Ali Albarghouthi – Contemporary Acts of Shirk #03 How Can Following Your Desire Lead to Shirk

AI: Summary ©
The importance of sh pattern and desire is discussed, along with the use of "the Moore's Law" to achieve sh pattern. The speaker emphasizes the need to follow one's desire and following their culture of Islam, while also acknowledging the power of sh patterns and desire in achieving their goals. The segment also touches on the misunderstandings of Islam, including mocking religion and bouncing off shroomming, and the importance of protecting one's actions and minds while not calling on Muslims suffering from shroomming.
AI: Summary ©
Alhamdulillah, we praise Him, ask for His help,
and ask for His forgiveness.
And we seek refuge in Allah from the
evil of our souls and the evil of
our deeds.
Whom Allah guides, no one is misguided, and
whom He misguides, no one is guided.
And I bear witness that there is no
god but Allah, alone, and no partner for
Him.
And that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.
May Allah's prayers and peace be upon him
and his family and companions.
As for the rest, the best hadith is
the Book of Allah, and the best guide
is the guide of Muhammad, may Allah's prayers
and peace be upon him.
And the worst of things are its innovations,
and every innovation is a creation, and every
creation is a misguidance, and every misguidance is
in the Fire.
We have started talking about shirk, and common
acts of shirk, those that are known, perceptible,
visible, and those that are not.
And we conclude the series today by visiting
some subtle or not so subtle forms of
it, connected to what we talked about last
time when we mentioned that obsessive love of
this world can become shirk, and slavery to
other than Allah Azza wa Jal, and that
the way to save yourself from it is
to experience some form of detachment from that
obsessive love.
You could pursue the dunya, but you don't
let it magnify until it becomes the only
thing in your life, or the dominant thing
in your life.
Connected to this is that following one's hawa,
one's desire, can also escalate to become a
form of shirk.
And the support of this is where Allah
Azza wa Jal said multiple places in the
Qur'an, أَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَٰهَ هُوَاهُ أَفَأَنْتَ
تَكُونُ عَلَيْهِ وَكِيلًا Have you seen the one
who has taken his desire as his God,
can you be his protector, be his guide,
be the one who save him, meaning you
can't.
So here a desire, and all of us
have desires, can grow so much that it
can become a rival to Allah Azza wa
Jal.
And the question is, when does this happen?
Because all of us, almost without exception, will
have desires, hawa, that disagree with what Allah
wants.
Some of our hawa, some of our desires
are benign, are normal, are natural, are even
recommended.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
You love your kids, you love your spouse,
you love good food, you love this, you
love that.
As long as it is within reason, within
the bounds of what is acceptable, nothing is
wrong with it, it's natural.
But there's also, and that is the dominant
part of hawa, the dominant part of desire,
is that we like what Allah dislikes.
And we dislike what Allah likes.
And if that is not restrained, if free
reign is given to it, if it grows
so much that it is the thing that
informs and directs our lives, that could cross
into a shirk with Allah Azza wa Jal,
depending on what it commands you to do,
and if you follow it or not.
And in the commentary, in the tafsir to
this ayah, when they explain, what does it
mean that a person has taken his desire
as his God?
And this is really relevant today, and I'll
tell you why shortly.
They said that the kafir, for instance, the
disbeliever, he would worship a stone because he
likes it.
And then when he finds a better stone,
he follows that, he worship, discards the previous
one, he worships the new one because he
likes it more.
Whatever he likes, he worships.
So what drives him to worship whatever he
worships is what he's like, what he favors,
nothing more.
But Al-Hassan Al-Basri, rahimahullah, further explains
when he said, هو الذي لا يهوى شيئا
إلا فعله.
It is a person who wherever, whatever, or
whenever he desires something, he does it.
No restraint, no second thought.
So the supreme commander, the supreme authority, the
supreme guide in that person's life is what?
Is his desire, tell me what you want
from me and I will do it.
So when his desire leads him to disbelieve,
he will disbelieve.
When his desire leads him to reject Allah,
he'll reject Allah Azza wa Jal.
And that does not happen to a lot
of people overnight.
But it happens because you grow and feed
that desire until it becomes the dominant thing.
Most of us, our desire leads us into
sin.
And that is a deficiency.
Some of us, our desire leads us into
major sins.
Tells us, drink alcohol, yes, you listen and
you drink it.
Gamble, yes, do it.
Sleep with so and so, yes, do it.
Whatever it is, interest, major sins, do it.
And they listen.
And if you keep listening to it, failing
to stop it and to restrain it, it
eventually will ask you to disbelieve in Allah
Azza wa Jal.
Or contradict his commands.
And when you do that, your desire had
drove you into shirk.
And you've taken it as a god with
Allah Azza wa Jal or instead of him.
This is how it happens.
And this is important today because we live
in a world where the individual had been
prioritized, detached from all other responsibilities or attachments.
And we are told as individuals, do whatever
appeals to you.
Find your true self.
Find your authentic self, how?
By looking inward and discovering what you want.
And if this is the thing that you
want, you should do it without any further
consultation or restrictions.
So when you're the final judge, then you
will take yourself as god.
When you're the final judge, you have become
your own god.
You listen to yourself and no one else.
And that comes before Allah Azza wa Jal.
So you will never say no.
But rather you will say look inward.
And a person who looks inward, what does
he find, what does she find?
Except ignorance.
Allah Azza wa Jal, He did not create
us knowledgeable.
But we learn and when we learn, we
discover what is right and what is wrong.
But we look inward without any other criteria.
You discover ignorance, you discover selfishness, and you
discover hawa.
Doing what benefits you at the expense of
others.
And if a person continues to follow on
that path, a person will be a slave
to his hawa.
And will become someone who's worshipping other than
Allah Azza wa Jal.
But in Islam it's supposed to be the
opposite.
Now the following is a hadith that some
have considered to be weak and some have
considered to be hasan.
It is where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
is reported to have said, لَا يُؤْمِنُ وَحَدُكُمْ
حَتَّى يَكُونَ هَوَاهُ تَبَعًا لِمَا جِئْتُ بِهِ He
says, one of you does not truly believe
until his hawa, his desire, follows what I
brought.
Meaning it is subservient to it, follows it,
it is not the leader.
Now some have considered this hadith to be
weak, but nonetheless even when they did that,
they said the meaning is sound.
Meaning the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is saying
in this hadith that, you don't really fully
realize what iman is until internally what you
desire, what you love, follows the guidance of
Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And there are other hadith and other ayat
that reinforce this.
Among the clearest is where Allah Azzawajal said,
فَلَا وَرَبِّكَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ حَتَّى يُحَكِّمُوكَ فِي مَا
شَجَرَ بَيْنَهُمْ ثُمَّ لَا يَجِدُوا فِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَرَجًا
مِّمَّا قَضَيْتَ وَيُسَلِّمُ تَسْلِيمًا He said, subhanahu wa
ta'ala, addressing his Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
he says, no, indeed, by your Rabb, Allah
is swearing, and is bringing here the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to the center, because it
is what the Prophet brought that is an
issue here.
By your Rabb, they will not believe until
they make you the judge in the disputes
that arise between them.
And then they find no resistance internally to
what you have decided, and they submit to
it in full.
So according to this ayah and the hadith
that I mentioned, for a person to have
iman, it is not sufficient for them to
only externally follow Allah Azza wa Jal but
internally hating it.
You see the difference?
You could externally follow Islam, pray, fast, hajj,
zakah, and that is sufficient for you to
be a Muslim.
But iman is something else.
If you're doing these things while your heart
resisting them, hates them, then you really haven't
realized iman.
You haven't been aligned with Allah and with
His Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
So saying, you'll only become a mu'min when
what you love is what Allah loves.
And what you hate is what Allah hates.
And you train yourself, and you push yourself,
and you plead with Allah until this happens.
So you don't resist it internally, and you
don't resist it externally.
So your hawa follows Allah Azza wa Jal.
And of course, this is not a one
day, or one week, or one year struggle.
We will always keep struggling with desires, with
thoughts that we have, that we know disagree
with what Allah wants.
The test here is, do you submit to
that desire and you let it grow?
Or do you resist it knowing, fully, that
what Allah has for you is better than
what you have for yourself.
And what Allah destined for you is better
than what you choose for yourself.
And Allah's teachings, Allah's revelation is better than
your own thoughts as an individual, or a
society if that society has gone against Allah
Azza wa Jal.
So following the hawa can grow to where
it takes you out of Islam.
And if you wonder why the disbelievers disbelieved,
Allah Azza wa Jal tells us that they
did that because of hawa.
فَإِن لَّمْ يَسْتَجِيبُوا لَكَ فَعْلَمْ أَنَّمَا يَتَّبِعُونَ أَهْوَاءَهُمْ
وَمَنْ أَضَلُّ مِمَّنِ اتَّبَعَ هَوَاهُ بِغَيْرِ هُدًى مِّنَ
اللَّهِ It says, if they do not listen
to you, O Muhammad Alayhi Salatu Wasalam, if
they do not listen to you, know that
they're just simply following their desire.
It's not a matter of proofs or convincing.
It's not a matter of confusion after everything
had been laid out.
It's a matter of them simply wanting something
and they just follow what they want.
And who is misguided, Allah continues by saying,
who is misguided or more misguided than someone
who follows their desire without a guidance from
Allah Azza wa Jal.
Now, similar to it, is when you listen
to people knowingly and willingly who make the
haram halal and the halal haram.
Remember, willingly and knowingly.
It's not an issue again of confusion or
a mistake.
And the evidence for that is Allah Azza
wa Jal saying, اتَّخَذُوا أَحْبَارَهُمْ وَرُهْبَانَهُمْ أَرْبَابًا مِّن
دُونِ اللَّهِ They have taken their rabbis and
priests as arbab, as gods instead of Allah.
And the Prophet ﷺ himself explained this ayah.
Uday ibn Hatim, before his Islam, رضي الله
عنه, came to the Prophet ﷺ and he
had hung a cross of gold, made of
gold on his chest.
So the Prophet when he saw him, he
said, اطرح عنك هذا الوثن He says, remove
this idol.
Then he read, ﷺ, اتَّخَذُوا أَحْبَارَهُمْ وَرُهْبَانَهُمْ أَرْبَابًا
مِّن دُونِ اللَّهِ وَالْمَسِيحَ بْنَ مَرْيَمٍ They've taken
their priests and rabbis and Jesus, son of
Mary, as gods instead of Allah.
So Uday who was a Christian, he said,
أَمَا إِنَّهُمْ لَمْ يَعْبُدُوهُمْ He says, they do
not worship the priests and the rabbis.
But the Prophet ﷺ said what?
قَالَ أَمَا إِنَّهُمْ لَمْ يَعْبُدُوهُمْ He said, they
did not worship them.
Meaning in one sense, they did not worship
them.
But they told him about things that they
are halal, and they followed.
And they told him about other things that
they are haram, and they followed, and that
is their worship.
Meaning in one sense, yes, they did not
bow, they did not prostrate, they did not
say, cure me from that illness, give me
rizq, they did not ask them.
Things like that.
But what did they do is that they
understood that these men, the scholars among them,
made the halal, haram, and they followed them.
And they made the haram, haram, and they
followed them.
They know that they were contradicting Allah's revelation.
And they followed, and he says, that's their
worship.
Because see, Allah Azzawajal, if you just ever
wonder, who has the power to legislate?
To say right and wrong?
Ultimately, who has this power?
Allah Azzawajal.
Because who is the one who knows right
from wrong, benefit from harm?
We humans, we disagree over very basic precepts
in society.
But Allah Azzawajal knows, and for that Allah
Azzawajal has that power.
When you give this power to a human
being, and again, it's not a mistake, it's
not an issue of fatwa that you thought
it was right, and it turned out not
to be right, that's not it.
But you know something is clear, crystal clear
in the Qur'an and the sunnah, someone
tells you it is not, and you follow
them because of it.
And again it goes back to desire, goes
back to blind following.
So the Prophet ﷺ, he said, that is
their worship.
And that is something that we have to
guard against.
That is when you are gonna learn, you
have to seek your sources, and you have
to learn it from reliable sources.
And when you learn something, you have to
ask yourself, am I following what Allah has
revealed?
Because Allah revealed it?
Or because it simply agrees with what is
convenient, with whatever I like.
And when it doesn't, then you seek another
path.
We have to be servants of Allah Azzawajal,
not servants of what we like and dislike.
And similar to it, subhanAllah, returning back to
the issue of how many of us today
will put what I like, what I think,
ahead of Allah Azzawajal.
This does not make sense to me.
So you don't follow it because we are
the center.
This makes sense to me, so you follow
it because you are the center.
And you have to interrogate yourself and say,
who is my master?
Who is my Rabb?
Who am I taking guidance from?
A society that keeps shifting every so couple
of decades?
Myself who does not know right from wrong
ultimately?
Or is there a greater power that is
supposed to teach me?
And that is the Qur'an and the
sunnah of Rasulallah a.s. So it's not
what I feel, it's not what I like,
it's not my desire, it's not what fits
me.
I could struggle with these things and that's
absolutely normal.
But ultimately I know that someone is higher
and that is Allah Azzawajal.
And the last thing I will say inshaAllah
in this first khutbah is the wholesale rejection
of the sunnah of Rasulallah a.s. is
also a form of disbelief.
Now you can doubt one hadith or two
or three.
Are they authentic or not?
Are they reliable or not?
Etc.
That happens.
But the wholesale rejection of the entire sunnah,
they say none of it is reliable.
None of it is applicable.
None of it is valid.
And the only thing that I will follow
is the book of Allah Azzawajal.
The scholars of Islam have said that that
wholesale rejection is kufr in Allah Azzawajal.
And we're not gonna go in detail explaining
why and how etc.
etc.
Except just to mention two things.
One is, what remains of Islam, please tell
me, what remains of Islam if you scrap
the entire sunnah?
All of it.
None of it is valid.
What remains of Islam?
What remains of Ramadan?
What remains of salah?
What remains of zakah?
What remains of hajj?
What remains of halal and haram when you
take all this out?
The second thing to keep in mind is
that when you say the entire sunnah is
invalid, because it's unreliable.
It's unreliable in how it was transmitted.
You start impugning and attacking the Qur'an
itself.
Because, and listen to this, the same people
who brought you the sunnah and they said
this, these are the statements of Muhammad A
.S. These, we heard him, and these are
the statements and teachings of Muhammad A.S.
Or the same people who brought you the
Qur'an and they said, this is what
Muhammad A.S. brought.
And that's the Qur'an.
If one is unreliable, how would the second
be reliable?
Both of them were transmitted in the same
way by the same people.
So keep this in mind.
And again, I'll repeat, this is not a
reason for us to automatically start declaring people
kuffar.
A lot of people are confused.
A lot of people need to be educated.
A lot of people are misinformed.
But this is for us to know and
understand that when you step into something like
this, it is absolutely serious.
It's not a joking matter.
أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم فاستغفروا
الحمد لله حمدا كثيرا طيبا مباركا فيه ملأ
السماوات وملأ الأرض وملأ ما شئت من شيء
بعد وأصلي وأسلم على رسوله محمد صلى الله
عليه وعلى آله وصحبه وسلم Connected to what
we just talked about is what the scholars
say, انكار المعلوم من الدين بالضرورة When you
reject and you deny something necessarily to be
known as Islamic, as something that Allah had
commanded, as something that the Prophet صلى الله
عليه وسلم has commanded.
It's not an issue of dispute.
So if a person starts doubting the haram
of zina, of fornication and adultery, that it's
not disallowed as long as it's consensual, that
* is fine, that riba is fine, that
gambling is fine.
So what's the issue with these things?
It is these things are known in Islam
to be haram, not just by one person
or two, unanimously, very clear in the Qur
'an.
I'm not talking about specific applications of these
things that I talked about.
No, I'm talking about the general offense.
These are very clear in the Qur'an
that they are haram, very clear in the
sunnah that they are haram.
Whenever Muslim scholar of the past, you would
consult, is zina halal?
No one would say yes.
Not only that a Muslim scholar will attest
to this, the predominant or the consensus among
all Muslims was that these things are haram.
No one will not know this.
Today you have some people contesting this.
And again it's out of confusion.
And again you should not leap into calling
them disbelievers just because they've contested something so
essential in Islam.
Because again they could be so misinformed and
they need to consult people and need to
be educated.
We're not happy when a person leaves Islam.
So be patient.
But at the same time it's important for
you to understand how serious this thing is.
If something is known unanimously, necessarily to be
Islam, and you say salah is not an
obligation anymore, or not five salahs but three.
Fasting is not an obligation.
Hajj is not an obligation.
When you state these things and you start
believing them, you have to understand that you
are defying Allah azza wa jal, and defying
His Prophet ﷺ.
So that is absolutely serious.
The thing before the last that we mentioned
today inshallah, is mocking Allah and mocking His
Prophet and mocking religion.
Now for most people, most Muslims, we don't
do this.
We don't do this.
But then non-Muslims do it.
And if you're sitting listening to a comedian,
an actor, famous person, mocking Allah azza wa
jal, making fun of God, putting Him down,
ridiculing Him, making fun of religion, and you
start absorbing this, you'll find yourself amenable to
making these types of jokes about your religion
itself.
So first of all, sitting, being in a
setting where someone is mocking God, even if
they are mocking God in a Christian sense,
but they're mocking God is haram.
You need to switch off this thing, you
need to leave.
And to do this, and to make fun
yourself of Allah, or the Prophet, or religious
acts, or the religious because they are religious,
that is haram.
And at the time of the Prophet ﷺ,
there were people sitting just having fun.
And the problem is that they were sitting
with hypocrites.
And they may not know that they were
sitting next to them.
And the only thing that they said, قَالَ
مَا رَأَيْنَ مِثْلَ قُرَّآئِنَ هَٓا أُولَٓاءِ أَرْغَبُ بُطُونَ
It says, we do not know of people
like our Qurra.
Qurra are the scholars among them.
At the time of the sahabah, that's the
title that they have, Qurra are the scholars.
We do not know of a more self
-seeking, food-seeking people as the scholars among
us today.
And they're referring to the knowledgeable among the
sahabah.
Allah Azza wa Jal revealed about them, لَا
تَعْتَذِلُوا قَدْ كَفَرْتُمْ بَعْدَ إِيمَانِكُمْ وَلَا إِن سَأَلْتَهُمْ
لَيَقُولُونَ إِنَّمَا كُنَّا نَخُوضُ وَنَلْعَبُ He says, if
you were to ask them, what were you
doing?
He says, we're just having fun.
Then Allah Azza wa Jal said, were you
mocking and having fun about Allah and about
His Prophet and His ayat?
Do not apologize today, you have disbelieved after
your iman.
So, if you wanna have fun, you wanna
be funny, you wanna be comedian, mock anything
that you want.
As long as it's halal.
Be funny in any other way.
As long as it's halal.
But absolutely stop when it comes to Allah.
That's a red line.
When it comes to Muhammad Alayhi Salaatu Wa
Salaam, that's a red line.
I don't think any Muslim consciously will ever
do this.
But also when it comes to Islamic obligations,
Islamic halal and haram, Islamic practices, and the
religious because they are religious.
The last thing inshallah that I will say,
there are sometimes shirk in alfad, in words
that we say that we may not pay
attention to.
We would just simply say them because people
around them, around us say them.
A person when he exclaims, when he is
shocked and they say, Jesus Christ, right?
And you know the origin of this.
They're calling on Jesus Christ as the son
of God or as God to help and
aid.
As a Muslim, we don't call on Muhammad
Alayhi Salaatu Wa Salaam when we're in distress.
We don't call on Al-Hassan or Al
-Hussein or Al-Abbas or Abdul Qadir.
And we definitely don't call on any other
prophet.
So refrain from and stop saying, if you
tend to say that, Jesus Christ or any
other variation of it.
Also what could be common, knock on wood,
fingers crossed.
So fingers crossed is to ward off bad
luck and bring good one.
And the origin of this is either pagan
or Christian, or both.
Knock on wood is to ward off bad
luck.
And the origin of it again is pagan
or Christian.
They believe the spirits inhabit wood or it
is the wood of the cross, whatever it
is.
We don't say these things because we don't
believe in them and we don't say these
things because they are shirk in Allah Azza
wa Jal.
Nothing protects you except Allah and nothing will
save you except Allah Azza wa Jal.
So don't say these words, even if you
say, I did not mean them.
They are haram and they are a form
of shirk.
Let's cleanse our acts, cleanse our hearts, and
cleanse our tongues from what upsets Allah Azza
wa Jal.
So ask Him, Rabb al-Alamin, Ya Arham
al-Rahimin, to save us from all forms
of shirk and make us people of pure
tawheed, pure submission to You, in devotion to
You, Ya Rabb al-Alamin, internally and externally.
We ask You, Ya Rabb al-Alamin, to
forgive us all of our sins, the major
ones and the minor ones, and give us
power against the sins that keep troubling us,
Ya Rabb al-Alamin.
Ya Rabb al-Alamin, we ask You for
serenity in our hearts, serenity in our minds,
serenity in our lives.
We ask You, Ya Rabb al-Alamin, to
make us of those who truly submit to
You and find peace in that submission.
We ask You, Ya Rabb al-Alamin, to
come to the aid of Muslims throughout the
world, in particular in Gaza, and in Palestine,
and in Sudan, and any other place, wherever
a place a Muslim is suffering.
We ask You, Ya Rabb al-Alamin, to
be their helpers and their aid.
Allahumma, inna na'udhu bika an nushrika bika
wa nahnu na'alam wa nastaghfiruka lima la
na'alam Allahumma, Ya muqalliba al-qulubi, thabbit
qulubana ala deenik.
Allahumma, Ya musarrifa al-qulubi, sarrif qulubana ala
taatik.
Allahumma, a'inna ala dhikrika wa shukrika wa
husni ibaratik.
Allahumma, la tad'alana dhanban illa ghafartah.
Wala hamman illa farrajtah.
Wala dayna illa qadaytah.
Wala mareedan illa shafaytah.
Wala haajatan hiya laka reedan وَلَنَا فِيهَا صَلَاحٌ
إِلَّا قَضَيْتَهَا وَيَسَرْتَهَا لَنَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ وَأَقِمِ الصَّلَاةِ