Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Remedial Tasawwuf SeriesAscent in RankTaking GuidanceStruggleDallas 12022017
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Lesson 10, finding and properly benefiting from guidance
on one spiritual path.
Whoever
descends with the messenger, Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam,
after the path of guidance has been made
clear to him and follows a path other
than that of the believers, we shall give
him over to whatever he gives his allegiance
to, and we shall roast him in the
hellfire,
and such a terrible fate it
is. The idea is what?
The idea is that in the spiritual path,
you can't be a freestyler.
You can't be a unique and special snowflake
butterfly
that,
you know,
charts your own way.
Unfortunately, the the the hadith that describes such
a person is
the person who is who wants to be
different. That person will be different and unique
in the fire.
The prophet
and then afterward his
Ummah,
which is represented by who? By the people
who are the inheritors of this tradition.
Those are the people that you're going to
learn from and you're going to benefit from.
And,
the idea is that this is a path
which is inspired by Wahi, which is inspired
by by revelation.
And revelation, one of the characteristics of revelation
is it teaches those things that a person
can't figure out on their own.
And,
you know, spirituality is not only for Muslims.
Hitler was a very spiritual person. He was
an evil person.
He give weird bands for, like, hours on
end without flinching, and people were mesmerized.
Right? Was a spiritual person. People would be
mesmerized by the the the things that these
people would say.
But they use their spirituality for evil.
And, there is there is a spiritual connection
that people have with one another, and it's
not always good.
And,
spirituality
without deen. I don't say without religion, but
without the deen of Allah Ta'ala, which is
only one deen. There's no other deen other
than it.
Right? With spirituality without deen, it's like, a
man and woman enjoying relations with one another
without marriage.
If you have no limits, if you have
no,
no rules, if you have no structure from
which to,
ensure that things are happening properly,
then the enjoyment of spirituality
is like,
the of, like, committing. It's like fornication.
There's no that's gonna come from it. There
are sicknesses that will come from it. There
are derangements that will come from it, and
people will miss miss the point of of
spirituality.
That's why I mean, there are many habits
of spiritual people. People who are, you know,
conscious of using their time properly,
people who take time to meditate in their
day, people who don't indulge,
in their in their shahawat,
they don't indulge themselves in their shahawat like
like animals rather. They control themselves. These are
all practices of spiritual people. There's a lot
of and even Kufar benefit from these things.
But the idea is what's the point of
going through any of it and benefiting and
making a good life for yourself in this
world if on the other side, there's no
you know, you show up empty handed. There's
no it should be, like, clear to people
that that's there's no in that. There's no
there's no there's no good in it. It's
just as bad as just not you know,
just living life like an animal in the
first place.
And so the path of, of guidance is
what? It's the path that the believers are
on.
So anybody who,
their spirituality
teaches that everyone is misguided except for me
and my sheikh,
those people are this is a clear sign
that those people are people to stay away
from. Anyone who follows the well trodden path,
they should know that the the the the
the the way of the,
which is the most authentic representation of the
the spiritual path of Rasulullah
is something that is embraced and championed by,
by the true people of Tasawwuf.
And,
without that, all of the spiritual teachings of
Islam are are are utterly useless.
They're completely useless in the sense that they
may get you something in this dunya, but
in the the hereafter, it's there's not gonna
be anything good that comes from it, which
is shown by this ayah of the book
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, which is what
whoever seeks authority other than the way of
the the the the the the the prophet
and the the believers.
That person, whatever authority he seeks, Allah says,
I give that person over to that authority.
And
in the hereafter, they'll be roasted in the
in the hellfire, and what a horrible fate,
what a horrible fate that is. That's obvious
to should be obvious to everybody that that's
not a good thing. Now it's interesting that
the Ayat, you know, depending on the context
that you're reading them in, the Ayat have
different,
they have different significances. So this Ayat in
in in in in terms of
and
the legal tafsir of the Quran, this ayah
is actually a proof
for Ijma'a being
a binding legal proof, in Islam.
The idea is that if the believers are
all going on one path and a person
deviates from that path,
that that person will go to *. It's
a sign that if all the believers are
are are unanimous on a certain issue, that
that that issue is right.
And, you can learn from your class,
you know, in more detail what does that
mean.
But in terms of seeking guidance on the
spiritual path, you know that if somebody is
people this happens. Sometimes people's spiritual experiences overwhelm
them.
They overwhelm their their intellects as well. So
someone sees some sort of weird dream in
which whatever they misinterpret what it means, but
it's such an amazing and overpowering
experience for them that they think that somehow
they reached some sort of that they didn't.
There's a story about,
Junaid Imam Junaid,
Al Baghdadi.
He's a great
sheikh and imam of our tradition,
especially in in in Tasso, in matters of
spirituality.
And,
his entire majlis that he used to sit
in,
was one of those, you know, type of
majalis that someone he would sit for a
band. People literally, Janazas would leave from his
from his, from his, majlis and from his
halakkah.
But, he he,
Imam Jinaid was,
such a person that they say that even
the Adana person, the lowest person who used
to sit in his majlis used to be
of Allah. That,
one of his students once
stopped coming to the coming to the to
to the gathering.
And so, Imam Junaid saw him somewhere in
Baghdad,
and he says, you know, you stopped coming
to to our gathering. So that person, you
know, he smugly said to him, yeah.
Allah reward you. I used to benefit from,
you know,
from attending your gathering, you know, back in
the day. But what he's trying to say
is, like, yeah. No. I've made it now.
Like, I don't need to hang out with
you no more. Right? But he tried to
say, like, with some good adab and things
like that.
And so Imam Junaid says to him, he
says, okay. I, you know, I get it.
Like, I understand what you're trying to say.
Just do me a favor. He says because
that person, he used to see dreams of
Jannah every night. He would see the dreams
that he's in Jannah and all the Naim
and Nama of it and things like that,
all the blessings of Jannah. So he thought
I made it now. I don't know I
don't have to, you know, sit with the
sheikh no more. So the sheikh intuited this,
and so he says to him without having
been told, he says, okay. Next time you
see a nice dream, do me a favor.
Say 3 times.
Tell me how it turns out.
So he sees a dream that night in
which he's in Jannah, and, he's
he's kissing, one of the of Jannah.
And,
he remembered what what the sheikh said, so
he's we may as well try it out
with the harm. Right? So he says,
I seek refuge with Allah
with the accursed shaitan.
He said it three times, and,
he opens his eyes again, and he sees
he's laying in a garbage dumpster, and the
dog is licking him.
And so he came back to the sheikh
and said, yeah.
Sorry about that. I'm gonna be attending your
majlis now from now on.
So,
yeah. It's anyway,
it's it's it's it's important that that a
person a person keep,
keep always the shadow of somebody who is
further, along the path,
than them over their head because it what?
It protects a person from the getting the
upper hand and starting to think itself something,
which itself is is is very problematic.
And that's why some of the old, they
used to even sometimes they would go to
people whom they they knew are gonna be
rough on them and harsh on them. Why?
Just because it keeps enough enough in check
if if nothing else.
But it's always important to keep
keep guidance on the path and not to
be a a free agent,
because
this is a sillsulah. It's a chain that
comes to the
prophet
said
that he said that that
that whoever Allah wishes good for, he gives
them a clear understanding of the Deen, and
I'm the distributor. Allah is the one who
gives.
So if someone doesn't have the license to
carry, you know, the iPhone,
then you're not gonna find it at at
their store. You might find something else, but
you're not gonna find what you're looking for.
The authorized distributor is who? Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam. And then he has his authorized
Khalifa that
that dish these things out. You may someone
may claim to be one of them, and
one day you find out that they're really
not what they they claim they were.
That happens. But the idea that you don't
need to go through that chain in order
to get this,
this thing,
that idea is a is a is a
a nonstarter. It's it's a fail from the
beginning.
He was one of the companions of the
prophet
from Yemen.
And, he was the only the only companion
who made hijra three times.
He met the prophet,
when, visiting the house of Allah Ta'ala,
and he accepted the deen at his hands.
Most people, Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, in those
days, whoever would accept the deen, most of
them he would send them back.
We say here, Muhammad
Rasoolullah,
he wouldn't tell them a word after that.
Just go wait for me one day. This
is this is, Amr bin Abbasa.
This is what happened to him. That he
he, Rasoolullah, sallallahu, sallallahu, sallallahu,
sallallahu,
sallallahu,
make us powerful,
then come.
Don't don't come before that because you can't
deal with the difficulties that you're gonna go
through. So there are very few people. Someone
like,
someone like Abu Zarr al Ghifari,
who they almost killed several times,
and someone like Abu Musa, the people who
could handle
it gave them Ijazah to,
to make Hijra. So he came,
to the prophet, sallallahu, first made Hijra from
Yemen to Makkamukarama,
then from Makkamukarama
to Abyssinia,
and then,
to Madinah Munawara. And he was a very
beloved companion. His old tribe, his old people,
they accepted Islam at his hands. He sent
him back to be a governor over the
people of Yemen. He's a person of great
faba, of great virtues. He's one of
the one of the,
the the,
people came to the prophet
and asked for, money for salakah. Rasulullah
said, I don't have any money,
but I can give you some advice. And
those people got upset to see you just
keep your advice, and they left.
So saying Abu Musa says, yeah, Rasulullah, I
can I have the
advice? And so the prophet
was very pleased with him, and he praised
him, and he praised his people.
And and and this is something also, like,
I want you to remember. Right? Everything nowadays,
like, people's history of the United States, the
entire world goes around because of money or
whatever. First of all, anyone who says that
money makes the world goes around has a
very poor understanding of physics and astronomy.
The second thing is what? Is that money
isn't everything? It may be a lot,
but it's not everything.
And it it doesn't tell the whole story.
It may tell a very integral part of
the story, but even money, the effect it
has on people when people say money, you
trace the money and you'll you know, it'll
tell the the story. The reason it's like
that is because of the people's love of
the money.
Everything starts with the heart.
If people didn't love it that much, there
were people and, you know, that they didn't
like the Christopher Columbus comes to the the
Caribbean,
and the people are wondering why is this
guy so obsessed with gold and things like
that. Like, they didn't understand. They didn't get
it.
It just wasn't that big of a deal
for them. They also had to, like, eat
food and, like, live and things like that,
but they just didn't get why this person
was so obsessed with with all of this
money.
Allah have mercy on them. There's an entire
civilization behind him who came and messed things
up for for them, but,
what can we do
that's? The idea is what? Is that,
Abu Musa Al Shali, he
was a person who wasn't like that, who
wasn't like the those Jahili people who said
you can keep your advice.
Right? When it comes to the messenger of
Allah,
especially, there's a lot of things that are
more important than the money.
And the proof is that they did everything
being utterly broken in a way that none
of us can imagine,
but they still change the world.
And we need to we need to remember
that sometimes. We also sometimes we become a
little bit more money centric. We, you know,
we do it in a pious way by
being like, oh, if I had so much
money, then I would fund the masjid, then
I would this, I would that. Yeah. It's
important. You need all of those things. I
get it. But,
it's not the the the money that's the
foundational thing. The rectification inside once what's inside
the heart is rectified, then that rectification will
flow out into all of the things in
the dunya. But if what's inside is rotten,
then that rottenness will infect whatever other things
that we do on the outside. So Abu
Musa Al Shali,
the prophet said
in his narration
that the likeness of a a a a
righteous companion
and a an evil companion
is,
like the like likeness of
a perfumer who sells musk,
and the likeness of a, a blacksmith who
works the bellows. Right? You know the bellows,
the pump that keep pushing air into the
into the furnace of the blacksmith that makes
it burn hotter,
so it can burn hot enough to,
melt melt metal or to, make it, make
it,
glow with heat.
As for the the the perfumer,
he might give you, like, a free sample
or,
you might be able to buy something from
him that will make you smell nice,
or,
at least, you know, if if you don't
have any money and he's not gonna give
you anything, at least the shop smells nice.
At least while you're with him, you're you
enjoy,
you enjoy, what what he has to offer.
By the way, it's a sunnah to smell
nice.
And, you know, the perfumes that the Muslims
have are are much superior to anything that
you'll find at the department store,
and it's considered an act of sadaqah. It's
not a waste of money. So don't buy
the bathroom cleaner,
type stuff.
If you don't have, like, $10,000
for a dollar of, like, the highest,
type of a rud,
then don't don't don't spend that. That's fine.
But, for a decent amount of money, you
can at least make yourself smell nice on
Jamar.
And the the the perfume for the sisters
is different than the perfume for the brothers.
In the time of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
the the women also used to wear perfumes,
but their perfumes were like saffron. Saffron is
something that that, they they used to find
that color looks nice. It has a little
bit of a yellowish color
that that applied to the skin. It used
to look nice,
to them,
and it has a slight has a slight
it has a slight
fragrance
that can be smelled from close, not from
afar.
Whereas if someone puts on something like rose
or like oud, you can smell it from
relatively far away. Any of you who puts
on perfume,
and then afterward, you know, goes around and
tries to be smelled by, like, women and
things like that, know that it's bad enough
to do something haram. Using the sunnah to
do something haram is gonna, like,
doubly get you smacked down. So if that
happens, don't blame me afterward. I warned you.
This is for the masjid and things like
that. This is not for
this is not for,
using for evil purposes.
But the idea is that, yeah, it's it's
a good dawah. I think probably better than
any pamphlet that's ever been written is that
you have, like, a beard or whatever and
you walk by and, you know, someone smells
something nice and then they put 22 together
that this person smells nice.
Because smell is a very,
primal,
and instinctual sense. That's why I think we
have very few words for how things smell.
It's just it smells good.
But anyway,
but back to the hadith, the the likeness
of a good companion is like a person
who smells nice.
That either he'll give you some,
give you give you some of the perfume
or you can buy it from them or
at least while you're with with him, it'll
it'll smell nice. And the likeness of,
the likeness of the,
the the blacksmith,
either either he will strike the metal and
a spark will come and burn a hole
in your clothes.
Or even if
you save your clothes from being burned or
being, blackened with soot,
It's it smells horrible.
It's bad for your respiratory system. You'll you'll
suffer the damage from it.
And so people should be careful who they
spend their time with, who their children spend
their time with, who their loved ones spend
their time with.
Even if you don't accept their their way,
the the the the blackness of their state,
it will it will,
it will harm
you. It will harm you. And some of
us are obliged because of school and work
to spend time with people. And the thing
is that the worst state a person can
be in is Kufr.
A person who wakes up in the morning
and doesn't remember Allah and goes to sleep
at night and doesn't remember Allah,
that person is dead. According to the Quran
metaphor, that person is dead. In fact, they're
not just dead because a real dead person,
at least you know they're dead. That person
is a mockery of life.
And we ask Allah,
this is one of the miracles of the
Quran. Is that a person who's in such
a state, a lot can give them life
still.
They can still receive guidance.
And so that's why we, we pray to
for their guidance, and we,
remove whatever obstacles we can for their guidance
should they choose to should they should Allah
choose to give them life and that that
they come back that it's as easy as
possible.
But the the heart that doesn't remember Allah
is dead, and the body that's around that
dead heart.
That body is not not just, dead. It's
a mockery of life.
That's not a way to live.
It's a mockery of life and that that
state is a type of blackness and darkness
that,
that that's harmful for a person.
So if a person is
in that state
or in the sorry, is is surrounded by
people who are in that state all the
time,
then you have to treat yourself for it
when you get home.
You have to treat yourself for it, which
means that one of the days of the
week, you you should take and and and
segregate yourself from those people and not just
segregate yourself from those people. You should
make the dhikr of Allah Ta'ala or the
Ibad of Allah Ta'ala whether through fasting or
whether through the recitation of the Quran or
whether, you know, spending time in the Masjid,
know, from Asr until Maghrib or something like
that. Every day, some minutes and every week,
a day, every month, some days, you should
take every year. You should take some time
in order to purge that,
purge that ill effect from the heart.
Just, let me put this up. So we
pulled it back in here. Sure. So purge
that purge that ill effect from the heart
because it does have an effect.
It does have an effect. And,
you know, we always thank Allah
for giving us guidance,
and we don't look down on other people
just because we know that Allah can take
what we have away from us, and he
can give what what we have to them
as well. So this is sufficient in in
terms of protecting yourself from arrogance,
and looking down on other people. But the
idea is for now
for now you have this guidance and other
people don't. Until that changes, a person needs
to be cognizant and and, you know, of
the effect that they have on them and
take,
measures to protect themselves lest they,
slip into,
slip into that state.
This is a very short a very short
hadith in which there's
a lot of meaning.
So you can memorize it inshallah. It's a
Sahih Hadith. So Barakatuma Aka Birikum.
The Barakah is in in your great ones.
Great ones meaning what? Not not your great
ones in terms of money or wealth or
size or age.
It's like this in many languages. You don't
describe people as old. English is strange in
that you describe people as old. Generally old
in, like, in Persian and in in Arabic
and things like that is for things.
For people, you say they're big.
Meaning what? It's a it's a more polite
way of of of of of saying that
that person is old.
And so
here the Akabir are not just people who
have years under their belt, but people who
are great with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So the barakah of this Ummah is with
who is the greatest one in the Ummah,
Rasool Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And then after him, I feel your pain.
If you want, I totally don't mind if
you go get a coffee.
I I I yes. Okay. No. No. I
mean, that's fine too. I just I see
you phasing in and out, and I I
don't
mean,
I think it's good to have,
but, like, if someone's in pain, I don't
like it. It doesn't freak me out if
somebody needs to get a stretch or something
like that. You know?
Sorry
to sorry to bring it up. At any
rate, the the greatest one is the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
then his Sahaba radiallahu and whom the greatest
of whom are the and
then after that, the
and then after that the,
and then after that the, and then after
that the,
and then after that the, and then after
that the rest
of the. In every generation there are great
people.
Those who are great with Allah Ta'ala. So
how do you know today who's great with
Allah Ta'ala? You look at the hadith of
the prophet that
describes good people.
The people who have the carry the state
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam inwardly
and outwardly. The people who are people of
dhikr. The people are people of honesty, uprightness
that you see in their life that they
actually practice what they preach, etcetera, etcetera.
The people who are gifted with sacred knowledge,
etcetera.
And even amongst them, there are then ranks.
The isn't staying with the the your your
great ones, not being separated rather and and
staying with them. Even in,
our used to tell us, read the books
of
the. Read the books of the old
first, and then you can read the books
of modern people. The benefit in the books
of the the the later mashaikh is what?
There are certain things that were understood or
taken for granted. Understandings that were taken for
granted in the old books that, need to
be delineated because they're not as obvious anymore.
But
the issue is this is that the further
and further people get from Revelation, the more
watered down everything becomes.
So you start with the the the the
purest source, and then you glean them later
on what whatever you didn't get from the
from the higher level and the lower levels.
That's that's the idea even as a student
of knowledge for what you should do.
So,
obviously, you cannot learn how to
you cannot learn how to be in a
day to day sense from people who have
passed away a 1000 years ago.
So look in your Dallas, who are the
people who are,
are the ones that that, you know,
exemplify this
exemplify this, this this,
state of being great with Allah.
You may make a wrong decision. You may
find out this person is not as great
as I thought they were.
That's fine. You can switch later, you know.
You don't have to tell the person, yeah,
Sheikh, you know, I thought you were wonderful,
but then I realized you're not, and I'm
not hanging out with you anymore. You should
have some. But,
still, you know, you can it's okay. This
happens. This happens. It happened in the past.
It still happens. It will happen.
The person who thinks that they're the greatest,
that's the one who has a problem.
Otherwise, that's what the Mashaikh said. They say
that the one who has no sheikh, their
sheikh is shaitan.
And they say that the person who takes
a cat as their sheikh,
that person is still more guided than the
one who has no sheikh at all. Because
to convince a person that this cat knows
nothing about the deen, you should probably take
someone who's more learned. It's a it's a
slight adjustment.
The adjustment from from
getting a person to have to admit that
there's someone bigger in this world than my
own, that's very difficult.
That's very difficult.
And so I don't say, you know, blindly
follow whoever you come across,
because there's some difficulty and and and problems
in that as well. But,
it's the greatest problem is what the person
who,
their becomes their idol.
Have you seen the person who makes their
own desires into their god?
That's a very tricky issue. And this is
one thing I you know, one of the
one of the the scholars from Turkey, doctor
Rajab Shuntur, Allah give him Tawfir.
Doctor Rajab, he said this. He he he
said this. He says that this is a
very interesting issue. Right? The person who makes
their own desires into their own god.
This is not a issue because there's nobody
in the history of mankind who's who who
formally wrote down that I worship my desires.
And it's not a filter issue either.
What is it? It's just a it describes
a a a type of corruption in the
heart that's so
basic
that,
it's so, like, it's at such a deep
level
that, it it it's not it's not something
that can be dealt with through these other
things neatly. That's one of the things he
said that that Tasauwuf this is the Tasauwuf
is the only thing that can deal with,
issues like this.
So that corruption of a person
taking their nafs as, like, the highest authority
in the world,
that's a level of corruption that that can
easily be undone. And, unfortunately, commandment
from anybody. And the idea is that, you
know, it's commandment from anybody.
And the idea is that, you know, if
you if you don't accept any authority in
the world, then the greatest authority is
So you're gonna double hate Allah,
more than the hate for anything else in
this world. And that's a really bad place
to be. Spiritually, it's a very bad place
to be. Allah to be our
protection. So we, get to the next chapter
then in lesson 11.
Vehicles of ascent.
So this is a chapter with regards to,
regards to what
regards to how are you gonna progress
in the spiritual path toward your goal.
So the basic the basic and the most
important
prime
objective of Islam is what?
It's that a person should attain salvation.
That yomukriyama,
that you should not be going to the
hellfire forever.
If you end up in the hellfire forever,
everything else you did in your life completely
worthless. You can build a 100 masajid, you
can pray all night, you can have a
tasbih that's fancier than anyone else's tasbih, you
can use it, you can do all all
sorts of stuff. It's gonna be all completely
worthless.
So that's the the the the the the
the basic and the most important objective.
What is the highest objective of of of
Islam for human beings described in this in
this, hadith,
could see, of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. It's a very beautiful hadith,
and it's
there's there's a there's a lot a lot
of khair and there's a lot of meaning
in it.
This is a mistake.
So it's
either or
in certain.
Both of them mean the same thing.
It's a hadith of Bukhari
that
the messenger of Allah
said, indeed Allah most high said,
whoever
whoever
takes a friend of mine as an enemy,
I declare war on them.
This is the only 2 sins that I
know of in which Allah declares war on
a person.
1 is in the Quran, the person who
transacts in the money of, of usury.
And the second is, is to
make someone who Allah loves into your enemy.
And this is something important to understand. It's
the
It's literally said explicitly in
the that everyone who says
is
Allah's friend.
The willai of Allah Ta'ala has different levels.
The ground level of which is to testify
that there's no god except for Allah and
that Muhammad
is his messenger.
Now if a person is a a a
munafiq in saying that, then that's a secret
between them and Allah ta'ala.
But for us, we should be very careful
not to take the enmity up of any
other Muslim.
Because you may not like them,
you may hate them, but bad news for
you, Allah loves them, so you're stuck.
What did Allah Ta'ala say? He says, whoever
takes a friend of mine as an enemy,
I declare war on them.
And the greater the the the the friendship
of that person with Allah is,
the more severe that that,
that that declaration of war is.
And so let a person, let a person
be very weary. And this is unfortunately a
time in which we,
in which we live that people are,
you know, they don't care about these things
anymore. So somebody,
will be a person who's made of the
deen for their whole life, and somebody will
that person will say something. But everyone is
a human being still. Right? We are Aqidah
is what? There's no one's infallible after the.
So a person will make a mistake
and people will completely, like, roast on them,
or feast on their on their flesh and
go crazy and nuts about it. Now if
a person makes a mistake and they apologize
and you still,
talk garbage about them,
then that's really bad.
And if a person makes a mistake
or sorry. If a person didn't make a
mistake, you just don't like what they're saying,
they have a different opinion than you,
then that's even worse.
People make mistakes just because a person spent
their whole life in the service of the
dean doesn't mean if they harm another person
that it's
okay, or that that person doesn't have the
right to recourse or doesn't have the right
to justice or to be,
recompensed
or or for whatever harm was done to
them. But to hate that person then afterward,
after that process has taken place,
this is really bad. And more often than
not, I see what I see is that
oftentimes people, they just won't like something someone
did or someone something someone said,
even though it's just a difference of opinion.
Is this one of the signs of nifaq,
right, with a hasam of fajal, that if
you if the Munafiq is 1 is a
person if they if they disagree with someone,
they let that disagreement
exceed all bounds,
which is what,
you know, sheikh so and so,
you know, decided not to accept the invitation
to come to your masjid and do a
program on such and such weekend,
you know, because he's not feeling well. Well,
he went to the other masjid and he
seemed just fine and he this and he's,
man, maybe he just didn't wanna, you know,
whatever. Come to your masjid. Right? His brother
so and so was like, you know, you
asked them to come to your party, but
they were sick. Or sister so and so,
you asked her, you know, if she could
help you with your homework and she didn't
or whatever. Right?
Those are not things that you have, like,
a right over other people for.
Maybe they just didn't you know, they weren't
able to help you that day. What if
they just didn't wanna help you? Are is
anyone
obliged to be at the service of another
person,
at a particular time or place?
You know what I mean? So these are
these are these are issues people get into
fights with one another. You should be very
careful about these things.
If you find yourself having hatred for another,
Muslim, this is a really big problem.
This is a really big problem.
It's one thing. Okay. So and so brother,
you know, got up and gave a chutba
and the masjid about the virtues of eating
pork. Okay. That's fine. That's a very clear
violation of the Sharia and,
that's a that's a reason to, like, you
know, not be cool with somebody. But a
lot of these things have they're not anything
near near,
that clear cut. And so if you really,
really dislike a person,
because of some personal issue
Or, you think it's because of a deen
issue, but it's one of those things that,
you know, they happen to people.
And you can't and rather than making dua,
you find yourself rather than making dua for
that person's rectification and guidance, you hope something
bad happens to them. This is a real
problem. This is a sign that that that
that Allah
in his,
in his,
you know,
his attitude toward you,
he wishes
for you a bad faith
because you see the means to that bad
end already inside of you. So someone will
say, well, Sheikh, I don't wanna go to
Jahannam, and I respect this hadith a lot,
and stuff. But, like, I really genuinely dislike
so and so. Look. This is not about,
like, people not getting along.
That the the the the souls are all
like an army
arranged in ranks.
So whoever's rank is close to yours, you'll
get along with that person. Whoever is far
away that you don't know from the world
of of spirits,
you may not get along with them. This
happens that there there may be a person
who is a righteous person, a pious person.
They just rub you the wrong way. You
just like everything they say you disagree with,
and,
you know, you just you just don't have
fun with that person. That's fine.
That happens.
You know? And if you avoid a person
because they just annoy you,
that's okay as well. In fact, sometimes it's
for the better.
But
there's a difference between that and being like,
yeah. I just don't get along with that
person. And there's a difference between, like, actually
wanting ill to happen to somebody
or or really dislike or going out of
your way to say bad things about them
or do to make their life difficult or
whatever. There's a difference between the 2 of
them. If you find inside of your heart
that you actually hate somebody,
from the people of this Ummah,
this is a bad sign, but there are
remedies for that.
The first is to realize that this is
not gonna end well, which is what we're
talking about right now in this hadith.
The next thing is what Is that,
a person should,
you know, attempt to,
actively because you can't control your emotions times,
but you can control your deeds.
So actively try to, you know, do something
good or say something nice to that person.
Saying nice things to people is absolutely free
and it it it goes a long ways.
Okay? So for example,
you know,
everybody looks at each other. You can find
20 things to criticize about the next person
and maybe only one thing that you could
say nice about them, and it may be
a stretch. Choose to say the one thing
and leave choose to leave the 20 things.
The world would be a better place if
people just said nice stuff to each other.
And some people think that, oh, this is
just like,
you're just being a because inside your heart
you really hate that person.
Your complete and,
unqualified
sincerity only belongs to Allah Ta'ala. Any other
human being, if you're that sincere with them,
they're gonna hate you.
Don't be that sincere with them.
Anyone who's married or looking to get married,
don't be that sincere with your spouse unless
you wanna get something thrown at you.
Why? Because that's for Allah Ta'ala. Don't you
even your parents. Right? You don't have to
tell them every single thing you did.
If you know they're not gonna like you
coming to Darce, you don't have to, like,
stay home and not come to Darce.
If they ask you where did you go
and you stopped at Starbucks on the way
over to Darce, say, yeah, I went with
my friends and I went to Starbucks, and
that's it.
Why? Because that full level of disclosure and
sincerity is only for Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
It's not for anybody else. The rest of
people,
don't lie to them, but say things to
them in a way that's not gonna annoy
them or, like, make them, like, ballistic go
through the roof. That's just part of being
a good person.
You're okay you're doing it out of concern
for that person.
So modify the way you speak with them.
Try to say something nice to them next
time you see them or whatever.
Some people, even that's not gonna help. Even
as as nice as you are to them,
they're always gonna react in some way that,
like, completely makes you, like,
upset and angry. It happens. What are you
gonna do about it?
The last the last,
line of defense, which is a very,
very powerful,
very powerful
one, is that that person,
even if you have to find yourself having
to avoid seeing them in order to not
make things escalate more,
When you're away from them, sit and make
dua for them. Grab your grab your phone
or your watch and your timer,
and
just say, I'm gonna sit for 5 minutes,
for 10 minutes, and just make dua for
them. Make dua for everything, for their duniya
and for their akhirah and for their kids
and for their marriage and for their house
and for their job and for their school
and everything.
When you've made dua for a person for
just 5 minutes,
as much as you're able to, then naturally,
the heart will wish for their, wish for
their well-being.
And after that, if you need to avoid
the person in order to not, like, hate
them more, then go ahead and do so.
And the rule for avoiding people is what?
If that that that you can only do
it within a certain boundary.
What is that boundary? If you see them
and they you should say salam to them.
If they say salam to you, you should
say,
and it's recommended afterward that you should cursory
like, have a cursory amount of conversation. How's
your family? How are your parents, etcetera?
It was nice to see you. I have
to go.
So you don't just say, Assalamualaikum waikum. Then
the person will know you hate them, but
you're just following the bare minimum of the
Sharia. You dress it up a little bit
just, you know, just so it's not that
obvious. And, but, you know, if after like,
you know, a couple of like questions and
things like that about well-being, you bounce.
Don't don't spend time with people who are
gonna annoy snot out of you. It's just
a waste of your time, and it's a
waste of their time as well. If someone
ever comes to you to hang out and
you don't and they annoy you, don't by
all means, don't hang out with them. But
if anyone comes to you and needs help,
then help them.
Because even annoying people need help sometimes.
And when you help them at that time,
that will do a lot go a long
ways in order to,
make the relationship between you and them better.
This applies to relatives. This applies to a
a lot of different types of people.
But you're not allowed to if you see
in your heart that there's like you just
feel like I really wish this guy would
like, you know, like a car would run
into him or something like that, from the
people of it's not a good sign.
Signs and it's very wrong in the heart.
So Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam narrates from the
Lord,
most high. Whoever makes an enemy of a
friend of mine, I declare war on them.
And then the next part is
the from the from the Bab. The reason
that this,
this hadith is included in this chapter.
That my my slave will not come near
to me.
Draw near to me through anything
that is more beloved to me than that
which I
I made as an obligation on on him.
Meaning what?
What's the greatest word and the greatest that
a person will do of Allah?
The first is saying La ilaha illallah Muhammadur
Rasool Allah by which you enter into the
Deen. After that, it's the the obligatory
salat.
Anyone who thinks sitting in a tasbih and
saying any other weird is, you know, more
important and treats it as more important than
the salat, that person doesn't understand.
The salat eclipses everything. So by by so
much, not by a little bit, by so
much
that the first question that is going to
be asked on the day of judgment is
what is about the salat. And if the
accounting of the salat goes well, it's a
hadith of the prophet
that if the accounting of the salat goes
well, then the rest of the accounting will
go well. If the accounting of the salat
doesn't go well, then the rest of it
is not gonna go well.
Whoever waste the Salat, the other things are
not gonna make up for it.
And whoever the Salat is performed,
with Ihsan,
It will help a person even if they
have deficiencies in the other things.
Abdu Nafs doesn't like hearing that. Why? Because,
kulu, jadid and laddiv,
every new thing is sweet. So someone will
come and say, oh, do this thing you
weren't doing from before and you'll find like
an excitement in it because you've never done
it before. Whereas salat is the same like
namaz that you've been, like, you know,
rushing through since the time you're a child.
That rasulullah salallahu alayhi wa sallam describe the
salat of the munafiq that the munafiq is
the person who waits till the last minute
and then afterward like a like a rooster
he just pecks the earth and then, gets
done with it quickly.
Like a mockery of the the the the
ruku and the sajdah.
A person knew how much khair there was
in the salat. A person's
sins are all forgiven for making wudu alone.
So imagine what the salat is.
The salat is the greatest vehicle that a
person
will,
get closer the closeness of Allah through. And
the the Maqam of the
is the is a tafsir of of what
the benefits of the salat are. That there
are people who knew how to pray 2
rakas and get what they needed from Allah
to Allah in this world and in the
hereafter.
The weird of the salat,
one of the great ulama,
and and of this path.
He mentioned he said that the the description
of the spiritual path of the Sahaba
and why they ascended to the rank that
they did was what? Was that they used
to recite the Quran in the prayer.
They used to recite the Quran in the
prayer. Though that was the generation of people
that their tajid sorry. Their their tarawee used
to break with the Adhan of Fajr.
They would be so engrossed
in it that the Fajr would come and
they wouldn't,
you know, they would be unaware.
And this is one of the reasons a
person might say, well, I don't know that
much Quran. Well, then maybe you should memorize
the Quran.
I don't know how to read the Quran.
Maybe you should learn to read them.
Right? This is not me being an Arab
supremacist. I also myself didn't know how to
read Arabic until I was 18. I learned.
And you guys can learn as well. And
you don't have to go to the biggest
sheikh in the land in order to learn
Alif Batata or
Tajweed for that matter.
Someone might say, how can I be engrossed
in the prayer? I don't understand Arabic. Maybe
should learn Arabic. You can still get by
without it, but if it's a important thing,
if that's something that captures your imagination and
you wish to have that thing for you,
then then, you know, maybe you should learn
if it's gonna help. Trust me, it helps
a lot.
It's not everything. It's not all it's cracked
up to be, but it's a lot.
And,
you know, so this is what is Allah
Ta'at and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that
my slave doesn't come near to me by
anything
more beloved than the thing that I made
as an obligation on on on him. So
the the prayer being done with the Hassan,
which for the brothers includes going and attending
the congregation,
the the fast of Ramadan. The
the paying of zakat, the Hajj of,
the Hajj of the house of
Allah, taking care of your your children, taking
care of your wife and your husband,
taking care of your parents,
you know, taking care of those things that
are obligations.
These are these are the the the the,
you know, they say that, like,
80% of what you do yields 20% of
the results, and 20% of what you do
yields 80% of the results. This is the
20% you do that yields 80% of the
results.
After this, there are only small gaps that
are left that need to be filled in.
So Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam, he said
that Allah ta'ala said that my slave doesn't
draw nearer to me through anything more beloved
to me than that which I made an
as an obligation on them. And there's just
a little bit left. He says and
then
he
says,
and
my slave keeps drawing near to me, keeps
drawing near to me even after that by
doing those things
that I didn't make an as an obligation
on him.
Right? Nawafil, your sunnahs
before and after the prayer.
Right?
You're
Nafil Sadaqaat.
You're helping other people when you don't need
to help them, etcetera. So all of these
different things. And these are these are there
are many different paths to Allah ta'ala through
these. The furud are known and established.
The rest of it, if you're not super
into salat,
but, you know, you have a good job
and you make a lot of money, then
give charity.
Read your read your read your,
you know, read your
your your Nawafil and things still.
But, like, you know, use your charity in
in in a way that maximizes the benefit
and the reward.
You know, if you're if you're, you know,
into fasting, then fast.
If you're into the, you know, vicker, then
make vicker. If you're into learning and teaching,
learn and teach. Do what you were made
for.
If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you know,
made you,
you know, a certain way, then serve the
way that he made you. Don't try to
fight yourself.
Try to,
benefit from what he gave you.
If someone had a camel, how would they
use it?
Would they use it, you know, to I
don't know.
Would they use it to,
you know, try to fly? Would they use
it to try to,
you know, plant flowers? Would they use it
to teach, you know, math at the local
elementary school? No.
It's a huge it's like a beast like
the size of a dinosaur. You use it
to carry burdens.
You could use it to ride.
If Allah,
you know, if Stephen Hawking became a Muslim
and he came in and, like, he has
his machine and asked what should I do
for the Umma? What are you gonna do?
So there's a there's a the cafeteria and
the masjid. I want you to sell coffee
there. No. It's
a misuse of of of of of resources
of allocate misallocation of resources.
So as far as the the Nuwafel are
concerned,
pick from whatever paths that are chalked out
in front of you that appeal to you
and do it ex in in a way
of excellence.
And so Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam said what?
He said that,
that my slave after after after,
doing what I obliged them to do, that
my slave will keep drawing near and nearer
to me, little by little through those things
that that are extra those optional acts, and
they'll keep doing that until they cross a
certain,
certain limit.
And once they cross that limit, then I
love them.
That a person becomes officially the the person
becomes officially one of the people that Allah
loves.
This Maqam and this station is the station
of Allah.
So Allah is pleased with them.
And Allah gave the an announcement in his
book with regards to the Sahaba radiAllahu and
whom that they met they reached the station.
And that's a station that's described by the
messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, with
regards to the veterans of the Battle of
Badr. So what do you know about the
people who were present at the Battle of
Badr that Allah didn't look inside of their
hearts and say to them, do whatever you
want after this day you're forgiven.
This is not just a this is not
just something that happened one time.
Rather, this is something that every generation, every
people,
and every individual, they strive for this.
The only difference between them and us I
shouldn't say the only difference. The difference is
in, definitely in in in there's a difference
there, but qualitatively the difference between them and
us is that the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam was around in order to
inform them that they crossed this Maqam. Whereas
we don't know for sure, we just keep
doing our do doing our our our our
deeds and our worship and the hope that
we cross the line. Maybe somebody cross that
line years ago. Everything else that they do
is just, is just bonus round for them.
And maybe somebody will get to that line
before they die. So maybe some someone won't
get to that. But that's that's what the
highest objective of Islam is is to reach
that that that that point where a lot
says to the slave that this one, I
love him or I love her. This is
a person. I love this person.
And then what happens after that? Allah says
what happens after that.
So when I've loved him,
then I become the ears with which he
hears and the sight with which he sees
and the hand with which he grasps
and the foot with which he walks. And
if he asks me something, indeed, I will
give it to him.
And if he seeks refuge in me, indeed,
I will, protect him from whatever he seeks
refuge in me from. And in the in
in the longer the rest of the,
Allah
says that there's nothing,
that that that there's nothing that
there's nothing that, I hesitate from more than
my hesitation in taking a person's,
soul and death
just because of how much I dislike doing
anything that that person would dislike.
Now, obviously, Allah the hesitation and all of
these things, these are all metaphors.
Allah does whatever he wills. He doesn't hesitate
in anything that he does. But the idea
is what is that Allah is cognizant, Allah
is cognizant of the fact that a person
dislikes to die.
But even then,
the way it's worded, it indicates that it's
for the better it's for for the betterment
of the person,
that he does these things and there's a
great faith in it for them. And if
it wasn't, he wouldn't he he wouldn't have
done that. If there wasn't something so much
better than the life of this world
for such a person who Allah loves, Allah
Ta' would have let let him live forever.
And that's what the meaning that's what the
meaning of, of of the hadith is. But
the idea is this is a very special
maqam that a person who lives in this
in in this state,
in perpetuity.
This is a very special maqam that a
person has with Allah ta'ala. This is the
highest objective
of of of a person's having been created.
When a person crosses this line, then indeed
a human being's maqam becomes higher than that
of the angels.
And,
it's it's something that that that gives life
meaning in this world and it gives,
life,
a great sweetness in the hereafter as well.
Are there any questions?
So we continue
the tools of the spiritual trade struggling with
the nafs.
Mujahda
Mujahda means struggling,
a hard struggle with the nafs. It's the
same
the same,
root as jihad,
that a person should imperil themselves in
the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So
means to struggle that a person struggles with
their nafs.
The nafs want something and the person wants
something else.
You have to show the nafs who's boss.
If you let it run you, you'll live
life like life like an animal.
Everything you you see in front of you,
you eat it. Every desire you see in
front of you, you run after it. You
no longer control your destiny. Rather, your destiny
is is controlled by,
is controlled by the the the base desires
in a person, and a person has no
resemblance any longer to the angels. Rather, they're,
they they they become the, they become just
a, you know, a a less hairy form
of an ape,
in in the things that they do.
And, that's not that's not what Allah created
us for.
Allah says in his book.
As for the one who fears,
standing in front of his lord one day,
and that person who,
forbids
the every desire,
for that person, Jannah will be their,
their eternal abode.
Meaning what? The sifa of the people who
are in Jannah is what?
That they forbid themselves a complete indulgence in
their desires.
So this is one of the things that
are, you know, Sheikul Masha'ikh, Moana Asha Falihtanu
He said that
the the point of Mujahada is not the
Izalah,
of of a person's shahawat, rather the Imala.
Izalah means that they should disappear.
There's no such a dhikr in the world
which will make a a a man who's
attracted to women not attracted to them anymore.
There's no such dhikr in the world which
is gonna make you not like food anymore.
There's no such dhikr in the world that's
gonna make a person not like wealth anymore.
There are certain individuals who may not have
those shahawat
and those are because of, like, psychological,
illnesses
or or,
physical,
disabilities.
And the point of the deen is not
to be disabled.
If it happens, it happens.
But that's not the point of the dean.
The point of the dean is what?
Is that a person should weaken their their
desires, control on them to the point that
they yield.
Those desires are created in you by Allah
ta'ala on purpose.
If he if he, you know, he if
he's the one that they came from, then
there's some khair in them.
And, the idea is that, you know, you
shouldn't hate them so much or you shouldn't,
hate yourself for having them.
And some desires are, you know, what we
would say are unnatural.
For the person, they may be natural because
they're born that way, but they're unnatural, you
know, and compared to general society. Like the
attraction that a man has for another man.
Some people say that they're they're born with
it. Some people say, no. That's not possible.
What if they were born with it? What's
what's different then?
Do you think what a heterosexual man is
not attracted to women and doesn't have thoughts
cross their mind of doing something around with
a woman all the time as well?
The point is not to hate yourself. And
this idea, this is some sort of, like,
a folkloric Sufism that people spread amongst each
other that there's, you know, if you make
zikr enough or if you make make sure
you eat halal and you're a pious person,
that one day these desires will go away.
And there that's not true.
Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam, they never left
him. They never left the Sahaba radiAllahu ta'ala
on whom
in fact,
someone came to say the Aisha radiAllahu Anha,
and he said, oh, you know,
how blessed was the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi sallam. Allah forgave him all of his
sins already.
So but, you know, for me, I don't
you know, I fast all day and all
night and I don't,
and as for the other one, so that's
for me. I don't have relations with my
wife and things like that. They said these
things in front of the,
and
she chastised them for for it. She said
the messenger of Allah, salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he had desires more than you did rather,
but he was more in control of his
desires than anyone.
And he didn't do what you're doing. He
some fasted some days and he ate some
days.
And he, spent some night part of the
night in tahajjud, and he spent some night,
with his, with his wives.
The idea is that you have to bring
the desires to heal to the point where
they obey you.
And it's not the relationship is that they
obey you, you don't obey them.
Otherwise, if they were evil. Right?
So there are certain pleasures in Jannah.
Will,
men and women have the indulgence of their,
carnal desires in Jannah?
Yes.
Right? Many people find this very strange. Christians,
especially, like, I whenever I go to interfaith
dialogues,
Christian men, middle aged and old men have
always, like, you freak out about this.
And,
I'm like, yo, man. You know, if you
wanna
play the harp and read the Bible,
you would consider that to be like a
jail sentence in this world. Why would Allah
make a paradise for you in which you
do those things that you, you know, hate
anyway in this world?
Rather, there's a discussion amongst the olema with
regards to jannah
that which pleasures will be there in jannah
and which ones won't be there. So in
Jannah, will a person be able to rob
a liquor store or brutally murder other people?
No.
Because these are considered sicknesses.
There are people who have desires for these
things as well.
There are people who have desires for to
commit violence on other people. Those people, if
they restrain themselves from acting on their desires,
then what will happen? Allah will cure them
of them in the hereafter.
But there are certain desires that are natural
that that a person has. Those ones will
actually be indulged in Jannah.
So, yes, people may not be robbing liquor
stores and shooting each other and stabbing 1,
shanking 1 another, like, you know, like a
bad prison movie, blood in, blood out or
whatever. And, like, it's not that's not how
it's gonna be because those things are ugly
things.
But there are certain desires that a person
have that are natural.
Those desires will be indulged in a way
that they're not indulged in this world.
Why? Because they're not evil things. The is
not to kill you and, like, make you
into a person who is,
abnormal and unnatural.
There's no zikr that does that. The point
of it is not to get rid of
these desires completely.
The people who think that they do end
up abusing altar boys,
It's not possible. When it does happen, it's
wrong. And when a person thinks it happened
but it didn't happen, it goes even more
wrong.
Rather, it's to bring the desires to heal
that they should be indulgent in a lawful
way and that they don't get the upper
hand over you. Otherwise, it's a sunnah to
get married.
It's a sunnah to eat food and to
say
before if it was a evil thing, why
would you say in the name of Allah
before doing it? And why would you say
when you're done?
Is a person who, you know,
carrying out human sacrifices, just say when you're
be when you begin and then say, Alhamdulillah,
when you're done and it's it's all good.
No. That's not because it's wrong. You don't
do that.
These things are not these things are not,
evil things, but you have to struggle against
yourself so that they don't get the upper
hand over you.
He narrates the
It's a really beautiful hadith. There's so much
hope in it.
Especially for a person who finds themselves in
a in in in despair with regards to
their saluk to Allah ta'ala.
That's in Anas bin Malik
who says that
prophet said, from those things that he narrates
from his lord, mighty and majestic is he.
That my Allah Ta'ala said, my slave, if
he comes to me a hand's breath,
I come to him a cubit. So the
hand's breath is from the the tip the
tip of the middle finger until the wrist,
and the cubit is from the tip of
the middle finger until the the elbow. That
if my slave comes to me a hand
breath, I come to him a cubit. And
if my slave comes to me a cubit,
I comes to him come to him an
arm span.
And if he comes to me walking, I
come to him running.
What's the what's the idea?
The idea is like Sahid. Right? You know
Sahid from Hajj and from Umrah going back
and forth between Safa and Merwa.
The Seda Hajj alaihis salam,
she went looking for the water. It's not
like she just sat there and said Allah
will bring it to me.
He could have. Sometimes he does actually,
but that's not the sunnah.
The sunnah is you go look for the
water and you ask Allah ta'ala. So she's
making du'a going back and forth between Safa
and Marwa trying to see from the hill
in the distance if there's any caravan or
if there's any any any spring or something
she didn't notice. And so she went back
and forth,
7 times. And then when she put the
child down, say, Ismael alayhi salam, the Zamzam
came out from where his
where his,
heel hit the floor. Zamzam is onomatopoeia,
meaning the well is named after the sound
of the water gushing out from it. The
zum zum out of the out of the
ground literally. Right?
So did the produce the water?
Absolutely not.
It's completely something Allah Ta' gave. But Allah
Ta' wants to see wants to see you
also struggle for it as well. There's khair
in it for you in that struggle. And
when you're doing that struggle, imagine. Right? When
we go, we're like, oh, we're gonna go
to the clock tower and eat a buffet
afterward or god knows what other, you know,
like, type things people say now.
Right? We're there's nothing on the line for
us. There's nothing at stake for us. Well,
really, there's our whole, like, after that, but
nobody thinks about that. Like, yo, I'm pious.
Look, I'm in a haram. I'm gonna I'm
gonna Hajj, son. I'm going to Jannah. Right?
There's nothing at stake for you. Imagine,
they're like gonna they're gonna die of thirst.
When you're in round
6 of going back and forth and you're
gonna die of thirst,
you're like, wow. We really there's nothing left
for us anymore.
But it doesn't mean that you give up
hope.
If you die, you die trying.
This is one of the sicknesses of the
age that we live in. This age is
filled with despair.
We're the biggest self
self esteem generation of, like, the entire mankind.
We pump ourselves and pump each other up
and tell each other about, oh, don't ever
give up hope and you're you know, you
can succeed and you can be anything and
but then the the the spiritual world is
opposite of the of the physical world. We
say these things to each other. It betrays
our our complete,
our complete insecurity.
Why? Because we're the ones in the slightest
setback, we're the first ones to give up.
When the slightest setback, we're the first ones
to give up.
Young man, Masha'Allah,
you know, proposes marriage to a girl, and
she says no. And this guy is, like,
gone. He's gonna live like a monk for
the next, like, 7 years. Why? Because
he failed.
Someone, you know, tried in school, and they
failed. And, lo, I'm not gonna be anything
anymore, and I may as well just give
up. You know? Someone tries something in the
deen. They have some sort of setback in
the class. You don't see them at Darce
anymore. You don't see them in the majlis
anymore. They stop making vickers. Some people start
stop praying. You know, you see something happens
in life and it's a setback
and people give up. And I I apologize.
Maybe some of the, like, the the examples
I give are, like, examples
that that, like, I I come across and
maybe the examples in your life are different
ideas. A setback happens and people just give
up.
And,
you know,
the sunnah is what
even if you go down, Allah Ta'u is
pleased with the one who goes down trying.
He's not pleased with the one who gives
up. There's I shouldn't say that. There's still
some in that person, but the the the
superiority is manifest for the one who goes
down trying.
Look. What is the example of the battle
of Uhud when the people when the Sahaba
radiallahu and whom thought that the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam,
was killed, some of them, they they it
broke their hearts so badly. They just, like,
wandered off, like, dazed, wandered off of the
battlefield.
Some of them kept fighting.
Allata Asadir Khayr and both of them. But
which group was superior?
The one that kept fighting. 911 happened.
Oh, it was like a magic act. Beards
and hijabs, like, disappeared overnight like a like
a magic trick. Now you see it, now
you don't. Right? The Friday after after September
11th. Right? It was a Tuesday.
That Friday, people didn't go to the Masjid.
There are some people who stop going to
the Masjid for months.
Alhamdulillah, they go again now. Now they, like,
run for election in the Masjid board and
things like that and are judgmental and yell
at people. They forgot. They're the ones who
abandoned who abandoned the Masjid and fled.
Khayr, we won't hold it against them. We
won't call them out by name.
But the thing is this, is that what?
Are you gonna be the one who's gonna
like, when the going gets tough, you're gonna
bounce?
Or you're gonna start having you know, while
everything is going good, you're gonna say, oh,
Allah is masha'Allah, alhamdulillah, masha'Allah, and Allah is
so this and that. And then when things,
get tough, you're gonna say, oh, why me
and, you know, I don't know if Allah
exists anymore and this and that and the
other thing.
It's not easy. That's it is really it's
not easy. Those are the times when it's
difficult to hold on to the dean. Those
are the times that a person in one
day will make the progress that they wouldn't
have made in 40 years.
There's some very strange tests, personal matters
between husband and wife, between parents and children,
in the job and work, things like that.
You will sometimes, you'll receive more spiritual progress
in certain mundane tests than you will in
years of worship.
The years of worship prepare you to be
able to, survive those those types of tests.
The idea is this is that what is
that you know, Hadith like this, they give
a person hope that when you're struggling
when you're struggling, even the little bit that
you do that looks like nothing in your
in your,
in your life. Right? I know some people,
they've gone through so much
difficulty. They say, Sheikh, I have a hard
time, praying.
I can't even bring myself to make wudu
and pray.
Maybe if you're in a state like that,
forcing yourself, make mujaha, the habit that a
person has
to oppose their own nafs.
Forcing yourself to go and make wudu. Forcing
yourself to go and pray, forcing yourself to
pray your sunnahs,
forcing yourself to return the salaam to the
person you don't wanna return their salaam, forcing
yourself to go to the masjid for jumu'a,
Forcing yourself to do all of these things,
sometimes there's more barakah in those, one act
of worship than if you were to enjoy
it to do it for the whole,
for for a whole lifetime.
That's where the openings come from. You don't
see the opening in this world. You see
it when? In the hereafter sometimes. Sometimes you'll
go through a whole life of like that.
Imagine that. You see this, like, for and
I say this, you know, really, not to
be negative. It's not good to be, like,
unnecessarily negative, but, also, it's not good to
keep your head in the ground. You should
be objective.
Our dean is in a really bad state.
We give up hope so quickly. One of
the things that we should, take inspiration from
you see the the refugees, for example, from
Burma.
I mean, their villages are burned down. People
are women are raped. People are shot. People
are tortured. People are, you know, all sorts
of things, bad things. Have you seen people,
like, carrying their their elders on their backs,
literally carrying children with them and things like
that. You know, what what do these people
do? What do these people do? You see
like in the jungle, like they're halfway between
Burma and between Bangladesh.
In the jungle, the the teachers still gather
their their students and they still have the
HIFS class.
Why? Because Because you're not gonna take their
din away from them so easily.
Can you imagine a kid, you know, the
Ustab teaching his children the the the students
and the students
learning from the Ustad, how much rahmah of
Allah Ta'ala comes down on that
gathering anyway.
And can you imagine in such an
abject like
difficulty,
in such a horrible circumstance,
that those people still they have the Himma
to get together and,
you know,
to to to to to continue with the
the task of preserving the book of
Allah Some of them don't even have shirts
on their back. That's how how how bad
their situations are. You see people walking through
the jungles bare feet,
but their fiqr is not for their shoes.
Their fiqr is what? For the their din.
Right? That's the spirit.
That's the spirit that makes a person think
there's still Khair in the Ummah of the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And, there are people amongst us that have
it in them as well.
They're human beings. You're human beings as well.
We just have really bad company and bad
examples.
So take the example from those people and
be like them even though nobody else in
your circle is, even though nobody else even
in this room is, even if I myself
am not like that. So this guy's talking
about things. I know his life. He's not
like that himself. That's fine. But that doesn't
mean that you shouldn't benefit from it, that
you shouldn't uphold that standard. That what? If
the slave comes to me walking, I come
to him running.
There's there's there's there's always hope. Giving up
hope in itself is an insult to Allah
that's worse than drinking and committing zina.
Why? Because Allah Ta'ala, the door is open
all the time. He says if he comes
my slave comes to me walking, I come
to him running. There's never any reason to
give up hope.
So this is the last hadith. This is
a hadith inshallah. Last hadith in this chapter
before we take a break.
It's a very simple hadith,
and it's unfortunately
not, like,
in line with the feel good televangelist,
Islam evangelist,
way.
But
said
it and it's true. So,
you know, make friends with it, and you'll
benefit. Run away from it, and you harm
nobody but yourself. I harm nobody but myself.
He said
that the hijab of the of
of,
the hellfire is desires.
What is hijab? When women's wearing hijab, you
don't see her body, you see the cloth
that she's wearing outside of it. Right?
So what do you the
the the hellfire what's the the hijab of
the hellfire is desires.
From where we're standing,
you see, oh, look. Beautiful face,
beautiful life, beautiful car, beautiful house,
a comfortable living,
love and,
you know, enjoyment and happiness and ecstasy and
bliss, all of these things is all we
see.
Right? So just like the woman that you're
attracted to or the man you're attracted to,
you come closer and closer and closer to
the one that you love and that you're
infatuated with and that you're head over heels
in love with, and it calls you with
open arms and you embrace. And once you
embrace, you realize this is Jahannam and it
doesn't let you go.
And what's the hijab of, of Jannah?
The hijab of Jannah is things that people
dislike.
It's waking up early in the morning. It's
making wudu from cold water
during the winter. It's staying in the Masjid
from one salat to the next.
It's saving money instead of spending money.
It's living modestly and not taking on debt
even though everybody else is buying everything on
payments.
It's, you know, it's it's, you know, making
it to the Masjid, you know, as many
times a day as you're able to. It's
sitting on the floor as a child. Anyone
here, Hafid?
Right?
You must have, at some point or another,
thought, like, how bogus it is that other
other kids are sitting at home playing PlayStation
and, like, is about to, like, beat you
for, like, not having memorized a surah that
your parents didn't even memorize.
If you it didn't occur to you, then
you're not very intelligent.
It's fine.
That happens too sometimes.
Kids like kids kids like it it occurs,
then why is it that the Quran has
become like a curse or a punishment on
my shoulders?
Why? Because the hijab of Jannah is what?
It's all those things that a person a
normal nafs would dislike.
Because the Maqam of the person who spends
their life reciting the book of Allah Ta'ala
is not like the Maqam of the person
who doesn't.
Everything everything that's worth having, you're going to
have to make mujaha that your nafs is
gonna not like it. You're gonna have to,
make mujaha that against your nafs in order
to receive it. That's just the way Allah
made this thing.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to
you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is is
lying to you. It's like a, you know,
like
a a a a a wrong looking, like,
dude, like, you know, when trying to lure
her, like, a a 7 year old girl
into the back of his van.
No. It's wrong.
Don't don't listen. Just run away. There's no
in it whatsoever.
Allah Ta'ah's mercy is there for everybody and
Allah Ta'ah will forgive people. But if you
want to make any any any progress
rather than than than just, you know, somehow
depending on Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for giving
you, it has to be through what? It
has to be through struggling against your own
desires. Again, what did we say? The point
is not that your desires will disappear one
day. You just have to struggle against them
enough to bring them to heal so that
they follow your command and not the other
way around that you don't follow their command.
But without that, it nothing none of this
is possible. You're not gonna go anywhere. You're
not gonna do anything.
Right? What is it? How do you train
a train a dog?
If the, you know, if the dog jumps
onto the table and eats, like, everything at
the master's table, what's gonna happen? They're gonna
euthanize the dog. I mean, if it can't
learn that this is where you're gonna eat
from, it's gonna have a bad end.
However, the exact same example the exact same
example if you tell somebody you can eat
this and you can't eat that. It's not
even a metaphor for anything.
Oh, we freak out. We're like, who is
this guy to tell us what to eat
and not not to eat?
This is like the Mujad of animals.
You don't have to be you don't have
to be a human being to make this
Mujad. The animals learn this. That's
the difference. That's why they let the seeing
eye dog onto the airplane, and they don't
let, like, a stray dog onto the airplane.
Why? Because it made a little bit of
that it learned a lesson.
If you want to make a a progress,
we have to go through these things. Embrace
it. Don't don't,
don't feel bad about it. Feel depressed about
it. This is why good company is such
a blessing. If other people you're going through
it with them, you make a culture of
embracing this thing as a positive thing. And
then you see other people.
This is one really interesting thing about schooling
in America
is that traditionally,
people were segregated by gender not by age.
In America, they're they're segregated by age but
not by gender.
If you don't see people who are further
along the path than you, and then you're
not going to be able to learn how
you get there. That's why generally, I have
4 kids, you know.
The the lesson that took x amount of
time for the first kid, it took less
and less time for every progressive child afterward.
Because they learn from each other more than
they learn from you saying stuff.
Right?
If there are people who are further along
the path than you, you learn because you
see what they're going through when you get
to that mapam. You'll know how to how
to how to bypass their mistakes and you'll
know what worked for them.
And if you have other people who are
not as far along as you,
you'll be able to see their mistakes and
what the ill,
effects of them are in order to avoid
them. And you'll also be able to give
them some guidance as well. So keep the
company of good people. If you keep the
company of people who indulge their every desire
all the time,
then the will look attractive to you. What
are
the That's just the hijab. What's inside the
hijab?
Jannam.
It's bad.
It's a nightmare.
You thought she was beautiful. You lifted the
veil up and you see, oh my god.
This is horrible. This is like the worst
thing in the world.
And then the Jannah. Right? What is the
hijab?
Those things that a person finds distasteful and
and and difficult.
But if you keep the company of the
people who struggle against their own, Nufus, then
also it makes it easier as well, which
is which is somewhat of a short shortcut.
And then you see the fruits of it
in them.
Right? If you keep the company of educated
people, then someone graduates before you they get
a job. You see, okay, there's this is
not like complete bogusness. There's something at the
end of this.
Right? Whereas if you,
if you were to do it on your
own, you may have lost hope and given
up hope and been despondent, quicker. If you're
alone,
made you alone and and because of his
decision for you. That's fine as well. Keep
keep struggling. But if you have the opportunity
to be with good company, then it helps
out a lot. But the point of it
point point of this is what is that
just, you know, stop running stop being lazy,
stop running away from from struggle.
There's no point to it. It's distasteful.
Don't be don't be lazy.
Don't run away from struggle. Oh, it's so
hard. It's so difficult. It's so hard.
This type of whining, it's a sign that
that that that it's a sign that a
person has, like, a lot of bogusness inside.
Even if that's you, I'm, you know, I'm
a particularly lazy guy. Oftentimes, I won't say
the lazy thoughts I have inside of my
heart. Why?
Because if you can't make it, then at
least fake it till you make it.
Inshallah, it will be fake in the beginning.
Eventually, it will turn into a habit.
This is the fada of Allah for the
person who keeps struggling. Allah give all of
us still faith Where's