Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Horse and Rider Between Balance and Magical Thinking New Years Eve in NYC 2016.mp4
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of understanding the meaning of actions and knowing the meaning of death, as it can affect one's physical and mental state and negatively impact their spiritual health. They stress the need for practice and finding a partner in one's life to improve their spiritual health and develop a healthy body. The speakers emphasize the importance of learning from rules and regulations, taking care of health, and learning about magical thinking. The system is essential to success in the world and everyone needs to take care of their health.
AI: Summary ©
I was given the topic of
nuffs, body nuffs, and soul.
Now it's a very broad topic.
It's something that,
I guess, in an Islam attainment sense, I
can speak about until my time is up,
and then we can move on.
But,
I
first of all, I think that the general
treatment of the topic was
covered by other speakers before me.
And, so I don't want to rehash all
of that again,
albeit if I had done so, it would
have been in my own way. But I
don't wanna rehash all of that. Again, I
want to focus on a couple of individual
and specific points.
So before I start, I want to
let you know, put a little bit of
the theory of why I present the way
I do. Present things that I present the
way that I present them. Because some of
it will be overwhelming.
Someone will say, Sheikh, that's completely impossible what
you're saying. If we were to implement that,
this would happen, that would happen, etcetera, etcetera.
Right?
First of all, it is
Which thing
has Which thing has has more importance?
The
or the Many people will say the and
I I will disagree with them. It's what?
It's
the In as much as a person learning
something and not trying to implement it is
a bad thing,
Yes. We put a lot of emphasis on
making practice of what we learned.
However,
the knowledge
is what? The knowledge the is a sifam
in sifatilahi
tabarakor ta'ala. It is part of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala's attributes.
Because we're not talking about the knowledge of
how to build a road or which type
of antibiotic to give to somebody who has
a certain type of infection. We're talking about
what? The knowledge of.
We're talking about what? The knowledge of. So
the thing that has connection with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is
It has more it has more and it
has more honor than the thing that is
attributed to us. And Allah knows best even
though this is a long discussion we can
go to regarding the attribution of of deeds
to people. The attribution of the deeds to
the people is at any rate somehow partial.
And, I I
encourage everybody to take an to
get into these debates and these discussions more
later on. But there are many there are
many
indicate what? That the knowledge, the seed of
which is spiritual,
that the knowledge in and of itself is
something that's has a higher than the action.
Because a, right action cannot come for anything
except for right term right knowledge.
B, you have the idea.
Right? That all actions,
they are going to be judged according to
what?
According to the intentions. Right? And the intention
is not an action. It's something that sits
in the place where knowledge sits.
You understand? It has to do with or
how you conceive of a a certain action.
And this is also the the the the
hadith of Rasool
Allah
Right? Which is what?
One can make the say that the the
the the the is going to be the
the action will be like the like the
intention. Here we see that Rasool Allah
says what? He says that with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, the intention of the believer is
more valuable to him than
the the action itself.
So in order to be people who actualize
the greater the greater
part of the khair which is in the
knowledge. We have to have right knowledge first.
Then when we have right knowledge, it's possible
to do right action.
If we don't have right knowledge, we'll do
a whole bunch of action and it's not
going to be accepted by Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and it's not going to be useful
to us because how do we know whether
it's right or not. Right? Islam is not
the Burger King religion where you have it
your way.
We laugh because it's funny the first time
you hear it when you see people live
like tortured and cursed to live this life
where this wrong thinking causes them to do
things that are harmful to themselves even whether
it's with a good intention or not. Again
and again and again, it's not funny anymore.
It becomes very frustrating at some point. Okay?
So we want to lay out a theoretical
framework of understanding
in order for us to move forward.
And then from that theoretical framework, we will
improve our action.
And even if we don't improve our action
one bit, at least we know that one
thing is better than the other one and
that also has a reward. Because your ill
will live for with you forever and the
hereafter on the day that your money and
your degrees and all these other things will
die. And that will still be a nabi
in the afilah. The hafas will still be
a hafas in the afilah. Whoever has this
ilm of wahi that lives inside of their
heart. Because it's part of the sifar of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that the life of
that thing is forever. Okay? So I want
to talk about what? I want to talk
about the topic that was given to me
which is what? Body,
nafs, soul. Okay? A human being is a
composite of these things.
A human being is a composite of these
things. A person has a a a physical
apparatus and a person has a spiritual apparatus.
Thus far, this is not like conceptually a
stretch. This is probably what you've been hearing
again and again in all the other bands
so far. Okay? I want to introduce you
to you the the idea that they were
meant to be together.
This is something because we don't learn ourselves
and we don't teach
to people. People ask me, is the resurrection
is it going to be physical or is
it spiritual?
Will you be in jannah as a physical
body or will you be in jannah as
a spirit alone?
And the fact of the matter is what?
The resurrection is physical.
The the the relationship between the between
the the the the the spiritual apparatus of
a person
and between the physical apparatus of the person
is like the relationship
between a a horse and a rider.
They know each other.
They,
have spent time with one another.
They are attuned to one another's needs.
They understand. The rider knows when the horse
is tired, how it behaves, and when it's
rested, how it behaves.
The horse also knows regarding the rider, what
its needs are.
It's
a a a a type of friendship or
joining that they have that they complement one
another.
And when a person dies,
right, what happens? The physical apparatus and these
spiritual apparatus are separated from one another. So
in the world of asba we consider death,
we talk about brain death, we talk about
the heart stopping beating, we talk about all
of these things. Spiritually speaking from an actida
point of view, there's a special surgery that
happens that's performed by the malakon mot, by
the angel of death, which is what the
spiritual apparatus indeed,
the the physical apparatus
are separated from one another. And so that
surgeon is instructed by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to do that surgery at an appointed time
and appointed place. And he's also instructed how
to do that surgery.
Which means what? That the death of a
believer
is described as what? As like pulling a
hair out of dough.
Again, what is it? It's a it's an
operation that separates 2 things.
And the death of a catheter is described
as what? As pulling a
If someone had a silk rag or silk
handkerchief, I should say, and it's put on
thorns. In order to remove it from the
thorns, what will happen? It will it will
rip. It will rip because the thorn is
not straight, you can't just pull something straight
out of it, it's hooked. The operation of
pulling it out will,
will damage it and will harm it. You
understand? The idea I'm getting at is what?
In both of the both of the metaphors
that are,
constructed, the likenesses that are constructed by,
Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam. Both of them
are they're from Wahi.
Right? It talks about 2 things being separated
from one another. And the day will come
where those 2 things are then revived and
joined once again.
They're revived and joined once again. Will you
die because of your death? The answer is
part of you will die and part of
you won't.
The spiritual apparatus of a person will not
die.
The spiritual apparatus
of a person will live on. But it
won't be the same.
Right? The 2 of them are good buddies.
Whether they're good or evil in life, the
2 of them miss one another.
Right? The body without the without the spiritual
apparatus, it doesn't go on
the way it was. It starts to rot.
Right? It starts to decompose. It starts to
decay.
There's nothing directing it in a useful direction
anymore. So it has really nothing else to
do. So that person's body is still there
in the sense that
the physical
components of that body,
the requisite amount of atoms
of oxygen and carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, etcetera,
all of those things, they're still there. It's
not like they go anywhere.
But what they they lose the will to
keep functioning the way they used to.
And also what happens is that the body
itself has an attachment to that place. The
body of a person when he dies has
attachment to the to that the place where
the sorry. The spirit has an attachment to
the where that that that body is because
it longs to be with it once again.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will make that
happen for a person whether they're going a
good place or whether they're going to a
a bad place.
So this is this is this is I
guess a basic, framework that we're talking about
is that the person has these two things
these two things that they're,
that that that are components of one another
and the function of the interface between the
two of them is what we, want to
talk about. And I just have a few
points that I want to submit,
for consideration
in this in this time and that's really
all all that we have time and attention
for because I'm competing with dinner at this
point.
Right? The spiritual the spiritual part of you
is growing stronger and stronger. The longer you
go without dinner, the physical part of you
is having more and more anxiety. And this
is an issue. Right? That that we have
this right, there's a hadith of rasoolallahu alaihi
wa sallam that the deen and the dunya
are like 2 cowwives. If you make one
of them happy, you'll make the other one
angry with you, upset with you. Okay? However,
however, and yes, polygamy is part of Islam.
If you don't like it, then we should
all take a class. It doesn't mean that
you you necessarily need want your husband to
marry a second wife. There's nothing wrong with
that. But to think of the idea in
general as a as a general idea as
detestable somehow or some people have this idea
that this is worse than or whatever, This
is this is this is a problem in
a person's iman. They should get help for
these things. At any rate, the, the ideas
of the interface between the two of them
can be what? It can be one of
tawafah or one
of
It can be one of or.
The body and the
the the the the the physical body, the
spiritual apparatus of a person, they can either
be friends with one another or they can
be pulling apart, pulling 1 a person apart.
So what's a good example of this? A
good example of this is in the beginning,
when a person starts practicing the deen, if
they're new to Islam or if they're born
a Muslim,
perhaps after a period of not practicing the
deen. In the beginning, is it easy to
wake up for a fajr for most people
or is it difficult? For most people it's
difficult. Why? Because the body wants rest.
The body wants rest
and,
the, the the spirit needs to give its
talk to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and wants
to be okay with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So there's tajado. You're getting pulled in 2
2 different directions. And that's why in the
beginning of a person's,
spiritual path, the the dominant
dominant color or the dominant characteristic of their
growth is what?
It's struggle.
It's struggle. Why?
Because we said the spiritual apparatus and the
physical apparatus are like horse and rider.
Are horse and rider equal to one another?
Absolutely not. But the rider is not going
to be able to get where they want,
and they're going to be exposed in battle,
and they're going to tire themselves out, and
ultimately they're gonna kill themselves if they don't
have the horse.
So the rider needs the horse or something.
If that weren't the case, our would be
like that of the Jains where the high
spiritual ideal is to walk into the forest,
buck naked, and starve yourself to death because
they consider the physical matter to be evil,
or to be, mundane.
Whereas the spiritual apparatus, it's being tied down
and it needs to, ascend to a place
where it can be happy on its own.
The 2 of them won't talk with each
other again. We don't believe that. Right? When
you go to jannah, you go with your
body as well, and your body experiences the
pleasures of jannah just like your spirit will
experience the pleasure of jannah. By Allah's father
will say,
So in the beginning, the dominant color of
a person's progress is what?
This brings up a number of issues. Now
I gave a ban just down the road
a couple of Ramabans ago which is what?
That the deen is not easy. Okay. This
is the meaning of what I say when
I say that the deen is not easy.
The deen is not easy.
Says Allah make any havoc or difficulty for
you and the Dean.
That's not the beginning of the eye. The
beginning of the eye is what?
And struggle in the path of Allah
as it is right it's his right that
you struggle.
And then later on
didn't make any difficulty for you in the
deen. What does that mean? That means you
waking up in the morning, you fasting
is easier than going to Jannah.
If you only think of the,
then you won't understand what the meaning Quran
is. If you think of things holistically, then
you will start to be in a position
where some of its meanings might open up
for you.
It's easier than going to Jahannam. It's easier
than the struggles that other people and other
ummas had to go through before us. There
are a number of explanations of
of of this ayah in the in
the.
Right? The is indeed is. Right? These things.
It says, so hadith of Sahih Bufari. Is
the meaning of it? Go look what the
wrote as the meaning of of of this
hadith as well. And you will see the
point is that it's a relative pronouncement, it's
not an absolute pronouncement.
Compared to something else, it's easy. Otherwise, in
an absolute sense, it's not going to be
easy. Now who here reads the stories of
the sahaba and
be like, yo, man. That's that's really cushy.
That's really,
that's like set, you know. That's something that's
so easy anyone could do it. I wish
I could do it not in the spiritual
sense, but in the like, it's amazingly,
wonderful, like eating like sushi or, you know,
sleeping in a nice bed or going swimming,
you know, in a 70 degree pool,
somewhere in an island in the Caribbean.
Right? Nobody thinks of it that way. You
know that they didn't live the life like
that. If you're asking that there are are
examples, then you know that this interpretation of
the hadith and of the Quran is incorrect.
Is what? It's incorrect.
So they can be in What is an
example of the saying that they can either
be,
they cannot they can be desynchronized or they
can be unharmonious. They can they can be
they can be cacophony, right? They're
they're they're not they're not only are they
not working with each other, they're kinda pulling
each other apart and you're stuck in the
middle feeling the pain.
How can they be working harmoniously with one
another? Is that you wake up for fajr,
wake up for tahajjud for the next 30
years of your life. If your alarm doesn't
ring, you'll still get up. Why? Because at
this point, it's your habit.
There are people who have even left Islam.
Allah protect us.
Alright. There are people who left Islam but
they cannot stand to smell or eat pork
because their habit has already been made good.
They all they still wake up in the
morning at fajr time. Why? Because the body
has been conditioned to it.
Right? Obviously, there's a problem there still. The
problem the locus of the problem is somewhere
different.
Right? But you can make these 2 work
together, meaning the horse
doesn't abuse the rider doesn't abuse the horse
and the horse also carries the rider further
and further. Okay?
What I want to bring our attention to
is what? Is a couple of things.
One is that
the horse
is if you leave it to drive the
the the pair, right, the horse is interested
in what?
Grass
or some sort of alef. Right? Hay or
whatever feed, water, and rest.
That's what the horse is interested in.
The rider is interested in different things. The
rider is different interested in going to battle.
The rider is interested in getting from one
place to another Quickly, the rider is the
one who knows where the water and the
feed is. So if the horse is going
through the desert,
the horse is not gonna know how to
get to the water. If you let the
horse meet the 2 crews, what will happen?
Both of them will die together.
Both of them will die together.
What's another what's another another thing, Allah Ta'i
created the horse with a lot more with
a lot more ability to take physical burden
than he created the rider.
Now
if the rider tries to carry the horse
on his back, what's gonna happen?
Why do you laugh? That's what all of
us are doing.
That's what all of us are doing.
That's what all of us are doing.
Don't laugh at another person. Laugh at yourselves.
Let me laugh at myself. That's wallahi. That's
what all of us are doing. There's a
series a series of assumptions that we have
regarding life.
There is a series of assumptions that we
have regarding life
that are what? That are predicated on the
idea that the horses should supposed to be
carried by the
rider.
I pray. Why? Because I need to get
a job. Because I wanna pass my exams.
Because I need to, you know, I I
I wanna propose marriage to a girl and
she's saying no to me. Because of
this benefit, because of that benefit,
why are you supposed to create
Allah This is what you're made to do.
If you do what you're made to do,
then everything will be well with you both
in this world and the here after. But
what do we do? We have the rider
try to carry the horse. So we have
spiritual practices that are aimed aimed at what?
At physical well-being.
At physical well-being.
If I told you whoever fast for the
next 40 days automatically guaranteed to go to
Jannah,
I'm insha'Allah, almost nobody will do it.
Almost nobody will do it. There are so
many a hadith of the prophet
wake up, pray
and sit in your place and make vigor
until the sun rises, and then 2 read
2 rak'az and who receives it. Reward of
Hajj and Umrah.
Who does it? Raise your hand.
Obviously, the one who does it also, they
have further
enough context to know not to raise their
hands.
The fact of the matter is just very
few people do it. Very few people who
do it. Why?
Because this understanding is not there. Now one
might say, okay, this doesn't work out with
my schedule, this, that, and the other thing.
And there may be many people here who
are not Masha'allah, who are their their mind
is straight, their heart is straight. They actually
do have the the the rider in control
of the horse. But the society in general
that we live in, it's a society that
values what? It's a society that values the
the the the the body over the over
the the physical body, over the spiritual,
apparatus Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave a person.
And what what does it do? It in
fact ignores the spiritual apparatus that a person
that a person,
you know, that a person has. Now tell
me something, if I tell you about
if I tell you about
eating halal.
If I tell you about
lowering your gaze.
Okay. If I tell you about,
you know, doing these things that are detestable
to a person. Right? If I tell you
about
choosing a life that involves making less money
versus the life that involves making more money.
If I gave a Bayan about the virtues
of becoming an island over becoming a doctor.
I promise you,
maybe the pious youth of Muhammad ibn Masjid
will come for the first two. The third
one, I promise you, your parents will bar
you from attending the talk. Why?
It's the likeness of a person. Like, you
know, like, what's a nice car?
Name a nice car. Ferrari. A Ferrari, Marshall.
You guys are old school. Nice. Get with
the time she takes Tesla or something like
that. Right?
Tesla
not not on data lab.
Right? So you see you have a Ferrari.
Right? Firam Firam is also is is haram.
You know that? To talk tail and turn
from the turn your back to the enemy
is also haram but fir. So you have
a f f f f f Ferrari. Right?
So imagine the newest model, most souped up
engine, blah blah blah, everything in it. And
it has like a really nice car stereo.
Okay? So someone saves up money, saves, like,
what what? 200,000, $500,000.
So I don't know. How much is it?
How much is it? You know? Who knows?
Whatever.
$500,000 to buy it. Okay? And then he
gets it. And has a really nice stereo.
So all they do every day is they
go and turn the stereo on, listen to
their the news, and to their their favorite
songs or whatever. I guess you guys are
all pious people, so you listen to, like,
machines or something.
Right? And so they listen to their favorite
nasheed, and then they they put the key
out of the engine, and they go home,
and they do this for, like, several months.
Okay?
The stereo is probably better than any stereo
any of us own right now or will
ever own.
Right? What is that person doing? They're using
they're using the thing that they have, but
it wasn't meant for that.
It wasn't meant for that.
Now how many hours a day do you
spend in service of your din? How many
hours a day do you spend in service
of your?
Who here can learn who here learn Arabic?
Right? Always there's some people that I know
out of the I'm from from country.
Your Arabic is worse than these Dessi guys
sitting here.
I promise you. I'm talking about nahua. I'm
talking about saaf. I'm talking about a person
who understands the language of the Quran and
the hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. I'm not talking about, like,
you know, and
and
all these other weird things. I'm not talking
about any of those things.
Those things we learn later on just by
by living with people. Otherwise, that's not, you
know, if I'm gonna learn a a vernacular
language, I'm gonna learn my own. Why why
should I learn yours? Right? We're talking about
the language of Wahi.
We revealed it as an Arabic Quran.
Right? People say, brother,
you know, the the the should be in
the local language so people can understand it.
I'm like, yeah. Okay. Cool. I'm all for
people understanding the din.
Right? I've spent much of my own life
trying to understand as much of it as
I can. One interesting thing to point out
without venturing into the
issue is what? The sahaba alayhi wa ahamun,
when they went to Persia, did they give
the in Persian?
No. No.
When they went to,
Syria, did they give the in Syria?
No. No. When they went to Egypt, did
they give the in Coptic?
Absolutely not. In fact, even when they went
to the other Arab lands, they they they
gave the Khutba and they they read the
Quran in the dialect of the Quraysh.
Otherwise the other tribes had different dialects,
grammatically different.
Right?
Phonologically different
dialects.
Because it is more befitting for the mundane
to conform to the divine than to expect
the divine to conform to the mundane.
The one who has that are expecting the
divine to conform to the mundane,
those people you go and sit with them
on Sunday. That's a different crew. That's a
different crew. That's a different set of
people. And we talked about this last year,
whoever was here last year. Those are the
people who said
god was incarnated in the flesh and made
from this earth and there's no wonder that
those are the most materialistic
civilization
that that that mankind has ever seen in
its history.
Despite taking the names of the same prophets
alayhi wasalam,
despite claiming to worship the same god, and
even despite claiming to have to hate. Because
if you ask them, they don't say we
worship. We don't we worship 3 gods. They
say it's the 1 and the same.
But what you believe that this world can
be divine and that's why you worship this
dunya?
So coming back to what we were talking
about coming back to what we were talking
about, we have to learn that that that
that Quran, that language. Why? Because we have
to make our lives conform to the divine
and not expect the divine to conform with
us. Just like it's impossible for you to
become Allah, it's also not rationally
not rationally something that that that could even
happen for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to become
like his creation, to resemble his creation.
How many of us spend how many years,
masha'Allah,
if you wanna get married, subhanallah, try getting
married without a master's degree.
Try getting married without a medical school degree.
Try getting married without becoming a lawyer.
Right? It'll be fine if you're some sort
of a super majzub, like dariish type guy,
you may find someone else who's like that.
But from the ashaaf of the poem, it's
not gonna happen. Even though Rasool Allah sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam said, what? If a man
comes to you
and you're pleased with his his aflak and
with his amana, with his good character and
with his trustworthiness, then marry your daughters to
him.
Otherwise, there'll be facade in the world. Guess
what? A, no one's doing it. B, there's
facade in the world. Happy everybody happy now?
It's not
the funny thing, this is a curse I
have that I walk around with. When I
make a joke, nobody gets it, and when
I'm not joking, everybody laughs.
This is this is this is a curse.
We live the reality of this curse every
single day.
We live the reality of this curse every
single day. There's a reason we're in a
situation that we're in, gets old. And there's
a reason that the our forefathers were not
in this situation. They were in a situation
that was more honorable and better than us.
Not that they didn't go through difficulty, but
they were able to present something in front
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala where I fear
that we're not gonna have anything to present
in front of him when we go and
meet him. Right? If we believe
that
the rider is the one that's in a
better position to direct the horse and the
horse is the one that's in a better
position to direct the rider, then we would
have lived our life in such a way
that reflected the importance of the rider while
giving the right of the horse.
But what have we done? We've done neither.
Our Muslim children are unfit physically.
They are physically weak.
Their bodies have not been trained in order
to
endure the hardships that will come with the
rider directing them down the path of Sayyidina
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
I swear to you, if I say who
plays basketball, everyone will raise their hand. If
we were in a different country, if we
say who plays cricket, everyone will raise their
hand. If we were in a country and
say, who plays soccer? Everyone will raise their
hand.
I'm telling you something. How does this serve
your dean to be able to throw or
kick a ball
into a hoop or into a net? Or
I don't even know how cricket works. I
don't even know how you understand. How is
this in any way beneficial for a person's
spiritual path?
However,
we have people who sit in the masajid,
they themselves pray 5 times a day, and
they come to the masajid again and again,
and they refuse to wake their children up
for fajr because they have to go to
school.
That's us. That's our own parents, man. This
is not somebody else.
How many of us we, we have like
for example, we've never gone through any difficulty.
We've never gone out in the path of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in any way shape
or form of that expression whether it's literal
or whether it's metaphorical.
How many of us fear
for our children hunger? How many of us
fear for our children thirst? How many of
us fear the cold for our children? How
many of us fear
difficulty, physical difficulty for our children? Where the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam himself explicitly said,
it's not the faqal, it's not the poverty
that I fear for you.
Rather that the dunya be opened up in
front of you like it was opened up
in front of the people before you, and
you compete with one another for it, like
they competed with one another for it, and
it will destroy you just like it destroyed
them.
Any parent who is in this masjid or
hears this bayan, today, tomorrow, or even after
I'm dead. If your son
if your son, much less your daughter, if
your son has a computer in his room,
a TV in his room, or a smartphone
with an internet connection with his in his
room, you are absolutely out of your mind.
You are absolutely out of your mind.
If you buy things for your son, if
you buy things for your daughter, if you
push them in the direction of the dunya
and never never were concerned for them about
those things Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam was
concerned for. For his ummah and for those
children Allah
gave you as an amana, you're absolutely out
of your mind. There are mothers and fathers
in this country and in this dunya right
now. They cry everyday. They're they're ashamed of
their children
and they cry everyday for those who are
grown up. And the ones who haven't grown
up yet, they go to Hajj and make
duaaf in front of the house of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. Making du'a that my child
become a doctor, my child become a doctor,
my child become wealth wealthy. This happened, that
happened. Nobody, nobody, nobody cares about that person's
deen because they assume that we're gonna go
to Jannah anyway. Doesn't everyone from Pakistan go
to Jannah? Doesn't everybody go to Jannah? An
alafi doesn't every alafi go to Jannah? Which
Jannah is Abu Jahl going to?
He's from Quraysh.
Abu Lahab is he was Banu Hashan.
Which Jannah is he going to?
Which one of us cries for those things?
And which one of us cries when we
say, oh I didn't get into medical school.
You'll be a computer programmer, and the other
family down the street is gonna be like,
oh,
oh, you know, look at look at and
God forbid the person become
an. Right? The are the inheritors, the heirs
of the prophets. God forbid one of my
children becomes a that's something for someone else's
child to do. People do that to my
father. They come to him to this day,
you, mashaAllah,
you're going straight to jannah, mashaAllah, mashaAllah.
Why? Well your son mashaAllah did this, that,
that, the other thing. I said, oh, don't
listen to
manafit, he's a
liar. Because I know for a fact, if
his son told his father, Oh, I want
to go and study deen. I want to
have the the the the the legacy of
the Anbiya alaihis salam come into my heart,
this guy will literally physically assault his child.
They will call every name in the book.
They will physically assault his child. But tell
me, brothers and sisters, what's the nadija of
all this? What's the result? Because we're talking
about the body and the soul and the,
you know, the nads and the soul and
all sort of good stuff. Right? What's the
nadija? What's the
the result? The result is what? On the
flip side, imam
respectable,
if not
not super rich. Imam salves like,
all of the other honored,
those who I know, those who I don't
know, we have some elders with with us
that I I have never met before. But
all of us, what do we hear? We
hear that when things go wrong on the
other side.
We hear when things go wrong on the
other side.
We hear about the the fact that nobody
can keep a marriage anymore. We hear about
the fact that everybody's addicted to something or
another. Someone's addicted to
drugs, someone's addicted to alcohol, someone's addicted to
*, someone's addicted to some other antisocial and
embarrassing types of behaviors.
We hear all the other things that happen.
You hear about the kids that go to
jail. You didn't see someone for a year
and you assume that maybe they went, oh
yeah, they went to school somewhere else. They
didn't go to school nowhere else. Else. We
hear about we hear about mothers who resent
their children.
Mothers who what? They resent their children.
Imagine, in the the a mother motherhood is
a mithal for
rahma. Right? The rahma itself is the womb
of the mother. That is literally the thing
that mercy was named after because it is
the superlative
and emphatic,
physical
physical manifestation
of mercy.
Right? I I I work with brother Humam
Keshavarzhi. He's a a a a brother of
Turkic origin, and he has a clinical a
practice of clinical psychology. It's called the Khalil
Center. It's in,
we have a branch in the main branch
in Chicago, and we have a branch in
California, in Northern California. Many of you have
maybe heard of it before.
And brother Hooman read several years of Madrasah
as well.
He's a master's degree certified clinician,
practitioner of clinical psychology.
He has with him doctor Fahad Khan, his
PhD.
These people have been practicing for years. They're
certified
by the, by the whatever the western system
of clinical psychology. They're all people who,
doctor Fahed is a half of the Quran.
They're all people who are continuously taking classes,
doing research. They put Milana Bilal, who many
of you may know Bilal on their board.
They put myself on on on their board.
But has read a number of books, like
books of from me as well. And so
they try to
have a practice of clinical psychology just congruent
with sonic values and with spiritual
realities that a person knows because there's a
difference between your brain and your mind. Your
brain is a physical apparatus.
Your mind is a spiritual apparatus. There's a
difference between the two of them. Maybe we
can talk about it some other time. So
what is psychology? A person who's mentally unwell
is the person whose mind and their brain
they're not they're they're not working the way
they should be. The the Tajav is totally
killing them inside. When you when you just
when you put the the horse on top
of the rider, what happens is the rider
wasn't built to carry the horse. It will
slowly start to make the person, you know,
go out of balance to the point where
it will break the person. That person will
will literally fall to the ground and they
won't be able to get up anymore.
If not with a lot of help, sometimes
never.
On the backside of this we see all
of these things.
On the backside of this we see all
of these things. The sunnah tells you both
how to take care of the body and
it also tells you how to take care
of the spirit.
What is the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam?
The sunnah is what? That the the that
the boy should get married the girl should
get married even sooner than that.
Right? There's a hadith of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. What is it?
The 3 things when their time comes, it
should never be delayed. The first is the
salat when the time of the salat comes
in.
Any disagreement
here? There may be some concessions for the
gathering of the Jama'at and things like that.
But otherwise, in general,
when the proper time, the masloon time for
the prayer comes in, everyone agrees that that's
the time you should pray. Anyone who's been
on Hajj before knows that one of the
beautiful things about Hajj or Umrah for that
matter is that when the adhan is called,
people are anticipated from beforehand
and they rush to the prayer and that's
what they do and nothing else happens until
after the prayer is done. That's not like
a Haram al Sharif anything. That's a Islam
thing. Whether we do it or not, that's
our problem. That's the way the deed is
supposed to be.
The second is
what? A janazah when it's ready to be
buried, when when the when the body has
been washed, the has been done, and it's
been shrouded.
Everybody knows that it's a sunnah too.
Read the janaza and bury the body as
soon as possible. And there are many hadith
which talk about this.
There are many hadith which talk about this.
There's nobody who's gonna say has any modicum
of knowledge regarding the dean who is going
to say, what? Let's just leave him out
there for a week like James Brown or
for like another month and just stick him
in the freezer and then collapse him like
with the star studded
gala happens and we're done with like 7
different weights or whatever. And the person's like
face is collapsing in on itself and they
have to have a mortician
redo a fake face on top of it
and all this other nonsense that that's what
we're gonna do. Nobody nobody in their right
mind would say that. And the third is
what? A young girl when she's, reaches the
age of, of marriage.
Someone say, oh, shit. What are you saying?
That girls should get married at 14? No.
That's not what I'm saying. But the idea
is what? The sunnah gives us we find
maybe in this society it doesn't work that
way. You know, here when she's 18 because
of legal issues or because of god knows
what. Right? Guess what? You even you who
are listening and thumbing your nose, yeah, you're,
masha'Allah,
the the best person Allah has ever created.
You're special and everyone else is an idiot.
I guarantee you in every single one of
your families, 2 generations, 3 generations maximum, your
your forefathers were getting married at those ages.
Right? So you're the special snowflake of creation
and everyone else is an idiot. If you
this is your to someone regarding life, then
you have other problems that this band is
not going to be able to fix.
Nobody enters into jannah that has a kernel
of
of of of of of arrogance inside of
their heart, and the one who lowers it
in a different hadith, the one who lowers
himself for the sake of will raise them.
Admit, accept the fact that just because something
is culturally not normal to you, doesn't mean
that it's wrong. There's there may be great
in it, and if it's something said by
Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam, there's no in
anything other than it.
What happens? This is an example of why
is he why is he bringing this issue
up? It's not about marriage. The reason is
what? The dean teaches you how to take
care of the body and it also teaches
you how to take care of the soul.
The dean teaches you how to take care
of physical apparatus and it teaches you how
to care for the, spiritual apparatus and it
teaches you how to make them friends with
one another rather than
constantly at loggerheads with one another. So what
ends up happening,
if you take that that that that girl
who should have been married at at at
a certain age and you take that boy
who should who is ready for marriage at
a certain age, who should have been married
at a certain age, and then you make
them marry each other like 15, 20 years
after after that. I receive I receive complaints
from people. I receive complaints from people. Oh,
there's no good girls to marry. There's no
good boys to marry. Muslim boys, they don't
know how to act. They're horrible. How come
all my non Muslim friends at school, you
know, know how to treat a woman with
respect and Muslim boys are so horrible and
blah blah blah. Yeah. Sure. The dude is
committing and the he's like whatever, using *
and he's free with all of these different
things. There's a burden on his mind that
has been
lifted from him. So, obviously, he's not gonna
behave that way. You loaded the burden onto
the boy that what?
You loaded the burden onto the boy that
this is a physical necessity, like eating and
drinking is a necessity that Rasoolullah salallahu alayhi
wa sallam or Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for
that matter, never endorsed a person ignoring.
Being a monk is something very bad in
Islam. Monastasis is something considered very bad in
Islam. And on the flip side, marriage is
considered
is is called half of the deen. And
marriage is considered the sunnah of Rasulullah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam. And Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said,
whoever turns his back on my sunnah that
that person is not one of us. And
it said that it should be done quickly
and this that all of the emphasis that
could have been there is there. Now now
you wonder that this person, why is he
screwed up and is not able to talk
to a woman with respect and use every
woman as some sort of object and carries
this weird tension within wherever he goes around.
You wonder why that is.
Your daughter is the most important thing that
they will do. My daughters and your daughters.
I have I have 3 daughters.
The most important thing that any of our
daughters will ever do is be a mother.
But guess what? We'll never say that to
any of them.
Why? Because we're afraid that the kuffar will
laugh at us and say that we're villagers.
At kafir, the woman can marry her girlfriend.
She can get her face and body
shot up with all sorts of pins and
needles.
She can be a drug user, she can
be a drunkard, she can be whatever
but we don't say anything about that out
of respect. The The fact of the matter
is we don't say anything about that for
a different reason. You shouldn't say anything about
those things. Why?
Because that themdabaadir kufr. If a person doesn't
acknowledge Allah
His
Rasulullah alaihi wa sallam, whether they have a
ring in their nose or in their lips
or they don't, it doesn't make any difference.
Whether they
live a life of
or live a life of monogamous marriage, it
doesn't make a difference. All of these things
are meaningless after. Have you closed the door
on Allahu's Rasool Allahu alaihi wa sallam? That's
why we don't say anything because it's a
sideshow. It's a distraction. It's like 2 things
are wrong. 1 is that you don't like
what the person's watching on TV. The other
thing is the house is on fire. Don't
bring up the TV right now. It's not
it's not a good time.
Go get the fire department, put the fire
you understand what I'm saying? So we won't
say nothing about that but we're sensitive that
they may say that we're like villagers.
If we raised our daughters
to love our love their children and to,
you know, be mothers and to wanna be
mothers and to think about being mothers and
to to to,
value motherhood as the most important, the highest
goal that a person can aspire to. So
many there's a hadith of Rasool Allah,
you know, someone asked him, I carry my
mother on my shoulders.
My mother is listening to this. She's just
gonna slap me when she sees But the
means you tell everybody to be good to
their parents that you're like the worst son
in the world, which is quite right. Right?
A man carried his mother, the Hajj, on
his back and made tawaf with her. He
asked her, surrallahu alaihi wa sallam have I
repaid the debt that I owed her? Did
he ever even repay one paying of childbirth
that she had because of you?
So think about all the other stuff. This
is a for the for
our for our sisters to go to Jannah.
A woman who dies in childbirth
will be written for her that she died
as a shahid
This is more important than all this other
stuff. Oh Oh my god, Sheikh. Are you
saying women shouldn't get an education and they
can't go to, they can't get a job?
Absolutely not. Did I say that? No.
Did I say you have to say that
school is just school is for losers and,
for and, like, just you're just just get
married and stay illiterate. Nobody said that.
Nobody said that.
You can go to school, you can get
a job, you can do all of these
things
but you did not prioritize that woman becoming
a mother. You prioritized what? That your self
worth is is is less if you don't
go to Harvard.
Your self worth is less if you're not
a doctor.
If you're not a doctor, who's gonna marry
you? If you're not this, you know, what's
gonna happen? If you're, you know we and
and that's, like, the people who are, like,
people who are like mildly,
mildly stupid.
Okay? People who are like
cripplingly stupid.
You're not gonna get married and tell you
take your hijab off and you dress up
a certain way and you show off that
men look at you literally like a
a like a a an object of
of consumption. And then you wonder why people
then treat you like a candy bar that
they consume what's in it and throw the
wrapper on the side. Right?
What's
what that's what that's the expectations you set
up yourself in both cases.
That's the set of expectations you set up
in for yourself. Why is she going to
Why? What is she gonna say? That you
pumped her school up, you pumped her job
up as the most important singularly,
most important
feature of her life and that one benchmark
against which you weigh her worth as a
human being and her status in society.
Now she becomes physically ill for 9 months.
And then afterward this
parasite
leaves from her body
and makes her have to take time off
from work
and then leaches nutrients out of her body
and make her have to
remove herself from that career that she prepared
for and from that education she prepared for
her whole life? What is she gonna do
other than resent the child?
What does Shaytan do?
Shaytan's whole job is to destroy
agriculture and to destroy people's progeny. He wants
Banu Adam to die whichever way he can.
If he can do it with a gun,
he'll do it. If you burn it to
death, he'll do it. If he can get
you to overeat and die of diabetes or
a heart attack, he'll do it. Whatever way
he can destroy you, he'll destroy you. If
he can get you to what? A man
marries his boyfriend, how many children are gonna
how many children are going to be born
in the next generation?
Right? If someone is worried about their career,
they're not worried about what? They're not worried
about,
about their children, and how many children are
they gonna have. Nabi
alaihis salatu wa sallam Marry the woman that
that's beloved to you and that you'll have
many children with. Why? Because it will be
a matter of honor and pride for me
how many of you there are going to
be on the day of judgement?
Let me tell you something people say, oh,
population population earth is overpopulated.
I agree that there is a finite set
of
of of resources on the earth. This is
something that's not something very we're not discussing
it. Right? But the razzak is Allah
and the problem the reason people who here
thinks the reason people are starving to death
in the world is because of a lack
of food?
You know, they they up until biofuel
well, I guess, including biofuel technically. Up until
biofuel,
they used to burn a majority of corn
that was grown in this country.
Why would they burn it? Because they want
to retain the capacity to produce that amount
of grain,
but they don't want to sell it because
it will cause the the market prices to
tank. So they would have they would have
the corn lobby is huge. It's like bigger
than tobacco and all these other things. This
is politics. I'm not here to talk about
that. But the idea is what? Is that
now they they use it as biofuels so
they burn it in a different way. But
human beings don't eat it. Okay? Let me
tell you something. The reason people starve to
death in this world is because of greed
and because of war and because of
evil traits in human beings inside of their
hearts.
If we get to a point where we're
literally consuming everything that we produce
and that there's no way of making the
system more productive,
at that point, you can tell me there's
over population. Right now, even if there's 10
people the people, their hearts are so sick.
If there's only 10 people in the world,
they'll be killing each other. They'll they'll still
be 1 of them 2 of them will
starve to death. They'll be at loggerheads with
one another. This is the goal of this
is the goal of sheifan.
The idea is what?
If you understand the relationship between the 2
of them, if you understand
that the car stereo is wonderful, what was
the car made for?
Driving. Driving.
Even if the stereo doesn't work as well
as you want it to or it doesn't
work at all, the point of the car
was something else.
Allah Taq created you and created me for
what? For his worship. And what is the
form of that worship? The form of that
is the deen that was revealed on the
heart of Sayid Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
When you wake up in the morning and
what happens with the ummah of Sayid Muhammad
sallallahu
is more important to you?
Than what? Than what happens with your career
or with your degree or with the money
that sits in your bank account or with
any of these other stupid things all of
which will evaporate on the day of judgment.
A lot, man. You call my money stupid.
What are you talking about? What? You don't
eat food and you don't like you need
money? I need money. I have payments to
make.
I drive in a real car. I don't
fly around on the carpet.
Even if I did, I'd need the carpet.
Right?
The idea is what? We're talking about we're
not talking we're not talking about a person
being like the jane that you go into
the forest and starve yourself to death. What
are we talking about?
We are talking about what? The redeem through
wahid
gives away that the body should be in
a way that the spiritual apparatus should be
and that the spiritual apparatus is like the
rider
and the body is like the riding beast.
We're talking about this setup, this compound between
these different things and how those things are
supposed to function together. And when
they have tajahal, they're ripping each other apart
or when one is is being serviced and
the other is being ignored. How The entire
system will will go go into garbage, right?
Just like if a person starves themselves to
death, they'll have
they won't go to Hajj and they're not
gonna get married. That's for sure. Right? And
they're going to be accountable in front of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they will have
stunted their their,
you know, it's like a person buys the,
you know,
they they will have stunted their their ability
and their potential of
Allah Just like that we're saying what? The
deen teaches us that you were created for
something else.
The deen was
Sorry. The dunya was created for you and
you were created for the akhira.
The day we can wake up and understand
that,
then we will be able to move forward
and then expect things from
Allah like was expected from the people before
us. This is the Khulasta of my talk.
I think maybe the speakers before us said
it already in words that are more eloquent
than mine and in ways that are more
touching to the heart than mine are. But
Right? The the Remind the people because the
reminder benefits the believer. Right?
That the thing that that that the reminder.
Right? The person who has fear of Allah,
they'll take the reminder and the one who
is wretched will avoid the reminder.
The one who for whom the greatest of
fire
will,
will roast them, and they won't die,
yet they won't be quite alive in there
anymore. And the you know, the sad news
is what? The people who are in the
fire, they're going to be burning
both physically and spiritually.
They'll be burning both physically and spiritually,
And that's something that they're going to have
to live out again and again. The idea
is what? That we should start thinking about
what putting our life in some sort of
balance and focus.
You're
being a good Muslim as an American
doesn't involve living like a Catherine having a
beard or living like a Catherine having a
hijab.
Your living as a good Muslim American doesn't
involve living in every single other way like
an imbalanced weirdo.
But praying 5 times a day as well.
If
you wash your feet or wipe over your
socks,
these are these are this is a quantitative
difference, not a qualitative difference. It's a holistic
framework through which
we should we should understand
what we need to do and how we
need to move forward. And the fact of
the matter is for our ulamaikeyan,
masha'Allah who are here, some of whom may
have already bounced because this is this ban
has already become
something that that may just by association
become toxic for you. For our ulamai qiram,
right, there's a couple of things. One is
the beginning of the path
is so that means you're gonna have to
tell people stuff they don't like.
Obviously, it's part of the of nubuah. It's
part of the the the the the the
the the style of nubuah. That what? That
you should bring people close by the thing
that that makes you know, that that joins
the arts. Right? Allah says,
you know, he's the one who made the
earth for you like this and the rain
like this and the, you know, the the
heavens like that and gave you all of
these gifts and things like that. Allah says,
and he reminds you of his in order
to make you.
And then and those who follow the path
remind a person of Allah in order to
get them into the door.
Then afterward they build the they build the
capacity for a person to be able to
hear the hard news that they need to
hear.
We need to understand when to do the
first because we know that it will get
people through the door. We also have to
have the moral courage to be able to
tell people
the hard things they need to hear once
they're at that point. And we cannot shirk
run away from that just because people are
not going to like it.
Rasulullah
SAW was more loved by by his
than the the emperor of Persia or the
emperor of of the Romans was. But he
made them gifts he asked for them sacrifices
and they gave. They gave they
gave for the sake of Allah, they gave
for his sake
This is something that we cannot we cannot
run away from. If you run away from
this, in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will be asking.
So I I get the fact that there
are people leaving Islam. I get the fact
that being Muslim is not easy. I get
the fact that it's difficult etcetera etcetera and
I get the fact that we need to.
You know, my colleague has a guest from
England so in order to be culturally relevant,
you know, the only thing most of us
know about England is Mary Poppins. She said,
what? Spoonful sugar helps the medicine go down.
Just make sure, right, that there's some medicine
in there as well. Because if it's just
spoonful of sugars you're gonna give people, it's
not gonna help them. It's gonna give them
diabetes.
Right? That's one thing. The second thing is
that my recommendation for our ulama, for those
of you who read Arabic or for those
of you who are students of knowledge, because
I saw several students of knowledge here as
well, Is that,
Imam,
Shahwulullah
has
in his wajatullahal
balayra
an extremely
wonderfully
detailed
detailed,
analysis of
the spiritual,
components of a human being,
how they how they interact with the
physical
apparatus of a human being, And how about
spiritual world which extends into the barzaf and
it extends into different a'alam, into different realms
of existence.
Right? It sounds kind of sci fi. It's
even more interesting than Star Trek. Trust me.
Right? The Star Wars, all of that stuff.
More interesting than all the differences is real.
Right? It it you know, you'll find a
very, very,
wonderful, like, introduction to this. And I haven't
found an introduction to this subject
as
as systematic as you find in the.
And maybe it's because of my lack of
reading, maybe more learned
most of our are more learned than me.
They can tell you more than that. The
last thing I wanna leave you with
okay. I know that I I this is
mostly if I am. There wasn't a whole
lot of, you know, there wasn't a whole
lot technical information because we just don't have
time for it. I want to leave you
with this idea that the physical world you
don't have the physical world. There's causes and
effects, and it's a system. Right?
2 +2 equals 4 it equals 4 yesterday
and it'll equal 4 tomorrow.
Right? Just like this physical world is settled.
Like, rules, things function regularly in the physical
world.
I want you to get out of magical
thinking
and understand that the spiritual world also functions
according to a set of rules. Does this
mean Allah
from time to time can't
change the way that functions both in the
physical realm and the spiritual realm?
No. Allata can do. He
does.
He's the one emphatically who does whatever he
wishes.
However, just like in the physical world, it's
very rare that those rules are bent or
compromised just like that. It's very rare in
the spiritual world that they're bent or compromised.
It's perhaps even more rare.
So if you want to grow as a
spiritual person, you will have to understand what
the rules this ulama that are gonna read
the and these other books and things like
that.
You have to learn from them what the
learn rules of the spiritual world are. Right?
Just like what are, like this is the
ingredients to having good health. Right? You get
proper rest. You eat a good diet. You
exercise. You should be mentally well. All of
these things. This will lead to a healthy
body. It will lead to a predictable set
of outcomes
that you live, you know, with less disease
and with less illness and you'll probably live
longer, etcetera, etcetera. Just like that, there are
spiritual things that have to do with your
spiritual health, which is what? Not eating so
much, not talking so much. Right? Not oversleeping.
You know, if you want to remember the
akhirah, then you have to sit with people
with the akhirah. You're not gonna sit, you
know, you're not gonna sit in, you know,
sit in the mall ogling girls or whatever,
and you're going to then come home with
a very strong spiritual apparatus because these are
poison for your heart. And you snicker about
it in the masjid. Well, Allah sees what
who does what.
He knows the one whose eye is treacherous
and what is hidden inside of the heart.
Allah knows all of these things. And even
even if we ourselves are not able to
practice any of this. What did we say
in the beginning? It's important to know
what the what the right way is because
even if you can't get yourself out of
the mess you're in right now, today, you
can still make dua for it. You can
still work toward one day, you know, getting
yourself out.
The the thing that you can't do completely,
you don't need it completely as well. You
reduce your reduce your violations and infractions and
your indulgences in these matters.
What is going to spiritually make you strong?
The salat is wallah. The salat is itself.
It's something that nobody wants to hear about.
One of my one of my colleagues in
Toronto,
or for for those people in Canada,
Toronto.
Right? His name is Mawana Hammoud. He He
set something out on his social media the
other day. It really made me happy. He
said, someone told me, Sheikh, you know, we
have to be relevant. Let's talk about relevant
current affairs and politics, this week is because
there's gonna be more people here. It's a
holiday weekend. So he said I I took
it I I listened to his advice and
I said, this is why I'm gonna talk
about salat this week.
I don't really need to learn anything about
salat. Forget about salat. You need to we
we, not you, we all of us.
Right? We need to we need to have
a talk about Surat Al Fatihah. If we
knew how to read Surat Al Fatihah properly,
right,
9 tenths of the problems that we have
would would not be there.
I'm not talking about Tajweed. That's part of
it as well.
Okay? We're talking about what? The thing that
the
took out of it.
If we were able to take that out
of it, many of our problems would go
away. And you may not believe me. I'm
not talking about Star Wars. I'm talking about
the Sahaba of the Ilav. They're real people.
They did something real. You understand what I
mean? Go read the history books. They're real
people. They did something real. What are we
stuck in? We're stuck in magical thinking.
What is magical thinking?
Magical thinking is that they did something and
I'm gonna do something else, but we're gonna
get the result that they did. What is
magical thinking? I'm going to right before the
end I'm gonna say
I'm gonna shoot up into the air spiritually
and be like they are. I'm gonna do
the amal of Firaun and expect to be
with Sayyidina Musa alayhi salaam. You know what
happened with Firaun?
Right. When he's dying the angels are filling
his mouth with water out of fear that
he's gonna say the shahaddah
now. It's not gonna happen. If you that's
magical thinking. Thinking you're gonna do the ama
alfiram nagla katham al Musa. It doesn't work
that way.
It doesn't work that way.
Madis magical thinking, saying that you're gonna do
those things that destroy you and then expecting
somehow that the future is going to hold
something better for us. We cannot do
that. We have to learn the way that
the system works
and we have to be able to take
from it. And the sahaba radiAllahu anhu were
able to do that. They're able to take
from it. They're able to read that fatiha.
They're able to read that salat and get
things from that salat.
Why did Islam
survive from the time that the
came on the heart of Rasool Allah alaihi
wa sallam until this day? Why?
Because it actually was useful for people.
Human beings don't keep things that are not
useful. How many people here know what a
VCR is? Raise your hand.
How many people actually use a VCR still
for something or another?
Why? It's not useful. VCR wasn't that long
ago.
I mean, maybe I'm kinda old guy. Right?
So you still use this guy's old. Right?
He talks so much like all old people
do. Right?
VCR is not so long ago. If the
VCR has not survived in our houses because
it's useless,
why is it that we would think this
whole thing, praying 5 times a day and
fasting in the month of Ramadan and all
this stuff is gonna survive? There are still
people who know how to read the fatahat.
There are still people who know how to
get what they need out of the salah.
If that weren't the case, nobody would be
reading fatahat, nobody would be praying their salahat
anymore.
Those people,
you may not find them at your college
or at your place of work next to
Debbie in the cubicle next to you. You
may not find them in your cab and
you may not find them at the mall.
They do exist. You may have to go
out of your way to find them.
I've seen people like that. That's why I'm
completely convinced of the system.
And they do exist in the world. You
need to go and find who those people
are. You need to find who those people
are. We need to get out of magical
thinking. What is magical thinking?
I will take
and it will make me a better person.
I will follow such and such and
it will make me go to Jannah.
I will marry such and such person, and
I will go to Jannah. Tell me something.
The if the wives of the
are not going to Jannah, some of them.
Right? Who are you gonna marry as a
man or a woman that's going to guarantee
you going to?
Who's who who who here is going to
have that better than a?
Who here is going to have a marriage
proposal better than a? Most of us are
lucky that anyone would marry us.
I'm very lucky. Allah to Allah, must have
suffered to my wife. Most of our us
are lucky that anyone would marry us, much
less a nabi.
Right? This is all what? This is all
magical thinking.
Allah
mercy on our elders on our massage.
He used to actually make people sign a
written agreement before they took his discipleship on
the spiritual path. That by
by taking becoming my my disciple in the
spiritual path,
you are not going to, your sicknesses are
not gonna get better, you're not gonna make
more money, it's not gonna win your court
cases from you. It's not gonna make your
mother-in-law love you. It's not gonna do this
reason. People are not gonna be friends. None
of these. He made them literally sign the
paper. Why? Because of magical thinking. People think
that this one thing is gonna happen. It's
gonna it's gonna all go away. The fact
of the matter is you gotta put in
the work. It's a system. Right? It's a
system.
If you want the water to heat up,
you have to light a fire or turn
turn the heater on. If you want the
water to get cold, you gotta put it
in the freezer. If you want to, you
know, your car to move around, you gotta
put gas in the tank. You have to
do all of these things. You have to
worry about all of these things. And what
does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala say?
Akhilah is more intense than this world, isn't
it? It will last forever.
It will last forever.
Right? The rider is the one that you
should be thinking about. Allah
give all of us tawfiq. Now what can
I say that all of us are
just amped up on Sunday school
and and and despite having whatever, 18 years
of of of professional training something else, Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala, be our help? We have
to learn about these things. We have to
understand these things. This is going to involve
doing some new new sorts of solutions to
our problems. I know is coming. That means
my time is the ax is about to
fall in my head. So I'm gonna we're
gonna need some something new, which is what?
Okay? If I tell you how to make
wubu, most people are not gonna listen to
me. If I tell you what day it
is supposed to be, I'll probably get fired
as the imam of the masjid.
Right? If I tell you something about the
gine and you have no opinion, you'll probably
accept it. If you have an opinion, you'll
be like, you know, if you're really pious,
you'll ask another shit.
If you want to have this high level
training
which is preserved in our in our tradition,
you're going to have to what? You're gonna
have to amp up the level of scholarship,
which is gonna happen in another a number
of ways, which is like, a, you have
to take care of the olema, we have
to add more of the olema because one
person can't do 70,000,000 things and then teach
you all the stuff on-site as well.
You're going to also have to do what?
Yeah. If you know what they say, say
if if if you need to do have
a job done right, you gotta do it
yourself?
If you're the person if you're the person
who says, oh, our olema are this and
that backwards, unable to communicate real and blah
blah blah, Quit your job. Join the madrasa
study for 8 years. Most people will say
that to you, like, in the jaw of
al zami, like, you know, they're just trying
to, like, you know,
shut you up or whatever. They don't really
mean it. They're saying it, like, derisively. I
really mean it.
I really mean it. There are people. Right?
He was a highly brigand. He was probably
40 years older so when he made Tovah.
And he
became
other people. So many people in our in
our in our tradition today, they studied at
a at a at a higher age. If
there's no if, you know, if you want
a job done right, go ahead and do
it yourself. However you need to do it,
this is something that's very important. We need
to we need to pay attention to these
things. We need to learn these things in
order to be successful like the people who
were successful before us. If we want to
masha'a ukha medical doctors and engineers and lawyers
when it comes to the Dunia village idiots
when it comes to the Afira, don't be
surprised if you're, the poor and despised people
who are begging on the day of judgment
when other people are entering Ghana like like
mobile people and like a shop. This is
a warning for myself and for everybody else.
The good the good news is what Allah
says that might say if he comes to
me in hands of breath, like, come to
him in a cubit. If he comes to
me in a cubit, it looks like from
your elbow to the tip of your fingers,
I'll come to him in and arms span.
And if he comes to me walking, I'll
come to him running.
Right? This is this is the sunnah. If
you come to him walking, he'll come to
you running. Magical thinking is what? I'm like
banging the other way inshallah, like someone will
call me Uber. It doesn't work that way,
inshallah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, all of us
still fit.