Hamza Ayedi – The Best of Manners #1
AI: Summary ©
The importance of good manners and character in Islam is emphasized, along with the importance of good deeds and character in achieving healthy health. The speaker provides examples of how people can improve their character through hard work and guidance, including practicing the " forgetting curve" process. The importance of memorizing multiple parables in learning to read and understand a book is emphasized, along with practicing the " forgetting curve" process. The speaker provides step-by-step instructions for practicing these parables and provides helpful guidance on practicing the "just to make friends" book.
AI: Summary ©
Everybody,
to,
our first part
of our new halakha series,
the best of manners. The best
of manners.
And
I wanted to start
with a story.
So in the in the 6th year after
Hijra,
when the Muslims had settled in Madinah,
the Prophet
wanted
to spread the deen to the other parts
of Arabia
and the world.
And so what he did
he started sending letters to the to the
Arab leaders and the non Arab leaders.
And one of the Arab leaders that received
one of the letters of the prophet was
Thumama
ibn Uthal.
Thumama ibn Uthal was one of
the chiefs or one of the kings of
Al Yamama, which is an area in the
east of Arabia, and he was the chief
of Banu Hanifa,
one of the most powerful tribes,
in Arabia.
And
when he received the letter
of invitation to Islam, not only did he
reject the message,
but he actually became very angry.
He became very upset and angry.
Who are these people who are very weak
in inviting us,
to their own religion?
And so he actually became so angry that
he wanted to kill the Prophet
to that extent.
And so he would try
year after year but he wasn't successful.
But he was successful in killing some of
the companions
of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Time passed by and he had made an
intention to go to to Umrah. He made
an intention to go to Umrah. He's a
mushrik. So he went to do Umrah,
to to his idols in Mecca. Of course,
Mecca was still under the the mushrikeen
at that time. So on his way there,
he is met by a sariyah of the
of the of the sahaba. A group of
sahaba that were there just making sure that
no one's coming to attack
Al Madinah. So
they thought that they he was a threat,
him and his his, his people, so they
captured them. And they took them to to
Al Madina. And of course,
what they would do to the prisoners, they
would put them in the in the masjid.
There was no
prison or anything like that.
So the prisoners would be put in the
masjid.
And so they took him and they tied
him to one of the pillars. Yeah? Like
one of the
pillars of the masjid and Nabawi.
And then they told the Prophet
So when the Prophet
came in and he saw him from,
from outside, he says, Do you know who
you guys captured?
They said, no.
They said, you captured Thummah Ab Nuthal.
The guy who had killed the Sahaba. There
was
he was wanted man,
the chief of Banu Hanifa.
So they said, Oh, SubhanAllah!
What should we do with him? Oh Rasulullah.
He said,
treat him well.
He said, treat him well. I want you
to think about that. This is a man
who has blood on his hands,
blood of
companions of the Prophet
But the Prophet
knew where this person was coming from and
he knew that he was a chief.
And so he said to them, Treat him
well.
And so he went to his home and
he told his wives to make him food,
And he actually even went to his own
camel and got him milk. And he told
the sahaba to give him. Give him food
and treat him well.
And so they treated him well, like a
very good guest.
And so the Prophet
then he went to him.
He said,
What do you have? Like what's going through
your mind?
So he
says,
You Muhammad.
Good insha'Allah. Any something good insha'Allah.
He says,
if you kill me,
then you are killing someone who has blood
on their hands.
Some of the they said, That means that
I'm someone who has already blood on their
hand.
And others said,
It means if you kill me others will
come after you because I'm such a big
figure.
And so he said, If you kill me,
then
I'm a person who has blood on their
hands.
If you are good to me,
then I'll be very grateful to you.
And he said,
If you had wanted if you want money,
wealth, then ask whatever you want. I got
whatever you want.
And so, the prophet left him.
The next
day, the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam came
again and he said,
and he said the same thing. What do
you have with the mama? What's going through
your head?
And then
the 3rd day he came again, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam, and he said,
and
he said the same words.
And so then the prophet came and he
said to this,
let go
of Let him go. Sahab are shocked. What
do you mean let him go?
He said, let him go. Free him.
The Sahaba, let him go. So he picked
up his stuff,
he went to the outskirts of Madinah,
he did ghusl,
he came back in front of the people
and he said,
Muhammadan
Abu Rasool, who became a Muslim, ajeeb. He
became a Muslim.
And so then he went to the Prophet
and he said to him, Before this, there
was no face
more hated to me than your face. And
now there is no face more beloved to
me than your face. And he said, before
there was no religion more hated to me
than al Islam, and now there is no
religion more beloved to me than al Islam.
And he said the same thing about the
city of Madinah.
So they asked him like, Why didn't you
accept Islam before? He said, I didn't want
people to say I did it out of
fear
or to save my life so it would
be genuine.
And so he said, Uhudhamma then asked the
prophet
How can I make up for what I
did?
He says,
There's no worry for you.
Islam
it erases that which is before And so
you're free of it. Don't worry about it.
So Thumama felt bad.
So he he swore by Allah, he said,
By Allah,
I will take down
many many more mushrikeen to make up for
that.
And the story goes that
he said to the prophet salallam, Well I
was going for umrah,
what should I do? He said, Go ahead,
go do your umrah, but you do it
on tawhid. You do it on tawhid.
And actually he was the 1st person to
enter Makkah with the with the talbiyah of
of tawhid. Labayk Allahumala labayk.
Everybody knows it. And when he went there,
the mushrikeen were very upset.
What have you done? One of them was
gonna actually try to kill him. And they
said, Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, don't even
think about it. If you kill this man,
then all the resources that we have from
Al Yamama, from the east, will be cut.
So they couldn't touch him. And he performed
his umrah,
and then he said to them, I swear
to to Allah,
you will not get anything from my area.
Basically economic boycott.
And he cut them to the point that
they messaged the they sent a message to
the prophet later, the mushakeen of Mecca,
asking him.
They said, We're your relatives, Yani.
Yani asked to
to to stop the boycott. And eventually
eventually
did. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he says in
Surat
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says that the good
and evil cannot be equal.
And then he
says, And he respond to evil
with that which is better, which is best.
Which is exactly what the Prophet did.
What is the result, O Allah? He says,
This is very ajeeb.
He
says, If you do that, then perhaps the
one that was your enemy
not someone he disliked you.
Your enemy, okay? He will become, he will
change and become
like someone like a close friend.
Al Hamim is not like a very close
friend.
Very close friend, subhanAllah.
And that was that's exactly what
can do.
And actually
good manners and character, can do the exact
the exact opposite. So inshallah, in the next
4 weeks,
we're gonna be discussing
the topic of good manners,
and akhlaq and akhlaq. Now we actually did
this, in downtown, a couple of months ago.
Is there anyone here actually attended it?
Wahad. Just one?
Jameel. 2 people.
Mashallah. Taib.
Something to note here that there's absolutely nothing
wrong with
rereading something or re attending something that you
have
previously attended. I just wanted to note that
because we have like a bad culture
where you know if you attend something, I
attended the Sierra course 20 years ago, I
know the Sierra. And that is a very
bad habit, and that is a trap of
shaytan.
Because
it is well known that when you attend
something,
you forget most of it. Right away the
next day.
Ask anybody who's recently done an exam in
school, as soon as you leave the room
you forgot half of it. SubhanAllah.
And you always learn more and more. You
always learn more and more.
Subhanallah in
in
in Saudi, there's a dawrah, there's a like
a 10 day course that's done in the
Masjid Nabawi by Sheikh Al Asaymi, may Allah
preserve him. And it's 10 days and it's
really intense. Like if you ever been to
an Al Maghrib class, you know like from
10 to 7,
times 2. And you're sitting in the masjid
and it's really long. They cover like 2
books like this thick, you know, literally like
this thick.
And subhanallah, there's people who attended that thing
6 times. Like I've seen students, alhamdulillah, I
was able to attend it once. I wanted
to go the second time but I couldn't.
Because it's all the way in Al Madinah,
it was about 10 hour drive from where
I was.
There's a huge benefit,
for for and and and the same thing
with books. You read a book, read it
again. You will see that you actually will
learn more and more. So that was just
a a tangent of benefit. What are we
gonna be covering today?
Faib.
InshaAllah we're gonna talk about al Khuluq and
al Adab. What is the difference between them?
Are they the same thing? Are they different?
We'll talk about the the importance of having
good akhlaq.
The status of good
in Islam.
Attaining good character. Can you attain good character
or is it something that you're born with?
And then inshallah, we'll talk about the poem
that we're gonna be covering
in the next in the next 3 weeks
in the next, 3 weeks.
So let's talk about and
I want to ask you a question. Is
there a difference between
and
I'm gonna try to stick with the Arabic
words. Now,
It's similar but not the same. It's similar
but not the same. Babe, you didn't help
us.
But if you got part of it, you
got part of it. Anybody from the sisters
know the difference? Or are they the same?
You can just say they're the same maybe.
So so basically
I mean I'm sure there's difference of opinion
on this one. But and this is something
that always confuse me.
It's a characteristic which is part of one's
makeup.
Something that is part of you. Okay? And
I want you to think of
things like a siddiq.
Yeah?
What else? Give me some other, like being
honest, siddhar. Mhmm.
A manna, sabr. Right? These are things that
are part of a person's personality
or character. Jameel.
So this is what is.
And of course there's so many good akhlaq
and there's so many bad akhlaq.
Like a
you know being humble. And what's the opposite
of that?
Al kibir, saha arrogance. And so this is
khuluq. And
it's related it's close to the word because
this something that someone's
born with, okay? Can they actually attain it
or get rid of it? We'll talk about
that. So that is something which is part
of somebody's own personality.
Is actually the application of these things
in different places.
And that's why if you look at some
of the books of
They'll tell you the adab of entering the
Masjid. The adab of reading the Quran.
The adab of, of,
of, you know, sitting with dua lama.
The adab and so on. So there's manners
in different places. So the sister was
almost 100% right. So that's what the difference
is.
Nobody should confuse this with the with the
subject in the Arabic language which is,
literature.
So in in in Arabic, okay, there's a
there's a subject called al Adab. And al
Adab studies,
poetry and and,
you know, different kind of texts.
So that would be adab. That's not what
we're talking about
here. So that's the difference between and. So
they're very related. So that's why you heard
people
interchange the names.
Uh-uh.
Khuluk, Khuluk, you know, and
and and
Type.
But what is
So there's many definitions.
One of the best ones I found is
The Arabic here is is Can anybody read
this? So
so
they said some of the they said that
good character is
meeting people with with a good face, with
a with a pleasant face.
This is the basics of good character which
is to meet someone with a good face,
with a good face. And then
and to spread goodness to spread goodness
and to,
and to remove harm and to remove harm.
Which is basically
which is a major part of our of
our deen.
So so some this is a definition that
Yeah. I mean, it's it's pretty,
it's pretty good. Others they said basically,
good akhla, good manners, is treating people the
same way you want to be treated.
Treating people the same way you want to
be treated. You wanna be treated with kindness?
Treat people with kindness.
You wanna be forgiven when you wrong someone?
Forgive others.
This is a very nice and basic
definition.
Others they said, Well,
cannot be just to treat someone just because
they treat you well.
Someone is good to you and you're good
you're you're you're good to them back. Is
that good manners and good character?
That's basic, that's
If someone treats you good, you treat them
good. Okay? But
is when someone treats you bad, and you
still treat them well. Okay?
Some said that,
is that even when someone treats you bad,
you treat them good. And that's a very
actually difficult standard to keep up with. Okay?
And that's the example of the story of
the prophet
He was treated
bad, and look, he treated him with something
better, and look the that came out of
it. The
that came out of it.
So any of these definitions inshaAllah,
will be good.
The importance of having good akhlaq.
The importance
of having a good akhlaq.
I wouldn't be exaggerating if I told you
that the only reason that the Prophet salallahu
alaihi wasalam was sent
was
for good akhlaq.
And that's because he he said sallallahu alaihi
wasalam,
And so, the Prophet he said, I was
sent to complete or perfect good character. And
here in Arabic when you say in Arabic,
this is they they call it
And this is to make something exclusive.
I was only sent.
My
main purpose
was
to come and complete good character.
Now it's interesting it says complete
because it was known that the Arab had
good,
good
they had good manners, and they had good
virtues and values.
But they were missing a lot of things.
And so the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he was sent to complete that. And so
now by the end of his message, you
have a manual of what it means to
have good akhlaq and good manners.
And
he was reported to have gone to Aisha
the wife of the Prophet
And he asked her, O mother of the
believers,
tell me about the character of the Messenger
of Allah
She said, Have you not read the Quran?
It's a rhetorical question. Of course he read
the Quran. Have you not read the Quran?
She's trying to get him to to to
remember the verse.
Have you not read the Quran?
He said, Of course.
And then she said, uh-uh, verily the character
of the Prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam was
Quran.
And that's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said,
The ayah we recited in in the salah.
And truly you are a man of outstanding
of outstanding character.
This
is a surat.
What
Surah Al Qalam. No. Literally, I think the
3rd ayah. The 3rd ayah, I believe. I
forgot to put the reference. But this is,
right at the beginning of Surah Al Qalam,
surah number
68.
No?
No. I think so. Surah 68. Right.
So
It's interesting.
Aisha was asked about the character of the
prophet And
she said basically,
he's a walking Quran
to ma'am. And so every single good thing
that is mentioned in the Quran, he applies
it.
That we talked about, Prophet Muhammad applied it.
He applied it. All the good things that
you saw in the Quran, he applied it.
He was basically like a wakih Quran. And
a question we should ask ourselves,
especially those who are married. If
someone asked your spouse,
how was what is that how is the
character of your spouse? What would they say?
And if those who are not married, someone
would ask
your father or your mother,
or your neighbor,
how is
the character of Fulan? What do you think
they would say?
Because that's what's gonna describe how your real
character is. How your real
character
is. And
Aisha was the closest person to the prophet
And her answer was that he was he
was like a walking Quran.
There's a lot of misconceptions
when it comes to Al Akhlaq.
And and this is something that I had
a lot before as well. Because when we
talk about Al Akhlaq, sometimes we say to
ourselves, well, insha Allah, in the next 4
weeks we're gonna be talking about something that's
nice to have. Something that will make me
a better person.
I'm here inshallah to break the misconception.
Because
is not something that is nice to have.
It's not something that
you know, it would be nice for you
to to learn and to apply.
Actually it's
a very important part of the deen.
Extremely
important part of the deen. And so you
have 2 extremes.
You have people who say, Well, the only
thing that matters, okay, is
good manners with Allah. You need to obey
Allah. You need to do my salah, to
do my sawn, to do my hajj.
The obligatory things that Allah asked me to
do.
And that's enough for me to go to
to jannah,
Tamam. And you have those people and you
you have a group of them who will
not care about good manners. They will never
smile, they will not they will be rude
to you and things like that. And they'll
be like, no you know I don't have
to do that. And then you have another
extreme of people
who
they say, Oh you know what? Uh-uh, iman
is in the heart, Islam is peace. You
know we don't have to do all this
thing, masjid,
salah. You know what? It's on the heart,
as long as you're good to people. And
that's another extreme.
And that's another extreme. So, none of these
extremes are okay.
The middle
path is that
our religion
is of 2 parts.
Our deen
is such a holistic deen.
Right? And that's why
absolutely Islam is against secularism.
Because secularism tries to split between the deen
and day to day life,
and the state. And Islam is a perfect
way of life.
And you'll see that al Islam is basically
two things.
Our relationship with the Creator, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, and our relationship with the creation.
That's it, that's our deen. And so when
it comes to akhlaq,
right? It's not just you dealing with people,
it's also dealing with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
It's also dealing with Allah And that's why
a person who's not a Muslim,
he has the worst of akhla.
Because he has bad akhla with Allah. Allah
gave him,
and gave him, and gave him,
and he is attributing all that to somebody
else. Subhanallah.
And that is the worst of the worst,
if you think about it. And so akhlaq,
it's it's a holistic part of our deen.
It deals with our our
direct relation with Allah
and it also deals with the creation. It
also deals with the creation.
Look at this hadith, the Prophet said, This
is hadith, well known in the forty Noah
hadith that most of you have studied. The
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he says,
of Allah
wherever you are.
Right? And follow a bad deed with a
good deed and it will delete it. And
then he said,
And behave decently with people. You may treat
people with good
And so someone might ask, well what's the
relationship here? The relationship is clear.
Our deen is not just
us with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
A huge part of our deen
is dealing with people.
Right? That's the relationship
between both of them. I wanna give you
a very scary hadith. And I still remember
the first time I heard this hadith.
I was in the masjid in Riyadh and
I remember exactly the masjid and I remember
the sheikh and I remember the Khutba.
And the hadith is as follows.
They said to the Prophet
And she does many things.
Right? And she gives sadaqa.
Yeah and they said
except that she
she hurts her neighbor with her tongue.
So he said salallahu alaihi wa sallam Listen
to what he says salallahu alaihi wa sallam.
He says
There is no good in this woman. I
want you to to think about this.
Think of a person that you know
who
fasts extra fast. We're not talking about fara'ad.
Fast,
extra fast. So he's already doing the fara'ad
extra fast. Praise
so he's already doing his
He's doing
and he gives sadaqa.
Right?
But
he hurts his neighbor with his tongue.
It's not physical. It's not even physical. It's
just a tongue.
Maybe he he talks behind their back or
maybe he screams at them or yells at
them and whatever it is.
The prophet said,
there is no good in her.
I remember when I heard this the first
time it sent shivers.
Because how
Usually we think of this person as someone
Khalas. He's
got a ticket for jannah. This person is
guaranteed
not
under the the throne of Allah may Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala make up those people.
But the prophet now is saying that
just why? Why?
Because
she would hurt her neighbors.
She would hurt her neighbors with her tongue.
Imagine what if someone
who doesn't do all this,
Someone who doesn't do all this, doesn't do
doesn't And maybe physically also hurts their neighbor.
What will be their end?
And so then the sahaba they said,
There's a woman,
okay, that she prays
her prescribed prayers.
Right?
And she gives with something very dry milk.
Have you ever seen it? Something very cheap
Dry milk.
But something unique about her She
doesn't
she doesn't hurt anybody.
She doesn't she doesn't get involved with hurting
people, that's not something that she deals with.
So the Prophet says,
And you see subhanAllah how basic our deen
is. You don't have to be the most
pious person, the one that does the most,
Ibadah, and gives the most salakah and mashallah.
Very basic.
But from the most important things that stay
away from hurting others.
And all this is all this is manners.
Very basic stuff.
This is something that we go through everyday.
You might have if you think about it,
you sit down before you go to bed
today, think of how how many incidents that
happened with you today where you treated somebody
bad versus you treated somebody good.
And these are things that are being written
day in day in and day out by
the by the
Bad akhlaq will push you to the hellfire.
How?
I want you to think about these two
examples.
First of all, the only way you enter
Jannah after the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is what? Is how? This is what
we talked about in the last halaqa.
You have to have
you have to have good deeds, right? Your
your good deeds have to be more
than your your bad deeds.
But the thing about
bad manners and bad character is that they
will make you lose all your good deeds.
And so you might have a nice big
account and they were accepted.
Your deed was accepted, your hadd was accepted,
you had a good intention,
you did it for Allah,
you did it according to the sunnah. These
are the conditions of a good hasanah to
be accepted, correct? You did all that, it
was accepted. It was written down as a
good hasanah.
On the day of judgment,
it's business,
right?
You hurt someone,
you owe them. If you don't pay them
back in this life, you will pay them
back on the day of judgment.
Nam. And this is the famous hadith of
that
we mentioned before many times. And we know
this hadith but we don't think about it
as much.
The Prophet asked the sahaba, I said, Do
you know who the the the the the
the beggar, the the the bankrupt person? The
person who They said, Oh Rasoolullah,
the the bankrupt is the one who has
no money, no wealth.
Prophet said, No, no, no, no. That's not
what we're talking about here.
There's no money on the the currency on
the day of judgement is not money. What's
the currency of the day of judgement?
Zakah,
sadaqa, and he listed
after.
However, he insulted this guy,
and he shed the blood of this guy,
and he backbited this guy, and this guy.
And so what happens now,
imagine you have this big bucket of.
Technically now you should be going to to
Jannah.
But now,
Al Qisas, Allah
stops the people from going and now it's
for attribution.
Whatever you didn't pay back
in this
life, you have to. And so you slandered
someone
in this life,
and he never forgave you, you never
tried to make up for it. So no
they will come and they will say, Give
me one of your hasanats.
So you lost the hasanat. Another person he
will take from your hasanat, your bucket is
getting smaller. To the point until this person
has nothing.
He has nothing. 0. But what's the problem?
There's still more people than he hurt.
He still cursed this person, he still lied
to this person, cheated this person. So now
what happens? He doesn't have to give. What
happens now?
So now the other people are like, You
know what? I have
that will save me from Jahannam,
here you take this. And so people start
giving him their
This is all coming from bad
bad manners, dealing with people,
right? And so they give him and they
give him until the the the prophet said
he's thrown in the * fire. He's thrown
in the hellfire. So even though the were
good,
okay?
You will lose the Another
way bad
and bad manners
will will will will will push someone to
the hellfire is that they will actually nullify
your hasanat in this life, ajeeb.
And if you go through the Quran you
will see many places where Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala mentioned that. Anybody can think of an
example?
Ascent, uh-huh.
I sent. So Allah says
there's a huge section on talking about wealth
and sadaqa. And so Allah says,
Don't invalidate your sadaqa. Sadaqa is a good
thing.
And you see someone donate to the masjid,
10000, 20,000, 50,000.
Someone built a whole masjid himself.
Can you imagine that that can be equal
to 0 in front of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala? How?
This is all goes back to manners, treating
people.
Reminding someone
that you did them a favor. And so
you go and and someone needs help alone,
you give them a loan. Uh-huh. Or you
give them a sadaqa. And then you remind
them, Hey, yeah. By the way I gave
you sadaqa, and yeah, yeah, yeah. You embarrassed
them in front of people, you hurt them.
And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, your
your your salakah is gone.
Nullified.
Equals 0.
Because the way you behave with people And
how many times people do that?
They they they help someone out and they
keep reminding them. Yeah. And then when they
need something they remind, Didn't I help you?
Okay. You helped me because you wanted something
or for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. And so with that with those bad
manners and actions,
you make your
actions nullified. Anybody know other examples?
The famous incident
uh-uh where Quran was revealed,
where the sahaba raised their voice in front
of the Prophet
All you who believe,
don't raise your voice in the presence of
the Prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And some of the ulama said this came
down because Umar Abu Bakr were actually, they
raised their voice and the was there.
All your
This is aam, yeah, and this is general.
All of them, all your deeds will be
gone and you don't even know that. And
some of the said, this is applied now
in this life how?
When you hear something from the prophet
and
it's authentic
and you go speak above it.
You go say, you know what that's just
that's just a hadith whatever.
No. No. No. No. You have to be
very careful.
Because sometimes
and and I wanna mention something. Sorry for
for for taking
a tangent. I wanna mention something because sometimes
we study deen and I've seen this so
many times, I'm guilty of it. Many people
are guilty of it especially people who studied
the deen.
Sometimes we study the deen
so we find ways to avoid doing work.
Let me explain what I mean. Sometimes
we want to learn the hokum of something.
Haram, something's haram.
Okay?
And so,
why we do that?
So we can
just avoid the haram, And everything else will
leave it. And so when you tell someone
to do something that's
They'll be like, oh it's not wajib.
Or you tell somebody to leave something They'll
say what?
They'll say what?
It's not haram. Right? So let's assume
let's assume
that eating with your left
is
And it's the slight. You're not sinful for
it. But if you leave it, you get
Right? You tell someone, eat with your right,
they'll be like, Yeah, it's not haram.
And so we fall in the trap, the
the prophet says,
The prophet says, eat with your right hand.
If the prophet was there telling you, would
you do it? And so sometimes we learn
the deen to to kind of it's a
trap from shaitan, and we avoid doing
what's best.
And as a Muslim, we should always try
to do what's best.
The prophet said, Do it, do it. You
love the prophet
If you actually love the prophet then you
will do what he says. It doesn't have
to be wajib.
Does that make sense? It doesn't have to
be wajib. Right? And something doesn't have to
be haram for you to avoid it.
You wanna reach the highest level, we all
wanna be reach the highest level, then even
if something is
avoid the gray area.
And when you avoid
then you have protected your deen as mentioned
in the hadith.
Any other example that you can think of?
There's many examples. And subhanallah, one of the
interesting things if you go through the Quran,
so many examples
Think of Juz Amma that talk about treating
people. Give me some examples.
Short surahs that we all know.
Right?
Uh-uh.
The one who spreads words. It's all about
a lot of it is just about how
to deal with people.
How to deal with
the how to deal with the poor people,
right? How to deal with the miskeen?
How to deal with someone who asks?
All these are are are coming down
The first revelations are coming down, subhanAllah,
in in in in in Mecca.
The status of
in Islam. The status of
in Islam.
I'm gonna mention 6 points and of course
there's many other points, insha'Allah that will motivate
us, insha'Allah to try to make this a
goal for us.
What if I told you that is
some of the heaviest hasanah that you can
get on the day of judgement?
The heaviest on the scales.
Because sometimes when I tell you heaviest on
the scales, you might say hajj, you might
say sadaqa,
you might say, what else? Give me examples
of some of the big
suyaam,
uh-huh, mhmm,
salah.
Look what the prophet says.
He says,
There is nothing
is heavier on the scale than good character.
Nothing heavier than that.
So really,
and and like we said before, this doesn't
mean someone doesn't pray. Normally you do your
obligations,
will raise you to a very high status.
And shall we mention
one of the hadith that will raise someone
to the status of one who prays at
night. Hajib.
One of the best
acts that a person can do. So it's
one of the heaviest actions
uh-uh on the day of judgment.
It's one of the biggest reasons for people
entering jannah, would you believe that? And remember
when I mentioned these things,
okay? You have to remember that
are still there. You still have to do
your And that's why I mentioned the hadith
of that woman, The second
woman, she used to do her and she
used to do her Okay? But she avoided
hurting people. So the prophet he said,
he
said
he says
what
is the most thing that will enter people
Jannah? What is the the action that will
enter the most people in Jannah? He says,
And you see here like the two parts
of the deen,
which is having the fear of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala and good good character. And then
he was asked
What is the most thing that will enter
people into Jahannam?
He says,
Okay? The mouth and the private parts. The
mouth and the private parts.
These are the things that will that will
that will that will enter people the most
in the hellfire. The most just like that
woman. You heard
speaking about people, backbiting, slandering others, you know,
uh-uh
saying foul words, you know swearing,
etcetera, lying. All these is coming from where?
From here. Right? And this what the Quran
says,
Whoever believes in Allah in the day of
judgement,
then let him say good or just
don't talk. Be quiet. If you don't have
anything good to say,
don't don't talk too much. Don't talk,
too much. And of course, the private parts
is zina, from the major sins.
Number 3.
And Nabi sahabi says
Right? Because iman is not all the same.
The iman of my my iman, his iman
his iman could be way better than mine.
And so the prophet says
The most perfect believers or the the believers
that have the most complete iman
are the ones that have the best of
character. The the ones that have the best
of
character.
The best of you are those who have
the best character.
Right? And also in another narration,
the Rasam says,
The best of you are those who are
best to their family. And a side note
here, why family?
Why
family?
Why family? The easiest to get mad at?
Yeah. Very easy to get mad at.
Speaking out of experience.
Not dialogue yet.
So the family is the hardest to deal
with. Some of the most difficult people to
deal with are your siblings,
sometimes your parents, right? And the opposite is
sometimes the parents have very difficult time with
their children.
When they get raised and And so
And they are the most people that test
us. And this is something important to know
because sometimes people have two faces.
With their friends, masha'Allah,
they joke and laugh and
forgive. Oh, it's okay man. You lend them
money, they let it go. But with their
family members,
they're they make sure to get everything back.
Their mom, dad tries to joke with them,
they don't laugh with them. Yeah. This is
very bad
Okay? You need to be actually the best
to your family.
Okay? And sometimes Yeah. And we're all guilty
of that. Right? Sometimes we give our family
leftover time,
Yeah. You have your schedule.
Yeah. You give your family, everything, the community,
all of your time, and then you find
a little 2 minutes here.
This is for my family. That's not good
akhlaq. That's not, what the prophet shalallahu alaihi
wa sallam, taught us.
Would you believe this? And we mentioned this
in
the conference that we had that the Prophet
he says,
I
guarantee
a house
in Jannah for the one who gives up
arguing.
Even if he's right. And then he says,
I guarantee
a house in the middle of Jannah
for the one who leaves lying even for
the sake of fun. And then listen to
this,
And I guarantee a house not in the
lowest part, not in the highest part of
jannah for that person who has good akhlaq.
You want a nice
big fancy house in the highest place in
jannah under the throne of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala,
the best real estate you can find,
then is your way. Of course, after as
as we mentioned, after doing your and your
obligations.
You want to be in the company of
the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam. Because not
everybody will be in the company of the
prophet. And not everybody
will be in the same proximity to the
Prophet
So he said Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam,
He says, Shall I tell you about those
who are most beloved to me and those
who are
be closest to me on the day of
judgment?
So they said, Who, O Prophet of Allah?
Okay?
They were silent. So he said it again.
So they were silent. So they asked him
again,
right? He asked them again sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
So they were silent. So then he says
So they said, Yes, tell us, O Prophet
of Allah. He says,
Those of you who have the best of
manners. So
you see the the the theme of is
everywhere in our sunnah. It's everywhere in our
sunnah, everywhere in the Quran. And it's not
something that
is nice to have. It's actually integral part
of our of our deen. And and by
the way, we said that
the way you treat people
can invalidate your your
your Think of all of your
they're all related even your they're all related
to
Think about it. Think of any
the way you do it.
The way you do it goes back to
how how you treat people.
Right?
As we will see insha'Allah, is also with
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So someone's salah is
not all the same. One of the sahaba
he asked the prophet
about movement in salah.
Moving in salah, like he's you know, we
do that sometimes and we start moving and
looking around.
And he says, This is the shaitan taking
away from your salah.
Because you have bad manners in salah, shaitan
takes away from your hasanat. And you and
and hajj, what others Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says about Hajj.
Yeah? No swearing, no fighting, no *,
no swearing,
no arguing,
none of that in a hajj. Because and
that's what is that?
Dealing with people subhanallah. And you can go
through
all the acts of worship. The last thing,
subhanallah,
the person with
will reach the status,
okay? In one narration of the one who
praise the night, and another narration the one
who praise the night and fast the day.
Extra stuff not the obligatory.
So they asked him, uh-uh, and the prophet
says,
That a man
who's known for good character
can reach the level
of someone who stands in the night. And
we know that one of the most difficult
acts of worship is praying in the night.
And one of the biggest blessings that a
person can be given is being able to
pray at night. That's a very
high status to have, in Islam. And that's
the time where the person is closest to
Allah subhanahu
So in conclusion we said,
having good akhlaah, it's the heaviest deed on
the scale on the day of judgment. The
biggest reason for entering jannah,
the the it
the believers who have the most complete iman
are those who have good akhlaq.
We said the person who has good akhlaq
is guaranteed a place in the highest
a house in the highest place in Jannah.
We said the person who has good akhlaq,
he will be in the company of the
Prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam. And then we said the
one who has good akhlaq will reach the
status of one who prays the night. SubhanAllah.
Attaining good character. Question here for you guys.
Can you actually attain good character? Because remember
we said,
is something that a person is kind of
part of his his his the way he's
created,
his personality, his character. So
is it something that you can actually attain?
Because you will notice that some people,
for them it's easy to have patience.
For me, I'm for me personally,
I don't it's hard to get me angry.
It doesn't mean I'm gonna get angry, but
it's very hard for me to get angry.
Someone can yell and scream, I'll be like,
okay.
Other people, if you just and you just
say something small, they'll lose it. They're like
a hot coal. Subhanallah.
And so
for them, sabr is difficult.
For other people it's easy.
So someone might say, Well it's not fair.
The khalas and you hear this all the
time.
You know I was born angry. This is
from the DNA, Madriyesh, they'll make up stuff.
This is how I was born. Okay?
So can you actually
gain a good character and lose a bad
character? What do you guys think?
From a logical point of view, how does
it make sense that Allah
and the sunnah
is asking you to do x y zed
when when you can't do it. It doesn't
make even logically, it doesn't make sense. Allah
will ask you to do something that you
can't.
The Allah subhanahu wa'ala ask you to do
something that you're not capable of doing. And
so that's the first trap. Okay? From shaitan
to tell the person that, you know what?
You were born like this, you're always gonna
be angry, you're always gonna have a foul
mouth, you're always gonna be,
whatever
the bad manner is, and so you'll never
be better. Right? And it's from the traps
of shaitan to tell someone, you will never
be generous. You're just born and you are
just stingy. You learn No. This is something
that can be attained. And And in authentic
hadith of Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he
says,
There's some discussion about the authenticity of this
hadith but the meaning is true. The meaning
is true that he said that
knowledge
Learning is by seeking knowledge.
By putting that effort to learn.
Doesn't just fall on top of your head.
It's not
a SD card you put in your brain.
That's not how you gain knowledge.
You have to go and struggle and learn.
So he said,
the highest level of sabr you can have,
forbearance,
by trying to be patient,
by trying to have perseverance.
And so you can actually attain it. And
the opposite for bad
you can get rid of them slowly,
right? You can get rid of them slowly,
step by step. What are some of the
steps
Insha'Allah. And and let me finish the hadith,
and this is an important part of the
hadith. He says,
This is interesting because in this hadith he
says,
And then he says, Whoever aims for good
will receive goodness.
And whoever seeks to evade evil, he'll be
protected from it.
If you have an intention
to avoid something bad, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will make it easy for you. You'll be
able to achieve it.
And and so you see now the the
importance of a niyyah.
Right? And and uh-uh a niyyah first before
you even have a niyyah, you have to
you have to convince yourself, oh, we mentioned
before, that you can actually change.
Because part of hope
any part of hope
is to actually believe that you can change.
Part of hope
for for hope
is to actually believe that you can actually
change. Right? And that's part of our Islamic
psyche. To actually have that rajah that you
can always improve. That you can always
improve.
Of course. Of course.
The of
the the the forbearance of of of of
Abu Bakr is not the same as another
sahab.
Right? And so there's levels of it of
course. Every that you can think of, there's
levels. But we're talking about improving.
Making sure that you always try
to be better than what you were yesterday.
Your bad character. Mhmm. Like, you know, in
life, like I Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And
you're asking if sin has an effect on
it? Yeah. No. I'm saying it. That's my
observation. It does. Of course Danny
Some of these things are
are they're not directly related to deen. Right?
But one of the amazing things about our
deen is that we don't just do good
for for nothing. And I remember one time
I was taking a class with
religions,
and they were talking about Buddhism. And they
said, In Buddhism you do good for the
sake of good.
What's the point of that? I'm not gonna
do good. I'll do good when it's good
for me.
If if you But for us in Islam,
we do good for why? There's a there's
a there's an incentive, there's a bigger
purse for the sake of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala because there's something for us. So there's
always a motivation for us. And that's the
beauty of of of this deen. So a
person who knows Allah knows the deen, like
you said,
is always more motivated. And after mentioning all
these evidences, doesn't someone just want to improve
their and get rid of bad
I hope so. If you have even the
tiniest of iman, it should've
made something move inside of you. What are
some of the steps you can take in
in
in attaining good character?
What you're doing right now is the first
step, alhamdulillah, is to educate yourself.
Educate yourself.
Okay? Because
good akhla, most of them are known. They're
they are synonymously
amongst different nations, peoples, religions.
Okay? Honesty,
nobody's gonna disagree with it. Okay?
But how do you apply that in different
places? You
know? Uh-uh manners in different places? That's something
that you have to learn. Right? Those are
things that you have to learn, and
you can always learn more about things.
You know that what is honesty is, or
being truthful,
right? Integrity.
But when you educate yourself and you see
how it was applied in the seerah, you
see how it was applied by the sahaba,
by the the the the the righteous people,
you will see how to attain it, how
they attained it, how they were able to
reach such a such a high level. So
educating yourself, number 1.
Reading about the people of good character.
The number one step is what?
The seerah of the And so I started
the with a story from the seerah of
the And those of you attended the course
last week, you saw so many examples of
the character of the Prophet
So many examples
where it's a bad situation, the prophet turned
into a good situation. Subhanallah.
It's amazing. Just if you just focus on
the seerah, you will find so many examples.
Okay? Stories of the prophets in the Quran.
You will see so many examples.
Stories of the companions
forgot the c there.
Stories of the companions,
stories of scholars and righteous people, so many
examples
that you can see. So read about these
people, and you will see subhanallah,
they say that one of the best ways,
okay, to improve yourself is to read like
biographies in the in the morning.
That's the best part of the day maybe.
A sierra or something like that, read an
autobiography or a biography of someone to learn
about them. That's gonna be something that motivates
you to become a better person.
We have the best of examples SubhanAllah.
An amazing example.
Practice. So we mentioned that
the best way to attain
a kuluk, okay, or an adab is to
practice it.
Practice being patient.
And
I mentioned
anger and patience because anger is one of
the destructive. We'll talk about insha Allah. One
of the most destructive bayahlaq.
People
divorce,
kill, uh-uh
They break up families just because of anger.
And that one second, split second,
yeah, and a huge decisions are made. Right?
And then people regret it. Subhanallah.
And so
a person can practice
can practice slowly slowly, and they can get
they can get better at that.
Number 4 is to be with good company.
Right? We all know the hadith of what?
Which hadith?
We know the hadith of of the one
who sells the perfumes,
versus the musk seller, right? If you go
to his store, and subhanallah, if you ever
been to a store of someone who sells
perfumes and stuff,
you will always leave with smelling good.
You might not even talk to the guy.
You touch a few things,
all of a sudden you smell good. Subhanallah.
The example Dhruva Salahi gave is amazing,
right? You don't even have to interact with
the musk seller.
And the the same thing with the one
who the goldsmith.
Yeah. And he just like when you know
when you enter a house of someone cooking
like fried stuff,
you don't have to eat it. You come
out and you smell like, you know, you
know fried food. The same thing you go
to a store
of a a a goldsmith,
you don't even have to
touch anything.
The least thing is you come out smelling,
okay? Like coal or something burnt. Subhanallah.
So being with someone with good character,
the right? They had the best character
Who are they with all the time? The
Prophet
So
the person you're with has a huge effect
on you.
Eventually it will rub off on you.
And number 5 of course is a dua,
and this is the most important. And from
the sunnah of the Prophet
and this is something that we do everyday.
Before you came, didn't you look in front
of the mirror?
I think most of us did.
So from the sunnah of the Prophet
is whenever he looked at the mirror, he
would say and there's different narrations. One of
them
is,
O
Allah,
just like You have perfected my creation.
Okay? Then perfect my my
my This is something that we can practically
do everyday.
In the morning whenever we are in front
of a of a mirror, even in your
car. And you just look at the, in
the mirror.
Don't get into an accident but just make
the dua. And you look at the mirror
and make the dua. On the red light,
inshallah, not green.
Let's talk about the poem now. So, inshallah,
we're gonna be studying a very short poem.
Okay?
Why a poem?
For for
for for those who who don't see, we're
not very familiar with this. Poems were used,
in the past and even now
the circles of knowledge, they were used to
summarize topics.
They flow.
And they were the kings of poetry.
And that was and part of their their
mujis, their miracle.
Their
their their their main skill was the language,
poetry.
Just go read some of their poetry, it's
it's just amazing.
These poems,
the would write them.
Okay? They would be rhyme and they would
rhyme and they would be easy to memorize.
What's harder to memorize? Like a paragraph of
text
or a poem? A poem even in English.
Poetry is easier to memorize, right?
And sometimes it sounds nice and sometimes you
just sing it and And many of the
maybe nasheed that you read are actually poems,
that you listen to in your car. They're
actually
poems.
These mandumat, uh-uh, there's a big
In every science in Islam, you'll find
wrote poetry.
Poetry.
And it would be easy easy to memorize.
So the one we are gonna be studying
is called,
Mandumat Asam Al Akhlaq.
And it's, it's it's by the the author
is doctor Anur Bajid,
who is actually he's he's alive. He's a
contemporary scholar,
who's
from Saudi Arabia.
I think Sheikh Ali met him. I actually
never met him. But, I've listened to a
lot of his works. And subhanallah, he just
he's he's actually a poet as well. And
if anybody studying
the the Hambali Madhab, he he has a
lot of content online.
Very good material.
In in fiqh, in
all the olim. And he has written many
poems,
short poems, and long poems, okay, to help
students,
study. So the poem that we're gonna be
doing,
poems are different lengths. Yeah. Some poems are
a 1,000 lines.
Excuse me? 1,000 Yeah. 1,000 lines. Some poems
are a 1,000 lines. SubhanAllah.
For those who memorize the Quran, whatever.
Thousand lines. But 1,000 lines is a 1,000
lines.
It's a lot of, to memorize. But inshallah,
this poem is not a 1,000. Okay? It's
not 500.
It's not even a100.
It's not even 50. Insha'Allah it's just 29
lines. Very easy
29 lines.
That's the poem that we're gonna be studying.
So we'll try to do like 9
verses in the next 3 weeks. So inshallah,
we're gonna be taking about.
So today, alhamdulillah, we went through the introduction
of good manners, good akhla. Okay? We need
this foundation
for us to appreciate this poem, and to
go into this poem motivated.
Part inshallah, next week we're gonna study hopefully
lines 1 to 8, The next week lines
9 to 18. And then the the week
after lines 19 to 29. So you can
actually go read ahead. And inshaAllah I'm gonna
share a link with you.
A student translated it into English, and inshallah
used that to follow.
We're getting close to an end. So
this is a challenge for myself, okay? To
everybody here, is to
memorize the poem. Okay?
We mentioned that
memorizing something,
and this is just like a a tangent.
You know sometimes people when they study the
deen,
they always it's fine everything people fall into
extremes. So I remember like when we were
studying,
uh-uh,
you have a group of students who are
like, You know what? The most important thing
is
what? So they'll memorize things left and right,
but their understanding is very weak. Sometimes
they'll they'll say something and it sounds wrong.
Right? And anybody who just thought about it
would know this doesn't
even sound right. But his focus is just,
right? And you see a lot of people
just do that now. And then you have
another extreme.
Usually those who don't like to memorize, like
the most important thing is alfahim,
understanding.
Right? And those are 2 extremes. Okay? The
middle path is what? Is that you memorize
and you understand.
And look at the Quran, how it's treated
these days. You have a group of people
who memorize and they don't know what they're
saying. And then you have a group of
people who can give you tafsir of the
whole surah, ir Arab, dissect every ayah, but
they they're too lazy to memorize. It's too
hard for them. But we always have to
find,
the middle path. Uh-uh. It is mentioned
that, you know, the sahaba would, you know,
memorize 5 and try to understand them and
apply them. So that's something that, that we
should do. So try to memorize it. Insha'Allah
and
hopefully we'll have some prizes for those who
memorize it. How will we know? We'll figure
out something. Maybe we can open like a
Telegram group or something. Or somebody can read
it here at the at the end of
the of our sessions. But I wanna mention
something.
Hopefully I'm not taking too much of your
time. I wanna mention something about alkhf, memorization.
Memorization.
Because sometimes we tell, you know, people memorizing,
they're like, Man, it's too hard to memorize.
Is memorization hard? Is it is it hard
to memorize?
You sure?
So you're gonna have this memorized next week?
The kid, we'll ask you Abdul Rahman first.
But
for some people memorization is hard. For others
it's it's easy. Right? Ta'ban, memorization
for different people it's it's it's different. Sometimes
sometimes people
And and remember we mentioned in in our
previous halakhaz
that sins affect our memory. Sins affect
our memory. But just naturally from from a
general perspective,
okay? Memorization is not easy, right? And those
of you who are going to school right
now,
to mum, and you just studied for an
exam,
what happens?
Especially those who cram. And this what everybody
does usually now. What happens? You forget.
The next day you forget everything. I remember
one time I wrote a final in my
university.
As soon as I left, I forgot what
I wrote. Like my friend was like, What
did you write for that? I'm like, I
don't know.
Let's go and have lunch. So you just
subhanallah. Like this is a very bad habit.
Very bad habit we developed through our educational
system. In the east and the west, where
the educational system has taught people
to basically
shove information in your brain, and then basically
throw it up after you do your test.
And that is not the way we treat
the Quran or the because this is that
is
applied.
But in schools, a lot of these things
you learn,
you need you need the student and the
teacher know that this is not you're never
gonna use this. And where are you gonna
use triple integration?
Those of you who know, know. Those of
you who don't know, you don't know. When
are you gonna use that? Let's talk about
memorization.
And and I say this by the way
because people come to us in the Quran
academy. They come to Sheikh Adam, and they
bring their son or their daughter, and they'll
say, Yes Sheikh. Insha'Allah, I want them to
memorize the Quran in 1 year. By the
end of the year,
Okay?
Okay. How many days you're gonna bring them?
I'll just bring them 2 hours on on
Tuesday.
2 hours on
Tuesday.
SubhanAllah. Like And so, there's a big misconception
about hef. Hef is a big big task.
And another big thing that is not understood
about hef is that the hardest thing of
of of of memorization is what?
Retaining what you memorized.
And the problem is that naturally,
the natural thing is what? That when you
memorize something,
you forget. Right? And I just wanna mention
some things that really helped me in my
memorization.
It's a bit scientific but really we know
this in our culture.
Have
talked about this many times. There's something in
psychology they called the forgetting curve. It's named
after, this guy, I don't know how to
say his name. Abin Goz. I think he's
a German. And he he came up with
something called the forgetting curve. Any psychologist here?
I'm embarrassed myself. No psychologists? Okay. Whatever I
say is true. Right? So,
he came up with this curve. And if
you can see it here,
if you look at the left side, that's
memory retention.
So the first time you learn something, you
guys now, you just learned about
and you're like, Oh, Khas. Those of you
who don't have anything written down, you're Khas.
I already know everything.
Tomorrow when you have breakfast, try to remember
what you heard. You will forget most of
it. Right? Like here in his graph this
is just it's not a 100% accurate.
Literally he says, You go down to 80%.
By the 3rd day, what happens? You're down
to By the 5th day khalas, you forgot
everything maybe. So how
can you fix that? This is something natural.
Some of you will think, Oh Bukhari was
born with hadith in his brain.
Bukhari used to review.
You read his life, he used to review.
Imam Bukhari, the the famous of hadith, He
used to review. These people used to review.
Now there's another dimension of making du'a to
Allah and and stay away from sins. Yes.
But the basic premise is that whatever you
learned, you will. You will forget. This is
This is
Those who are going to school, this is
gonna help you a lot. So how do
you fix that?
How do you fix that? By reviewing. So
look what happens. When a person reviews the
next day, what happens?
He goes back to 100%,
but what else?
How long does it take to forget now?
The curve is getting what?
It's getting more flat.
So now it takes you longer to forget.
It takes you longer to forget. So if
you listen to this halakha today,
tomorrow you listen to it on times 2
speed, Yani. You don't have to sit down
for the whole hour. Times 2 speed, I
think you can do that on Facebook or
YouTube.
Uh-huh. You will see that it will actually
the information will will go back to 100%,
and it will take you a longer time
to lose it. Subhanallah.
3rd time, 4th time, 5th time,
that's why, okay, if I ask anybody now
to
read do you need to review?
You can actually say it while thinking about
something else.
When you're praying many times, may Allah forgive
us.
You're planning the day, and you read
And sometimes those of you know your surahs
very well, you can read a whole juzah,
and you're somewhere else. Subhanallah.
This is a very interesting curve that gives
you an idea of how hef works. What
did he discover? Three things.
He said,
memory weakens,
obviously.
What happened here?
Breathe.
What he discovered?
He says memory weakens over
time. We saw from the curve that over
time your memory will weaken. I don't care
who you are. Right? And you will see
actually when you study the the the the
of hadith, okay, you will see that some
of the didn't accept someone who is reliable
once they got older. Why?
Because now he started to forget,
and he would have to use his book.
And so sometimes they will say, If he
had his book when he told us the
hadith, we accept it. If he told us
the hadith and he didn't have his book
with him,
so this will make the hadith weaker. You
see now the the So memory weakens overtime.
Number 2,
the biggest drop happens the day after.
And so those of you who come to
Quran class matra or trying to memorize Quran,
if you memorize today, you're ready to the
shaykh,
100%.
Okay?
The next day, you're like, I don't remember
this.
Like you didn't So you the the biggest
drop happens right after. And so this is
this helps you in strategies.
So the most important day for your memorization
is when?
Is the next day. But what happens with
people?
As soon as they memorize something, they do
what?
They move to the next thing. I'm done
with that, I don't wanna see it again
for the next month. And that's actually the
opposite,
uh-uh, what we should be doing.
The third thing, it's easier to remember something
that has meaning.
And I want you to think about this.
And and and Try to apply it when
you memorize Quran.
When you know what something means, it sticks
with you more. Isn't that right? Is that
what you want to say?
When you know the meaning of something Yeah?
Like many times, you know, I'll be memorizing
something I'll be like, Man, it's not working.
I'll look at the meaning then I'll repeat
it It sticks. And something that you know
the meaning of it always sticks more with
you. Okay? And that combines both dimensions of
knowledge which is memorization and and understanding. And
try it with the Quran.
The surahs that you know the meaning of,
you never forget them. Sometimes you know a
meaning of an ayah, and you will never
forget it. Subhanallah. And so meaning has
a big implication.
Sometimes people in school, they will memorize things
and they have no clue what it says.
And so they forget it very fast. One
of the sisters was laughing.
Question? No.
That's how the brain is. Yeah. That's how
the brain is. It is selective in a
sense. But sometimes you it's random. You know
what it means. And sometimes incidents happen where
it just there's an image in your head
and you remember
it.
Steps to memorize. This is something that I
share with the Quran kids. And maybe it's
something that benefits you and there's so many
ways to memorize for al hif. Right?
Because sometimes you're like, I don't know how
to memorize. Like sometimes,
you know, they say it's not about how
much time you spend. You see a person
sit down for an hour,
how much you memorize? 3 eyes. 3 eyes
in an hour. He knows how to read
And then another kid comes back in in
in an hour he has 3 pages. Subhanallah.
What's the difference?
Yeah. Any different brain?
What's the difference?
Yeah. So sometimes people just repeat. Okay? Or
they'll read from the first of the page
till the end of the page. That's not
the best way to memorize. Yeah. There's techniques
on how to memorize. So one technique that
I always like to share with the students,
and maybe this is something that will help
you insha'Allah in memorizing this poem. And I'm
saying this Of course the Quran is the
first thing we should try to memorize. But
for those of you who wanna memorize this
poem, insha'Allah,
one of the things I tell the students
when they memorize, okay, for obviously you have
to know how to read it.
So if if you can't read it, it'll
take you a bit longer. But read the
from the text. Okay? Ten times. Why 10
times?
Why 10 times? It's magic number.
It will stick to your The white 10.
Why not 9?
It could be 9. It could be 9.
I'm just. But I use 10. Why? Because
that's how many fingers we have. If you
have 11 fingers,
do it 11 times.
10 times. And you wanna do it from
the book, even if you memorize on the
4th time.
You will see countries like Mauritania and stuff,
they will do a 1,000.
Just start with them inshallah.
And then what you wanna do is cover
that and say it 10 times. So now
how many times you've said it?
10 times. How many?
10 times
2 It's taking too long. And we're almost
done. 20 times. So now you've said it
10 from the book and 10 without the
book.
What do you do next?
What do you do next? Then you go
to the next one,
It's not a this is not a any
You go to the next one, do the
same thing. But what do people forget to
do? They forget to connect them. So when
you're memorizing these lines, memorize one line, the
second line, but then you have to connect
them. So So that's where the 5 comes
in. You wanna do both of them 5
times 5 times. So you can connect them.
Because a lot of times,
okay? You read the and you don't know
what's coming next. Because you haven't connected them,
you haven't made the connection between them. And
then what do you do 3rd? Go to
the 3rd
Go to the 3rd ayah. Okay? And do
the same thing you did with the first
and second. But now before going to the
4th, read all 3 of them together.
From the book and from without the book.
And you will see that this inshallah
And the nice thing about this, you'll actually
time yourself. And you will know over time,
Oh, it takes me half an hour to
to methylen finish this much. I think this
is the warning. Right? InshaAllah, it takes me
this time to to finish this much. But
that's a good method,
to do that. Try it with a short
surah, or try it with these poems this
week, and see how it works.
2 important concepts to to to understand with
is spaced repetition,
which what the graph showed us. That it's
not enough to repeat in the same day,
you have to have spaced repetition. So day
1, day 2. And basically what it says
is that
when you have these space repetitions over time,
you don't have to review
the next day. Once you review the next
day, you can review after 3 days. And
that's why
It's not like they're sitting down repeating a
1000000 lines everyday. No. Some of the things
actually they have to review once. And I
know some of the the
they come to they can just open the
muskaf, Yeah, we're doing this, they're done.
And then other people are sitting for 20
hours preparing for Yeah, that's me for example.
Right? So the more you have the space
repetition,
the easier and the longer you need to
actually go back to it.
And what's active recall? This is an important
concept because some people when they memorize, uh-huh,
what do they do? Like sometimes when you
study for a test, people
study and then what they do, they just
keep flipping through their notes.
Like you haven't actively tested your brain.
And so if you want to memorize something,
you have to actually test yourself.
And that's why the best thing to study
for The best way to study for test
is what? Do an old test. Or open
a blank piece of paper and try to
write down all the things that you learned.
Okay? So when you memorize this poem, you'll
memorize a line,
try to actually say it while you're walking,
driving, etcetera without looking. Without
looking.
We're
done. Don't worry. Insha'Allah, we're done. For those
of you who want to this is
I hope it works. You can scan it
with your phone.
It will take you to a PDF file.
This was translated by one of the students
of the sheikh.
It has an English translation. It's not perfect
but it's good. Okay? You can use that
to follow.
I'm gonna try to print some
next week, but have it with you.
Try to print it yourself, insha Allah.
Did it work by the way? Anybody? Yeah.
It worked. Yeah. Oh. Okay. It's
a it's a Google Drive document so should
work. It's about 3 pages. So that's the
poem, that's the Arabic, and there's the English
there insha'Allah. So prepare
the first ten for next week, and insha
Allah you will benefit Allah if you at
least read them. And those of you who
want that prize insha Allah and benefit the
most, memorize those lines. So I know some
most of you wanna leave, I took too
long. Forgive me for that. Any questions? Any
questions?
No question. No.
Oh, so much. Yes. Yes.
Yeah. The famous book, how to make friends
and influence people. Excellent. These books Yeah. They
teach you. These are natural things.
Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And so, having even
having a non muslim friend who has good
akhlaq,
of course, is something that is sought after.
It doesn't have to be just Muslim, but
obviously,
Muslim It's better to have a Muslim friend.
But even your non Muslim friends, which you
have to have
you try to find people who have good
afla. Because you can learn from them. Of
course, we learn from, from them.
Allah's we're done.