Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Riyd alSlihn The Prohibition of Backbiting Ribt 09032023
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The chapter or the book regarding those affairs
that are
prohibited,
the chapter regarding the
prohibition
of backbiting
and the commandment to
guarding the tongue.
Allah said in his book,
and,
let not some of you backbite others.
Would one of you
like to eat
the carrying flesh of his brother?
Rather, you would dislike it
and fear Allah and know that Allah is
oft
turning to you and merciful.
And Allah Most High says don't follow those
things that you have no knowledge of.
Indeed, the hearing
and the vision
and the heart, all of them will be
asked about.
And Allah
said
that,
human being doesn't
cast out any
utterance except for
there's an angel,
that watches
over,
that such a person vigilantly and writes down
everything that they
say. Imam Nawi
said,
know
that every person who is morally responsible in
front of the Lord,
it behooves them to guard their tongue
from all of those forms of speech,
from every form of speech except for that
speech in which there's some sort of benefit.
Anything.
Why? Because permissive permissive permitted speech,
often drags a person into,
unlawful
or disliked speech,
as
is
frequently experienced.
And safety,
there's there's nothing else that's better than safety.
So this is a a chapter. This is
a a classic, like, bread and butter, what
the sofa actually is supposed to be rather
than weird,
like, fabricated roomie quotes on Facebook or,
other airy fairy and abstruse types of things
that people talk about,
many of which are spurious
from the get go,
and many of which people talk about them,
but they don't understand what they're talking about.
These are those things that are very simple
to understand,
and they're the foundation of a person's,
spiritual strength
that a person the foundation of a person's,
strength in,
in their angelic,
in their angelic component. Because a human being
is a angelic
component
and has a peace deal component, and both
of them should be strong. Just like nobody
likes to be so weak that they cannot
walk or cannot breathe without a ventilator
or cannot,
you know, perform basic tasks or cannot eat
anything
without vomiting up what they eat. Just like
that spiritually a person
needs
a certain amount of health in order to
be functional.
And it's possible that's, you know, some people
spiritually,
they, aren't killed by death. And there's some
some people that,
they're
dead spiritually even though they're still physically alive
or beastially alive maybe a better way of
saying it
and so guarding your tongue is a very
important
it's a very important and a necessary
element of
of staying alive and being healthy spiritually.
Guarding your tongue is
a virtue
that the people we live amongst don't recognize
anymore
and there is something that people are very
proud of, and they call it freedom of
speech.
And there there are praiseworthy
attributes of it as well. I'm not gonna
say it's completely evil. But what has happened
is that we've in our kind of popular
imagination,
started to think about it as itself as
a virtue,
and it's not. The ability to say
what is what you think is right is
good.
And the fact is that some people disagree
about what they think is right. But the
idea that you can and should say anything
that you want to at any time and
any place
is foolishness,
and even
the American law doesn't recognize that.
If you scream fire fire in a crowded
theater, you're going to jail.
If you call up a government official
and make a physical threat, which I don't
encourage anyone to do,
you're gonna go to you're gonna go to
jail.
And if you, you know, incite people, you
know, certain types of incitement,
you're gonna go to jail,
based on the law of the same constitution.
So our popular conception of what freedom of
speech is,
it doesn't match with what the legal conception
is. And even the legal conception is overly
broad because the point of the constitution is
not to tell you how to make it
to Jannah.
Rather, it's a founding document amongst, you know,
that was drafted amongst people who didn't know
who Allah and His Rasool
is,
nor did they make that the most important
thing in their life.
And, they wanted to find a way of
making a life for themselves and govern,
you know, their polity,
according to it,
and that's fine. We don't want the government
to tell us what we can and can't
say,
so intrusively that we no longer are able
to speak what we consider to be a
virtuous speech. But that doesn't mean, like, people,
seem to be,
under the wrong impression. It doesn't mean saying
anything and everything you want to is a
good thing.
And, in fact, there are many types of
speech that are very harmful,
for us as individuals, and there are many
types of speech that are very harmful for
us as a society.
And backbiting is one of those things. I
don't know. I don't know if I haven't
grown up in America. I don't know that
there are many people anymore left. There are
people, you know, like old school church church
stuff people.
Usually, they're like the teachers that retired when
we were kids,
kids, you know, that that still understood that
this is bad.
But, those people seem to be long gone
now.
And, I remember even when I was a
kid,
even when I was in in school,
so school administrator,
you know, made some sort of offhanded comment
about another kid in in school. And, you
know, I didn't study, like, Malik. Like, I
didn't go to Mauritania when I was in
3rd grade or whatever. Right? Like, I didn't
know much about the at the time. But
at least I knew alhamdulillah backbiting his haram
still. You know? I knew that much.
I didn't
you know,
everything on the report used to be halal
in those days. It's like the wild the
wild old days. You know? I don't I
don't even wanna say Jahilia because because usually
when people talk about the Jahiliya days, it's
about stuff that they didn't that they knew
was wrong, but they did it anyway. In
this sense, it was like actually, like, you
know, we didn't know. Like, this is stuff
we saw the imams of the masjid doing,
so we thought it was okay. Right?
But, at any rate, not to celebrate it
in any way, shape, or form,
who spared us from eating,
najasa
But even in those days, you know, there's
we knew that, like, back when it was
haram because
you just you you at least we knew
that. Right? So I just said I just
said to this administrator, I said, I don't
wanna mention what position it is because then
you could probably look up who it is,
and then I'd be Mhmm. Guilty of the
same thing. But, but I'm like, do you
do you talk, like, do you talk crap
about me when I'm not here also like
this, or do you talk crap about all
the kids, like, when they're not there? Like,
do you make fun of them? And, it
was, like, really awkward moment between him and
the secretaries in the office and, like, me,
and I just, like, turned around and left.
But, yeah, it's something that it's something that
we live amongst people who don't consider descent.
And even more shocking than that
is that we live amongst Muslims who don't
consider this. And and it's one of the
things those things there's no good that comes
from it at all.
And, you know, it's it's funny because I
knew. Right? The last the last chapter was
a. Right?
Very deep
topic, you know, that people will make, a
career out of of giving by on and
things like that. Right? Because you're you're,
like, you're, like, literally defining the laws of
physics and things like that. Right?
And now we're back to this. Like, man,
everybody knows,
it's that backbiting is haram. They're like, let's
talk about something relevant. This is, like, the
most relevant thing
to us, our time, and our place that
we're in. The type of that's there on
social media, the type of
on WhatsApp and Telegram and YouTube and Twitter
and Facebook and the the comments and news
and,
you know, like, all of this stuff. It's
all it's all
literally, you can see the entire spectacle of
what
demonic nonsense unfolds in front of people when
what? When nobody cares about
the the, the the the things that Allah
made haram in speech,
the extension of which is then also the
written word as well.
All those things Allah made haram in speech,
you see the toxicity. Like, literally, it's causing
it's causing, like, whatever, like, middle school girls
to, like, kill themselves.
You know? Like, do you know how hard
it is to make a middle school girl
happy?
It's not very hard.
There's, like, 2 of them on the other
side of the part that I can take
them to ice cream. I can take them
to buy something at the bazaar. I can
take them to for this. I can take
them to that. I can spend time with
them. They're happy.
But this stuff is toxic enough. It will
even make even make those
children, the purest of children,
the happiest of children, and the easiest to
make happy of children.
People who have no responsibilities, who have no
it'll make them it'll drive them to the
point that they wanna end their own life,
that they don't wanna eat and drink anymore,
that they they can become despondent from from
life. This is some, like, evil and sick
stuff. Right? It's really gross. It's really disgusting.
So people who wanna have, you know, this
oh, should we just talk about irrelevant things?
You know? Like,
you know, they've gone to the moon and,
like, these guys are still talking about
First of all, they went to the moon
a long time ago.
Okay?
2nd of all, the newest group of people
who just made it to the moon also
will extol the virtues of drinking urine. So
go see what what's all what that's all
about.
And if 3rd, if this is not relevant
if this is not relevant, then I don't
know, like, what hole you have your head
stuck in.
And so if all of this nonsense becomes
too much for you and you feel overwhelmed
and you feel like crap because, like, you
read things and you see things and you
watch videos and you watch clips that make
you feel horrible,
then do yourself a favor and, like,
you know, unplug yourself from it.
And don't feel bad about it.
Don't feel the need to make an excuse
for it. Don't feel the need to explain
yourself. Don't don't make make a post about,
like, well, I'm gonna take a break from
social. You're just it's it's like I got,
like, bit by,
stung by a bee, like, 17 times. And
so somehow the 18th time is gonna, like,
make you better before you decide to stop,
like, messing with the no. Just be done
with it. It's all nonsense. It's not where
real life is anyway.
The teachings of all of this is, like,
for, like, your interpersonal relationships. People used to
apply these to their, like, mothers and fathers
and cousins and, like, spouses
and in laws and things like that.
You know? So
if all this stuff is haram
and harmful to you, then think about how,
like, crazy it is to just, like, read
this ridiculous amounts of
information about people's private lives, their personal lives,
who's right, who's wrong. Who cares?
You know? Really, who cares? Like,
people forget what it was like.
How old are you, Yasser?
26. You're 26. So you forget what it
was. How old were you when 911 happened?
Right? You're 3 years old. Right? 6. 6.
6, I think. You're 6, you think? Yeah.
23 minus 26 comes to 3. Right?
Oh, sorry. Yes. 5. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm
not on my shot. Right? So, like, you
know,
like, I was in I was, like, I
was, like, in college.
I was volunteering at the Ooma clinic in
LA. I showed up for my shift, and,
like, the manager was, like, locking everything. And
he's like, you're out of your mind, Hamza.
I'm like, no. We should open up. People
are sick. And he just looked at me
like you're an idiot. Go home. You know?
Like and then that the the whole generation
after that where Dianne Feinstein who can't even
remember what she had for breakfast anymore, got
up in front of the,
got up in front of the senate and
said we should lift the ban on torture
that the CIA has. You know who she
wanted to torture. Right?
Us.
She wanted to torture us. Right? So in
that time, you're everyone became so paranoid. Right?
Be careful what you say on on on
the phone. Be careful what you say in
recording. Be careful what you say in the
masjid. People like to stop coming to the
masjid for months, you know, some of them
for years. You know, it's like pandemic. Some
people haven't come back to Jumay yet or
whatever. Right? Like, it was like that. Right?
And, at this point though, it's really funny.
It's come full circle because everyone is so
surveilled right now. Like, how many how much
information are you gonna go through?
How much are they gonna process in order
to find which person they wanna pick to
convict of what? Right? So now they're, like,
going through that and, like, going after their
own political adversaries. Some of them are going
after the other and, like, they're they're using
all that overload of information. It's so much
information that they gathered since then that it
makes
intelligence completely useless. Mhmm.
Because who the * is gonna process through
all that information?
Right?
That's for governments prosecuting like their political enemies.
Imagine you. You're not actually gonna do anything
with it if it's useful or not. It's
just too much information.
It's too much information about everything and anything.
Who's right? Who's wrong? Who's the better candidate?
Who's the, you know, which thing, you know,
which company is this gonna happen? You can
read too much about anything. If there's ever
a proof. Right? When we grew up, the
I the this general idea was that the
more that you read, like, the more bright
your future is gonna be. 100% turns out
it's not true. Mhmm.
Because I sit and read things all day,
and it makes me dumber.
And I would like to think that the
things I read are actually more procured than
what a normal person reads,
but here we are. Literally, just it makes
you dumber. It makes you you're
you're you're a medical doctor. Right? Do you
think vaccines work or do they not work?
A very high level opinion. There's obviously caveats,
and I'll give you that. But in generally,
do they work or do they but there's
literally infinite amount of material written by medical
doctors that have licenses that everything that will
tell you what, that, like, every vaccine will,
like, be make you into, like, a gay
crab people or whatever. Right?
And there's you know, you can't say it's
not scientific. You can't say it's not based
on research. You can't you can't say anything
about it. There's just stuff, so much stuff
out there. Right? At some point or another,
you're gonna have to decide, okay, what's useful
and what's not useful. And then what will
happen happen is the cacophony of fools out
there will say, well, you know, you're being
closed minded. Like, maybe we should all be
a little bit closed minded. Right?
And it's funny because if I read this
in 1997,
well, no. We said, right, that if the
benefit
and the harm are equal, then the sunnah
is to, like, leave it
because,
you know, oftentimes
reading something that's or, you know, talk speaking
or engaging something permissible will drag a person
into the impermissible when it comes to speech,
and there's nothing like, you know, staying safe.
You'd be like, oh, look how closed minded
and this is that and this is why
we were colonized and this is why we
lost to the British French journalists. God knows
whoever else out there and this is why
this and this is why that, and, you
know, this is why Ghazali made science haram,
and then we're all backwards. And Baranyika is
like stupid things people say.
And now here we are.
There's just so much stuff out there. What
are you gonna do with all of it?
Look,
like,
state state that we're in. And so, you
know, with,
polite,
you know, with
with with politeness. I have to disagree. I
think that this is probably one of the
more
relevant,
a blob of the soul of the time
we live in. And maybe, you know, if
you guys wanna make it big on YouTube,
right, The Muslim scene is a little bit
toxic nowadays, right, on on on social media
or whatever. And what what is it? It's
like, you know, there's, like, like, only, like,
5 100, you know, Muslims in, like, a
city, and you open up a second, like,
halal store. How how how much are you
gonna fight over the same 20 customers? Right?
Just
clean up
clean up and sanitize the content and just
tell it to normal people because normal people
are not traumatized like people in our community
are. Mhmm. They'll eat the stuff up for
breakfast because it makes sense. Mhmm. You know?
Because they they're going through it right now.
They're the ones who see, like, you know,
you're
a college student and, like, you know that
your mother and your aunts are all on,
you know, god knows 20, 30 different, medicines
that are causing them all kinds of problem
because of
overload from all of this. You can be
the one. Say, hey. Look. You know? I
got this plan for you. It's a spiritual
detox. Okay? You gotta get rid of your
your TikTok, and you gotta don't say it's
haram because they don't know or care what
it mean. You don't have to. Right? So
get get off of all social media. And
for 20 days, you're gonna, like, think about
what it is that you said, and you're
gonna, like, make a list of, like, like,
5 people you talk to, and that's all
you're gonna talk to. You know? And this
is how you're gonna opt out of this.
This is how you're gonna opt out of
that. And, you know, you you can you
can make money from it. You become like
a self self help guru. You know? Like,
you know, you don't have to say. You
say guru. You can say, like, whatever. Like,
Sifu, Zen master, whatever you wanna call it,
Jedi
master, whatever you wanna call it. Right? Because
people people need it. Right? Because otherwise, what
is it? Like, no one's guaranteed survival. Otherwise,
the alternative, you kill yourself and just make
yourself, like, go go crazy and nuts and,
like, in some cases, like, literally leads to
people ending their own lives.
Or or or,
you read about that crazy,
story out of
out of the UK?
The TikTok influencer and her mother Mhmm. Like,
ended up, like, in 2 people dead, like,
6 people going to jail. And, like, you
know, there's a in in the quote, you
know, they say,
The
the the the the the the the, you
know,
addicts.
They seem to never die.
But when they do die, they always take
3, 4 people with them. Right? So that's
the alternative. You we we like or we
could mess with that if you want. Right?
You mess with that if you want. For
all the young Muslim boys who are in
love with the influencer, hey, Javi or otherwise,
now you know how it ends. Mhmm.
So it's up to you whatever whatever you're
attracted to, I guess. You know, it's like
death and destruction is what what does it
for you. Go right ahead. Be my guest.
Said
in Hadith that was plagiarized plagiarized by, by,
Bambi. Right?
Whoever
believes in Allah is in the last day,
let them say something good or let them
stay silent.
You don't have anything good to say? Don't
say anything at all.
Does anyone have a pen? There's a typo
here. This, hadith is explicit.
This hadith is explicit.
Do you mind if I just hold on
to it? Unless you wanna take notes or
something. This hadith is explicit that,
it behooves a person not to speak except
for if
the speech is good,
and,
it's apparent what the benefit is.
And if there's a doubt,
in the benefit, the benefit isn't apparent,
then the person just shouldn't
say anything.
He said, I said, oh, messenger of Allah,
which of the Muslims is more virtuous, most
virtuous?
He says, whoever the other Muslims are safe
from his tongue and from his hand.
It's a hadith, both a Bukhari and Muslim.
No. He didn't say, you know,
the one who accuses, like, the imams of
being,
you know, a dua mafia and compassionate this
and that, and the one who accuses every
man they need of being simps, and every
woman they need of being a feminist, and
every Sufi they need of being a mushrik,
and every Salafi they meet of being a
Wahhabi and Irhabi and Kababi and Sharabi and,
you know, Jabali and God knows what else.
Like, no.
Just the one that people are safe from
their
from their, from their hand and their tongue.
You know? It's really easy. It's really easy.
It's so easy.
Just don't
don't talk don't talk bad about people,
and you you win.
Don't, like, mess some you know, physically mess
somebody up. You know, nobody here is, like,
brave enough to, like, mess with the police.
So usually people are good about that because
they're cowardice.
Right? It's the rest of it, all it
is. You just have to squeak through the
day, have a pen and paper, say, did
I speak ill of anyone today?
And, if you didn't, you
He said that the Messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam said whoever can guarantee for
me what's between their 2 jaw bones, meaning
that their tongue doesn't is used for haram,
and what's between their 2 legs, meaning that
their private parts are not used for haram.
So I guarantee for such a person, paradise.
Again,
speaking out about, like,
infractions of the latter doesn't justify infractions of
the former.
In fact, that's one of the wisdom of
being haram.
It's so that one person a person doesn't
out of
thinking that they're speaking out about the the
latter, it doesn't drag them into the former.
Again, this this is this is tasawuf. This
is what tasawuf is. It's Abu Hurair
said that he heard the prophet
say,
indeed, the slave will say,
a word
that he didn't think about, that carelessly say
it.
It's not something like prepared remarks or whatever.
Just off the cuff, they'll say something in
the spur of the moment. They didn't think
about it. It's like a it's just the
it just came
out. Because of which, they'll fall into the
hellfire
further than
the
distance between the east and the west. Meaning,
they'll go so deep in the hellfire. It's,
like, unfathomable to them how deep they fell
because of the one thing that they said.
And someone says, wow. What is that? Kufr.
A person may something say something that's Kufr.
A person may something say something that's blasphemy.
They didn't think about it. They just opened
their mouth because they had to have an
opinion about everything. Because what? Like, freedom of
speech or whatever. Right?
Because it's just, you know, freedom of speech
or whatever. This is exactly what it is.
Right?
Not to bring it back to this every
single time, but let the navigating differences document.
Right?
So many people so many people open their
mouth and said, kufra, about the thing. All
you had to do is not say anything
at all. You don't have to endorse it.
If you don't like it, you don't have
to endorse it. But to get up and
say, oh, look. Saying that something is haram
is haram is somehow, like, act of violence
or, like, act of this, act of that.
You tried to make something that's known to
be a sin into, you know, trying to,
like, deflect from it being a sin, that's
kufr. It's not good.
Now am I making that fear of these
people? No.
I don't have to. It's not my responsibility.
Only food would,
jeopardize themselves by by doing or saying something
that's not you know, they're not, you know,
required to take on peril or danger for
that.
But what I am saying is it is
possible that someone could have said something that's
Kufr
because of which they'll fell into the hellfire
and unfathomable
distance. And it's not even a big deal.
Like, what did you get out of that?
Did they give you money?
Did they give you Shabash?
Does Biden give you a pass that you,
like, have, like, dinner at the White House,
you know, every day for a month? Like,
what'd you get out of it? Did you
get a 15% off coupon for Taco Bell?
What did you get out of it?
You got nothing.
And because of which, you spent so much.
How many sins are there? Right? Because we're
we're fully people. Right? We're principled people. So
let's think about it. Okay? All of us
were gonna commit a sin.
Which sin would you commit if you're gonna
commit 1? Obviously, don't commit 1. Right? But
it's just just
hypothetical. Right?
Do something that's enjoyable.
Do something that looks fun.
You always wanted to do it. You'll enjoy
it. And afterward, you'll say, make toga and
say, I'm sorry. I'm like, you know, a
lot of the food. That's it. You're done.
Right? Say, no. Why don't you eat feces?
That's also haram. So why would you wanna
do that? Doesn't look like much fun at
all, and it's actually more more punishment than,
you know, of all the things you could
eat. Why would you wanna do that? Makes
no sense whatsoever.
But that's that's that's this is why this
is, you know, this is why this is
the the. Hey. If you're gonna do something
haram in the first place, at least think
about it before you do it,
Uh-uh, because being a jahil makes everything worse.
1
So 2 hadith, the
the contents of which are very similar. The
first narration from Sayyidina Abu Hurray
is that the prophet
said that a slave will say a word
from the pleasure of Allah, those things that
please Allah
And he didn't even think about it all
that much.
Because of which, Allah will raise him ranks,
and, indeed, a slave will say
a word from the anger of Allah
most high. It doesn't give it a thought,
because of which you will fall into the
hellfire.
It's a narration of Bukhari. And then the
next one is a narration of the Muwata
and of Chirmidi
From Saidna Bilal,
Abdulrahman Abu Abdulrahmani Bilal ibn al Harif al
Muzani.
That the messenger of Allah
said, indeed, man will say a word
from the pleasure of Allah most high. He
didn't think that it would be such a
big deal. He didn't think that it would
reach the place that it reaches,
but Allah
because of that word,
writes his pleasure,
until he meets him the day he meets
him, meaning Allah is pleased with you forever
because of that one thing you said.
And then on the flip side, there's a
man who might say something from the anger
of Allah and does he doesn't really think
much of it,
because of which Allah will write for him
his anger until the day he meets him.
Meaning, Allah will be after saying that Allah
will be angry with him
forever.
Right? The day of judgment is a day
that begins. It never ends.
This expression, you know,
it's means.
It means forever. It doesn't mean that after
that day, maybe you can make up for
it. No. That's it. It's sealed. It's locked
in.
And
what is the
the likeness of the word that a person
could say because of which Allah will be
pleased with them forever?
Right? You come and sit in the gatherings
of zikr, you say
How many times did you say it? 10
times, 20 times, a 100 times, a 1000
times? Do you really remember every single time
you said it?
Like, uniquely and, like, that was really profound
every single time. No. You're just, like, getting
through it because, you know, afterward,
we're gonna hang out. We're gonna chat. We're
gonna swing by and get some you know,
like, you know, some things you know what
I mean? Like,
maybe you're the guy who, like, relishes every
time. You know? Like, for me, like, you're
pious people.
Right? But
it's not always like that. You say something,
but still a lot
there are people who say even like that,
the vicar of Allah or some word of
truth or some word of wisdom of
consolation of a brokenhearted person of so many
different things. If not, any of those other
profound things that even just sitting in the
vikr, the fatah that you read in the
salat.
Again, who remembers every rakah every time they've
prayed for, like, the last god knows how
long? You might say it one time, and
that's it. It kicks your count over the
top, and you made it. And, you know,
you made it.
You made it. It's a mercy that Allah
doesn't tell us when a person has made
it because then you'll be like, oh, cool.
I don't have to do nothing no more.
Right? But, like, you know, because you just
keep going up and up in the Maqam
you get you'll get forever as well. Right?
We're Usuli people.
Let's explore this question. Why not? Like, if
you realize, okay, I made it now.
What's what's the why is it that this
is not your license to, like, go and,
like, hit up the guy in the corner
and get some Fentanyl to an hour?
And why go through the effort afterward? Right?
After all, is Islam there to make you
into, like, a slave?
No. I mean, the more you go, you
go higher and higher. The person who was
a higher is
not gonna resent their maqam. They're gonna value
it. They're gonna say, I did this. I
wish I could do more and get an
even higher maqam than this. Right? So there's
mercy in that as well, but it doesn't
mean it doesn't happen. There's good deeds people
do. So I've been at this, like, Islam
thing for quite some time. It's getting kind
of difficult. It's sometimes tedious. You know, you're
at it for a while. It does you
get somewhere with it.
It's not like it's all just going into
a, like, a black hole somewhere.
You know, you might you you you might
be almost there. You might already be there.
You know? You might be, might be on
the cusp of it that, you know, you're
you said in zikr and and you'll do
it and something clicks, and that's it. You're
you're from the ones that made it,
that a person says it. And it it
it wasn't even all that didn't even seem
to you all that profound or deep, but
Allah accepted
it. And then on the flip side, someone
might say something stupid, some off the cuff,
you know, comment, well, like, backbiting with aunties
in the,
you know, in the, in the living room,
what they call the drawing room in Pakistan.
Right?
Or, like, online
mocking someone or something or whatever.
And, you know, the Lord is not pleased
with it.
He took offense to that. And then afterward,
what are you gonna you're gonna be like,
well, I didn't mean to, and the constitution
said this and that. Like, it's a lot.
Like, he doesn't care what the constitution said.
You know what I mean?
Why would you even
think that means anything in that place?
And so a person should be careful should
be careful about all of these things.
Said, I said, oh, messenger of Allah,
say to me,
such a command
that I can hold fast to it.
He said, say my lord is Allah,
and then be steadfast
in that statement.
I said, oh, messenger of Allah, what is
the most frightening thing that you fear for
me? And then he took he took his
own tongue in his hand, and,
then he said this.
This is another problem that's not necessarily, like,
on the on the surface of it. A
person wouldn't think of it as a problem,
that said, Abdullah bin Omar
said that the messenger of Allah prohibited us.
He says, don't
speak a lot without,
interdispersing within it within it the memory of
Allah, the remembrance and the praise of Allah.
Because speaking a lot without praising Allah or
without remembering Allah most high,
is a sign of the hardness of the
heart
or something that makes the heart hard.
And the furthest people from Allah,
meaning the furthest people from his mercy, the
most cursed of people,
are is the is the hard heart
is the hard heart. This is a problem.
This is a this is a problem. You
go to school 6 hours a day. You
go to school 8 hours a day. Nobody
even mentions Allah Ta'ala, much less,
His praise.
People have places of work. They don't make
the zikr of Allah Ta'ala.
People have, you know, like, you know, they
say, oh, we're not backbiting. We're not lying,
cheating. No one said a 4 letter word.
None of this stuff. You know, we're just
talking about something innocuous like, you know, this
is a bunny rabbit petting club. You know,
what could be wrong with that?
Don't let too much speech transpire without the
remembrance of Allah. If you go into your
school and, like, you know, missus Crabapple, you're
a 6th grade teacher, doesn't remember Allah, and
you raise your hand and say, well, you
know, this hadith, and she's gonna, like, laugh
you off or, like, send you an instrument.
That's then in that case, what do you
do? You make a lot the zikr of
a lot out of yourself. You don't have
a fancy tasbih. You can't afford my stuff.
It's expensive. I know. It's good stuff, though,
but it's I get it. You know? Sometimes
people are broke. You have your fingers as
well. You don't have to. You can read
Quran while you're while you're sitting there. You
can, you know,
you can hear the name of Allah in
your breath, but be conscious conscientious
about not letting too much time pass by
without the. Remembrance, without the without the praise
of Allah because it will harden your heart.
And then what happens, people with that hard
heart, they actually resent somebody who says the
remembrance
of Allah.
And so why do you have to bring
that up? Even though Allah is relevant to
every single thing we do in the day.
He's relevant to government.
The right of sovereignty that one person has
over another,
it's a right given and mandated by Allah
The human body, the way it functions, you
know,
it was designed by Allah,
and Allah is the one who commanded us
to look after
it. The person who buys, sells, and trades,
they buy and sell and trade by the
right of Allah
who made,
trade,
permissible and made riba haram.
Everything has
a a very organic connection with Allah
and the heart becomes hard. People become
irritated or, you know,
angry about it or whatever, that that that
that that that
condition
can
be scrubbed. It can be cleaned for some
people
except for those who deliberately want to hold
on to it. The person says, well, that's
kind of me. If someone's, you know, were
to mention Allah at work or whatever, I'd
be like, you know, but then I recognize
it's not a good thing. You can scrub
that kefir. You can scrub that condition from
yourself. It comes over us, especially because we've
become so habituated to it.
But,
you know,
if you see it, then, no, it does
have to be scrubbed.
And how is it that you
can ward that condition off, that hardness of
the heart off, by yourself remembering Allah,
from from, you know, within the limit of
of your work, within the the
the the time of your work while, you
know, you're going from class to class. You
know, have a set of surahs that you
read in the day and just read them
while you're walking from class to class. You
know, have you know, say, I'm gonna do
this zikr. I'm gonna say and the prophet
this many times while walking from here to
there. Or if you do people who work
for a living, oftentimes, traditionally, Muslims, people used
to work with their hands like blacksmiths
and carpenters and metal workers and, you know,
masons and things like that. They used to
they used to do do this integrated into
their
integrate the zikr of Allah into their work.
It's it's easy and it's, you know, benefit.
It's for your dunya and it's for the
for the and it makes your work better.
But this is a problem that we allow
ourselves to slip into the stream of the
dysfunctional,
the dysfunctional
ones
dictating to the ones who have some functionality
still or at least who know better,
you know, dictating to them dysfunctionality.
It's not good. It's not good. A person
should guard against, getting sucked into that. And
it's one thing if it's non Muslims, you
kinda understand. Right? The most heartbreaking part is
when it's, like, Muslims, when it's your own
family, your own friends, when you're your own
whatever.
That's okay.
That's okay. Don't be disheartened by it. Just
know this is a test Allah is gonna
test people with,
and, you know, do do what it is
you want. See who who you are. Right?
Let's see. I'm not just talking crap about
America. Right?
America has some really nice things about the
culture over here. Some very Sufi things about
the culture over here.
Whereas, in the old world, we live our
life for somebody else every moment.
You live your life to make your parents
happy. You make your you live your life
to make your brothers and sisters happy, to
make your people happy, to make your tribe
happy, to make your college happy, to make
your school happy, to make your cast happy,
you know, to make your children happy, to
make your grandchildren happy so you have a
legacy. This and that. America's like, screw everybody.
I'm gonna do this for me. You know?
I'm a I'm a take care of myself.
I deserve this. You know? I'm by myself.
You know? Buy yourself a BMW because you
deserve it. Right?
And so okay. Yeah. BMW would be nice,
but, like, there are other things that we
like as well. Right? Like, not being a
complete, like, hard hearted scumbag.
Right?
I'm gonna do this for me. I'm gonna
do this for me.
You know? And okay. Like, relatives don't like
it. Okay. You do whatever the * you
want to.
It's America. It's a free country.
No one's stopping you, whatever your, you know,
aspirations are.
You go ahead and, you know, you do
you, and I'm gonna do this for me.
That's in Abu Hurair who said that the
messenger of Allah said,
whoever,
Allah has
protected from the evil of that which is
between the 2 jaw bones and that which
is between the 2 legs,
and that person enters Jannah.
What a beautiful
hadith
that's so apt for the time we live
in.
He said that the that I said, oh
Messenger of Allah,
what is salvation? Like, how can we be
saved from just, like, stuff,
bad stuff?
He said, what is salvation?
Rasulullah
responded.
He said that hold hold back your,
against yourself,
your tongue,
and let your home be spacious for you.
Mhmm.
And,
cry over your sins. Feel bad when you
do something wrong. Feel let yourself feel bad
about those things.
Interestingly enough, people cannot accept that sins are
sins. They'd rather just become all in out
Kafir rather than making Tawba.
Like I was talking to,
Ustaji,
Omar
before.
It's not really all that hard.
You can be a pretty degenerate person. Islamic,
history is filled with degenerate personalities,
Some of which,
it will completely,
destroy the whole
if there was any Sufi feeling to this
gathering, it will completely trash it if I
tell you some of the weird stuff people
were up to back in the day.
Really, you know, Usuli people, when they do
debauchery, they do it right. A does random
stuff. The dart might land on halal. It
might land on haram. The person who knows
the difference between the 2 when he does
debauchery, it's all gonna be just bad.
People did some crazy stuff, and yet and
yet they still made Toba before they died.
How amazing it is. It's not that hard.
Don't blow it.
It's not that hard.
All you have to do is feel bad
about your sins
and, acknowledge what's right is right even if
you never did it a day of your
life.
You know, we're not. Right? Even if you
never did it a day in your life.
Just the acknowledgment itself is an act of
piety greater than any sort of, you know,
salat or Hajjib person can pray or do.
But, yeah, hold back your tongue and let
your house let your house be,
let your home be, expensive for you. This
is not a,
endorsement of, like, some sort of, like, real
estate.
No. But meaning what? Like,
don't go out except for if you need
to
because
outside is, like, filled with all kind of
weird people.
This whole, like, for example, like,
especially the kids are here.
Right? Going to school is traumatic. Right?
It's traumatic. It's not fun. Right? No.
Why? But you're forced because you come because
everything is comfortable. You know what's there. And,
like, school, you have to go and deal
with all of these people that are, like,
institutionalized,
people,
some of which deserve to be institutionalized
in more, like, progressively advanced institutionalization in those
settings.
And it sucks to have to go out
and do things. But one of the kind
of weird things about about
school is that
it sells you this idea that somehow you
feel like your home is, like, in the
institution, not at home. Mhmm. It's the same
thing in the corporate world as well. They'll
sell you a vision that your vision is
with the corporation, and they'll be like, oh,
look. There's a fridge here with, like, as
many Red Bulls as you want. God, that
you just buy, like, a a thirty $6
flat of red how many Red Bulls are
you gonna eat and drink in a day?
Right? Buy yourself a gym membership.
There's a gym on the campus or whatever.
They have, like, this, like,
cable crossover machine. You're gonna sell your soul
for that.
You know, you're not gonna play with your
own children because of that. You're gonna, like,
you know,
let your wife and your husband, like, you
know,
float out to space because of that. Like,
it's dumb. Right? Work as much as you
need to in order to, like, do stuff
you wanna do, and then afterward, have your
own vision.
And so this is this is yeah. In
that sense, if you need to, like, spend
a little bit more money on your home,
on your real estate so you feel feel
more comfortable at home than you do at
work or than you do at school or
than you do at any of these other,
like, weird places that you're like, you know,
you're like mother in law's house or, like,
your, like, weird
relatives or weird friends' house or whatever,
then go ahead and do it. Consider that
spending part of your deen. Why? Because in
your house, you're Khalifa, you're the mirror.
Right? Finally, finally, finally.
After so much struggle and so many tears,
the black flag of Khalifa was planted somewhere.
Right?
It's in your home. Right?
You're the Khalifa of of of of
Allah in your home.
But you wanna go out to the mall,
like, where, like, they're doing all kind of
haram things. You wanna go to, like, school
where they're teaching your kids about, like, the
ever expanding
universe of, like, multiple genders, and you wanna
go to, like, this and you wanna go
okay. You need something from the mom. Go
get it and then come home.
You need some you you know, you need
something from,
you know, from school, from work. Go ahead.
Say, look. He's gonna say education is haram.
Right?
Like, okay. Whatever. Right? Like, this is not
the to talk about that. Right? But, like,
okay. If you need to,
some people need to. I don't think everyone
does, but that's not the to talk about
that. If you need to go for it,
knock yourself out. Then when you're done, like,
come home. How many, like, 20 different types
of evils would you, you know, preserve yourself
from if you're able to do that?
You know? And if they have a Red
Bull or whatever,
free Red Bull at at work, just buy
yourself a freaking Red Bull and stay home.
Like, you know, like,
it's not it's not that big of a
deal.
Right? 1st class in in in domestic flights
now.
They'll, like, give you, like, a little thing
of cashew
versus, like, the the the the the pretzels
you get in coach. Right?
If you were to buy it in the
airport, you wouldn't buy it because you'd be
like, oh, this thing is, like, 6 dollars.
I could buy it for $2, like, at
the gas station or whatever. Right? And then
in the plane, it costs, like, how much
more? It costs, like, double the or triple
the price of of the of the coach
ticket. Right? Just buy it. Be go easy
on yourself. Buy it from on the ground
and to go enjoy yourself, indulge yourself, everything.
Everything is like that in life. Right? But
it's just that what? You're too cheap to
buy it from before, and now you're in
the area and you'll go, I wish I
could do this. And some people, just that
impulse will make them get the credit card
out and, like, upgrade themselves. Like, god knows
what kind of atrocious cost or at least
desire to do so. It's dumb. It's just
mismanagement.
You know?
People have you know, real estate is cheap.
We're not here
sounds like we're not in LA. Right? We're
not in Seattle.
You buy a house cheap over here. It's
the Midwest.
You know, buy enough house that you don't
you don't, like, look at other places and
be like, oh, I wish I was there.
Whoever is not able to do even that
much, will Allah help them. Allah help us,
Allah Allah give us enough inshallah that our
homes have have enough everything, food to eat
and space to live. The person who's, you
know, the person
there are some people in the majlis that
are that are, not married
so they may dream about
nice things that they want outside of the
house.
Bring the halal version of that to them
in their homes as well so they don't
have to, like, look outside and just,
victimize themselves again and again. And because liking
nice things, even that nice thing, there's nothing
wrong with that. It's the haram and the
and all that stuff. That's the problem. Right?
That's that's what we're worried about.
He mentions,
from the prophet
that when the son of Adam wakes,
all of the limbs.
And for the discourse of Tassouf, limbs is
not just the the physical limbs limbs, but
the spiritual limbs, meaning all those things that
have an inroad into the heart.
That the limbs, all of them, they beg
you humbly in front of the
in front of the tongue.
They say, fear Allah
with regards to us
because we're all connected to you.
And if you are,
if you're upright, then we're upright. We're good.
And,
if you if you behave
crooked, then all of us will go down
this crooked path with you.
Allah
give us all to