Bilal Assad – The Quran + Dua & Istikhara
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Today, I'm going to talk to you in
the first part of this lecture
about
the Quran
but in a different light.
And then about
du'a
and then istikhara.
And then I'm going to go into
relationships.
That's in the second part.
So let's go. We're gonna talk about how
we can fix our hearts and deal with
the challenges in these four areas. We ready?
Yeah. Let us spin that.
I will begin with a story of my
childhood
to relate
to your young selves.
When I was in year 8,
I was about 14,
13 years old.
And
a young man,
trigger warning, by the way, trigger warning,
A young man had jumped from a bridge
at the back of our school,
and he left a letter
saying
that he had nothing else to live for,
so he ended his life.
And I'm not judging his circumstances.
Only Allah knows what he's been through.
People have mental illnesses and we don't judge
what they're going through at all. We show
compassion. We show mercy. I I don't know
if he was Muslim or not,
but Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala describes the prophet
as our role model and we imitate our
prophet to the best of our ability.
Allah does say in the Quran,
We have not sent you, O Muhammad salallahu
alaihi wa sallam, except as a mercy to
all of mankind.
So this man jumped and had nothing else
to live for. His loved one had left
him.
This was the first time I thought seriously
as a teenager about life.
My father had taught us a lot, but
this time it hit me really hard.
Why would this person,
at such a young age, give up his
life
over another human being? I mean, you can
replace her or whatever, but I didn't think
well.
And it was my father's upbringing,
may Allah reward him and your fathers and
mothers,
that he attached me to something that was
going to be my healing,
wallahi, not only from that time when I
was a a teenager,
but wallahi for the rest of my life
in every calamity that came forth.
Every calamity in every challenge.
We have every challenge.
Islamophobia
came in my life.
Bullying.
People teased my Deen, I got abused with
my Deen.
I had to fight my way through physically.
I got injured.
We had I went through family issues in
my life.
Went through losses.
I lost my son and my brother,
May Allah Subhanahu have mercy on your loved
ones who have been lost and everywhere around
the world.
Just like everyone else, we all have a
story.
But I will tell you, brothers and sisters,
that the Quran and the attachment to the
Quran, I swear by Allah,
was my savior.
He was my Savior.
Even when I prayed salah,
I'm pondering over the verses I'm reading, and
I'll give you a hint.
Most of us, when we
pray,
and we recite al Fatiha, I'll give you
one guess.
Which Surah do you recite after al Fatiha?
First thing comes to your mind.
First thing.
That's too long.
What else?
And it's lost
Is Is that the early Quran?
The Quran is huge.
Why do we only recycle Allahu'aadi natanakaar kothar?
I believe something's wrong.
Our prayers can be improved and that's probably
why our happiness is less in salat or
we don't feel it much because we become
routinely aerobotic.
When you repeat even Allah's words, the heart
can become hardened over time.
Allah does say in Surat Al Hadid,
Do not be like the former people before
you who received the scriptures from Allah.
But they got so used to them that
they altered them, and ignored them,
and
changed their meanings to suit their desires until
their hearts became hardened.
And many of them have gone astray and
are corrupted.
So we could recite the Quran and not
pay attention and heed to it, and then
we went through the healing process.
The Quran, Allah tells us
in it, and you recite it as well,
beautiful verses that we can recite and memorize
and then read in our salah.
In the Quran there is healing for people.
Linas.
Did it say it in Muslim'een?
Did it say it in Momineen?
No? It said linaas.
Momineen and Muslimeen are believers in Muslims.
Linaas are people.
Anyone who hears the Quran,
and pays attention to it, something immediately happens
to their heart. Do you agree with me?
Waslamu ala Muslim?
If you memorize
anything of the Quran, make sure you recite
it in your salat.
When I used to memorize the Quran, first
thing I did was the next 2 days
in my 5 daily prayers instead of
it was that new few verses that I've
just memorized.
Recite them,
it's only a line or 2
from all the Quran.
I'll give you another hint. When you pray
your salah,
change
Change
Change the first dua that you start with
when you say Allahu Akbar.
In that little book I told you about,
Fortress of the Muslim,
you will see at least 5 different words
and duas you can say at the beginning
of the salah when you start, and when
you go to Ruqua and sujud.
Why? Because you keep your brain in tune.
You keep yourself going
and concentrating.
The Quran
is the healing.
And the Quran for me became a routine
recitation
every day.
It was something that I couldn't leave.
And in psychology I've read once that if
a person continues a particular habit
for a number of days, that I know
exactly, some say 20, 30, 40 days,
it becomes more difficult for you to stop
that habit.
Truly,
in the book
Adah O Dawah by Ibn Tayl, he mentions
a formula.
He says every habit begins with a thought.
If you do not repel that thought, it
becomes an idea. An idea becomes a plan.
If you don't repel the plan, the plan
becomes an action. And If you don't repel
the action, the action over time becomes a
habit. And if you don't repel the habits,
they can become addictions. He's talking about sins.
But you can also reverse it and start
with a turn it into an idea, plan
for the bud, and make it your action,
alas.
And you, you is born.
So one of the things is you must
recite the Quran every single day.
Impossible for any Muslim
to let a day pass
without having a certain time in their day
in which they recite it.
Recite it in the car, recite it when
you're walking, recite it when you're at school,
at work, Recite it when you go to
sleep, just before you go to sleep. Recite
it everywhere, brothers and sisters. You might not
know how to read it in Arabic,
then recite what you have memorized.
Surah the and and and Khilaz reciting it
3 times like reciting the whole Quran.
What is Sa'il Fatiha? If you don't know
anything else, you're probably a new Muslim.
Maybe you don't know.
Recite.
And have a little bit of a time
to read
the meanings of the verses.
Very simple meanings. Start with Surat al Hujurat,
for example,
with little tiny words, every word, and try
to implement it in your life.
Very easy.
But it needs us to make action.
My brothers and sisters,
as the Quran became part of life, I'll
tell you how that happened. And this is
good for some parents and some children who
are in the audience.
My father, again,
he bought us a little video cassette tape.
Now you, the new generation,
I don't know if you know what a
video cassette tape is.
You know what it is?
It's black, it's big.
Well, I should have brought one here just
to test you out. Little video cassette tape,
you put it into the VCR. You know
what a VCR is?
Anyway, that's the way we used to watch
videos of movies.
My father
didn't let us watch normal TV, so he
brought us alternatives.
And the alternative, I remember this particular videotape
was called,
krisosun waibar,
Stories
and lessons.
Stories and lessons.
My brother and I loved this videotape. We
memorized it. And in that, there is a
group of students and their teacher.
And then it goes to another scene where
the same students are enacting a play
of one of the stories in the Quran.
There were about 30 different stories.
That means, through that imagery, as a child,
I was only 8 or 9 years old,
I knew the stories,
half of the stories in the Quran because
half of the Quran is stories.
And whenever I came to recite the Quran,
even though my Arabic wasn't the best because
I was born in Australia and raised before
I went to Lebanon,
just because of that play and few other
words, I knew what the story was about.
Suddenly, the Quran became
a healing process for me,
an enjoyable moment as if I had a
friend that I meet and visit and spend
some time with every day.
Have you ever heard this phrase,
make your book the book is the book
is your best friend?
The
Quran
is your heart's guardian, will Allah handle it.
And Allah says in the Quran,
Do they not ponder and reflect upon the
Quran?
Or is it the case that the heart
has its own locks on it? Did you
know that the heart has its own lock?
And that you can open it or close
it.
The heart itself has its own lock.
And if you abandon the Qur'an, your heart
abandons you.
If you abandon the Qur'an, your heart abandons
you.
If you resort to another form of enjoyment
other than the Quran,
your heart becomes that as well.
So be careful what your ears hear and
what your eyes see, and what your mouth
say.
And I'll give you this very simple advice
about how to fix that.
We all sin. Nobody is meant to be
a perfect Muslim. So don't ever think that
you have to be always on a high
alert of spirituality.
Rasulullah SAW Alaihi Wasallam advised Mu'azz, he was
only about 12 or 13 years old.
Most of the companions of the Prophet SAW
Alaihi Wasallam were young.
He said,
Give me advice here Rasulullah
He said,
Fear Allah, wherever you are, Keep that in
your
mind. Anytime you do a sin,
follow it up immediately
or soon with a good deed. That's all.
It'll wipe your last sin away.
And interact with people
with the best of character.
He said, You Rasool Allah, if I say
La ilaha illallah
after a sin, will that wipe it away?
He said, among the best
of good deeds. Do you see how simple
it is?
Very simple.
It's like a sponge. If you don't keep
washing the sponge away, and you keep cleaning
with it, you're going to have a dirty
table. There's no point.
The heart is like a sponge.
Every time we do a sin,
a little tiny blemish is placed on our
heart. And when we do a good deed,
it washes all away.
Look after your precious hearts, my dear brothers
and sisters.
It is the most precious thing you can
ever have.
If you feel tight chested, that is not
your heart.
If you have any doubts about your deen,
it is not your heart. If you ever
feel as if you're not really motivated for
the Quran, it's not your heart, my brothers
and sisters.
Please separate between these two definitions. Are you
ready?
In the
Quran, when Allah refers to the heart, He
refers in different languages.
One of it is called Al Qanib,
the inner divine moral compass that burns with
energy, that is the heart.
Sometimes he says, assadr
or assudur.
A sudur is like a courtyard. Ibn Qayyim
says it is like a courtyard outside of
the heart. The heart is the house.
And what you allow or what comes into
your courtyard, maybe sometimes you can't prevent it,
don't let it get into your house.
What is the courtyard? How do you know
it's in your courtyard and not in your
heart? Number 1. When you feel tight chested
or uncomfortable with something,
that is your chest, your sadr, not your
heart.
When you don't like the bad thoughts that
come to you,
that is your chest not your heart.
When you have doubts and questions in your
mind, that is your chest not your heart.
And when they went to the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam said, You Rasulullah,
there are thoughts that come to us that
if we were to tell you, and you
built a fire, you lit up a fire
for us to be thrown into it, it's
better for us than to tell you what
goes through our mind.
And Rasul alaihi wasalam said that is the
true sign of iman.
That is the true sign of iman. I
want to tell you that so that you
don't let the shaytan let you think that
something's wrong with you with your intrusive thoughts.
It's just was was wasa.
So your heart is the key.
My brothers and sisters, when I recited the
Quran,
there were 3 main messages
every single time you can recite
about Allah, about jannah, about halfa'i, about the
rules of buying and selling, about the rules
of Hajj and Umrah, about the rules of
salah. You can recite about the rules and
the guidance of getting married. The rules
of inheritance.
You can read anything you want in the
Quran and there is always three things that
you will realize.
And that is number 1,
there is always a theme in it called
a test or a trial.
Everything in the Quran,
it tells you,
afterwards, it is a test or a trial.
It's a fitna and an
Fitna means when you get gold out of
the ground,
and it's mixed with other
properties,
and it goes through the process of burning
and hate
in order to extract the pure gold
from the foreign
metals and foreign properties.
So when Allah Subhana puts us through these
trials, he's bringing out the gold that is
inside your heart.
Don't refuse it.
Secondly, the second theme is they always ended
in a conclusion
of triumph
or failure
based on the reaction of those who were
put through those tests.
Anything that you recite in the Quran, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala talks about trials and tests.
And then,
if it is a story that comes after
because usually,
Allah attaches it to a story.
For example, Sultan Baqarah. It's all revolving around
the story of An Baqarah, the cow and
the children of Israel.
They asked too many questions.
They couldn't just accept the command. They're trying
to wiggle and find shop around for ways
out of the command.
They went against the prophets and the messengers.
They wanted to alter and So this is
what we do. We always question, try to
justify actions in our life in order to
suit our desires. And the batar is the
sort of batar is around that. All the
laws are around that. So you will find
that the end of the story either is
a try is a triumph or a failure
by the people or the person that's been
put through it,
depending on how they reacted.
Number 3. They always followed up with the
reminder from Allah
that it is always about you and Allah.
What does this mean? Remember the story I
told you about when I was in year
8, and that young man had drunk off
the bridge?
I asked,
subhanAllah,
doesn't he have anything else to live for?
What about Allah? What about God? What about
this? This is a child.
And Allah
continues to tell us in the Quran, Always,
always,
always. You're always left in the end with
you and Allah.
Allah tells us he didn't hide it, no
one around us is going to stay.
You're not going to stay for anyone.
Our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters,
our children,
our pets,
our hobbies,
whatever material world there is around us, you
can enjoy it a little bit, you can
love them, your spouses, your husband, your wife,
you can love them in all with all
your heart. It is a blessing from Allah
and a beauty, but guess what?
They're all going to leave us, and we're
going to leave them.
Who is the only one left?
You
and Allah. Brothers and sisters, put this right
at the front part of your brain.
Make this the habit. Everything is just you
and Allah.
And the verses in the Quran are so
many that you keep replying
These are the conclusions, for example. Speaks about
Quran, the one who loved his wealth and
was boasting with superiority of wealth and power,
whether it's talking about marriage problems, whether it's
talking about death and loss, whether it's talking
about power or
or or weakness, whether it's talking about wealth
or poverty, whether it's talking about oppression or,
security, safety, harm, body, someone cannot have children,
bodily harm, whatever it is in the Quran
that it talks about, you will always find
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala takes you back
to the end conclusion.
Don't worry.
I am still with you. And in the
end, it'll be you and me. So develop
your relationship with Allah. You hear verses like
in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Those who when they're stricken with a calamity,
they say, To Allah We belong, and to
Him We shall return. Another verse.
To Allah is all your return
and He will inform you of everything that
you used to dispute about.
And Allah says for example when it talks
about parents and children, about parents who are
disbelievers and striving against their children to lead
them astray and make partners with Allah for
example,
But to me all of you will return,
and I will inform you of everything you
used to do.
So in the end, it's you and Allah.
Why do I say this?
We live,
we
live for Allah
We can lose things, but Allah is still
there.
We can be happy with one thing, but
Allah brings another happiness for us. If you
lose your child, you have other children.
You have other people. You have other purposes.
You have other reasons to live.
And when the time of death comes, the
Quran says,
this is guaranteed.
This is guaranteed. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells
us,
When the time comes, they will not be
delayed a single moment nor brought forward a
single moment. So when death comes to us,
and then let's wait for it.
In the Quran, there is an objective
sign and a subjective sign.
Objective sign is open for everybody.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells you the stars,
the moon, the sun, you're in yourselves, we
all see it.
But there is also subjective sign from the
Quran which only you feel it.
It moves your heart,
and Allah opens doors for you.
The closer you get to Allah through his
words,
the more you see things and Allah opens
veils off your face.
Allah hit, Allah opens veils off your face.
Wallahi, you even go to sleep and you
wake up and you your mouth is dry
because you're still reciting when you go to
sleep. This is what happens to you.
And after that I knew Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is opening a door in some way.
So then I said, Allahummaatimilehikmatu
fasal khitaab. When you know the Quran, you
start saying these little duas. Oh Allah, give
me wisdom and the ability to speak.
In the Quran,
you learn these stories
of the prophets and the messengers, and you
learn their dua, and they become your key
and your guide in your life.
Try it my brothers and sisters. And that
is why Rasool Allahuhi Salam said, for every
letter that you recite in the Qur'an is
how many hasanat?
How many?
10.
10 hasanat. That's the minimum.
Up to 70 folds, Rasul Sallalahu Alaihi Wasallam
said.
La, I'm not saying Rasulullah said, I'm not
saying alif lam, me is a letter, but
alifin is a letter, lam is a letter,
and me means a letter. That's 30.
Taib, how many is in alhamdulillahi
rabbil a'alami? How many letters is that? Have
you ever thought about that?
You recite
in your saldadu outside, albulas shatarajim smalarraf minaraim.
Alhamdulillahi
rabbilamin. Who can do the calculation?
Mean How many did you count? I counted
13.
13?
20. 13.
You want 20?
Is it 20?
Maybe 20, I don't know. I counted
18.
Al Muham,
times it by 10, and times it by
70 after that. That is your reward for
reciting just this much.
And you tell them the Quran doesn't have
some something that affects your heart? Wallahi, it
does. That's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala calls
us to it. Why do you recite the
Quran?
Because this is the way you speak to
Allah and Allah speaks to you.
Allah calls the Quran sometimes hadith.
Hadith means conversation.
Which other hadith and conversation after this will
they believe in? It's a hadith between you
and Allah. Allah is speaking to him and
you are speaking to him.
Did you hear the verse in the Quran
where Allah says?
If my servants ask you about me and
I am close, I will respond to the
caller when so long as they keep calling
upon me.
So let them believe in me and put
their trust in me so that they may
find their way. One of the ways
of turning to Allah that is always there
is the Quran always beside
Let them say what they want, for before
them, many millions have said before them, and
some of them even ended up embracing Islam.
Let them burn it. They're doing us a
favor. Good. The Quran is burnt around the
big throne.
The Quran is in our hearts and
Allah has guaranteed that He is the one
who will keep it
preserved.
Not not a single verse has been changed
in the Quran.
The shortest one is inna'tha and alqauthir, and
I finish with this beautiful
little event that happened to me again, and
then I'll take a break.
Always have the Quran in your life and
recite it, and don't be afraid and don't
be shy.
When in my 1st year of university,
there was a subject called communication for science.
And our lecturer said that we must present
a topic in front of the class
of anything we like, but we have to
give its attachment or we have to connect
it to something about science.
And,
subhanAllah,
I chose the Quran. I had a friend
at university.
He used to come in with the entire
abaya and the big turbid.
Super Muslim, mashallah.
And he was a great friend.
I said, what should I talk about? He
said, talk about the Quran. I said, come
on, man. It's science. Why don't you talk
about the Quran? He goes, Quran is full
of science, full of full of aspects that
are related to science. Yeah.
It's not a scientific book, but it's related
to science.
So I I chose the Qur'anic verses
about the embryo and its development.
And then
I presented it to the class
and described
the scientific studies around it and how the
Quran was way ahead of its time.
And then I said to the students,
this Quran makes a challenge
in 3 parts and three passages.
The first part, it says,
if you do not believe that this is
the word of Allah,
then why didn't you bring a book like
it?
No one has been able to bring a
book like it.
In another passage, Allah then says, if you
do not believe it is the words of
Allah,
then bring a sword like it.
One single chapter.
Sorry, 10 swordas like it. Ten swordas, 10
chapters.
Then in another verse, he says,
Bring one simple surah like it.
Who knows what is the surest surah in
the Quran, all of you know?
The one you recite in your first rakam
insalah.
Which one?
Al Qathar.
The surest surah in the Quran.
3 verses,
literally one and a half lines.
For 1,400
and something years,
have you ever heard of someone who succeeded
in producing
a surah like the Quran as short as
Innaat Anakul Qathur?
Not a single one.
Not a single one.
Wallahi lasa. Everyone who tried, they failed.
After I finished my talk, I went out
and we had a little barbecue with the
MSA, Muslim Student Association.
I'm sure a lot of you know these
associations at universities. May Allah preserve them and
and make them successful.
So we had a barbecue, and we had
non Muslims inviting them to learn about the
Quran. And my student the students that were
in my class came to me,
and they were Catholic and Orthodox and some
of them were atheists.
And they came up to me and all
asked me, they said, your talk was flattergasting.
It was amazing. I said, why?
They said, those words you recited,
you're telling us that they have never been
changed?
Like never altered, not even a letter? Said,
not even a letter.
So you can go around to any Muslim
in the world, or any person in the
world,
even if he lives on the moon, get
them to recite a surah,
anything, and you will find that it's exactly
the same.
You would have never met them,
by heart, a child, an adult, anyone.
And he said to me, not a single
verse, nothing. I said, yes. And he started
getting really,
excited, him and his friends.
He said that is absolutely amazing. See, he
was a thinker.
I said, why? He said, all of our
books are corrupt. You know, our priests tell
us this or that. But really, honestly, it's
not really
intact the way it was sent upon Jesus.
It's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They have
pen names. We don't even know who they
are. We don't know who it's author. But
we know the Quran.
He said, I would like to learn about
the Quran. Subhanallah.
I don't know if he ended up becoming
a Muslim and his friends,
but at least he appreciated the Quran from
a person who had never heard about it.
So my brothers and sisters, be proud of
your Quran, and know that it is a
healing, it is your platform, it is a
thing that lifts you. Wallahi,
at one stage, I could relate to that
man who threw himself off the bridge. That
did happen to me at once time.
But never did I become
with any in that action. I just thought,
I know why.
I know why these people do that. And
I do still remember this moment,
standing on the roof in Lebanon
after the tragedy had happened.
And you all know, most of you are
from Palestine,
other countries.
The adhan and the Quran is recited on
the microphones
in the minarets of the masjid.
And when the Quran came on,
immediately the first verse that
I remembered was,
Do not kill yourselves.
Do not overburden yourselves.
Do not destroy yourselves.
Allah is ever so merciful to you. The
Quran lifted me and it will lift you.
Do not abandon it my dear brothers and
sisters and do not replace it and make
it be your heart, your soul, your guide,
your friend, your sibling, your mother, your father,
everything. Make
the Quran the garden of our hearts, and
me.
And now I come to the second part.
There's so much to say about the Quran,
but there is one thing that I would
like to begin
to lift your spirits and your heart in
this particular gathering.
Did you know that our Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam, he told us in the hadith
which is in Bukhari and similar to it
in Muslim that there are angels
specifically
entrusted
to go around looking for gatherings of people
who are reciting the Quran in one of
the houses of Allah.
Meaning learning the Qur'an, reciting it, learning it
and remembering Allah. And when they find them
they open their wings up and they encompass
them. And then when they go back to
Allah, Allah says, what were My servants doing?
He says, they were
remembering you. Then He asks them, did they
ask Me for anything? They say they asked
for Your forgiveness.
He asks them, did do they fear anything?
He says, they fear Your fire. And then
Allah says, and the
and forgiveness.
And do they want anything other than a
fire,
other than saving from the fire? They say
they want paradise. And then Allah says, bear
witness My angels. I have forgiven them. Saved
them from the fire and admitted them into
paradise. They said they say, You Rasool Allah,
there was a person who just entered. He
had no other business with the Quran except
he had some little something with one of
the people that were sitting at the Quran
gathering, like maybe money transaction or something. And
he set aside waiting.
Should we encompass him in his du'a You
Rabbi? And Allah says
that
that is a person
whom His company is the people of the
Quran will never fail.
Meaning a person who knows and befriends
anybody or even is in the gathering of
people who are remembering Allah, Allah includes them
as well. This is the special case of
you people who have gathered here today and
perhaps Allah has chosen you. Those who had
the intention and couldn't make it, insha'Allah, it
will be counted for them as well. So
let us move on now.
From the Quran, we understand
that among the steps of reaching
the divine
and the happiness
is what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed us
with and that is called a du'a.
The meaning of a du'a, my brothers and
sisters, remember this. It is Ibadah. It's worship.
Dua is what?
Worship. It is like the salah, like the
Quran, like the zikr, like hajj, like umrah,
like everything.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us constantly
in the Quran.
And your Lord said, call upon me, I
will respond
for you.
Listen to that
very specific word
astajib
lakum.
Lakum means for you. There is a difference
between I will give you what you want
and I will give you what is best
for you.
Do you understand the difference?
For you means
Allah will not only give you exactly what
you ask for, He will do something better
for you. If you put your trust in
Him, He will look at what you asked,
and if it is good for you, he'll
give it. If there's something better, he will
give you even better. If it is not
good for you, he will
delay it. Or He will give you something
in its place better. Or He will ward
off a bad from you. Every dua is
responded to.
But brothers and sisters,
just from reciting that verse, you understand already
that the When you call upon Allah
and when you want something from Him
you have to understand this.
You have to understand
that you are calling upon the One who
knows
the future,
the past, and the present, and He knows
everything. Isn't that correct?
That
means,
you compared to Allah, you don't know anything.
What you are asking for could be good
for you, could be bad. Isn't that correct?
So wouldn't you want Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to give you what is best for you?
And not give you what you're asking for
if there's something better or if it's bad
for you?
That's how dua is.
Astajib laku, I will respond but for you.
Meaning, what's best for you.
If Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gives us everything
we asked for, it's in the Quran.
None of us will ever see a single
bit of happiness and we will be destroyed.
Because we don't know
and the law knows.
Do you know, for example, as Surat al
Isra' Allah says,
And
And man calls in their du'a a du'a
which they don't know that is actually bad
for them.
And man is ever so hasty.
Hasty, they want it right now.
And Allah says, don't hasten your Lord.
The time is coming.
Your Lord knows what you're going through.
In time, in time, patience.
Dua'a, all my dear brothers and sisters, is
also in the following way. It doesn't have
to be with the mouth.
You don't have to say anything.
We said du'a is worship. Therefore,
did you know that your entire salat from
the mum you said Allahu Akbar to the
end is a dua in itself? I'll give
you just one example.
When you say Allahu Akbar, that is a
dua. You'll say Allah is greater than anything.
So what are you asking? What does that
mean? What does that mean?
It means, oh Allah,
every burden that is upon me, and every
oppression that is upon me, and every hardship
that is upon me,
You have created its means,
and You are greater than it. So, O
Allah, assist me and give me the strength
against any bird.
That's all it makes.
Allahu Akbar. You've begun with your dua, subhanahu
wa'ala. Another form of dua is when you
do actions
of righteousness.
When you do a sadaqa.
When you help someone for the sake of
Allah. When you say a good word to
someone. When you forgive someone. When you help
someone get their rights. When you assist someone
in anything, moving homes, with their studies, with
whatever it is that you are helping them
with, even helping them put on a shirt,
helping your mother, helping your father, helping your
sibling, even helping yourself.
But in any act of of goodness and
righteousness,
if you just say for example, Bismillah,
or in your mind and in your heart
your intention is, oh Allah, see my good
work, then that becomes duha. What are you
saying? When you put that For example,
if I buy a gift for somebody that
I love in order to make them feel
a little bit happier because they've gone through
a hardship, like sickness or a breakup or
something like that. The dua
here
that I'm saying is, O Allah,
when I am in need, bring me serenity
and comfort.
And guess what else?
The angels
are the ones
who make dua for you.
Allah says in the Quran,
The skies, the heavens
are soon
to split asunder
from the greatness of their lord,
from above us.
And the angels glorify their lord and praise
him.
And they constantly are making du'a of istighfar.
Seek, asking Allah to forgive those who are
on earth.
Behold,
Allah is the best forgiver, the most merciful.
The angels make dua for you. Here is
another way du'a is made, when you make
du'a for others,
not for yourself, for others.
Oh, Allah, forgive all the believers.
Oh, Allah, relieve the pain of all the
believers,
all the Muslims. O Allah, ease the pain
of so and so.
The angel behind you says, O Allah,
and give him the same.
Now, even dua is done with
things that are not even acts of righteousness.
They are normal, natural things, such as wearing
your shoe.
Before you go out and you wear your
shoes, say bismillah.
Suddenly, the entire time you're wearing your shoe
is a badad and du'a.
What is a du'a? Oh Allah, everything I
do with this shoe is in your name.
So make sure you do it in righteousness.
Say for example, oh Allah, bring goodness from
the shoe that it wore.
Du'a is not also only requesting.
Du'a is also worship and gratification.
Gratitude. Sorry. Gratitude.
Rasul
was seen by Aisha
1 night.
And he kept on praying,
and she said to him, You Rasool Allah,
go back to sleep.
Allah has forgiven all your sins. You don't
have to even worry about it.
But he kept on praying until his feet
cracked open.
Came in, called in the Adhan, and waited
for the
Satyan Rasulullah had been standing all this time,
all night, in 2 rakhas from the Isha
until Fajr.
Yeah Rasulullah, Allah has forgiven everything for you.
You don't even have to worry about it.
It's a gift. And Rasulullah
replied the following,
Then should I not at least be a
thankful servant?
Duha
is thankfulness.
And what does Allah say in the Quran?
If you are grateful,
I will increase you. That's what Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala will do. So as you can
see brothers and sisters,
du'a is this in summary.
Let's move on to the next one which
is interesting, which a lot of people have
misconceptions about,
istikhara.
Now,
have one guess.
What do people usually do istighara for? One
guess quick in 5 seconds.
Marriage.
You see?
It's like as if nothing in life matters
except marriage.
Istikhara is done for everything in life.
How about a job, a career? How about
having children? How about you're about to leave
to a market? You know, the sahabas, the
the the companions,
Some of them used to make a stikhara
wallahi
when they're about to tie their shoelace. I'm
not telling you have to make stikhara all
the time because that's all you've been doing
all your life.
But some of them even did that. That's
how much they loved this stikhara. But we
have a problem.
Let's talk about marriage, since it's what
comes on our minds.
What is
the understanding,
your understanding of when you make us the
heart of a marriage?
I'll tell you.
The majority because they talk to me all
the time.
I get so many messages like that. By
the way, disclaimer.
I don't open most of these messages. Okay?
Because it just takes up too much time.
I tried.
But you got masha'Allah, lots of masha'if and
imams you can go to. But from the
ones that I've seen in my interaction,
when they do istikhara for a marriage, this
is what they're doing.
They're saying their istikhara and they say the
following words,
O Allah,
I seek your guidance,
and I seek your decree and your will,
for you know,
and I do not know.
Who knows? He knows, and you do not
know.
And you will, and I cannot
will.
And you know the unseen
eternally.
Oh Allah.
First part.
If,
Muhammad
is good for me
or Fatima,
for marriage,
then grant them to me,
and bless them for me.
Or, my marriage to Fatima or Muhammad is
good for me, blessed for me, granted for
me,
and willed for me.
And if my marriage to Fatima o Muhammad
is bad for me, in my religion, I
should have added religion,
worldly life, and affairs,
then keep it keep this marriage away from
me, And me away from this marriage. Then
the third part. And will for me, wherever
the goodness is for me, and then help
me to accept it.
Is that clear?
That's all. These are all the words of
the istikhara.
When people do the istikhara, they forget all
the words they said.
And they come to me and say,
why?
But I love him.
I can't live without it. We broke apart,
I will I did istighara, I did the
hajjud, I did That's exactly what he has
to do. You did the hajjud, you did
istighara.
Because you want guidance.
So now it's difficult and Allah's putting obstacles
in your way, everything is destroyed or whatever,
you tried your best and you're still now
just imagining and putting
This is what they're really saying.
Oh, Allah, I know that you know and
you know maybe not good for me, but
can you just make it good for me
even if it's bad for me?
Just make it even if it's bad for
you. I'm I'm happy.
But I just won't tell the new one.
We'll keep it a
secret.
You Allah, if she's bad for me still
give it to me, but if she's bad
for me.
Like that.
I remember 1 person sat in front of
the Kaaba,
said, oh Allah, grant me her.
They came
back. Every obstacle did not matter to this
person. I said, I made my du'a in
front of the Kaaba.
That means I must get that person.
Allah will not refuse my dua.
But it didn't happen.
You know, I went to the other person
and they said, it's because I made an
asthih and du'a, not to grant me that
person.
I
said, grant me. The other person's like, don't
grant me. Who's du'a? Both of them, alhamdulillah.
And grant me wherever it's good. You know,
the problem is we are full of anxiety.
Allah says,
And the verses continue,
and so on.
Man was created naturally
impatient.
Jazuah means haduah means impatient.
They always fear something's gonna go wrong, it
has to happen now, immediately,
impatient.
If bad happens to them,
they are filled with grieveness and sadness and
they cannot hold themselves together.
They burst, they they they explode with immorality.
And if good happens to them,
they become miserly and stingy, mine.
No one else.
Allah says except those who constantly pray their
prayers, and not anyone who just constantly pray
their prayers, the ones who are
continuously
doing their prayers correctly.
Not just prayer,
but you establish your prayer correctly, such as
in Surat Al Mu'minun as well. But let's
get back to the Dua.
So naturally, we have this idea of impatience
and fear, but really it's all in our
heads.
Our brother said to me,
laiakhir, I can't get over that
girl.
I said, why not?
Said, you know, we spent a lot of
time together, and we've been gone dating. And
in the end, I said, what happened?
Said, her parents said no.
What about your parents?
Said, oh, they're okay with it.
But what about hers? She won't get married
until her father's happy. I said, no, I'll
reward it. Keep trying.
Said, but it's not working out. She changed
her mind. I said, well, move on. Find
someone else. It's not easy, sir.
See, my heart is with her. I'm torn
apart.
Now I know that feeling, of course. We
all have been torn apart.
But we need to help them get through
it insha'allahu
ta'ala.
But the problem here is when somebody starts
to become religiously delusional.
Have you ever heard of religious delusion?
It's when you start to turn religion into
this
supernatural
mystical
kind of world. There is no reality to
it. And I'll give you an example.
If I do an Istikhara,
and in my mind
I'm supposed to be see a dream.
Nothing in the Quran or hadith told me
I'm supposed to see a dream.
Nothing.
So then,
I wait for it.
It doesn't happen, or it happens.
Or I wait for a sign, a divine
sign somewhere.
Someone said, I do an istikhara. I have
my prayer mat. I don't know the association
between prayer mat and istikhara by the way,
because they have to have the prayer mat.
Nothing wrong with it, but there's no association
between the 2. Okay? They put the pyramid,
and they have to stay sitting on it.
And they wait, wait, wait, wait about 20
minutes,
and then the epiphany comes down.
An enlightenment.
Is that how istikhara works?
Someone said to me,
Allah, Allahu Sheikh. I went outside and I
could see in the clouds her name.
So, subhanallah,
what name do you see? He said so
and so. I said I can see shayta.
Shayta.
Yeah, I think, brother, come on.
So when we start getting these delusions, we
think everything is a little sign.
Christians do it, Jews do it, Hindus do
it, Buddhists do it, and Muslims do it.
So who's right and who's wrong?
One person said,
I will not get married until my sheikh
does the istikhara and sees a dream
or the or the sheikh. This person stayed
until they were 40.
Many proposals came, never got married waiting for
their sheikh to see a dream.
And they said you gotta go to a
sheikh or an imam as if we are
more divine. We gotta do an istikhara and
see a dream.
Another person went to his parents,
fell in love with this particular person.
By the way, I get afraid of that
word, fell in love. I mean, there is
love, but how did you fall in love,
honey? What happened?
Let's have a look at it.
Parents didn't want them. They didn't want her.
So he said, I made a stikhara and
my stikhara was good. She made a istikhara
and she saw goodness
because they're relying on dreams.
They went to the mom and dad, mom
and dad don't want her.
They said, hold on son, let us make
an istikhara.
We go to the masjid 5 times a
day, you don't. That means our istikhara is
something special.
Father and mother went, made a istikhara, they
don't want her, right? Guess what they saw?
A bad dream.
She was the worst on earth.
Father comes up, son, Allah has showed me.
The son says to me, But I made
istikhara shirk and it was good.
How? What do I do? What do I
do?
I said, none of you are correct.
But then even if it was a dream
from Allah, we don't have a scale or
a way of measuring
what this dream means.
Keep going forward, insha'Allah. And I gave him
some solutions. Alhamdulillah, he followed them.
The istikhara
is very simple. You do it, and you
leave the outcome to Allah and rely on
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Then what happens is
either
doors open and you start getting there, or
doors closed and obstacle after obstacle, they get
worse and worse and worse until you get
to a point where you can no longer
go forward.
So I'll repeat it again. Do your istikhara,
leave your trust in Allah,
and move forward. Like keep going. You're supposed
to make a decision. You make a decision.
You ask for advice.
You study yourself,
you look at your needs,
you look at something called the akhdubin asbaab
which means to look at cause and effect,
use common sense,
then make a decision, and before you make
that step,
whatever it is, make the istikhara and move
forward.
Yeah, make the istikhara, start the car and
go. Let's see how things go. If the
engine stops, halos, it's not meant to go.
That's how it is.
Make this tikharah and move forward. Now sometimes
people may feel something.
As you go forward, you do feel ishirah,
which means an openness in your heart.
And that's a good sign. Sometimes you feel
closeness, and the more closed it is, the
worse it is. And sometimes you feel nothing.
Keep going. Keep going, Insha'Allah.
And don't think that no obstacles are gonna
happen. There's some hardships. Nothing ever ever comes
very easy.
But that's what istikhara basically is. So in
a very simple term, what is istikhara?
It is
delegating
Allah
to manage
your affair.
Delegating
Allah to manage
your affair.
Leave it to Allah.
Moving on from is
the relationships.
My brothers and sisters, a lot of heartache
and spiritual sadness
and even mental sadness
comes from people
and their broken up relationships
and bad time with people they love,
family,
parents, children,
and relationship with the opposite gender.
I had this night and day from young
people saying, we broke up. Please help me.
I don't know how to live and what
to do. SubhanAllah.
And this is what we were talking about,
that at the end of the day,
our connection with Allah
helps us a lot when things don't go
our way. Rasool, salarahu alaihi wasalam, told us,
seek Allah's help.
Don't become,
debilitated
or paralyzed.
Keep moving forward. And don't say if, for
if is the door of the shaitan to
give you mental illnesses or spiritual illnesses and
so on.
If it didn't happen, say, oh Allah, assist
me and help me, and guide me to
what is best.
Within a few months, Insha'Allah,
it should get easier and easier.
Now brothers and sisters,
sometimes we put an image and a world
in our head when we first meet someone.
We develop an image, and this is very
natural and normal because we don't know them
very well, and they don't know us very
well. So we start creating a world, an
imagery in our head with that person, and
we start dreaming good dreams about that person.
And we cannot forget about them, not because
they're the best for us necessarily. Maybe they
are. Maybe they're not.
But it's the world that we developed inside
our head
that we are chasing.
It is the idea of that person,
not necessarily the person themself,
especially if you don't know much about them.
So it brings me to this,
to safeguard your heart,
please understand the difference between an emotional decision
and a rational
decision.
You need to be able to be to
to know the difference, read about it.
Obviously, you know just from the word.
A difference emotional decision,
can you trust in that type of decision?
If you
had a daughter or a son or a
young brother or sister or even a friend
who you can tell
that they are attached to something or someone
and you can tell they're just emotional about
it rather than Russia.
Do you think they're going in the right
direction?
Would you advise them to keep going or
you will help them to regulate themselves and
try to put some common sense into them?
Right?
Now apply it to yourself who is the
most important person in the world. It's yourself.
Yourself.
Are you making an emotional decision or is
it a rational one? I'll give you one
little thing that I helped a young man
with.
There was this sister who he was
so interested in.
He made his tikharah, he did everything he
asked me.
And then, subhanAllah,
one day,
I asked him for her name.
And I went and asked about her
and found that she had really bad traits,
really bad.
So I came back and said, Habibi, she's
got very bad traits. Look, you came from
an, you know, a reliable source.
You're going to live a life of toxicity.
The worst is toxic love. You love her,
you can't get it. You can't leave her.
Obviously the opposite is true, there are brothers
like that too.
So anyway,
he tried to forget about her. 3 years
later,
she's still on his mind.
Okay.
Common sense doesn't work, istikhara is not working,
dua is not working, nothing.
So one day,
somehow, I don't know how that happened,
anyway, first I said to him, look, you
can't get over it? Hollis, go for it.
Why don't you go and ask for her
and meet her?
Even with that trait.
Perhaps by getting closer and talking within a
family environment,
maybe you'll get put off yourself, or at
least, maybe you would have satisfied
whatever is on your mind,
and let's see what happens.
Anyway,
we went to find out the number,
and for 3 years, guess what?
I had the wrong name.
I had the wrong name, suh, pard.
I said, you, Allah, I'm really sorry.
Because you made me wait 3 years. I
said, hey, hey, hey, you're still available. Hey,
Halbar. Maybe Allah has a plan for you.
I don't know. I use the the whole
shenanigans of
maybe Allah has a plan, maybe Allah has
a test for you, maybe maybe they Just
ahamdulillah. It's true. Maybe Allah does have a
plan for him.
Anyway, subhanAllah,
he went.
We found out, the father.
And the emotions that he had was just
because he looked at her and he liked
her face features.
You know? That's the color of her skin,
the shape of her eyes,
and, of course, her lips.
I said, Habibi, these are not real lips.
No. No. No. I'd like.
So then he went, sorry, I it's true.
It's just what happened.
So he went.
And subhanallah,
just by going and sitting and asking the
right questions, I said you ask this, you
ask that, you ask that, and he let
her ask you.
If you don't, I wanna ask her, tell
her about yourself, and then ask her, then
what about yourself?
I coached him. He went there, he said
done. But you see,
alhamdulillah,
he hadn't met her yet, he hadn't gone
out with her or dated her.
He went straight to the family and wanted
to get to know her through that means.
And alhamdulillah, with only one session, he got
put off.
SubhanAllah.
He made this tikharah, he got put off.
And subhanAllah, that was his healing.
3 years.
In the end,
hamdulillah, he's free. So sometimes,
you need to make a step,
probably even go and try. And that's why
we say to people, when you make a
stikhara,
don't decide what is right or wrong or
what the outcome is. Make a step and
see what happens inshaAllah.
Emotional attachment usually happens
when you don't really know the person. We
call it infatuation
or we call it a crush.
Usually, somebody who is known
and you fall in love with the idea
of them.
Or maybe you like their looks.
Or maybe you go out with them.
If you go out with them alone, my
brothers and sisters, wallahi, as your brother and
as your, for some of you, like your
father figure, my advice to you,
and I know exactly what you're talking about,
I've lived in Australia all my life, I
understand what's going on,
it's going to be worse for you.
Why?
If you go out with someone, the idea
is that you think that you're going to
know them because you are with them, you're
talking together. It's not about how long, it's
about the quality
of the time and what you get to
know about them. What happens naturally it's not
that it has to be she or he
to be good for you. It's just the
memories there. And, you know, if you meet
together outside of your reality, outside of your
family, outside of who you are, you're always
gonna be on your best behavior most of
the time. Now you might go forward and
then you'll start knowing the person's personality a
little bit more, but you still don't know
how they are around family,
around their real friends. You haven't really asked
about them
in where you should, it's your there's emotions
happening here. So when you go for the
reality and you start involving your parents and
their parents and their families, you might discover
some things that you never saw before, but
it's going to be hard for you to
step back. And every single time, and I
can give it 9 out of 10 times,
that I've done marriages for people. I've done
about 2,000 marriages in Australia.
And I can I was telling my brothers
and sisters before that I can guess about
7 out of 10 times which marriages will
work and which ones aren't? And these people,
they when some of them tell me their
story, when they come to me and say,
oh, it's not working out, I ask them,
how did you get to meet?
What did you do? How did you make
this decision?
Almost every time, brother and sisters, not not
every time but almost,
yeah, maybe most of the time,
the way they got to know each other
was wrong. It was based on emotional decisions.
So when it came down to the crunch,
they were stressed, they just wanna convince their
parents, they just wanna get it over and
done with. She's probably have fights with her
family. His has fights with his family maybe.
It's been a struggle. And then in the
end, they just wanna get married. But they
really don't know. They haven't asked the right
questions. They haven't discussed the right things they're
supposed to be discussing and you find out
later when you got married.
And so you go into this spiral.
So brothers and sisters, the Islamic way and
the best way, really, if you have family,
if you have parents, if they have parents,
if they have anyone like that, the best
way is to
approach it through the family. Even if you
talk to them once or twice, don't let
it drag on.
Get to the family, inshallah. I promise you,
you have a better chance of knowing that
person more than anything else. The outside world
doesn't really know you that well.
Your family knows you better, and then finally
the husband and wife know each other the
most.
On YouTube, I have a little talk called
the 12 questions to ask before marriage,
and have a look at them inshallah.
That will help you along the way.
So brothers and sisters, in a nutshell, I
think you got the idea. I'm sure you
have some questions for me. But
what we said today in this,
short lecture with you, this wonderful meeting with
you,
is that we talked about the Quran and
how it is your guide and healing in
your life.
Do not leave it everyday
read. Even if you don't know how to
recite and read in Arabic, recite the verses
that you've memorized.
You can even grab an English transliteration
and try to read the English letters.
If you don't know how to read, listen.
Listening is also part of
like reciting.
Number 2, we talked about du'a and what
it means and how to constantly
live with it. Then we talked about astikhara,
and then we talked about relationships.
Why did we talk about all these things?
We talked about them because these are the
avenues to
either worldly happiness and spiritual happiness,
or
abandoning them or doing them the wrong way
can lead you to mental
unhappiness
and to spiritual unhappiness.
May Allah
grant us understanding
and guide us the straight path. Forgive our
sins. Make the Quran the garden of our
hearts, and help us to bring us
those who are best for us in our
life. The best of spouses and righteous ones.
The compatible ones. To fix and help us
fix our relationships with our parents, with our
siblings, with our community, and with ourselves.