Faraz Rabbani – The Rawha #174 Guidance for SeekersChanging Oneself to the Better The Treatise for Seekers of
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Manirrahim.
We're looking
as part of our weekly reminders in our
Friday circle at
the treatise for seekers of guidance. And we
did not commission this
because it was the author died
1200
years before
our time.
Imam al Muhasibi, he's one of the great
early
scholars of Islamic spirituality.
And
this work which is beautifully translated by Imamzade
Shakir,
and Imamzade
taught it and they compiled his lessons
into
a
book
into in book format, treatise for seekers of
guidance. You can find it at for those
books
and elsewhere.
It's available on Amazon as well.
It's a very practical
guide to
spirituality.
And Ramzayd contextualizes
it very beautifully,
and it's very, very beneficial.
We just we've just begun recently.
Imam Al Muhasibi's
opening point.
Right. Because spirituality
is about rectifying your relationship with Allah and
rectifying your your
relationship with Allah's creation
as part of your relationship
with
Allah. That this change begins with intention.
Right.
Right.
And
you have to have clear
purpose.
You know intentionality
in everything
that you do.
And
part of having intention in everything that you're
you strive
to do that which is pleasing to Allah.
Which relates to having taqwa, mindfulness,
which is to act in a manner
that is not displeasing to Allah.
And
to maintain
mindfulness,
one has to be watchful
over one state.
So to recap, he began
by telling us that
to be of the
intelligent servants of Allah,
the insightful servants of Allah, You have to
investigate your intentions.
And look carefully at your intentions.
How do you do that?
And how did you do that? We saw
that you need to ask yourself
fundamental questions before you do things. Don't just
go through the motions
in life.
Ask yourself, what am I doing?
Why am I doing it?
How do I do it in a manner
that is pleasing to Allah? And we expanded
on that.
Also, he
called us to have a a resolve.
Right? That what is your life plan?
What is your life plan?
And
your life plan
should not just be
a worldly life plan because you're gonna die.
Right?
You're gonna die.
Right? It's like someone says, what's your plan?
I'm going to university.
Okay.
Then what? So, well, I'm gonna go to
university.
But they'll kick you out. Imagine if there's
a law passed by
our prime minister that after 8 years
you're no longer allowed in university,
you're kicked out.
So
going to university is not a life plan.
What are you gonna do afterwards?
Likewise,
your life plans
just have a little hitch in them. Just
you're gonna die.
What's your plan
beyond this life? Right? And that's part of
the purpose of religion.
Is
what is your spiritual
life plan?
Right? What is your spiritual
life plan?
And we touched upon that a little bit.
And a key navigational quality in this life
is to hold fast to mindfulness of Allah,
of Taqwa.
To be conscious of what is
displeasing to Allah
of
wrongdoing,
injustice,
and sin,
and to stay completely away
from them. And particularly when it relates to
the rights of others.
Right. And the most important other, of course,
is
the one who has created you. Right. That's
Allah. But also
other people
to know their rights and not to transgress
them. And this arises from gratitude.
That if you recognize Allah's blessings upon you,
then you would strive to act
accordingly. And that is
taqwa, to be mindful
of acting in a manner,
not displeasing to Allah, in a manner that
is in fact pleasing to Allah.
The third key to change the third key
to spiritual intelligence, we could say.
The first is to have intention.
Number 2, to commit to being mindful, to
have taqwa.
The third is take yourself to account.
And he says and he of course he
sets the standard high.
Right?
He
says
that
take yourself to account
with every breath.
Right? With with every thought
with every thought that occurs to you. Take
yourself to account.
That's
that's a high standard. Right? But that's how
the believer should strive to be.
And one of the most
important insights
given by the
scholars when they look at the teach at
the guidance of the noble Quran.
And they look at the
the various
hadith of the prophet
is
that
there's a practical understanding
of human consciousness. There's a practical understanding of
human consciousness. And the practical understanding of human
consciousness
is that you have 5 levels of thoughts.
Thoughts
where do thoughts come from is an interesting
question,
but
unless you can do something about where they
come from, it's not that important.
Right?
What matters
is
to do you have to identify
what you can do about them. At that
level,
the scholars say there's 5 levels of thoughts.
Thoughts appear within you first.
Right. And this is called,
the first thought.
Then when the thought pops up,
like, you wonder,
am I going for pizza tonight? I question
thought occurs. You don't know where it came
from, but it appeared.
2nd level is you consider that thought. You
go,
Right? Because if you just ignore the thought.
Am I going for pizza tonight?
I don't care. So you don't cons you
don't think about it. 2nd, you consider it.
This is called.
Right? Because you go back and forth. Yes,
no, maybe. Let's see what my brother is
up to, etcetera.
The third is an inclination.
Right?
You say,
to pizza or not to pizza? You go,
maybe.
And this is called
an inclination.
You know you you inclined, yeah I'll go
for pizza but then you'll remember there's the
big boss.
Forget about it. So the 4th is when
the inclination,
pizza sounds good,
goes to being a resolve.
Right?
Say, yes. I'm gonna go to pizza tonight.
And then the resolve becomes determination,
right, which is when you start planning. You
text your brother,
hey. How does pizza sound tonight?
Right? And that results in an action.
And
in order to rectify your actions, the scholars
said that
the earlier
you can catch
your thinking,
the safer you
are. Because you have good thoughts and bad
thoughts.
You have good thoughts and bad thoughts. The
good thoughts that that one has spiritually
are
thoughts
they they are spiritual thoughts
of various kinds but these are thoughts
that connect you to the celestial, that connect
you to the divine.
You you know, you're sitting and you think
about the reality that, you know what? Everything
around me is perishing.
Therefore,
I should have I should aspire to more
than the merely perishing. That
that's
a good thought that is spiritual in nature.
Or a good thought could relate to a
to a good action that you can do.
You think about,
I've been watching so much news, why don't
I go? And there's various things that I'm
concerned about. So before going to sleep tonight,
I'm going to make
donations to each of those various things that
I've been bothered about.
Okay.
That's that's another type of good thought. Right.
Or this
so good thoughts can be spiritual,
right,
or faithful thoughts or thoughts related to faith,
thoughts related to actions,
to do something good.
Or the thoughts can be bad. Right? Bad
thoughts related to
wrongdoing, injustice,
related to sin.
Now negative thoughts,
the earlier one can stop them, right,
the thought arises.
Beat him up.
Rather than even consider
it, if you can cut it off right
when it comes, you're you're safer.
And the more you let it brew, it
goes from thought to consideration,
to inclination,
to resolve, and it becomes harder and harder,
it becomes determination,
and there goes the trouble.
So
this is
a
and they've talked a lot about this idea
of how one takes oneself
to account.
The standard he sets, of course, is very
high. Take yourself to account
with every thought,
with respect to every thought.
But
practically,
the scholars tell us begin with a few
things that you are
careful about.
Right? That you take yourself to account.
So you aspire that I want to only
entertain good thoughts.
Right.
But how will how will I get there?
Right. How will I get there? They say
work on a few things first.
One of the great imams of Islam,
Sheikh Mohidin, he
operationalize
this for himself.
And
Damascus comes to mind a lot. I lived
in Midan,
the fundamentalist heartland of Damascus
according to Bamzaid.
And the bus was called Midan Sheik.
And I wondered
now I lived in Midan, so I got
to know the different parts of Midan. There's
Midan Mansur, Midan this, me
like, where's Midan Alsheikh?
But it's called Midan Alsheikh because the bus
started in Midan
and ended up at a sheikh. A sheikh
being
a sheikh Mohideen ibn Arabi.
Because it the route ended
below the marketplace known as Sukh Mohideen.
And
when he was still quite young,
he
took it upon himself to operationalize this idea
of taking oneself to account
by
doing 3 things. Right.
Deciding what what are the things that I'm
working on changing about myself.
Right.
This is called
musharata.
You set some conditions for, I'm working right
now on these three things
that I want to change about my character
or my conduct.
Then
you watch over yourself.
So there's
you set some I'm working on these three
things
or 2 things, one thing, 4 things, depending
on how much you wanna take on.
2nd, you watch over yourself.
So
that
do you contravene any of these things?
And at the end of the day,
you take yourself to account.
I say,
You set some conditions. You watch over yourself.
If you make any whether you're making any
contraventions, and then at the end of the
day, you take yourself
to account.
Muhasaba.
Practically the best way to track this is
in writing
because if you force yourself to write
there's a great secret in it because the
action of the hand reminds you. It hurts
to write it down.
And also
because in the first revelation, Allah most high
tells us,
Allah is the one who has taught by
the pen. And there's something
transformative
about
writing down the things that will teach you
to change. So you track it in writing,
write down when you contravene.
If you've made a slip, repent,
cease and desist.
And before you sleep, review.
If you had a good day,
praise Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Say, Alhamdulillah.
Be grateful for that. And if you slipped
up, renew your seeking forgiveness and repentance, and
you'll go to sleep with a clean slate.
And
what should you begin with? You should begin
with your speech.
You should begin with your speech.
Why? Because that's a sunnah.
That's a sunnah. The prophet, peace and blessings
be upon him, said, whoever believes in Allah
in the last day should say the good
or remain silent.
Right?
Should
and Allah most high makes clear in the
Quran that
guard being able to restrain one's speech is
transformative.
Right. Why? Because the things that cause greatest
human harm
are all related to speech. Lying,
backbiting,
tail bearing.
A tail bearing, which is disclosing things that
are private
or mentioning things that harm relationships.
Sinful speech.
Whether you talk about your own sins or
you spread
sinful things that people are engaged in.
Right? And Allah says
oh you who believes
be mindful of God and say only what
is right.
What is the consequence?
Allah will rectify for you your actions.
And he will forgive for you your sins.
What is the one practical act?
Underlying this,
it is
rightful speech. And this is also a major
struggle.
Right. If you could take care
of of your speech, other things
will follow.
And this takes effort. But if one commits,
I'm going to keep track. Did I lie?
Did I backbite anyone?
Did I slander anyone? Which is just backbiting
deluxe.
Right.
Did I disclose any secrets?
Did I
talk about anything
that is sinful?
For example, you keep track of 4
types of negative speech.
And there's many others. Did you
mock someone? Did you ridicule someone?
You can take care you can control that,
then the same skill
is transferable
to other
traits of character, to other
aspects of positive and negative conduct.
This has a complimentary
skill which is.
Right. He says
be vigilant of Allah with every breath.
Be vigilant of Allah
with every
breath.
Right? And he quotes the words of sayidna
Umar ibn Khattab
who said,
Sayidna Umar ibn Khattab said
that
be
vigilant
be vigilant
regarding yourselves
or be before
or take yourself to take yourselves to account
before you are taken to account.
Take yourselves to account
here
before you're taken to account in the hereafter.
Right?
And weigh
your actions
now
before you are weighed then
for you.
Right?
And
this vigilance,
how does one operationalize it?
There's an amazing story
of one of the great
early spiritual masters,
a great imam of Islam,
Sahil bin Abdullah to study.
From the
eastern lands of Islam.
He was 13 years old.
Right. He was 13 years old.
When he went to his uncle,
his,
Muhammad ibn Sawar.
So his uncle told him,
right,
that
so his uncle
tells
his 13 year old nephew,
Oh,
Sahil,
will you not remember
your lord
who created you?
Now Sahil was a smart kid.
So
so he says,
how do I remember him?
Right. How do I remember him?
So
his uncle told him a practical
exercise.
Right? He said,
That when you're going to bed at night,
say 3 times
to yourself. So when you're going to bed,
say to yourself 3 times without pronouncing it,
Allah is with me.
Allah sees me. Allah witnesses me. Right.
And
adhere to this.
And he did the and
and he did this for a while and
he told his uncle. So his uncle told
him, now do it 11 times.
And he did it.
And he found
he found a sweetness.
He found a spiritual sweetness that he experienced
in his heart
through doing this.
And he stuck to that for a year.
And then he went to his uncle again.
And his uncle said to him,
that
I found a deep sweetness within me from
this.
So then
his uncle told him after a while, O
Sahil,
whomever Allah is with
and whomever Allah sees, whoever is conscious that
Allah is with them, Allah sees them and
Allah witnesses them.
Would they disobey Allah?
He said,
beware of disobeying
Allah.
And that was the beginning of the spiritual
path for Sahil ibn Abdullah.
Right. Through
nurturing this vigilance. And this is a practice,
it's from the Sunnah of the prophet to
reflect
before one goes to sleep.
Right. And this is a brief reflection that
just for a moment repeat to yourself from
within,
3 times.
Allah is with me.
Allah sees me. Allah witnesses me. And you
can incorporate that at other times during the
day. And to close, what is the consequence
of this? The consequence of this is
perfecting one's faith. And then why do we
strive to rectify our intentions?
Why do we strive to be mindful? Why
do we strive to be vigilant?
The prophet was
described was asked, what is the perfection of
faith?
And what is the perfection of religion? Ihsan.
He said, It is to worship Allah as
though you behold him.
That is the state
of one who
strives.
But if we haven't if you haven't yet
reached there, what should you uphold?
But if you do not yet behold him,
then know well that he beholds you. That
is the prophetic definition
of spirituality.
Right. That what do you strive for? And
what is spirituality but
the essence.
You know, what is the reality of life?
People go through the form of life, but
what is its meaning?
Its meaning is a heart that beholds
reality.
Right? It's to enter into a state of
living as though you behold
the one who is sustaining
all reality.
And but if you don't haven't reached there
yet,
then know well that he beholds you.
So we we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to realize us in these meanings and to
grant us intentions and purpose.
To grant us a commitment to uphold
mindfulness of Allah. To to always
check
whether what we're doing is in fact the
right thing.
To take ourselves to account and to work
on a few things at a time, and
to be vigilant
so that we can attain
the realities of closeness and contentment. So that
we can attain unto
the
what what one of the great scholars of
the 20th century called.
The greatest of all realities.
The greatest of all truths, which is Allah
himself.
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