Faraz Rabbani – The Rawha #164 Blameworthy Trait of Being Heedless When Allah Withholds Punishment From Immediate Sins and
AI: Summary ©
The importance of understanding depth and insight in actions of Allah's self is emphasized, along with avoiding considering his mercy and acquisitions. A strong faith in protecting others and avoiding harming one's own success is also emphasized. A disciplined faith in love and avoiding harming one's own success is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
You're listening to the Roja, daily guidance for
seekers with Sheikh Rasra Behni.
In our daily Roha sessions, we
are looking at this wonderful work by Imam
Abu Abdul Rahman
called
the blame worthy traits
of the self and their
treatment.
And
Imam Abu Abdurrahman
Sulami
was one of the great
imams
of Islamic spirituality, a great scholar of Islam.
And
the difference between
a
a scholar
and a mere
writer
or researcher
is depth and insight.
Right?
What
the prophetic inheritance
is not merely
a collection of information. Right? It is described
in the Quran
as being hikmah, wisdom.
Right?
As being like medicine that heals.
Right?
As being
Basira,
insight.
As being like life giving water.
So
we
have reached the 40th of the
blameworthy traits of the self, he says.
It's
the 4 days blameworthy trait of the self
is
having little
consideration,
little reflection
of what
in when one sees that Allah
gives one time
and does not punish one immediately for one's
sins.
Right?
That yes. That is from the Rahmah of
Allah. That is from the Rahmah of Allah.
But
Allah is not known only
by some attributes and not others.
And one of the dangers
of the self
is that it is selective.
It is selective.
So,
you know, someone may be committing
outward sins,
the sins of their desires,
or inward
sins like showing off
such as malice,
ill opinion of others.
But nothing
appears to be happening,
Nothing appears
to be happening. You're not being
punished or so it seems.
So you say, well Allah is merciful.
Yes Allah is merciful but He is also
majestic.
Right. And it is important to know Allah
as a servant of Allah because you who
are you? You are Abdullah.
You are a servant of Allah. And who
is Allah?
Allah's
are all
the most beautiful names.
So call upon Him
with them, with all of them.
And you need to know Allah
not only by His attributes
of mercy,
He's kind and caring and gentle and forgiving
etc,
but He is also
the All Powerful, the Almighty, the All Majestic,
the tremendous,
the overwhelming.
He is the one who abases,
the one who humiliates,
the one who vanquishes,
which is why
Allah
consistently
joins between
the two types of attributes.
Allah Most High says, for example,
Right? Inform my servants
that it is I
who am
the all forgiving
and most merciful.
And it is my punishment
that is
the intense punishment.
Inform my servants that I am
the one alone
who is
all forgiving and most merciful and it is
my punishment that is truly the most intense
punishment.
Likewise
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us in the
Quran,
The forgiver of sins,
the acceptor of repentance,
the intents in punishing,
the one possessed
with exaltedness.
And the same thing, we behold
majesty in His mercy and mercy in His
majesty.
Truly your Lord is
hate quick in punishing.
And indeed
He is the All Forgiving
Most Merciful.
Right?
So that is very important.
That is very important.
So
never
consider only
His mercy
Without considering because the merciful is the most
majestic,
and the majestic is the most merciful.
Right?
Otherwise,
one can harm oneself,
which is why
in his hikam,
when it comes to our how do we
deal with our sins before Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala?
No sin is small
if you are faced with Allah's justice.
If you consider
what you owe Allah,
no sin is small
before Allah's justice.
Whoever does an atom's weight of good shall
behold it.
Whoever does an atom's weight of ill
shall behold it.
Nothing is hidden.
He knows the hidden and that which is
even more hidden than the hidden because he
knows your subconscious
and you don't usually.
There's no no sin is small if you're
faced by His justice.
But no sin is great
if you're faced
by his bounty. This
is
why
he says,
If Allah places the scales of His justice
for them, no good deed would remain for
them.
But if His generosity
were to face them,
no ill deed would remain.
What has to be between
hope
in Allah's mercy
and fear
of Allah's
justice.
Which is why
in
in one of his famous
says, Make our bad deeds the bad deeds
of those whom you love.
And don't make our good deeds the good
deeds of those whom you hate.
For good does not benefit
with your wrath.
And shortcomings don't hurt with love from you.
But you don't know
what is coming from Allah to you. So
you have to always be between
hope and fear,
between
awe. Right? Between awe and intimacy with Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So
so this is why
one has to take heed from one's sins.
Why?
Because,
yes, it is
mercy from Allah that he's giving you time,
But the mercy in it
is that you hasten to repent.
Right? 1 has gratitude,
right, that you committed a sin and Allah
hasn't
punished you for it.
I mean if you had an employee who
behaved with you the way you behave with
Allah, you'd be fired.
Right? You'd be fired
or you'd have been fired long ago.
But just the fact that that doesn't happen
immediately,
you have to have gratitude. What is gratitude?
To see
that fact that you committed a sin and
nothing happened to you. Your iman is there.
Your nothing appears to have happened.
But were you to reflect,
there is always a consequence.
It could be that
you're prevented from increase.
Or or you're prevented from sunnahs,
or you're
delayed from doing the good,
or you missed out on opportunities.
You missed out on opportunities. The early Muslims
would say,
missing out is true loss.
Truly with time,
the human is in loss.
So there's always consequence
for the sin.
Right? Just the fact that you weren't punished
for it
immediately,
maybe it's a case that's adding up against
you. That's even more dangerous.
Right?
And what if you were to die in
that state?
Right? Because the easy thing is you did
something bad, you found,
you know, its worldly
consequences. Maybe that could expiate for it. What
if it's just stored up to the hereafter?
You will be standing before him. So how
does one
react?
One reacts with the urgency to repent.
So he says,
The treatment for this is constant awe of
Allah.
Constant awe of Allah. Awe of Allah
in the good
that am I fulfilling
the debt of gratitude for this good?
Or
in
failings
by hastening to repent.
And to know that delaying,
that putting off is not really a delaying
nor a putting off.
That Allah will surely
be asking him regarding that.
And He will
require you for it.
Right?
Unless Allah
shows them their mercy, His mercy.
For consideration
and reflection
only happens.
For whom?
For the people who have reverent awe of
Allah.
Right? The condition for benefiting as a servant
of Allah is to have kashia of Allah.
Ask for the one who fears the station
of their lord.
And prevents their lower self from its whim.
Truly, paradise is their resting ground.
Allah is only held in awe amongst his
servants from those who know. Knowledge does not
benefit unless you have reverent awe of Allah.
Religion doesn't benefit
unless you have reverent
awe of Allah.
Truly in that
is a
reminder
for those
who have awe.
Truly in that is a reminder who takes
a reminder, the one who has awe of
Allah. Otherwise
you're going to slack off.
Right?
So
a poet said, and here it's understood to
refer to the
to the lower self.
It was deluded by
its creator giving it time.
Never imagine
that
that giving time was neglect.
Don't imagine that that giving time was neglect
because it could be
building a greater case.
It could be
We will let them go astray from where
they didn't from whence they didn't imagine.
And I give them respite.
Allah warns and my
plotting
is
severe indeed.
Right? So don't think that you have a
break from being a servant of God.
Right?
Right?
Don't
rather,
if you see the mercy in Allah giving
you that breathing room,
take that breath and repent to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Then he says in the 41st
blameworthy trait,
From the blameworthy traits of the self
is
its liking to disclose
the blameworthy
traits of one's brethren and companions.
One's brethren is one circle of
friends, those whose company,
one keeps.
Right?
And Ashab
are the is a broader circle of
of company.
And this is a sign of the lowliness
of a person.
Right?
Because a basic quality of the believer that
we see manifest in
the prophetic example is.
Right? If you want any
good
in your life,
right? Uphold the sunnah of wafaa,
of loyalty.
Abu Madyan
says in his aphorisms,
Whoever seeks
spiritual
purity,
let them hold fast
to loyalty.
And
loyalty entails
guarding people's secrets.
That's
why im Imam Kharubi mentions
in his commentary on Imam Zaruk's,
versification
of Imam al Sulami's work.
That's why it said
that the hearts
of the free
are
graves for secrets. It's also come
that the hearts
of the virtuous
are treasure chests of secrets.
Right.
So no
noble person
discloses a secret.
And no forbearance person
speaks about
the secrets of others.
Right?
So this is one of the qualities of
those who are upholding
prophetic teachings.
Right?
And
and this goes against the very fundamental of
religion. What is religion? It's sincere concern to
wish good for another.
And he'll tell us about, you know, a
lot of the treatment for this is knowledge.
Right.
What is the relationship between you and another?
The believers are but brethren.
Right?
This is,
you know, the the brotherhood
of faith, the brotherhood of humanity, that's a
sacred institution.
Right?
So he says,
The cure for this is to go back
to yourself.
And to love to make oneself.
Love for others what one loves for oneself.
Just says it's come from our beloved prophet
that the Muslim is one who is pleased
for others with all that they're pleased for
themselves.
Right?
Right? And it's come in many narrations because
something that the prophet emphasized. None of you
reaches
the reality of faith until they love for
their fellow believer
all that they love for themselves.
Right? But this is not just, Yeah I
care for others. Imam Kharubi
in his commentary
he says,
what is the crisis? When do you love
for others what you love for them for
yourself?
Right. Because you say I love for others
what you love for yourself. Have you considered
what you love for yourself?
No.
Then how do you know you love it
for others?
Right.
So if you say a is like b.
So do you know what a is? No.
Then how do you know it's like b?
So first step, how do you know that
you love for others what you love for
yourself? He says,
to look to yourself.
And what do you love for yourself? What
are the things that you love for yourself?
Right?
And then
To consider,
enumerate, what do what are the things you
love for yourself?
In your deen, in your dunya, religiously, in
worldly terms,
financially, socially,
personally,
of necessities,
needs, wants, wishes.
So you make an inventory of what you
love for yourself,
and then to actively love that for others.
So whatever you love for yourself, you love
it for the other. Otherwise, you're just kidding
yourself.
Right. For your
but this is both for the people you
know.
For all the believers.
And the corollary of that,
And whatever one dislikes for oneself, one would
dislike for them because that's a necessary
implication
of loving for others what you love for
yourself is to hate for them what you
hate for yourself.
Muslim
that whoever conceals
the
the the blame worthy
affairs of their
of another, Allah
covers over their blame worthy affairs.
Right? And the Prophet warned in the hadith
and Thidmill and others that whoever seeks
to humiliate
others for their faults,
Allah will humiliate them
even if they be alone in their own
room.
It is to be feared that Allah will
humiliate them one day
even if they be hidden in their own
room.
There's meant that's come in may whoever digs
up it's actually in the biblical tradition, whosoever
diggeth a pit shall fall in it.
And it's come in the Samic tradition too
that
whoever digs a a pit
for their brother,
That they it's fear that they'll fall in
it. The same thing that's in the biblical
tradition.
So we ask Allah
to grant us
sincere concern for the good of others.
Right? So the is related after some battles
when they're wounded and on the verge of
dying even.
And water was offered to them, they'd they'd
give it to others.
They prefer others to themselves.
Even if what they have is very little.
Right?
And the examples of the sacrifice of the
companions for one another is unimaginable.
Right? If one wants to really feel how
far one should fall short
of the standard of the sunnah, look at
Imam Al Ghazali's
chapter on
the rights
of brotherhood.
Just translate it into English in a summarized
fashion by Muhtar Holland, Rahimahullah,
as the duties of brotherhood in Islam. It's
summarized
from from the.
That's an amazing book.
These are the rights.
Right?
You know? Expressively merciful and caring for one
another as Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala describes them
in the Quran,
Thank you for listening to the raha.