Hamza Yusuf – Ramadan Ruminations 2019 – Lesson 6 – How to Respond to the Condition You’re In

			Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim masala Sina Muhammad wa it will save you send him to the McCarthy era
Alhamdulillah welcome As salam alaikum warahmatullah First of all, I want to thank you for joining
me today we're continuing looking at some of these verses in the Quran that are really foundational
to the Quranic narrative, we looked at tequila and the concept of tequila, which I think is one of
the most foundational and important concepts in our tradition. It's a beautiful word, it's
comprehensive word. But with that word also comes another really important concept. And sometimes
they're paired together in the Quran, and that is Saba,
		

			sabar and sugar gratitude, which I hope to talk about later. These are the two qualities that human
beings are, it's absolutely necessary that they embody these qualities in their life. Life is
essentially tragedy and comedy. These are the two great motifs in literature because this defines
the very nature of life on Earth. There's tragic elements and comedic here doesn't mean funny, but
rather happy. Situations a comedy in classical theater is something that has a happy ending. So
there's either tragedy or there's, there's joy and bliss and happiness. When you're enjoying bliss
and happiness, it's very important to be grateful. In fact, the word in in Old English and coming
		

			out over the Latin actually is rooted in an in the idea of joy, that, that actually joyfulness is
expressing a type of gratitude. Patience, however, is what we need more than anything, because life
is tribulation, and life. If we look at our lives over time, we will see that there is an immense
amount of tribulation in one average human life. And while we, it's very important, the highest
station is gratitude. The station immediately under that, that's absolutely necessary for us to be
aware of and to maintain in our lives is patience. And so Allah subhana wa tada actually uses the
word in the Quran, in its various forms, over 70 times, this is how central the idea of patience is,
		

			is beautiful saguru the Quran says Be patient and enjoin to patients. One of the great boundaries of
patience is that there are certain karamat or blessings that come from patients. And I hope to look
at that. But today, I want to look at the states that we find ourselves in one of the great scholars
of Egypt, if I apply that Eskandari, who is more known for his to solve, but he was also a masterful
Maliki scholar, he has an opinion, sometimes in some of the Maliki books, even at the last
candidate, he went through a spiritual crisis at a certain time, and he went to his teacher, oh, but
I bless and mercy, who was an extraordinary out of biller, somebody who really knew God in a very
		

			profound way. And and he, he let him know that, that, that he was having these difficulties. And he
said that his chef told him, that you will always find yourself in one of four circumstances. And if
you understand these four circumstances and the proper response, because life is essentially, in
fact, the very definition of life biologically, is that it responds to stimuli. So if something does
not respond to stimuli is not considered living. So life is responses. This is how we determine
somebody is alive. So he said, there are four conditions that you're going to find yourself in. And
there are four responses to those condition. The first condition is blessing.
		

			To be alive as a great blessing, to have consciousness, to be healthy is a great blessing. If you
begin to enumerate your blessings, you won't come to the end of it when Taro do net Matala letter.
So if you attempt to enumerate the lessons of law, you won't come to the end of them. And so the
response to blessing is gratitude, shocker.
		

			And, and that's why it's so central. And Allah tells us warns us really in the locker room and
evagrius show core, very few of my servants are continuously grateful. Because this is the highest
station the the people closest to God are grateful even in their tribulations. In fact, the best out
of the land has said that in every tribulation, there are three blessings that you should be
grateful for. One, it could have been worse. You lost one child, you could have lost all your
children. You lost one arm, you could have lost both arms. You went blind, you could have gone deaf.
So there's always that blessing that it could have been worse. The second is that it's in your dunya
		

			your worldly matters and not in your religious matters your deen you
		

			If you lose a million dollars, and all you had was 800,000. So now you're $200,000 in debt, you
still have your health. And there are there's people who have a million dollars that are sick, that
would give you that million dollars that they could purchase your health. And so there's always
something to be grateful of, and to recognize that worldly things are not we can lose worldly
things. But if we haven't lost our Deen, it's a blessing. And finally, that it's in this world and
not in the next. And that in and of itself is an immense blessing because the real calamities or the
calamities that will determine people's afterlife. So patience, gratitude is very important. But the
		

			second state is that you're in tribulation. And the response to tribulation is patience. So
gratitude with blessings, patience, interpretation, the third state, he said, is that you're in
obedience to Allah Subhana Allah to Allah.
		

			And, and and the third response to that is to witness the tofik of Allah. In other words, the
success that Allah has granted you in being obedient to Allah subhana wa Adana to see that, that had
it not been for God, I wouldn't have been able to do this. And this prevents that type of arrogance,
from coming into the heart to think that this is me doing it, CS Lewis, in his wonderful work, the
screwtape letters, which is about one devil teaching a younger devil, his nephew, how to seduce
people.
		

			He has a situation where he writes his uncle screwtape and he says, I'm in big trouble. He's
starting to become pious. He's now he's going to the church. And is the older devil writes and it
says nothing to worry about. Just tell him how much better he is than other people. Just tell him
what a pious person he is. In other words, pride, once you instill pride in the heart of a believer,
he's finished, because arrogance is the one thing that Allah subhana wa Tada. He will base it
always. So that that's something to keep in mind that when if you're blessed with being able to read
a lot of Quran and Ramadan, to pray, to do all these things, see that as a blessing from Allah. And
		

			so that also demands gratitude. But witnessing the Minda the gift of Allah in that letter mundo, la
cinema combatting La Jolla mundo la come, Don't remind me
		

			that it's a blessing, you've become Muslim. No, God reminds you that it's a blessing that he gave
you Islam. That's in sort of, in fact, so that's sorry to hijack. So that's very important for us to
keep that in mind. And finally, disobedience, and the response to disobedience is Toba is turning
back to Allah subhana wa Tada. So these are the four states that
		

			best mentioned to his students. And it is said that he felt like a mountain of weight was lifted
from him in in receiving that guidance. So it's a really extraordinary, great blessing to know the
four conditions that we're going to find ourselves in and how to respond to them. So inshallah, what
I hope to do in the next session is to look at sabar, the four types of sabar and then also the
eight karmart that come from sabara. So inshallah We'll see you then.