Ali Ataie – The Commands of God Are Rational & Beneficial
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the origins of the statement that praying is the best form of Israel's Christian behavior and the need for men to pray for their own benefit. They also discuss the concept of fashah, which refers to sexual desire, and the holy spirit, which is the person in a holy state. The difficulty of committing fashah and filing for pleasure in the world is discussed, as well as the evil and evil path of the world that leads to divorce, mental health issues, and even violence. The American Psychological Association reports that up to 40% of Americans withika-ision sexual relations destroy their lives, and the CDC estimates that sexual transmission is the second cause of sexually transmitted diseases. The importance of fasting and men and women in the face of power dynamics and identity groups struggling for power is emphasized, along with the rationale behind fasting and the importance of men and women in protection and protection against violence.
AI: Summary ©
At the end of the last session, I
said that it is the revelation itself, the
Quran itself,
alwahi,
that constantly bids us to exercise reason.
The Quran declares, indeed, the worst of creatures
in God's sight are those who are deaf
and dumb.
Now this is obviously not literal because
it's simply not true. The verse is not
referring to those who cannot hear or speak.
The verse actually clarifies itself.
Those who do not reason.
At times, the Quran,
reveals the rational basis for its commands,
such as the command to prayer. Somebody might
say, well, why do I need to pray?
God doesn't need my prayers.
And that's true. God doesn't need anything.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is totally sufficient unto
himself. He is Al Ghani, al hayyul qayyum,
but the premise of the statement in this
particular context is wrong.
We don't pray because God needs our prayers.
That's incorrect theology. That entire premise is false.
We pray because he commands us
to pray. Prayer is for our own benefit.
We need prayer,
not him, subhanahu wa ta'ala.
In the Farsi Farsi speaking community, we often
hear the excuse,
you know, when we say come and come
to the prayer, oh, they say qalbam podcast.
Like, my my heart is pure.
My heart is pure. You see
the prayer is the greatest form of vikr
and vikr is the polish of the heart.
How can your heart be pak, be pahir,
be clean,
and be purified when you disobey
Allah by disregarding
its polishing.
Allah is
indeed the mushrikeen,
the idolaters,
they are spiritually filthy.
Why? Because they disobey Allah
So imagine a mirror
covered in a layer of dirt.
You look into the mirror and try to
convince me
that the mirror is totally clean even though
your reflection is not even visible.
If the mirror was clean and polished,
you would see an accurate reflection of your
face.
In a similar way, if your heart was
pock, was clean
as a theomorphic
creature,
we would see an accurate reflection
of Allah's commandments
in your actions.
So again, to answer the question, why do
we pray? Allah commands us to pray. We
say, Sami'ana wa Ta'ana.
Okay?
And prayer actually benefits us in both abodes.
Concerning this world, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
Inna salatatanhaalil
fashaiwan munkar.
While in a state of wudu,
committing fashah and munkar
become very difficult. What is fashah? Fashah usually
refers to something that is specifically
sexual
in nature, a sexual sin, some sort of
sexual immorality.
Munkar is a general act of disobedience.
Committing these two things when you have to
pray 5 times a day at different times
in a state of wudu
becomes very difficult.
So the prayer literally functions to restrict your
ability to sin.
The
prophet he said, a dunya sijnul mumin.
The dunya is a prison for the believer.
So we are not meant to be too
comfortable in this world.
The Buddha who could have been a prophet,
he said that the first noble truth of
existence was that the world was in a
state of suffering,
right? And the Pali word is dukkha, which
means to be dislocated
or disjointed. I mean, think about a dislocated
shoulder,
Right? A Muslim should feel awkwardly and painfully
out of place in this world,
but also remember that Allah
does not give us
more than we can handle.
Even a Wali of God, a saint of
Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala,
especially a saint whose desires have completely aligned
with the Quran and sunnah is not comfortable
in this world.
Right? The prophet said
none of you truly believe until his his
desires,
his caprice,
his wants and desires are in perfect accordance
with what I have brought.
The Quran and Sunnah, imagine a saint of
God whose joy is to pray and fast,
whose joy is to restrict his appetite, his
joy is to read and study the Quran
and give charity.
Why is such a person uncomfortable in the
dunya? Because he longs to be with his
Lord in the akhir.
He longs to be with the prophets of
allahu alaihi sallam in Jannah.
That's called shok,
longing for one's beloved due to firaq, due
to separation.
Think about, Sayyid Nabila who was on his
deathbed and his wife was screaming,
oh
disaster. And he said,
There's no disaster. Tomorrow, I'm going to meet
the beloved ones, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
and his fellowship.
The rationale behind the prohibition of adultery
is similarly given in the Quran. The Quran
says,
and notice here, the Quran did not say.
The Quran did not simply say don't commit
adultery. It said do not even
draw near
to adultery.
Don't even put yourself in a position
where that could even be possible.
Wasa
asabilah. It is indecency and an evil path.
Once you go down that path, things only
get worse and worse. So we can make
a cogent,
rational
argument
with supporting evidence
that people who engage in illicit sexual relations
destroy their lives.
They destroy the lives of their children. It
leads to divorce,
broken homes, mental illness,
disease, even violence.
Now check this out. When I read this,
it staggered me. I couldn't believe it.
1 in 5 Americans have an STD,
a sexually transmitted disease. 1 in 5.
According to the CDC, that's 68,000,000
people.
In an Islamic context, it is impossible
for a married couple
to contract an STD as long as they
did not fornicate
before their marriage nor commit adultery during their
marriage.
It is impossible.
According to the American Psychological
Association,
up to 40% of marriages end up in
divorce
due to infidelity,
due to Zina.
I mean, think about the mental toll. Think
about the children. Think about the child who
says to himself
that his father's needs,
personal needs were more important than his own
family.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala told us about this
evil
and he reasons with us. Wasa as Sabila.
What a horrible way of living your life.
We can collect data and prove that.
And this is whether it's the actual act
of zina or the zina of the eyes.
Right? There's a reason why. Again, there's a
reason why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us
in the Quran,
you know, tell the believing men and women
to lower their glances.
Isa,
according to the gospel of Matthew, he said,
of course, this is according to a Christian
source,
if your eye sins, pluck it out, he
says.
It is better for for part of you
to enter * than the whole of you.
Of course, most Christians,
they take this to be majaz. This is
figurative,
Right? So it's supposed to communicate the gravity
of the sin,
but that's how it starts. The wandering eye.
He says, according to Matthew, you have heard
it said don't commit adultery, but I say
unto you,
a man who looks at a woman with
lust has already committed adultery
in his heart.
Right?
Sayna Ali, he reported a hadith. It's related
by Imam Ahmad. So Sayna Ali narrates it
where he said the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam said to him,
Right? Don't follow a glance with another glance.
For the first glance is for you.
Right?
But the second glance is against you. So
this is this is more difficult for men
than it is for women. Men are very
visually oriented.
This is why, you know, women pray behind
the men in prayer.
You know, sometimes this is difficult for women
to understand,
which is understandable because they are not men.
You know, they they don't know what it
feels like to be men and vice versa.
Men and women are different.
You ever heard of men are from Mars,
women are from Venus? Well, that's true,
but they are complementary
opposites.
They are the yin, like the yin and
the yang.
Okay? They are not rivals
or antagonists
like what we see today in our postmodern
neoliberal
and neo Marxist
culture. Everything's about
power dynamics and and, identity groups struggling for
power.
But a woman genuflecting in front of a
man will distract a man. I guarantee you.
Confucius said in book 9, chapter 18 of
the Lun Yu, that's the Analects, his his
magnum opus. He said this again in book
15, chapter 13, which means that he would
say this quite often. He said, I have
yet I have yet to meet a man
who is as fond of virtue
as he is of the beauty in women.
Okay?
Even in the Buddha, there's a story the
Buddha is sitting under the bo tree, the
buddha tree, the tree of enlightenment.
And Kama, who is, you know, the devil
in Buddhist tradition,
he comes and he parades these beautiful women
in front of him.
Okay. Now Buddhist scholars don't believe that this
is literal, but they say that this was
a modality of his own mind, that he's
mastering his khawatir nafsani, his lustful extraneous thoughts.
The inability of a man to control his
eyes could lead to the destruction
of the lives of multiple people.
Allah
warned us
about this in the Quran, and we want
to reason with people about these things.
Now the rationale behind fasting is also given
in the Quran.
La'alakuntataqun,
in order for you to attain taqwa, And
taqwa is often translated as piety or fear
of God
or God consciousness, and these certainly have something
to do with taqwa.
Linguistically,
the word taqwa is related to wikaya,
meaning protection
or prevention.
We will continue in our reflections in the
next session. Inshallah. Until then, assalamu alaykum. Warahmatullahi
wabarak.