Bilal Assad – Your Ego VS You
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
I have
prepared a short topic for you this evening
which I think is very important
that goes into the core
of our
inner self
and discusses an important aspect
about our direction in life,
our social interaction,
and what could ruin our chances
of going into paradise and
even losing our credibility in this world.
It certainly is a topic which takes care
of our spiritual health,
our mental health,
our relationships,
our deen, and our hereafter.
We called it
your ego and you.
And Insha'Allah this evening I'm going to talk
about
the definition and explanation
and signs
of ego.
What is it?
Is it good?
Is it bad?
Is it a mix of the 2?
How to catch yourself?
What are its
dangers? What are its benefits?
How does it occur?
And I'll give you some signs
for you to reflect on yourself and myself.
Then the second part,
I wanna move to a bigger topic
which results from
unhealthy ego.
And that is called Kibr.
Kibr
which means arrogance.
These are two topics
wanna revolve around and bring at home
to see how it's affecting us in our
lives
whether it's in your relationships,
yourself,
your friends on social media,
with your family,
and with your deen
and your dawah.
When you teach people about Islam,
when you correct people,
when we are as a community,
how ego
and arrogance
can ruin a person's
entire
actions and deeds and efforts
and render them void
in the hereafter
and destroy
your credibility and your self esteem,
your reputation and your importance
in the community.
So we're going to learn about how
to raise your self esteem today, tonight.
How to guard
your importance
and how to be motivated
without needing to resort to
the ego
and to arrogance.
And how to ensure
that our relationships,
our din, our practices
are safe in this world
and also in the hereafter.
I'll begin first of all by defining the
word ego,
an English word that comes from a Latin
meaning
I or me,
me, myself,
or I?
Have you ever seen someone
who talks about himself or herself big
or acts
as if the entire universe revolves around them
and they're the center.
You call them
is a big
head.
Sometimes we say is full of himself or
herself.
Thinks that the universe
revolves around them and everything's about them.
We've all come across these types of people.
And pass possibly,
we have been that nuisance to other people
too.
In fact, many people,
they are egotistic
and don't even realize it,
not conscious to it.
And that's even worse because
every problem
and every development starts
from recognizing
yourself
and the problem before you can resolve it.
The ego.
In the Quran, we have a word called
nafs,
which means your inner self. It's made up
of your conscience,
your subconscious mind,
your desires,
your needs, and wants.
The ego
is part of that personality. It's part of
your nafs.
And the nafs in the body
is
very childish
and very cheeky,
but it's also very dangerous.
In what way?
The nafs
commands you
and always makes you think about your own
needs,
wants,
desires,
and the ego part of it
is also about your wants, needs, and desires,
but its main goal is your self gratification.
I'm the best.
All attention on me.
Some people even buy number plates on their
cars.
All eyes on me.
We actually live in a world that's really
self centered now.
Everyone's about
satisfying,
most people are about satisfying
themselves,
their own desires, their wants and needs.
The ego
and the nafs
is dangerous if you obey it.
But
the nafs can also rise
and you can purify it
so that you become its master and it
becomes your slave.
So the ego is part of the nafs.
The ego can be your master and you
become its slave,
or you can reverse it and you become
its master and it becomes
your slave.
So in other words, it is the inner
force
which sucks you in to make you care
about no one but yourself.
So long as you satisfy your wants,
desires,
and it's about your needs and wants,
Its ultimate goal is self gratification
at any cost. And
it makes you
feel that you are more important to the
one you really are.
It's a false
belief
about your own identity.
I am this
and I demand that people
treat me and talk to me like this.
And I am entitled,
and I am more
than what people think of me and what
I even think of myself, I'm higher than
that.
When in actual reality,
I might not have all those talents, I
might not have all those values.
I'm nowhere near
this false image that I think I am.
But I'll still expect people around me to
treat me that way. And if they don't,
I will become like a child. I will
nag. I will bash. I will fight. I'll
accuse. I will be condescending
to other people
and I will search for any place where
I can
prove this false image of mine. Today, it's
on social media.
Amazing place for anybody
who would love to inflate their ego
until their head grows so big that even
the windows in this masjid can smash
and their heads can be the dome itself.
That's ego.
But that's called unhealthy ego.
That's when I obey my ego, when I
obey my desires. Brothers and sisters, you know
where this comes from?
It comes from several places.
Number 1, we are born with
it. It's like a factory setting, which Allah
put in each and every one of us.
How do I know? It's in the Quran.
Allah says in Surat al Shams, we all
know it.
And I swear by the nafs, the self.
And the way Allah designed it. And
He gave this nafs the tendency
the tendency
to be able to become immoral beyond measure.
And he also gave it the tendency
to become
God conscious
on an extreme high level.
Then Allah says, qadaflhaaman
zakaha wakathharbaaman
dasahe.
He who purifies this nafs and this ego,
honors it,
tames it,
trains it,
denies it,
and nurtures
it to become pure,
humble,
god fearing,
god conscious,
selfless,
honored, respected,
moral
has succeeded.
And he who obeys it
and grovels over it, does whatever it tells
them to do,
has destroyed themselves
and lost.
So
that's the dark side of the ego.
If you obey it, it'll destroy you.
But there is also a healthy ego.
Allah created inside of us this ego,
number 1, as a test.
We are tested with this nafs and this
ego.
Will you obey it or will you rise
above it? Number 1. Number 2, It is
through
that which you prove your status with Allah
and with the rest of the people. If
you
follow your ego, you lose your credibility
with people and with Allah. And if you
rise above your ego, you win your credibility
with Allah
and with the people as well. Number 3,
our ego is there because it has some
benefit to us as well.
The benefit of the ego is if you
have control over it, it can become a
motivator.
For what? We said already that the ego
is about your wants
by satisfying your wants and desires. Didn't we
say that?
Uh-huh. Aren't there any wants and desires which
are good and praiseworthy as well?
Yes, there is.
If you wanna increase your lovely relationship with
your spouse, with your children, with your parents,
with your siblings,
Sometimes you need to be motivated.
A dose of
ego inflation is good in that sense but
for what? So long as it's for a
good thing, for a good cause.
I might have an ego to please Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. That's a good ego. Allah
says in the Quran,
It is in this that those who want
to compete should competing
towards paradise, towards goodness.
That that's that's a a satisfaction
of my desires. I would love to please
Allah. I would love to go to paradise.
That's a want and a need. That's a
good need because it only leads to good
work.
It's selfless.
Some people can train their ego to be
selfless
and find satisfaction in
charity,
in salah, prayer, in doing good onto others,
in
helping people, in being humble,
in being,
easygoing,
that can be a satisfaction too.
But you need to nurture and train the
ego.
My brothers and sisters,
some of the
signs
which,
I've gathered
that could possibly
show that you have
an ego that's on the verge or at
the risk
of turning into something worse.
And that is arrogance,
kibr
which is
a disease of the heart.
If you have the following signs
you need to check yourself. Number 1,
a person whose ego
is being inflated
is that
you find yourself to be a poor listener.
You are slow to hear,
quick to speak,
and quick to anger.
As soon as somebody disagrees with your opinion,
you become immoral.
Quick to speak, quick to fire, quick to
be sarcastic.
We see it all the time, especially on
social media because people can say whatever they
want.
And just becomes back and forth stupidity and
childishness. Ego is a childish thing. It's that
child inside of you.
Back and forth, back and forth, wasting hours
over nothing.
Arguing for nothing, no benefit. A mature person
is above their ego,
stands
honored above
arguing and bickering,
and being sarcastic and saying back and forth
bantering
hours for nothing. You don't a person doesn't
waste their time with that.
Number 2,
a sign of an inflated ego is you
get defensive when
someone gives you feedback.
A Muslim
honors feedback
so long as it's sincere feedback.
Umar Al Khattar
used to say,
may Allah have mercy on a person
who gifts me
feedback about my shortcomings
because that's how you improve.
Number 3, you want others to do things
for you, but you hesitate to do things
for others.
That's an inflated ego,
a self entitled person. These things can also
result from your childhood upbringing.
Could it be a person that been denied,
put down, denigrated,
denied maybe,
not being allowed to be a kid and
express their feelings and being taught. Maybe some
parents, they teach their children
egotistic
nature. I'll tell you how how parents can
teach children that. Be careful if you have
children.
That is when you
defend
your child and tell them to fight
and to oppose
whether they're right or wrong.
That's one of the worst ways of destroying
your children.
You need to let them face reality,
what's right and what's wrong. And when they're
in the wrong, they have to also
know the consequences
and admit.
But if I tell my child,
any fight that happens, any argument that happens,
anything that happens at school, anything happens with
their friend, with their relatives, with their cousins,
with anybody,
My child's always right now defend them tooth
and nail. I'm going to develop a dangerous
egotistic
entitlement in my child when they grow up,
and they're gonna use that against me too.
That's the meaning of the Hadith,
The
way you act and treat others is the
way the treatment is going to be around
your life.
So be careful of that.
Number 4, you do not try to understand
or empathize with people who disagree with you.
When you argue your goal isn't to understand
and connect with people, your goal is to
prove you are right.
And this also happens
among people
trying to be religious.
Instead of really trying to call people to
deen and correct them for the sake of
Allah,
they do it for the sake of their
own ego satisfaction.
Some people I read an article which calls
it spiritual
narcissism
or religious arrogance.
I come and I teach you or I
correct you,
not because I really do want Allah to
be pleased with me and to really help
the community to become better people or really
because I want goodness for you.
No. I do it because of my ego.
I wanna satisfy the fact that I can
control
and tell and order someone else and tell
them what they're doing wrong. It could be
because my childhood,
I was missing out on gratification
or I was missing out on some love.
And maybe as I got older, I was
possibly
in a very bad life. And now that
I suddenly become religious,
I think that everybody around me needs a
reformation, and I am the one who has
to do it. And then I forget where
I was. And then what happens is it's
not really about guidance anymore. It becomes about
me.
It's about me bringing my thug life, for
example,
from my jahiliyah days, from my ignorant days,
I bring it into Islam now. So I'm
a thug there and now I'm a Muslim
thug.
There was a topic long time ago. I
heard it from a sheikh. It's called thugs
in the masjid.
When you turn
the religion to serve your ego,
Any verse of the Quran that suits me,
I'll use it.
It's not really about right or wrong. It's
about me.
And and it I wanna advise someone. It's
not it's not really about guiding them, it's
because I wanna show that I'm the man.
Women do it too. It's kinda like a
self satisfaction
to serve my ego
so I can feel better in a false
world.
And that's the worst type when I use
religion
for my ego.
And this is where it leads from there
to something called Ria.
Riya is when I do religious acts just
for eye service, for reputation, for people to
praise me.
Ego,
ego
unhealthy ego
is all about
validation,
pleasing others,
meaning you want others to say good things
about you.
It's all about
praise.
So this is the problem.
Healthy ego is about pleasing Allah,
not about yourself.
So be careful with that one. Allah says,
The people of the past before Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, but Allah tells us about
them,
children of Israel and others,
they started to use the verses of Allah
to buy
satisfactions in their life,
for their wants and desires. So they sold
the verses of Allah. What does it mean
they sold the verses of Allah? It means
they used them, they altered them, they interpreted
them, they manipulated them
in order
to have a personal gain
after the verses of Allah. And it's very
easy to manipulate people when you give them
prophecies
in, you know, the prophet there's a prophecy
coming,
but I'm lying to you.
I manipulate you with something about the hereafter
which I made up or manipulated so they
can continue to honor me
if I'm in a place of position.
And people do it today on I see
it on the internet all the time.
They can't wait to see someone doing a
mistake. They will go out of their way,
probably miss their prayer and delay it to
tell this person. It's like it's like a
fetish for them. You know what a fetish
is? They get excited from it.
Get some excited.
Terrible.
My uhwan, brothers and sisters,
Jannah
looks into the heart, the hearts have to
be proper,
they have to be sincere.
And the person doing with the pleasure of
Allah,
We have to always remember where we came
from, who we are, what we were born
out of, where we're going.
Remember we are weak
and it will come to that. Number 5,
you have fun, you have
you
if you think it,
you gotta say it. And if you say
it, you're gonna stick to it.
Right or wrong. I said it, I'll stick
by it.
Why?
If it's wrong, it's wrong. No, I'm gonna
stick by it.
That's inflated ego.
Number 6, you mistakenly think that having an
opinion is the same as having credibility.
And if I have an opinion,
I don't think about it. It could be
anything. I'm probably not qualified to even talk
about it. I will debate the big scholars
if I have to. I'll debate professors and
doctors
about,
you know,
medical conditions because I read a few articles
on
Google,
but
or on Wikipedia. And I think that now
I can argue with the big people.
The fact that I have an opinion doesn't
mean you have credibility.
Credibility is when you can back it up
with proper knowledge and sources and evidence.
And to know that you could be wrong.
Number 8, you would rather hear things you
agree with rather than hearing things that challenge
you.
People like that with an ego can't stand
hearing things that go that challenge their ideas,
their own ideas.
Now, of course, we have Islam Alhamdulillah and
Islam is the truth.
But we don't need to get upset if
somebody opposed it.
To you is your religion, to me is
mine. You give a bit of dawah, but
no need to go head over heels like
you have to have to have to convince
that person right there and then no matter
under any circumstance.
Sometimes people disagree with you on opinion that
you brought from your head an interpretation.
No need. It doesn't have to be the
right one. I can be wrong.
You blame others when things don't go your
way.
That's another sign of an inflated ego. Number
11,
your first instinct is to criticize. Your last
instinct is to encourage. And number 12, you
see your life through a narrow lens and
everything fits in it. You are blind to
things outside of your lens, and worse, you
are blind to your blind spots.
And I think that I know
it even though I don't know it. And
I don't even know that I don't know.
But I think I know.
We see this all the time.
I think I know.
In fact, I don't know. And I don't
know that I don't know, but I think
I do know.
That's called in Arabic jahlulmurakah.
That's a deliberate ignorance.
And usually these people talk too much. That's
an inflated ego.
Tell you brothers and sisters,
inflated ego, is it arrogance?
No. It looks like arrogance,
but not quite.
Ego is the nafs
and the nafs resides outside of the heart.
But it is the pathway to your heart,
which brings me to the following hadith. Rasul
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, we're reading from Bayad
al Sadihin,
the hadith is in Sahih Muslim.
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud narrates that the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam said,
anyone
with an atom's anyone with an ant
size
of arrogance in their heart
will not enter paradise.
A man from the Sahaba said, You Rasool
Allah,
I am a man
who likes wearing nice clothes
and nice shoes.
Is there anything wrong with that? I like
looking good.
Am I arrogant? Am I being
filled with pride? What is it? Rasul SAW
A'Sallam then said,
Oh, no.
Allah is beautiful.
And in fact, one of the names of
Allah is the beautiful.
Allah is the beautiful. There is no beauty
beyond his beauty. This is his name and
his attribute.
Yohibul jaman,
Allah loves beauty.
He loves to see us being beautiful, and
dressing beautifully, and looking beautiful, and acting in
a beautiful way, and thinking beautifully.
Then he said,
arrogance and pride
is 2 things.
Now listen,
baatarul haqq
rejecting and refusing
truth
and rights
that are black and white. You know that
they are truth. You know they are right.
You just don't want them. You refuse them.
No. I don't care.
That's the first sign, that's the first type
of arrogance and pride. And then he said,
and con being condescending and looking down on
other people.
So number 2, arrogance makes up 2 things,
refusing and rejecting the truth
and the rights
and looking down upon others as if you
are superior, superiority complex.
I'm better than others.
I am superior to others.
Not for any reason, just for the heck
because.
Either because of my race,
because of my color,
because of my gender,
because of the certificates I hold, because how
much money I have, the car I drive,
the clothes I wear,
the lineage I have, the house I live
in,
how many views and likes I've got on
social media.
I see myself superior to others based on
these things.
Sometimes I see myself superior because
maybe I fear I pray a few more
prayers than other people.
I recite Quran better than other people.
I do my zikr night and day. No
one else does it as much as me.
I'm the best.
Maybe I give in charity, and I see
others below me because I give a few
more
dollars in charity. Maybe
I do a bit more good deeds and
because of that I feel I'm superior to
others.
All of this brothers and sisters
destroys our deeds
because it's not sincere for Allah.
And the sahabas, the companions of prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, the way they looked at
it was like this.
The person who is not arrogant
is the person who always
feels
that they have faults,
and
they still got a lot to do
to improve on. And a person who is
arrogant
does a little bit and thinks
that they have fulfilled every command
and every good deed.
And everyone else needs to improve except for
themselves.
Now, of course, brothers and sisters, arrogance, it
has many levels. Some have a little bit,
some many, some halfway, some a lot.
Let's move through this hadith.
The beginning of it says, la yadhuuliljannah.
He will not enter paradise
whoever has an ant's worth
of arrogance in their heart.
What does it mean he will not enter
paradise?
Please pay attention.
It has four meanings.
Whenever you hear a hadith that says he
will not enter paradise, and there are many
of them, he will not enter paradise whoever
is a gossiper, and he will not enter
paradise whoever is a room,
a a room, a rumor spreader. He will
not enter paradise.
Whoever,
she will not enter paradise, whoever is immodest,
whoever does this or whoever does that. We
hear these hadith all the time. We even
hear the hadith about whoever commits
whoever kills themselves, commit suicide will go to
hellfire and not enter paradise. We hear all
these different hadiths. Now, please pay attention.
What does it mean he will not enter
paradise?
Number 1, it means that on the day
of judgment when everyone is called to enter
paradise,
they will be delayed.
They can't go in yet.
Others will beat them.
They will be held back.
So there's a point in in in in
on the day of judgment,
where Allah orders the angels to say to
the people, enter paradise.
And the first group, the best group will
enter.
When that group is entering,
the rest are held back.
So they will not enter paradise
when it's told to enter, they'll be delayed.
Delayed for what?
They'll be delayed,
judged a bit more, but then forgiven.
So that's the first type of meaning, they
will not enter paradise means they'll be delayed,
judged more, and then forgiven.
The second type, they will not enter paradise,
means they will be delayed
and they will be punished,
but lightly,
and then they will enter paradise.
The third meaning, they will be delayed
and they will enter hellfire,
but temporarily
and eventually, they'll be taken out, and they
will enter paradise.
The 4th and last meaning is the worst,
and that is
they will permanently enter hellfire
and never come out of it. And that's
only to one type of people.
They are the ones
who committed and died
on major shirk.
Only major shirk.
Major Shirk meaning they worshiped other than Allah.
They
disbelieved
in part of the Quran.
They,
attributed to Allah,
created
things.
All these are called majorship.
So a person who disbelieves in Allah or
makes partners with him.
Allah says in the Quran,
Allah will never forgive
that a person
makes partners with Allah, meaning dies upon that.
But he will forgive
every other lesser sin
for whoever he wills, which means everything other
than making partners with Allah, dying upon it,
is up to Allah to be forgiven.
Rasulullah sallam also said, this hadith by the
way is is, this this AI just recited
in Surat Al Nisa, verse 48. In Surat
Al Araf
verse
40,
Allah also says, surely the gates of heaven
shall not be opened for those who reject
our signs as false and turn away from
them in arrogance
nor shall they enter paradise until a camel
passes through the eye of a needle. Thus,
do we reward the guilty ones. This is
evidence that people who died a major sin,
a major shirk,
partners with Allah, polytheism,
will never enter paradise. Allah says until the
camel
enters through the hole of a needle,
Through the eye
of a needle where the thread goes in.
Is it possible for a camel to enter
the eye of a needle? Never. So in
other words, you will never enter it if
you die on polytheism.
There is a
a weak hadith but when you look at
the entire Sharia, you bring all the Hadith
and all the Ayat of the Quran together,
this is how the scholars look at things,
they don't look at just one thing, they
look at all. And then they bring you
the final
bada of it all.
We find that there are 4 types of
people on the day of judgement who are
non Muslim. They died on disbelief
or or on polytheism,
but
they will not automatically go to hellfire.
Number 1,
they are the people
who did not have the mental capacity
to,
to differentiate between right and wrong. So they
had
a mental
disorder
or a mental
illness that did not allow them to be
able to think
normal like everyone else. So a person who
is slightly insane or unable to think. Number
2,
a person who never ever heard about the
message of Islam.
Number 2. Number 3,
a person who heard about the message of
Islam but it came to them
wrong.
Everything about it is just bad.
They researched, they tried, but all they got
was bad.
So they didn't follow it based on the
fact that it wasn't the right Islam.
Number 4, people who received partial Islam in
truth but they said I'm not gonna continue,
I'm not interested. And 5, the people who
received all of Islam, studied it all and
said, yeah, it's nice and good and I'm
convinced but I don't want to
become a
Muslim. The last 2, those who received partial
Islam and said, I don't want it. And
those who received Islam all in full and
in truth, and they said, I don't want
it. These 2, the Quran says, they have
hellfire.
Why? Because they chose it.
You can't work for Ford and expect Holden
to pay you.
As for the 3 others, the insane,
the person who never received the message, and
the one who received it wrong,
then
they will be given another chance on a
day of judgement and tested in another way.
Now, the one who supports this view with
many scholars, and one of them is, Ibn
Kathir in his book at Tafsir.
My brothers and sisters,
he will not enter paradise when he will
be delayed.
And that's why I was talking today with
somebody saying, brother, if a person takes his
own life,
we find that in our community,
they judge
them extremely harsh harshly.
Some of them won't even pray the janaza
prayer, some of them won't
even attend their funeral, and some of them
even think that they're going to hellfire and
never go into paradise, that they're disbelievers.
And many other similar
attitudes and and misconceptions like this.
When Rasool alaihi wa sallam said he will
not enter paradise,
it doesn't mean that they will never.
Number 1, a person takes their life for
example, Rasul alaihi wasallam said, whoever does it
will
be in the fire
and taking their life in the same way
in the fire.
This is like the
extreme sentencing. This is like the
the most.
But that doesn't mean that they are necessarily.
I'll give you an example. If a person
commits a crime now here and you go
to the court,
the judge has to go by
laws.
And the judge sometimes has discretion.
He or she may say,
I'm gonna give them maximum sentence
or mid medium sentence,
or I'm not even gonna use the sentence.
I'm gonna let them go on a good
behavior bond, for example. They'll say, tell me
about this circumstance, tell me about this situation,
whether out of character, have they ever done
a crime before.
They might say they were they were very
in need,
they come from a torn family. Whereas another
person
may be doing
it just for profit.
The sentencing will be different.
Isn't that correct? So when Allah makes,
tells us something, the prophet says, this person
went into
paradise, it doesn't mean that every single individual
is judged that way.
It means that it's a deterrent. This is
the punishment.
Now it's up to Allah whether he will
punish them that way or forgive them.
So we say, a
person who dies on situations where we have
we think that they're going to hellfire for
it, We can't do that. You can't it's
haram to specify somebody they're going to hellfire.
Or even to definitely say they're going to
paradise. We assume that. We know that they're
Muslim, they died on tawhid, they died on
a majesir, nobody talks about it, Uprasir Nasir,
you bury them like everyone else, normal.
So I hope we made that one clear.
Now, the second part of the hadith it
says, whoever has an atom's worth or an
ant's worth of arrogance.
We might say, man, come on, is there
any one of us who has not had
some kind of arrogance in their life?
That's true. It's a good question.
But no, that's not what it means. It
doesn't mean that if you pass some time
of your life with arrogance, it means 2
things. Number 1, if you died
and still inside your heart,
you have a habit of arrogance, even if
it's 1 or 2 matters.
And it's always in your heart and it
becomes your personality.
Then you are subjected to the punishment.
But if you sometimes are a bit arrogant
or stubborn or you wouldn't accept something, it's
more of an ego. It's not
arrogance. See, the Hadith says in the heart.
When it resides in the heart, it becomes
you. And you don't care about it, you
don't even think about it.
Rasool salaam
says, it is the person
who rejects the truth.
All truth.
All rights. For example,
you owe someone money
and it's due back.
This person comes to you and says, my
money.
They say, I'm not giving it to you.
So but you owe me my money. Yeah,
I do. Who cares? I don't care. Get
it off me.
Get it out of my face. But the
day of judgement, Allah, yeah, take it on
the day of judgement.
That's
arrogance. That's in the hadith,
rejecting the rights.
Someone says to you, you've taken my right
here akhir. It's clear that the right is
saying, yeah, I took your right, what are
you gonna do about it? I don't care.
Go
and go and do this or that, I
don't care.
That's arrogance.
It even comes down to normal
interactions with each other. For example, a teacher,
let's say he's a math teacher,
does an equation on the board,
a smart student picks out a mistake,
Sir,
sorry, excuse me. That's I think you did
the equation wrong.
The teacher has got arrogance.
How dare you correct me? No, this is
right, but it's wrong. Shut up, get out
of my face, go to the principal, I'm
gonna give you this, I'm gonna give you
a demerit.
That's arrogance.
Did you know that's arrogance?
With your siblings, with your spouse, with your
parents, at work, with your friends, with people
at the mosque, with non Muslims.
Arrogance means when something is known, a right
or a truth, and you know it, and
everybody knows it, you just hack because I
don't want to. I'm too good. That's a
superiority complex called arrogance.
Another arrogance is when a verse of the
Quran is recited to a person, and it
is as clear as the sun.
And they say, no, I'm not taking it.
But Allah said, Arika, I don't no, it
doesn't make sense to me, I'm not taking,
I don't care.
Some people you say to them, Ittatillah,
fear Allah brother or sister, and you mean
it in a good way because some people
they say fear Allah in an egotistic way.
Fear Allah means I'm better than you, you
better listen to me.
Yeah, I'm a thug.
All I need is a gun.
West side.
I'm a thug bro,
everybody listens to me. No shaykh is gonna
stand in my way.
But there are people who say fear Allah
out of love,
you say it to your brother, to your
sister, to your child maybe. Maybe your spouse
says it to their spouse, a parent says
it to their child.
Maybe a person who cares for you know
they care to say, Habibi,
we've got to fear Allah.
But then,
how dare you? You say, how dare you
tell me to fear Allah? Me fear Allah,
you go and fear Allah. Tell me to
fear Allah.
That's arrogance.
What does fearing Allah mean? It's not telling
you fear me or fear
fear none
but 1,
Allah.
Allah says in
And when it is said to him, fear
Allah, his arrogance and pride takes over
in sin.
How dare you tell me to fear Allah?
Now, of course, some people, they have their
own opinion and they think that you're in
the wrong. When you're not in the wrong,
they say fear Allah, fear Allah, you'll get
akhya, I didn't do anything wrong. Fear Allah.
And they've got nothing. They don't know basis.
They tell you fear Allah on something which
you shouldn't fear Allah on.
That's an ego thing. That's just accusing you
and putting you down.
So it's all comes down to the intentions.
The second part, batarul hapwahamtun nas, looking down
upon people, condescending. You can be condescending because
of we said it before, race, discrimination, ethnicity,
status in society,
money, reputation,
fame, likes and views,
and followers on social media, or because you
think you're more religious than other people. I
become condescending.
Rasool teaches
us that Allah says,
The most honored
among you to Allah is the one who
is most God fearing.
That's the only measure.
No other measure in Islam. You fear Allah,
you're God conscious, this is where your value
is. And you don't say about yourself, I
am God fearing.
Allah says in the Quran, fa la tuzakku
anfusakumahuwa
aalamu bi manit taqah
Do not praise yourself with piety. It is
Allah who truly knows who is pious and
who is not. Don't ever do that. A
person who says I am pious is not
pious.
And a person who says, Wallahi akhii, I
ask Allah to forgive me.
And really says it from their heart and
says it to themselves, InshaAllah, that's a pious
person.
Allah, I've heard scholars
of the utmost degree
when somebody pointed out a mistake in them,
they're crying.
Big skulls crying.
They say, Aruju amallallahiakhfiliyah,
I hope that Allah forgives me. What is
it? They always got this always that Allah
is above all and they never over praise
them, they don't praise themselves.
In fact, they're not comfortable with praise.
Racism, discrimination, male, female superiority, lineage.
Rasool Sallalahu Wa Salam said to his daughter,
You Fatima,
Bintu Muhammad,
Oh Fatima,
do righteous deeds. For Allah, I cannot benefit
you anything
on the day of judgment. And he's her
father,
no lineage.
He said to Safiyyah, his wife radhiyalala,
to his auntie,
his father's mother,
My dear auntie,
dude, Righteousness,
I cannot benefit you in the hereafter.
If Allah, Yani, if Allah wants to punish
you, I cannot save you. I will try,
but he won't save you just because you're
related to me. That's what he's saying.
Then he said to his uncle, Abbas, yeah,
Abbas, amurasoolillah,
yeah, amal fainila uni unkamalallayhisha.
Abbas, his uncle, his lineage,
do righteousness to Allah. If Allah wants to
punish you, I cannot do anything for you.
And then he said to them,
on the day of judgment,
you can't have it where people come to
me seeking my help.
And you come to me saying, You Rasool
Allah, we're related to you. Save us. No.
No. No. Allah says, no Quran,
On that day no lineage will benefit anybody.
And then he said,
nobody will enter
paradise
just because of their little deeds, but with
the mercy of Allah. And then they said,
Not even you You Rasool Allah, I said,
Not even I, except if Allah gives me
his favor and mercy. The hadith is a
Muslim.
And then he said, They were all from
Adam and Adam is from the soil.
My brothers and sisters,
final little points I wanna say.
Some people confuse stubbornness
with arrogance
and egotistic
attitudes.
Stubbornness
can be arrogance
or egotistic but it also can be a
good thing.
We have to always differentiate.
If you're stubborn on something which is good,
righteous, and pleasing to Allah, and it is
the right of people such as justice,
and you're firm on that, and you're that's
not called stubbornness.
That's righteousness.
And you're standing on something good. Keep going,
and that's called resilience, perseverance, and patience.
But if you're stubborn on something you know
is wrong,
or you know that you're not very knowledgeable
about it, but you have to be stubborn
on it, then that's ego and it also
can be arrogance.
We mentioned that the Sahabi said, You Rasool
Allah, we like to wear nice clothes and
nice shoes.
The Sahabi assumed
that by wearing something attractive and nice,
you know, people look at it and say,
That's nice.
That he he thought that that would be
arrogance,
showing off.
Said to him, no, no, no. That's beauty.
If you do it because you like it,
you do it because it's beautiful, you do
it because you like looking nice, while Allah
is beautiful and he loves to see beauty.
He loves to see his blessings on his
creation. Allah says in the Quran, don't say
to people that blessings and beauty from this
world which Allah created is haram. Then tell
them that Allah says this in the Quran,
But it is if I wear it
in order to show off, if I wear
it in order
to look higher than others,
if I wear it, or buy it, or
drive it, or,
look at,
or whatever it is,
in order for people to put me on
a pedestal,
that's when it's called arrogance.
And that is the answer rasul alaihi wa
sallam said to him, no, no, no, no.
This is just beauty. Are Muslims allowed to
like this? You like a nice car? You
like a sports car?
I bought it because I like it.
I enjoy it.
But people say it's nice. Yeah, I feel
good about it but I don't do it
because I want,
I'm craving for people's praise. Then
go ahead, enjoy it. Enjoy your money, enjoy
your time, give your sadaqah, give your zakat,
not a problem.
What Islam does forbid is to be extravagant
in your clothing,
extravagant in your,
look. Meaning,
just so you can
appear.
You can stand out.
Some scholars even talked about the thob that
I'm wearing.
They say, if you live in a place
where hardly anybody wears a thob and you
wanna wear it,
Even if you're in if your intention is
to stand out, it's not a praiseworthy thing.
Some people might say, I wanna stand out
to show Islam.
Well, it's a good intention and Insha'Allah you're
okay.
But it's actually a sunnah
to dress like the people of the community
that you live around. Would you believe that?
It's
a controversial
thing and there are differences of opinion and
I'm not saying it's the only opinion
but it
is a Sunnah
to, for example, follow Urf which is customs.
If I go for example to Saudi,
I dress like the Saudis. That's respect.
If I go to Pakistan and I go
to a community that wears
the 3 quarter thing, it's out of respect
for them for me to wear it. It.
If they wear turbans over there and hats,
everybody wears them. It's considered that's the beauty
of the culture, I'll wear it. But while
I go somewhere else,
here in Australia for example, I don't really
wear it outside. I wear it here for
the occasion of the mosque.
But some people actually
have a misconception about this. And the reason
I mentioned it is because judgment
is passed on to other people. And I
see also young people think that
if I it deters them from getting religious
in what sense? They think that if I'm
gonna get religious I have to look like
the Sheikh.
I have to wear this toad. Like what
if I don't wanna wear it? So it
may deter them. And I've heard this from
young people doing this. I don't wanna dress
like that. I don't wanna have that hairstyle.
I don't wanna have that beard. I said,
okay. The beard is another issue, but
don't let these things deter you. You don't
have to dress like that. The Islamic
clothing is wear modestly,
wear nice,
non transparent clothing,
loose clothing not tight
on your body and not showing the Awra.
Men have a awra and women have a
awra.
And that's it. And don't dress in a
way where you deliberately want to stand out.
Even if you stand out with extravagance like
a color that stands out instead of everyone
else, so people can look at me. You
see these types of We all fall into
a falling, you walk in and say, especially
at weddings, you know, you walk in, some
women they do that, I'm gonna be the
one that stands out. Sometimes they take over
the bride's
attention as well, some of them.
So we go in, for example, we're gonna
visit someone who can't afford much jewelry. It's
not praiseworthy for a wife to wear her
jewelry going visiting someone who they know they
can't afford it. It's out of courtesy in
Islam.
A brother goes to visit someone or to
meet someone who is doing it hard financially.
Go in your modest clothing, you know, go
and don't it's this is all respect. It's
not harang, but it's called respect. So Islam
doesn't
encourage these types of things and they can
create egotistic nature and superiority complexes if a
person
doesn't watch out for themselves.
There's a hadith of Prophet SAW, where he
said,
whoever
drags their
saww, their clothing on the floor,
Or below the ankle, khoyalaa,
out of pride and arrogance,
it is in the fire.
Again, there is a misconception and there is
a difference of opinion among the scholars. Some
said,
it's absolutely haram to wear your trousers or
your thawb
underneath your ankle or dragging on the floor.
And these are great scholars such as Ibn
Uthaymi, Ibn Bez, and others.
And some of them made a distinction,
They said if the intention is not for
arrogance,
then it's sinful but it's not arrogance.
But the majority of scholars,
the majority of the schools of thought, past
and present,
80 to 90% of them
agree that it is not harang,
it's not forbidden
for your trousers or your to be below
the ankle,
even touching the floor.
So long as on condition that you don't
do it with the intention of arrogance,
extravagance,
superiority,
pride.
Because the Hadith says, khuyala.
And they used the hadith of Babu Bakr
when he entered.
Rasool SAW saw him and his Izzar, his,
what he was wearing around him dropped a
little because he was skinny.
And he used to drag on the floor
a bit or go below the ankle, and
he would get shy and then lift it
back up and say, You Rasulullah,
I didn't mean it, it's because I'm skinny.
Rasool replied to him by saying, Yeah Abu
Bakr, we know your intention, you are not
one of them.
Otherwise, he would have said to him,
good what you did, don't let it drag.
Therefore, they use this evidence as meaning it
comes down to the intention.
Also, Umar Radiallahu Anhu saw,
Abdulak Mas'ud mentions hadith in Bukhari that Umar
Radiallahu Anhu saw a young man when Umar
Khattab was stabbed and assassinated before he died.
He saw a young man walking in, and
his thawbas,
what he was wearing was dragging on the
floor.
And he said, young man, my dear son,
Yabna Akhi,
son, nephew,
lift your pants up a little bit for
it is cleaner than to be dragging on
the floor and more god fearing.
Abdullah Mas'ud says, may Allah have mercy on
Omar. He did not tell him don't do
it. He just gave him advice
which means that it is not haram
since the intention is not out of arrogance.
I wanted to clear that up. But of
course, if you do take the opinions of
the eminent scholars
who do say it is still arrogance and
Haram,
then if that's the ones you follow and
ones you've taken from, you should stick to
it.
But if you don't and you're not convinced
by Alhamdulillah
the
evidence is stronger,
the scholars that you follow say it's not,
then don't then the ones who believe it
should not impose it
on the others who don't. Why? Because there
is valid of difference of opinion among the
scholars. And in fact, the majority,
majority of the scholars say it is not
haram.
Why did I say all of this brothers
and sisters? Number 1, because,
arrogance is mentioned there, it's a huge thing.
And we said arrogance, no one will enter
paradise with an ant's worth of arrogance. So
if we consider that arrogance, it's a problem.
I wanted to clear that up that it's
okay. Don't feel worried about that. And that
there is a valid difference of opinion about
it. And so that we can have a
more harmonious,
less judgmental
community
which I believe
insha'Allah is the key. Brothers and sisters, last
words.
In order to fight against egotistic
personalities in nature,
do the opposite.
If you dislike hearing feedback, encourage feedback and
start to accept it and write it and
say to yourself, you know what, this will
benefit me. If people don't accept your opinion,
get used to the fact that, okay, that's
my opinion, that's your opinion, I could be
wrong. Get used to that.
Instead of saying,
maybe using the word yet, I don't I
don't know that yet.
To to keep yourself,
you know, that you're not the most knowledgeable
person. Giving charity so that you don't think
that you are privileged.
Every now and then, prevent yourself from certain
luxuries.
Sometimes,
go and visit
someone who needs your help. Go to the
graveyards and visit them. Check on somebody who
is ill and sick.
Remember and remind yourself where you came from.
Remember where you're going.
Remember that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going
to judge you, and remember
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will hold you
accountable in me
for our intentions
and our actions. And we don't want our
actions to be destroyed.
And remind yourself that the best of creation
Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
he himself
would accept advice.
He himself
would not be upset when somebody
gave him an opinion.
He himself
would not,
you know,
get upset for anybody who hurt him personally.
He himself, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, would take
it easy on every person who did something
wrong.
My brothers and sisters, let us, Insha'Allah, take
that advice and that example from
our beloved Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and his
companions. Jazatmulullahqay
for listening.