Ali Albarghouthi – This is Love #42 Final Hadith – Never Ending Love
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Now we're ready to go.
You start now or
yeah?
We have reached Hadith
number 42, which is the last hadith in
the book.
So this insha'Allah is going to be the
last hadith in the series
and the last lecture in the series insha'Allah.
And
the title of
today's chapter is never ending love.
And that is of course a reference
to the love of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
and you'll understand
why
it is appropriate
to be called
the never ending love,
particularly based on this hadith.
Hadith is really
beautiful
and
you could both feel
sad
and happy
slash hopeful when you read it.
Right?
So, He said,
Jibril came to me and said to me,
yeah, Muhammad,
oh, Muhammad.
Live as long as you want
or you shall die.
And love whomever you want,
you shall leave them.
And do whatever you want,
for you will find its consequence.
Be required for it.
And know that the honor
of a believer
is in his night prayer,
and his strength
is in him not needing people.
So his honor
is in his night prayer, and his strength
is where he does not need people.
So these are
jewels that come to us
from Jibril alayhis salam speaking to Muhammad alayhis
salaam,
and there is a lot in them
to be digested.
To begin with,
we're gonna take from that statement,
live
as long as you wish,
To understand
that a lot of us
live
as they wanna live.
And the way that you live,
the way that you choose to live
has real consequences.
Meaning, subhanallah,
Allah, Azzawaj, though he commanded live this way
or live that live that way,
he left that choice up to you.
Right?
Whatever you want to eat, whatever you want
to drink, whatever you want to do or
not do, the choice is yours.
But you will always have to face the
consequence of that choice that you make. You
cannot escape it.
So,
those who, for instance,
decide to save money are not like those
who
decide to squander it.
You're not going to live the same,
and you're not going to face the same
consequences.
A person who chooses to follow a healthy
diet is unlike a person who stuffs their
face
with bad food.
They're not going to live the same.
They're not going to die the same unless
Allah decrees otherwise, but typically, generally.
And they don't face the same
consequences
of health and sickness,
agility,
and the likes. Very different
realities,
very different futures based on the choice that
you are making today.
And the idea of live as well as
much as you
live as you want,
free of all constraints,
is probably a very modern obsession.
That you probably have heard
that choice celebrated and lauded.
Live authentically.
Pursue what you love and pursue what you
like.
Don't listen to outside authority, meaning it doesn't
matter what society says, it doesn't matter what
your parents
say. What matters is what you feel like,
what you wanna do.
And
that type of freedom, freedom from all constraints
is very appealing.
It's appealing especially if you are someone who's
constrained by an outside force,
and you feel
that type of life will be incredibly liberating.
So, if your parents had been forcing you
to do something, or your culture had been
forcing you to do something, and you feel
that you're suffocating,
and you hear this modern, particularly western call
that live as you
believe you should live, don't try to please
anybody else, but satisfy your own self. You
will feel that that call is such a
liberating call that should be embraced by everybody.
So it has its own appeal. And if
you're a Muslim who's living, let's say, in
and under oppressive rules, in Muslim
lands. And the idea of democracy and freedom,
and the idea of personal choice, and an
individual life styled as you wish
can be contrasted against
the
pressure that you face,
the Western notion of live as you want
to live is very attractive.
And
of course, I mean there is that
modern
or Western motif,
Western story
that you find in literature
and novels that they write, and movies and
series that they produce
of this oppressed
Muslim, particularly women.
But it can be
a family, but it typically tends to be
a woman,
who is in a Muslim land,
who somehow is always oppressed,
underappreciated,
forced to marry someone who is older than
her, and she doesn't want to marry him.
And her whole aspiration is for her to
be what?
A singer,
a dancer, an artist,
But of course, her society does not allow
her to be this.
Until
some opportunity
allows her to escape, to sneak out of
that oppressive existence.
She meets this handsome
Western
man
who opens the door for her. She leaves,
she migrates, and she discovers life anew,
in London or Paris or New York or
what have you.
That's a motif by the way. It keeps
repeating.
This is how they imagine the Muslim woman
and this is how they imagine
Islam is.
So for a Muslim who's living in a
Muslim land,
looking at maybe all the freedoms that he
or she, they do not have, and they
heal that call of, or here in the
West, you can be whatever you want to
be, that is very attractive.
You don't have to listen to anybody but
you, that is very appealing.
The problem of course is, and we have
to kind of stress this, is that you
can never really live as you want to.
Can you? If you really want
to, anyone and everyone living in any society
must conform, whether you are aware of it
or not, to how society lives.
Otherwise, you're not fit.
Right?
And in some societies, like if you're talking
about Russia, China,
the West will tell you, everybody is oppressed
over this, so they have to toe the
line. Not here in the west, you could
do whatever you want. But no matter where
you live,
there's always pressure applied, whether it's political pressure,
or social pressure, or economic pressure,
for you to behave a certain
way. And if you don't,
you're an outcast.
So imagine yourself going for an interview.
Can you dress whatever way you want?
And if you do, what happens? Do you
get hired?
Now imagine in society, can you dress really
whatever way you want, whatever color?
Like think about it,
I'm not gonna copy anyone,
not a single person.
Because I don't want anyone
to constrain me, to pressure me into wearing
this particular type of clothes. I wanna be
my own person, really my own person.
If you dress like that and live like
that, would you be accepted?
So I make a point in the book,
you know who the person who lives like
that truly free?
The person who lives in the woods, off
the grid,
rejects society.
He says, I'm not going to accept any
of your pressures or definitions.
This is the person who lives free,
but everybody else has to conform.
So there's
that's a myth of living free of pressure,
or free of external dictates.
Everybody has to follow
what society wants them to do.
Except that in some cases, you're aware of
it, in some cases, you are not.
But in in the modern obsession or the
Western obsession
with living authentically,
the problem with it,
and again, I highlight that in the book,
the problem with it is that it's individualistic,
and it is set against religion and tradition.
So as a Muslim, if you want to
live as a Muslim, as a good Muslim,
who tells you how to live?
Allah. Right?
That's how you're supposed to. In that individualistic
bent
attitude, who tells you how to live?
No
one
except you.
There is no God.
It's a rebellion against tradition and it's a
rebellion against God.
You don't get to tell me, not a
priest, not a rabbi, not an imam, not
a book, nothing.
I decide how I'm gonna live.
And, subhanAllah, you see some Muslims embracing that,
thinking that this is this is how you're
supposed to live. But no. Always, as I
said, there's always somebody telling you how to
live. It's just sometimes you're not aware of
it.
So,
to live
like that
against Allah, against tradition, against the religion of
Allah Azzawajal
is antithetical
to Islam.
No. You are supposed to submit to Allah
and his rules. You're supposed to live as
Allah
wants you. So we have this deep moral
issue.
Who decides right and wrong?
Is it you or Allah So
if the authority is with the individual, then
you will live as you want.
If the authority is with Allah, Azza wa
Jal, it's not with you. You're supposed to
listen,
not to chart your own way, not to
follow your own mood,
not to follow what you like. And if
you've been attending
these lectures, you'll understand that sometimes you will
love
the wrong thing,
and Allah has to tell you what to
love and how to love it. Right?
So there's always hidden hidden limits and there's
no complete freedom.
Right? And you even can think about it
in terms
of, examples,
practical examples.
So for instance,
can you say whatever you want
in a Western society
and not be
harmed
or censored
because of it?
Will you be allowed to say whatever you
want?
Or do they have limits?
Or they have limits.
Right? There are limits.
Yeah?
So that negates the idea of freedom. Can
you
that absolute idea of absolute freedom, but even
biologically,
can you decide to do whatever you want
with your body and face no consequences?
To say, well, I'm I'm free. I'll just
eat whatever I want.
What happens if you eat whatever you want
or drink whatever you want?
Won't that make you sick?
Right?
So, if that makes you sick, does this
not limit your freedom?
So you cannot eat what you want anymore,
or be as mobile as you want.
So, exercising
freedom in one area will restrict you in
another.
Don't you find that if you are someone
who wants to be healthy, you will impose
your restrictions on yourself
to gain greater freedom elsewhere?
So you say to yourself, I'm not going
to eat this food because it's not good.
Who's forcing you?
You're imposing this on yourself. Why?
You say, I want to gain something better,
which is what? To have a better body,
to have better health. I won't be able
to do this unless I do that.
So there is no idea of what absolute
freedom. I will do whatever here and I
will get whatever over there. You have to
impose restrictions on yourself.
So Allah, Azza wa Jal, instead of you
imposing those restrictions on you, instead of society,
a bunch of humans imposing those
instead of society, a bunch of humans imposing
those restrictions on you, Allah introduces them.
And if you rebel and you go against
Allah
what happens?
First of all, you will not know
right from wrong, so you will suffer consequences
of very bad choices.
And if Allah is not your ilah, is
not your master, somebody else has to be
your master.
And if Prophet Muhammad alaihis salatu wasalam is
not your prophet, somebody else has to be
your prophet telling you what to do right
and wrong and you will have to listen
to them or be forced to listen to
them.
So, if you rebel against Allah as there
are severe consequences to that choice.
And you would think that you are free,
but you're really not free. You've been enslaved
by somebody else for some other reasons, and
you will have to pay those consequences.
So doing whatever you want, free from Allah
has a price.
Now,
when Jibreel, alaihis salam, spoke to the prophet
alaihis salatu was salam,
he was not telling him,
live as you want.
No. Because Muhammad alaihi salatu wasalam knows better
than that.
No. He says live as long as you
want,
because you're going to die.
And hear that shock
to the system,
shock to
the person
who hears this,
especially if this person loves life
and has big plans for the future,
and expects to live and have children and
grandchildren and raise them and have a house
and build another, and he tells
Rasulullah, alaihis salatu wasallam, you know what? Live
as long as you want. What's the end
of
it? You're going to die.
Now why is it important for you to
realize that? To remember death,
Not to kill death
and the remembrance of death.
Because only when you know that you're going
to die will you be able to truly
live.
When you
don't expect
death, or you're not
aware of it, your life will not have
meaning.
You will do things that harm you, you
will delay things that benefit you.
You'll not be close to Allah, Azuja, because
you're not going to feel the need, because
you think that I have plenty of time
and I live as if I'm not going
to die. So, the reality of death escapes
you, it's erased.
So you don't live as if you're going
to die, you live as if you're never
going to die.
So when he tells the prophet,
no, live as long as you want want.
You are gonna die.
That is, remember this end.
It doesn't matter if your life is going
to be long. Remember this end, everybody has
to meet that fate.
And if you remember death
and you keep its memory alive,
then your heart will be better.
Your life will be better.
Your relationships will be better.
Your connection to Allah, as Zohr, will be
will be strong and alive.
You'll get ready for death and what comes
after.
Your priorities will be very different.
Things of this life, conflicts that seem like
mountains will diminish.
Because after all,
why should I worry about this if all
of us are gonna die?
Why should I fight with so and so
if all of us eventually are gonna
die? Why is the loss of a 100
or a 1000 or a $100,000
such monumental loss if eventually I'm gonna lose
all of it. You start seeing the world
for what it is and the hereafter for
what it is. You start valuing
your own life and you stop wasting it.
Because if you know that you're gonna die,
you know that your life is limited.
Think about if someone were to pronounce that
you have a terminal illness and you only
have 6 months to go, how would you
spend those 6 months?
Would you sit
unless, you know,
we assume you haven't given up on life.
You have not given up on,
your future
and what you can do with it. Somebody
tells you you have 6 months to live.
Would you spend that watching sports?
Watching movies?
Wasting time on cafes,
or if you believe that you're gonna meet
Allah and your time is precious, you'll invest
every
day because you know it's irreplaceable.
Which would you do?
So
awareness of death gives life meaning
and that's why the Prophet, Alaihi Sallahu Alaihi
Wasallam, he says, remember death often.
Remember death often. And he said in the
continuation of that hadith that if you are
experiencing
difficulty in life,
that remembrance of death will bring you ease.
Right?
And if you're experiencing
ease
in your life,
the remembrance of death will bring
you tightness, he said.
Will
tighten it because you realize you can't enjoy
this for long.
So again, you realize the importance of life
and the importance of death
When you remember them.
Now
the prophet alaihis salatu wasalam also said,
love whomever you want, you are going to
leave them.
And that again is
a devastating
pronouncement.
That's a devastating statement.
Because what is
the most
difficult thing in life?
The most difficult thing in life is for
you to separate from your loved ones.
When they die,
when they travel,
when they relocate.
That separation
is the most difficult thing. It's probably the
most difficult.
And yet, you hear the prophet
telling
you, though it is the most difficult thing,
you're going to have to leave them,
and they're going to have to leave you.
So love whomever you want.
And this is to tell you what,
as
remembering death comes back to inform how you
live, awareness that you're going to separate from
them comes back to inform and guide how
you're supposed to love them.
Right?
Does that make sense?
That awareness that no matter how love them
as much as you want. Be attached to
them as much as you want. Love all
of these people or none of these people.
It's up to you, but just realize you're
gonna leave everybody.
How does this change you when you know
this?
1st,
is if you know you're gonna leave something,
you'll be less attached to
it. And I don't mean
unattached
or detached.
I mean less attached.
If this person is your entire life,
losing them could devastate you, could kill you,
could leave you empty,
and you may not be able to handle
or recoup
from that tragedy.
But if you know that you're going to
leave them and that is present in your
head,
won't your attachment to them, or at least
anticipation of their departure, lessen your dependence on
them?
It will. Because you will imagine there's gonna
come a time that either I'm here and
they are not or they are here and
I'm not.
So how attached do you want to be
to them?
To what degree?
So you still love them, you still honor
them, you're still around them,
but we realize that there may come a
time when we have to separate. What will
you do? How will you be when that
happens?
So mentally,
emotionally,
partially,
you're getting ready for it.
And so when you are less attached,
it doesn't dominate.
It doesn't dominate your life.
So whether it's a job, whether it's a
person, whether it's a house, whether it's a
car, whether it's your own reputation,
anything that is in the dunya. If you
understand that this could be taken away from
you, you realize that it's not essential.
And can be taken away, and you can
still survive.
Right?
So if I could lose this house, fine.
If you're ready for it, means if I
lose it, at least in your head I
say, I will find something else.
And Allah will compensate.
If I lose this car, if I lose
my job,
fine.
That's life.
Allah
will assist, will make me patient, and will
compensate. If I lose that person,
right,
Allah will make me patient
and will compensate.
Imagine how could the Sahaba
tolerate the loss of the prophet alaihis salatu
was salam in his death.
And you will not be able to lose,
and when talking about it and it's just
abstract
because we haven't met him, not been around
him.
But you're not gonna be losing someone more
important to you if he was alive than
him
because of the connection, because of who he
is, because of what he was giving you.
More than a mother, more than a father,
more than a wife, more than a husband,
He was something. How could they tolerate losing
him
So but they understood from Allah.
He said to them,
Muhammad is nothing but a messenger
whom other messengers before him have all perished
and died.
If he dies
or is killed, will you turn back
and abandon the message of Islam? So he
was they were getting ready that even with
even with someone like Muhammad alayhis salatu wa
sallam, you're gonna gonna leave him.
So
if you know that you're going to leave
something, it doesn't dominate your life,
and it somehow
prepares you for their loss.
Now the question here is how does it
prepare you for their loss?
We have said before
that we are living
to love and be loved.
Right?
We are living to love and be loved.
If you're telling me that everyone that I
love will leave me, that is quite depressing.
If I'm living to love and be loved
and the person or the people who love
me the most
and I love the most, all of them
are gonna leave, that is very very depressing.
Unless
you realize one thing,
that one
does not leave.
And that one is what? Whom?
That Allah
There's one love that does not leave, that
cannot leave,
and that is the love of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
So when Allah tells you, love whomever you're
going to leave them, that leaves you empty.
But empty to do what? To receive the
love of Allah, Azzawajal,
who only him can fill the void, the
emptiness in your heart when you hear that.
Oh, I may lose all my children, I
may lose my spouse, I may lose my
parents, I may lose this. That leaves me,
what, alone.
But am I alone? Allah is there.
So the love of Allah is supposed to
enter when you realize that emptiness. Enter and
fill your heart with his love. Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
And then you realize that the love of
Allah
is unique.
It doesn't end
even when you die. It does not leave
you alone. He's always with you. And because
He's always with you, He always answers your
dua.
He's always ready to assist you.
And when He's with you, you will never
feel alone,
and you will never feel weak,
and you'll never feel abandoned,
and you will never feel that you need
love. Because the love of Allah
is so overwhelming and complete. Of course,
you always need human love,
but not in the sense of how we
love humans,
dependingly.
No. You're not going to depend.
Allah, as though just love
will be sufficient and will compensate
all other lost love.
But the love of Allah
is also
unique in the sense that
it revives all other love.
And it connects you with all the things
that you love, so they don't really end.
Without Allah Azzawajal, Allah tells us
that your family on the day of judgement
without Allah will run away from you.
So Allah said,
It says, on the day when a man
will run away from his brother,
and his mother,
and father,
and his wife and children,
each will have their own worry to consume
them.
That is
when they are terrified because of what they
have done, when they see their parents
and their wives and their children,
their children,
what will they
do?
They'll run away.
When they need them the most, they'll run
away from them. As he said, each one
of them has an affair that is consuming
them, trouble that is consuming them. They have
no time for you.
So the people that you love the most
in the duniya,
when Allah is not the basis of that
love,
Allah is not present in your and their
life,
they're not going to come to your aid
on the day of judgment. They'll run away
from you.
So that love doesn't last.
It
ends. And it's a strong love, but it
ends.
Also he said
He said loved ones will be enemies of
each other on that day
except for the pious.
Close friends.
The khalil is not just a casual acquaintance
or friend. The khalil is ones that are
very close to you.
He says, on that day, they will be
enemies of each other except the pious. The
pious are the exception.
They loved each other in the dunya and
Allah, Azzawajal was present in that relationship in
the akhirah,
that relationship is still sustained and maintained.
They still will assist each other. They still
love each other.
They still may intercede
for each other.
It's not severed.
But otherwise,
it's just they'll be enemies of each other.
Right?
All of them.
And subhanAllah, you will see this not only
in the hereafter,
but also in the dunya as well.
When people
who like each other or love each other
or close to each other, but there is
sin between them,
love is not sustained.
Sooner or later, depending on the gravity of
that sin,
they'll turn on each other.
They'll turn on each other
like those who will
form a mob or a gang.
And there is this issue of loyalty and
brotherhood between them,
right?
We against everybody.
But of course, what they're doing is illicit.
It's haram. They steal or they kill or
they do this or they do that.
Does that friendship and loyalty
survive?
Or do they eventually turn against each other
killing each other?
It's not only in the movies, guys.
Actually, it happens.
And where do they bring it from? They
bring it from reality. They turn against each
other.
In the duniya,
because any relationship,
and we said this before, any relationship that
is built upon sin or displeases Allah, Azarajid
will lose that love sooner or later, or
at least it diminishes.
So you see it in the dunya,
people turning against each other because they are
disobedient
and unrighteous.
And Allah says this exactly what happens
in
the akhirah.
Whereas the believers,
Allah
said about them.
It says for those who believe and whose
offspring
follow them in faith, we will unite them
with their offspring.
I don't know if you've when you read
that ayah, you kind of registered what Allah
is
saying in it.
Meaning, if you believe
and your children are also
highest, also your children
followed them in piety. Maybe not to the
same level, not to the same excellence,
but they still were pious nonetheless.
Allah said what? We will join them together.
So the meaning of this ayah is that
if the parents,
right?
Are at one level and the children at
the bottom level,
Allah does not separate between them.
He joined them.
So that relationship,
that love, that connection wasn't severed
in the last day
in Jannah,
but continues
because its basis is what? Allah
So Allah
Allah's love saves every other love.
If Allah is loved,
Allah saves all of your love.
And if you ignore Allah
and rebel against him, you endanger everything that
you love, and ultimately, you lose it.
Because with death, you're separated.
So if you want to continue to love
your spouse,
love your children, to love your parents
beyond death,
love Allah
and please Him
and do what He wants. And Allah will
save everything that you love,
so it what transcends death.
You're not separated.
You will be reunited.
Otherwise, that'd be the end of that relationship.
That will be the end of that love.
So with Allah's love,
death is not the end.
With Allah's love, death is not the end,
and that's the hope
that this hadith
and these ayahs give. Yes, you will be
separated from them, but will you be reunited?
Yes. By the will of Allah,
if everybody's pleasing to Allah. You're not gonna
lose that love. In fact, it will blossom
and grow
in Jannah
without any fear of separation, without any fear
of illness, without any
inconveniences
or any harms.
So this is the statement of
the Jibril to the Prophet
Love whomever you want, you will leave them.
It does teach us a lot about how
to live and whom to love,
but also about the
essential
love of Allah as
part of
our constitution as human beings.
And then also he said to the prophet,
do whatever you want because of course you
will be required for it.
Allah had given you that choice.
How you live,
you shall meet Allah, Azza wa Jal. As
you
sow,
you shall harvest
and reap.
The last two statements
from
the prophet,
from Jibreel to the prophet,
and he said
that a believer's honor
is in his night prayer
and his,
strength is in him not needing people.
Now when it comes to dignity or nobility
or honor,
everybody
wants it, values it, seeks it.
And
the important thing to remember is that
we,
innately,
by nature,
we don't have honor. We don't have a
thing.
Right? Allah
is the one who gives it.
Right?
We are deprived of everything. We don't have
a thing.
But Allah
gives it. Allah
says, Adam. We have honored the children of
Adam. Where did the honor come from? Allah.
And Allah
when speaking about dignity or about, he
said,
Whoever desires
honor, then all honor belongs to Allah.
Meaning if you want honor in this life
and I don't think there is a single
person who doesn't want honor. Honor, recognition, elevation,
respect,
different words for the same thing. He says,
do you want it?
You want it? Allah will tell you where
you can get it. All of it is
with Allah, not with anybody else.
And that is very important
because we
sometimes we often miss the way. We think
Izzah is with something else or somebody else.
Is with this group,
is with this person, is with this country,
is with this and that. You know,
honor
is exclusively with Allah
So if you want it, you get it
from him.
And Allah
is the one who granted that
to the believers.
He says, and to Allah belongs honor and
to his messenger and to the believers,
but the hypocrites do not know.
The hypocrites who,
said to themselves
that when we go to back
to Medina, we are the ones who are
honorable. We're gonna expel the Muslims who like
honor.
And Allah
is saying, no.
Honor. God listen what you think.
How rich or poor the Muslims are. How
few or many the Muslims are.
Honor.
If you believe in Allah,
even if you're standing alone facing a multitude,
honor is with whom?
Allah.
Not with people who have money and not
with people who have weapons and not with
people who have power.
That's not honor. Honor is always should be
with Allah. You have to believe it because
if you believe it, you'll embrace it. You'll
ask Allah for it. You'll say, I'll be
honorable if I would if I'm with Allah,
not because of them. They're not gonna make
me honorable if I dress this way or
talk this way.
If I look like them or unlike some
other people, that does not give me honor.
Honor is only with Allah. So if you're
with Allah, He gives you that honor. You
have to actually believe
this.
And if you believe it, Allah honors you
as he honors the prophet
They were not the strongest.
They were not the most numerous. They were
not the rich richest.
But they had the honor of Allah with
them, and the honor of Islam, and the
honor of conviction,
and the honor of the truth. So when
you have this, you are superior.
So if we want honor,
then we have to be close to Allah
Azza wa Jal. That's a given.
Now why in the hadith
does he say,
Jibril, does he say to the prophet
that honor
is in your night prayer, qiyamulay.
Because when you're standing in salah alone in
qiyam, you're alone with Allah as the above
above this
world. You have declared
or you will soon feel that you're above
this world
and you're above what it's asking you to
do that upsets him
You're alone with Allah and Allah is alone
with you.
You're conversing, you're talking, you're asking, you're building
that strong relationship with him
So when you want, you ask him.
And when you need, you give him that
need. And if you are weak, you give
him that weakness and he strengthens you.
And if you need guidance, he's the one
who guides you.
So, you feel that Allah
in that position
is elevating you,
and he's protecting you, and that is your
honor.
So if you feel yourself weak,
feel yourself,
attacked,
you need strength, you need honor, he says,
this is where you would locate it.
Stand alone with Allah and
ask him and listen to him.
As you recite the Quran,
prostrate to him, put your forehead on the
floor and you will see that Allah will
honor you. This will be your
your
and
connected to it. He says,
his strength, or you can also translate it
as honor, but his strength is is
also
strength associated
with elevation.
His strength
is him not needing people.
Right?
But instead, needing who?
So the strongest person, like one who really
is strong, physically let's say, or materially,
is the one who doesn't need a lot
of people because he has enough. Right? So
I don't need you to, but need you
to help me carry this, I'm strong enough.
That is what
strength, right?
Or strength of
material strength. I don't need
your donations or your,
loans. I have enough money to buy this.
So when you don't need, then you're what?
Strong.
So he says,
your strength is when you don't need people.
It means that because of
your reliance on Allah
and need for him
and Zuhud in the dunya, you don't need
much of the dunya, you don't need people.
Right? And that makes you strong.
You cannot be easily bribed or bought.
You cannot be easily coerced or threatened.
You don't need people. You don't have to
bow your head to someone or anyone
because you don't need anybody.
And that kind of sufficiency
that you feel
doesn't come from you, but from relying on
Allah
I don't need your money. Allah is the
one who gives it.
Right?
I mentioned this before,
but let me talk about it again. There's
one of the salaf
who was
in his tawaf,
and then the Khalifa
meets up with him in the tawaf, and
he says, ask me
for anything you want.
And he said,
I feel shy of Allah Azzawajal
that I would ask anybody else but him
while I'm doing tawaf.
Because tawaf is like salah.
Right? It's ibadah.
He says, I feel ashamed
that I've been in that position so close
to him and be asking for
or asking anyone but Allah.
So he waited for him until he was
done, and he left Tawaf.
And the Khalifa again is asking him.
And you realize what a Khalifa asking means?
Right? It's not your friend asking you what
do you want,
and he'll just give you buy you some
tea or coffee. That's that's not it. Khalifa,
if he gives you, he gives you.
We're talking about
gold and silver if you ask.
Because what is it with you on?
So he replies to the Khalifa and he
said, I'm in Amri Dunia Amamri il Akhira.
He says, are you asking me to ask
from the duniya or the akhira?
He says, of course, from the Duniya. He
can't give him the Akhira. He says, of
course, from the Duniya.
He says, so and so.
If I did not ask Allah for the
duniya while I was making tawaf, why should
I ask you for it?
Right?
Now look look at the door that had
just opened.
A Khalifa comes to you.
You're not running after him. He's running after
you. Ask me. He says, I didn't ask
Allah for the dunya while I'm making tawaf.
Why should I ask you for it?
Now this person, is he rich?
No.
Where does this honor and strength come from?
It's an attachment to Allah as a zawja
that supersedes any other type of power or
strength. That's why he
said
that your strength comes from not needing people.
Now when we when I say not needing
people, does that mean don't get married?
Does that mean not to have children?
Does that mean that if something needs fixing
including you, you don't go to a specialist?
No.
You go to them because they can help
you, but you don't need them. You're not
rely I'm sorry. You're not reliant on them.
You know that Allah is the one who
heals and gives. It's through them. It happens
through them, but you don't need this person.
You need Allah
and then Allah is the one who's gonna
decide whether they can help you or not,
but they become only a means.
So the prophet alaihis salatu wasallam is telling
you how to proceed,
how to live life.
Connect to Allah, and he will give you
both honor
and strength.
Disconnect and detach from him and you'll lose
both. You will not have honor, you will
not have strength, and you will not have
guidance.
And that is the difference of how the
early Muslims, including the Sahaba, lived, why they
were so strong
in the spread of Islam and in facing
an onslaught of opposing forces,
why they prevailed,
and why we have not managed
a successful
replication
of how they lived
and what they spread.
Now,
finally, insha'Allah,
this this is the last hadith.
And with this last hadith
and I titled
the chapter never ending love.
If the end of love, as we said,
the end of all love
is a beginning
or the beginning of discovering Allah's love. When
you know that all this love when it
ends, it doesn't mean that it ends, but
you discover from it and because of it,
that Allah's love is never ending.
So the end
is a beginning.
I wanted to take from that the idea
to that, the end of this book is
not the end of this book, but a
beginning too.
It's a beginning
because you understand that
your relationship with Allah, as Zawajal, is never
supposed to end.
You're supposed to take everything that you have
learned here,
and you're supposed to apply it,
and grow it, and cement it,
and develop it, and keep doing that on
and on and on and on. So when
you finish it, it doesn't mean I finished
it. It means that I'm going to take
everything that I've learned,
and I'm going to try to keep applying
it
over and over and over until I reach
the upper limit of what is possible for
me in terms of loving Allah and Him
loving me.
So there is no end.
The end is the beginning.
The beginning of taking everything here
and continuing your journey towards Allah, Azza wa
Jal.
And I would recommend
going back to the introduction,
and reading the introduction to understand how did
the objectives of the book and what we're
trying to assert
as a plan, as a journey
meshed
well or not with what you have learned?
What were these objectives?
What was this book trying
to achieve and to teach when we're talking
about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So some of the things that we've talked
about, and I don't think I can be
exhaustive,
but some of the things that we talked
about, we said that
Islam is based on love.
And if someone were to ask you, prove
it,
if you
attended these lectures,
listened or read, should be able to answer
that question. How would you prove it?
Well, we say that
that word
Ubudiyyah,
is defined by love.
It's it's right there in that definition.
Surrendering to Allah as with utmost love. That's
what
is. When we go to the word,
is the one that you love.
When we try to examine,
right, why Allah
created humanity? Where he put them? What's the
end?
Why Allah
revealed
this Islam,
the Sharia,
and all of its different parts? What's the
greatest objective of it? We said that it
is love.
We said that
you will not enter Jannah without loving Allah
and without loving the prophet and without loving
other believers.
We said that there can be no religion
without love,
particularly Islam.
And so we may not have that proper
understanding,
but we should develop it.
Some Muslims
internally, and that's the some of the misunderstanding
that we were trying to correct, some Muslims
internally think that religion is here and love
is somewhere else,
and they don't
join. They don't
mesh very well.
They don't come together.
Whereas we're saying no, the foundation
of our Islam
is love,
And there could be no Islam, no religion,
no Quran, no Sunnah
without the love that we've talked about.
We're also
trying to correct the misunderstanding
of non Muslims who when they look at
Islam,
they say also it's devoid of love. It
is harsh.
It is strict.
They said, No, it's not harsh and it's
not strict.
Whatever Allah has commanded you to do is
to benefit you because He loves you.
And when he said don't,
it is to protect you because He loves
you. Allah does not get anything back from
it.
And all acts of
Ibadah benefit you back, and Allah rewards you,
and Allah forgives you.
So you see Allah's mercy in it, Allah's
forgiveness in it.
We warned against exaggerations
in love,
whether it's religious love or non religious love.
So some people love
religiously in the wrong way.
They could love Allah Azuwajal the wrong way.
They could love Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
the wrong way. We said, no, that is
insufficient until you love the right thing and
you love it the right way and Allah
tells you what to love and how to
love it.
Talked about exaggerations
also in non religious love.
When you love someone as a spouse, or
as a child, or as a parent,
and when that love
coincides or agrees with Islam, and when that
love could collides with it,
What to do to nurture love and what
to do to destroy it.
How you can protect it. How you can
solve problems that you will must face when
you love someone.
Because you'll be challenged by the shaitan and
we said that shaitan has plots to destroy
any good meaningful relationship that you have. So
how do you protect all of this? We
told you
how to protect this
love and how Allah is the
one who is who gives it and Allah
who creates it the one who maintains it,
and the one who safeguards it. We talked
about all of this.
So I hope that you could
reexamine this whether you're going through
the introduction
or through the book again. And you could
read the book again and again and again
because, inshallah, I hope that it will keep
teaching you as
we grow, we have discovered different things in
it as it is the case with almost
any book that you read. Is it's not
just simply the book, but it's also who's
approaching the book and what he is or
she is ready to learn from it.
The appendices,
there are 3 of them and I'm not
going to go through them. I will leave
that up to you,
But the purpose of each appendix 123
is
to study some of the things that we
talked about
a little bit deeper
with a kind of deeper
and more,
you know, scholarly,
discussion.
So if for instance,
someone were to ask the question, are we
allowed to
love non Muslims? And if we love non
Muslims, how and why and what have you?
Kind of explained it there for the person
who does not only want yes or no,
but he wants the yes and no with
evidence. Wants yes and no, and who said
it, and how, and what cases, circumstances, and
what is it right, and what is it
wrong, and what limits does it have.
So the appendix is for that. So I
will leave that up to you, If you're
a person
who is a deep thinker, you like to
read, you have that stamina, you want evidence,
then Insha'Allah, you can go
and visit that. If not, that's fine because
the conclusions of what you will find in
the appendix is something that we did talk
about.
So at least the conclusions have been covered.
And this is it. This is it for
this book.
Let me know
if I've missed anything.
A lesson that should be emphasized. Let me
know if you have questions,
and before I leave, first any
that is done.
It was a project, alhamdulillah, as Dhuljal first
and foremost that Allah had enabled,
the conclusion
of this of this project.
And then I thank
after thanking Allah,
everybody and anybody who attended
because your presence whether it's physical or even
virtual
does actually matter. When you see somebody sitting,
when you see somebody eager to listen, when
you see someone asking questions that kind of
actually
motivates the speaker, whether you realize or not.
You may not realize it because just you
don't understand your impact,
but your presence
actually has
consequence to it. So when you see people
asking questions, just motivates
the person to explain more and better. And
when you see people
attending,
you realize that they're interested.
So let me talk
and, you know, share with them things that
will help them.
So
thank all of you and anyone who may
have attended, but he's not here. May Allah
reward you for it. Let me know inshallah
if you have things that you wanna ask
or things that you wanna add in terms
of maybe points I did not cover. You
think
we should highlight that at the end.
And before you ask me, inshallah, what's next,
I do not know.
So next week inshallah, we're not gonna be
doing anything, so we're off next week. And
maybe inshallah between,
now and then,
we'll find out inshallah,
what's gonna be next.
Good?
Oh, you have a question? Okay. Good.
No.
Oh, how how to make remembering death a
habit?
Mhmm. Yeah.
So so you you don't want to forget
about death? How to keep remembering death? Yeah.
That's a good question. So, Yani, the prophet
told us to remember it and to keep
remembering it, but the question is then, well,
how do I keep remembering it? Because if
there is no mechanism, right, in place, how
will I remember? I'll forget.
So
think about the things that remind you of
death. What reminds you of death?
So
one common one
is death itself,
the dead people.
So when you see dead people, when there
is janaza,
when there is washing the body,
taking it to the cemetery,
you get involved.
With as much as you can, as much
as you can, but at least in salah.
So when you pray over the janaza or
maybe you even volunteer to wash the body,
that remind you of death. You will see
a person who was alive and now he's
dead.
So do as much of that as possible.
Included
in that is visiting the cemetery.
You can make that a habit.
You know how you have a habit of,
you know,
buying this food
or passing by groceries,
same thing. You can have a habit of
visiting the cemetery.
But prophet said,
visit the graves because they remind you of
the hereafter.
So you can make that a habit of
visiting the grave.
Also reading the Quran.
Like to be regular in reading the Quran
because the Quran from beginning to end reminds
you of that.
That.
And it's a good idea also for a
person to have
a,
either, if if you're not an Arabic speaker,
you don't understand it, translation,
or if you're Arabic speaker, a very short
tafsir,
Summarized tafsir. So that when you see an
ayah,
you go back to the tafsir to understand
what Allah is saying there. Now, I don't
mean all of it, but some of these
ayahs. So if you read the book of
Allah Azza wa Jal, you'll remember death.
And
the rest is just asking Allah
for it.
Right? Because I don't have other than those
2, which is what, you know, visiting the
graves and the cemetery and being around the
dead and then reading the Quran. I don't
have any third thing I can add except
asking Allah Azzawajal for it. And remembering maybe
from time to time, even though
it's,
it's not easy to remember, but sleep.
Right? So when we wake up in a
part of the dua of the prophet, alaihis
salatu wa salam, he said,
to the one who brought us back to
life
after he had caused our death,
and his return will or the return will
be or the resurrection will be to him.
So when you sleep, you die.
So keep remembering that every time you're sleeping,
you're dying.
And when you come back, you are being
resurrected.
So today, tonight,
everybody here is going to die.
Right?
Right?
Everybody here is going to die. If it
actually happens, it's not my fault.
Okay? Because that prediction is kind of straightforward.
Everybody is going to die,
but then what you're going to be brought
back to life. So if you just think
about that this is happening to me every
single night,
maybe that will remember.
Okay.
Let me see we have some questions here.
So,
what do we do to undo this brainwashing?
I'm not sure what is this is referenced
to, so help me with that.
Being a human being, how to make balance
in our love when we lose our loved
ones and find comfort in Allah's love. Didn't
the prophets feel sad that they lost their
loved ones? How should I find the balance
as a human being? Of course, the prophet
felt sadness and we kind of emphasized this
before.
Prophets are human beings and human being will
be sad.
Right?
As the evidence for it is that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam shed some tears
or was tearful when Ibrahim died, his son.
Right?
And he said, we are sad
over your departure.
Because of this separation,
we are sad over your departure.
But, of course, there's a difference between someone
feeling sadness and someone
completely reliant on the existence of another human
being for their happiness.
So no, for the prophet
he loved,
but his greatest connection is with Allah, Azawajal.
So he could lose
and move on.
So the loss of Hamza was difficult,
his uncle.
Alright? The loss of was difficult.
That was also but he was able
to transcend
through the love of Allah. So that's what
we're asking.
The balance is, of course, you're gonna be
sad when you lose your wife or husband
or you lose your lose your parents,
But then you come back and you remember
Allah as and you will say
and
you make dua for them. And, of course,
you're sad, and, of course, you're down. But
the iman gives you the energy to continue
and to
invest your time wisely rather than in depression,
and extreme sadness,
and loss of hope
in helping them in the next life by
making dua
for their for them, by giving sadaqa on
their behalf,
repaying their debts.
So you'd be positive
and then you will await that reunion
where you would hope that both of you
will be united before Allah
and then eventually in Jannah. So iman gives
you hope, gives you
a fuel to be able to continue that
this is not the end,
but rather just a transition until the
full absolute life will
come upon us.
So this is how you will find the
balance and it's gonna vary from one person
to the other,
but you be close to Allah and you
ask him for patience
And understand, by the way, that when I'm
saying, yes, everybody will lose,
you don't that doesn't have to
terrify you
because you may say to yourself, I can't
bear the fact that I can lose them.
Just the fact that you know when Allah
is beside you, that's number 1.
The second is, Allah
assist you with greater patience and aid when
you need it.
So maybe now you can't handle this,
But then Allah, Azdul, when you ask him,
he will help you. Right?
So I hope that that was satisfying.
So how do we address the mentality of
I know, but I don't want to do?
And so I don't know. I don't understand
that kind of the core of that stubbornness.
Like, I know, but I don't wanna do
it. Is it because
I'm not convinced that this is good or
I'm convinced, but I'm not ready for it?
You want to understand the core of that
resistance,
and it could be simply
us. We're not the greatest people at conveying
the truth, maybe somebody else can.
Or maybe there is some obstacle that they
have in their heart, in their head, so
you try to discover that. But you want
to tell them, if this is right,
why not do the best thing for you?
And, if it is difficult, Allah can bring
you ease.
And, if it's difficult, just simply ask Allah,
Allah make this easy for me. Don't do
anything else.
Like this is there is this sin,
difficult to leave. I don't feel like leaving
it, but I know it's wrong. You say,
at least just ask Allah, Allah help me
leave it. Just keep saying this.
Then Allah will help you, will find a
way for you,
Will give you an opening,
and then you can take advantage of that
opening, but you have to want to take
advantage of that opening. So just
ask to understand the core of that stubbornness
and resistance,
and maybe also
if there's nothing else to make du'a for
them and you seek
the opportunities
when their heart is soft,
and when they are open to change and
some advice, and you take advantage of that.
Ramadan is a great opportunity
suggesting hamra or haj is a great opportunity
or just simply making dua for them.
Yeah. I'm not sure what is gonna come
next.
He's
saying I'm here with you every session. May
Allah reward you.
Yes, Tolga. Yeah. Go ahead.
Mhmm.
So the question is, what does it mean
to say that
have a relationship with someone, meaning love someone
and having Allah being part of that relationship?
It it can mean 2 things. Right?
One of them is that as you said,
to love them for the sake of Allah
It also means that you're not upsetting Allah
in that
relationship or because of it.
So you're observing Allah's rules. So you're married
to someone, or you let's say you have
children,
and with these children, you're not disobeying Allah
because of these children, so you love them.
Right? So you could love them naturally because
they're simply your children and you're allowed to.
Something higher than that is to love them
for Allah's sake,
to see in them a potential
worshipers of Allah,
to groom them as worshipers of Allah, those
who will, you know, be able to help
other Muslims.
So see that in them. So not only
do and help and love
because they are yours,
but because they are from Allah, Azza wa
Jal, and you want them to serve him
So this is Allah part of that relationship.
You don't you can't manage this. That's difficult
for some people. Well, I'm not gonna disobey
Allah because of them.
So just because, let's say, I wanna ensure
and protect their future, I'm gonna earn from
haram to make sure that they are well
off if I die.
If they ask me for things I can't
afford, I will go and earn from haram
just to buy them the things that they
want.
Or to enable, you know, to play with
them or stay up with them. I'm missing
fajr or
so you don't do this.
So if you disobey Allah because of someone
and you genuinely love them, you disobey Allah
because of that person,
that love is going to diminish
and it will turn against you. This person
will start hating you
because Allah is the one who deposits love,
then you introduce introduce the opposite, which is
sin, then let love go away.
So that's why we say make Allah part
of it, right, in both of those ways.
Father, yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
Impacting all of us not only children but
adults. So how should we do remove the
brainwashing?
Okay.
Okay. So if if if by the brainwashing
and and it's still so the brother is
explaining
that maybe what you mean by brainwashing is
the brainwashing
of, the oppression of Muslim women and how
Muslims don't have freedom and all the negative
things that they say about Islam
and all the,
positive
things that they say about what is opposite
to Islam. So how do you,
deal with that type of brainwashing?
First of all,
investigate
it. Investigate it.
Investigate the claims.
Does this does any of what they're saying
actually relate to reality? Does it actually make
sense?
Or is it basic propaganda and advertisement?
Match that or compare it to the reality
of living in western lands. Is it exactly
as they advertise?
Or is it different?
Investigate
also the core of Islam. I don't mean
how some people practice or interpret Islam. Who
could misinterpret it? I'm talking about Islam as
Allah revealed it in the Quran and the
sunnah of the prophet alaihis salatu wasalam.
Do they lead to any of these things
that they proclaim they do lead to?
So the brainwashing is to realize that we
have been fed,
lies for a very long time.
The information that we receive, the lifestyle that
we value,
what we consider right and wrong had been
in a very long time,
the
kind of brought from, sourced from, those who
colonized us.
And unfortunately,
they didn't only colonize our
lands,
they colonized our heads
to make us believe that everything that we
have
is inferior
and everything that they have
is
superior.
So if you realize that, especially in the
world that we're living today, that this is
all fake,
right?
This is all absolutely fake,
then you start investigating
all of these claims 1 by 1
and seeing them for what they are.
If you know that Allah lifts the veils
from people's eyes,
when they believe,
that if when you read the Quran and
you have
Allah or you will have a man if
you have of Allah,
Allah will give you a criterion or Allah
will give you the that enables you to
see the truth and distinguish between it and
falsehood.
That's the furqan, the separator.
So if you don't want to be brainwashed,
we say it's simple, reeducate
yourself
for you to see what the truth is
and consider yourself to have been absolutely colonized.
So you need to liberate yourself, mind and
heart, from the effect of the colonizers. So
how it colonized you? The shaitan and its
helpers. So start reading the Quran and establishing
its facts as fact
and everything else as fiction,
and then you'll be able to liberate yourself
from it. And then, of course, read and
listen.
Read and listen to people who point out
what the truth is,
and
it's opposite. Read and listen.
Without that, you'll not be able to, because
everybody is under the spell.
But you need to do that until you
realize
that what they are advertising is absolutely false.
Right? And if we had time, we could
go through it. Right?
And whatever they're saying about Islam is absolutely
false.
Right? And you should know this from your
own life,
that it is false.
So this is what I
have to say about it.
How to protect our hearts from being affected
by the praise of people?
It's hard. It's not easy.
But you have to understand
understand the following. First of all, is that
you know yourself more than people do.
So no matter what they say about you,
you know better.
And part of the things that you know
about yourself that they don't know is your
flaws and mistakes and sins. So people only
observe the good side because that's what you
allow them to see.
Right? Which should be,
but they don't know the whole you.
So if they know the whole you, they'll
have a more balance. But you know, so
you should be more balanced in it.
So don't accept everything that they say about
you. They don't know.
Right?
The second is people are excessive
in praise
and excessive in critique.
And we talked about this in one of
these hadith. That's why I tell you, it
will always be good to,
go back
to it.
He says, love, you're going to love moderately
because you may hate them someday,
and hate whomever you want to hate moderately
because you may love them one day. We
talked about that hadith.
Notice the first parts here, love whomever you
wanna love moderately.
Hate whomever you wanna hate moderately.
Why the emphasis on moderation?
Except that people when they love and hate,
they hate with
Extreme.
So when they love someone, he's the best.
And when they hate someone, he's the worst.
You see that on social media or not?
They take him up up up up, and
then when he has reached the height of
it, they tear him apart.
The media used to do this before.
Tablets, have you used to read tabloids?
Hopefully not. But if you're just passing by
cashier, right, and you see the tabloids, something
is always wrong with some people, some famous
person,
another scandal with them. Right? So that that's
that's kind of the human mentality. When I
love you, you're the best and when I
hate you, you're the worst. Both of these
things are extreme.
The truth is in the middle. You're not
as good as they say. You have to
tell yourself, you're not as good as they
say
and not as bad as your critics,
although you need need to learn from it.
You're somewhere in the middle.
And then,
lastly, you say what Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu
used to say. You Allah forgive me
what they do not know,
and make me better than what they say
and don't hold me responsible for what they
say about me. And you Allah, don't hold
me responsible for what they say. If it's
exaggerated,
don't hold me responsible.
And forgive me what they do not know.
So immediately you're humble.
If they don't know a lot about me,
forgive that for me. And you Allah making
me better than what they say about me.
Because there are 2 of you.
And we talked about this before when we
talked about you're having 2 reputations,
1 in the heavens and 1 on earth.
Remember?
There's 2 of you.
There is you that is in front of
people, that's what people know, and there is
you that is you.
And they're not always the same.
So sometimes, you that is you is worse
than
your public persona.
And sometimes, the you that is you is
better than your public persona.
For most people,
the you that is you is worse.
For most people, the you that is you
is worse,
but not with the prophets
and not with the Sahaba.
The hidden them is better than the public
them.
So that's what they're asking Allah, Azza wa
Jalie, Allah make me better than what they
think I am.
So make that a motivator
for you to be better.
I don't know what time is 50
or 47 is the add
on? Okay. So it's it's add on time.
Okay.
So, forgive me if I could not,
get to your question or I did not
or was not able to answer it.