Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Marrakech Sd Ahmad Zarrq Usl of the Path Part 4 12292017
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Just to repeat from yesterday's,
which was the different Muhammedat and the Afat
that come into them to that ruined them.
The number 4, which was mentioned is.
Being strict in your timings and your schedule
with
the the the those things that you do
in order
to receive,
the help from Allah and so that you
can be present and be aware of time
so you can be present with him
all the time.
And so we didn't mention it last time,
but the,
the calamity of that is that a person
use their time to study and look at
books,
in order to pick out,
settle, and find points so that they can
share them with other people rather than studying
for their own betterment or in order to
have deeper understanding,
thereby taking out time from something pointless
and dedicating it to something useful and then
finding something pointless in the useful thing and
making the whole thing a waste of time.
So we continue,
And then he gives now
5 universal
methods to
treat the sicknesses of the nafs.
The nafs has certain sicknesses in it that
will prevent a person from making progress and
prevent a person from doing the things that
it needs to in order to make progress.
So there's 5 things,
will help every salikh in order to get
the upper hand over his or her nafs.
Number 1
is eating less,
pumping less stuff into your digestive system.
This can include fasting, but if it does
include fasting, it's not the type of fasting
where you eat like pakoras and samosas when
you're done.
But it literally
it's done by by a lightening a person's
food intake,
which has many benefits in it,
that are physical, but it also has many
benefits that are spiritual.
So the deen and dunya are like 2
cowives. If you make one of them happy,
the other one will be upset with you.
That's that's a saying. It's, it may be
a hadith that's at least attributed to and,
that's what it is. It's or it's like
it's like a marketplace.
If people are buying Bitcoin, then what happens
to the price of Bitcoin?
It goes up. If people stop buying it,
they stop carrying what's gonna happen, it goes
down.
And so the dunya is like that. The
more you consume, the more valuable it becomes
in your heart. The less you consume, the
less valuable it becomes in your heart. And
if the price of dunya goes down, it's
necessary the price of din will go up.
Why? Because those are the 2 things the
transaction is between 1 or the other.
So when you're buying you know, if if
you're if you have American dollars and someone
else has euros, if the euro goes down,
then you're you're
even though it's something that happened independently, maybe
in absolute sense, the the price of the
dollar stayed fixed, but your dollar went up
when you go to Europe. It's it's the
same thing.
So a person should make
eat less.
And in the in the in in Imam
Ghazali's kind of, like,
layout for for Tassauf,
he says that there are 2 primary
primary,
shahawat or carnal desires.
1 is for food and the other is
the sexual appetite. And Ghazali says that the
the sexual appetite sits on top of the
desire for food. So if a person physically,
in intakes less food, then that one will
also become weaker with it even though it's
qualitatively
different, but it it feeds off of it.
So someone might say, well, Sheikh, I fasted
for 3 days
and, nothing no no difference.
And,
the fast of the Sahaba
used to fast for a long time, and
they used to not gorge out in the
middle and things like that. But trust me,
if you fast for, like, a month or
or or 2 months straight, you'll see that
everything becomes calm,
in your disposition relative to what what it
was from before.
Obviously, the the the the solving of the
problem of a person's
other appetite other than food
isn't through fasting. That's a that's a last
resort.
People should get married and they should then,
you know, whatever, indulge their their desires in
a halal way.
But this is just in case a person
is in some sort of difficulty or whatever.
They should know this, the way the system
works. So the first thing is what that
a person should
lighten their lighten their food intake.
The second,
That a person a person should seek refuge
in
Allah whenever
something that a challenge that faces him faces
him.
That to remember to do this, to not
think, like, you know, like, I have to
pay a bill. My money will pay for
it. You know, my wife is angry with
me. I'll buy her flowers, and it'll make
it better. I'll you know, the the bus
is late, and, like, I'm gonna complain to
the manager. You can do all of those
things. Sometimes it's good to do all those
things. It's sunnah to do all of those
things. But those are sunnah that we do
just like you read 2 rakas after after.
Right? The thing that gets everything done is
what? Allah ta'ala.
And to not ask of him
is is bad ada with him.
Otherwise, it's not your complaining doesn't fix things.
And if you want an example of that,
go go to Hajj.
People complain till they're blue in the face.
It doesn't fix anything.
And,
you just you have to trust in Allah,
and
things do work out.
Fleeing from those places,
fleeing from those fleeing from
those
places
that
you fear
what happens there and the thing that's happening
there.
Meaning what?
If a person, every time they walk into
a bar, they end up having a beer,
then maybe you should stop going to the
bar.
And this is very important. This is, like,
this is this is a very important precept
in in the soul. If I were to
use write a book about the soul, like,
one of the would be like, you have
to use your brain. Don't be an idiot.
Because people think somehow, like, real spirituality allows
you to behave like an idiot and everything
works out, and that's how you know you're
really a spiritual person. It doesn't work that
way. Sometimes, all that help comes to a
person because they're trying their best and, like,
they slip up one time, so all that
won't let them fall.
But that doesn't mean that you're, you know,
you're supposed to
whatever,
you know, put banana peels in the all
over the hallway and
Allah Allah through it with your, like, blindfolded.
It doesn't work. That's not those type of
people deserve to deserve to lose what they
have because they're not taking care of it
and they're not protecting it. I was in
an interfaith dialogue one time, and a
Christian guy came up and he goes, well,
it seems to me that Islam has all
these rules
and Christian you know, and, like, tells you
to avoid sin,
because of rules.
Whereas Christianity
makes you build up, you know, enough spiritual
strength in your heart that, you know, you
you can you can, like, say no to
sin. I'm like, yeah. That sounds really nice
in in in theory. Right?
And it's something that when a person says
it, they feel like I'm a little drunk
with, like, how amazing it sounds.
I go, I go, are you familiar with
Alcoholics Anonymous? And he goes, yeah. I've actually
been through the program myself. And he would
tell me, does Alcoholics Anonymous is a faith
based program? Right? You probably took it in
a church, in fact. He's like, yeah. I
go,
does Alcoholics Anonymous want to teach you that
when, like, someone opens a can of beer
in the room that you should, have enough
faith that you can reject it, or does
it tell you to leave the room? He
goes and says to leave the room. He
says he says it's it's like, you know,
it's like 90 90%
using your brain and then, like, 10% when
you're stuck in a situation, then you should,
yes, you should. Islam also teach you, you
should have enough faith to, like, turn away
from sin. But, you know, you turn away
one time, 2 times, 3 times. How many
times are you gonna subject yourself and just
torture yourself and then say, oh, I have
to turn away because of my whatever.
So,
yeah, that's that's that's part of the.
It's part of using your brain
and,
just don't don't go there. Don't do it.
You know? There are people their, like, whole
careers are, like, weird, like, filled with sin
and things like that. Look for a career
change. Don't
just don't go there in the first place.
It makes it easy. Otherwise, then people, oh,
I've been working the bank for 15 years
and, like, shit. What should I do now?
And if I quit right now, then my
mortgage and my house and my well, you're
the one who got yourself stuck in all
of these things. You know? I said, either
extricate yourself from them or don't. I'm not
gonna change the to make you happy. Allah
forgives people, so I'm not gonna say that
you're going to * for sure, but, you
know, don't cry now. You did something. You
got yourself stuck in a really bad situation.
You did it for years. You knew better.
You you can't expect someone to, like, you
know the reality is not gonna bend over
backwards in order to conform to you.
You're not Allah.
So
you have to run away from those things
that those things that,
you fear,
and the places that you the places that
things are feared and the things that are
happened that are feared in those places.
Just just run away from them. If you
see them, just get lost. If you subject
them yourself to them, there's no nest that's
gonna survive that.
If you subject yourself once and you make
it, the next time you'll fall fall victim
to it. If you subject yourself
twice and then the third time, it's just
a matter of time. There's no nest that's
immune to any of any of these things.
So just stop
stop stop going there. Because at some point,
like, okay. Fine. Something happens. It's not your
choice. It happened. Right? But going back again
and again and again, that's actually a choice
that you're making.
Constantly seeking forgiveness from Allah to Allah and
constantly making salat and salam,
on the prophet
while in seclusion
and while
while in public,
both of them. Some people, like, you know,
they think that they're whatever should be completely
undercover.
That's not true. Both in public and in
seclusion, both of them.
Person
why is still far?
Because this person is
so a person has so many sins,
and
a person needs forgiveness from Allah
Oftentimes, even spiritual afflictions, a person is trying
to make themselves spiritually better, and there's
there's no, you know, that's not happening. This
is also a punishment from Allah for our
sins.
Not all punishments happen in your material things.
This is one of the reason the rasulullah
says
don't punish us. Put our punishment in our
deen. If you must us, put it in
our put the punishment in our dunya.
Don't put it put it in our deen.
So constantly seeking forgiveness from Allah
and
the
this hikma of it is that it's accepted
by it's accepted by
Yateen. Why? Because when you say
it's not your that's generating the the the
the spiritual,
the spiritual,
effect. It's him responding to you and saying
to
you. The salat, whenever you invoke blessings on
him, all that I will invoke 10 blessings
on you. And when you say salaam to
him, he says, to you. The message is
taken to him by the angels and he
responds he responds in person to you. And
his du'a for you has much more power
than your du'a for him
So because because these 2 these 2 are
the these 2 are the orad of the
akhruzaman
of the end of
times. It's constantly seeking forgiveness from Allah
and constantly saying and the prophet
These two things these 2 adkar, the the
Saliq will receive a great madad and a
great great help from Allah from them from
them.
And for and the 5th is.
The 5th one is,
keeping the company of the one who will
guide you to Allah
or point you in the direction of Allah,
or who will,
constantly remind you of the command of Allah
Ta'ala. And he says that there are various
there's so few. It's like there there there's
no one left anymore. There are very few
people like that. This is one thing. Not
everybody who claims to be a sheikh is
a sheikh. And then even amongst the masha'af,
not all of the actual,
you're gonna be able to benefit from them.
There are very few people. So if you
find somebody good for you,
you know, you should hold on to those
people because they're not they're not in great
supply.
This is,
who
is the
sheikh, like, 5 links up in the tariqa
from who wrote this who wrote this book.
He's a native of, of,
of of Andalusia.
He said that my beloved,
gave me 5 advices.
One is not to move your feet
to any place except for the place that
you hope for reward from Allah to Allah.
To think about where you're going and why
you're going there.
Not to move your feet except for to
that place that you have hoped for the
the reward from Allah to Allah.
And that you don't sit anywhere,
except for
where,
most likely you'll be safe from Allah's disobedience.
There's a place that there's a a real
possibility that you're gonna disobey Allah, don't sit
there.
And don't keep friends except for, those people
who,
you seek help from them, from their presence,
in in the obedience of Allah ta'ala.
This is really important. People torture themselves keeping
friends and think, oh, you know, well, it's
dua and blah blah blah and the other
thing. Keeping bad company is really annoying, and
it doesn't the annoyance of that doesn't decrease
with your higher spiritual.
The bad effect of the company of people
who have no deen, it it harms everybody.
And,
Moana Elias
the founder of Tabligh, when he used to
go on Tabligh for the I mean, now
they have, like, all this like, I don't
think 4 months even existed in those days.
The longest people would go out is for
40 days. Most people would just go out
for 3 days.
Imagine that. And that was different than now.
Now it's it's all like whatever they see
doctors and things like that who
have they see engineers and uncles that have
trained other people to think like them, and
not all of them are completely doing the
the process properly, I should say,
rather than going ethnic about the Ishkal, but
does my bad.
The idea is what is that,
that those were different days. Those were very
simple people. They were very sincere people.
But still,
just from mixing with the public,
he he would,
feel bad. So he would spend for every
time he would go on Taba'i.
Now people go to Taba'i for, like, kind
of spiritually recharging. For all the days he
would go on Tabligh, he was either spend
the the same amount of time in the
Hanukkah or in a to purge the the
ill effect of mixing with with people who
are heedless of Dean
from his heart. He would feel it. It
would irritate him.
So if that's the case with people like
that, then
we don't need to torture ourselves and kill
ourselves. If somebody if the company of somebody
is,
just
harmful and it's sufficient to be harmful that
you should sit with someone for hours and
the
doesn't come up, or if it comes up,
it comes up awkwardly.
Those people, it's okay to just meet them
briefly, say salan, and then just to get
up and, like, you know, move on with
your your business. You don't need to torture
yourself and, like, feel like, oh, I'm abandoning
them or I'm this, I'm that. No. You
meet them. You say, salaam.
Meeting with people is a first a meeting
of the, and then after that, it's a
meeting of the.
So,
it's a meeting of the spirits, then after
that, it's a meeting of the the the
the bodies.
So,
you know, short meetings meeting people for a
brief amount of time, giving them half an
hour, 45 minutes is sufficient.
So for anyone, it's sufficient. You don't have
to spend that much time with people.
The only people you should give your time
to are the ones that you find in
their company. There's some help,
toward Allah
There's nothing wrong with that. You don't have
to be a jerk about it. You don't
have to be arrogant. Like, oh, I only
hang up with spiritual people, and you're not
helping me go to all. No. You should
be kind and
and polite and nice. It's better for them
to see 45 minutes of your and then
desire more than for them to, completely indulge
and waste your time in their own. Not
you neither do you benefit nor do they
benefit from it.
You know, so you don't have to be
all like, oh, I'm waking up for tahajjud,
so I'm out of here. Like, deuces, you
know, like, I'm you don't have don't don't
be like that because then people will will
will hit you because of deen and they
should hate you for who you are not
because of the
of Allah
and the prophet. So,
so
that's you know, but you don't have to
you don't have to constantly
constantly harm yourself with the the company of
people who are not who are not helping
you in getting to Allah ta'ala. If you
get to Jannah first, inshallah, you'll help them.
They'll forgive you for having, like, peaced out
of their party earlier or whatever. That day,
many people will forgive you for many things.
If you get into Jenna first and you
make for somebody, they'll get over a lot
of stuff. Trust me.
It says don't
don't choose for yourself
somebody.
And this this this can be a shout
out toward companionships
and and also toward a sheikh.
Don't choose for yourself somebody except for the
one that as the time goes on, your
increases for with them.
Don't pick dubious and shady people to take
deen from.
You don't have to just because you have
a bad feeling about someone doesn't, a, mean
anything's wrong with them, or, b, you have
to say something's wrong with them, or you
have to tell people, or you have to
have a bad opinion of them. Sometimes you
see something from somebody. I do, like, 20
shady things in a day. You know? Like,
you may see something
from somebody
and be like, this person is not there
yet.
You know? Or I have a feeling they're
not there yet. Even the feelings I'm probably
wrong.
That's what
that's
to say I'm probably wrong, and they're much
better than I think they are. And I
don't know what and when they're alone, what
they do.
You know, they you know, I may commit
sins when I'm alone, but that person may,
you know, do be a better person when
they're in seclusion than when they're in public.
That's fine. You do all of that. But
if you feel something shady from somebody, you
don't have to take your dean from them.
And there's a lot of people out there
that
you may get, like, whatever bad vibe, you
don't have to take dean from them. You
can respect them. Even from amongst the even
from amongst the people, the tariqa, etcetera, etcetera.
You know? You just have a good opinion
of them, make du'a for them, and move
on.
Don't don't don't don't pick somebody for you
to take your deen from except for that
person. And this is something I mean, it's
interesting that the sheikh says this because this
is something that artists say that the difference
between, like, a classical
masterpiece
work of art and, just something that's decent.
It's a decent thing you get bored of
after some time.
Whereas the the masterpiece, the more you scrutinize
it, the more you look at it, the
more it's detailed, the more times you've seen
it, the more
time goes by. It gets better and better.
That's why I thought it was so beautiful
that the the old the Baba in the
in the in the Qutubia Masjid, he said
that about the way the dust settles in
the in the artwork. He says it settles
like the
the in the eyes of a woman makes
her even more beautiful. You know? That meant
that what he appreciated, you know, and you
could tell from the way he was giving
the tour. He appreciated that the masjid was
like a work of art.
So, the person that you take your deen
from should be like that. That the more
time you spend with them, the more you
appreciate the of that person's howl and the
way that they they operate.
If you have from the beginning, like, oh,
it's 95% clear, 5% as a little shit,
that's you can just move on. Don't worry
about it.
You know, you just move on. Don't worry
about it. You don't have to call them,
ask them their fatwa and their opinion about
this and that and, like, you know, you
can benefit from whatever. And the thing is
this is the the this is an with
regards to the tariq. If you don't find
somebody who you feel comfortable with like that,
he said
he says as if they don't even exist,
how few of them there are, and he
says
he said that from the beginning. He says
as if they don't even exist, as if
they're they're gone.
Until and until and unless you find somebody
like that, then you treat a person like
your brother, and the the the the the
the adab of treating your brother is what?
The things they're that they know better than
you, you treat them as as your.
And the things that that you're not so
whatever,
you treat them like a brother. You wish
the best for them. You make the offer
them if they need
you give them
or sometimes we're not even in the position
to do that. But at least, yeah, you
know, their shortcomings, you you you don't look
at them like a judge is sending someone
to jail, but you look at them as
a brother who wishes the best for his
brother that you
do whatever you can whether if even if
it's only dua,
that Allah helped them get over that.
But, you know, this is another thing in
the Tarikh of people. This is my sheikh,
and now he's like, like the the only
Nabi after the prophet that I'm gonna accept,
and everything he does is amazing and wonderful.
And if you say anything, shut up stupid.
I hate you. And,
that's not
that's bogus. That's not that's not what any
of the ever taught. That's just groupies and
that happens afterward.
And that's not you can't you can't attribute
that to any teachings of the dean or
of the or anything.
Don't choose anyone for yourself except for the
one that you increase, in,
in
in him by him, and how few are
they?
He said something similar to this. He said,
quote, basically, he's paraphrasing.
He also said, may Allah be pleased
said said that whoever
points you toward the dunya, that person has
cheated you.
They're telling you, oh, if you get this
house, you get this car, if you get
it across, you're gonna dial we're gonna make
all of it, and then, like, 2 2
weeks later, you're gonna die. Whoever points you
toward the dunya, like, as a source of
success and happiness, that person has cheated you.
He's like the the the the person in
the marketplace who sold you the for 10
times how much it's worth, you know, because
he knows you're a foreigner. That's basically what
they're doing.
And the person who points you toward deeds.
That person, all they do is they're tiring
you out. And the one who points you
toward Allah, that person has been sincere with
you.
The deeds themselves are not are not the
the point of the deen. The point of
the deen is to make your relationship with
Allah. The deeds are a tool for that.
They they're not an an an
unto themselves.
The
make into your homeland,
meaning make it something that's
common for you.
If you fear a lot and everything,
then
the the
your
your is like, you know,
I guess
your own, like, obstinateness
and arrogance and things like that.
It won't harm you as long as as
long as,
you're not happy with you're not you're not
pleased with or,
okay with
a a defect in it.
One thing is that a person has a
defect in their nuffs,
and the other thing is that they're okay
with that.
As long as you fear Allah constantly, even
the defects of your nafs, you'll
they won't sink your ship
as long as you don't accept them. People
do sins. They have some peep some sins
are very difficult to get rid of.
You know,
if some sins, they're very difficult to get
rid of. They they take a very long
time.
In some sense, people maybe even never get
over during their whole life. It's important never
to be okay with it. Like, well, this
is just something I do. If Alata is
not pleased with it, then it's wrong.
As long as you fear Allah Ta'a
constantly, and you're not you never accept as
okay,
you're a blemish in the soul
or or
or accept accept that you should,
be consistent in committing a particular sin,
then,
you won't you won't be harmed.
Or
and as long as as long as so
three things. As long as you don't you're
not happy, you're not you you don't accept
a a defect in your nafs, or you
don't,
you're not persistent in committing a particular sin,
or the fear of Allah and doesn't leave
your heart. That you're doing something and you
stop fearing Allah because of it.
He said these three things,
which is being okay with
something wrong inside of your
or persistence in in a sin,
without without constantly struggling to get rid of
it
or stopping
the fear that Allah is going to. The
the pun the fear is stopping the fear
of the punishment of Allah from the.
These three things are the he says they're
the the root of all,
the root of every calamity and every tragedy
in in a person's,
spiritual life.
So we'll we'll we'll read that
we'll read that next.