Bilal Assad – Hidden Camera
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah rahman Rahim Alhamdulillah.
Wassalaatoo Assalamu Ala Rasool Allah. My brothers and
sisters, Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi
Wabarakatoo.
Assalamu Alaikum.
You know my brothers and sisters, if I
were to ask you one question,
what do you think
affects the heart the most?
What do you think affects our heart the
most out of all
the things that we do?
Zikr.
Zikr.
Not praying?
I want you to think about
where is the moment
where the heart is the most honest?
In pain?
No.
No.
That's desperate.
That's actually the opposite. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says there are those in the Quran, it
says there are those who forget Allah when
they're in
good health. When they're in pain and in
sickness that's when they remember Allah. I mean
Allah is still there for them. But that's
not the sign of an honest heart.
Or can I say the reality of a
person?
When is the time?
Alone by himself.
Yes, when they're alone by himself.
When you are alone by yourself.
That
if you wanna know yourself, the level of
your iman,
who you are,
what pathway you're taking,
where your stance will be on the Day
of Judgement,
what kind of a person you really are,
right now,
then measure yourself when you are alone.
Measure yourself
when you have this in your hand,
your phone.
That's when you know who you really are.
And
a person who fears Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is a type of person that you should
be hanging around with.
He is the man you should marry. He
is the she is the woman you should
marry.
But of course they fear Allah truly. And
you try to find out as much as
you can.
Ask about them and so on.
But the point is we're not here to
talk about how to find that person. We're
talking about
making that the goal.
Because a man and a woman who fear
Allah
will not be bothered
if they are being watched
in public or whether they are alone
in private.
They will fear Allah in public
and in private. But
we all sin.
We're all weak.
And when we are alone in private,
we do get weak,
and we sometimes slip and falter.
If Adam alayhi wasalam and Hawa faltered when
they were in paradise,
and Allah left them for a while,
they faltered and slipped. We will slip also.
But that's not what we are talking about
here. Allah does not expect perfection from anybody.
But it's those people
who will only be righteous and good when
they are being watched by others, in order
to put on a facade.
And when they are alone,
they can't wait for that moment to come
in order to penetrate all the boundaries
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
with no hesitation,
no regret,
no repentance,
like as if it's just a flowing river.
In fact, some people, they look at it
as
very normal natural thing to
penetrate the boundaries,
sin all you like, do all the haram
if nobody is watching you.
Some people go a further step.
In order to make themselves feel better,
if they feel the guilt
of doing the wrong thing when they're alone,
not being watched,
then they'll grab for themselves a bunch of
people or a group or some kind of
social network.
And they say, I've got nothing to hide.
And so they expose
who they really are in secret because they
can't bear to hold on to the guilt.
What have you actually done here? You think
you've done something good for yourself. But what
you've actually done
is now you've just topped the cake, you've
accepted yourself
in the true nature of an immoral person.
Now it's in open.
But the shaitan comes to you and says
to you,
at least you're doing it in front of
people.
But that's the shaitan playing tricks on you.
He sealed your fate.
And that's probably why you've heard Allah and
questioned why does Islam
emphasize
that we keep our sins
secret not exposed.
It's not because you're a hypocrite. It's not
because
something's
not because Allah wants you to continue in
your sin and hide it.
But first of all, people don't forgive your
sins. They're not the people people have no
business. You don't turn to people. It's as
if you're saying, I've got to confess
who I really am to the public. Who
is the public?
Did the public create you? We're all here
for the same test. I'm talking to Muslims
here, of course. Non Muslims who are listening
may or may not understand what I'm saying
but obviously this is a lecture to Muslims
but non Muslims can hear and try to
learn and ask, insha'Allah.
But for us as Muslims,
we don't confess to the public.
Who are they?
The ones that we have to own up
to is 1. He is Allah
Of course if there is something that we're
doing in secret that's going to harm others,
then we better stop it
or we better tell them before they are
harmed. That's a different story, rights of people.
We're talking about yourself.
The boundaries which Allah had forbidden.
So a person who fears Allah
with their wife or their husband behind closed
doors,
they are still
fearing of Allah. They give their spouses their
rights.
They will fix if they ruined, they will
apologize if they have hurt,
they will make up what they have
done wrong, they will treat their children as
a trust, they'll treat their spouse as a
trust, they'll treat their parents as a trust.
Such a person who knows that Allah is
watching them
in private,
just as much as in public,
has a lesser risk of faltering all the
time. And if they feel guilty,
they are less likely to continue for a
very long time in what they're doing.
And if they do,
they will increase in good deeds.
They will continue to ask Allah to forgive
them even if they relapse.
But they will never allow themselves
to be comfortable
with doing the wrong in private.
If you wanna if you wanna kill your
heart,
then allow the sins to be justified and
let them enter your heart.
Let them define you now.
If you wanna kill your
heart, continue
to be alone and do private haram all
the time.
This is how you will surely kill your
heart,
kill your personality,
kill your mental state and your health.
And what a topic this is, hidden camera.
If I told you that there was
a hidden camera
in your bedroom
at night, all night and it's connected
to
your parents' house and they can see you
but you don't know.
Or it's connected,
if you're a man,
to your wife's phone and she can see
everything
all night,
all day.
Or your husband's phone, or your children,
or your workplace,
or the authorities.
Imagine you were being watched
and then you found out that there is
a hidden camera.
Wouldn't your actions change?
I say this to our students when we're
teaching at school.
Say when you misbehave, imagine that camera in
the corner, imagine that's connected to your parents'
house, would you act the same way? They
said, Oh no, not my parents.
Obviously we change our habits and behaviour when
people are watching.
And Allah
clearly tells us as Muslims
that He is always watching
in secret
and in open.
Allah says
He knows all that enters the earth and
all that comes forth from it, and all
that comes down from the heaven and all
that goes up to it. He is with
you wherever you are.
Allah sees
all that you do.
If that's not enough, Allah
says,
Allah says in chap in in Surah 4
verse 108,
they can hide their deeds
from men,
from people,
but they cannot hide them from Allah for
he is with them even when they hold
nightly counsels
that are displeasing to Allah. Allah encompasses
all their doings. It's strange. It's
it's it's it's it's it's ironical how Allah
mentions the night.
Because
most often, even from those days,
1400 something years ago,
most of the sins and the immoralities
and the haram that's done is usually at
night.
Because night kind of encompasses us and you're
seeing less
so Allah points to that and picks at
it
and then He just makes it face you.
What do you do at night when you
go to bed? What do you look at?
What do you converse?
Who do you chat with?
What are you watching?
What?
And that's the social media world that insha'Allah
in this talk we're going to talk about
as well because that's the topical topic
when it comes to this very important topic
about
Allah's hidden camera,
Allah's watchfulness.
And I don't think there's a more important
time than this time worthy of this topic.
Because
in the past
not everybody had access
to everything that we see and watch now.
And people of different personalities, there were introverts
and extroverts, there were people who could look
at you, who could talk and converse face
to face, the introverts had to do things
quietly but now there is a place for
them on these devices.
Every single individual
has now got the power
to look, watch, say, write, anything they want.
What a test.
And it's become almost impossible
to
stop
the Haram from happening online. So let's talk
a little bit more about it, Insha'Allah.
We all know that Allah
is watching us in secret and in open.
And on top of that, Allah
he tells us whether you are 2 people,
He is your 3rd. Whether you are 3
people, He is your 4th.
No secret and no open except that He
is there and He knows.
Meaning Allah knows with His knowledge, He is
seeing, He is hearing and everything is being
written.
Every single
every single scroll,
every single post,
every single letter,
every single sound
that you and I
spend or do
on this device
is written.
It's recorded,
and it will be exposed
on the day of judgement, if not in
this life.
But that's not all doom and gloom, Yani.
We can use it for good.
So let's use it for good.
And let's repent from the bad and let's
increase in our good deeds to wipe it
away. Hudayfa,
Muadh radiAllahu anhu, was a young boy, he
was about 14, 15 when he came to
the prophet and said, You Rasulullah,
give me advice. He said, Itaqillaha haythumakunt.
Fear Allah wherever you are, Not just in
the mosque, not just in front of, you
know, people, wherever you are.
Waatbihayati
alhasanatatamhuhah.
Follow-up every bad deed that you do with
a good deed, it will wipe it away.
So if I'm stuck with a bad deed,
and I keep it between me and Allah,
and I feel guilty about it, I don't
really want to do it but I'm weakened
for this 1 or 2 sins,
the first place to start,
let me follow-up my bad deeds with good
deeds.
Don't let that heart give in, you gotta
still protect it, brothers and sisters. Once it's
dead, it's gone.
It's hard to wake it up.
My brothers and sisters,
then he said to him, wukhalukin nasabihulukinhasan
and live with people on good character.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also tells us in
the Quran
about who else is there watching other than
Him.
Did you know that also there are angels
which Allah created
who are always with you wherever you go?
We all know about the one on the
right and left.
This is the Muslim belief and other
certain religions believe in that. But it's in
the Quran and one of the pillars of
believing in Islam and Allah is to believe
that He created angels and with missions and
with purpose and with duties, we believe in
them, the unseen.
Allah says in Surat Rad,
verse 1011,
Allah says, It is all the same
for Him, whether any of you says a
thing secretly or says it loudly, and whether
one hides oneself in the darkness of the
night or struts about in broad daylight,
there are guardians
over everyone
both before him and behind him who guard
him by Allah's command. These guardians, as all
the scholars unanimously agreed, they are the angels.
What else are they gonna be? Aliens?
Ghosts? They're the angels.
The shaitaan? Not the shaitaan. The angels. Allah
Subhanahu wa Ta'ala has created them. And throughout
the Quran, throughout the hadith, we know they
are the angels. They guard you but they
also
guard your deeds, they also write your deeds,
they witness to your deeds, good and bad
deeds. Can you imagine? You're going to sleep,
these angels are watching right over your screen.
Can you imagine this screen? And if you
were to look at some people, what they
look like at night with the lights turned
off and their blankets are on,
and this big blue screen or white screen
in their face
You know what?
Take a picture of yourself sometime if you're
looking like this. Just take a picture, just
right there. Don't pose, just take a picture
really quickly.
Trick yourself and have a look at it
in the daytime.
Anyone seen themselves like that?
Do it tonight. But don't spend too much
time on seshu min, I'm gonna give you
some hacks to it. Just
take a little quickly a quick screenshot of
yourself.
Wallahi, we'll look like zombies.
Zombies?
The shaitan looks better than us. Have you
seen ourselves?
Have you seen what we look like?
1 brother, he's married, he said to me
Brother, my wife was addicted to the social
media. I'm sleeping, I wake up, she's on
her phone. I went to sleep, she's on
I'm not picking on the sisters. This is
a true story.
The brother never had any social media, right?
He never used to be used to it.
Because I looked at her and I said,
aoozubillah,
he been a shaypa, mad wajee.
So what's wrong? I goes,
she scared me? I don't know. She looked
to him.
Same goes with the husband down here.
Sometimes the shaytan says, shaytan
by what we look like.
My brothers and sisters,
therefore
these are unnatural habits which Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala,
he tells us I'm watching you, the angels
are there for what purpose?
To help us look after ourselves.
Do you think Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is
telling, I'm watching you to scare you? Do
you think Allah is telling you, the angels
are there because I'm gonna get you? Do
you think Allah wants to punish us? Allah
does not want to punish anybody.
What does Allah want?
Allah
knows that we have choice, we have freedom,
we are not robots, but at the same
time we have desires. It is through desires
that we know right from wrong. Those who
help from those who need help,
those who help to heal from those who
get sick, those who give their assistance to
those who are not, all because we have
to have those desires
in order for all these beautiful amazing things
to be manifested. It's not there so that
we can do the wrong thing, But rather
to separate
the good from the bad, the righteous from
the non righteous, those who deserve it from
those who don't. Do you think paradise is
for free?
Do you think paradise everybody just goes to
paradise just by saying, I believe in Allah.
Yeah, I'm a good person. What does good
person mean?
The drug addict says, I'm a good person.
I don't harm kids.
The * says, I'm a good person.
The
the person who kills 1,000 of lives says,
I'm a good person.
Look at the Zionists, what they're doing to
the Palestinians. They think they're they're doing God's
work.
Hitler thought he was a good person by
what he was doing. Fir'aun thought he was
a good person by enslaving the children of
Israel.
We all justify our goodness.
The husband and wife disagree or the conflict
and they get divorced and each one each
one thinks they're doing good, they have a
right.
Everybody thinks they're good. But let us look
into ourselves.
Allah doesn't want us to look at others,
He wants us to look at ourselves.
That's why He says I'm looking at you.
The angels are there. You don't believe it?
Of course you believe it, Alhamdulillah.
That's the first step. Allah loves it that
you believe that. Number 2, the next step.
To keep yourself in check. For who? For
yourself.
We have to have that.
We have to.
You know Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he says
in the Quran,
why? Why he puts these boundaries
upon us?
Why he tells us these things?
A human needs
hope and fear at the same time like
2 wings that we fly with. Hope and
fear. When something bad is ahead of us,
we remember hellfire, we remember Allah, we stay
away from it as much as we can.
If we do it, we repent. We see
a good deed, an opportunity, we go for
it, we see paradise in front of us.
Allah wants to lessen the burdens off us.
That's what Allah says.
He
says,
Allah subhanahu ta'ala
He tells us,
and Allah indeed wants to turn graciously towards
you.
But those who follow their lusts
would want you to drift far away
from the right way. Those who follow their
lusts,
they want you to drift far away from
the right way. Allah wants to lighten
your burdens.
Allah wants to lighten
your burdens
for man was created weak.
Allah doesn't want to burden us, he wants
to take it off.
Through these ways when you start to remember
Allah's watchful eyes
then
it should wake up and help you.
Not let you justify
your actions and let your heart die.
Of course
it's reemphasized
in the words of the prophet
the following hadith is in Bukhari
2441 and Muslim 2768.
That those
who are not comfortable with their sins
and their secret bad actions,
They're not hypocritical, they're not comfortable with it,
but they're just weak and they fell into
it. But they continue to do their other
duties as much as they
can. And they constantly repent to Allah as
much as they can but they're still stuck
with secret sins and then they die and
on the day of judgement they rise.
The Prophet
he said,
surely on the day of judgement Allah
will tell His servant
to come closer to Him.
When everybody's on the Day of Judgement,
standing on this plain,
on this earth, when the earth will be
changed from what it looks like.
And there will be no mountains, no valleys,
no seas, nothing.
The whole earth is changed, the sky is
changed.
And on that day, everyone is displayed before
Allah, the 1 and only, the overpowering.
Nobody can run away.
And the angels surround the entire population from
the time of Adam
till the end of this world.
People want to escape and the angels draw
them back inside.
Today
is the day of judgement,
accountability,
not the day of action anymore.
You're going to watch yourself
on
a clip that will be played to each
and every one of us.
And the
main
character of this movie
is you.
You'll be watching you
every single
second
that passed in your life.
Among them will be the believers.
The believers who had sins in secret in
this life which they felt bad about,
and they continued to do their good deeds,
and they had hope in Allah,
and they didn't
allow themselves and their hearts to just give
in easily,
yet they still had sins in secret.
The Prophet
says Allah will tell this person to come
closer to him by himself or herself
individually.
Why?
He says, fayadahu alayihikanafahu
wa yastruuhu
this person
Allah will cover him or her with
something and
He will hide him
from the eyes and ears of everyone around
him including the angels
your parents,
your children, your friends,
the shayhs,
the people, the religious people,
the kings, the queen, everybody.
Your siblings.
And then Allah will say
here is your book, He will speak to
you.
Allah will speak to you with no interpreter.
And He will say here is your book,
read it.
And similar to this hadith is in Ahmed,
so I'm gonna join the 2 and make
a bit longer.
And then you read,
and you see
a hasana,
one good deed that you did that nobody
else knew about.
It was between you and Allah. You see,
Allah's watchfulness is also watching your good deeds
too.
Where everyone else didn't appreciate, but Allah appreciates
it. Allah
appreciates it. Did you know Allah's name is
a shakur?
The Thankful One. The one who appreciates
your good deeds, even though he gets nothing
out of it. He appreciates it because Allah
loves it when his servants do good deeds.
Why? Because that's who Allah is.
So you see a good deed
and Allah says
you confirm?
And you say, Yes, You Rabbi, I confirm.
And your face lights up, nur it lights
up with happiness.
Then Allah says, Do you want to know?
And you say, Yes, You Rabbi, I wanna
know. And Allah says to you,
I have accepted it.
And hadith says the person goes down in
prostration immediately, does a sajda then Allah says
lift your head up, there's more.
You read,
then you come across a sin
that you did in secret then the face
goes darkened,
you're miserable, you're scared.
Allah says do you confirm?
You say, yes, You Rabb. I confirm.
Then Allah says, do you wanna know something?
You say, what, You Rabb? Yes, You Rabb.
You Rabbi. And He says,
qadgafartu
halaq.
I've forgiven it.
So then you make a sajdah.
Then Allah says, Lift your head up,
read.
And then you come after another good deed,
same thing happens. Then you lift your head
up, you read a sin, then
same thing happens.
The people from outside, they start to see
you from a distance.
Somehow there's a transparency happening at that moment.
But what do they see?
All they see is you doing prostration and
getting up, prostration and getting up. And the
people say,
honey and lahu
how fortunate he or she is. Look at
them, they've never done a sin in their
life
always making Sajdah,
he or she is happy
yet they don't know what the story is.
And Allah gives him his book in the
right and he goes out and says,
Ummu qaraoo kitabiyah.
O people, come and read my book.
Nobody wants to read your book.
But that's how humans are.
On that day,
showing off is halal.
That's the only place we show off.
I am successful, I have won. Not here,
over there. Now is the time to work.
No one's listening.
Everyone's turning away thinking, Yeah, you got it
all made. We're we're stuffed. We're still waiting.
But you still shout it anyway because you're
happy, you're excited, it's the best time. It's
the best day
you've ever experienced. You're going to paradise insha'Allah
maybe.
And then you start saying I believed in
this day. I was worshipping Allah. I had
my faith in Allah. I didn't give in.
I struggled but I was patient. I persevered.
I didn't give up. I didn't leave my
salah. I didn't leave my zakah. I didn't
leave my song. I didn't leave my hijab.
I didn't leave my good deeds. I continued.
Yes. And my major sins, I repented. I
did them again, but I repented.
I continued doing that. Read. Nobody's listening, nobody
cares. But you just talk about yourself all
day and you have that privilege, you have
the right
you have the right of what?
What's it called?
Yeah. You have the right to boast, but
there's another word for it teenagers use.
Right to brag, bragging rights.
Bragging privilege.
You have a right.
May
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us among them.
As for those who were hypocritical,
disbelievers,
and those who gave in to their sins
and were comfortable with it and were okay
with it and died upon it,
they will not be covered.
They will not be kept in secret.
Everybody will know.
They accepted it, they justified it, they showed
it to the world.
Allah will not hide them on the day
of judgement.
For those people, the prophet
said,
read from the Quran, recite if you will.
Those who were hypocritical,
those who were disbelievers, those who rejected, those
who boasted, those who
fayakulul
ashhad the witnesses will say, uhuna
illa dinakathaboo.
These are the ones who lied.
They lied to their lord. What did they
lie about? My lord, I'm a Muslim. I
believe in you. I will do good. Yes,
I Or in front of the people, they
acted certain ways. Behind their back, they disbelieved
in Allah, they disobeyed,
or they justified their sin, they came out.
I'm not Muslim anymore.
I've been struggling with salat all my life,
and I can't handle it, I'm coming out,
makes a social media post.
I've been wearing my hijab after she gets
10,000,000 followers.
Now Sa'adatadatfasra,
she comes up and he wants to say
I've been struggling with Atukaraf.
You've all been loyal to me and,
really thank you but it's me, it's me.
You do you, I do me.
And then he'll go
or others they'll go you betrayed us, we've
been following you all this time thinking this
is what you do?
Social media influences,
ah. Allah says now you might say to
me you don't know what they're going through,
no I don't, you're right.
You're right. But if you're going to put
yourself on a platform and leadership
and you make yourself an influencer of other
people
you have to take responsibility.
Get off.
Allah knows your intentions.
And everybody who follows you, you are the
result.
Men or women, it doesn't really matter, I'm
not just picking on women, anyone.
On the Day of Judgment, these people who
made themselves exposed here, they might feel good
for a little while, but on the day
of judgment Allah will say to them,
These are the ones who lied
about their Lord.
Behold,
the curse of Allah is upon those who
were oppressors.
You realize when Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la talks
about people who who who wronged who did
so many bad things, Allah doesn't say He
doesn't say the sinners.
He says the oppressors.
Who did they oppress?
Themselves.
Allah gave us this body, this time, this
life,
these faculties, and He told us everything. He
told us there's a hidden camera. He told
us what we were created for. He told
us there is a day of judgement. He
told us what to do and what not
to do. He told us to be patient.
He told us there is paradise. He told
us there is hellfire. He told us to
be he he gave us the Quran. He
told us come back to me. He said
I am there for you. He said turn
back to me. He said he gave us
the stories of the prophets and the messengers
and how that what they went through. He
did everything, Subhanahu Wa Ta'a.
And then we wronged ourselves.
Oh, on the day of judgement when a
person says,
Allah says.
They will gather each other.
And the Mujrimoon, the criminals and the ones
who oppress themselves, they'll say, how long were
you on how long were you in the
earth for?
Buried in the earth.
Oh, it felt like a day or part
of a day we were in our graves.
Ask those who who had count of this,
meaning ask the angels for example,
or ask the believers who used to tell
us about this day.
Qala illa bistum illa qaleelalawanna
kumkuntumta'alamun
Allah replies and says Oh you were in
there only for a very short time if
only you had known
Meaning, if only you had admitted and followed
what I told you that this day will
come and that life is so short and
it'll end like that.
Like that, it could be tomorrow.
You wanna die on halal or haram? Do
you wanna die on worship or do you
wanna die on disobedience, my dear brother and
sister?
Depends on how you run your life.
5050?
You've got 5050 chance. Which one?
7030? You've got 7030 chance.
That's how it works.
My brothers and sisters
So
the day of judgement is like that? SubhanAllah.
Social media
I think,
from the studies and research I've done personally,
and I'm sure that you'll agree with me,
you just have to Google it a little
bit and you'll see all these different
websites talking about addictions and social media harm
and mental illnesses, mental health, lots of studies
have been done on it.
I don't need to reference it, I need
to source it, you'll
find it.
That
this Gen Z, this current generation and Gen
Alpha now is on the rise,
This generation
is exposed
to a world that never existed before.
The entire world is at your fingertips.
Studies have shown that on an average worldwide,
Gen Z
which is between about the age of 13,
15 to about 40,
these people are the most
users of social media,
you know
your TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter,
the likes.
Between 3 hours
to 15 hours on average.
And we all know
how many
use it
at night when they go to bed.
Now there are people who use it for
good things.
There are people who use it for bad
things. There are people who use it for
a combination of things. There are people who
use it to listen to Quran or to
watch a lecture like this which is amazing
but it depends where you look at it.
On TikTok, it's 30 seconds to a minute.
You scroll, something else comes up.
What you need to do is create an
algorithm
that only pops up. If you can't leave
it, make an algorithm that pops up on
things that benefit. But even that,
spending too much time on there is going
to destroy your heart, your mind,
and your health. Even if you're listening to
lectures that benefit you. Your body needs to
sleep,
you need to do other things,
you need to act, you need to work,
you need to give
back, you need to work on yourself.
Just sitting there listening, listening, listening, listening, what's
that gonna do? We need to do.
Allah says to the Prophet
when he first received the Quran,
he heard it, it affected him, he sat
in the house and shivered.
Khadija placed a blanket over him and she
started to calm him down. Counsel him, his
his his wife, his first wife, Khadija
says Allah will never betray you, you Muhammad
Allah will never let you go.
Wallahi laiyazik Allah. You are a person who
gives to the orphans and look after the
needy and you reconcile between people. And then
he kept he stayed there for a night
or 2 and Allah sent the next verse
down.
Oh you who is blanketing himself. Don't just
stay there. Okay. Now get up.
Start to pray in the nights. Because that's
when the anxiety
kicks in for some people.
Because in the day, you're busy, you're distracted,
the night comes,
the thoughts come.
So these types of people wanna find a
distraction.
Go
on social media again. Why? To just distract.
But then you find that your your your
anxieties and your depression become worse.
And I'll tell you in a minute why.
So Allah tells the prophet,
stay up in the night, accept a bit
praying to Allah. Spend it in that way.
Allah tells us that layl
gives you calmness,
gives him peace.
That's if you can sleep in the day
as siesta, of course. But look what what
Allah subhanahu wa sallam
to do. The prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he told us that well, one of the
sunnahs, one of the sunnahs Rasulullah wants to
do is that after isha, he would go
to sleep.
Unless he had something productive to do.
To spend time with his wife,
or to go to help someone, or to
do something, but if there was nothing productive
to do, he would go to sleep. Or
he would stay at home with his family.
And he used to say, Faliya Saka Baytuk,
Now these days I say to you, stay
at home, it's worse.
We need to get out now, don't we?
But here's the thing, brothers and sisters, be
careful of social media in this sense.
That as you're scrolling away,
what percentage of haram do you see
compared to the percentage of halal?
On Instagram,
on Snapchat for the younger people,
on TikTok with the private
DMs.
If there's nothing constructive for you to do
on social media,
Then what are the reasons that you go
on? Ask yourself that question, and what is
it actually doing to you?
I'll tell you the first reason why we
love to go back on social media and
how it draws us in to stay on
it for such a long time.
By the way, as I'm talking
do you know,
have a guess,
any of you,
the average age or the earliest
age
now, the earliest age
of
a person being first exposed
to * and *.
What's the earliest age do you think?
14?
15?
Teenager?
Less?
Have a guess. These are real I'm talking
from real
research studies, I just forgot the source.
8 years old.
8 years old.
Either out of curiosity
or out of what they heard at school
or their friends or what they've seen on
Youtube,
even on Youtube for kids.
There there is there is there is this
psychology they use from a very young age
because that's what social media is for.
It's to draw you in, suck you in,
and then give you advertisements and capitalize off
you.
Am I right or wrong?
So you are the product.
You are the product.
Otherwise no one survives on social media. Among
the highest paid people are social media influencers
more than a neurosurgeon,
more than an astronaut.
Can you believe that?
You are the product
so they've got to draw you in somehow.
It's called classical conditioning, operant conditioning, all these
words.
And I'll tell you the first thing.
People who feel lonely, they want to distract
themselves. So they go on social media thinking
that there's something there which will take away
their loneliness by distracting them. But then they
find that they go into a spiral
of more loneliness,
more anxiety, and more depression.
What we are seeking is a false
intense
pleasure.
I'll tell you what I mean.
We live in a world where everything is
made
to stimulate
the maximum amount of pleasure possible.
This is the world we live in today
in the 21st century.
2024.
Have you realised
that the more we live on, the more
technology grows,
it's truly and honestly and really about
stimulating
your pleasure
to the utmost.
Alright, so what does that mean?
It means
that there is a brain chemical
that is released
when you're about to do something
you think is pleasurable
and it's called dopamine
that's what you want again and again
but it's not the dopamine itself that is
making you pleasurable
the dopamine just comes in when you
are about to do something which you
consider
pleasurable for yourself.
Now if this Mu'min knows that Allah is
watching, the angels are watching, there's a day
of judgement and constantly
keeping themselves in touch with the Quran, with
the verses of the Quran, with the salat,
with the company of people who remind them
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, those who are
sincere and loving to you, not the there
can be
religious toxic people too, but I'm talking about
those types of people. And you
keep
the zikr around your life even if you
do sins. This type of a person
is less likely
to always feel a complete
comfort and pleasure
with
those
things that they are seeking.
You'll feel discomfort and the memory stays, so
you want more of that dopamine.
And what social media does
is that it hijacks
our natural reward pathways.
It tricks our brain into thinking we're about
to do something so important
for our survival
that we have to go back to it.
I need to survive.
I need to cope.
So
social media shaitan site
says, 'Come, I will give you
exactly what you're looking for.'
I look at that similar to the verse
in the Quran
about the shaitan. Allah says
that Allah says to Iblis
give them false promises
wama yaidhum shaitaanu illaahurura
but the shaitaan can never give you promises
except deception.
Now remember, I didn't say all social media
is bad. Alhamdul is amazing. I think there's
a miracle in there too,
especially with the awareness that's happened about ghazah
and falasteen.
That was
But that's not the problem. Even with good
stuff, spending too much time can destroy you.
But we're talking about the other stuff.
The stuff that you're looking for to give
you pleasure
which is really false.
So what happens to that is that you
start having low self esteem. What is self
esteem? It's
your
it's your it's your belief
and opinion about yourself.
That's what self esteem is. What is your
opinion and belief
about yourself?
A believer is honest with himself.
A believer
is sincere to Allah.
Do you remember when I said that the
scholars say,
sha al Islam bintaymiyyah, he says, in this
world there is a paradise whoever does not
enter it will not enter the paradise of
the hereafter. Do you remember that one?
Ibn Al Qayyim, his student, writes a book
in Madarajas Salikin.
Madaraj Salikin is his book. He writes what
these keys are. He calls them
al Ikhlas
or sidq.
Ikhlas,
absolute sincerity,
and sidq, absolute honesty. What do they mean?
Ikhlas in the Islamic terms means, in the
sharai terms
means everything you do
your goal and purpose
is seeking Allah alone.
Your goal and purpose
is that Allah is pleased with you. Your
goal and purpose is that Allah rewards
you. Your goal and purpose
is only between you and Allah, not the
people.
Honesty
is whatever you are inside, the way you
think and believe,
who you really are,
you are honest with yourself.
It's between you and yourself.
It's to be real with yourself,
not try to mimic and manipulate yourself.
And that's a true sign of a true
believer.
It says Alhamdulillah,
I've got this problem and I have to
repent to Allah, the day is coming.
Stop trying to convince yourself, you know, and
work ways around it.
So my brothers and sisters, your self esteem,
you go to the social media to raise
that self esteem because of this false image
of, or this false perception of survival
with this thing called seeking pleasure somehow or
happiness which is really not there,
And then what do you find?
You find 3 main things. You find many
things, but these are the 3 main things
that we all share. Wallahi, all of us.
Even social media content creators go through this.
Whether you're a content creator for good or
for bad, whether you're the person who is
listening to or watching it for good or
for bad, whether it's just pure entertainment, whatever
you're doing it for, these are the 3
things that can happen to you and they're
very dangerous. Number 1,
you find yourself in something called social comparison.
You can't help it
but start to compare yourself to others on
social media.
Jnani, for example,
if you talk about
Deen,
Islam,
religion, shari'a, salah, angels,
in the beginning, all is good and fine,
sincere and honest.
As time goes on, there's something about
the social media that just sucks you in.
You start looking at people's comments. We all
fall into it. Sometimes I catch myself.
We all fall into a human.
Comments,
the positives, the negatives.
You start looking at views, you start looking
at followers, and then you see other people's
followers, other people's views.
Whether it's about religion you're doing it, whether
it's about some product you have signed, a
business, advice, whatever it is, you can't help
but start comparing yourself to other people. How
come this person's got more views than me?
How come this person has got more followers
than me? What is it I'm doing different
that they're better? What what what what what?
And you start comparing and it becomes a
rat race.
And suddenly you find your sincerity and honesty
has changed.
And then you yourself, your self esteem starts
go going down. You gotta compete, you gotta
do better. So you look for the next
comment, you look for the next view, you
look for the next like just to get
yourself back into that pleasuring mode.
Secondly is something they call, I think you've
heard of that word FOMO,
fear of missing out.
And this is mostly with younger people
or if you share
a class social media sort of,
I don't know, platform
with your mates at school or with your
friends or at work or just in general,
What happens to you in the beginning is
all friendship and just to catch up with
people, whatever, and suddenly it drags you in.
Before you know it, you're spending hours on
it. Why? Thinking that you're missing out. Fear
of missing out on what's happening, what's the
latest goss, what's the latest news, what's happening
with so and so. Oh, suddenly you see
your mate, your friend looks so amazing, has
achieved something, has produced something, puts their marks
up, shares their story, and then you start
looking at yourself and you think, Man,
I live a rubbish life.
How come I don't have that?
What?
She's going out with her dad?
Wish my dad was like that.
What? Her mum her mum bought her that
oh my my mum doesn't buy it, I
hate my mum.
What? Siblings?
Her brother is so hot, I wish my
brother could be hot. All he does is
swear at me, my life is bad. I
live in a toxic family. Toxic!
Block them off.
Toxic family, block them off. Why? Because he
looked at others
and we came to that conclusion.
Block, block, block! It's crazy, man.
I know that some people do have toxic
families
but that's not the majority.
And everything has a management and a solution,
inshallah. One day I'll talk about toxicities.
But right now,
one of the places that play a big
role
in trying to in making you feel so
bad about your life
is this FOMO business and comparison business on
social media.
If you like health, you like to build
muscles, you like to look good, you like
your face, you like to have glowing skin,
you like your hair, you like your achievements,
then you're gonna go to those places where
people are showing all that off. And you
start thinking, where are my muscles? How come
my skin's not the same? How come this
how come that?
False world, man, false world. I hear it
all the time. It's a fake world. It's
a fake world, fake fake fake fake fake
but they're saying it like something's gone, like
they're getting mental illnesses from it.
Yeah.
But you see we're part of all that
now.
The fake world, we become fake ourselves, this
is what we've got to be very careful
of.
And finally,
idealised
images, I just gave an example.
Somehow
we know it's not true and we say
it to each other, right? I hear it
from students all the time. They go it's
fake,
it's collagen,
it's lip I don't know what,
it's eye thing, it's
blah blah blah, I don't know, it's a
filter.
I don't know all those words, forgive me.
It's busin.
It's riz.
I've got kids myself, we all have.
You know what I'm saying?
Let him cook.
Unbelievable.
No cap.
Brothers and sisters,
But really I mean that's
just a bit of a humour but
you know it's amazing with social media how
it's become.
Now I love this brother.
What's his name? The one that did that.
What's his name?
What?
Yeah.
MashaAllah, you know he's a memorizer of the
Quran I heard. Tabarak Allah, very nice. He
loves his Deen, on Salat, so I'm not
talking about him. But I'm talking about how
social media works.
That
yani may Allah
bless his wealth and everything but from that,
he's a millionaire.
I remember my dad used to do when
I was a kid. Hey, raise your head
there.
I thought my dad would be a millionaire
right now.
Say it like that. Look, I just did
that.
Someone else gets billions of followers because they
lip lip sung something. Was that in the
media?
They're lip singing?
Just moving their heads or wobbling it in
a certain way so suddenly they're billionaires?
Somebody slips, millionaires?
Goes viral?
What has the world come to?
We're getting dumber and dumber.
And it's like when we're watching it, it's
like
let me copy that. But it's like dumb
and dumber.
Dumb and dumber.
It's like the students doing their exam, they've
never studied. Right? So they look at their
others and say what is he doing? So
he starts copying them.
Right? He copies it. The one he copied
gets a lower mark than the one who
copied him.
Dumb and dumber.
SubhanAllah.
SubhanAllah.
So scrolling through actually does destroy the neuron
channels in our brains, did you know that?
Lessens our skills, lessens our ability to be
critical thinkers, lessens our ability
to learn and and those people who are
doing it and sucking us in, they're not
on social media, man.
They're just doing it for us to be
zombies on it. So brothers and sisters, let
me explain something, how do you get out
of it?
Now, if I go and tell you stop
social media,
you're gonna say look at this guy, he
lives on another planet. I'm not gonna tell
you to stop social media, in fact I
use social media.
Not before, but now,
only because
our shayiks and I remember Shaykh ibn Affaymih,
he said, he was one of the earliest
who was who thought
outside the box and he said,
you should be
competing and making traffic on social media with
good
dawah, with teaching people the right thing, don't
leave it to them. So that's why I
went on. But
even with that
here's one thing you can do.
First of all,
start taking breaks.
Very easy.
Start taking breaks.
At first it'll be hard.
Some people who are social media influencers they
say,
We take 30 days break twice a year.
30 days.
And what happens to them is they say,
Hold on a minute,
all these followers, all these people who want
me to make new content,
they're waiting, they're waiting. I can't stay 1
month off. And your brain tells you, but
if I don't go back on I'm gonna
lose my followers, I'm gonna lose my 30
days later comes back, does new content, same
thing.
Nothing's happened to them inshaa'Allah.
But what happens to you is that you
get refreshed.
It's amazing how much you've
restricted
your ideas,
your innovation, your creativity
by constantly, constantly going on social media and
scrolling.
Content creator or the one who is taking.
Give your brain a break. Number 2.
You should not be on your social media
maximum, maximum more than 2 hours a day,
and I'm not talking about 2 hours straight.
And that's for beneficial things. And a little
bit of entertainment, nothing wrong with that, halal
entertainment as much as you can. Be very
careful with it, though.
The problem now
is people get stuck with certain addictions,
sexual addictions.
Man, they are the worst.
And those types of addictions,
they transform from an image
to
videos,
clips,
to then creativity,
you get bored of the same thing over
and over again,
and then you start
to you want something more dramatic,
more outrageous, more out of this world.
Tremendous research has done on this.
And then you go
after that to things that are
sick.
I don't want to say what they are,
we're in the Masjid.
But I can tell you
that families were destroyed apart
because these people started to watch these sick
things.
People who were supposed to be Maharams,
their brain goes everywhere,
they become sick.
Then after that you want the real thing.
And that's when people start going to those
places, they want the real thing.
Ah,
Ah, hold on, they said to me I
can go on Snapchat,
there's that guy on there, there's that girl
on there, we'll just talk. Especially those introverts
because they can't go face to face, they
go online. I'm not saying they even go
to face to face but they go online,
talk, talk, talk, keep going. Why not?
Images are okay for me so long as
it's real.
Images,
clips,
*,
young,
teenagers,
old.
People start going further and further and further
and further.
In my days back in the eighties when
I was
in the nineties, when I was in year
7, year 8, year 9
if there was a Muslim girl
in our school,
hijab or no hijab, she's Muslim,
No one
dared to touch her
or flirt with her.
You'll find 10 Muslim guys jumping this person.
Nobody would touch him. And they were the
most valuable.
Now
Allahan Musta'an.
What has happened to us?
And there's abuse online,
sexual abuse,
send me a picture,
let's go more, they share it with their
friends, especially boys.
I read once this statement,
I forgot where but it has some truth
to it, they said
let's get things straight,
men like to look at,
Women like to be looked at.
Men
like to look at. Women like to be
looked at.
And then from here you can understand how
abuse can happen.
And then threats, and then
deformations, then
exposing, then then then then then.
And this is how the shaitan comes to
him. Where did it come from? Social media.
All on social media.
Now I don't want to talk too much
about it, we've got kids here, we're in
the Masjid but I think you all understand
what I mean.
Why when social media has so much good
in it?
Each individual has to monitor themself.
And the best thing is you can't just
change your apps. It doesn't work, you can't
just disable your apps. It's coming from this.
So you've got to keep this far away
from you and use it only when you
need it.
If you relapse and get back to it,
then repent to Allah and start putting it
away from you. Go to bed and put
it outside your akh, put it in the
kitchen. But I need my alarm. Find another
way.
Find another way.
Ask your parents, how did we do it?
We suffered. We didn't have these alarms with
us.
You'll find a way.
Keep your door open in the bedroom if
you're a teenager.
Let your parents come past, it'll help you,
insha'Allah.
Especially at night.
I used to see students come to school
in the morning, their eyes bloodshot red.
I was studying, what were you studying?
Biology, sir.
Anatomy.
Yeah. What kind?
My dear brothers and sisters
I ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to lift the burdens off our Ummah,
off our youngsters.
Wallahi, this generation, this youth
they are so innovative and creative. I haven't
seen
so much
so many
young people in the masjid
like
we see in the last 10 to 20
years.
I've never seen this many young people representing
goodness,
deen,
and teaching others, and being innovative online and
in social media.
They are becoming leaders, alhamdulillah,
and they can do tremendous things that our
parents and my generation could not do. But
they pave the way for you.
And I have great hope in our young
people
but your mental health,
your heart, your spiritual health, your iman, your
identity has to be intact if you're going
to get somewhere.
And wallahi my heart goes out too, it's
not easy, the challenges are huge.
May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make it easy
on you. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala forgive
our sins and yours. May Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala forgive our shortcomings.
I ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to relieve our brothers and sisters in Gaza,
look after the orphans. Brothers and sisters, whatever
you consent to them, send through any trusted,
honest charity organisation. Alhamdulillah.
I've been going around with MATW,
Muslims around the world, and other organisations, alhamdulillah,
doing great jobs. But these are one of
them, for example, and be going around. They've
got 12,000 orphans, for example,
that they are looking after, alhamdulillah,
and,
creating more awareness and help. And these young
people, insha'Allah, will be the future, insha'Allah, and
so will you. Brothers and sisters, do things.
Continue to do what pleases Allah and that
which develops you. Don't just sit on this
scrolling away and letting your brain cells die.
I hope, insha'Allah, that
this lecture tonight
at least played a role in 1 or
2 percent
of that first step towards
that long journey. And I ask Allah Subhana
Wa Ta'la
to assist you, protect you, raise you, forgive
you, and all of us. WassaAllahu Anaihi wa
Sahuahi Ajmalai.