This Lecture was presented on May 13, 2015 in Richmond, Canada.
Why does Allah test us? What kinds of tests can we expect to face in life? How should we respond to the trials and tribulations of life, powerfully?
All these questions and more are answered in this lecture by Fatima Barkatulla.
Includes sisters’ question and answer session.
Allah ilaha illa
Allah,
Muhammad Abu
indeed, oh praise is due to a lot. We praise Him.
We seek His help and we seek His forgiveness. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide. And whomsoever Allah leaves astray, none can guide. I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah alone without any partners. And I bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was his servant, and messenger.
The topic I'm going to be speaking to you about today is, why does Allah test us? Why is Allah testing me? Why is Allah testing you? It's a question that many of us must have asked at some point in our lives and if we haven't, they'll probably come a time when we'll ask ourselves that question.
Allah Subhana Allah tells us in the Quran,
Tibet Olivia will be lacking in a shape Ani regime. Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem. Today, Tibet Raka levy big hill makua who Allah Cooley Shane Cody, Levy, hollowcore Mota will hayata Leah Balu accom au comb, Asana, Asana am Allah wa who will Azizullah for Allah says that bless it is he in whose hand is the universe, the dominion, and he is over all things. He has power over all things, he created death and life to test you, which of you will be the best indeed. And he is the Exalted in Might the forgiving. So straightaway, Allah tells us in the Quran, straight up the purpose of our lives, but he will test us he created the whole reason why he created this life, and death and then
life again, is in order to test us. And in another I have the Quran, and this, this I have the Quran is one of those ions that, you know, you hear so many times in your life, you've probably heard it so many times. And yet, when it comes to the situation when you need it most.
And somebody says it to you. It's like wow, like, it's like the first time you heard it, you know? And there are many verses of the Quran like this. For example, I haven't I haven't said the verse yet. So I will say inshallah, in a moment. But another example of a verse like this is when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam passed away,
you know, he passed away, and the news started to spread that he has passed away. But I saw last Allah when he was selling the messenger, our connection with Allah has passed away. And when the news was spreading, people couldn't believe it. Some people were saying, you know, is it really true? Is it really possible? Even the likes of Omar bin al Hata, we know the great companion of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was denying it, and was saying to people, I will chop their hands and legs of anyone who says that messenger of Allah is dead. He's not dead. He's just gone for 40 days, just like, you know, musala salam went and he'll be back. And then He will punish everyone
who said that he's dead. So even the likes of companion like Omar had that kind of reaction. And then, you know, when Abu Bakr Siddiq, the great companion of the Prophet, he came forward and he said, You know, he reminded the people and he mentioned the eye of the Quran, and he said, Well, Mr. Mohammed do a lot of soul that Muhammad is but a messenger, or the Harlequin Kabbalah he was so before him, many messengers came and went,
after him matter or put Ceylon caloptima or become that if he is is killed or if he dies, will you turn on your heels and run away from Allah? Now, this verse of the Quran, the Sahaba, must have heard how many times in their lives right 1000s of times, all the Torah we press, how many of the Sahaba memorize the Quran, the Quran listened to it. This is a verse of the Quran they were so familiar with, and yet when they needed it most and they heard it was as if it was the first time they heard it. Know that Oh, yes, law told us before. He told us long time ago that one day, when I saw a lot the Messenger of Allah will die. So why are we getting so surprised?
Similarly, this eye of the Quran, this verse of the Quran, Allah Subhana Allah tells us
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The reason why I don't recite is because sometimes my talks, you know, some people would like to put it on the internet, or we might put it on the internet. And so some men might hear it. So I prefer not to, like recite in a, you know, in a very beautified voice. So I just say it, but you can imagine, you know, these verses when they're recited, they're so powerful, Allah tells us, that we will surely test you.
While anabella calm, and there's so much emphasis in this word, you know, the alarm at the beginning is for emphasis. We will over assurity definitely test you
with what Allah says, He will test us with fear. So there'll be times in our lives when we will be in a state of extreme fear, maybe fear about the future, maybe fear about our children, maybe fear about where our livelihood is going to come from, maybe the fear of a woman whose husband passes away, and she doesn't know how she's going to cope, maybe the fear of somebody who has lost everything, and is wondering how am I going to start again, maybe the fear of a war.
All these types of fear, Allah says that, we will, I will definitely test you with fear.
And then he says, with hunger, so there will be times in our lives, when we may feel hunger, we may have to do without, if it's not us, it will be other people that we know, in London at the moment.
Believe it or not, even though London is like one of the richest countries or cities in the world, there are now food banks in London, you know, where people are donating food for ordinary people who are living in London who are doing without because the gap between the poor and the rich has increased so much in a city like London, right. And often the poor, the poorer elements of society are the ones you have to pay for the mistakes of the very rich and the mistakes of the criminals amongst the bankers, etc. The poor people are the ones who are suffering. So even in a city like London, and I've seen it even in Vancouver, you know, there are people on the streets, people
experience hunger. And then Allah says he will test us with a loss of wealth.
So sometimes, you know, a person works hard, and they're very well off. But then suddenly, Allah can take it all away from that person.
Or sometimes somebody has put all of their wealth, all of their efforts into something, but Allah will test them by removing that, the benefit that they thought that they would get from that.
And then Allah says he will test us with a loss of life. So our relatives may be somebody that we love our parents, our children, there will be people in our families and amongst the people that we love, who will die. And that is a law testing us. And then he says, He will test us with a loss of fruits from our heart. So this could be literal. So for example, a farmer, a farmer puts so much effort into plowing his field, cultivating the field, watering it, being very, very careful to, you know, the pests don't harm his his crop, all that effort, and yet, the fruit of his effort could all be wasted, because, you know, the fruits don't come or there's some calamity, some disaster. And
then, you know, he's literally the fruits that he was expecting to grow, don't grow. So I say he will test us in that way. Or it could be also the fruits of our efforts, a lot causes a loss in the fruits of our efforts. So a person puts all their hard work and energy into trying to achieve something, but the result that they were hoping for, doesn't come about.
So Allah is testing them with a loss of the fruits of their efforts. And then Allah says, after all of that,
promising us telling us that definitely you will test us. He says, Why bashira soybean and give glad tidings to those who have sober which is usually translated as patience, patient perseverance.
And then Allah says, Allah vena cava asaba Tomasi button God
In LA, he will lay the logic on those who,
when disaster strikes, they say, indeed to Allah we belong. And to him We shall return.
Now this phrase in nearly lie in the La raggio. And usually we hear it when somebody passes away, right? We associate it with death. But actually, it's, it's our it's a vicar that we should say, anytime there's some difficulties, some calamity, as Allah is telling us here. Anytime you lose something, anytime you're being tested, you say in law, what in a lie saying that those who say that, and who have solver are the ones who should have glad tidings. Why? Because what that person who is saying that is doing is reminding themselves, what the whole point of life is, reminding themselves that this thing that I've lost, it didn't belong to me in the first place. It was a loss,
and he gave it to me, and he's just taken it away. And similarly, I belong to Allah. And one day I'm going to be taken away.
My life belongs to Allah, and I'm returning to him as well. Just like this thing that I've lost, returned back to Allah, I too am returning back to Allah. So in other words, they remind themselves what the whole point of life is.
And Allah says
he can allay him soul aware to me Robbie, him Rama Willa eeka Humala doon, those are the ones upon whom our blessings from the Lord and mercy.
And it is those who are the rightly guided, so they're the ones who are having the right reaction to these tests. Now, let's look at what sub or is sub, this word that we just we said, Allah says wabasha saviant give glad tidings to the Siberian. In English, when we say patience, it conjures up this image of a person who's just sitting quietly, maybe, you know, not really doing anything being very passive. But this doesn't really do justice to the word sub in Arabic. Because the concept of sub patients in Arabic
is much more, you know, the patient's in English is very one dimensional.
So linguistically, the word sovereign means and hubs means holding yourself back. Okay, holding yourself back. That's what it literally means. However, islamically, when this was explained, the word sub they say,
cyber in the Sharia in the in the in Islam, Islamic law and or, technically, in Islam, is holding yourself back, or patiently persevering in three matters in three matters. So three in three different ways.
The first is patiently persevering in obeying a law. The second is patiently persevering in staying away from the things that Allah has forbidden.
We're going to go into these inshallah, and the third is patiently persevering. And your persevering means for anyone who doesn't know sometimes I use words and people are like, what does that mean? patiently persevering means carrying on continuing and keeping on going, patiently persevering with regards to whatever painful things Allah has destined for you in your life. So those are the three aspects of cyber, that a person that a Muslim should have, when they're facing calamities. Let's look at them a little bit closer. The first we said,
persevering and obeying a law, because obeying a law takes patience.
It can be heavy on the soul. You know, especially when you starting out, when you're first starting out, it can be heavy on the soul. I remember my father in law, he used to say,
this was before he was practicing, practicing Muslim. He used to say, you know, I see you and I see my, I see the young people and they, they it seems like they love following Islam. It seems like it's natural to them, it's easy for them.
But I find it hard, you know. And one of the things that we said to him was that Subhan Allah, you know, initially, obeying Allah forcing yourself, that's what you have to do, isn't it? You have to actually force yourself to pray. You have to force yourself to take care of your prayer times, force yourself to fast force yourself to obey Allah. But after a while, it becomes easier and Allah makes it as if you couldn't live without it. He makes it so dear to you. It makes it so sweet to you. Right? So, a bang A lot can be heavy on the soul it can. It can be heavy on the body, right? So person having to fight
If something difficult something they have to be patient with.
It can be heavy on a person's finances. Right? So a person has to give Zakat, they don't feel like giving money to charity, they feel like hoarding their wealth, but they have to fight that and they have to be patient in obeying a law. So it takes patience to obey Allah. The second aspect that we said is patience in staying away from what Allah forgive forbidden. So that takes patience as well, because lying is easy, isn't it, it's easier to lie to get out of trouble, then it is to tell the truth and face the consequences.
It's easy to
live off interest, money and you know, river, it's easy to make her on financial transactions in order to make a lot of money as easy. But holding yourself back from that is hard. It's easy to, you know, go out and dress really nicely and want to attract people's attention. That's easy. That's something that we feel like doing. Okay, especially in cultures where that's normal.
But it's hard to hold yourself back from that, and say, No, a lot has told me to dress a certain way to be a certain way in public. So I have to hold myself back from what my knifes from what my lower desires are asking me to do. So all of that takes patience. And then the lost patience in
dealing with whatever Allah throws at you in life.
Now, when it comes to that, when it comes to the test that love throws at us, scholars of Islam mentioned that there are four levels of reaction that a person can have. Now, we're mentioning this, it's really a good time for us to think back maybe in the last week, there must have been a difficult situation or testing moment in the last week that we can look back at and think okay, what was my level of reaction? Okay? Because this is what we're that's what this is the purpose of these type of talks, not just to listen to something and then just feel high for a little while, is to hold ourselves to account isn't existence, I mean, that's, that's the whole point, to hold ourselves
to account. So these are the four kinds of levels of reaction that people usually have to difficulty and calamity.
I want you to ask yourself, what kind of reaction do I have? Do I usually have? So the lowest level of suffer or is actually a lack of substance? The lowest level is that a person should become angry, a person lashes out, a person just blurts out anything that comes in their head, right, and says everything that is displeasing to Allah is resentful is angry is asking, why is this happening to me? Why doesn't it happen to x, y, and Zed shouts at people, you know, that kind of reaction where the person is not holding themselves back at all. It's letting go, whatever comes into their mind, they're reacting with that. So that's like the lowest level or more like it's a lack of cyber
complete lack of software. The second level is what we usually consider to be sovereign, which is that a person accepts what's happened
and carries on perseveres during doing their duties, right keeps keeps on a bank, Allah staying away from what Allah has forbidden.
That person is upset,
they might be sad, they might be affected in a bad way.
However, that person doesn't say anything that is displeasing to Allah. Right. So the heart is grieving, the person is feeling upset. But they're going to hold themselves back from saying anything that is displeasing to Allah. And this is a basic level of cyber that every Muslim should definitely have, right.
The next level, the third level of cyber is
to actually be content with what's happened. Completely content.
Even as if you are pleased, you know, that you know that a lie has got everything under control. This is the level of Eman or faith that you have that you know, a lot got everything under control. And you don't show on your face or in your actions that anything bad has happened.
And I'm sure we've met people like that. It's hard. It's a difficult thing. But we've met people like that, you know, who, when something bad happens when they're ill they don't complain. You know, they they really hold themselves as if you wouldn't even know that they're ill.
Right. So this is the third level is the level of rebutted.
Actually pleased to be actually content with whatever Allah is giving you as a test. And the fourth and the highest level, is that a person actually Thanks a lot. Can you imagine actually, thanks a lot for the test that they've been given.
And that sounds like something very difficult.
And the reason why they do that is because they know that Allah is gonna reward them, they're so connected with the purpose of their life. They're so aware that, you know, this life is just a test, Allah told me, he's gonna test me.
I am thankful to Allah because he is giving me this test,
and rewarding me and making my rents higher because of it. And I think in my mind, I've got two examples of people in our times who I've actually witnessed who have this type of Charla, from what we can see, they seem to have this type of suburb.
Recently in America, there was those capital in Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill killings, right? So you had those three beautiful young Muslims who were killed by somebody. Now, I watched some of the interviews of the brother, especially the brother that I noticed, you know, of the, of the brother dia.
And so panela You know, he actually said, we were actually our family was congratulating each other. The presenter was like, this, these people are mad, you know, what kind of reaction is this? For? He said, you know, we were actually congratulating each other, that a lot chose us that God chose us to give us this test. spatola You know, so that they were actually thanking Allah for the test. Of course, the heart feels pain, right? But you see, so they must have been so connected with a lot they must have so, so much imagine that they know that this life is a test, we're all going to die. And a lot chose my brother, my sister to die in the best way. Right? And Charla Shaheed
that's one example. Another example that I have in my mind is somebody in my family who just recently, a couple, they were just about to have a baby, everything was fine. He was normal. And then just before like, an hour before the baby was to be born, the baby passed away. Right? full term, baby, can you imagine that everything is ready, the new nursery is ready the bedroom, you know, for the baby, everything is ready. So first baby. So very much anticipated and wanted and, you know, looking forward to it. And yet, just an hour before the baby's due to be born, baby passes away, the mother has to actually give birth to the baby, normally, knowing that the baby has passed
away. So Pamela I witness that the Father during the burial feud. They also later when they were having the burial, he actually, you know, through tears, and he was really in pain, you could see, you know, because this is his, his his first child and his baby
that he didn't get to meet, you know, and he was just crying, but he was thanking a lot. Can you imagine he's actually saying, oh, Allah, we thank you for the test that you gave us. And I was trying to imagine what you know, what made him thank Allah. And I think, from from what I can
observe from this couple, I think what he was thanking Allah for was, number one, knowing that you know, what the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has told us that anyone who has a child who dies like this and their patient, and that child will be a means for them to go to Geneva. In fact, that child is like an ambassador that you sent forward, who goes to Geneva before you.
And you'll just follow them in sha Allah. So he was so well acquainted with that. But also, I think he was thanking Allah because Allah allowed him to feel the love of a parent, even though he didn't get to meet his child, you know, that love that experience of being a parent, that powerful feeling that you get a lot allowed him to experience that that love, and that's something that that you can't buy. That's something that is God given. Right? So there are people and we do have the ability to reach that level. We shouldn't think you know, this is something that saints, only saints are able to reach this level.
You should be aware, and realize that we could also reach that level, to thank Allah for the tests that we've been given.
And the prophets all along what he was selling. He, although he was the most beloved person to Allah, most beloved person to Allah. And although he was
the best of us, the best human being to walk on this earth. He was
not exempt from being tested.
Even he lost, you know, one of his children. He lost most of his children in his lifetime, right. But as a baby, he lost one one of his children. He was just a toddler
Ibrahim.
And when his son passed away, he actually passed away in his own arms.
And he began to weep. And one of the Sahaba said to him jasola what what is this? Because he thought that crying is against sobor. Right? Crying is not it seems like it's something that's not conducive to being patient. But Sunil Lawson Allahu alayhi wa sallam told him that
this is the Rama. This is mercy that Allah puts in our hearts. And he said, you know, the eyes weep, and the heart grieves. But we only say with our mouths, we only say that which pleases a lot. Yep. So this is suburb. This is the way the Prophet sallallahu himself also felt pain. He was a human being, he felt pain as well. He felt grief. But he never said anything that displease Allah. So if he is not exempt from being tested, then what makes us think that we will not that we will be exempt from being tested? Definitely, we will be tested.
So why does Allah test us? That is the whole question that we're asking today. Why is it that a lot? And this is the question that the atheists typically
or at least, you know, the,
the archbishops of atheism, I like to call them people like Richard Dawkins, I don't know if you've heard of Richard Dawkins, you know, the author of the book, The God Delusion. One of the chapters of his book, he actually asked this question, why does God allow evil to exist? Why does Allah allow people to suffer? If there is a God? Why does he allow people to suffer? Right? This is the typical kind of question.
Well,
we know as Muslims, that human beings have a very limited view of the universe,
you know, Subhanallah, we are
like these tiny creation on a blue ball, that is whizzing through space, literally whizzing around a star, and that star, and the whole system around it is also whizzing around a galaxy. And that galaxy is one galaxy amongst billions of galaxies. And there is no end to the universe that we can ever observe. Right? That is a huge and vast universe that Allah has created. And we are literally these tiny little dots on this little blue planet. Right. And we think that we could encompass God's mind, if you want to call it mind, you know, we think we could understand our laws intentions, or we could understand what is why Allah does things, why Allah has created things a certain way, why
Allah has destined for certain things to exist. You know, it's just arrogance for us to think that we could understand the wisdom behind everything that Allah does. We can't, you know, it's like, Allah has the full picture. And we only have one tiny pixel, and we're trying to figure out what the whole picture is, from this tiny pixel. It's impossible to do that, right? Allah has the whole picture.
So we can't fully understand the greater plan of Allah. Okay? That's why Allah Subhana Allah sent us messengers, to at least give us some glimpse into some of the wisdoms
behind the things that a lot of Hannah that Allah has destined.
Nothing that Allah has created is purely evil. And that's something quite hard for us to sometimes understand, because we see evil things happening. We see earthquakes in Nepal, we see, you know, terrible suffering, and we think, how could there be anything good about this, right? But in a Lost Planet, Allah tells us that there is nothing that he has created that is purely evil, meaning even the things that seem evil to us and they may be evil, in the bigger picture in the bigger plan that Allah has, bearing in mind that Allah Subhana Allah has made a day of judgment, a day when all the justice will be done. No, no one will be left on the Day of Judgment feeling wrong. Even the people
who are going to the Hellfire will accept that they deserve it. And the people who are going to heaven to gender
They will actually wish that they were tested even more, can you imagine that, you know, a person will wish that they had even more calamities and tests in this life, because of the amazing rewards that they're getting. Because of the fact that, you know that life is forever, this life is just a tiny, a tiny portion of time that we have on this earth. And it's a test and compare 70 years last, okay, maybe 70 years, maybe more 100 years, you know, nowadays people can live up to 100.
Imagine even comparing that if Allah gives the person a lot a long life, with forever, is completely insignificant. So tiny amount of time, right?
So the reward that Allah gives us, which is forever, is going to completely Eclipse any level of pain and difficulty that a human being experienced in this life.
And another analogy we can use is the analogy of a mother. Okay, of course, for Allah is the greatest example. But as mothers, you know, those of you who are mothers and everyone else as well, you can just imagine this scene, right? A mother
takes her child and her child, you know, her baby depends on her. The child thinks the mother, you know, is everything is his his or her world, right. And yet, this mother takes this baby to the doctors
to be vaccinated. Right. And so the baby sees, if it's a toddler, you know, they'll be more aware, they see this doctor, taking a needle out and piercing the arm with a needle. And it's so painful. It's painful, it makes the baby crying. It makes the baby scream and be almost like in complete shock. Why would my mother take me somewhere where I was to experience pain on that level, extreme pain, and the baby can't see anything good about that vaccination. Right? I'm not going to go into whether vaccinations are good or not. I know, there's like a lot of controversy nowadays. But you get what I'm trying to say, right? That the mother who takes that child, she knows the bigger
picture, she is trying to protect that child from an even worse calamity later on, from a bigger illness from more pain, right? That could happen to that child later on. And in order to do that, she doesn't mind allowing that child to experience some pain. However, intensity is, however much it makes that child cry for that moment. But that child from that child's point of view, because the child can't get into the mind of the mother can't understand things from the point of view of the mother, the child is going to be like, my mother is so mean, why did my mom do this to me, she actually could take me somewhere where I would experience pain, right?
So this analogy kind of helps us to kind of think, you know, panela, as human beings, we think, how could a lot allow me to feel this pain? Right? Of course, that's not something that a Muslim should say. But any a person could think that, but bear this analogy in mind.
So
Allah subhanaw taala, why does he test us?
A lot of tests us.
Because suffering and difficulty makes people remember Allah.
Right? When we're in times of ease, when everything is wonderful, we forget about Allah. We think we're invincible. When a person is young and healthy, and they've got no nothing to worry about. They think they're invincible.
When a person is healthy, they feel indestructible. When a person is wealthy, they feel that they deserve what they have, right? They earned it. And they forget about a lot. This is typically what happens. But when a person is suddenly tested, they remember their limits. They're reminded I'm just a human being. If all I wanted, he could take everything away from me. He's the one who gave me life. He's the one who gave me my beloved, beloved people in my life. He could take them away anytime. And it reminds that person and it forces that person to turn back to Allah. You know, a lot even says this about people who don't even reject him. He says that when they're on the sea, right,
and their boat capsizes and they're literally
in the sea and they've got nothing to depend on. Now. What do they do? What do people do
their inner nature that
inherent fit, there are what we call the fitrah comes out and suddenly they start calling on God, they start calling on Allah. If there's a God save me, right? If there's a God, I promise I'll be a good human being, just save me, and I'll be good, right? And then Allah says, then when that person comes back to dry land,
they just forget about God, right? They say, everything's fine.
This is the nature of human beings. Suffering causes us to remember a lot. And we know that, you know, the way out, is when we're in a difficult situation is different. To the way algebra is when we don't have any problems, right, the way you call on Allah, the way you talk to Allah is completely different. So Allah is actually pulling you towards himself. When he's testing,
it's an act of love.
If only we were to look at it like that,
also, our soul is purified, because of these tests, right?
Our sins are forgiven. In fact, the sign of a good end for a person is that they were ill for a long time, maybe before they died, if they suffered and if they went through illness, it means Allah is Forgiving all of their sense, all of their sins are being exploited. So that when they die, they have a completely clean slate inshallah. So this is actually a sign of a good end,
our soul is purified, due to these tests, our ranks are raised. So a person who is tested more, we know is somebody who Allah loves. Allah says he taught tests those who he loves.
So it differentiates the sincere people from the insincere right when they're tested, Allah is seeing you know, what is this person's reaction going to be?
It also reminds us what the purpose of our life is in the first place, right because we can become so diluted, we just this this world dazzles are so much the television, the culture of fashion, all of these things, all of the different industries that exist, the music industry, the film industry, the fashion industry, they are all trying to pull us in different directions and telling us that happiness is this happiness is wearing this shoe or wearing this dress or looking like this woman, right?
This world is continuously trying to pull us and trying to try to make us think that this is everything. This world is everything.
But when we're tested, it reminds us what the whole purpose of life is. Because how could a person cope? And people don't cope? How can a person cope with certain calamities unless they know that there's going to be a day of judgment? Have you ever thought of that?
Why do people feel despair? Why do people commit suicide? I'm not saying that there's just one reason why they they may do that, but
a person who believes that there is an afterlife, there is going to be reward there is going to be retribution there is going to be justice will have a different reaction, right to the problems in the tests of life, then a person who believes that death is the end. If death is the end, then this life has everything, isn't it?
So what should a Muslim do when they are tested with calamities? What should our reaction be? How should we cope?
The first thing to do
and you know often we think of phoning someone, right? When we have a difficulty for my husband, phone, Doctor phone, my friend who has a solution to everything. But really the first thing we should do is call on Allah. Yeah. Immediately talk to Allah. Because in that moment, when you're feeling that calamity, nobody however close they are to you actually can feel it can understand you. But Allah understands you even without you even saying anything, right? So the first thing to do is say, oh, Allah helped me with this difficulty. Oh Allah, talk to Allah. Pour your heart out to Allah. As one of the she have said, you know, when we talk to Allah, we should not talk to him as if
you know, we're standing in front of a judge or, you know, a king or something like this. We should cry to him like, like a baby like a, like a toddler, right? cries to his mom, when he wants something. How does a toddler cry to their mom, right? They're like, having a tantrum basically. Right? just completely distraught, screaming crying.
This is the way we should be talking to Allah. That way
so helpless Allah, O Allah, whatever it is that you want. ask Allah in such a way that you will not stop asking until Allah gives that thing to you.
Humble yourself because that's what Allah wants. Allah wants us to humble ourselves to acknowledge who he is.
So calling on Allah as the first reaction
and
turning to Allah, turning to salah and the prophets of Allah what even send them anytime he had a difficulty anytime he was feeling pain, anytime he was feeling anxious before a battle, a great battle in which you know the enemies outnumbered the Muslims by 1000s What would you do?
Some of you would go into Salam and Allah says that a stallion ob Sabri was Salah, seek help through patience, and Salah. Okay, that is your connection with Allah, that's your communication with Allah. So we should make we do pray to god of Salah, any Salah, any
just extra Salah in order to seek help from Allah.
The third thing is to remember and to remind ourselves,
that Allah tests those people whose rights he wants to increase, Allah test those people whom he loves. And my reaction is going to determine whether my rents are increased or decreased.
And for that, sometimes we need to be around the right sort of people.
You know, there are people, there are sisters, who you will turn to who will make you or they can't make you do anything. But they will encourage you or influence you to react in a bad way. Right.
But then there are those people, you know, who if you're around them, they will strengthen you. Right. So those are the type of people that you want to be around when you're having a test, not the people who will make you more impatient, not the people who will encourage you to overreact, but the people who will help you to have patience.
And who will remind you that tests are things that increase our ranks. The fourth action to do is,
and these are some, some of them are mental actions, if you like, you know, things that we should be thinking and saying to ourselves, and some of them are physical
is to realize that this thing that's happening to me, however painful, it seems, is actually good for me. You know, Allah says in the Quran, that perhaps there's something that you love, and it's bad for you. And perhaps there's something that you hate, and it's good for you. And Allah knows, and you don't know. And all of us can think of certain things in our younger years, that may have happened, but at the time, they just seem so terrible. We can't, we couldn't see what was good about them. But later on, we look back and we say, because of that difficult time actually learn this, or I wouldn't be the person who I was who I am today, if it wasn't for that test that I experienced,
right. So in the bigger picture, we realized it was actually good for us. So similarly, something you're experiencing now is going to be something good for you
in the future,
realizing that and taking it as an opportunity, an opportunity to show a lot
what you're made of as a Muslim, right, what level you are at, as a Muslim.
Number five, to have suburbs, the suburbs that we mentioned, not a passive suburb where a person sits and doesn't say anything doesn't do anything. But suburb as in persevering. Carrying on. That's what sobor is that we mentioned right, carrying on or being a lot, carrying on staying away from what Allah has forbidden, and exhibiting sub.
The sixth is to actually count the blessings that Allah has given us. Because sometimes when we envelope with a particular
calamity, we can forget all of the millions and 1000s of things Allah has given us that are actually blessings. You know, sisters, there are people on this earth who would love to have our worst problems. You know, what we think of as our worst problems are things that they wish were their worst problems.
There's a wonderful book called affluenza forgotten the author's name, affluenza, and he talks about, you know, how some of the happiest people that he studied, were people who had nothing. And some of the most miserable people who he studied and he did this whole study, where people in the richest countries are
had the most money, and yet they're miserable. Right? Oftentimes, the things that we consider to be problems are just things that we've made big in our own heads, right? Because we don't have to worry about where our food is coming from. And we're not worrying about our survival. Sometimes we as human beings create problems in our own minds, right.
And we make them bigger, make mountains out of molehills. So we have to look at the people who have been tested more than us, you know, in our own communities, or even in other communities. Look at those people, they have a much bigger test than you. And it helps you to count your own blessings. Right? As the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam advised us, when it comes to worldly matters, look at the people who have less than you.
When it comes to the next life, look at the people who are better than you, in terms of piety in terms of their character, look at the people who are better than you in terms of material things. Look at the people who have less than you, and you feel faithful. So we should literally count our blessings, even if it means writing them down. Write down the blessings that Allah has given you. I saw a man, we're heard about a man who
the muscles in his eyelids don't work. Okay? I'm mentioning this to you as something that we don't even think about. Do you ever think about blinking? Do you ever think about opening your eyes in the morning, or closing them at night? We never even think about it. And yet this man that the muscles in his eyelids didn't work. So what that meant for him from what I remember is that he had to actually when he woke up in the morning, he had to take his eyelids to his upper Iowa, whatever you want to call it his brow. Yeah. He had to take them with some kind of special tape. And because blinking is such an important thing, you know, it washes out eyes it clean, it cleanses them, it
keeps them lubricated. Right? He actually had to keep putting drops in his eyes throughout the whole day.
I mean, imagine such a debilitating way of having to live because of a simple muscle in an eyelid.
And is that something that we even think about?
And yet it's one of the greatest blessings that Allah has given us, right? So this is what I'm talking about. Count the blessings that Allah has given you and your you put your tests into perspective, this is one test, but look at the 1000s of blessings that Allah has given me.
Number seven increase in good deeds. Sometimes when we're in a in a in a state of
when we're experiencing difficulties and calamities and tests.
We feel demotivated, right? We don't feel like praying more, we don't feel like doing more we don't feel like
you know, doing more and more good deeds. And yet doing those good deeds are actually
the cure. You know, they're actually going to help us to get out of that state. If we're in a state of depression, or if we're in a state of low kind of Eman, right? The way out of a low state of a man of faith, or low state of faith is to actually increase in good deeds, even if it means forcing yourself. So when we have a test, give more to charity, if you have if your test is that you've lost money, give to charity, you know, show Allah that you believe that he's the one who gives you risk. And because you believe that even though you're facing poverty, yourself,
you're not facing poverty to that level that you could just give some money to charity, right? So the homeless person on the street, you know, a few pounds here and there, dollars here and there, right? So Pinilla increase in soda. This is what the Sahaba used to do when they were faced with the difficulty. They used to give more charity to wipe away their sins.
Number eight, assess yourself honestly, assess yourself honestly. And what I mean by that is, sometimes we can be the cause of our own destruction.
Right? And sometimes we need to look at ourselves squarely in the eyes and think to ourselves, you know, what is it? Where am I in life? Am I somebody who deserves Love, Love?
Or who Allah loves? Am I somebody who really needs to make some changes in my life and is allowed sending sending this to me as a wake up call? Right. So what are the things that are stopping me from succeeding and from from being closer to Allah? What are the
things, the opportunities that I'm missing.
How do I overcome my weaknesses, we need to look ourselves squarely in the face in order to be able to improve. If we're not willing to be honest,
then we can never improve. The first step to improving and changing your state and changing the situation is to actually face up
to your own faults, face up to the facts.
And then the last
action that I would say that we need to make when it comes to facing these calamities and tests is to use all of the faculties that Allah has given you.
Whether that's your mind, your wealth, your body, your ability
to do what you can to make an action plan to make a plan as to how to change your situation, how to empower yourself out of that difficult situation. And the reason why I say that is that
Allah subhanaw taala, when he tested Madame alayhis salam, right, for example, married when she was giving birth to the Prophet Jesus alayhi salam.
And she was all by herself. She had nobody to help her. You know, maybe she didn't even know what was gonna happen to her. Have you ever thought of that? I mean, you know, when we're about to have a baby, we read like about 10 books about it. And people tell us things and, you know, maybe my family, Assange didn't even know what was gonna happen to her.
Can you imagine, like the huge test that she was about to go through. And she knew that the reaction of her people, she knew that the children of Israel would accuse her of being an unchaste woman, she knew that they would reject her. And yet, she knew she had to go through this. And it was a test. Of course, it was a status for her as well, you know, to be the mother of a Sally Salaam of Jesus, but it was a huge test for her. And we find that when Allah describes this in the Quran, he tells us that she was in such pain in such a state of difficulty that she, you know, called out to Allah. And then a lot told her the solution, he said to her, you know, that she should actually shake the palm
of a tree, the trunk of a palm tree, right? And then fruit would come to her.
And, you know, when the scholars talk about this, they say, a palm tree has a very, very thick trunk, you could never move it, you could not shake it, you know, but Allah was telling Maryam in her difficult situation, to do something, take some action, you don't as a Muslim, just sit down and say, I'm, I've gotten, I've got no way to get out of my situation. That's not what Allah wants a lot is I want you to sit down and be completely complacent. He wants you to take some action. Even if you don't really know what the way out is. Just like Mario Madden has salon, even though shaking that palm tree wouldn't have actually shipped the palm tree actually affected the palm tree, just
the fact that she was putting effort into moving and doing what Allah had told her to, Allah will make the fruit come to you. Right, he will open the doors to you, even though you can't see it, you can't see how you get out of that test. By taking some action, seeking the means. Allah will open the doors for you to getting out of that difficulty in that situation. So inshallah
I think we've got a lot to think about, to assess ourselves, you know, may Allah Subhana Allah, ease the burdens and ease the difficulties that any one of us is facing this time. And we should never think you know that somebody has it all, or somebody is, has got no test. Every one of us has got tests, even the most wealthy of us the most beautiful of us the most, you know, whatever of us has got tests, they have their own tests, and we have our own tests, every one of us has been tested in some way.
So in sha Allah, may Allah make it easy for all of us to face the tests to go through this life in such a way that inshallah we are right to be raised in the era that we will be happy in the afterlife that we will meet each other in Sharla in gender and we will remember these days on this earth you know, because that's what's gonna happen we're gonna talk about these days on this earth. Remember that time when that happened, remember when this happened? Are we glad that we went through that test and we passed it and now we're hitting Gen that forever? Charla with that I will finish somehow Nicola homo becoming the go shadow. And that stuff will go back to what we like.
I have two questions. The first one is
how do we?
How do we recognize whether a trial is a trial or as a punishment?
punishment? How do we recognize?
Okay, so
how do we recognize if a trial is a trial or punishment?
I've read about this and one of the scholars, he said that
you recognize whether something is a trial or a punishment by your own reaction to it.
If it's something that you actually
become patient with, and after this trial, you become better become a better person. Right? Then inshallah It was a trial from Allah. Yeah, it wasn't a punishment. But if a person becomes worse afterwards, reacts in a bad way, and then they become worse in terms of
that human. Yep. And the Islam, the practice of Islam, etc,
then that is a sign that this was a punishment.
The one of the levels of being patient is that you are content with what's going on with you.
And then right now you're ending up with, we're not supposed to just sit and do nothing? I'm supposed to do something. How do you find a balance between those two? What are your content? what you're going through? So then, what are you supposed to do in order to rectify that? Or if you have content, then what else can you do? Okay, so for example, if a person was ill, okay, had a major illness,
something like cancer, you know, some major illness that has afflicted them.
Of course, they should seek the means to cure that illness, right? That's not against suburb. However, the fact that it even happened to them, they would have contentment with that, you know, sometimes you're in a situation where you can't do like you said that you don't find a way out, right, you don't see a way out, you're content with whatever you're going through. Right. But then, as you said, we shouldn't just be sitting and doing nothing, we should do something about it. Yeah, it depends on the situation doesn't matter. Like,
I mean, there's so many different situations you could name and each one would be would be different. So there are some calamities that come to us come to a person, that they really feel completely helpless, that there's really nothing that they feel they could do to get themselves out of that, right. They feel they are completely powerless. But then they can do other things. For example, they should seek the means by drawing closer to Allah, by increasing in the bar that by focusing on something else, so a person can't do one thing, they can turn to something else, Allah has given us many different ways as an E to worship him to become closer to him. Right? So for
example, I remember in, in the UK, one of the shoe, you know, like in the UK, where there's quite a lot of kind of clamping down going on at the moment, not just on people who have a violent kind of
interpretation, if you like, or violent leanings, right? islamically I mean, but people who even
just are very religious, you know, the government is actually clamping down on
being a religious Muslim, believe it or not, and especially on, you know, people who they call preachers who, you know, they consider to be very influential and dangerous, right.
And some of them are preachers who we would consider to be, you know, very moderate, and we would, we would go to their talks, right? However, when I remember one of the shoe, when I asked him, you know, what will you do, if they ban you, okay? Because literally, he's being stopped from going to universities now, you know, giving talks,
and he's being demonized in the newspapers, you know, such a terrible way, like, anyone who reads them. They're just like, wow, you know, they're completely character. assassinating him is not like that at all, but they just,
and he actually said, Well, if they banned me then I'm just
Going to start writing.
We're gonna start writing books, it will be my chance to do something that I didn't have time to do. Right? And that's just one little example. What I'm trying to say is that when one door closes for you, maybe actually Ally's open is telling you to turn to another door, right?
It never completely closes, there's always some way to move forward to do something.
Even if you're told that you only have five days left to live, you can use those five days. Right? So a Muslim never becomes in a state of despair where, you know, that's it. There's no point doing anything. Now. It's not like that. I hope that kind of explains it. But I guess it depends on the situation. And
any other questions or
observations?
Yes.
Is it okay? Like sometimes if you're going through stuff, you're just you're just not the type of person who discusses things you don't like.
And it's something you want to keep to yourself is between you and a lot, or that's just how you manage it.
That's actually a higher level of sort of
people asking what's going on, but it's just just don't feel like
yeah, that's fine. I mean,
you know, one, the third level of suffer, one of the descriptions in it is that you don't actually talk about it with people, you know, but it's also that you don't, you know, because there are people who, who show you that they're really miserable, and something really bad has happened, but they don't want to talk about it. That's not, that's not the subject that we're talking about. We're saying, Just act as if nothing's happened, you know, that is like a really a higher level of suburb, and yet to keep it between you and a lot that's, you know, reminds me of
the Prophet Yahoo belly salon. You know, he, he just, he didn't feel he had anyone who he could complain to you about the loss of his son use of right? And he said, I'm not complaining to anyone. I'm only complaining to Allah. Yep. So that is the best thing to do. The sobra Jamil, you know, the beautiful patience, is to complain to Allah because Allah is the only one who can actually help you. Even if you think another human being could help you. It's only if Allah allows that human being to help you that you'll be helped. So
you know, Allah, and sometimes Allah can help you in a way that you never imagined.
Through means that you could never even have orchestrated or engineered yourself. Right. So yeah, to keep it between you and a lot of us. Absolutely fine. inshallah.
So, if somebody
knew just before he say anything, before we complain or sheepish me
as an employee,
you mean, they say Alhamdulillah, then they complain.
It's true.
The thing is that, you know, the first reaction is the most is very important. It's actually the most important isn't it? You know, the famous had the youth of Rasulullah sallallahu sallam, he was passing by the graveyard and the lady was sitting. Yeah. And she was crying or being very sad, impatient, maybe. And also Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said to her, be patient, and she didn't know it was him. And then she said, you know, you don't know what I've gone through, right? And then when she realized that the property was the Prophet Mohammed, she became so worried, like, Oh, my God, how can I speak to a pseudo Latin that way? And so she rushed to his house. And she said, Jada,
sort of like, I didn't know that it was you, who told me to be patient, you know. And he said that the solver is at the first chakra, the first sign of shock. So definitely, the first reaction is important. And then we should try not to spoil it, you know, by then after having that good reaction. Because that's, that's quite good that a person had that initial reaction, because most people, they will complain and have all the bad reaction and, and then right at the end, when they've laid it all out, they'll say, Well, I should be patient right after doing all of that. So you're saying the opposite. And so a person should once they've done that one
They've had that that means that they've got that level to be able to hold themselves and say Alhamdulillah Allah colohan, Praise be to Allah, no matter the situation.
Now, they shouldn't spoil it by complaining to people.
Yeah.
Don't look so good, whatever. Yeah. And you start by saying that
you don't want
somebody asking you, and you reply, by this way.
From what I understand, a complaint is when you're showing
extreme,
you know, you're not accepting it, you know, or that you're
complaining about a law, we must Yeah, to somebody. Now, we, you know, we mentioned the levels. So this would kind of the way you're describing would be the second level, right? That person is not saying anything that is displeasing to Allah, but they have the feeling and they're expressing it, maybe, you know, but that doesn't mean that they actually saying anything wrong, you know, so it is a sub, it is a level of sub, but maybe not the higher level, you know, inshallah, I hope that helps.
This is something kind of along the lines of a secular thing. So, if you have, like, somebody has wronged you, or really hurt you, right, and, you know, you've forgiven them and islamically everything that was meant to hit you, you know, it's something from Allah and all that. So you forgive them and, but you just like, let the hurt doesn't go, like, what what can you do?
islamically to try to, you know, like, you know, how they say, forgive and forget, but sometimes they're forgetting. And, you know, you don't want to remember, because we're human, right? Our mind. Yeah, so what,
how to move like, emotionally forward, I guess, right, you know, you know, islamically, what is correct and what is to do, but just you can't get maybe your heart, your mind to?
sequence.
So I think,
obviously, depends on the situation, exact situation. But if we're talking, generally speaking,
I would say that,
you know, when we start looking at other human beings as human beings,
and we realize our own flaws.
All of us had times when we said something, or done something that hurt somebody, we didn't necessarily intend it, or we, we were not very self conscious or whatever, whatever, right? I find it helps personally, if somebody has wronged me, or something like that, to try and empathize with them. Okay. I know, that's hard sometimes to do that. Okay. But to empathize with
their situation, their knowledge, their resources, their worldview, you know, and often, what that can end up helping you to do is almost feel a kind of
pity, you know, yeah, and kind of feel
kind of sorry for them, you know,
because, often when somebody lashes out, when somebody wronged somebody, it's not actually you, that is the problem, the person on the receiving end, but there's something problematic in their own life, and you don't have that problem. So that should in some way. Obviously, like I said, it depends on the situation, but I'm just telling you, from my own personal experience, that sometimes helps you to kind of think, you know, 100 a lot, a lot didn't test me with those things that that person must have been experiencing, that has led them to have that worldview or that type of reaction, right.
And it helps us to at least, not hold it so, so heavily in our heart, you know, not to not to take it so personally. Because often it's not personal, in their own person's life. But they have a problem, that they have issues, right. And they just expressing it. And it's not necessarily personally towards you, that you just happened to be there, maybe, you know.
So I just find it helps to really empathize with that person.
And often, you can see that all that person had to, for example, they might have had a very troubled childhood. They may have come from a very
testing, they may be experiencing a huge test themselves.
Or they just may be, even if a person, for example, is just so socially, you know, what we call socially dyslexic or socially just completely
unaware, that also is a reason to feel sorry for them. Because probably the You're not the first person or the last person they've got problems with, right? They probably got issues with lots of different people, right. So that that should make us feel sorry for them as well. Similarly, you know, when somebody like, lashes out at us, for example, for dressing a certain way, as Muslims, you know, how do we cope with it, often we do kind of think, put ourselves in their shoes, don't we? And we think, okay, that person doesn't know about Islam, maybe they've heard all this bad stuff on the news, you know, whatever make excuses we make. So I think that helps. However, when somebody has
hurt you, even if it's a Muslim,
you know, even if it's somebody who is in your family, we should try and keep relations with them. But it doesn't mean you have to be best friends. You know, you don't have to some people, our personalities don't
connect, right. And sometimes it's better for us not to be with them. So we don't have to be like in each other's faces, force ourselves into, you know, especially when somebody has wronged us. And, you know, it was something very bad whatever. Of course, the higher level is to forgive.
And forgiving means letting go of it.
And especially when somebody has
sought forgiveness,
you know, when somebody actually said, Sorry, and has asked us for forgiveness, we should definitely be in the type of people who completely forgive them. Because, you know, that's what we do to a lot all the time, right?
We sin against him. And then we ask Him to forgive us. And there's not anything more that we can do, really, except try and do more good. Right. So when somebody has done that, especially showing an adequate apology and adequate kind of remorse, then we should definitely forgive them. And if we forgive them, even when they haven't done that,
again, we should think of our own situation. There may be times when we wrong other people, or we wronged Allah.
And we don't even realize we don't even ask for forgiveness. But we're hoping on your little piano on the day of judgment that Allah will overlook.
Yeah. So the way we want to be treated on on the Day of Judgment, is the way we should treat people.
Yeah. And I think that all kind of helps us to let go.
You know, there will be people on the Day of Judgment.
I remember that a man on the Day of Judgment, who has done any good deeds.
But
when he used to lend money to people, he used to be easygoing, you know, is to let them off. Sometimes, he used to ignore his to let them not pay him back. Right. And that good deed, will take that person to gender to paradise. So we don't know what good deed of ours is going to please a lot. And so I think, if we bear that in mind and think, look, I'm going to be easygoing, because I want a lot to be easygoing with me, inshallah, that that will help us do to let go and shallow
to
is it allowed
to just keep on having supper and not go for counseling?
allows?
Yeah.
I think we remember when we talked about sovereignty, we said that
cyber is basically to carry on doing the work that you need to do, staying away from what Allah has told us not to do, and keeping ourselves
upright and firm. Yep. Despite the difficulties that we're facing, not reacting in a way that we're rejecting or questioning a lot. Right. But counseling is another means, isn't it? It's another means to helping.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, but as Muslims, I mean,
but what I was going to say is that counseling is not necessarily the solution for everyone. You know,
Some people, they have the ability to talk to Allah and they can. That's the type of counseling for them. Right? They can work through their problems, not necessarily by going to a professional, right.
However, for some people that might be beneficial to actually go through and talk and, you know, so it's a means it depends on a person if they want to take that means. It's a means, you know?
Yeah, of course, we shall. Yep.
Allah knows best.
But I don't know, from from what it seems to me, it doesn't seem contradictory, you know, because that person is not going to that person and saying, why is God doing this to me, you know, they're going to that person and saying, I've, I've got issues and I want to work through them, I want to find a solution. You know, I've had this trouble thing that happened in my past or whatever, and I want to find a way to, to let go of that thing, you know. So, in fact, you know,
many situations, there are many situations in which the Prophet sallallahu Sallam encourage people to seek counsel, you know, to have Shura, for example, with people, you know, take advice from people, before you're making a decision. Or even for example, when people are having marital issues, we know that they're encouraged to have mediators and to work through problems. Yeah. So I guess it depends on the intention.
It's not just to like,
talk and talk and again, say things that are displeasing to Allah. As long as we don't say something displeasing to Allah and Charlie's not against sobor.
And, you know, talking can can be healing for us. So inshallah, it can be a very positive thing. As long as we keep within the right, you know, boundaries. Take one more question.
Keep the good relationship with anyone who is doing good, everybody wants to do good with them. But the carrot is you do the good with those people who do bad with you.
So if somebody is continuously treating you badly, so what should be my behavior, and they never understand they're this team, and they constantly hurt you and do bad for you. And then they become angry themselves. Even then, I should go. And I should tell, I should believe
I should keep the relationship even if they don't want to keep okay. So if it's relatives, is different to non relatives, you know,
non relatives. Okay. So, let's talk about both. So when it comes to relatives, anyone who's related to you, the closer they're related to you, the more rights they have, right?
So what that means is
having extra level of patience, you know, even like, I believe it's the saying of alia Dylan, who he said that
being good with the neighbors is not being good with them, when everything's fine. It's actually they're being bad to you, when they're being bad to you, you carry on being good with them, right. So, obviously, that is a very Yani higher level, yeah, of being that even somebody who is running you, you will do good to them. However, there is a minimum, like as a Muslim, the minimum is that we should say Salaam to people, yeah, uphold their rights. So if you know the right to, when they have a janazah we should follow their jobs or when they're ill, we can visit them, you know, those rights, basic rights, we should fulfill, but other than that, there is no need, or no kind of
requirement for a person to like, like you're describing, you know, to literally be constantly trying to be with somebody, you know, especially if that person is rejecting them, as long as you keep the basic Islamic rights, right, which our
neighbors are different, again, neighbors and relatives, they have higher level of rights. So your sister or your relatives, if you still have to keep relationship with them, right. They still have a stronger level of rights. Okay.
Same with the neighbor, a neighbor, you know, the,
the Sahaba said, we thought that the neighbors will become heirs.
We thought that when a person dies, that Prophet the prophets of Allah is going to say even
neighbors will inherit from us, because of the huge number of rights used to mention and emphasis used to give to the neighbors. So with the neighbors, you know,
again, it doesn't mean you have to literally be in each other's houses, okay? But to keep a good relationship,
not to harm them at all, never to harm them at all, that's very important. If there's something that's annoying them, you should rather only Be careful, rather than, you know, harming them, even if it's irrational the thing that's annoying them, right. And it's a problem. I've seen that as Muslims, when we're patient, and we carry on being good with somebody, even if it's a non Muslim, non Muslim, or Muslim, then often that person can change over time, and, you know, kind of completely change in Sharla, because you you kept on being nice to them, you know? So, I've seen that many times. happen.
Yeah, yeah. That's why I said that. We don't have to force ourselves on anyone you know, and even some people, they're not necessarily good for us to be around.
Yeah.
Yep. So I was just he was saying that we're allowed to minimize the relationship. Yeah, you can minimize it. So, in other words, we don't have we're not meant to, like annoy each other are we like, go out of our way to know if,
but we keep the door open. You know, when you say to somebody, you can always come to me, you know, that is a very generous gesture. And that means you don't necessarily have to actively keep going to them, but they know that it's open, you know, and you whenever you see them, you say salam whenever you know, you do the basic of the minimum, that's what's required, but definitely things for example, with the neighbor, the reason why I emphasized is because, like Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam said that he is not of us who goes to sleep with his stomach full and his neighbor is hungry. So you wouldn't know that unless you have a little bit of Kind of, yeah.
This this is these are the tests of life. You know, hamdulillah hasn't given us huge things to be patient with in the bigger picture and he compared to a lot of people, you know, so
is that
every step that you took to come here, my daughter's fallen asleep.
Every step that you took sister to come
to all of you may have