Bilal Assad – Pathways to Paradise
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Tonight's topic is a nice one.
It's about
pathways to paradise.
It's from a book called Re'al al Salihim
by Imam and Nawawi in a chapter called
numerous ways to good deeds.
So let us, insha'Allah,
jump into this topic.
I was asked by someone,
there are things that I'm not so good
at, and there are other things I'm better
at. And I've got some things that I'm
shortcomings in, and other things I can do
better. Surely,
is there only one way to jannah?
And the answer is
Allah
has mentioned so many numerous ways
for a person to go to paradise and
be safe from the fire. But Rasul Muhammad
taught us so many ways and inshallah tonight
we'll enumerate
some of them and teach you what it
means
to give us hope
and to know who Allah is
and to know how generous he is
and to assume well of your Lord
and to not let the shaitan make you
pessimistic
and to get rid of any of those
mental intrusions that tell you you're not good
enough.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is Kareem on Rahim
and
whoever assumes them even well will get closer
to him inshallah.
I begin with about 4 verses of the
Quran as an introduction to this.
Allah says,
And whatever good that you do of
and whatever good that you do, Allah
is all knowing of it.
Allah also says,
any little tiny thing of a good deed
that you do, Allah knows it for sure.
In another verse, Allah says
Any
small
ant's worth of a good deed someone does,
Allah
knows it and sees it.
And finally, Allah says,
Whoever does good deeds,
the benefit
is for himself.
The benefit
is for himself.
Therefore
nothing,
nothing
harms Allah or benefits Allah in any way.
And I always say a good example to
think about it is your parents
who love you and love their children.
They don't want anything in return. Good parents,
who truly have
unconditional love for their children,
from the moment they're born,
their future,
they're already envisioning it.
And they're looking forward to you growing up
and being happy and healthy.
And the question we ask is why?
What do parents get out of it?
They don't get money out of it. They
don't get,
fame out of it. They don't I mean,
they're aging.
So a good parent and a loving parent
doesn't want anything in return.
The only reward they want is that their
child is righteous,
grows up well and healthy,
makes dua for them after they pass away.
Allah
gives us the example of parents, and he
always puts their name
with his name in the Quran.
They're the only people Allah mentions alongside his
name.
Your lord has decreed that he worship none
other but him and to be dutiful to
your parents.
Because your creation came from Allah first and
then through them.
And so there is gratitude
that we give them. And for them, there
is unconditional love. And Allah
he doesn't want anything in return except, believe
it or not, just for your own good.
Just for your own good.
We begin with the first hadith
relating to this that I want to share
with you.
And the hadith explains the meaning of the
word iman.
So the question is,
what is
iman?
What is faith in the Islamic terms?
I think still some people
will
misinterpret it or give a different answer to
what it really is.
Some people will say it's what you believe
in. But that's not the meaning of iman,
of faith.
The prophet
said,
iman
is 70
something.
70 something. He didn't say a number. He
just said somewhere between 7079
in the Arabic language.
Or he said he said or
60 something.
So he's telling us somewhere in the
range.
A
man is 70 something or about 60 something
categories
and channels,
categories.
The best of all of its categories
is the word
saying and believing
truly and acting upon,
there is no God worthy of worship except
Allah.
Complete monotheism
in belief,
words,
and actions to monotheism.
Then he
said, and the least
of all its categories
is to
remove
a harmful object off the road.
And then he said,
and the balance of it all, the middle,
is called hayat,
which means modesty
and and respect, self respect.
It's kind of a shyness or a shyness
but in a good way, in a modesty
way.
You know we have this natural shyness that
we don't go out
naked.
We don't show our 'awura. This is part
of modesty and shame, hayya.
When we're alone,
we know Allah is watching us, and he
told us there are angels around us.
We get a bit shy.
How can we do bad things while Allah
is watching me?
When we are alone with our spouses, we
fear Allah. Allah is watching us. We feel
shame.
When we are doing business
and we are able to cheat
or to
rip off someone
and they won't know about
it, but we have shame.
It's called.
All these examples are called haya and it
is the middle, the balance
of all the 70 something
branches,
branches, or categories of iman.
Without hayat, without modesty and shame,
you will not have monotheism
properly,
and you will not have good acts
properly.
And if, for example,
a person with modesty and self respect and
watchfulness
or has integrity
sees something that harms people off the road
and can move it
but doesn't care, probably even adds more harm
for the people because they have no shame.
A person
may
reject
something that Allah says
and not care
that Allah is the one who said it
and just choose their own version. They'll say,
'I think it's like this. I won't accept
it.' He has no shame or she has
no shame.
You think who who is Allah? This is
no shame. This is this is disbelief, actually.
So shame and modesty is the balance of
all your deen.
Now here in this hadith, the prophet, peace
be upon him, did not enumerate all the
branches. He didn't name them. There's no need.
But what it means is that it's the
entire religion of Islam.
And iman, therefore, means
the action of the heart,
the action of the tongue, and the action
of the limbs.
That is all called what?
Iman.
The hadith is in Bukhari and Muslim.
So now, you understand,
if you or I do any good act,
no matter how big or small,
helping someone,
counseling someone,
lending
someone, giving someone, donating to someone,
guiding someone,
saying,
greeting someone, anything, a smile.
All these acts are called, in Islam,
they're called iman,
faith, on one condition.
The condition is, listen what the prophet said,
the highest of experiences is
There is no god worthy worship except Allah.
Therefore, everything under that word, we do it
because of our faith and belief in Allah.
A person may say, well, hold on a
minute. Islam is not a condition for a
person to have good character. You can have
good character without being a Muslim.
That is true.
But the meaning of this is 2. Number
1,
a true believer
should have
these characteristics.
Otherwise, your belief in Islam is not complete.
And secondly, the difference between a Muslim and
a non Muslim having good character is that
the Muslim does their good character
for worldly reasons and
for the rewards, love, and closeness
to Allah, their creator.
Big difference.
One does it for the sake of love
and goodness. The other one does it for
the sake of Allah first and then for
the sake of love and goodness. For example,
you might love your mother tremendously
and so you serve her and help her
only because she's your mother. That's a virtuous
thing, but you can add double
and say I help my mother because I
love her and at the same time to
please my creator, Allah.
When you wanna please your creator, Allah,
then you will do good things even against
your own feelings.
And you will stay away from bad things
even against your own feelings.
Because there is a huge reason why you
should keep going on and doing good deeds.
If the person who you do good deeds
to does not repay you or people harm
you or hurt you with words,
still a believing Muslim knows, well, at least
my reward is not lost with
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying place
your cheek on the ground for people to
step on it. I'm not telling you turn
the other cheek and let people ridicule you.
This is disrespect to yourself.
But what it means is that when any
opportunity for you to establish peace,
to avoid
trouble,
to do good deeds,
to help someone change from bad to good,
to avoid someone's harm for the sake of
Allah
is the character of the believer.
But if somebody attacks you, somebody denigrates you,
somebody tries to take your right,
a Muslim
must be courageous and defend their right if
they cannot avoid it in any other way.
So, both of them are iman. And that
is called self respect as well. My dear
brothers and sisters, moving on now. Now that
you understood the word iman means the actions
of the heart, the tongue, and the limbs,
Do you remember this beautiful hadith I mentioned
to you that is in Sahih Muslim
called Shafa'atul mumineen?
The inter intercession
of the believers to one another on the
Day of Judgment. Do you remember that hadith?
Anyone remember when I mentioned it here in
past classes? The intercession of believers to one
another on the day of judgment.
Yes? No?
Hands up if you have.
Pack my bags
and leave here. I'm just gonna eat another
nobody nobody
I think I've said it about 6 times.
No?
Hasbunallah.
And that's all right. We'll repeat it. Follow
me. Follow me on YouTube.
So everyone's going to TikTok and instead you're
not gonna get much there.
People cut off one minute of my talks
and they take it out of context and
I'm looking at them going why? Why? Why
this part?
Go to the original source. In YouTube, you'll
see the whole context. And I think, inshallah,
you'll learn a bit more.
Don't follow my YouTube. Follow someone else's YouTube.
But the point is get the whole learn
more inshallah.
Forgive me brothers and sisters, I don't mean
to ridicule anybody. I'm just joking with you.
But seriously, follow the YouTube for to to
go to, back to these lessons and teach
others and give me some rewards and you
earn rewards.
Alright. So the hadith about Shafa'atul Mumineen, the
intercession of the believers to one another,
I'll just say it in summary. That on
the day of judgement from the mercy and
generosity of Allah
and his forgiveness
is that not only does Allah
save people with his mercy, he gives the
angels an opportunity to also have a have
a say in who wants to be saved
by the will of Allah. And he gives
the prophets and messengers also a say in
who they want to be forgiven by the
will of Allah.
And then he gave the believers as well,
insha'Allah, may Allah make us one of them,
to also intercede for people certain people
with his will. And the shafa'a, this intercession
means that when people cross the Sirat, in
the Quran, it says
the the the bridge that will be
bestowed. Every single one of you will cross
it. Once they make it to the other
side, they go into paradise. And then the
believers will turn around and remember the people,
the friends, the believing friends they used to
have in this world.
They did not make it across. They fell
into the fire.
And then they say, my Lord, my Lord,
our Lord, we remember so and so and
so and so. They used to do this,
they used to do that. They tried to
mention all the good deeds which they can
remember so that they can get a response
from Allah to say go. So Allah then
says to them, go and take out everyone
you know.
And you see some of them that haven't
gone deep into the fire. Then, then, then
Allah saves them after they've been punished a
little bit. And then there are those who
go deep into the fire. And Allah
says,
is there anyone else? And they say, you
know, we can't see them. He says they've
probably gone The hadith has said that they
haven't gone deep, but that's what it means.
He says, Go and take out anybody
with the angels,
anybody who has a coin's worth of iman.
They go and they take them out. Then
he says, Go back and take out whoever's
got half a coin's worth of emaan.
Now
we're a bit confused.
What do you mean a coin's worth of
iman, half a coin of iman? What does
it mean? Like, you half believe in god
and half you don't?
Half believe in the Quran, half don't?
No. It doesn't mean that. You cannot believe
in half. Even one aya, you cannot say,
I don't believe in. Somebody says, you're saying
God is
and this is a lie.
'Iman from this hadith, now you understand,
it is any tiny good deed that you've
ever done
while
you are
on
That means you died
while not making partners with Allah, or disbelieving
in him, his book, and his messengers.
You all then have a chance of intercession.
And he says, Can you remember
a tiny
half a coin's worth of a good deed?
Meaning,
let's say you saw them one day
walking from school and you saw your mate,
your friend.
You saw some glass on the pathway
and he says, subhanallah, someone might trip on
this. I heard that I'll get rewarded from
Allah. I'm just gonna move it here for
goodness and for the sake of Allah.
For the sake of Allah, number 1, and
also because you're a good Muslim, move it
off the road. Let's say that's the only
good deed this friend of yours has ever
done in his life. Nothing else.
So long as he has died on true
belief,
Allah
may allow you, if you are saved, to
go and save that friend if you can
remember one tiny good deed is done.
And that is why brothers and sisters, and
obviously the rest of the hadith is that
Allah then takes out a whole lot out
of hellfire, out of his mercy.
The meaning of this is always have good
believing friends, brothers and sisters, because those believing
friends are the only ones, according to our
Islamic belief, will be the ones on the
day of judgement who will remember you and
they will vouch for you
by the will of Allah
to save you with his permission.
Always have believing friends even if you have
friends that are not
so good.
Also believing have righteous believing friends. They will
remember you. Biivminna, by the will of Allah.
Anyway, I've just spoken about a Muslim belief
here, of course. Non Muslims will
don't know all about this until they learn
about Islam.
We move now.
A person a pathway to paradise
are so many the pathways.
A pathway to paradise
is moving a branch of a tree
that
is thorny or in the way of people
off the road.
Why did I mention this? Because there's a
hadith about it. The prophet, peace be upon
him, said,
'I saw
in paradise '
Meaning that Allah let him see.
In paradise.
A man
who is enjoying himself in paradise.
He's enjoying himself
and doesn't
think about anyone else. He is enjoying himself
and having a party
because of a branch of a tree,
because of one tree branch.
He took it off the road because it
was harmful to others.
In another hadith, it was harmful to the
Muslims.
Of course, there are other hadiths who say
Muslim or anybody.
And there are other hadith who would say,
even the animals,
even the insects.
You're probably walking and you see a colony
of ants.
And you could have stepped on it,
but instead you avoided it for the sake
of Allah because they are creatures of Allah.
Those ants could make dua for you, supplicate
for you, or because of them you enter
paradise.
The best acts of goodness.
One man said, his name is and he
says,
which are the best acts to do? Which
are the best acts to do?
He said,
true belief and faith in Allah is the
best act.
Is that an act of the limbs or
the tongue or the heart?
What do you think?
To have correct and proper belief in Allah.
Is that the act of the heart, the
act of the limbs, or the act of
the tongue?
All of them are sent to all of
them. But where does it start?
In the heart, then the tongue. That's why
when a person wants to become a Muslim,
they say, I believe.
But in order to prove their belief, there
is a sign. What do they do?
They have to say, I bear witness that
there is only one God worthy of worship.
Muhammad, peace be upon is his final prophet
and messenger.
Now you're a believer.
Now the actions
then complete it.
So the prophet, peace be upon him, said,
belief and faith in Allah truly is the
highest best
and to strive and battle
in his path.
Striving and battling
means
to ward off
evil and bad and injustice
with a goal
to replace it with justice,
goodness, and piety.
So you don't misunderstand the word, obviously, Muslim.
We we know what the word jihad means.
It doesn't mean that every non Muslim you
see, we have to fight them.
It doesn't mean that we go to a
non Muslim country, and we declare.
This is wrong.
If a country you live in,
gives you the right
freedom to practice your deen
and to build your mosques
and to do all that and nobody stands
in your way,
then there's no need to do anything. In
fact, don't migrate there if it's not good.
But
jihad is when
there is a situation like the olden times
where there was no laws to protect anybody,
there was no treaty, and everybody just attacked
everyone else. So Allah said, Muslims fight to
protect yourselves and your religion because you are
vulnerable, so you have to stand together.
But anyway,
striving is many levels.
It goes all the way from physical
down to
the belief.
So a person sometimes does jihad against their
own desires.
They do jihad against their own
ideology and thoughts and whispers.
They do jihad against their own laziness, for
example.
They go to work and they want to
provide for their elderly parents, or their children,
or their spouse, or their family.
It is a type of jihad as well.
Everything
that involves
striving
against irritation,
against negativity
in order to establish goodness
is a level and a form
of jihad and mujahada,
striving and struggling
for good.
Then he said,
what's after that, You Rasoolullah?
He said, if you know of any slave
that is still under its master,
and you have the ability to buy them
and free
them, then that comes
3rd.
So the first one is establishing Allah's belief.
Second one is protection of the community. And
third,
to
free people who are in bondage in under
slavery.
And then he said, and the best ones
to free
are the ones
that people sell them for a big price.
Now this doesn't matter to us right now.
I'm just showing you
the the generosity of Islam. In those days,
there used to be different types of slaves.
Those who were,
very expensive and those who were cheap. And
Islam
encouraged
to free slaves
in many different forms and ways.
It could not abolish
slavery completely yet.
Why?
Because
they would have become public property
according to the universal law. It's not like
today. So you have to look in context.
Islam is the only deen that came which
brought such measures that gave slaves rights that
no one ever knew before to the point
where you would see a master and slave,
and you won't tell the difference.
Can't tell the difference. And they were encouraged
to marry them
if they can. And if they gave birth,
they encouraged them to free them. And if
they could get a skill, they were encouraged
to free them, and they could buy himself
out. And we're encouraged that if we do
major sins, we can go and buy and
free a slave to get our sins to
go away and so on and so on.
So Islam came to systematically
abolish all of this as much as it
can. So the prophet said,
freeing
slaves, they also are among the best deeds.
He said, then what, You Rasool Allah?
He said, Then if you can't do any
of that,
help to upskill someone
with a skill.
You might
know an organization
or a mosque that has a project
that is offering
courses, for example,
training,
workshops,
education,
a school maybe.
And you
are able to financially help and support them
in some way
to educate people in the community, the prophet
said.
Then after that comes the deed of upskilling
someone else,
helping someone else build
knowledge so that they could look after themselves.
That is the 4th category that Proximity said.
He said, what if I can't afford that,
Her Messenger of Allah?'
He said,
Do something good.
Do something good
with your own skill.
So you have a skill yourself,
maybe you do a trade, maybe you've got
a business, maybe you have some resources,
but you can't afford to upskill someone else.
So then use your own resources and skills
to give, donate a bit of your time
and skill for some projects or for someone
else.
For example, some people
might be called to a home. You go
to a brother or sister's home who've got,
some problems in their tiles
or their heater or their conditioner or let's
say
your work is something else. Is there you're
you're you're con you're a conveyancer or you're
a builder or you're an engineer or you're
a doctor, whatever you are. This is all
a skill and knowledge,
and you offer some of that a free
service, or you give extra to help them.
Bonuses,
out of goodwill,
all these rasul sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
then do that.
He said, what if I don't have a
skill to give?
He said,
then
if you can't find any good deed to
do,
keep your harm
away from people.
Just don't harm anyone.
Is there anything more than that?
If you can't do any good at all,
then avoid harming anyone
with your words,
with your actions,
with your money, with anything.
He said, just
avoid harming people.
Amazing.
And then he said,
if you do that,
it'll be a sadaqah,
an act of charity
or an act of goodness
from you for yourself.
The hadith is
agreed upon,
There are more devils. Another man said,
talk to me, tell me.
And he said, teach me something. He said,
every Muslim must give sadaqah.
Every Muslim must give charity.
What does charity mean here? It's got 2
meanings. Who can tell me? Sadaqah in Islamic
terminology has two meanings.
Sadata means the obvious one. What is it?
Money or property,
give from your money, charity, donations. And what's
the other meaning of sadata?
Okay. Example is time, but it's not just
time. Sadaqah
means anything that you have to give.
For example, if I greeted my brother over
here, that's
from my goodness. I used my tongue, I
used my mouth, I used my goodness to
greet him, Then he greets me. We both
did.
I saw a man,
let's say I see this young man here.
He doesn't look very happy. I came to
say a couple of words, and I made
him smile. That's a
Someone is in pain.
I come up to them and I help
them across the road, or I help them
to sit down. Do
you understand now? All of these are called
acts of goodness.
There's a reason why I say this, we're
gonna come back.
So he said, oh, messenger of Allah,
what is it? He said, every Muslim must
give sadaqa every day.
And then a man said, oh, Mr. Rabullahi,
what if he doesn't have a charity to
give?
The man thought that it's only money. So
then he said,
Let him do something with his hands
and benefit himself.
Benefit himself is an act of charity?
Yes.
You can also be charitable to your
to yourself.
This body that you and I have, who
does it belong to?
Allah. So what are you doing with it?
Why is it with you?
Did you choose to have this body when
you were born?
Obviously not. So we as Muslims know, Allah
told us, Allah gave it to
you. So why is it with you? What
are you supposed to do with it?
Worship Allah. Okay. Worship Allah, but also?
The reason you worship Allah is for yourself,
so that you can establish your identity and
your closest team. It's not for Allah.
He gave you that body. Part of the
reason is it is a trust.
A trust, it's an.
We are entrusted with our bodies
to look after it,
to serve it, to feed it, but, of
course, not to be stingy and not to
be selfish. So the man said, what if
I can't give to others? He said, then
work with your own hands and give yourself.
Meaning,
don't become a beggar.
Don't go and be a burden on others
to give you.
Go out of your way.
Don't be lazy.
Do something
to feed yourself.
Why is that an act of charity? Number
1, you are looking
after the body Allah gave you and number
2, you are avoiding burdening others.
You are not a burden on the community.
That in itself
is an act of charity for yourself. What
do you get rewarded for?
What do you need more than that, brother?
I said, that's amazing.
Do Do you remember when I spoke about
entered
the masjid, and he saw a young man
sitting there praying, reading Quran, making zikr? Do
you remember that?
Hands up if you remember that.
1, 2, 3, 4. Good. The rest of
you, go on my YouTube.
Now
he entered and he saw this young man
praying doing
and he said who he asked who
feeds this young man? Who looks after this
young man?
He's sitting here all day, all night in
the mosque.
To us, we think, woah, he's a great
Muslim, man. I wish I could do that.
But Omar Khattab saw it differently.
Said, who looks after him? Surely he has
to eat, surely he has to clothe himself.
Shout out to himself. He said, wallah, his
older brother, You Amirul muminem,
his older brother. He said, his older brother
is better than him.
His older brother is better than that man
sitting in the mosque all day all night.
Then he went up to the young man
and nudged him and said, Get up,
go and work and don't be a burden
on others. Islam did not create sickness.
Amazing.
Rasool sallahu alaihi wasallam then said, what if,
the man said, then what if I can't
work to support myself?
He said, Then help someone else
who needs
guidance. And for example, he said, let's say
you're in a town and somebody's asking for
directions and you know the directions, give him
directions.
Somebody needs water, direct them to water.
Anything,
anything of helping others.
Then he said,
what if I can't even find someone like
that?
He said again to him, then withhold
harming anybody.
Then it is a sadaqah, a charity.'
Now, the next good act is the actual
charity.
Actual charity. But listen to what the prophet
said.
He said,
'There isn't any one of you,
except that Allah will speak to them on
the day of judgement.
Their lord will speak to them.
There will be no interpreter
between you and him, subhanahu,
Allah.
And then you look to your right. He
looks to his right and looks to his
left, and all he sees is his deeds,
what he did and what he didn't do.
Then he looks in front and looks behind
him, and all he sees is what he
did and what he didn't do.
And then he looks beneath him, and all
he sees is the fire.
Then the prophet, peace be upon him, said,
so fear Allah, meaning
prevent yourselves, protect yourselves from the fire,
even
if all you have is half of a
date
to give in charity
date is this big
half of it eat half and give another
one in charity,
you are protecting yourself
from the fire. Why? Why is the fire
connected to this?
It means that we have so many things
upon us, we've done so many shortcomings, and
Allah is so generous that he finds for
us anything
to replace our shortcomings.
And because dates are easy to get for
the Arabs, here in Australia it's a bit
harder, it costs them on the leg to
get them from the shops, aren't they? But
But let's say some you have a date
the point is that anything, even a little
piece of food, and you give a little
bit of bit of it to someone, to
your children, to your spouse, to your parents,
to your friend, to an animal.
It is an act of charity
that Allah uses to expiate and wash off
your sins out of his generosity.
And then he said, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
if you cannot even find half of a
date or half of a piece of food,
then just say a nice word.
Just say
a good
nice word.
Don't go and misunderstand the nice word. There's
there's some people miss misinterpret
Your eyes are beautiful. No. No. You say
that to your wife.
Say that to your daughters.
So
the word
a good word means a pure clean word.
Say a pure clean word to someone.
And somebody, you have an employee,
praise them for something, encourage them, a student,
if you're a teacher. Tell them something, ask
your child.
Give them something that encourages them, makes them
feel good about themselves.
Any nice word to your wife, to your
husband.
My brothers and sisters, moving on, the prophet,
peace be upon him, also said in another
amazing that former hadith I gave was in
Bukhari.
Then he said in another hadith in Bukhari,
there are 40 habits
of good deeds. Forty habits of good deeds.
So there are about 40 deeds that people
can turn them into habits in their life,
and it'll be an ongoing charity forever until
they die.
But the prophet didn't count them 1 by
1. He left it up to us. The
companion,
grandson,
He says,
we tried to count them, and we got
up to 15.
And he said, we got up to 15
of the small deeds, like
when someone sneezes, we say to him, 'Yarhamuk
Allah. May Allah have mercy on you.'
or replying a greeting.
If you have these as a habit,
you know Muslims how they are, someone sneezes
in the in the, in the workplace.
Imagine there's 50 Muslims, right? 50 different
everywhere.
And sometimes I'm watching let's say I'm watching
someone
on TV about to eat. I don't know
why I find myself saying,
Do you do that? See someone about to
eat and he gets And you think if
you get sometimes they're not even Muslim. They
say, I'm just kidding.
Now, brothers and sisters,
any of the point of the matter is
good deeds are everywhere, and a Muslim should
get this as a habit.
Another beautiful
thing is called the hadith of the 360
joints in your body. Have you heard of
the hadith of the 360
joints
in your
body?
It goes like this.
The prophet, peace be upon him, said,
When any one of you wakes up in
the morning,
which means you started a new day, you
have another chance,
Any of you wakes up in the morning,
you're alive.
Then now it is a duty upon you,
he says.
To give an act of charity
on behalf of every single joint in your
body,
and they are 360.
Who's gonna give 360 acts of charity now?
That's a lot, isn't it?
360
every day?
So the narrator of this hadith says,
I felt as if the companions
felt burdened by this. So how are we
gonna do 306 day acts of charity?
So they said, You Rasool Allah, You Rasool
Allah,
how we're gonna do that? And then he
smiled and said,
Every
every one word of
is an act of charity.
Every
means how perfect is Allah, and glory be
to Allah, Transcendent is Allah. Every every
gratitude,
gratitude to Allah, is a sadaqa, a charity.
Every word
There is no lord worthy of worship except
Allah.
He's an act of charity.
Every word
Allah is greater than anything. He is an
act of charity.
Advising
something good,
advising someone
good or initiating good,
is an act of charity.
Preventing
something bad
is an act of charity.
And all of this
can be taken care of with 2 rakas
you pray,
called the 2 rakas of duha.
What is the duha? If you wanna give
360
acts of charity
in about
3 minutes or 4 minutes, and you don't
have time to do all the other stuff,
just pray 2 rakas called the rakas of
duha, the salat of duha. When is means
dawn? It means it starts from about 10
to 15 minutes after sunrise
all the way till about 10 minutes or
15 minutes approximately
before
before midday.
All that time is called salatul doha. If
you make and pray 2 rakas, it is
a charity on behalf of 360
joints in your body.
I can feel that when I said joints,
a lot of you are sitting there and
now feeling the pain in your joints.
Now Allah rewards you. I have rewards for
that.
If you want, you can stand up and
stretch a little bit.
You want to stretch? Stretch?
No? No passion? No energy? My
brother my brothers and sisters, we move on,
inshallah.
I was counting today. I said to my
mother, I said, you know 360,
it's very easy to do.
To so she prays the dua, right, every
day. And sometimes I miss it. She goes,
where's your dua?
I said, I was just counting and thinking,
if I split it up my after
every salah,
I got 500, man. 500 in the bag.
500 acts of charity.
Because if you what do you do after
each salah? You say subhanAllah how many times?
33 times. How many?
33 times. How many?
33 times. And you end up with 1
more
or with
So how many acts of charity are they?
100.
5 daily prayers? 100 times? How many?
500.
That takes care of the 360.
We were once in one of the
so it was with a friend of mine,
and then we got used to the.
Now I heard the prophet
that the prophet said,
the best time for the duha
is later later,
like when it's closer to when it's hotter.
And he comes up to me early and
says, have you given your
360 acts of charity? I go, what? 360?
What? You gave 300 I forgot all about.
360? The sun has risen. And
he said,
the I said, you naughty boy. So I
went and did the So
the 360 joints in your body. By the
way, this is medically
correct. It's accurate.
The adult,
adults,
adult,
joints are a little bit less than that
because some of the bones they fuse over
time
are about 350.
But at
birth, they are approximately 360,
joints that fuse a little bit later on.
So, the Arabic word for joints is
and the word Sulam means free,
healthy,
and at peace.
So when when I have joints in my
hands that I can move,
and my jaws that I can move and
my and, you know, my body that I
can move,
they
sound healthy.
Don't I owe gratitude to anyone for this?
My gratitude is to Allah, my Creator.
But if I had problems in my joints
and I can't move them, like I've got,
God forbid,
osteoarthritis
or something, I can't move it,
instead of acting with it as a charity,
Allah gives me rewards for my pain
and my patience, the other way around,
without doing anything.
And that is why the Prophet also
said that Allah says,
there is nothing that I would give
to a servant of mine who I take
his eyesight from.
Blind person.
Except for paradise straight away.
Because the the biggest blessing we have is
sight
and the lost takes it away,
paradise for that person. I mean,
imagine
Allah is always there looking, watching, counting.
He's there with us and we will find
out
everything
on the day of
judgement.
Finally brothers, a few more points.
The prophet then continues the hadith of Islam
Muslim and Bukhari.
He says also,
helping to settle a dispute between 2 people.
Even if you don't make them friends, the
hadith doesn't say reconcile, make them friends. No.
No. It says help them settle settle this
dispute
just so that things can reside and everyone
goes away.
That is an act of charity. Helping someone
mount his ride or baggage.
Meaning
anything.
They put in a grocery in the car,
you know a friend, you go and help
them out.
Someone's moving houses, you help them out.
So you see a parent, a friend, anybody,
a neighbor trying to put something into their
car and you see somebody,
with their car conked out. You go and
help them jump the leads and and to
try and, you know, start the car. This
is for older cars now.
This generation, man, you guys have got it
easy. And you should see when we had
our cars, do you remember those days? Mufflers
on the floor, the the engine always conked
out. Ever seen me conked out on the
road?
We we had a tough * gen What
are we gen generation what? Over forties. What
what do we call us?
Generation zed. Are we gen zed? Alpha.
Alpha.
Alpha? Yeah.
We are the alpha, buddy. Don't mess with
the 40 year old. Now brothers and sisters,
that's good one.
My love will support you and protect your
young brothers and sisters.
Helping someone
in any way.
And then he said a good word,
and then he said, 'every step'
to the mosque.
Or in another hadith, every step
to a prayer,
whether you're praying by yourself
or you're going to the mosque. Of course,
going to the mosque is better.
For men and for women, it's equal.
Alone or through the mosque.
Of course, praying at home for the woman
is preferred, but the rewards are equal, insha'Allah,
if she,
you know, intends that.
Every step is a sadaqa.
Now, don't take that literally.
It's not
like somebody might live about 2 kilometers away
from the mosque.
They may have a car or a bike
and have an easy way of getting there,
but they say, Rasu said,
'Step'.
So I'm going to step it.
No. The meaning of it
is supported by another hadith where he says
to a man
who was living far away, he says,
I want to move closer. And he said,
you will have rewards for every step, so
stay where you are.
He said, get a donkey and ride on
it. Because in those days, donkeys were the
easy and cheaper
way. So get a donkey. And this and
the scholars said it means whether you come
to the Masjid with your car,
whether you go somewhere to pray, whether you
go on your bike or anything.
These are all considered
sadaqa.
And he said, moving an obstacle or a
harm off the road or pathway.
Finally,
what if I told you that you even
get sadaqa and charity? Remember what does charity
mean? You said 2 meanings. What were they?
Giving
and doing an act of good deed, right?
What if I told you there is also
sadaqa and good deed in intimacy
and love
between husband and wife?
The Prophet, peace be upon him,
he said,
some people came to Absalom and said, You
Rasool Allah, there are wealthy people who've got
lots of money. We don't have much money.
And they're all giving in charity, and they're
looking after orphans, and they're putting it into
projects, and they're helping others.
Oh, they took all the rewards from us.
We can't afford it. They took all the
rewards. We don't have money. We wanna do
what they do, You Rasool Allah, which gives
you the compassion. They have money. They used
it in the path of Allah. Says, They
used it in the path of Allah, we
wish we had even a dinar, just one
little coin to give it. We don't have,
is there anything else?' Rasulullah
said, 'Yes.'
Say
Say,
Say,
Say,
you know,
tell someone give them ideas of something good.
Try and prevent some harm if you see
it. Someone bullying someone. Go defend them or
something like that.
All of this will be your charity. So
it's not just in money. And then he
said to them something else. He said, wafeebuddah
I ahadikum sadaka.
And even in your I'll just use the
word intimacy, you know what I mean.
Between you and your wife is an act
of charity.
Remember what I said charity, right? Two meanings.
That's why I wanted you to understand it.
The husband and wife being intimate
is a highly encouraged thing in Islam.
And be creative about
it because it it plays a big role
in the love, the connection, the family,
being on the same page, helping one another,
loving one another, getting closer to one another
has a huge effect.
So don't ever ignore that. And he said,
that is an act of goodness as well,
which Allah rewards you for. Then the sahabas,
they said,
They were a bit embarrassed. They said,
serving our desires?
We're enjoying ourselves. We get sabatah. We get
charity. We we we get good deeds for
that.
He said, imagine if you did the opposite,
and you used that desire in a haram
way, in a forbidden way, wouldn't you get
sinned for that
or punished?
They said, yes we would. He said, the
fact that you stopped yourself from forbidden and
you used your desire to fulfill it in
the halal, you get rewarded.
That's it.
So you see, brothers and sisters,
good deeds
don't all have to have lots of effort.
In fact, many of them you enjoy it.
And when you start thinking what we talked
about today, brothers and sisters,
suddenly,
I don't know about you, but for me
and many other people I spoke about, if
you can get into that mindset and think
in this way how good deeds, what good
deeds
mean, then number 1, you become selfless a
little bit.
At the same time you respect yourself, but
now they don't burden you much anymore. It's
not heavy on you anymore because we look
at the outcome, we look at the rewards
of it, look at the benefit of it
now. Nothing's ever lost.
The person who doesn't do anything is lost.
One friend of mine was joking with me.
He says, brother, what's this man? I go,
what? He says everything's haram.
What do you mean haram? He goes, haram,
this haram, that haram can't do this, can't
do that. That's all I hear.
He goes, I might as well just sit
at home and do nothing. I said, that's
haram too.
And they were joking with each other. Said
not everything's haram, Habibi. Come on. There's good
deeds everywhere. You can do it.
A man
was traveling and he got thirsty.
He went down and drank some water from
a well.
Hadith is in Bukhari.
He got up and he saw a dog
panting,
panting,
thirsty.
He said,
this dog is thirsty like I was. He's
feeling the same pain of the quench of
thirst that I felt.
His mercy kicked in
and he filled his shoe with water and
gave the dog
water.
I know there's another hadith about a woman
so there's a there are probably 2 different
hadiths or maybe the narrator got them wrong,
man or woman from the children of Israel.
The point is, in this hadith, the man
came and gave him, and the dog asked
Allah to forgive him, and Allah forgave that
man. And because of it, he entered paradise.
They said, You Rasoolallah, we get rewarded even
for animals
like you see a stray dog or a
stray cat,
you know, and you look after it or
you care for it or you give it
some food or you take it to a
vet or you look after and then send
it off to to someone to look after
it, or something like that.
That is an act of charity.
They said, you, salallahu, even with animals we
get charity. He says,
yes.
Every creature, as a matter of fact, is
every creature that breathes and has blood that
throws through its veins, breathes or has blood
flowing through its veins.
You have an active charity. And if you
planted a tree in the desert with the
intention of pleasing Allah,
then the scorpions, and the snakes, and the
all these creatures
that that harm humans. They come and they
use the shade of this tree or whatever
it is. You get charity for it.
SubhanAllah. Do you see my brothers and sisters
how Islam has come to
encourage us encourage
us to work and use this time in
our life
to enter paradise. One last question. You might
be asking, How is it that that man
feeds a dog
or that man who moves a branch
just because of that enters paradise,
so to them is I don't have to
pray, I don't have to fast,
I don't have to just believe in Allah
and go feed a dog. I'm in paradise.
That's it. It's done.
Easy.
Cheat code.
No. No. No. Not like that.
There is a condition.
If you remember the first Hadith I mentioned,
iman is many branches, seventy something branches. The
first and the highest is.
The conditions of
is
to also obey Allah with the compulsory things.
Therefore,
saying
means you must do the compulsory things, and
they are the 5 pillars of Islam.
And other compulsory things. You practice them,
Then, if you have sins that accumulate,
so long as they're not major sins,
even major sins you repent, and then you
continue to do these little good deeds, what
happens is one of 3 things. Number 1,
either Allah
forgives all your past sins because of this
one or two good deeds. That's up to
Allah. Number 2, Allah may delay your entry
into paradise but because of them you will
enter eventually.
Do you understand? And remember what I mentioned,
most believers intercede for others. Let's say those
who
didn't do their compulsory acts, you know, and
they died with it, but they were true
believers and they never made shirk and they
never made partners with Allah. They end up
in hellfire or they end up punished. Remember
what we said? Allah says, if you can
remember
1 half of coins of good deed they've
done.
And so they take them out and eventually
what do they do? They enter
paradise. So these are the 4 different meanings
when we say someone did a good deed,
and because of the good deed they entered
paradise. It doesn't mean directly
could have been,
or it means that it is the cause
for them eventually.
Everybody understand that part? May Allah
reward you. Bless you my dear brothers and
sisters.
May Allah lift your ranks. I ask Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to lift the pain
and the destitution of our brothers and sisters
in Gaza.
May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
bless them, protect them. In Palestine,
the orphans, the widows,
those who are
were martyred and their children at the doors
of paradise for them. May Allah protect
and
make it easy for our brothers and sisters
in Bangladesh
who are suffering
from the injustice.
And may Allah help and bless our brothers
and sisters everywhere around the world and anyone
else who is going through injustice,
pain, and struggle.
Ameen.