all the time and no
one's perfect.
If we were perfect that would mean we
would have perfect value systems.
No one really has perfect value systems except
the Anbiya and the Prophet and that's why
we look at his behaviours and there was
never a flaw.
Why?
Because the value system was so perfect.
For us it's not the same.
You're always going to try and revise that
value system.
The set of values that you have, trying
to figure out which ones need to be
fixed and which ones are worth changing so
that you can have something called Thabat.
So you can have something called Thabat steadfastness
so you can hold on to your ethics
and the proper behaviours and you're not losing
them.
You're not someone who one day is like
this and the other day is like that.
We know that when we deal with you,
you're always going to come through.
You're always going to be honest.
You're always going to be trustworthy.
You're always going to be kind.
You're always going to be compassionate because the
concept of Thabat is so important and being
able to hold on to what matters and
that only happens if you spend time thinking
and reflecting and going through your set of
values and you'll find that there's all these
little mistakes that need to be fixed and
once you fix them, it's like programming.
It's like you're just going back and working
on the programming of your life.
I hope that was beneficial.
InshaAllah we'll see you tomorrow at the same
time.