Ammar Alshukry – 12 Steps to FINALLY Stop Committing THAT Sin
AI: Summary ©
The importance of acceptance and embracing Islam's advice to conquer one's sins is emphasized, along with the need for passion and endurance to attain good life. The speaker emphasizes the importance of not hesitation and seeking forgiveness, as well as the need for endurance and continuous devotional activities to achieve success. The speaker also discusses the importance of not relapse and acknowledges the transformation process of becoming a woman without source of transformation or power. The speaker shares a story of a man who committed suicide and experienced the beauty of the legal system of Islam, and emphasizes the importance of turning to Allah and endurance, perseverance, and persistence of success in achieving success.AI: Transcript ©
It's not enough for you to just know
that Shaytan is your enemy. And every day,
you're going out and getting punched in the
mouth. That's not enough.
You have to take him as an enemy.
Take him as an enemy means that you
also have to engage. So how do I
engage recognizing that Shaytan is my enemy?
It is a pleasure to see you all.
And I always like to start by just
figuring out who came from the furthest distance.
You guys are all here on time, So
I just wanna appreciate
whoever
beat the most traffic. May Allah reward you
guys.
May Allah reward everyone.
So he says that whoever
seeks a path towards knowledge
or traverses a path to knowledge, Allah
will facilitate for them a path to paradise.
And so this is a great act of
worship coming to learn our deen. And so
we begin by just asking the
to accept from us, to accept jumping into
our cars and driving and however it is
that we got here
because it's a path to paradise.
Now
my topic very briefly is going to be
on how to conquer sins.
Our entire discussion is going to be about
sins today,
And how to conquer sins is a big,
big topic.
And,
Ibn Al Qayyim
was asked
by a questioner, How do you conquer a
sin
that you're just stuck with?
A sin that
every time I try to get out of
it, I get sunk in more deeply.
And it was said that this person was
talking about love.
Adam Norkaim wrote an entire book to respond.
He wrote an entire book, and the book
is called The Illness and the Cure. It's
called Al Joab Al Kafir Masaar Al Idua'i
Shafi. It is called The Healing Remedy for
the One Who Ask for the Cure, or
the complete answer to the one who asked
for the healing cure.
We're not gonna go over the book, so
don't worry.
But
his sheikh,
fortunately for us, ibn Taymiyyah,
was asked a similar question,
and instead of writing a book, he wrote
2 paragraphs.
But they are an amazing 2 paragraphs.
And so what I'll do
for the next 40 minutes, hopefully a little
bit less than that as well, is we're
going to go over the 12 steps that
Sheikh Islam Ibn Taymiyyah outlines
for conquering a sin that is seemingly unconquerable.
Everybody has sins that we may struggle with.
And so what is the answer of one
of the greatest scholars of Islam on how
to conquer your sins? And so he says,
So the first thing, point number 1, and
we're gonna go through 12 briefly
Point number 1 is he says,
He
says to turn to Allah
And that is always going to be a
person's first step, is to turn to Allah.
Rufu luh sallallahu alaihi wasallam taught Ibn Abbas
in the hadith as reported by Atirmidi. He
says,
He says, if you seek the help of
anyone, seek the help of Allah.
And if you ask anyone, ask Allah.
So before I go and I ask this
person to help me conquer this sin, or
before I go and I confess to this
person, or I talk to, before I go
and talk to an imam, before I talk
to anybody,
let me turn to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Before I read self help books, before I
try to to to join this program to
conquer this habit or to learn this habit,
that you turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
understanding
that there is no cash if there is
no one who removes your arm
other than Allah.
Responds
to the one who is in duress
when they call upon him?
And he removes harm.
And he makes you the
the vice jareds
over the earth.
Is there anyone with
Allah So our first step always is to
ask Allah, is to get into the habit.
There's a story that I like to share.
I was one time I was moving,
and I
was single,
living by myself in a 1 bedroom apartment.
And I was moving to an apartment within
the same complex.
And I thought to myself,
I don't own anything.
I don't need to rent a U Haul.
I don't need to get any help. I'm
just gonna make a couple of trips. Gonna
load my car, couple of trips, and I'll
be done with moving that day.
Brothers and sisters, you never know how much
you own until you start moving.
You start discovering stuff,
things that you haven't seen in years.
And it just I kept emptying out my
drawers. I kept emptying out more closets. I
kept discovering new places in my apartment.
And as the continued
to grow in my living room, it was
like 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I started
to get that sinking feeling that no matter
how many trips I go today, I am
not going to be done moving.
And I remember thinking to myself,
this would be a good time to call
somebody for help.
And at the same time, I didn't want
to do that because it was going to
be incredibly awkward, and and it was going
to be embarrassing. And I call a friend
of mine, and I say, can you help
me move? And they'll say, sure. When?
Right now.
Like, who does that? And then they're gonna
apologize. They're gonna say, no. I'm sorry. I
can't. And I'm gonna
so I didn't wanna do that. So I
said
I said,
oh, Allah,
I don't wanna ask anyone other than you,
but I need help.
That's it.
And then I get a phone call.
And it was from a friend of mine,
who I used to hang out with every
single day before he got married,
and then I never saw him again.
6 months,
radio silence.
Every day we used to hang out.
And then he calls me, and he says
to me,
what are you doing right now?
And I go, I'm moving.
And then he says
something that only Allah could make him say,
I believe. He says,
I say, I'm moving. He goes, great.
I'm coming right over. I was looking for
some good deeds.
He comes right over, and he's an engineer,
So, immediately he knows how to fit everything
better into my car. We take a couple
of trips, and alhamdulillah, I move. But the
prophet is
teaching us
that whenever you ask, ask Allah. I tell
people all the time, before you go and
you ask your parents, ask Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. Allah controls the hearts of your parents.
Before you go and you ask whoever it
is that you're going to go and stand
in front of, whoever you're going to ask
for anything, ask Allah
first. And Ibtaimiyyah is saying, even when it
comes to conquer your sins, number 1, let
the first step be that you ask Allah.
And then he says,
the next thing that he says, he says,
Itija walayta'ala wadawam tadaroori illallahi subhanahu. He says
that you be consistent
in tadarruh. Tadarruh
is an act that the baby camel or
the baby goat does when they are drinking
from the udder of their mother.
If you've ever seen goats nurse from their
mom, it's a bunch of them crowding. And
when one of them finally latches onto the
other, they're like stomping their hooves, and they're
yanking their neck. And they're it's almost like
a violent action, them trying to.
But that is
is describing that passion.
That when you're calling upon Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, you're just reclining on your couch, and,
you Allah, I would like this.
Is that you,
is that you, you sit down in front
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and you cry,
and you reach out, and your eyes tear,
and you beg Allah
with the passion of that baby go drinking
from the udder of her mother,
recognizing that if she does not have access
to that milk, she's going to die.
I know Allah, if I do not conquer
these sins, they may destroy me.
And so not being cool about it, and
not being calm about it, but begging and
employing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And he says
continuation in doing that. So that's number 2,
is
is that passion when you're invoking Allah. And
then he says,
what dua?
He says, and then, The
third is to make dua
with
authentic supplications.
Now, is it okay for a person to
just kind of freestyle their dua?
Absolutely.
It is okay for a person to learn
to talk to Allah
however you are comfortable, to ask Allah for
whatever you want. You don't have to ask
Allah
simply by the narrations that come to us
in the Quran and the sunnah.
But Ibn Taymiyyah is saying, you should do
it with the Quran and sunnah. Not that
you have to, but you should. Why?
Because there are some harms that could possibly
come if a person does not attach themselves
to the Quran and Sunnah. Like what?
Like innovation.
I can't tell you how many times a
person came up to me and said, you
know, I read in a book
that
you can say, You Lateeth, 333
times if you want this.
370
2 times. 250 times. All of that type
of stuff.
We just say, yeah, Latif. Yeah, Latif. Yeah,
Latif. Yeah, Latif.
And I always tell them like, okay. Is
that a complete request? Is that a complete
sentence? Like go up to your mom and
say, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom,
mom, mom, mom,
And see if you're gonna get what you
want.
Instead,
ask Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, completely. So you
don't find it in the Quran, or the
son of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
him ever making a dua like that. He
never says, You Allah, You Allah, You Allah,
You Allah.
So when I
don't follow
what is authentically narrated from the prophet of
Allah Almighty Alaihi Wasallam, I may enter into
the realm of innovation. And so instead of
making dua to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in
a way that he loves, I'm making dua
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala with something that
is innovative.
Or, this is another,
I'm weary about sharing this because I don't
want people to take this too far or
imagine too much. But I'm just trying to
understand and appreciate why Ibn Taymiyyah might say
make dua with things that are authentically reported.
This is another danger that I don't see
very often. But a person may make du'a
for something that is harmful.
So for example, in Sahih Muslim, Rasulullah salallahu
alaihi wasallam came and saw a man who
was very weak. He was very sick. It
was almost like the narrator described, like the
feebleness of a chicken. He was so frail.
And so the
prophet asked him, and he said, have you
been making
any dua or anything? And I said, yes.
I have.
He said, What? He said, I've been making
du'a to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, that whatever
harm
or whatever punishment
I am deserving of,
then bring it to me in the dunya.
Don't bring it to me in the hereafter.
And so Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, don't
do that.
They'll make these types of duas where you
are invoking Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's punishment.
And so here you have a person, they're
freestyling a dua, but they're inviting difficulty for
them. Imam Ahmed once heard a man say,
O Allah, make me not in need of
anyone.
Make me not in need of anyone. Imam
Mohammed said, This person is invoking death upon
themselves.
Because who is a person There's no person
who's alive who's not in need of anybody.
We're all in need of somebody.
Right? So
some people are very creative in their duets.
And when a person enters into that realm
of just incredible creativity, sometimes they might be
invoking something that they don't understand the consequences
are. But
undoubtedly talk to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala from
your heart. But just be just be normal.
Don't be fancy.
Be normal. 1 of those haba al the
alayana, we heard one of his his children
saying, oh Allah, I ask you for a
palace on the right banks of Jannah.
And he said to him, my son, just
ask Allah for Jannah.
Just ask Allah for Jannah. That's what we
learned to say from the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. Just ask Allah for Jannah. You don't
need to get fancy with it. Okay? So
number 3, is he says that a person
make du'a with al mathuraat.
Number 4, he says, he says,
That a person seek out
the times in which du'a is to be
accepted.
Like, for example, he says, after the salawat,
or in the last 3rd of the night,
or in the between the adhan and the
aqamah, and these moments.
And so now I'm taking advantage of the
times that I know. Or in my sujood,
for example,
Allah
says, Allah says, prostrate and come near. And
so when I'm in prostration, I am in
a state of nearness to Allah
And the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam tells us
that you are closest to Allah when you
are in sujood, so make a lot of
dua. And I would just wanna ask you
the question because
it's not so much about information. Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala says,
Allah says remind because reminding benefits the believers.
But reminders benefit the believers when the believers
act upon the reminders.
And so we all know that we are
closest to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala while we're
in sujood. But the question that I have
for you is that if you prayed al
Sur already, that means that you just offered
8 Sajdahs to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Did you ask Allah in these sujoods
for the things that you want outside of
the salah?
Meaning, for example, did you ask Allah in
your sajdah to free Palestine? Did you ask
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in your sajdah to
grant you the help that you're looking for?
Did you ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in
your sajdah to acquire that goal, whatever it
is that you want? We go out into
this world every day trying to secure benefits
to ourselves, and trying to prevent harm from
ourselves, or from our communities, or from our
loved ones.
Not realizing at times that our sujood is
the greatest arena that we might experience
to actualize those things that we want, or
to protect ourselves from those harms that we
fear.
When you go into sajdah,
you are in an appointment with the King
of Kings. The one who if he says,
yes, it doesn't matter who says, no. And
if he says, no, it doesn't matter who
says, yes.
And so taking advantage of the moments when
you are closest to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
when Allah descends in the last 3rd of
the night, or in your sujood, or between
the adhan and the qama, and all of
these beautiful moments. Okay? So that is our
4th. Then,
Shaikh Islami then says, and let him add
to that, or let her add to that,
alistighfar.
So he says, and let them add to
that making a lot of istighfar.
Because
whoever makes a lot of istighfar,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will give them a
goodly life for an appointed period of time.
The phrasing that he's using
is taken from the Quran in Surah Hud.
Allah
says,
Dahu alayhi salami said, seek forgiveness from your
Lord. And if you do that, Allah, Subhanahu
wa ta'ala, will give you a goodly life.
Now, even Dhaimiyyah
is
mentioning this because he's recognizing
that a goodly life undoubtedly is a life
where you're able to conquer your sins.
So istighfar
becomes one of the greatest tools that a
person can actualize the promise of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to live a goodly life.
A goodly life is one where I conquer
my demons. A goodly life is one where
I'm able to find comfort, and peace, and
tranquility in the worship of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. It's one where my internal integrity
matches
my outer.
And so,
at Hasan al Basari, he says, seek forgiveness
from Allah
in your commutes,
and in your homes, and while eating, because
you never know when the mercy of Allah
is going to come. So make that something
that you're constant in, that you're seeking forgiveness
from Allah
so that you can acquire a goodly life.
And then he says,
the 6th he says, is to have a
daily
devotional.
Waliatakhidwirdad.
Let them have a wird, a daily devotional.
From the athkaar of the morning, the athkaar
of the evening, he says, and when you
go to sleep. Why are the so important?
The are important
because
every day you and I go out to
meet an enemy, whether we like it or
not. And that enemy is shaytad.
Allah
says,
Allah says, shaytad, is for you an enemy.
And then he says, so take him as
an enemy. You know what take him as
an enemy means? Take him as an enemy
means fight back.
It's not enough for you to just know
that Shaytaan is your enemy, and every day
you're going out and getting punched in the
mouth. That's not enough.
You have to take him as an enemy.
Take him as an enemy means that you
also have to engage. So how do I
engage recognizing that shaitaan is my enemy? So,
I give you an example. Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam tells us that every time you go
outside,
you leave your
house, if you say,
When you leave your house and you say
these three words,
it is said to that person,
You have been guided,
you have been protected, and you have been
sufficed.
And shaitaan then diverts away from him. That
person is now protected when they leave their
house.
Salam
says,
that
would rarely leave his house
before looking up towards the sky and saying,
That he he would rarely leave his house
without saying, oh, Allah, I seek refuge in
you from slipping or being made to slip.
Oppressing or oppressing someone else.
Having ignorance be done to me, or acting
ignorantly towards others, or
or being guide misguided and misguiding someone else.
The prophet
will seek refuge from all of these things.
Why he's leaving his house? Why is that
so important? Because you're being told through the
hadith that when you leave your house, shaytaal
is waiting to sabotage you. Shaitan is waiting
to sir to surround you. Shaitan is waiting
to misguide you. When you make these adkar,
you are immediately protected.
Could you imagine a police officer leaving their
house and not wearing their bulletproof vest?
They wouldn't do it. Why? Because they understand
that they're going out into danger, And you
and I every day are going out into
spiritual danger, and our
are our bulletproof vest. And if a person
is constantly protected,
the of the morning, the ath god of
the evening, before they go to sleep, when
they're leaving their house, they're always protected,
where is this sin supposed to come to
them again?
Where is shaytaan supposed to be able to
attack them again? And so Sheikh Islami Mutaymi
is saying you gotta stay loaded up when
it comes to your athkar. That you have
a daily devotional
every day of the morning and the evening
and before you go to sleep. And then
he says
he says,
He says, and then let them endure
all of the
obstacles
that might come along their way while they're
going on this journey. He says,
and
He says, because it may be very, very
soon
before Allah
writes iman in their heart and protects them.
Is an important element of being able to
conquer anything, And a lot of times is
translated as patience,
but patience does seems very, very passive. Is
much bigger than just patience.
Perseverance, it's resilience, it's grit. Sabr is all
of these things.
And
Sheikh Islam is saying that you have to
have endurance.
Even if a person relapses, that you have
to endure, and you have to get up,
and you have to try again. You all
know the story
of the man who killed 99.
This man killed 99,
but he wanted to repent.
And so on his journey of killing 99,
he goes and he asks tried to repent,
rather, from killing 99,
he goes and he asks a
a habid, a righteous guy, a good guy,
somebody you go see in the masjid, he's
always there.
So he goes to this guy, and he
says, I've killed 99 souls. He confesses to
him. He says, is there a Tawba for
me? And the guy says, 99 people you've
killed?
There is no tawba for you. The prophet
says so he killed him too.
That's how easy killing had become for this
person. That if you give him an answer
that he doesn't like, he kills you too.
So
he killed him, and now he became a
killer of a 100.
So he's got a 100 bodies now.
Then the man goes and he asks Sa'ad,
and he go but my point here, up
until this point, is that he didn't just
say,
Aw, man, I killed him too.
There's no hope for me. This is just
who I am. I should just, you know,
go back to my gang or go back
to whoever it is that I got, And
this is my lifestyle. Even when I try
to walk right,
but he doesn't stop and he goes.
And he goes and he asks the scholar.
And the scholar says to him, who can
stand between you and repentance?
But your people are an evil people.
So go to another city, and he tells
them another city to go to, I. E.
Change your environment. You might have to change
the friends around you. You might have to
change the resources. You might have to change
your location. You might have to get off
of social media. You might have to change
your phone number. You might have to do
a lot of things
for you to put yourself in a position
to not relapse.
And so this man then goes
journeying to another city for him to be
able to repent to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And we know that he dies along the
way. And eventually he experiences the mercy of
Allah
But the point here is that he didn't
give up. And that's what Ibn Taymiyyah is
saying. Ibn Taymiyyah is saying you have to
endure
the obstacles that come along your way. This
man, the obstacle that came along his way,
was that other person that he killed. Even
while trying to repent, he ended up killing
another person. And so
recognizing
that this is something that you have to
endure
maybe for the rest of your life. It
is the long game. But the beautiful thing
is that if a person is committed to
Allah
and they fulfill the pillars of repentance,
then every time they fall,
if they are sincere and committed, Allah
will accept their repentance every single time.
As long as they're not playing a game
with Allah and playing a game with themselves,
as long as they are truly striving and
changing and and trying,
then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, if that person
falls a 100 times like that man fell
a 100 times, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will
accept their repentance a 100 and one times.
And so he says to endure,
to be patient. And then he says
he says, and let them perfect the 5
obligatory prayers.
He says, let
them try as best as they can to
perfect their salah,
the obligatory prayers, with their inner realities and
their outer dimensions because it is a pillar
of the faith.
And
reading that, I remember thinking, okay. What's between
salah and what you're talking about here?
But in reality, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
Allah says, this salah protects people
from indecencies.
Was told about a young man from the
Ansar.
Addisim Nimatic reports, a young man from the
Ansar told Addisim Nimatic said that there was
a complaint about a young man from the
Ansar
This guy is praying and
all of that, and then he goes out
in the morning and he steals. And Surah
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said his salah is
going to stop him from what you're describing.
And Anas
says that it wasn't but a little while
before this young man repented from his theft.
And so, Raul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam then told
Anas, and he said, Anas, didn't I tell
you that his salah was going to stop
him from what you're describing?
The salah is an anchor in a person's
life.
No matter how far a person goes, they'll
always come back to the salah.
If they keep the salah. And that's why
I tell people
all the time,
young people in particular,
that whatever you do in your life that
you don't leave the salah. I don't care
if you're gonna go out all night, pray
aisha when you leave and pray fajib when
you come back.
Make that whatever it is that you give
up in your life that you don't give
up the salah
because the salah guides. You know, Sheikh, Wa'in
Ibrahim, I was just with him a couple
of months ago. I met him for the
first time. He's a very well known dua.
He lives in Australia.
Gives a lot of dawah in the Philippines
and and
and,
Malaysia and Indonesia and these places. Hong Kong.
He lived in Hong Kong for a number
of years.
What took him to Hong Kong in the
first place was that he wanted to be
a rock star. And it was interesting because
he didn't pray. He didn't live I mean,
he was just he wanted to be a
he wanted to live like a rock star.
So he said he moved to Hong Kong
chasing that dream.
And his favorite rock star, like, the guy
who he idolized,
I forgot his name, but he was like
a a very big Asian star,
committed suicide.
And he said that set him into a
6 month spiral of depression
because
this was the guy who he was chasing.
He was chasing his lifestyle.
He thought he was the guy who was
happy. But when this guy committed suicide, it
was like everything he was chasing was a
mirage,
and he was married to a Filipino woman
who was Catholic,
and he said he was just in this
state of depression for 6 months.
And so he said,
finally one day I just decided
to pray to pray a single salah.
And he said,
I
just remember learning growing up. You know, my
dad took me to a teacher, a chef.
He taught me how to pray. He's like,
that's the I I that the only way
I knew how to pray was the prayer
that I learned as a child. That was
it.
So he said, in my house,
I just prayed. And he's like, to be
honest, I don't even know if I faced
the qiblah. I don't know if I did
anything.
But he said, I
I I prayed.
I prayed.
And he said, after the salaw is over,
I look back at my wife, and I
see my wife is bawling. She's crying.
And I'm startled. And he said, What's this?
What's going on? And she said,
This salah that you just prayed, this prayer,
is
so beautiful.
I want to pray like this too.
But I don't want to be Muslim.
He's like, Okay, whatever you want.
So he said, I led her in salah,
another salah,
and she's crying even more and more and
more,
experiencing the beauty of salah for the first
time,
even as a non Muslim woman. And it
was just a number of days before
she,
before she accepted Islam,
And
himself became committed to the deen, and he
became a very well known sheikhin and da'yah
in the eastern part of the world.
But the salah protects.
The salah protects. It is an anchor. And
said,
Anas, didn't I tell you this salah will
protect from what I'm describing? And I just
wanna share with you a story that I
always share because it's a man that's such
an interesting person to me because I only
met him once in the masjid one time.
And he said to me, and I've never
seen him before or after, but he said
to me, he said, I tell my kids
this. I tell my kids, do you wanna
know when y'all will be Muslim?
And they say to me, Baba, what do
you mean? We're already Muslim. And he says,
No.
He said, You will be Muslim when you
accept this when you pray without me or
your mom telling you to pray.
When you submit to Allah
on your own.
When you worship Allah on your own. I'm
not always going to be there with you.
You're going to send your kids off to
college. They're going to travel the world. They're
going to live in other states. Like, they're
gonna you're not they're not always going to
be in your house.
But I'm not raising you to worship me.
I'm raising you to worship Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. And Allah is always going to be
there with you.
And you will be We're not talking about
technical Islam, obviously. We're not getting into a
theological discussion here. But that's just the terbiyah
of a father. He's saying, you will be
Muslim. You will submit to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
truly when you're submitting to Allah
because of you, not because of your parents.
In any case, Imitaymiyah is saying the importance
of holding on to the salah. Holding on
to the salah? Its outer and its inner
dimensions. And then he says,
This is beautiful. He says, And let him
be his constant refuge.
He says,
He says,
let them constantly say
because
with burdens are carried and terrors are met.
Does anybody know
what means? What does it
mean? There is no
power or
might, except with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So
how it is generally translated as power, but
it's not power.
So my Arabic speakers, what does mean?
What does that mean?
It is to change. It is to transform.
So how did become no might or power?
No.
Means to chain. So
means there is no source of transformation and
there is no power, is power, except with
Allah
Meaning, I can't transform from a state of
wickedness to a state of righteousness except by
Allah. I can't even transform from a state
of heedlessness to a state a state of
remembrance without
Allah. So when the one thing calls out
and says,
you say,
He says, come to the prayer. You're like,
I can't come.
I can't come.
I have no source of transformation or power
except by Allah. If I'm able to get
up and walk to the masjid and transform
from the state of heedlessness to remembrance, it
is not by my own accord. It's not
because I'm special. Allah
is the one who gave me the gift
of the invitation
to the masjid. Allah
is the one who gave me the gift
of allowing me to get up from my
couch and make wudu and pray at home
and pray to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But
this is not because of me. It is
because of Allah. And so I have no
source of transformation
other than Allah. And so when I am
constantly saying,
this is a phrase through which terrors are
met and burdens are carried, including the burden
of sin.
So constantly,
invoke Allah's strength.
Obviously, I'm not very strong.
I haven't been able to conquer this sin
on my own.
So let me constantly
say,
You know, there's a famous a beautiful, beautiful
man,
doctor Abdurrahman As Sumit.
This man
was a Kuwaiti
who went to Canada to study medicine.
His
life's trajectory was he was going to become
a doctor and then go back to Kuwait
and obviously live a very comfortable life.
This man, however, while he was in Canada,
he would read and receive brochures as part
of the Muslim Student Association or whatever the
equivalent was at that time. He would see
all of these brochures of of starving communities
in Africa. I think it was in the
seventies or the eighties or what have you.
And he said I thought to myself, how
could I how could I, how could I
go back and just live a comfortable life
in Kuwait if I know that this is
what people are going through?
And so for the rest of his life,
he made it his work
to
live in sub Saharan Africa,
go from village to village, town to town,
places with no electricity, places with no running
water,
and he would go, and he would treat
people, and he would give dawah.
He would treat people, and he would give
dawah. By the time this man died
and he wasn't supposed to be well known.
He did nothing to be famous. He had
no YouTube channel. He had no TikTok account.
He didn't do anything
that would give him fame. But Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala chose to shine a light on
this person,
decades into his work. And his interviews, I
would encourage you to watch them. They are
incredibly inspiring. Because this man, by the time
that he died, over 3,000,000 people accepted Islam
at his hands.
Dozens of schools were built by his work.
Thousands of wells were dug. Millions of were
distributed.
Universities were built. Hospitals were built. All the
work of this man.
They called him Rojul bi Umma, a man
who is equivalent to an entire Umma.
And so he used to say in his
interviews, he said, I never used to ask
Allah for a lighter load.
I always used to ask him for a
stronger back.
Always asking Allah, recognizing that
with
that
with
that with this phrase, burdens are carried. You
can be you we can all be stronger
than we are currently if we source our
strength from Allah
Then he says
and I'm gonna wrap up here,
in the next 5 minutes. Then we have
the 10th, 11th, and 12th. So the 10th
is persistence, he says.
He says,
So, He says, and let them continue
to not give up from making du'a because
a person's du'a will be accepted as long
as they are not hasty and say I
made du'a and I wasn't responded to.
Year 1, year 2, year 3, year 4,
year 10,
that a person, as long as they still
want to conquer this thing, that they continue
to ask Allah
and never give up, and never give up.
And then he says,
He says, and let them know
that victory comes with patience,
and that relief comes with
difficulty,
and with every hardship there is ease. Meaning
to be optimistic.
So the Allah myth is optimism,
that a person continues to expect good from
Allah
I'm walking this way to you
sincerely
from myself,
truly
wanting this
issue to be resolved, and I have hope
in your mercy. I have hope in your
support. And I know that with hardship was
ease. And I know that if I continue
to knock at your door, you are not
going to let me return back having been
dejected and rejected. And so continuously asking Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And then finally he says,
12th and the last, he says,
walam yalan ahadujayaminjaseemilkhair.
Nabi'yun famanfokahu
nabi'yun famandunah or rather illa bisabri. He said,
and know that nobody has ever acquired anything
of goodness.
A prophet or anybody less than a prophet,
except with patience, except with sober.
So we'll see here that actually everything that
Sheikh Islam mentions
can be boiled down to 2 things. The
first is turning to Allah
and the second is endurance,
perseverance,
persistence.
He mentions sabr 3 times and the other
9 times are something that has to do
with is turning to Allah. Is turning to
Allah. Having a daily devotional is turning to
Allah.
Asking Allah is turning to Allah. All of
these are turning to Allah
And if you understand that turning to Allah
and sabr together are the 2 keys to
success, then you see why it's paired so
much in the Quran. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says,
And Allah says,
Allah says, and seek help in patience and
prayer. And Allah says, oh you who believe,
seek help in patience and prayer. And Allah
says, Allah says, O you who believe,
endure
and outendure others, and hold fast, and have
taqwa of Allah. That's turning to Allah. And
if you do that,
that you may be successful. So we ask
Allah
in closing to grant us success over all
of our vices, that Allah
accepts our repentance, makes us of those who
constantly repent to him. Allah
truly loves
He loves the those who repent
and those who pure. He loves those who
repent, and he loves those who purify themselves.
May Allah
make us of those who are purified.
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