Hamza Tzortzis – Gaza and Evil A Cognitive and Spiritual Reframing
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the issue of evil and suffering in the world, emphasizing the importance of loving mercy and affirmations in achieving Prophet's promises. They stress the need to practice gratitude and affirmations to strengthen one's spiritual and mental health, and to focus on cognitively and practicing to strengthen one's spiritual and mental health. They also stress the importance of facing trials and working on one's heart to strengthen one's spiritual capacity and mindfulness. The speakers emphasize the need to take the Quran and Sunless Act seriously and engage in spiritual practice to strengthen one's spiritual and mental health.
AI: Summary ©
My dear brothers and sisters is great to
be back
in good old high Wickham.
Seeing some familiar faces,
some new faces,
some grayer beards.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make that gray be
shining lights on the day of judgement say,
I mean,
I'm getting gray as well and now I'm
very happy I've seen my beloved chef,
Sheikh Yasar Al Hanafi, he's been chasing me
on text, I haven't been ignoring him
I've just been in a kind of quasi
busy state, I have to ask his forgiveness
publicly, Sheikh you have to forgive me before
I continue.
May Allah bless you because Sheikh knows,
Allah says forgive and overlook. Do you know
what Allah to forgive your sins?
So, us forgiving other people is kind of
connected to Allah forgiving us
and that's why some
they say if someone asks for your forgiveness
and you don't forgive them because of Kibba,
then you could go to *.
You may go to * rather. I'm not
sending them to * of course, that's not
my domain
Alhamdulillah.
So my dear brothers and sisters,
you know, when I get tired my defenses
are down, I'm a bit tired.
Self inflicted, of course, but I've been filming
for most of the day Alhamdulillah.
We did a Dhul Hijjah series
on 10 reasons
why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is deserving of
our worship
and it's gonna be a series that we're
releasing
during the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah
Insha Allah, it's a very important topic we
hardly talk about this topic it's the foundation
of our Deen.
And,
today we're gonna be talking about Gaza and
the problem of evil. Now, we could talk
about this in a philosophical sense, but I
kinda had enough of philosophy to be honest.
I spent about 10 years studying the thing
and it's a thorough waste of time.
Honestly, to be honest,
you know, I've got 3 post grads in
philosophy. I'm just finishing my PhD as well.
Many people would be like, oh, look at
me, I'm intelligent. But I think the more
philosophy I study the more I realize philosophers
are stupid.
Because if they were smart they would submit
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Simple.
Because if you think about what we've done
in a kind of post secular culture, we
have basically
removed the heart from the
remove the heart from the intellectual discourse and
we think that people are like AI machines
that they're just input and output. You learn
this knowledge and then you're gonna have certain
outputs,
but the human being is not like that.
Human beings, especially from a cognitive psychological perspective
are not just abstract
intellectual
entities.
They're not robots that you type in some
kind of intellectual algorithm or code and you
expect certain results.
Even in today's cognitive science, we realize
there are psycho emotive driving forces
that compel us to adhere to a certain
doctrine or to a certain intellectual discourse
and this is so in line with the
deen of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, right? Because
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala talks about
the intellectual spiritual locust which is what? The
Kalb the heart and the heart does
it wavers
and the heart
has diseases like kibr and Arjub,
arrogance and self amazement and the riya, ostentation,
showing off. And Hasad, blameworthy jealousy.
And
the has fitten, has tribulations.
Destructive doubts,
and
blame where the desires.
And interestingly, the the intellect according to the
majority of the Ulema
is a function of the
So, the Aqal is not some abstract thing
that you just type in some, you know,
code or intellectual algorithm
but rather it's a function of the Qalb.
And if the Qalb
is wavering, it's diseased and it has fit
in, then no matter how much you give
the intellect,
if the caliph is diseased it's not gonna
be functioning properly, right?
So
I did want to entertain this from a
philosophical perspective but really if you boil it
down,
it's really a Kalbi issue. It's an issue
of
something that transcends the abstract intellect.
Because
when it comes to evil
and us thinking evil is a problem,
then fundamentally that is because we have an
understanding reality properly.
Not only reality as it is, but the
reality of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, his names
and attributes and his nature,
but before I get into that,
let's talk a little bit about what's happening
in Gaza, which is quite terrifying to be
honest
and it's horrifying
and
I'm kind of in a state of
absolute shock still
that in the 21st century,
after so many calamities,
so many different types of genocide,
the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide,
the
genocide of the Jews in Nazi Germany, that
we still haven't learned our lesson.
Human
entity, as a human collective.
And now we are live streaming genocide.
Like, I don't know how how anyone can
see the pictures anymore. I actually turn away,
to be honest.
Honest. I turn away because it's bad for
the fitla, it's bad for
someone who has
potential anger issues or they get emotional, right?
Because it could drive you absolutely insane. Like,
I saw a picture of 2 kids being
crushed and one of his eyeballs was popping
out. I mean, how can even how can
you even tolerate such things like this?
From a human perspective,
from an Islamic perspective, it's absolutely shocking.
And we have to be very very careful
that these things desensitize us. And
if it starts to desensitize you, then look
away.
Then look away.
So,
according to EuroMed Human Rights Monitor,
as of around 23rd
February and now we're what?
The 11th May? Is it 11th May? Yes.
Yes. Saturday 11th May.
So the numbers are probably greater. We have
around 40 0000 dead. 40,000 innocent human beings
dead.
That includes
15,000
children. Around 15,000
children.
There are
2,000,000
people that have been displaced.
2,000,000 people.
A 100,000
homes completely destroyed. A 170
press headquarters
damaged.
400 damaged schools,
320
health care professionals killed
and around 3,120
detainees
or those who have forcibly disappeared
and there's
much more that we can talk about but
this is a numbers game
because sometimes numbers are just very abstract. They
don't really hit the heart
and when it comes to Gaza and the
problem of evil, people sometimes raise the question
why is Allah aligned all of this suffering
to exist?
And I think Gaza or the people of
Gaza have taught us a lesson.
Because look how the people of Gaza
have reacted.
Look how they have reacted to their calamity.
Did they turn away from Allah
Or did they turn to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala?
We've seen this live.
In actual fact, the Iman
is something that is
unrecognizable.
Let's be honest, many of us complain about
oh, I lost my job or I don't
have a big house
or
I have anger issues or this problem at
home and that really affects our Iman. Of
course, everyone has their own context for sure
but the people of
Gaza, they have reacted to genocide.
They have reacted to losing their family members.
They have reacted to seeing their children burned
alive, they have reacted to seeing
pieces of their children in bags.
In actual fact, they have reacted to collecting
pieces of their children and putting them in
bags
in a way
that is
almost you can argue close to how the
Anbiya would react.
It just increase the Imaan.
It's increased the iman.
And they say, Allah is sufficient for us.
So how dare we?
How dare we
even
fathom,
even contemplate, even insinuate,
even
whisper to ourselves that, Ah! There's so much
evil in the world. Where is Allah?
When the people are actually suffering,
are not reacting that way. Shame on us!
In actual fact, this has been one of
the most powerful
most powerful examples against anyone who rejects Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. When they say, Ah, there's
so much evil in the world. Where is
God?
You're not even facing that evil. The ones
who are facing that tremendous evil and torture
and oppression and genocide, it just increases the
Iman,
Which shows
what? It shows that there is something
that they have within them
that allows them
to understand
evil
in a way that allows them and facilitates
them to transcend evil and suffering.
And really just think about it From a
psycho cognitive emotional perspective,
the Quran
in many verses is designed
to cognitively and spiritually reframe you.
And I would argue the reason we have
this problem with so much evil in the
world because we're not connected to the book
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Full stop. There's
no other way. Anyone who really reads the
book of Allah will not have a problem
with evil.
It is a fact with all due respect.
What I mean by read is doing kadab
but really understanding the book of Allah. I'm
not saying just reciting the phonemes, the sounds.
Don't get me wrong, there's a place for
that. That's a glorification of Allah. It's a
praise of Allah. I get it. There's reward.
But what is the what is the objective
of the of the Quran?
To guide you.
And one of the issues we need guidance
for is
how to react to suffering and evil.
And the Quran
cognitively
and spiritually reframes us to understand evil so
we could transcend evil.
Because
in summary, what does the Quran do?
The Quran is basically saying to us,
Stand in the possibility
that the meaning
you are giving this evil and suffering no
matter how intense
this evil and suffering is,
is not the only meaning.
Stand in the possibility
that the meaning you should be giving this
evil and suffering is the meaning that Allah
and his Messenger want you to give it.
And once you do that, you're able to
transcend your suffering in some way.
You're able to transcend your suffering in some
way.
Look brothers and sisters, who was the most
merciful
human being to have walked this planet?
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
In actual fact, I don't even like the
word Mercy anymore, it's a bad translation. I'm
not a linguist, I don't want to sound
arrogant here, but I think it's a bad
translation.
Because when you think about Urahma,
it's not just mercy because it comes from
the root for the womb.
The mother is not just merciful to the
child,
the mother has a loving mercy.
She has this overflowing affection
before
she even meets and greets the child, before
she's even named the child. And we know
the hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
Allah has more affection for you than a
mother has for her young ones.
And in the English language, I know there's
a difference in Arabic, but in the English
language because it's kind of semantically impoverished, right?
Because there is no mirror between English and
Arabic.
It's good to use the word loving mercy
has that kind of intensity.
Yeah? And that's why when we say Ar
Rahman, the most merciful, it doesn't do it
for me.
Because linguistically
and theologically,
it's best to describe it as loving mercy.
Because that is truer
to the reality of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
as Al Ghazali,
the 11th century theologian and proof of Islam.
When he spoke about Allah's names and attributes,
when he spoke about Allah being
the most loving. He's got a perfect form
of love.
It's
a maximal form of love. He also talks
about
Allah's other name Al Rahman and he says
there is a similarity between the 2.
Al Ghazali and he was actually
Not condemned but there were some detractions from
his fellow theologians on this issue. But he
stood his ground in the Ihya in the
36 volume. He smashed it. Isn't that right,
Sheikh?
So,
Al Ghazali,
he
argues that the difference between Allah being Al
Rahman
and Allah being Al Wudud is the issue
of
subservience and power essentially. We don't have to
get into it but the point is I
think it's better to say the lovingly merciful,
especially from a root word and theological perspective.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam it was
is and was the most loving human being
to have walked this planet. He had this
loving mercy
for all of the worlds. Is this clear?
Is this clear?
Okay,
so how much love
and mercy did the Prophet
have for the believers?
Can you love a fellow believer more than
the Prophet
Engage with me here. No. No. Good.
Now, imagine the love
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
had
for his own children?
Can you love
your child as much as the Prophet
loved his child?
So imagine the love that he had for
Ibrahim.
Because with great love,
comes great pain.
If anyone has truly loved, they'll know that.
Because a lot of our love today is
very narcissistic. We love people the way we
wanna be loved, but that's just narcissism.
True love is to be intentional and directional
and to love someone the way they feel
loved.
Which means that you have to be humble.
Because you can't truly love someone if you're
not humble towards them. Because you have to
be humble to lower your ego to say
forget how I feel loved, how can I
make them feel loved? It could be totally
different to the way you feel loved.
And that's painful.
That's painful.
If you haven't been in pain and you
think you love, you don't really love, you
just probably a narcissist or it's just delusional
or it's just an infatuation.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
loved Ibrahim his son
more than we could love our own children.
Yes or no?
So imagine the pain that he had when
Ibrahim passed away.
Imagine the pain.
I want you to imagine the pain
when his son Ibrahim passed away.
May Allah protect all our children but if
our children pass away will be in anguish.
Your soul is gone, parts of your soul
have just dissipate for life.
Take that pain and times it by
almost an infinite amount.
That's the pain of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
And some Ulema say,
that as a result of Ibrahim passing away,
his family, his uncles were calling him what?
What was the kind of
slander or the name calling?
He is cut
off. You have no lineage
because the lineage of course, according to the
Arabs is through the sun
and it's a sense of pride and honor
and fulfillment
and self identity.
You are cut off. See imagine he's honing
his son, dead son. Imagine the love that
he had for his son, and the pain
now that he's experiencing,
and he's hearing from his family members and
close people, you are cut off.
I want you to imagine the pain because
with great love comes great pain.
And no one can love like the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
No one can be as merciful
than he was.
No one could love a child
more than the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam loved
his own child.
No one. So the pain is immense.
Beyond anything you can imagine.
And how does Allah address the Prophet Sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam?
Does Allah say
I'm sorry?
Does Allah say,
time will heal everything?
Does Allah say,
everything's gonna be okay?
Does Allah say,
that he understands the Prophet's pain,
What does Allah reveal according to some Ulema?
What does Allah reveal?
Surah Al
Kalthar.
Surah Al Kalthar is a cognitive
and spiritual reframing of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
Indeed,
verily, We
have given you the abundance,
the river in paradise.
But also the Ulema say,
many things, plentiful.
And the Wow in
the grammatically means
continuing
abundance.
It's like when Allah says
Continuing calling to the truth, it's not just
calling to the truth once, it's in perpetuity,
a continuation.
So Allah is saying, Verily, We have given
you the abundance.
Therefore, pray to your Rab and sacrifice.
The one who hates you, He is the
one who's truly cut off.
Now, we're not gonna go into the linguistics
of the emphasis of the Surah,
the emphatic
nature and certainty
of Allah
giving the prophet
the abundance.
The point here is
this changed and reframed
the Prophet
cognitively
and spiritually
to be in what state? In a state
of?
Gratitude.
And when you're in a state of gratitude,
it's almost impossible
to be in any other state.
This is one example of the Quran
cognitively
and spiritually
reframing the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
and by extension
reframing us.
Think about it my dear brothers
and my dear sisters.
If we were to understand gratitude from a
Qur'anic lens, forget this post secular, postmodern, new
age lens.
Oh, be grateful, do affirmations,
Shut your
mouth. With all due respect, I don't even
know why we go to this type of
guidance anyway. It's total nonsense.
It's nonsense on stilts.
A lot of it has a capitalist materialistic
framing anyway.
You know to achieve these ephemeral goals. Let's
go to reality.
The Quran ic understanding of gratitude. Yes, we
must be grateful for our health, our wealth,
our family, our wife,
our wives, our children, our car
and so on and so forth. But Allah
talks about other aspects
of gratitude that are more fundamental in nature,
which helps you reframe your whole entire reality,
which would help you reframe your understanding of
evil and suffering.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
He is the creator.
Allah
He created us,
he creates
every single conscious moment of our existence.
Yes or no?
Brother, if I said to you you had
10 minutes left to live,
but in order to get to get another
10 days you have to give me all
of your wealth, what you're gonna do? Give
you all of my wealth. Bro, you're not
gonna give me all of your wealth. Be
honest. You're gonna take your friend's wealth, and
your mom's wealth, and your dad's wealth, and
you're gonna do as
It's life, bro. It's a priceless gift.
Who's had someone who's passed away recently?
I'm not gonna go too much into deal.
I don't wanna get you upset my dear
brother,
but if you could, hypothetically,
take all the wealth that you had in
gold coins
and feed it into the mouth of the
deceased that you loved. In order for them
to come back for 1 minute, would you
do it?
Brother,
if I give you 1,000,000 forget £1,000,000 £10,000,000
unconditionally
£10,000,000
I give you £10,000,000
bro. How you gonna feel?
Oh, you're gonna feel more than happy, my
friend.
I want you to go into your internal
theosaurus and just,
you know,
start to explore some more emphatic language, my
friend.
Exhilarated. Exhilarated. You're gonna be elated, my friend.
You may even jump up and give me
a big hug.
Okay.
Let me slightly change it for you. If
I give you £10,000,000
and I said to you,
here's the
£10,000,000, but in the morning you have to
give me your eyesight. Will will you give
me your eyesight?
No.
So why aren't we exhilarate every morning because
we have eyesight?
Wow. Why aren't we exhilarate because we have
life to experience
eyesight?
These are fundamental basic gifts.
Forget the experience of life, the very fact
that we have every conscious moment that we
don't earn or deserve
and it's given to us freely.
How should that make us feel?
Great. Grateful. Grateful to whom?
The one Al Khaliq, the one who gave
it to us.
What about in chapter 14 verse 34? When
Allah says
you cannot count and numerate individually the blessings
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
This is not about a car
and about how many hairs you have on
your head or how many children you have.
Yes, it's a bala but the thing more
fundamental.
Allah is saying you cannot enumerate
the single blessing that you have.
Take the heartbeat for example.
If I said to you, brother,
you have a 1,000 heartbeats left to live,
but to get another 20,000 heartbeats you have
to give me all of your wealth, what
are you gonna do?
100%. 100% give all of your wealth.
Such is the priceless nature of every single
heartbeat.
So isn't it true that we can't enumerate
the blessings of Allah? Because here's a challenge.
I want you to individually count every single
heartbeat you've had in a lifetime.
Bismillah.
It's impossible.
For the 1st few years you can't even
count. When you're sleeping you can't count.
Let's slightly change it.
I want you to say Alhamdulillah
every time you've had a heartbeat. Alhamdulillah
Alhamdulillah
Alhamdulillah.
It is impossible you have a backlog
when you're sleeping, when you're doing other necessary
things in your life. You have a backlog
for at least the 1st 2 or 3
years because you couldn't count so it's true
you cannot enumerate a single blessing of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So anything above
a heartbeat is what?
It's a bonus.
It's a bonus.
This doesn't mean suffering doesn't exist,
it doesn't mean evil doesn't exist but I
am telling you
it reframes evil and suffering
because you're in a state of true
gratitude,
a state of the gratitude of those who
have taqwa,
who remember Allah, who understand reality.
And will give you a hierarchy of suffering
because if you're in a state of this
type of gratitude
that you truly don't deserve anything,
I can't even repay back
my heartbeat to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and even if some in some hypothetical
alternate universe I can thank Allah for every
single heartbeat, I will still have to thank
Allah for the ability
to thank Allah.
So we're an eternal state of gratitude
an infinite gratitude that we must have towards
Allah
And if you have that state
then when suffering happens you're already in a
state of gratitude and you're already in a
state of anything
extra I don't deserve.
So when it's taken away from you whether
it's health or life, you're still in a
state of gratitude
and you become like the people of Gaza.
It's all spiritual forget this fear philosophical nonsense.
It's all about your heart and about how
you relate to
Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. So if we're in
that state,
everything changes.
It's the cognitive and spiritual reframing.
As I said, don't get me wrong, suffering
is gonna happen, we're gonna feel pain.
There's gonna be evil and suffering in the
world, this is the promise from Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
But with great pain and suffering, suffering comes
great reward.
As Allah says in Sur Al Baqarah,
do you think that you're gonna go to
paradise without being tested?
Do you think you're going to go to
Jannah without being tested?
The people before you were so shaken
that even the prophet and his followers,
they cried.
When is the help of Allah? Where is
the help of Allah?
And what does Allah say?
Indeed,
Allah's
Nasser, his victory, his help is
Kareeb,
close.
Let's do some Tabbar here.
Imagine the kind of pain and suffering
that has to exist for the Prophet and
his followers
to actually
exclaim when is the help of Allah.
Imagine the type of suffering.
It's peak suffering. It's peak pain.
And what does Allah say?
His hope is near.
So when there is
the height of suffering and pain,
this is when Allah's
victory and hope is close.
So when you reframe Gaza from this perspective,
it is one of the peak forms of
suffering and pain.
This for me is a veil
that if we understand it properly and we
remove that veil, we see behind it is
the victory of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is
very close.
And this is how Allah wants you to
frame these things.
Also,
in order to cognitively and spiritually reframe these
things you have to really believe in the
Quran and Sunnah, not in an abstract way,
not in a way that we suffer from
some kind
of spiritual diabetes and you come to these
talks and you have some kind of spiritual
insulin and for 5 minutes you feel better
but in a true way that you really
work hard to internalize
the values and the principles and the concepts
on the Quran and the Sunnah. That you
do the hard work my dear brothers and
sisters.
We live in difficult times now.
It's not just enough just to recite the
Quran and not understand what it says. You
need to start focusing doing Pradakbud,
understanding what does Allah want for me in
my context?
What is most pleasing to Allah in my
context?
If you don't ask this question then you're
already part of the problem. You're part of
the problem. We're part of the problem. If
we haven't asked what is most pleasing to
Allah in my particular context?
Then we have lost our way.
We need to ask that question to take
the Quran and the Sunnah seriously.
Like the people of Gaza,
The whole family passed
away. The uncle, the brother was having a
box of sweets giving it to people because
he was so happy
because he believes in the promise of Allah.
Allah does not break his promise
that these people are going to Jannah and
they're gonna take him
to Jannah too.
Look at the iman.
Look at the belief because if you die
defending a religion, you die defending your family,
you die defending
your neighbors, and so on and so forth,
you die as a martyr. What does that
mean? That means you are going to Jannah.
What is Jannah? The hadith, the authentic hadith
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. He explains
to us, the one who suffered the most
in the dunya.
You can't even imagine what that means.
The one who suffered the most in the
dunya.
If he's destined for Jannah, he'll be split
in Jannah for a split moment, and he'll
be asked, did you ever suffer? And you'll
say, well, lie. I have never suffered.
That's Jannah
And they believe in this. It's not just
words to make them feel better. It's not
just opening a self help book and, you
know,
fulfilling some kind of quasi spiritual existential
desire.
It's real stuff. It's Haq for them. It
is absolute truth.
These words from the Quran and the Sunnah
are more true than them seeing
that the world is round or them understanding
that there is an external world.
Because they've taken the Quran and Sunnah seriously.
And to be honest brothers and sisters, you
can't take the Quran and Sunnah Sunnah seriously
just by reading a book.
Yes. I'm gonna intellectualize this. Proof of Quran,
proof of Prophet, Khalas. No. It doesn't work
that way. Trust me. I've been doing philosophy
for nearly a decade. It does not work
that way.
Do you know what works?
And this is advice to myself as well,
is actually doing the hard work
and worshiping Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Waking up
in the middle of the night,
supplicating
to Allah, understanding
your utmost dependency on Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
Doing the Dhikr in the morning and the
evening, doing doing the duas,
connecting with Allah,
over the Quran. As Allah says, don't you
do over the Quran, there are locks on
your hearts. You can mirror the meaning, the
more you do, the more your heart becomes
unlocked to receive His guidance and His mercy.
This is the hard work.
Standing up in salah, making dua in sajda,
Connecting with Allah.
Dealing with the spiritual diseases of your heart.
Doing this hard work because that is what's
gonna count.
Because the human being as I said earlier,
is not some kind of abstract AI machine
that you type in some code and you
get certain results.
You need to work on your heart to
strengthen it
because once the spiritual heart is strong
with service to Allah,
with worship,
with the supergatory deeds to the degree as
per the hadith Qudsi that Allah starts to
love you,
then Allah will not let you down.
And I don't believe Allah has let down
the people of Gaza at all.
Allah has shown
what it means to be a true believer,
through the experience of Gaza.
Because these people,
many of them are promised Jannah,
and I'm telling you, Wallahi, I believe this.
Wallahi,
Wallahi, I believe this.
On the day of judgment,
when they see the reward and mercy and
love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
they will probably ask for it a 1000
times.
Such is the reward and the mercy of
Allah.
But this is cognitive and spiritual reframing.
That yes, you have to understand the Quran
and the Sunnah on how they frame Jannah,
they frame the understanding of evil and suffering.
Life is a test.
You get reward for the suffering that you
face. But in order for that to really
make sense, you have to internalize the deen
through practice,
through worship.
In order to create transformations, by the way,
you cannot transform someone intellectually.
It's actually very difficult.
Imagine someone has anxiety,
I get anxious sometimes, right?
You cannot deal with an anxiety by saying
calm down bro.
Calm down.
It's not gonna happen. Let me intellectualize this
for you. Look at the historical pattern.
Relax. Make a positive inference. It's all nonsense.
Not gonna work.
You deal with it through
changing their framing, their language.
You do it by changing their emotions
and you do it by changing the behavior.
If you could change any one of those
two things you get some kind of transformation.
It's actually not even an intellectual exercise.
It's very hard to transform someone intellectually. Meaning,
that through intellectual discourse you get some kind
of change in the way of being. It's
very difficult.
What you should try and facilitate
is changing how they frame things their language,
their emotions, and their actions.
And that's what the Quran aims to do.
It has a framing and a set of
language that you need to adopt to help
you
understand reality and will help change your way
of being.
It's giving you the right type of emotions
and it's recommending
and commanding you to act in a particular
way. If you could change any of those
three things your language, your emotions and your
behavior you'll get
transformation.
This is why
the Quran is so important to reflect upon.
This is why
engaging acts of worship is so important to
perform
because they strengthen your spiritual heart and they
change your way of being. So when calamity
strikes
no matter what type of calamity it is
you are able to respond like the people
of Gaza.
If we learn anything from the people of
Gaza,
is that suffering and evil is not an
excuse anymore.
If there's anything we learned from the people
of Gaza,
that
we need to be like them in order
to deal with the vicissitudes of life,
the trials and tribulations of life
and that is based on connecting ourselves with
the Aqidah of Islam,
internalizing the Aqidah of Islam
and actually doing the hard work.
When it was Ramadan, the people of Gaza
were praying at night,
They were coming together,
fasting,
breaking their fast in their broken damaged homes.
Many of them had lost family members, children,
they saw the children die before them,
picking up their body parts
and they were fasting and thanking Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Because they had the correct cognitive reframing, spiritual
reframing,
and they engaged in that necessary
spiritual practice to strengthen
the Kalb that does Taqalub, to make it
firm.
Because no one's going to be safe from
the day of judgment unless they come to
Allah
with
Albin Salim, with a sound heart.
Now,
don't be too sad about this.
Rejoice
because Allah has given us an opportunity
to be like the people of Gaza.
Because they have become our role models
in how to
resist
and how to transcend their suffering and evil,
to the point that the non Muslims are
shocked.
The non muslims
do not have a frame of reference.
They do not have a filter. They do
not have a worldview.
They do not have an ideological lens that
could make them even understand
how the people of Gaza have responded to
this evil. That is why people have become
Muslim just by their reaction. I want to
be like them. I know life is full
of suffering. I know life is full of
trials and tribulations.
I want to react like the way they
react because I know my mum is going
to pass away. I know my dad is
going to pass away. Maybe I may have
to bring my own children. I may become
disabled. I may lose my job. I may
suffer. I may have anxiety. I may have
all of these issues. We may face calamity,
earthquakes, wars, depression, torture,
and I want to be like them
because they've transcended their suffering because they've given
the correct meaning to their suffering.
The meaning that Allah and his messenger
want them to give.
The non muslims don't really there is no
world view that makes sense of this.
This is why Islam is such a gift
my dear brothers and sisters.
Let's be honest,
you did not need to study Tafasir,
the exegetical works to understand the Quran
with regards to evil and suffering because the
people of Gaza were the practical
exegesis and explanation of many of the verses
of the Quran. All of a sudden the
Quran made sense to us.
All of a sudden the Quran made sense
to us when we saw the way the
people of Gaza were responding.
So my dear brothers and sisters,
we could have addressed this from a philosophical
perspective, dealing with the logical form of the
problem of evil or the evidential form, but
to be honest, I really think this is
complete nonsense, it's been refuted time and time
again.
We need to focus on cognitively
and spiritually reframing ourselves through the Quran and
the Sunnah,
and becoming people of deep practice, so we
have strong spiritual hearts, so we could attach
the correct meaning to evil suffering so we
could transcend our suffering in some way.
And this is our test.
This is our test.
And things may get worse
in this country and around the world, and
we need to be prepared.
I'm not a pessimist, I'm an optimist.
But I'm an optimistic realist.
So yes, we can have even and suffering,
it may get worse,
but we will be a better.
And we'll get better by understanding the Quran
of Sunnah properly
and strengthening our spiritual hearts.
And we have the people of Gaza as
role models.
Is this clear brothers and sisters?
I don't want you going home, and then
just eating your Biryani,
and thinking, oh, that was a great talk
and not understanding anything. I want this to
be a seed that has been planted in
your heart and mind so you could start
to take the Quran and Sunnah even more
seriously
and to start to internalize
the Quran and Sunnah from the perspective that
you use the Quran and Sunnah
as a frame of semantic reference, that you
use it as the meaning
that you're giving your suffering
and you're giving your trials.
And you engage in spiritual practice according to
the Quran and the Sun to strengthen your
spiritual heart.
To have those type of transformations.
And this is in line with modern cognitive
science when people are suffering from some kind
of cognitive or psycho emotive issue,
Cognitive scientists say
stand in the possibility
that the meaning you're giving the suffering is
not the only meaning.
And we go a step further, we say
stand in the possibility
that the meaning you're giving the suffering and
and this tribulation
is not the only meaning, give it the
true meaning, which is the meaning Allah and
his messenger want you to give it.
Is this clear my dear brothers and sisters?
So,
it's very important for us to
remind ourselves
about this,
to take the Quran and the sunnah much
more seriously
and to engage in that practice and everyone
is on their own journey.
Everyone has different levels, everyone has started somewhere.
If you're not praying 5 times a day
and then pray 5 times a day. If
you're just praying the Faraiyah, the obligatory
prayers, then start doing the sunnah.
If you're not waking up in the last
3rd of the night, then just wake up
10 minutes before Fajr and Mig Dua.
And then after start waking up half an
hour before Fajr and maybe stand in prayer,
everyone has their own context,
Allah knows you better than you know yourselves,
we're not here to judge anyone,
but take this opportunity to take the next
step, take this opportunity to do the
over the Quran, to ponder over the Quran
and you have your own anxieties
and your own personal sufferings
and your own personal
tribulations
and maybe you're stuck
because you have given it the wrong meaning.
Explore the Quran and the Sunnah,
be inspired by the people of Gaza and
start to reflect and think
how am
I going to use the Quran and the
Sunnah to cognitively and spiritually reframe my whole
way of being so I could transcend
my evil and suffering, so I could give
it the right meaning, so I could take
the next step in my journey towards Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Is this clear? Yes.
So my dear brothers and sisters, we'll end
on this, we'll have some extensive Q and
A. We have around 25 minutes before the
Isha prayer.
So Insha'Allah, we'll engage with some question and
answers. I'll interact with you from the floor.
Any sisters can send us telepathic notes.
That's a joke.
I don't know how their sisters gonna ask
ask questions. I'm sure they're gonna pass us
some,
paper planes with some writing on there, whatever
the case may be. So the brothers would
inform us of their questions or you could
text your husbands or your sons and so
on and so forth.
Bismillah, who has the first question?
Or comment even or correction for sure.
Yes, brother. And
I'm not a chef but.
You said you were,
let's say you got all the blessings in
the world.
You got everything you can imagine.
And you think that Allah
given me everything,
but I'm not doing enough.
Let's say you've been to Hajj, you've done
umra,
you've looked after your parents,
you pray 5 times a day, You've done
every single thing,
but then you think, you know what? I've
got everything in the world, but I'm still
not doing enough
to please Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. How do
you tackle this? How do you go about
it?
If it's not giving you anxiety and it's
not stopping you from continuing
your journey
of getting closer to Allah,
it's kind of a good thing
in my view. Now, I'm saying to this
from a personal perspective
I don't want you to think I don't
want you to think this answer is a
scholarly answer or it's an answer of spiritual
insight because there's some answers that I'm qualified
to give, there's some answers I'm unqualified to
give. I'm unqualified to give this answer so
I'm just gonna give you my kind of
personal perspective.
I would argue it's a good sign
because when you speak to the scholars of
Tuskrut Unafs,
people of purification of the heart, when the
scholars talk about Ikhlas,
they kind of say that you're you're going
to be happy and content if you're practicing
Muslim, but you're always going to be worried
concerning the state of your heart.
Always going to be worried.
I believe Sofiane Al Faury had some kind
of psychosomatic
response as a result being so concerned
with his intention.
Because the sign of a Muqless,
a sign of someone
who has Ikhlas
is the fact that they believe they don't
have Ikhlas.
And a sign of a grateful
believer
is the one who believes that he's not
grateful enough to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam had all his
sins forgiven.
He was guaranteed paradise,
but he stood
at night to pray to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala where his feet were swollen. And how
did he respond to his wife?
He said, shouldn't I be a grateful servant?
But in essence there is nothing that we
can do that could totally
pay back Allah or be grateful to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
We know the famous hadith that if you
compare all of your deeds with your eyesight,
it won't be enough.
It's a good sign.
Glad tidings.
But be careful because Shaitan uses that against
you as well
and he gets you in a state of
anxiety
and negativity.
Allah doesn't love me or I'm not really
worthy.
This is
bordering despair.
Allah tells us not to be in these
negative
spiritual psychological
states.
Be grateful,
do your best.
Yes, you will never be able to be
truly grateful to Allah as we already discussed
in this talk.
And yes, feel that you should be doing
more but don't allow it to overcome you
to the degree that you go backwards. That's
Shaitaan.
The general principle is
any psychological cognitive state that makes you turn
away from Allah
Allah does not want you to be in
that state Wallahi.
I'll give you an example some of these
youth or even their elders
You may have drank yesterday and became drunk.
You slipped.
You made an error.
And you say, you know, there's a talk
today. I want to pray
my
salah in the masjid
and
I want to listen to the talk.
I feel guilty. I want to repent to
Allah,
but because I did such a sin
I'm not gonna go to the mosque, I'm
not worthy, it's too late for me.
Wallahi
That is from Shaitan.
Allah always wants you back.
This is not a caravan of despair.
Whoever
closes the door to Allah's rahma is by
definition a shaitan.
Do not listen to that negative self talk.
Allah has given me all of these things,
I'm trying to be grateful
but I can't be as grateful as I
should be.
What is the point? That is shaitan. Never
listen to that. Even if it's your own
voice because shaitan would use your own voice
against you to actually move away from Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Never allow that to happen.
Never. You have to promise yourself
I'm never gonna be in a situation
where my cognition
and my psychology
is gonna become a barrier to coming closer
to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
Is this clear?
Then Allah knows best.